Cardiovascular Safety of Cannabis Use in Patients With Chronic Pain

 From practiceupdate.com.

Here is the link.

Here is an excerpt.

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Abstract

Background and Aims

A rising number of countries allow physicians to treat chronic pain with medical cannabis. However, recreational cannabis use has been linked with cardiovascular side effects, necessitating investigations concerning the safety of prescribed medical cannabis.

Methods

Using nationwide Danish registers, patients with chronic pain initiating first-time treatment with medical cannabis during 2018–21 were identified and matched 1:5 to corresponding control patients on age, sex, chronic pain diagnosis, and concomitant use of other pain medication. The absolute risks of first-time arrhythmia (atrial fibrillation/flutter, conduction disorders, paroxysmal tachycardias, and ventricular arrhythmias) and acute coronary syndrome were reported comparing medical cannabis use with no use.

Results

Among 1.88 million patients with chronic pain (46% musculoskeletal, 11% cancer, 13% neurological, and 30% unspecified pain), 5391 patients claimed a prescription of medical cannabis [63.2% women, median age: 59 (inter-quartile range 48–70) years] and were compared with 26 941 control patients of equal sex- and age composition. Arrhythmia was observed in 42 and 107 individuals, respectively, within 180 days. Medical cannabis use was associated with an elevated risk of new-onset arrhythmia {180-day absolute risk: 0.8% [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.6%–1.1%]} compared with no use [180-day absolute risk: 0.4% (95% CI 0.3%–0.5%)]: a risk ratio of 2.07 (95% CI 1.34–2.80) and a 1-year risk ratio of 1.36 (95% CI 1.00–1.73). No significant association was found for acute coronary syndrome [180-day risk ratio: 1.20 (95% CI 0.35–2.04)].

Conclusions

In patients with chronic pain, the use of prescribed medical cannabis was associated with an elevated risk of new-onset arrhythmia compared with no use—most pronounced in the 180 days following the initiation of treatment.

The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang

 Here is the link to the American Handgunner article.

The American Handgunner is a great magazine if you want to learn about guns and how to use them.

Wisconsin-Madison Under Fire Over Mandatory Anti-Racism Training

 From Jonathan Turley.

JT is on target.

Academia does not set a rational example for students.

Diversity training as it exists in academia is too often the problem, not the solution.

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison is at the center of another controversy this week over its diversity training program. The mandatory diversity training at Wisconsin instructs students that “people of color” are incapable of being racist. That claim has long been voiced by radical elements in academia, but its incorporation into a mandatory training program has raised new questions over the leadership of President Jennifer Mnookin, a former UCLA law professor, and Law Dean Daniel Tokaji.

This training is part of the ABA Standard 303’s requirement for all law schools and was presented by consultant Debra Leigh, Vice President for Cultural fluency, equity, & inclusion at St. Cloud Technical & Community College.

The controversy was featured on a couple of conservative sites such as College Fix after law students complained about the first-year law student training. Leigh has long been controversial for her views, including that those who claim to be “colorblind” are racist.

The required reading list for student “Re-Orientation” includes instruction on indications of “white guilt, denial or defensiveness.” It then explains how “People of color, as a social group, do not have the societal, institutional power to oppress white people as a group. An individual person of color abusing a white person – while clearly wrong, (no person should be insulted, hurt, etc.) is acting out a personal racial prejudice, not racism.”

Thus, people who have accused figures like Leigh of being racist in her own writings are categorically wrong and racist themselves. No matter what Leigh says about white people, she cannot be racist.

The explanation in the material is self-serving and shallow. The idea that racism is premised on the ability to yield power is not accepted by many, if not most, citizens. Racism is a matter of prejudice, not power. It is racism whether it is in a country, state, or city dominated politically by whites or racial minorities. It is an expression of ignorance and hate that uses the racial identity of others as the basis for claiming inferior or dangerous qualities.

The site also identified other controversial claims, including how seeking to learn about racism can be racist. Leigh explains that “I want to stop acting like a racist, so please tell me when I do something you think is racist,” is a “common racist [attitude]” or behavior.

She is quoted as adding “While it is vitally important for white anti-racists to work with other white people, this detour again results in white people controlling the direction and focus of anti-racist work.”

The controversy could not come at a worse time for the university, which recently agreed (after considerable debate and pushback) to cut down on its diversity-related materials in exchange for $800 million in funding from the state. The board originally refused the money rather than cut back on the training before finally yielding to the pressure.

The immediate responsibility for the training material falls on the shoulders of Tokaii, whose staff approved this mandatory training and presumably reviewed the material in advance. If they did not, they are equally at fault.

