Archive for the ‘Behaviour’ Category

Bora’s gardening leave ends in resignation from Scientific American

October 19, 2013

Following the noise and the revelation that his sexual harassment was not just an isolated incident, Bora Zivkovic’s position was no longer tenable. The resignation from Scientific American was almost inevitable but editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina cannot escape some reprimand. Both she and the magazine need to make some kind of public statement and acknowledgement that their support for their own DN Lee was wanting. The Press release about Bora’s resignation contains nothing about her initial censorship “Following recent events, Bora Zivkovic has offered his resignation from Scientific American, and Scientific American has decided to accept that resignation”.

IndyWeek:

Scientific American has an anti-harassment policy. We offer live and online anti-harassment training to those who manage employees. We’ve recently begun providing such training to individuals who work with freelancers and contractors as well. We take allegations, such as those that have appeared online this week, very seriously. When Monica Byrne contacted Scientific American a year ago, we investigated her report, offered the Company’s apologies and Ms. Byrne acknowledged in her blog that she was satisfied with our response. We were unaware of any additional allegations until this week.

Zivkovic, who lives near Pittsboro, has admitted to engaging in inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances toward Byrne. However, he claimed it was an isolated incident. In the last week, at least a half-dozen women have come forward with similar accounts of interactions with him.

The Greenpeace 30 could be free tomorrow but ……

October 19, 2013

It has been one month since the Greenpeace pirates were apprehended by the Russians.

The high profile Greenpeace strategies to get them released have been less than competent. They seem to be particularly incompetent regarding the Law of the Sea. Rather than getting their pirates released, nearly all their actions have been counter productive and have led to a hardening of the Russian position, the denial of bail, the inclusion of drug running charges and now even the threat of terrorism charges. That Greenpeace believes it stands above Governments and can determine what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable behaviour does not endear them to either the Russian Government or Russian Courts.

  1. They have tried bluster and moral indignation.
  2. They have tried arguing that the ends justify the means.
  3. They have managed expressions of support for their cause by rock stars
  4. The Head Pirate has written an idiot  “letter to Putin” in the form of a Press Release
  5. They have persuaded the Dutch Government to institute legal proceedings against Russia
  6. They persuaded the Dutch Government to get their police to apprehend and beat-up a Russian diplomat
  7. They have persuaded some Nobel prize winners to plead for the dropping of piracy charges.
  8. They have tried to complain that the conditions of detention are “inhumane”
  9. They have orchestrated emotional appeals by the families of the pirates.
  10. They have made press releases out of emotional letters from the pirates in captivity.

But humility and any hint that they might be wrong is not within Greenpeace’s genes. My expectation is that Greenpeace will continue to follow arrogant, ineffective and incompetent – but all high profile – strategies. They will only irritate and harden the Russian position even further against the criminals. (See what all the high profile, but equally incompetent, international publicity achieved for Pussy Riot).

What Greenpeace has not done but which they could do and which would probably get their pirates released in about a day is

  1. Get off their moral high horse,
  2. Acknowledge that they broke the law
  3. Get Kumi Naidoo to swallow his pride and grovel
  4. Apologise
  5. Arrange for each one of the detained to apologise to the court, and
  6. offer to give up their passports and accept some form of “house arrest” in exchange for bail, and
  7. provide individual and unconditional assurances that they will not flee.
  8. Assure the Russian courts – individually and collectively – that they will refrain from illegal actions and will abide by the decision(s) of the courts
  9. Assure their own Governments – individually and collectively – that they will refrain from illegal actions and will abide by the decision(s) of the courts
  10. Get their Government Heads to pass on such assurances to Putin (and effectively stand guarantor for the assurances given)

But I do not expect that Greenpeace and its pirates will ever acknowledge their arrogance or moral turpitude.

I expect the Russians will keep them locked up for some time longer. They may well add charges of terrorism – especially if any foreign Government tries to pressure Russian diplomats. If Greenpeace only sits on its high horse and continues to bluster, the 30 may well be there till just before Christmas.

