Trudeau's Libel Action Reveals His Unfitness for Office

Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Opposition, has received a letter from JustinTrudeau's lawyer notifying him of the Prime Minister's intention to bring a libel suit against Scheer for statements made by Scheer concerning pressure brought to bear on former Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, in relation to the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption.

The letter states, in part:

On March 29, 2019 you issued a press statement [that] contained highly defamatory comments about Prime Minister Trudeau. ...

In particular:

1. “These documents and recordings are concrete evidence that proves Justin Trudeau led a campaign to politically interfere with SNC-Lavalin’s criminal prosecution.” 2. “Ms. Wilson-Raybould repeatedly told the Prime Minister and his top officials that their actions were ‘entirely inappropriate’ and amounted to ‘political interference’. Despite her objections, the Clerk of the Privy Council pressured her and made it clear that her job was on the line.” 3. “Justin Trudeau also told Canadians what he knew to be false. He knew that his Attorney General had serious concerns about his plan to get SNC-Lavalin off of serious criminal charges. But he looked Canadians in the eye and told them that no one had raised concerns with him. This is false and he owes Canadians an explanation.” 4. “The entire SNC-Lavalin scandal is corruption on top of corruption on top of corruption.Two cabinet ministers have resigned on principle and both Justin Trudeau’s top political advisor and his top civil servant have resigned in disgrace. The Prime Minister has lost the moral authority to govern and must resign.”

If this goes to court, Trudeau will either have to admit complete ignorance of what Butts, Wernick and other members of his staff were doing when they pressured Wilson-Raybould to order the Director of Public Prosecutions to grant SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement, or he will have to deny what the taped conversation between Wilson-Raybould and David Wernick proves to be a fact; namely that Wernick cleary warned Wilson-Raybould that she either complied with the Prime Minister's wish in the matter of ending the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin or she'd be fired as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

 Either way, Trudeau's unfitness to head the government will be demonstrated. Indeed, the fact that he has threatened to bring such an idiotic suit against the Leader of the Opposition proves his unfitness for office. Any actual court proceedings would be a redundancy. Furthermore, by attempting by means of court action to deny the undeniable, Trudeau proves that he is liar intent on lying about the lies he's told. 

Trudeau has effectively sabotaged his own chances in the October general election, and if the Liberal Party wishes to be regarded as a realistic contender in the forthcoming election, rather than a cult headed by a dim-witted dictator wannabe, they'd better act soon to find a new leader.

Related:
Ottawa Citizen: Scheer repeats alleged libel, goads Trudeau to follow through on lawsuit
The Tyree: Why Has Trudeau Risked So Much for SNC-Lavalin?
Ottawa Citizen: Philpott says Trudeau's caucus expulsions violated law
The Atlantic: Justin Trudeau Falls From Grace
National Post: Gurney: Trudeau's lawsuit threat takes Liberals' SNC-Lavalin response to even dumber depths
Ottawa Sun: LILLEY: Scheer sticks to his guns on SNC-Lavalin

Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance

BOOK SUMMARY:

By A.C. Black

Paul L. Williams: Operation Gladio, The Unholy Alliance
On the hot summer morning of Aug. 2, 1980 a massive explosion ripped apart the main waiting room of the Bologna railway station. Eighty-five people were killed and hundreds more injured. Though at first blamed on Italy’s legendary urban guerrillas, The Red Brigades, it soon emerged that the attack had, in fact, originated from within the ‘deep state’ of the Italian government itself.

The full nature of this secret parallel state would only come to light a decade later when the Italian premier, Giulio Andreotti, under questioning from a special commission of inquiry, revealed the existence of arms caches stashed all around the country and which were at the disposal of an organization which later came to be identified as ‘Gladio’.

The members of this group turned out to include not only hundreds of far-right figures in the intelligence, military, government, media, Church and corporate sectors, but a motley assortment of unreconstructed WW2 fascists, psychopaths and criminal underworld types to boot. And despite Andreotti’s attempts to airbrush the group as ‘patriots’ it appeared evident to much of the rest of the Italian polity that these seemed rather more like pretty bad folk indeed. Little did they know. Follow-up research by the likes of Daniele Ganser, Claudio Celani, Jurgen Roth and Henrik Kruger traced connections to similar groups spread throughout Europe of which all were found to be deep state terrorist organizations, and all of which were found, ultimately, to be subservient unto the highest levels of the CIA and NATO command structures.