The University issued a response to the College Fix that stated:

“The session was interactive, with ample opportunities for students to engage in dialogue with each other. A core goal was to help students develop their critical thinking skills with respect to these topics.

We do not expect students to automatically accept the views expressed in the document referred to, any more than they would the reasoning of a legal brief, judicial opinion, or their professors… Accordingly, we welcome and encourage vigorous debate over important questions of law and policy, and this session provided a forum for such discourse.”

However, the pamphlet does not present these claims as springboards for discussion, but as facts to be learned in the mandatory training. The pamphlet entitled “Common Racist Attitudes and Behaviors that Indicate a Detour or Wrong Turn into White Guilt, Denial or Defensiveness,” lists 28 potential hazards for well-meaning white people on their redemptive journey.

It starts with the affirmative statements:

“Below is a list of 28 common racist attitudes and behaviors that indicate a detour or wrong turn into white guilt, denial or defensiveness. Each is followed by a statement that is a reality check and consequence for harboring such attitudes.”

It rails against “colorblindness” as a tool of white racial evasion that “negates the cultural values, norms, expectations and life experiences of people of color” and “denies the people of colors’ experience of racism and your experience of privilege.”

These are controversial and contested views that the University of Wisconsin is training law students to accept. There is no indication in the material that these are offered for debate.

Universities are facing increasing legal action for the diversity programs. Recently, we discussed how Penn State lost a critical motion in a lawsuit brought by a faculty member.

Likewise, at Johns Hopkins Hospital chief diversity officer Sherita Golden issued an apology after an outcry over her “privilege” list from the Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity program.

The newsletter stated

“Privilege is an unearned benefit given to people who are in a specific social group. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels, and it provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups…

In the United States, privilege is granted to people who have membership in one or more of these social identity groups: White people, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, cisgender people, males, Christians, middle or owning class people, middle-aged people, and English-speaking people.”

What is most disturbing about the Wisconsin material is the inclusion of political viewpoints as categorical examples of racism, including objections to reverse racism. They include statements that:

A. “People of color are just as racist as white people.”

B. “Affirmative action had a role years ago, but today it’s just reverse racism; now it’s discriminating against white men.”

C. “The civil rights movement, when it began, was appropriate, valuable, needed. But it’s gone to the extreme. The playing field is now level. Now the civil rights movement is no longer working for equality but for revenge.”

For a law school to train students that such viewpoints are inherently racist, including the very premise of reverse racism, is chilling for free speech and inimical to the academic duty to protect a diversity of viewpoints on campus.

The material also tells students that reference to the “Rugged Individual, the Level Playing Field and the Bootstrap Theory” are all racist tropes. Indeed, they are present as the “three of the crown jewels of U.S. social propaganda.”

How is that fostering “discourse,” as claimed by the university? They are stated affirmatively as the object of the training. The suggestion is that students are to adopt and recite, not debate and challenge such viewpoints.

The suggestion that this is a sounding board for discussion is refuted by even a cursory review of the material. Students are given facts to be learned and the material attacks those who question these facts as demonstrably racist. Even those who espouse anti-racist viewpoints are reminded that they remain racist:

“You righteously consider yourselves white people who have evolved beyond our racist conditioning. This is another level of denial. There are no ‘exceptional white people.’ You may have attended many anti-racism workshops; you may not be shouting racist epithets or actively discriminating against people of color, but you still experience privilege based on your white skin color. You benefit from this system of oppression and advantage no matter what your intentions are. This distancing serves only to divide you from potential allies and limit your own learning.”

To question such material on campuses today is to invite cancel campaigns and a pariah status. Few professors want to risk such controversy, which can sharply curtail academic opportunities and even the renewal of academic contracts.

Yet, this training is now being replicated in many other schools. It is part of a rising orthodoxy in higher education. There are important elements to this material which should be part of a dialogue on campuses. Those, however, are lost by the heavy-handed indoctrination shown in this material.

Penn State Loses Major Motion in Race Discrimination Case

 From Jonathan Turley's blog.

JT is on target.

My view is that race (e,g, color) should not be a factor in decisions unless they are relevant.

My guess is that focusing on race as the DEI folks do is more likely than not to make things worse.

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We previously discussed the lawsuit of Dr. Zack K. De Piero against Penn State over an alleged hostile work environment and racial discrimination linked to antiracism training and material. Judge Wendy Beetlestone just denied a critical motion to dismiss in De Piero v. Penn State with strong language concerning DEI programs.

De Piero brought his case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. As previously discussed, there were roughly 40 defendant trustees, professors, and administrators named in the complaint below. This includes Professor Liliana Naydan who was an Associate Professor of English and served as De Piero’s Supervisor and Chair of the English Department and Writing Program Coordinator.

