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Op-Ed: Et Tu, The Intercept? Smear Of Assange Murderously Timed

Less than 48 hours after a UK judge ruled against Julian Assange’s legal team in their efforts to free him from the Ecuadoran embassy, The Intercept published a disingenuous and sloppy character assassination against the Wikileaks Editor-In-Chief.

The timing of the article’s publication acted to brutally counter growing support for Assange that arose in the wake of a clearly unjust UK ruling. Essentially, the publication of the smear attempted to deflect attention from the revelation of corruption in the ongoing detention of Assange, and to assassinate his character in the process.

The Intercept’s decision to publish the article at such a time unfortunately serves to characterize the outlet as a servant of the same US deep state that The Intercept has gained a reputation for – at least in theory – opposing.

The serious errors contained in The Intercept’s character assassination of the Wikileaks co-founder were quickly dismantled earlier today by independent journalists including Suzie DawsonCaitlin Johnstone, HA Goodman and others. That Micah Lee, who has engaged in continual attacks against Assange on social media, would be allowed to contribute to an article of this kind represents a fundamental conflict of interest in the work, not to mention the factual inaccuracies and assumptions it makes without so much as pausing to take a breath.

The claims made in The Intercept’s hit piece regarding messages sent privately by Wikileaks’ Twitter account were disingenuous on multiple levels, beginning with the  assumption that Assange was the sole author of the texts. The inference is clearly stated in the article, destroying any shred of journalistic integrity that might be expected from a well-respected news outlet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EU Ombudsman Investigating Industry-Dominated Fracking Expert Group

The European Ombudsman has opened a case into the European Commission’s industry-dominated Expert Group on the risky and dangerous practice of fracking for natural gas.

The Ombudsman, responsible for investigating complaints about maladministration in EU institutions and bodies, is looking into allegations that the Commission “wrongly allowed members associated with the shale gas industry to act as chairmen of the European Science and Technology Network on Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction.”

Despite massive public opposition to fracking, the Commission established the European Science and Technology Network on Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction last July with a mandate to recommend the most appropriate fracking techniques and technologies for Europe.

However, research by campaign groups Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe shows that of the network’s members who do not work for the Commission, more than 70% either represent or have direct financial links to the fracking industry, while all four chairs and co-chairs of working groups are fracking proponents and have even lobbied against tougher regulations.

Vested Interests

Putting such vested interests in charge of deeming which fracking techniques are most ‘appropriate’ for the EU is only going to serve the interests of a floundering industry, not the 500 million Europeans who will have to suffer the consequences.

The Ombudsman’s investigation, opened in August, follows a complaint by Corporate Europe Observatory and Friends of the Earth Europe, which calls on the Expert Group to follow the Commission rules for balance and conflict of interest.

However, the Commission denies the network is an Expert Group, despite its clear advisory role, and dismisses any worry with regards to balance. If the groups is not formally recognised as an Expert Group and made to conform to the existing rules, then both organisations have called for it to be scrapped.

Climate Talks

The Ombudsman has given the Commission until the 30th November to respond, the same day that this year’s UN climate talks are set to begin in Paris.

 

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

“Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be Untrue” …

“Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be Untrue” … 

Corruption Is Destroying Basic Science

Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine are the two most prestigious medical journals in the world.

It is therefore striking that their chief editors have both publicly written that corruption is undermining science.

The editor in chief of Lancet, Richard Horton, wrote last month:

Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, “poor methods get results”. The Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Research Council, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have now put their reputational weight behind an investigation into these questionable research practices. The apparent endemicity [i.e. pervasiveness within the scientific culture] of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Dan Ariely: Why The Next Market Downturn May Quickly Become A Full-Blown Panic

Dan Ariely: Why The Next Market Downturn May Quickly Become A Full-Blown Panic

The human factor has become extremely skittish

Behavioral economist and author of Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely returns to explain the science underlying the continued mismanagement and mal-investment within our financial system, despite 7 years of opportunity to learn from and address the causal factors of the Great Recession.

Behavioral science shows we are our own worst enemies in this story. In a realm where everything is so quantifiable, measurable and trackable, one would expect exceptionally good decision-making. But it’s our human wiring, our proclivity for seeing things as we want them to be rather than as they truly are, that makes us vulnerable to influences we often aren’t even conscious of. And the bad decisions — and bad outcomes — ensue:

For me, as somebody interested in human behavior, there are two elements that worry me a lot. The first one is Conflicts of interest.

Conflicts of interest is one of those things that get to us without us realizing how powerful it is. Imagine that you invite me to dinner, and you buy me a beer and a sandwich and we talk more and we become friends. To what degree am I going to be able to see the world in an objective way without taking your perspective into account? It turns out conflicts of interest are wonderful because they allow us to create friendship really quite quickly. You can buy someone a beer and a sandwich and they become your friend to some degree. Once you marry this with a complex system like the financial system, all of a sudden some not-so-good things can happen.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors

Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors

The debate over the NSA’s bulk collection of phone records has reached a critical point after a federal appeals court last week ruled the practice illegal, dramatically raising the stakes for pending Congressional legislation that would fully or partially reinstate the program. An army of pundits promptly took to television screens, with many of them brushing off concerns about the surveillance.

The talking heads have been backstopping the NSA’s mass surveillance more or less continuously since it was revealed. They spoke out to support the agency when NSA contractor Edward Snowden released details of its programs in 2013, and they’ve kept up their advocacy ever since — on television news shows, newspaper op-ed pages, online and at Congressional hearings. But it’s often unclear just how financially cozy these pundits are with the surveillance state they defend, since they’re typically identified with titles that give no clues about their conflicts of interest. Such conflicts have become particularly important, and worth pointing out, now that the debate about NSA surveillance has shifted from simple outrage to politically prominent legislative debates.

As one example of the opaque link between NSA money and punditry, take the words of Stewart Baker, who was general counsel to the NSA from 1992 through 1994. During a Senate committee hearing last summer on one of the reform bills now before Congress, the USA FREEDOM Act, whichwould partially limit mass surveillance of telephone metadata, Baker essentially said the bill would aid terrorists.

“First, I do not believe we should end the bulk collection program,” he told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “It will put us at risk. It will, as Senator King strongly suggested, slow our responses to serious terrorist incidents. And it is a leap into the dark with respect to this data.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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