And winter has come early to Murmansk.

Related: The Pirates of Greenpeace

German Catholic Church (and the Bishop of Limburg) are wallowing in taxpayer’s money

October 18, 2013
Photo: DPA

Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Tebartz Van-Elst photo DPA (via The Local)

The excesses of the Catholic Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, have been much in the headlines. But what I  certainly had not realised was to the extent to which the Catholic Church in Germany is financed by public money.

It certainly seems to be a case of wallowing in a trough of taxpayer’s money – which the taxpayer cannot easily opt out of and which is subject to few controls.

The Bishop’s expensive habits catalogued here at The Local (Italy) include:

  1. a luxurious complex being built next to Limburg Cathedral in the state of Hesse. Earlier this week it emerged the costs had overrun by ten times the initial estimate from around €3 million to €31 million.
  2. €350,000 on built-in-wardrobes,
  3. €25,000 on a conference table 
  4. €783,000 on a garden
  5. his own apartment in the complex is costing €3 million with €478,000 going on furnishings (the bishop’s bathtub cost €15,000)
  6. guest rooms will cost €1.1 million
  7.  the new chapel costs €2.67 million

Jochen Riebel, the spokesperson for the diocesan finance council, told newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the bishop was “either a sophisticated deceiver or that he’s just plain sick.” 
A commission is being set up by the Catholic Church in Germany to investigate the spending. 
The bishop’s expensive tastes have landed him in the headlines before. He was criticized last year after magazine Der Spiegel revealed he flew first class to India to visit poor children.  
And on Thursday prosecutors claimed the bishop made false statements in affidavits submitted in two civil claims against Der Spiegel after the article appeared. They have now called for a punishment which could include fines

But it is the financing of the Catholic Church in Germany which is even less healthy than the Bishop. Another article in The Local (Italy) reports:

Limburg Cathedral Wikipedia

Its wealth has been estimated at €430 billion with interests ranging from television stations to mineral water. 

The €31-million bill for Franz-Tebartz Van-Elst’s residence, including €15,000 on a bath tub and €350,000 on built-in-wardrobes, has put the finances of the Catholic Church, much of which comes from taxpayers and state subsidies, into the spotlight.

Carsten Frerk, an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church in Germany, estimated its wealth at around €430 billion with about €140 billion of that in capital, theFrankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported. Frerk researched the church’s ledgers for a year for a book published in October 2010. But only a small part of the church’s finances are public and many of their records remain secret.

Bild newspaper reported on Thursday the church was Germany’s second-biggest employer after the state, running everything from schools and kindergartens toTellux, the TV company which makes the Tatort crime drama.  It also makes money from its breweries and selling mineral water called Adelholzener. The church also owns ten banks, countless insurance businesses and 30 housing associations, Bild reported.  

The church’s largest public form of income is the “church tax”, a system whereby taxpayers register their membership of a church or religious group, and a percentage of their tax goes to that church. The tax dates back to the medieval tithes, a one-tenth share of goods collected by churches in the Middle Ages. …. The Catholic Church collected €5.2 billion in church tax in 2013, a 15 percent increase on 2000. But in order to keep up with inflation, it would have needed an increase of 22 percent. …….. it also receives a state subsidy every year, a throwback from a still-valid 1803 agreement between them and the government of the day. 

The subsidies paid to the Catholic and Protestant churches out of the treasury this year hit a record high of €481 million, €6.6 million more than in 2012, reported the Humanist Union of Germany (HVD). Alongside these benefits, the church enjoys exemption from corporation, trade, income and capital gains tax thanks to its status as an “organization of public rights.” Universities also have this status, but have their finances are partially controlled by the state, while the churches do not have this oversight.

….. The scandal has also led to some churches revealing the extent of their reserves. Cologne, the largest and reportedly richest diocese in Europe, said on Tuesday it had reserves of €166 million in 2012. The small diocese of Trier had a reserve of €84 million, Reuters reported. Tebartz-van Elst’s seat, in the small town of Limburg – with a population less than a thirtieth of Cologne’s – holds reserves of €100 million.