De Piero alleges that he was “individually singled out for ridicule and humiliation” due to his race. He also alleges that he was expected to follow and support the view that “White supremacy exists in the language itself, and therefore, that the English language itself is ‘racist.”

De Piero also alleges that faculty were encouraged to participate in anti-racist workshops and trainings, including one titled “White Teachers are the Problem.”

What is most interesting about the complaint is that it alleges policies that would violate core academic freedom principles from the content of his classes to grading. He alleges that he was told to adopt a race-based grading system. Specifically, he alleges that the failure to grade minorities on par or better than whites would be treated as de facto racist:

“Defendants instructed De Piero that outcomes alone — regardless of the legitimacy of methods of evaluation, mastery of subject matter, or intentions — demonstrate whether a faculty member’s actions are racist or not. Defendants call this “social justice” and “antiracism.” At the core of their ideology, Defendants discriminate twofold on the basis of race. First, Defendants’ bigotry manifests itself in low expectations. They do not expect black or Hispanic students to achieve the same mastery of academic subject matters as other students and therefore insist that deficient performance must be excused. Accurate assessment of abilities, if it happens to show disparate performance among different racial groups, is therefore condemned as “racist.” econd[sic], Defendants’ bigotry manifests itself in overt discrimination against students and faculty who do apply consistent standards, especially white faculty.”

In her denial of Penn State’s motion in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Judge Bettlestone explored the record, including how the DEI Director emailed all employees ‘calling on white people’ to ‘feel terrible’ about their ‘own internalized white supremacy’ and to ‘hold other white people accountable.’” She also noted that the Assistant Vice Provost for Educational Equity “‘led the faculty’ in a breathing exercise in which she instructed the ‘White and non-Black people of color to hold it just a little longer—to feel the pain.’”

The court also recounted how

Defendant Carmen Borges, Associate Director of the AAO, asked to meet with De Piero to discuss his bias report. At that meeting, she responded to De Piero’s concern that he had been made to feel “humiliated, disgraced, harassed, and discriminated against,” by telling him that “[t]here is a problem with the white race” and he should “broaden [his] perspective.” “Until you get it,” she told De Piero, he should continue to attend anti-racism workshops. By November 2021, Borges had resolved De Piero’s initial complaint and had decided that no further action would be taken. She concluded that the “White Teachers are a Problem” training, “while it may be offensive to [him], does not constitute discrimination towards you as an individual and does not rise to a violation of the University’s Non-Discrimination policy.”

In a balanced opinion, Judge Bettlestone stated

“Training on concepts such as ‘white privilege’, “white fragility’, implicit bias, or critical race theory can contribute positively to nuanced, important conversations about how to form a healthy and inclusive working environment [. . . ] But the way these conversations are carried out in the workplace matters: When employers talk about race—any race, [. . .] —with a constant drumbeat of essentialist, deterministic, and negative language, they risk liability under federal law.”

These lawsuits are mounting against universities, which continue to burn through funds to defend these controversial statements. In other cases, we have seen officials immediately remove statements when they become public. For example, at Johns Hopkins Hospital chief diversity officer Sherita Golden issued an apology after an outcry over her “privilege” list from the Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Health Equity program.

The newsletter stated

“Privilege is an unearned benefit given to people who are in a specific social group. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels, and it provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups…

In the United States, privilege is granted to people who have membership in one or more of these social identity groups: White people, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, cisgender people, males, Christians, middle or owning class people, middle-aged people, and English-speaking people.”

As is sometimes the case, when exposed publicly, officials will often disavow their own program material or statements. This was in a newsletter that the office obviously reviewed, edited, and released. Now, however, Golden insists that it does not capture the views of the office and expressed “deep regret.”

In the case of Penn State, the school appears set on trying a case that will only increase the costs and negative coverage for the school. It is often the case that administrators lack the courage to challenge DEI programs or material. The alternative of spending potentially millions on litigation and damages can be viewed as rational rather than risking personal backlash for reversing course.

Supersonic low-boom aircraft progress

Garrett Reim at aviationweek.com.

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NASA unveiled its X-59 Low Boom Flight Demonstration aircraft at a ceremony at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facilities.

The experimental aircraft, which was designed and built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin, promises to dampen sonic booms into a mere thud—about 75 perceived dB. It was formally presented to the public in a rollout ceremony on Jan. 12.

Despite problems that had delayed the program from its scheduled flight debut in 2021, there are now no obvious obstacles in the way of the X-59 flying for the first time in the late spring or early summer of this year, says David Richardson, Lockheed Martin program director for the X-59. Lockheed Martin is looking at engine runs in March and taxi tests in April, with first flight coming perhaps sometime in May or June, he says.