The moniker ‘Gladio’ (after the two-edged sword used in classical Rome) was eventually broadened to include a bewildering host of related deep state terrorist structures including: ‘P2’ In Italy, ‘P26’ in Switzerland, ‘Sveaborg’ in Sweden, ‘Counter-Guerrilla’ in Turkey and ‘Sheepskin’ in Greece. This (hardly definitive) European list was then found to have connections not only to virtually every US sponsored secret state terrorist organization the world over (including the likes of Operation Condor in Latin America), but also to many of the global drug cartels that provided the secretive wealth needed to fund and otherwise lubricate the whole rotting, corrupt shebang.

If all this sounds sinister enough, it pales in light of the detailed structure of the dazzlingly diabolical Gladio edifice. ...

Read more

Boeing Corporation's Board of Directors and the Anticipation of Aviation Disasters

The English novelist and aviation engineer, Nevil Shute, wrote two books about air disasters. The first, his 1948 novel, No Highway, centered on the crash of a newly introduced British airliner, the Reindeer, a crash attributed to pilot error until an obscure aviation engineering researcher concluded, and ultimately proved, that structural failure due to metal fatigue was the cause. The story eerily foreshadowed two 1954 crashes of the deHavilland airliner named the Comet (after Santa's Reindeer?) due to structural failure.

Shute's second air disaster story comprised a major portion of his autobiography, Slide Rule, and concerned Britain's government-sponsored entry into airship aviation. Two ships were commissioned by the government, the R100 which was built by a subsidiary of the engineering firm Vickers-Armstrong, the other, the R101, constructed by the British Air Ministry. Shute, was the chief stress engineer and, in the final stages of construction, chief engineer, of the R100 project.

The R100 closely complied with the design specs and completed a successful round-trip flight from England to Canada in June, 1930. Shortly thereafter, the greatly overweight, Government-built R101 crashed and burned near Beauvais, France on the first night of its maiden voyage from England to India. The disaster led the Government to terminate the airships program and the successful, private-sector R100 was broken up.

Comparing the two programs, Shute concluded that the bureaucrats overseeing the Air Ministry program lacked the motivation necessary to make the tough decisions required to ensure that the R101 was developed and put into service in a prudent fashion. In contrast, Shute argued, a private company such as built the R100 has a board of directors who not only have a large financial stake in the viability of the business, but deep knowledge of the industry in which the business operates and hence the judgement necessary to ensure that the business is conducted in a prudent fashion.

But today, Shute's assumptions as to the competence and the financial commitment of the directors of a large company such as Boeing seem no longer valid. The only Boeing Board member with advanced engineering experience is Dennis A. Muilenburg, who has the titles of President, Chairman, and CEO. Muilenburg holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering and an MS in Aeronautics and Astronautics.

The rest of the talent appears to be in anything but aviation engineering:

Robert E. Bradway, BS Biol.;

D.L. Calhoun, BS Accounting;

A.D. Collins, Jr., who holds an MBA and is author of Childrens' book series: Adventures of Archibald and the Jackabeb;

K. Duberstein, Chief of Staff to President Reagan, graduate in Law;

Admiral E.P. Giambastiani, Jr., a graduate in Law, with good credentials in submarine handling;

 Lynn J. Good, a graduate in Systems Analysis and Accounting;

Larry Kellner, a former airline exec. with a degree in Accounting;

Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK, former US ambassador, and a lawyer;

Ronald A. Williams, a management consultant;

Mike Zafirovski, a Jack Welch protegé at GE and a swimming scholar at Edinboro U, (discipline? swimming perhaps);

and last but by no means least, Nikki Hailey, currently a board member nominee, who's done just about everything, from being a US Congresswoman, (former) Canadian, state governor, and most recently, Trump's ambassador to the UN.

That's a team I'd trust to do a cover-up of the 737MAX's inherent instability and the inept effort to fix it.

But who want's to risk their life as a passenger on a plane built by those guys?