But no matter how enormously wealthy the Church is, the vulgarity of the Bishop of Limburg takes some beating.

 

One more scientist of Indian origin found to have faked data in the US

October 18, 2013

Nitin Aggarwal – a researcher in cardiology – apparently falsified and invented data. Once again a scientist of Indian origin caught faking data. Perhaps it’s the peer pressure – but it does make for depressing reading.

This is scientific fraud and  – once again – I wonder why scientists and scientific bodies should not be held liable and accountable for their “product” which is whatever they publish.

Maybe it is time to sell my shares in BMS.

Retraction Watch reports:

Nitin Aggarwal, formerly of the Medical College of Wisconsin, faked data in his PhD thesis, grant applications to the NIH and American Heart Association, and in two papers, according to new findings by the Office of Research Integrity.

(The case would have apparently first been published in the Federal Register on October 2, except for the government shutdown.)

Here were their findings:

…the Respondent engaged in research misconduct by falsifying and/or fabricating PHS-supported data in six (6) figures that were included in the following two (2) publications, one (1) grant application to the American Heart Association (AHA), one (1) grant application to NIH, and the Respondent’s Ph.D. thesis:

  • Aggarwal, N.T., Principal Investigator (P.I.), National Scientist Development grant application to the American Heart Association No. 11SDG7650072, “Sulfonylurea rReceptor-2 splice variant and mitochondrial mechanisms for cardioprotection and arrhythmia” (hereafter the “AHA grant application”).
  • K99 HL113518-01, “Mitochondrial ATP-sensitive K-channels and pharmacological approaches for cardioprotection,” Aggarwal, Nitin, Ph.D., P.I.
  • Aggarwal, N.T. “Endothelial 15-lipoxygenase regulates vasorelaxation and blood pressure in rabbits in normal and pathological condictions.” A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Biomedical Science of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2008 (hereafter the “thesis”).

…………

Aggarwal won a $1,000 award for his dissertation in 2009. According to his LinkedIn profile and a recent speaker announcement, he’s now working at Bristol Myers-Squibb. We’ve tried to reach BMS for comment, along with the Medical College of Wisconsin, and will update with anything we learn.

Update, 6 p.m. Eastern, 10/17/13: The Medical College of Wisconsin tells us they have no comment on the ORI’s findings.

Scientific American sends Bora on “leave”

October 18, 2013

One thing is clear after this last weeks’ convulsions at Scientific American. Breaking the silence can have an effect in the face of wrongdoing but it requires a society prepared to listen.  In the face of wrongdoing, silence is not always golden, silence is acquiesence, silence condones. But breaking the silence does not always end well for whistle-blowers  and breaking the silence requires taking some risk. Edward Snowden can testify to that.

The fall-out at Scientific American continues and Bora Zivkovic has been sent on gardening leave. But the behaviour of Scientific American editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina for her initial knee-jerk censorship and then her attempts to explain away her initial untruth has yet to be fully addressed. The Editor’s Note accompanying the reinstatement of the censored blog post does not carry much credibility and – in my opinion – seeks to establish a blatant untruth as real. There is no apology to the blogger for the censorship, no expression of regret.

Editor’s note (10/14/13): This post was originally published on Friday, October 11, 2013, at 16:58, and taken down within the hour. As fully detailed here, we could not quickly verify the facts of the blog post and consequently for legal reasons we had to remove it. Email to the editor referenced in this post to elicit his comments has gone unanswered. Biology Online would not disclose his identity or give out additional contact information and other efforts to identify him to solicit a response have been unsuccessful. Biology Online has confirmed the exchange. This post is therefore being republished as of October 14th at 4:46pm.

Whether Zivkovic was sent on leave or asked to go on leave is moot.