One of the issues that had bedeviled the aircraft was stray solder within a flight computer that was causing a short circuit, Richardson says. “There had been some strange behaviors,” he says, noting that it took nine months to find the root cause of the problem. “But we’re back in the saddle again and going forward.”

The X-59 is designed to break up shockwaves that typically cause a sonic boom when an aircraft passes the speed of sound. One way it does that is with a long nose that measures about a third of the aircraft’s 100-ft. length. To reduce shockwaves coming from a protruding cockpit canopy, the X-59 also does not have a conventional transparent windscreen. Instead, NASA developed the eXternal Vision System, a series of high-resolution cameras and a 4k monitor that allow the pilot to see forward and below the nose of the aircraft.

The Low Boom Flight Demonstration aircraft is designed to fly at speeds up to Mach 1.4 (the Concorde had a maximum speed of Mach 2.04) and at an altitude of about 55,000 ft. It is powered by a GE Aviation F414-GE-100, a derivative of the jet engine that powers Sweden’s Saab JAS 39E Gripen fighter. Because NASA plans to fly the X-59 so regularly above the sound barrier, it expects the engine will limit the lifespan of the aircraft to about 1,000 hr.

“Fighters are usually in afterburner for maybe seconds. We stay there for minutes,” Richardson says. “We're actually burning the life out of this engine.”

The X-59 is part of NASA’s overarching Quiet Supersonic Transport (Quesst) mission, an initiative to develop predictive tools for sonic booms and measure the reaction of people on the ground to a dampened sonic boom. NASA is planning 2-2.5 years of flight tests of the X-59 above five different representative populations in the U.S. to gauge the public reaction to the aircraft’s sound, says Peter Coen, Quesst integration manager for NASA.

NASA aims to gather enough data by 2031 for the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) to craft noise regulations for supersonic flights, Coen says. “That’s when CAEP has told us they would like to bring the standard to the full committee for a decision,” he says.

“Disinformation” declared to be the World’s Greatest Threat

 From Jonathan Turley's blog.

I have long marveled at the raw brain power of many of the Elite. I have also long marveled at how buggy is the software installed in many of those brains.

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World Economic Forum Declares “Disinformation” to be the World’s Greatest Threat

The World Economic Forum has surveyed the world’s experts and issued its 2024 “Global Risks Report.” The international elite of experts have declared that the number one threat to humanity is not terrorism or pandemic or even climate change (which is second), but “misinformation and disinformation.” Of course, that means that the only hope for humanity is censorship and speech controls. The report shows just how engrained this anti-free speech movement has become among the world elite from media to business to politics.

The absurd finding is consistent with the warning of other international figures and groups. We previously discussed how WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has supported censorship to combat what he calls the “infodemic.”

So “1,490 experts across academia, business, government, the international community and civil society” looked at all of the world’s military, economic, and environmental threats and concluded that the greatest threat to humanity is too much free speech. A “global risk” is defined as “the possibility of the occurrence of an event or condition which, if it occurs, would negatively impact a significant proportion of global GDP, population or natural resources.”

We have seen how during the Covid crisis “experts” supported censorship and blacklisting when their views were challenged by colleagues and the public. Earlier positions treated as gospel in the press have been discredited. For example, a recent scientific review by 12 researchers from leading universities found little support for the claims that masks reduced Covid exposures.

The Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) initially rejected the use of a mask mandate. However, the issue became a political weapon as politicians and the press claimed that questioning masks was anti-science and even unhinged. In April 2020, the CDC reversed its position and called for the masking of the entire population, including children as young as 2 years old. The mask mandate and other pandemic measures like the closing of schools are now cited as fueling emotional and developmental problems in children.

The closing of schools and businesses was also challenged by some critics as unnecessary. Many of those critics were also censored. It now appears that they may have been right. Many countries did not close schools and did not experience increases in Covid. However, we are now facing alarming drops in testing scores and alarming rises in medical illness among the young.

Masks became a major social and political dividing line in politics and the media. Maskless people were chased from stores and denounced in Congress. Then-CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said during a Senate hearing that “face masks are the most important powerful health tool we have.”

For years, scientists faced censorship for even raising the lab theory as a possible explanation for the virus. Their reputations and careers were shredded by a media flash mob. The Washington Post declared this a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times’ Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli was calling any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

When a Chinese researcher told Fox News that this was man-made, the network was attacked and the left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her with a “pants on fire rating.”

The extensive censorship and blacklisting that has occurred over the last four years protected such experts from scrutiny and criticism. Many of those same experts are now listing what they deem disinformation to be the world’s greatest threat. The obvious solution to this existential threat is, of course, to allow “experts” to control or regulate what people read or hear to eliminate harmful disinformation. The question is whether the public can be, again, spooked into surrendering this core human right by world elite.