Related:
Boeing Didn't Tell Southwest Or FAA That It Had Disabled Critical Safety Alerts On 737 MAXHow Boeing might represent the greatest indictment of 21st-century capitalism

Brits Want Out

Source: Daily Mail

The only majorities for Remain are in Scotland, a large but barren country with fewer people than the English county of Yorkshire, and the nation's capital London, aka Londonistan, where the immigrant occupation naturally want the EU to continue to hold the gate open to an endless stream of additional immigrants of their own kith and kin.

And in the same survey of 2,000, voters almost half want the traitor, Thereason May, out too.

Related: 
Stategic Culture Foundation: The EU Is (Deliberately) Tearing the UK Apart Over Brexit

Here's the Ex-Jailbird, Fiona Onasanya, Whose Vote Blocked Brexit

Here's the person, ex jailbird, Fiona Onasanya, MP whose vote condemns the British people to be chained indefinitely to the EU, the anti-democratic globalist scam which was sold to the Brits by the late perv, Edward Heath, as a trade block, not the anti-democratic open door to mass immigration and the economic failure that it has turned out to be.

As the Daily Mail reports: 

Onasanya walked through the voting lobby wearing the electronic ankle tag with which she was fitted after being released early from HMP Bronzefield in Surrey.

Her participation ensured that the Bill to change the law so that Britain can’t leave the EU without a ‘deal’ passed by the narrowest of margins, 313 to 312.Onasanya, MP for Peterborough, served just 28 days of a three-month sentence for perverting the course of justice, after repeatedly lying to police to avoid a speeding fine.

If she had been forced to complete her full term she would still have been in prison and, therefore, unable to vote.

Most Brits probably think that Ms Onasanya should go back to her tribal homeland and let the British tribes rule themselves. Ms. Onasanya most likely thinks that the Brits should just die off to make way for more immigrant, the genocidal policy of EU leaders such as the Micron and Merkel.

Related: 
Canspeccy: The Death of British Democracy

Solar Rain

Click for full screen image:

What is this?

Dunno, except that it's an amazing view of the surface of the sun, and from it one can infer that the sun is hot. Hot as Hell, in fact.

If you want to know more see this:

Unexpected rain on sun links two solar mysteries

The Admission Scam Is Another Reason To Destroy Academia As We Know It

By Kurt Schlichter

Town Hall, April 4, 2019: American college is terrible and, as a society, we should stop doing it – at least how it is being currently done. The greatest benefit of a system where most citizens are pushed to get college educations, whether they truly need and want one or not, would be a society of really smart, informed, and engaged citizens. Do you see that happening?

No, you do not.

Instead, we have a bunch of people who are dragged down by crushing debt after wasting years of their youth chasing a piece of paper that often has no relationship to these graduates’ futures. Compounding the failure is how these grads march off campus infatuated with ridiculous commie notions abhorrent to a free people. The college system is a disaster – an expensive disaster that picks our pockets as well as those of the suckers who matriculate – and we should stop tolerating it. Time for conservatives to reform academia the hard way, and by “reform” I mean, “Destroy it, sow the campuses with salt, and rebuild academia into something that isn’t useless.”

Read more

The Sincerity of the British Politician

Thereason May's Brexit Betrayal in Headlines

Brexit Desperation Rises As The Betrayal Deepens

PM May to Join Left Against Her Own Party?

Tories Declare 'Civil War' As May Prepares For Opposition Talks:

"It’s getting like the bit in Harry Potter where Voldermort’s soul breaks apart. She is now tearing apart the soul of the party. She has split the soul into a Labour horcrux*." * For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the term "horcrux," it is: ... an object in which a Dark wizard or witch has hidden a fragment of his or her soul for the purpose of attaining immortality.[1]Horcruxes can only be created after committing murder, the supreme act of evil. The process for the creation of a Horcrux involves a spelland a horrific act is performed after the murder has been committed. There are usually protective measures made to prevent a Horcrux from being stolen and destroyed, such as Counter-Charms and Jinxes. The Horcrux is considered the most terrible of all Dark magic. Sounds about right, given that our existing elite seem to assume that if they manage to accumulate enough money they will be able to purchase immortality.

