The World As I See It!

Economics Is Dead, and It Is Being Killed Again - Economics is dead, and economists killed it. What we have seen over the course of the last eighty years is a systematic dismantling of the contribution of economics to our understanding of the social world. Whatever the cause, modern economics is now not much more than formal modeling using mathematics dressed up in economics-sounding lingo. In this sense, economics is dead as a science, assuming it was ever alive. Economics in mathematical form cannot fulfill its promises and neither the scientific literature nor advanced education in the subject provide insights that are applicable to or useful in everyday life, business, or policy.....This, at least, appears to be the goal of the present tide of leftist critics who demand that economics be restructured from the bottom up......This is the reason why the Left hates all that is economics. Because it points out that creating a better world through central planning, money-printing, and political manipulation is indeed impossible. The market is neither perfect nor efficient, but it is better than any available alternative. In fact, the unhampered market is the only positive-sum means available for human society. The market is indeed the only way of progress; all else is a step backward.....

New York HoneyBees Evolved Resistance to Disease After Exposure to Varroa Mites - An international research team has some good news for the struggling honey bee and the millions of people who depend on them to pollinate crops and other plants. These valuable pollinators have faced widespread colony losses over the past decade, largely due to the spread of a predatory mite called the Varroa destructor. But the bees might not be in as dire a state as it seems, according to research recently published in Nature Communications. Researchers found a population of wild bees from around Ithaca, New York which is as strong today as ever, despite the mites invading the region in the mid-1990s. “They took a hit, but they recovered,” said Alexander Mikheyev, a professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan and lead author of the paper. “The population appears to have developed genetic resistance.”......To Read More....

Why We Have More Than 40 Million Functional Illiterates - A Common Core-sanctioned reading method "respected by both teachers and parents" has been ruining children's reading ability for decades…….The Dolch Sight Words [created in the 1940s] are a list of the 220 most frequently used words in the English language. These sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text….Dolch found that children who can identify a certain core group of words by sight could learn to read and comprehend better.  Dolch's sight word lists are still widely used today and highly respected by both teachers and parents. These sight words were designed to be learned and mastered by the third grade. Even at a glance, you may see several problems. Just because they were “designed to be learned and mastered” by the third grade doesn’t mean they will be. The majority of children cannot master these words by any grade, if by master you mean name them with automaticity at reading speed. “Respected by both teachers and parents” is a slippery construction that conspicuously omits mention of “reading experts who conduct research.” Furthermore, even if these words make up two thirds of a text, that means a child cannot read every third word. Nothing resembling reading can take place.  Note that phonics instruction would allow the student to read every word by the second grade. ….Trying to memorize many graphic designs – and that’s what learning to read with sight-words entails – is virtually impossible......

 

Socialism in the Mainstream - Recently, look at how the head of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, responded to a question about socialism. In an interview by Chris Matthews, and then again a few days later by Chuck Todd, Ms Schultz was asked the difference between socialism and the Democratic Party. She was noticeably flummoxed and tried to divert but simply could not answer that question, leading one to surmise there is very little difference. In 2009, Newsweek magazine's cover boldly declared: "We Are All Socialists Now." …

NYT Flunks Gaza History Course - If you pick up the Aug. 23 edition of the New York Times, you will find on the front page of the foreign-news section a huge color photograph of a devastated Gaza neighborhood atop a lengthy article by correspondents Jodi Rudoren and Majd al Waheidi about last year’s Gaza war and its aftermath…..The article runs for 29 paragraphs and spills over to another page with a couple more headlines: “One Year After a 50-Day War, The Gaza Strip is Still in Ruins” and “International donors, fearing new violence, haven’t met pledges.”  The article focuses on the human toll -- with Israel as a chief culprit…..Rudoren and Waheidi are so determined to shield Palestinian terror groups from culpability that they erase thousands of rockets fired by these groups against Israel….Hamas was fully in charge when last year’s Gaza War erupted. Why then not ask Hamas if it could have prevented the war by halting rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza?  Would the New York Times, one wonders, run a piece about World War II without mentioning Pearl Harbor? Or without mentioning the German attack on Poland?.....

 

My Take - The NYT has never been as concerned with facts as they have been with pushing a leftist agenda, especially supporting Joe Stalin with Walter Duranty falsly claiming (and everyone in journalism including the leadership at the NYT new he was lying) there was no starvation in Russia and their support of Fidel Castro - the guy who wanted to bomb NYC during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, killing untold numbers of mothers and their children.  The NYT is called the Old Gray Lady.  This newspaper isn't a Lady, it's an Old Gray Hag!

Did a hacked Hillary email set up the ambush of Ambassador Christopher Stevens? - Putting together the information now publicly available, the question has to be asked: Did an ISIS hack of Hillary Clinton’s virtually defenseless home brew server set up the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens? ISIS has proven itself adept enough at information technology that a successful hack of Hillary Clinton’s server at her Chappaqua mansion cannot be ruled out, no matter how many Secret Service members stood guard. Apparently unbeknownst to the former secretary of state who boasted of the server’s security because of the guards outside, it is so easy to hack a garden variety server set up by a mom-and-pop operation that an ISIS (and Russian intelligence and Chinese and Romanian and many other agencies) hack is well within the realm of possibility. Now consider what the New York Post reported yesterday, six paragraphs into a story. Paul Sperry writes:….

My Take – For as long as she’s been in the public’s eye we’ve been told over and over again - ad nauseam - she’s the smartest woman in the world.  If that’s so there should be ample evidence to demonstrate the truth of her great intelligence....right?  So name one smart thing she ever did?  Graduating from some college or other doesn’t qualify because I’m shocked at how many really stupid people have degrees, including advanced degrees. 

Autism increase mystery solved: No, it's not vaccines, GMOs glyphosate-or organic foods - The number of autism cases has skyrocketed in the past few decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, about 1 out of every 2,000 children had autism. Today, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 150 8-year-olds in the United States has an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. This expanded definition refers not only to autism but also to a collection of brain development disorders such as Asperger’s syndrome.  It’s been considered a medical puzzle. Mothers, and frankly all of us, are understandably concerned. Considering the numbers, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s causing the rise in cases.  Now researchers believe they know: Almost certainly, nothing. Most of the rise in autism is a statistical mirage.

UK House of Commons: Greenpeace, anti-GM activistsdistort science on GMOs, calls for deregulation - The European Union and its member states need to drastically revise its regulations so that genetically modified crops can be approved if they are scientifically shown to be safe, according to a UK House of Commons committee report. The analysis—”Advanced genetic techniques for crop improvement: regulation, risk and precaution”—also asked the UK government to make similar changes to its regulatory structure, potentially opening the door to new genetically modified foods and crops that have been caught in a regulatory and political stranglehold while much of the rest of the world is expanding the use of GM in agriculture. Currently 28 countries grow GM crops. For nearly 10 years, the European Union has effectively or explicitly banned the application or import of genetically modified crops in its member states, though recently the governing body has begun to question a stance that is much stricter than the UK, the United States and other nations. Several EU member nations have become interested in using or developing modified crops, and have begun petitioning the EU for a loosening of its strict positions….