The Feds Shouldn’t Subsidize Fancy, Risky Beach Houses

 John Stossel at reason.com.

JS is on target.

I live in Miami - on the water - you're subsidizing me. Thank you.

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Sen. John Kennedy (R–La.) is upset because Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) wants to limit federal flood insurance.

But Paul is right. In my new video, Paul says, "[It] shouldn't be for rich people."

That should be obvious. Actually, federal flood insurance shouldn't be for anyone. Government has no business offering it. That's a job for the insurance business.

Of course, when actual insurance businesses, with their own money on the line, checked out what some people wanted them to insure, they said, "Heck no! If you build in a dangerous place, risk your own money!"

Politically connected homeowners who own property on the edges of rivers and oceans didn't like that. They whined to congressmen, crying, "We can't get insurance! Do something!"

Craven politicians obliged. Bureaucrats at the Federal Emergency Management Agency even claim they have to issue government insurance because, "There weren't many affordable options for private flood insurance, especially for people living in high-risk places."

But that's the point! A valuable function of private insurance is to warn people away from high-risk places.

But instead of heeding that warning, politicians said, "Don't worry. Since private companies won't insure you, we will."

Of course, the politicians claimed they'd price the insurance properly so they wouldn't lose taxpayer money.

"We must [do] everything we can to protect taxpayer dollars." said then-Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.).

But Paul points out, "Like most things in government, they continue to lose money."

So far, the government lost $36 billion of your money.

Yet they still insure people who can't get private insurance.

Kennedy thinks that's fine. "The first role of government is to protect people and property," he shouts from the Senate floor. "I thought this is what libertarians believe."

No, Senator, we believe government should protect our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and then leave us mostly alone.

By insuring risky property, Paul points out, "You're actually doing the opposite of what you would think government would want to do; you're promoting bad behavior."

Exactly.

Years ago, federal flood insurance encouraged my bad behavior.

I wanted to build a house on a beach. When I asked my father to help with the mortgage, he said, "No! Are you crazy? It's on the edge of an ocean!"

Dad was right. It was a dumb place to build. But I built anyway, because federal flood insurance, idiotically, guaranteed that I wouldn't lose money.

I enjoyed my house for ten years, but then, as predicted, it washed away.

It was an upsetting loss, but thanks to Uncle Sam, I didn't lose a penny.

I'm grateful. But it's wrong that you were forced to pay for my beach house.

Paul is right to say that people with second homes "should not get insurance through the government."

Actually, no one should get flood insurance through the government, but Paul fears that his irresponsible colleagues won't approve killing the handout altogether. Instead, he just proposes limiting the handout to primary residences.

It would be a start.

But even this slight reform is too much for Kennedy, who says, "If you earn enough to buy a second home, we shouldn't discourage that."

No, we shouldn't.

But we shouldn't subsidize it with taxpayer money!

Doesn't he get the difference?

Federal flood insurance is like buying drunk drivers new cars.

Adding to the idiocy, there is no limit on how many times the government will give away your money.

"One home in Virginia," says Paul, "they've rebuilt the house 41 times!"

I took your money once. I apologize for taking it, but when my government offers me a handout, I feel stupid not taking it.

Let's get rid of federal flood insurance and all subsidies that encourage people to do foolish things.

More on the Japan Dash 8 – A350 crash

 From Aviation Daily.

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Dash 8 Entered Runway Without Permission Before Haneda Accident, ATC Transcript Shows

The Japan Coast Guard De Havilland Canada Dash 8 struck by an arriving Japan Airlines (JAL) Airbus A350 at Tokyo International Airport Jan. 3 was on the runway despite air traffic control (ATC) instructions to hold short on an intersecting taxiway—directions that one of the Dash 8 pilots read back correctly, a transcript released by Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) shows.

“Tower, JA722A C,” someone from the Japan Coast Guard (JCG) Dash 8-300 radioed to Tokyo Haneda (HND) tower ATC, indicating the aircraft is checking in from Taxiway C with its tail number as a call sign, according to the transcript.

“JA722A, Tokyo tower good evening,” a controller responded. “Number one, taxi to holding point C5.”

The “number one” suggests the aircraft is next in line to depart. The rest is clear: Move to the marked stopping point on taxiway C5, which connects to HND’s Runway 34 Right (34R).

“Taxi to holding point C5 JA722A, number one, thank you,” someone on the JCG Dash 8 said.

But instead of stopping at the hold-short line on C5, the Dash 8 taxied onto the runway.