This Will be Theresa May's Appalling Legacy:

By Patrick Cockburn: Unz Review, April 3, 2019: A German general once explained that he divided officers looking for promotion into four categories: the clever and lazy, the clever and industrious, the stupid and lazy and the stupid and industrious. He said that the clever and lazy should be appointed to senior leadership positions because they could take important decisions without trying to interfere with the work of others. The clever and industrious should be made their deputies. The stupid and lazy should be sent to the front line, but the stupid and industrious should be pushed out of the army immediately of at once because they are a danger to everyone. Theresa May surely belongs to the fourth category of leader, because as prime minister she has shown that she has a lethal blend of tunnel vision and obstinacy that automatically produces ill-judged decisions.

It seems simpler to assume that Theresa May is simply a stooge of the New World Order,i.e., the Money Power, a traitor, in fact, who is doing a good job shafting the the British people and confirming that parliamentary democracy is a fraud. 

Justin Trudeau Has Got One Thing Done: He's Booted Two Liberal Party Members for an Unwanted Display of Integrity

In a Twitter post yesterday, former Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Jopdie Wilson-Raybould wrote:  

I have just been informed by the Prime Minister of Canada that I am removed from the Liberal caucus and as the confirmed Vancouver Granville candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election

And in a FaceBook post, Dr. Jane Philpott, also expelled from the Liberal Party of Canada—in her case for supporting the former Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jody WilsonpRaybould, wrote:

Rather than acknowledge the obvious — that a range of individuals had inappropriately attempted to pressure the former attorney general in relation to a prosecutorial decision — and apologize for what occurred, a decision was made to attempt to deny the obvious — to attack Jody Wilson-Raybould's credibility and attempt to blame her. That approach now appears to be focused on whether Jody Wilson-Raybould should have audiotaped the clerk instead of the circumstances that prompted Jody Wilson-Raybould to feel compelled to do so.

And Andrew Scheer, the Leader of the opposition, said with cheerful sanctimony:

While Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, joined the chorus of condemnation, writing on Twitter:

Today, PM Trudeau and the Liberal government showed us exactly what they think about integrity. Thank you Jody for being loyal to Canadians. You deserve better.

In a letter to members of the Liberal Party caucus, sent just prior to her expulsion by Prime Minister Trudeau, Ms. Wilson-Raybould wrote of her commitment to doing politics in a new way:

... to break old and cynical patterns of centralizing power in the hands of a few unelected staffers" and the "the marginalization of hundreds of members of Parliament."

 LOL. Young Justin, so much the admirer of all things dictatorship, from Castro to China's President for Life Xi, no doubt found such a commitment an insult impossible to ignore.

Related: 
CBC: With Wilson-Raybould and Philpott, the Commons' crew of Independent MPs enters uncharted territory
The Post Millenial: How far is Trudeau’s AG willing to go to shut his eyes to the glaring evidence?
The Ottawa Sun: BONOKOSKI: Trudeau did not find his spine, only his panic button
The Tyee: Trudeau’s Dumb Expulsions and Strange Compulsions
CBC: SNC-Lavalin insider's bribery allegations spark probe by Crown agency that loaned the firm billions

Justin Trudeau, a Liar Who Can't Get Things Done

Our hapless Prime Minister.

Tasha Kheiriddin, Global News, April 1, 2019: And that’s what ended up happening. Anyone who thinks Wilson-Raybould wasn’t shuffled out of her role because she had become a stumbling block to Trudeau’s SNC-Lavalin agenda is just as naïve as the person who bought the PMO’s line this weekend, that Wernick never apprised the PM of his conversation with Wilson-Raybould because people were on holidays. (You’d think there was a limit to how many people Trudeau can throw under the bus, but apparently, it’s a very big bus.) Yes, the prime minister was attempting to circumvent the rule of law. And with someone less principled or relevant than Wilson-Raybould, he might have succeeded. Unfortunately for him, she brought not only a strong sense of justice to the role but an agenda. She wanted to advance Indigenous issues, both in the courts and in cabinet. She believed that Trudeau shared that agenda. Her very appointment suggested as much: she was the first woman of First Nations descent to serve as justice minister and attorney general. She thus felt secure in standing her ground — until it became clear, in exchanges like the one she recorded, that she wasn’t. But the real lesson here isn’t that the PM is a hypocrite about feminism, Indigenous rights (cue the Grassy Narrows donation quip) or that he is a liar who tried to cover up what he did (pressure the AG inappropriately through multiple channels). It’s that he can’t get things done. ... In the 2015 election, Conservative ads mocked Trudeau as being “not ready” for government. It turns out, sadly, that they were right.

