January 06, 2021

China Starts Collecting On Its Investment In The Bidens

January 06, 2021/ Francis Menton

You have to hand it to China for one thing — they play a long game.
Remember back a few months to October. That’s when the infamous Hunter Biden laptop became public information through the diligent reporting of the New York Post.
The biggest revelation on the laptop was the formation in 2017 of a joint venture between Biden family members and a Chinese-government-affiliated energy company called CEFC (10% for “the big guy”). According to emails on the laptop, sums changing hands included at least a $5 million “forgivable non-interest-bearing” loan. There was discussion in the laptop emails about much larger sums also moving from China to the Bidens, but since nobody has ever been able to get a Biden to answer any questions about the subject, the full extent of the payments remains a state secret.
But why, you ask, was China paying that kind of money to the Biden family in 2017 — a time when Joe had left office as Vice President, and was just one of many potential candidates for President in 2020?

January 03, 2021

Causation Of Climate Change: Was The Medieval Warm Period "Regional"?

January 03, 2021/ Francis Menton

Some commenters yesterday noted that the climate establishment has not just completely ignored the threat to their orthodoxy posed by the Medieval Warm Period and other similarly-warm pre-human-emissions eras. Initially, there was recognition that this issue could be important, and there was definitely some attempt to deal with it.
However, over time, the accumulation of evidence, particularly as to the existence Medieval Warm Period as a global phenomenon, gradually became overwhelming.
So — in the face of evidence that, under the normal precepts of the scientific method, would be deemed to invalidate the hypothesis that only human CO2 emissions could be causing current warming — how can the orthodoxy be kept alive?

January 02, 2021

January 02, 2021/ Francis Menton

Let’s have yet another go at trying to apply the scientific method to the subject of causation of climate change. This is just basic logic, and not that complicated. We can do it.
As simple and basic as this is, you will shortly see that the agglomeration of all of the world’s leading “climate scientists” can’t figure it out. They are completely lost and befuddled. Check me and see if I’m wrong.
The proposition we are addressing is the one for which you see a constant drumbeat of advocacy. It runs something like, “the climate is changing, and we are the cause.” OK, nobody denies that the climate is changing; but how about the “we are the cause” part? What is the proof?
Let’s apply the scientific method.

December 31, 2020

December 31, 2020/ Francis Menton

On the last post a few days ago, several commenters raised the subject of the popular and long-running TV series Law & Order, particularly as to the race of the perpetrators of the crimes. The show purports to be based on actual incidents, and tries to give an impression of basis in reality.
On the episodes of that show that I have watched — admittedly not a large sample — the perpetrator of the violent crime has seemed almost always to turn out to be white and, for that matter, rich.
But are the show’s producers intentionally skewing the reality of the race of perpetrators of violent crimes? And if so, by a little, or by a lot?
I decided to look around to see if I could find some relevant statistics.

December 28, 2020

December 28, 2020/ Francis Menton

This has been the year of mass protests over the killings of unarmed black people by the police. Most of the protests were in explicit reaction to a small number of famous incidents.
In March it was the death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville; then in May, George Floyd in Minneapolis; and in June, Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. The protests, often accompanied by violence and looting, continued through the summer and into the fall. The ubiquitous slogan was: Black Lives Matter.
Here in New York, both the state legislature and City government have reacted to the Black Lives Matter protests with a series of measures that have included exempting many crimes from bail requirements, and a reduction of about $1 billion (16%) in the budget of the City Police Department. These are the principal steps that supposedly will demonstrate that yes, black lives do, in fact, matter.
In recent days and weeks the NYPD has released some data as to violent crime in the City as we near the end of 2020. How’s it going?

December 26, 2020

December 26, 2020/ Francis Menton

How do you establish that a hypothesis is true? According to numerous explainers of the scientific method, starting with philosopher Karl Popper, the best you can do is to try to prove the hypothesis false, and fail. By this method — the scientific method — you can never definitively establish “truth” of a hypothesis, but over time you can get close.

Of course, we now live in the era of official narratives permanently immunized from attempts at falsification, nevertheless incorrectly claiming the mantle of “science.” . . .

For today, let’s consider applying this logical method to testing one of this year’s big three narratives, namely the narrative that “systemic racism” is the principal explanation for disparities of income and wealth in our society.