Ten seconds before the exchange began, ATC cleared JAL Flight 516 (JAL516), the inbound A350-900, to land on 34R.

Surveillance video shows the Dash 8 moved onto 34R and stopped—something a pilot would do if executing a “line up and wait” ATC command that gives an aircraft permission to enter the runway but not depart.

Nearly 50 sec. after the Dash 8 stopped, the A350, which touched down seconds before closer to the runway end, struck the national guard aircraft. Five of the six Dash 8 occupants died, while all 379 onboard JAL516 evacuated safely once the widebody came to rest.

According to a transcript excerpt released by MLIT, JAL516 contacted Tokyo Tower at 5:43:02 p.m. local time, and was instructed by tower controller to continue its approach to runway 34R. JAL516, first in line to land, read back ATC’s instructions.

JAL516 was then cleared to land at 5:44:56 p.m. and a pilot read back the instructions.

At 5:45:11 p.m., JA722A called into tower frequency notifying of its position on taxiway C. ATC gave the instructions to proceed to the C5 hold line, which JA722A confirmed eight seconds later.

Communications from several other aircraft are detailed in the transcript excerpt, including departing Delta Air Lines and JAL flights told to hold short at C1 as well as another arriving JAL flight.

The transcript ends before the collision. A JAL statement puts JAL516’s arrival time at 5:47 p.m.

The exchange suggests how ATC instructions were given and followed will be one of the key focus areas for investigators as they work to piece together the accident’s chain of events.

Also of interest will be the status and condition of airfield lighting and safety aids. A Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) issued Dec. 27, 2023, and effective through late February lists several airfield aids at HND as out of service. Among them: lights that illuminate stop bars along the connections between Taxiway C to the accident runway, including C5. Runway 34L centerline lights were also listed as inoperative. It is not clear if the C5 stop bar lights or centerline lights were working at the time of the accident.

Investigators will also look closely at how an aircraft could be on an active HND runway for nearly 1 min. without being detected, even in the dark. An ICAO document shows HND is one of many airports that uses surface movement radar—a long-used method of supplementing the visual view of the airfield controllers have. The system’s performance and controllers’ familiarity with it are other likely topics investigators will probe.

The Japan Safety Transport Board (JTSB) is leading the accident investigation with assistance from several organizations, including Airbus and investigators from France’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA). JTSB has recovered the Dash 8 cockpit voice recorder.

The accident caused the cancellation of 137 domestic and four international flights from HND on Jan. 3, MLIT said.

Trudeau’s destruction of Canadian freedom

 From Jonathan Turley.

Canada no longer is a free country.

The US has been trending in the same direction.

Wake up!! Vote for freedom - or at least those who will do the least damage.

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Oh Canada: Government Blocks Citizenship Due to Russian Conviction for Criticizing the Ukrainian War

I have long been a critic of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who has devastated free speech in that country while assuming sweeping authoritarian powers. Now, his administration has blocked the citizenship of Maria Kartasheva because she has a conviction in Russia. The crime? Free speech. Kartasheva was convicted in Russia for criticizing the war in Ukraine. She was literally pulled out of a citizenship ceremony by Canadian officials and now fears deportation and incarceration in Russia.

It is essential that we spread the word on Kartasheva’s situation to put pressure on the government to make sure that she is not deported and to finish its review of the case to move forward with her citizenship.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada yanked the citizenship application after learning of the conviction under Putin’s draconian laws. She was charged with the wartime offense of disseminating “deliberately false information” about Russia forces.

She has not lived in Russia since 2019 and has lived in Ottawa as a tech worker. She is also the co-founder of a grassroots activist group for democracy in Russia. In other words, she is everything that you would want in a new citizen. Indeed, unlike Trudeau, she knows the value of free speech and how easily it is lost to government agencies.

Notably, the charge was based on two blog posts that Kartasheva wrote and published in Canada.

She expressed disgust at reports in March 2022 that Russian troops had killed Ukrainians in the town of Bucha. Not only did she write the blogs while living in Canada, she notified Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada about the charges and supplied the underlying papers to the government.

Nevertheless, her citizenship ceremony was scheduled only to have an official block her from becoming a citizen.

Oh, but it gets even worse.

According to a press report, Kartasheva “was arrested in absentia by a judge sanctioned by Canada, and then convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail by a Moscow court that is also under Canadian sanctions.”

That brings us to the final and most chilling aspect of this drama. The Canadian government informed Kartasheva that her conviction in Russia aligns with a Criminal Code offense in Canada relating to false information.

That’s right. Canada is concerned because it also has criminalized speech and Kartasheva has used free speech to spread what her government considered false or misleading information.

For example, Section 372(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada makes it unlawful for any person to convey, cause, or procure to be conveyed false information with the intent to alarm or injure anyone.