Rant of the Day: Brexit Failure Fallout

Thanks to Asagirian via Unz Review

Quote of the Day: James Clapper — Obama ordered the Russian Collusion Investigation

James Clapper, former Director of US National Intelligence

If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller’s investigation.

President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. I think it’s an important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama.

Source

Related: 
Zero Hedge: "Trump Was Not Just Spied Upon, It Was Entrapment"

European Genocide for Globalist Hegemony

On one of the interminable wrangles about IQ over at the Unz Review, someone said:

Wizard of Oz: Greg Clark’s A Farewell to Alms: a Brief Economic History of the World provided convincing evidence that the poor in Britain for several hundred years were outbred by the literate, numerate children of the successful commercial and professional classes and, though not inheriting enough to stop them being, initially, downwardly mobile, they produced the industrial revolution.

To which I responded with a brief exposé of the treasonous conspiracy for Global Governance via genocide of the European nations:

Yes. That's more or less what Adam Smith said. Unfortunately, the descendants of those who created the industrial revolution are too dumb, ignorant or corrupt to rectify today's clearly dysgenic breeding policy, which encourages welfare-based reproduction while providing every economic impediment to intelligent people achieving even a replacement fertility rate. The Treason Class rules, which is to say that the object of population policy in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is to displace Europeans as the majority by suppressing their fertility and at the same time promoting mass immigration of people of alien race, religion and culture. Without racially and culturally defined nations, the sovereign, democratic nation state is no more. In its place will emerge administrative units — each a post-national state as the globalist puppet Justin Trudeau describes Canada, which are subordinate to institutions of global governance under the hidden hand of the Money Power. The same plan operates in America, cf. : My Plan To Destroy America

So if you're a Euro, your kind are headed for the psychological equivalent of the Auschwitz gas chambers. Your fertility is under repression by every means from taxation to state propaganda in the name of sex "education," while the place of your posterity, the continuation of your national group and gene pool, is to be taken by the descendants of others. Your nation is headed the way of the Tasmanians, and if you object, you are as we pointed out before: A far-right-wing extremist, racist, anti-Semite against genocide of your own race and nation

Brexit Means Bullshit

As Rob Slane notes, Britain has:

A Prime Minister who has promised to resign if her deal (to exit the EU) is successful (i.e., backed by Parliament), but who stays put now her deal has once again failed.

So, the more Thereason May fails, the better she succeeds— Succeeds that is at subverting the will of the people in the interests of the Globalist Money Power.

Why Jodie Wilson-Raybould Resigned As Canada's Minister of Veterans Affairs

Jodie Wilson-Raybould (JWR) was fired as Canada's Justice Minister and Attorney General after refusing to abort the prosecution of Québec-based engineering multi-national, SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption abroad.

She was subjected to political pressure to provide SNC with relief from Prosecution by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, both in person and by letter, by members of the Prime Minister's staff, by Finance Ministry staff, and by David Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's most senior civil servant.

Specifically, it was expected that she would override the judgement of the independent Director of Public Prosecutions, by ordering that SNC-Lavalin be granted a so-called remediation agreement, under the terms of which penalties would be negotiated without criminal liability.

By way of pressure, JWR was given to understand that cabinet post was in jeopardy unless she submitted to the Prime Minister's wishes in the matter of the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.

JWR rejected these demands on the grounds that they amounted to interference in Canada's constitutionally protected traditions of prosecutorial independence and rule of law. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Trudeau fired JWR as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

Following her dismissal, JWR was offered the cabinet post of Minister of Veterans Affairs, which she accepted. However, following meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 14th of this year, JWR resigned her new cabinet appointment. The trigger for this decision was a statement by the Prime Minister that with reference to the propriety of the Government's action in relation to SNC-Lavelin, JWR's ongoing presence in Cabinet spoke for itself. With reference to her resignation from Cabinet the following day JWR said: "I trust that my resignation also speaks for itself."

The recording of the telephone conversation between JWR and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, is here.

JWR's 21-page written submission of supplementary information for the Parliamentary Justice Committee relating to political pressure under which she was placed during her tenure as Canada's Attorney General is here.