NASW:

Bora Zivkovic, who has admitted to sexual harassment and resigned from the board of ScienceOnline, has now taken a break from his duties as blog editor at Scientific American, according to Philip Yam, Scientific American’s news editor.

In an email this morning, Yam confirmed the news that was making its way around Twitter–that Zivkovic was taking a break from his duties at his request. Alice Henchley, a spokesperson for Scientific American, said in an email, “Bora Zivkovic is on personal leave at the moment.”

Germany also has its “idiot” projects

October 17, 2013

Every country has its share of bizarre, wasteful and idiotic projects – usually paid for by the taxpayer. Most are just bungling though some are because certain politicians wish to favour a particular constituency or a particular contractor.

Bureaucrats in Germany are usually – from my limited experience – exceptionally rational. But Germany too has its share of “idiot” projects.  The “Black Book” is compiled by the German Taxpayer’s Alliance.

Some examples from The Local:

€435,000 was spent on building two bridges for field mice in In Bieberbach in the state of Baden-Württemberg. If the mice don’t use the bridge no-one can photo DPA

€435,000 was spent on building two bridges for field mice in Bieberbach. If the mice don’t use the bridge no-one can. photo DPA via The Local

  1. Two bridges for field mice in Biberach, Baden-Württemberg so that the animals can safely cross the road. The bridges alone cost around €435,000 and surveillance costs amounted to €35,000. They have not been built for human use.
  2. A memorial to the early years of Germany’s Autobahn built in a roadside lay-by in North Rhine-Westphalia. The remains of a concrete road bridge sat at the roadside of the A2 motorway but these had to be cleared for safety reasons. Rather than simply removing them, however, authorities built a memorial bridge from the remains one-and-a-half kilometres away in the lay-by. The bridge to nowhere cost €310,000 when removal would have cost €108,000. 
  3. Planners managed to spend €400,000 on a bicycle path which simply ended after 300 metres in the middle of nowhere.
  4. The German government also paid for a metal concert in China by the lesser-known German band “Drone”. Unfortunately “after the first few beats of the intro, it was clear that the Chinese were not into metal.”
  5. Costs of the Elbe Philharmonic Hall in Hamburg have risen from €77 million to €800 million.
  6. Berlin’s new airport, meanwhile, is costing €162,000 a month just to keep clean, while its opening is continuously delayed.
  7. An operating theatre in Düsseldorf’s university hospital cost €200 million but three years on it has still not been used due to inadequate fire safety precautions. A further €2 million has been spent on paying cleaning, heating and other bills for the as-yet unused ‘Operative Medicine II’ clinic.
  8.  Authorities in the town of Meschede in North Rhine-Westphalia when they left the heating on in their empty offices for eight years. Nobody turned the radiators off when the offices were emptied in November 2000, racking up a bill of €42,000 for the taxpayer. 

Bora! Bora! Bora! Could this be SciAm’s Pearl Harbour?

October 17, 2013

This is a sorry tale. And Scientific American and their Blogs Editor, Bora Zivkovic are covered in the proverbial effluent. Scientific American’s editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina has not covered herself with very much glory. Biology Online has tarnished what little reputation it had.

It all started as an unpleasant little incident when DN Lee, a scientist and a blogger at Scientific American, was called a “whore” by an “editor” at biology-online because she declined (very politely) to contribute free material for that site. She took exception to being called such names and blogged about it at her SciAm blog. The idiot who had referred to her in such terms was dismissed.

Then Scientific American made a fool of itself.  It removed her blog post. (All the rest follows only as a consequence of that one action).

Scientist and science communicator @DNLee5 declined an offer to blog for free from biology-online.org and got called a ‘whore’.  @DNLee5 posted a thoughtful response on herScientific American‘s blog The Urban Scientist.  A short time later, her response vanished

Scientific American editor-in-chief Mariette DiChristina also made herself out to be very economical with the truth. First she explained that the post was inappropriate and then – when the noise mounted –  said it had been removed for legal reasons. After the fire storm the post was reinstated.