The government cracked down on Internet speech despite opposition from the public and pushed 2021 Bill C-36 to impose $70,000 fines for legal content deemed “likely to foment detestation or vilification.”

So this brave woman made it all the way to the West to live in freedom only to find that Canada also puts people in jail for voicing dissenting or opposing viewpoints. The problem is not that Kartasheva is fundamentally different from most Canadians. The problem is that Canada is legally not that different from Russia on free speech.

Asraam ground-to-air working in Ukraine

 Tony Osborne at Aviation Week.

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A rapidly developed surface-to-air missile system based on MBDA’s Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile (Asraam) has achieved hit rates of 90% against Russian targets in Ukraine, the UK defense ministry has revealed.

The air defense system was developed by a joint team from the UK defense ministry and MBDA and fielded in just four months, defense officials announced in late December.

Details have finally emerged following the August 2023 publication of a single image of the system on the front line in Ukraine. That image showed the Asraam missiles mounted on launch rails fitted to a Supacat high-mobility vehicle and possibly cued by an electro-optical system.

Asraam is the primary short-range air-to-air weapon of the UK Royal Air Force’s Eurofighter Typhoon and Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But in summer 2022, the joint team proved that the weapon could be ground launched, leading to the system’s quick development.

The infrared-guided missile is capable of being launched against targets without a direct line of sight, securing lock on after launch.

“Within four months of initiating the surface-launched Asraam project, these air defense systems were developed, manufactured, trialed and Ukrainian crews trained on their usage, on UK soil, before being transferred into Ukrainian hands,” officials say.

The effort demonstrated “the best of British engineering ingenuity,” officials say, noting that the Ukrainian armed forces have not only become adapt at using them, but have also asked for more missiles.

The surface-launched Asraam makes use of older missile stocks that are being retired from the UK inventory in favor of the Block 6 version, which features an improved seeker.

The introduction of the ground-launched Asraam follows the unveiling of a ground-launched version of the MBDA Brimstone air-to-ground missile, which was rapidly developed and fielded to attack gatherings of Russian armored vehicles.

This is the first time the Asraam has been ground launched, although the weapon was developed into the radio frequency-guided Common Anti-Air Modular Missile (CAMM), which soft launches vertically from a canister for land and naval use. CAMM has already secured export success in both domains.

Disclosure of the Asraam system emerged as UK Defense Secretary Grant Shapps announced on Dec. 29 that the UK would provide more Asraams to boost Ukrainian ground-based air defenses. This followed a series of attacks using air- and sea-launched cruise missiles, the Khinzal aeroballistic missile and one-way attack uncrewed aircraft systems.

The Hockey Stick and Mann’s ignorance and dishonesty

 Stephen McIntyre discusses the Hockey Stick's discover's ignorance and dishonesty.

Another nail in climate alarmism.

Here is the link.

Here are some excerpts.

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In today’s post, I will report on some excellent work on MBH98 by Hampus Soderqvist, who discovered an important but previously unknown Mike’s Nature Trick: Mann’s list of proxies for AD1400 and other early steps was partly incorrect (Nature link now dead – but see NOAA or here). Mann’s AD1400 list included four series that were not actually used (two French tree ring series and two Moroccan tree ring series), while it omitted four series that were actually used. This also applied to his AD1450 and AD1500 steps. Mann also used an AD1650 step that was not reported.

Soderqvist’s discovery has an important application.

The famous MBH98 reconstruction was a splice of 11 different stepwise reconstructions with steps ranging from AD1400 to AD1820. The proxy network in the AD1400 step (after principal components) consisted 22 series, increasing to 112 series (after principal components) in the AD1820 step. Mann reported several statistics for the individual steps, but, as discussed over and over, withheld the important verification r2 statistic. By withholding the results of the individual steps, Mann made it impossible for anyone to carry out routine statistical tests on his famous reconstruction.

However, by reverse engineering of the actual content of each network, Soderqvist was also able to calculate each step of the reconstruction – exactly matching each subset in the spliced reconstruction. Soderqvist placed his results online at his github site a couple of days ago and I’ve collated the results and placed them online here as well. Thus, after almost 25 years, the results of the individual MBH98 steps are finally available.

Remarkably, Soderqvist’s discovery of the actual composition of the AD1400 (and other early networks) sheds new light on the controversy about principal components that animated Mann’s earliest realclimate articles – on December 4, 2004 as realclimate was unveiled. Both articles were attacks on us (McIntyre and McKitrick) while our GRL submission was under review and while Mann was seeking to block publication. Soderqvist’s work shows that some of Mann’s most vehement claims were untrue, but, oddly, untrue in a way that was arguably unhelpful to the argument that he was trying to make. It’s quite weird.