Related:
Toronto Sun: Lilley — Trudeau's lies
CBC: Wilson-Raybould: 'no regrets'
CBC:Feast hosted for Jody Wilson-Raybould on Vancouver Island
Global News: Phone call leaves Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin narrative — and excuses — in complete tatters
Global News:Michael Wernick never briefed Trudeau on Wilson-Raybould phone call — says PMO
NaPo: Christie Blatchford: The Jody Wilson-Raybould solution
NaPo: Andrew Coyne: Wilson-Raybould recording brings SNC-Lavalin affair crashing back to reality
The Tyee: Jody Wilson-Raybould: Cassandra of the Trudeau Government

Justin Trudeau Out? Thereason May On the Skids?

In the matter of current events, what seems self evident to a person of modest wit and experience seems to be a matter of extraordinary surprise to the mainstream media. The ongoing disintegration of the premiership of Justin Trudeau is a case in point. Of young Justin, we wrote more than a year ago:

If he lacked ideas or brains he seemed to be taking advice, and there were still some wise heads in the Liberal Party, including that of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, willing to provide the advice. Meantime the Tories were tired, out of ideas, facing mounting economic problems, and tarnished by the Senate expenses scandal. The result was highly predictable. Trudeau led the Liberals to a splendid victory.

But, as we also wrote,

since, then, the trend has not been young Justin's friend. A limited intellect, a lack of significant real-world experience, and a surfeit of praise will tend to propel any youthful hero on a course for disaster. Justin Trudeau's case has proved to be no exception.

Yet the media never seemed to notice the impending fiasco, until now, when, according to the latest opinion survey, the poor slob Justin has a lower public approval rating than Donald Trump.

Personally mired in LavScam, ridiculed for a combination of inappropriate conduct abroad, absurd political correctness (we say peoplekind, not mankind) crude insensitivity (thank you for your donation, in response to a question about mercury poisoning of the first nations people of Grassy Narrows, Ontario), it appears suddenly to the media that Justin's hold on power may not to be prolonged.

And as our Justin seems headed for the discard pile of dud Canadian Liberal Party leaders, Theresa May, who we long ago dubbed Thereason May, seems headed for the exit from the parliamentary whorehouse too, her betrayal of the people to whom she gave the assurance: "Brexit means Brexit," being  suddenly evident to all, as declared in a column in the Daily Mail:

Too little, too late. If Theresa May had possessed a shred of decency, she should have resigned long ago. Her authority was shot to pieces after her disastrous, self-inflicted general election humiliation, which cost the Tories their majority and ensured that the enemies of Brexit would prevail. She had a second chance to do the decent thing last July when it became apparent that her dismal, defeatist Chequers withdrawal agreement was a shoddy betrayal of her oft-parroted mantra: ‘Brexit means Brexit.’ Instead of respecting the views of those who spoke for the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU, she even threatened to confiscate the ministerial cars of Cabinet dissenters and make them walk home. This wasn’t the action of a strong, confident Prime Minister. It was a petty, vindictive attempt at intimidation... If Theresa didn’t get her way, she was going to scream and scream and scream until she was sick. This was the real Mrs May: aloof, stubborn, convinced of her own self-righteousness, and contemptuous of others who begged to differ.

Thus, is it once again confirmed, you can fool most of the for long enough to do a lot of damage.

Martian Mushrooms? If So, What Are They Feeding On?

A paper just published in the Journal of Astrobiology and Space Science Reviews, 1, 40–81, 2019, entitled Evidence of Life on Mars? begins with the words:

Presented here is a body of evidence and observations which do not prove but supports the hypothesis Mars was, and is, a living planet hosting prokaryotes, lichens, and fungi.

Among the data presented are the following photographs taken by NASA's Rover Opportunity.

Figure 8. Sol 1145-left v Sol 1148-right). Comparing Sol 1145-left vs Sol 1148-right. Growth of fifteen Martian specimens over three days. Specimens labeled 1-5 and marked with red circles have increased in size. Those specified by arrows--Sol 1148-right--demarcate the emergence of ten new specimens which were not visible in Sol 1145-left photographed three days earlier by NASA/JPL. Differences in photo quality are secondary to changes in camera-closeup-focus by NASA. The majority of experts in fungi, lichens, geomorphology, and mineralogy agreed these are likely living specimens, i.e. fungi, puffballs. An alternate explanation is a strong wind uncovered hematite which had been buried beneath sand and dirt.

