Paul's Perambulations a personal blog

November 23, 2010

What is labor union? Not the following from the NYTimes.

Filed under: Politics,Work — admin @ 12:33 am

Two-Tier Wage Scales Gain Traction Union workers are reluctantly agreeing to contracts that create two levels of pay on a permanent, rather than temporary, basis.

Labor lost their battle decades ago, when they lost their idealism and settled on the independent self-centered specialties model. Unions could be as uncaring as their bosses for the average working man or woman. I admire the integrity of the old left (now mostly gone) that had high principles and truly stood for the common laborer and a common union of all workers, with leaders elected democratically in open and fully transparent elections. The Socialist Labor Party, the third oldest extant party in the U.S. and the most peaceful of these three (and you well know the other two parties), is a good example. http://slp.org/what_is.htm

November 13, 2010

“Medical science” is becoming a misnomer.

Filed under: Education,Politics — admin @ 11:10 pm

‎”…research and development at nonmilitary agencies — including those that sponsor science and health research — would fall 12.3 percent, to $57.8 billion, from Mr. Obama’s request of $65.9 billion for fiscal year 2011.” (NYTimes report of Republican platform promising reduction in science and health research.)  But don’t suppose that we will get nothing. Instead, we will get science for financial investors, brought to you by those who discovered Vioxx (recalled), Meridia (recalled). Propofol (recalled), Avandia (warning) etc. etc. See http://www.drugrecalls.com/propofol.html and http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm  So let’s restrict funding from going to the already underfunded FDA. Give people back their freedom to choose their own (heavily-advertised) poison. “I demand my junk food and Fen-phen!”

When science follows the money, you lose objectivity and thus have no science.

Filed under: Education,Politics — admin @ 10:38 pm

“Sponsorship almost invariably predicts the results of research. David Ludwig and his colleagues demonstrated this phenomenon in studies of the effects of soft drinks on childhood obesity. Independent studies almost invariably find an association between habitual consumption of soft drinks and obesity. By contrast, industry-sponsored studies almost never do.” (more…)

October 14, 2010

Freedom can never be taken for granted.

Filed under: Politics — admin @ 2:13 pm

David Frost queried Nixon “So what in a sense you’re saying is that there are certain situations…where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.” Nixon: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Frost: “By definition?” Nixon: “Exactly, exactly.” (more…)

September 12, 2010

How bad (and potentially dangerous) can public science reporting get?

Filed under: General — admin @ 2:12 pm

Headline in current Time Magazine – HEALTH: BOTTOMS UP. NEW STUDY FINDS THAT HEAVY DRINKERS OUTLIVE TEETOTALERS AND MODERATE DRINKERS LIVE ONGEST OF ALL. First, Time published a retraction (apparently online only) that the study does not include any teetotalers (excluded), but that “abstainers” refers to people who said  they were no longer drinking  (20 years ago). Next, when they control for a number of co-variates, the statistical significance is greatly reduced.  Makes you wonder what if they had identified more co-variates. (more…)

September 9, 2010

Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s

Filed under: General — admin @ 3:54 pm

Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s  by Jeffrey Record, Ph.D., Monograph published by the Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army College. The author is on the faculty of the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama.

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub622.pdf

(more…)

September 8, 2010

Mass Bay Colony, Quakers, Witches, Harvard…and how Fran’s relatives were directly involved.

Filed under: Family — admin @ 4:16 pm

Fran’s great-grandfather (if you go back an additional eleven generations) was Governor Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  I sometimes joke about Fran’s family hanging Quakers and witches, so I felt it was time to get some of this straight. Turns out that there is something to these stories, but not as written above. (more…)

July 19, 2010

WWII COs — My Heroes (and friends) in the fight for true peace.

Filed under: Love,Peace,Religion — admin @ 2:33 pm

I was at the annual PYM Peace Picnic recently and spoke with two WWII veterans (Neil Hartman & Warren Sawyer) – pacifist COs in medical experiments intentionally infected with hepatitis by injection or by drinking fecal water. My friend Russ Tuttle wore lice underwear in typhus tests. These are my heroes…they saved many lives. (more…)

The Roots of White Anxiety (NYTimes 7/18/10

Filed under: Education,Politics — admin @ 2:04 pm

This article helps explain some of my issues with what has become of Affirmative Action. ML King and Bayard Rustin had it right when they said poverty was a “people” problem, not a “black” problem. (more…)

July 9, 2010

A truth about Kagen — Supreme Court Nominee

Filed under: Education,Politics — admin @ 8:30 am

Glen Beck declares that Harvard banned military recruiters from campus when Kagen was Dean of Harvard Law School. Not so. (more…)

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