But that was not all. Monica Byrne recounted her story. This Happened by Monica Byrne. The apparently well respected (in some circles) Bora Zivkovic, Blogs Editor for Scientific American, was a regular wolf in sheep’s clothing. His reputation in the blogosphere as being very helpful to women bloggers now seems to have been built on a hidden agenda. (Zivkovic is known as being hypocritical in other circles).

Priya Shetty was astonished at the silence on the blogosphere and was scathing in her article. Silence she argued was condoning the behaviour (as it was).

Bora apologised  – but not before the critical comments had escalated to a level which made it impossible to stay silent. This was when DN Lee’s post was reinstated by Scientific American.  And then further details emerged that this was not just some isolated incident but appeared to be a pattern in Bora’s behaviour.

(UPDATE!  And yet another “But he didn’t just make a mistake, apologize, atone and change his behavior. He harassed, and kept harassing”)

Andrew Maynard performed some ethical calisthenics and suggested that Bora had done so much good that he didn’t deserve to be named and shamed. He deserved “compassion”! He only managed to come out as an apologist for Bora — but his ethical standards came up rather short (in my opinion). The use of positions of power (actual or implied) for sexual harassment cannot be excused – I think – in any circumstances. Greg Laden is another blogger who tries to appear objective but comes out as an apologist for his friend Bora. (I recall that he tried in a very similar style to excuse the disgraced Marc Hauser – also apparently a friend). So I think Greg Laden’s excuses for the wrongdoings of establishment figures are to be discounted.

But the bottom line is that it took much too long for SciAm to show any kind of support – if it could even be called support – for DN Lee. The grudging reinstatement of her post hardly redresses the balance. The many friends of Bora are either silent or are drafting carefully worded apologia in his support. SciAm is now contorting itself to ensure that Bora’s position at SciAm is not jeopardised. I don’t see how SciAm can avoid a public rebuke for Bora.

Shades of Pearl Harbour! Bora! Bora! Bora! will be etched in SciAm’s psyche for some time to come.

(For those who can’t remember the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!  is the Japanese code-word used to indicate that complete surprise had been achieved at Pearl Harbour)

German power play – silly EU CO2 rules for cars delayed at least till 2024

October 15, 2013

It’s the right decision of course. The proposal was for yet another one of the many EU rules where the benefits are doubtful and the implementation would have had no measurable effects on the desired outcome.

But entirely due to German protectionism for its performance car industry – and much to the disappointment of Ford – the limit of 95g of CO2 per km for any vehicle’s emissions has now been delayed at least till 2024!  Well Done Germany!

E 350 BlueTec

E 350 BlueTec

“The emissions limits are part of the EU’s drive to switch Europe to a low-carbon economy and slow the impact of climate change.”

The EU’s CO2 restrictions proposals for power plants and for aircraft and this one for cars are part of of a long line of  “feel-good” proposals which the Greens are so fond of — full of sound and idiocy, accomplishing nothing. So far the EU has not proposed any restrictions on CO2 in human breath.

Hopefully by 2024, the idiocy of CO2 restrictions will have been recognised.

BBC: 

The German government has persuaded its EU partners to delay introducing new limits on CO2 emissions from cars. Environment ministers agreed to revise a deal, reached in July, that set a limit of 95g per km for the average car. That target for CO2 emissions was to take effect in 2020.

But Germany, famous for its high-performance cars, says the 95g limit should not take full effect until 2024. 

Green activists deplored the new delay as a “shameful sop” to polluters.

A leading German Green Party MEP, Rebecca Harms, accused Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel of “riding roughshod” over the EU’s democratic process, because the 2020 agreement had already been reached between the European Parliament and the Council – the EU ministerial grouping.

“Weakening the agreed 2020 limits, which have long been known, is a shameful sop to German car manufacturers and will slow the development of new technologies to deliver more efficient and less polluting cars,” Ms Harms said after the ministers’ vote. …. 