The apparent growth and multiplication of objects reminiscent of mushrooms or puffball fungi is certainly remarkable, as are many other images presented in this paper, the full text of which is available here.

But if these are fungi, then a big puzzle remains: What do Martian fungi feed on?

Fungi are not autotrophic, meaning that they are unable to synthesize organic matter from inorganic substrates. They require a source of organic material to feed on: either dead material, if they saprophytes, or living material if they are parasites. But in either case, since dead organic material must once have been living, the existence of fungi on Mars would indicate the existence of autotrophic organisms, which are capable of synthesizing organic molecules photosynthetically or by other means from purely inorganic substrates. In other words, the presence of fungi on Mars would indicate the presence of an ecosystem of at least several different types of living organism.

The first botanist to set foot on Mars may be in for amazing discoveries.

IQ-ism, a Fake Science Serving the Fascist New World Order

Psychologists generally assert that IQ tests provide the best predictive measure of individual life success, hence the need to give everyone an IQ label, the better for schools, employers and the world at large to judge their intellectual merit.

This notion is tremendously appealing to those intent on creating the Fascist New World Order, which is to say a bureaucratic global dictatorship, controlled by the Money Power, which requires a submissive populace brainwashed into a belief in its own mental inadequacy, and therefore, its own incapacity for democratic, national self-government.

What the promoters of IQ-ism assert by implication is that:

You have an IQ less than those set in authority over you, which means that your judgement is invariable inferior to that of those who dictate the conditions of your existence. Hence, cease your clamor, do as you are told, and be content with whatever rights and freedoms we, your rulers, in our wisdom, are prepared to grant you.

Here for instance is Jordan Peterson with expert-level hand-waving, brainwashing and bullying a University of Toronto undergraduate psychology class:

One of the things I have to tell you about IQ research is that if you don't buy IQ research, you might as well throw away all the rest of psychology, and the reason for that (blah, blah, blah (watch it here) Or in other words: Question what I have to say about IQ and you will be judged mentally unfit for education as a psychologist, and you might as well quit the course now.

In a discussion of the recent Boeing 737MAX crashes at the Unz Review, many commentators seemed content to attribute these disasters to the presumed low IQ of the Third World pilots flying the planes. Here, for example, is one that gets right to the point:

Boeing is great/ dumb Third World pilots.

In response to such views, I quoted a couple of paragraphs from an essay on IQ by the well known financial analyst, Nassim Taleb:

“IQ” is a stale test meant to measure mental capacity but in fact mostly measures extreme unintelligence (learning difficulties), as well as, to a lesser extent (with a lot of noise), a form of intelligence, stripped of 2nd order effects — how good someone is at taking some type of exams designed by unsophisticated nerds. It is via negativa not via positiva. Designed for learning disabilities, and given that it is not too needed there (see argument further down), it ends up selecting for exam-takers, paper shufflers, obedient IYIs (intellectuals yet idiots), ill adapted for “real life”. The concept is poorly thought out mathematically by the field (commits a severe flaw in correlation under fat tails; fails to properly deal with dimensionality; treats the mind as an instrument not a complex system), and seems to be promoted by: — racists/eugenists, people bent on showing that some populations have inferior mental abilities based on IQ test=intelligence; those have been upset with me for suddenly robbing them of a “scientific” tool, as evidenced by the bitter reactions to the initial post on twitter/smear campaigns by such mountebanks as Charles Murray. (Something observed by the great Karl Popper, psychologists have a tendency to pathologize people who bust them by tagging them with some type of disorder, or personality flaw such as “childish” , “narcissist”, “egomaniac”, or something similar). — psychometrics peddlers looking for suckers (military, large corporations) buying the “this is the best measure in psychology” argument when it is not even technically a measure — it explains at best between 2 and 13% of the performance in some tasks (those tasks that are similar to the test itself)[see interpretation of .5 correlation further down], minus the data massaging and statistical cherrypicking by psychologists; it doesn’t satisfy the monotonicity and transitivity required to have a measure (at best it is a concave measure). No measure that fails 80–95% of the time should be part of “science” (nor should psychology — owing to its sinister track record — be part of science (rather scientism), but that’s another discussion). — It is at the bottom an immoral measure that, while not working, can put people (and, worse, groups) in boxes for the rest of their lives. — There is no significant correlation (or any robust statistical association) between IQ and hard measures such as wealth. Most “achievements” linked to IQ are measured in circular stuff s.a. bureaucratic or academic success, things for test takers and salary earners in structured jobs that resemble the tests. Wealth may not mean success but it is the only “hard” number, not some discrete score of achievements. You can buy food with a $30, not with other “successes” s.a. rank, social prominence, or having had a selfie with the Queen. Read more

