I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How.

Posted on May 28, 2015 by mea

Other than those fibs, the study was 100 percent authentic. My colleagues and I recruited actual human subjects in Germany. We ran an actual clinical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to different diet regimes. And the statistically significant benefits of chocolate that we reported are based on the actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research. Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded.

Here’s how we did it.

via I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here’s How..

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An Epidemic of False Claims

Posted on May 26, 2015 by mea

False positives and exaggerated results in peer-reviewed scientific studies have reached epidemic proportions in recent years. The problem is rampant in economics, the social sciences and even the natural sciences, but it is particularly egregious in biomedicine.

via An Epidemic of False Claims – Scientific American.

The problem begins with the public’s rising expectations of science. Being human, scientists are tempted to show that they know more than they do.

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The GOP Is Dying Off. Literally

Posted on May 19, 2015 by mea

Since the average Republican is significantly older than the average Democrat, far more Republicans than Democrats have died since the 2012 elections. To make matters worse, the GOP is attracting fewer first-time voters. Unless the party is able to make inroads with new voters, or discover a fountain of youth, the GOP’s slow demographic slide will continue election to election. Actuarial tables make that part clear, but just how much of a problem for the GOP is this?

via The GOP Is Dying Off. Literally. – Daniel J. McGraw – POLITICO Magazine.

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The Killing of Osama bin Laden

Posted on May 12, 2015 by mea

It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.

via Seymour M. Hersh · The Killing of Osama bin Laden · LRB 21 May 2015.

Many if not most elements of that situation are probably so highly classified only historians far into the future will ever truly know how that raid came to be.  If ISI were involved I can understand why they wouldn’t want to be named and why a good public  cover story as to how it all went down was necessary to protect sources and techniques.  Don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper or especially these Intertubes.

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The Bloomingdale Line

Posted on April 27, 2015 by mea

This article is not intended to be a history of the Bloomingdale Line; that has been covered elsewhere.

Instead, the author examines how the Bloomingdale Line interacted with and affected the lives of Chicago citizens and businesses during its time in service. To that end, Part I attempts to put the remainder of the article in context by discussing the Bloomingdale Line’s establishment, the community’s vehement opposition to its presence during the first 40 or so years it existed and its eventual elevation. Part II is really the heart of the matter. In that section, the author examines how the Bloomingdale Line was, for many years, an integral part of the daily operations of many industrial and manufacturing businesses that existed next to the railway. To illustrate the point, the author profiles seven companies that were adjacent to the Bloomingdale and used it for shipping and receiving. Finally, Part III is essentially a coda reflecting upon the Bloomingdale Line’s disuse and abandonment.

via The Bloomingdale Line | Forgotten Chicago | History, Architecture, and Infrastructure.

From: The 606 park to open in June

A long-planned Chicago park stretching along abandoned Northwest Side train tracks will debut June 6, the city announced Monday.

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