The UK was among the countries that supported the German environment minister’s position on Monday, German ARD news reports.

The German minister, Peter Altmaier, said “it’s not a fight over principles but how we bind the necessary clarity in climate protection with the required flexibility and competitiveness to protect the car industry in Europe”.

Correspondents say there has been intense lobbying by luxury carmakers such as BMW and Daimler, maker of Mercedes, over the EU legislation.

The emissions limits are part of the EU’s drive to switch Europe to a low-carbon economy and slow the impact of climate change.

Have Green Parties in Europe been hijacked by the Far Left?

October 15, 2013

I have a theory that the fall of communism and the subsequent meltdown and demise of the Communist Parties in Western Europe (most immediately dropped the word “communist” from their names) then led to many of the core supporters of the communists hijacking the Green Parties to gain a measure of respectability. This infiltration of the green parties by the forces of the hard-left was enabled by the relative inexperience of the do-gooding environmental enthusiasts who had initially set up the Environmental parties.

It is my thesis that the take-over by the hard left of the Greens started after about 1995 (with the wall falling in 1990) and has been going on ever since. Not just the political parties but even organisations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth and even the WWF have all effectively been taken over by the Far Left. The current behaviour of Greenpeace is a case in point. Today most Green Parties in Europe are indistinguishable in their policies from the Communist Parties of old (in Western Europe) though usually hidden under a cloak of environmentalism.

A recent analysis of voting patterns in the Swedish Parliament seems to support my hypothesis. The Environmental Party (MP) seems to be much more closely aligned to the Far Left Party (V) than to the Social Democrats (S) and closer than the Social Democrats are to the Far Left. This same picture spans all the main policy committees; Traffic, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Business and Industry and Environment and Farming.

Voting Patterns in the Swedish Parliament

In the diagram above the red bars indicate the level of agreement between the Greens (MP) and the Far Left (V) compared to the alignment of MP with S and of S with V.

Environmental parties would like to claim that this is because the Far Left has come closer to them but that doesn’t hold water. In issues of jobs or employment or industry or business or health, the Environmental Party policies are often just traditional Marxist dogma.

“Wicked” Greenpeace casting a dark shadow over the world

October 14, 2013

Wicked Green Pirate: image by http://nowio.deviantart.com/

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have become merely destructive movements. And their self-righteous beliefs in their world-view seem to justify any means. Not just piracy and drug-running, now Greenpeace have also been labelled “wicked” for their opposition to Golden rice. Patrick Moore – who was a co-founder of Greenpeace – called their opposition to GM crops in general and Golden rice in particular a “crime against humanity”.

And now the UK Secretary for the Environment, Owen Paterson called them “wicked” saying “they could be condemning millions of people in the developing world to a premature death”.

BBCOpponents of the development of a type of genetically modified (GM) rice enriched with vitamin A are “wicked”, the environment secretary has said.

In an interview with the Independent, Owen Paterson said they could be condemning millions of people in the developing world to a premature death.

Mr Paterson backed a letter from international scientists calling for the rapid development of “golden rice”. ….  Mr Paterson told the newspaper: “It’s just disgusting that little children are allowed to go blind and die because of a hang-up by a small number of people about this technology.

“I feel really strongly about it. I think what they do is absolutely wicked. There is no other word for it.”

Mr Paterson did not specify any particular groups in his interview but also said opponents of GM technology were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”. ……

 ….. Meanwhile, in a letter to US journal Science, a group of leading academics accused Western non-governmental organisations of fuelling opposition to the development of GM technologies. They wrote: “If ever there was a clear-cut cause for outrage, it is the concerted campaign by Greenpeace and other non-governmental organisations, as well as by individuals, against golden rice.”

Environmental campaigners such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have said there are more effective solutions to vitamin A deficiency.

The Independent adds:

In the strongest attack yet on the anti-GM lobby Mr Paterson told The Independent that NGOs such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that oppose GM technology were “casting a dark shadow over attempts to feed the world”.