This prompted a response to me from University of London IQ psychologist, James Thompson:

Have you have also read my replies to Taleb? http://www.unz.com/jthompson/swanning-about-fooled-by-algebra/ http://www.unz.com/jthompson/in-the-wake-of-the-swan/

Which provided the opportunity to express more fully than before why I believe that IQ-ism is fake science:

I've had a look. But as I'm sure you will agree, to review your response to Taleb adquately would demand a lengthy paper, which I will not attempt to compose here. I will, though, address the first point that you make in your January 3, article. Taleb criticizes the poor statistics used by intelligence researchers... I have assumed he means that more than half of intelligence research findings are wrong, and for malicious reasons. If this is his point, he is factually wrong. Your assumption is surely incorrect. Taleb neither said nor implied that more than half of intelligence research findings are wrong, for malicious reasons. Rather, he was presumably drawing an inference about the invalidity of most intelligence research findings from the well known "replication crisis in psychology" and other fields of research, and the well known fact that across the board, the majority of research papers are so poorly designed and analysed that most research claims must be false. So no, Taleb is not accusing you or those who labor in the IQ field of malicious fraud. You attempt to bury Taleb beneath a mountain of technical details and journal references that few here will ever read, but you do not confront Taleb's key point, which is that, yes, IQ tests measure something, and yes whatever they measures correlates in some degree with behavior, success, income, whatever, but so what? The key questions Taleb raises to which you offer no answer are: does IQ usefully quantify intelligence as that term is generally understood and as it is defined by the dictionary? and, more fundamentally, is it even theoretically possible to quantify intelligence, as that term is generally understood, by a single number? Taleb answers both questions in the negative. I agree. Furthermore, I believe that if you stopped calling whatever it is that you measure with you tests intelligence, then no one would question your work. Indeed, they might pay it no attention at all, which does raise a question of whether some psychologists, by mislabeling their product, are deliberately selling a bill of goods.

In the event that that draws a crushing rebuttal, I promise to post it here.

So far, all I've had is reference to a fact-free rebuttal by Stephen Pinker:

Irony: Replicability crisis in psych DOESN'T apply to IQ.S. Pinker

Great to be a famous author innit. No need to argue a point. Just assert an opinion and the world will defer — LOL

Except:

Most Reported Genetic Associations with General Intelligence Are Probably False Positives. Psychol Sci. 2012 Nov 1; 23(11): 1314–1323.

Or if you prefer a more mainstream source: The Telegraph's Science Correspondent reports:

IQ tests 'do not reflect intelligence' 

Or something even more downmarket: Daily Mail:

IQ tests are 'meaningless and too simplistic' claim researchers 

And I like this from the Psychologist:

What intelligence tests miss 

It is a profound historical irony of the behavioural sciences that the Nobel Prize was awarded for studies of cognitive characteristics (rational thinking skills) that are entirely missing from the most well-known mental assessment device in the behavioral sciences – the intelligence test. Intelligence tests measure important things, but not these – they do not assess the extent of rational thought. This might not be such an omission if it were the case that intelligence was an exceptionally strong predictor of rational thinking. However, research has found that it is a moderate predictor at best and that some rational thinking skills can be quite dissociated from intelligence.

Perhaps others will join in the amusing quest for quotes sending up S. Pinker.

Related:
CanSpeccy: Posts From the Past: About Intelligence (12)

Posts From the Past: The New World Ordure (8)

2021

Why Democracy Died

2019

My Plan To Destroy America

European Genocide for Globalist Hegemony

Why Liberal Globalists and Communist Revolutionaries Agree There Is No Such Thing as race

2016

Why Western Elites Are Destroying Their Own People By Mass Immigration and Multiculturalism

2012

The Facist New World Order

2011

The New American World Order: How It Works

The British National Party: A Conspiracy against Democracy?