Soderqvist is a Swedish engineer, who, as @detgodehab, discovered a remarkable and fatal flaw in the “signal-free” tree ring methodology used in PAGES2K (see X here). Soderqvist had figured this out a couple of years ago. But I was unaware of this until a few days ago when Soderqvist mentioned it in comments on a recent blog article on MBH98 residuals.

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Soderqvist’s discovery that MBH98 used six North American PCs not only refutes Mann’s claim that he used two North American PCs, but refutes his claim that he used Preisendorfer’s Rule N to select two PCs. Soderqvist’s discovery raises a new question: how did Mann decide to retain six North American PCs in the AD1400: it obviously wasn’t Preisendorfer’s Rule N. So what was the procedure? Mann has never revealed it.

Subsequent to the original controversy, I’ve written many Climate Audit posts on properties of principal components calculations, including (some of what I regard as the most interesting) Climate Audit posts on Chaldni patterns arising from principal components applied to spatially autocorrelated tree ring series. The takeaway is that, for a large-scale temperature reconstruction, one should not use any PCs below the PC1. The reason is blindingly obvious once stated: the PC2 and lower PCs contain negative signs for approximately half the locations i.e. they flip the “proxies” upside down. If the tree ring data are indeed temperature “proxies”, they should be used in the correct orientation. Thus, no need for lower order PCs. In many important cases, the PC1 is similar to a simple average of the series. Lower order PCs tend to be contrasts between regional groupings. In the North American network, southeastern US cypress form a grouping that is identifiable in the PC5 (centered) and, needless to say, the stripbark bristlecones form another distinct grouping.

He then observed that, under MM05 (correct) centering, the “hockey stick” pattern appeared in the PC4. For the subsequent inverse regression step of MBH98 methodology, it didn’t matter whether the hockey stick pattern appeared in the PC1; inclusion even as a PC4 was sufficient to impart a hockey stick shape to the resulting reconstruction:

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Our response has always been that the relevant question was not whether the hockey stick pattern of the stripbark bristlecones was a distinctive pattern within the North American tree ring network, but whether this pattern was local and specialized, as opposed to an overall property; and, if local to stripbark bristlecones, whether the stripbark bristlecones were magic world thermometers. The 2006 NAS panel recommended that stripbark bristlecones be avoided in temperature reconstructions, but their recommendation was totally ignored. They continued in use in Mann et al 2008, PAGES2K and many other canonical reconstructions, none of which are therefore independent of Mann et al 1998-99.

A writing lesson from John Cochrane

 From John Cochrane at Substack.

You might want to pledge support to JC's Substack endeavor.

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WRITING LESSON, COMMENT ON TOM FRIEDMAN

One of my writing maxims is, don’t piss people off if you don’t have to. It’s so tempting to put little comments on this or that in the introduction of a paper. But if a reader disagrees with your little nuggets, then you’ve lost him or her for the rest of the paper. Only put in assertions that are necessary to the point in the paper.

I am reminded of this lesson by an otherwise interesting essay in the New York Times by Tom Friedman. The essay asserts that history is often shaped by human decisions, and explains bad decisions made by Hamas, and bad decisions made by Israel. More on the content later.

But in a meandering build up to the analysis, Friedman allows himself this comment: (my emphasis)

For the last few years….much of my work was decrying bad choices made by big players: Vladimir Putin’s tightening dictatorship and aggression, culminating in his brutal invasion of Ukraine; Xi Jinping’s reversal of China’s opening; Israel’s election of the most right-wing government in its history; the cascading effects of climate change; the loss of control over America’s southern border; and, maybe most ominously, an authoritarian drift, not only in European countries like Turkey, Poland and Hungary but in America’s own Republican Party as well.

Remember, we are building up to an analysis of Hamas and Israeli decisions in the last 10 years. Already, labeling the current government “most right-wing” in history doesn’t invite its supporters, perhaps ill-informed, to listen to the argument.

Friedman loses Bjorn Lomborg readers with “cascading effects of climate change.” Leave aside whether they are right or not. They think they are, this article is not going to contravene the wealth of facts they bring to the table, nor has the article anything to do with climate change. Friedman simply asserts as fact something that a good fraction of people think is not a fact, and unnecessarily. Well, they think, if he’s closed minded, tribal, uninformed, and wrong about this, he must be the same about Israel.

About half the country does not see an “authoritarian drift” in America’s Republican Party. They will point out that though it’s not obvious Trump knows much about the Constitution, there is no articulated political theory praising authoritarianism in anything he says. No Mein Kampf, no “doctrine of fascism.” Sure, he flatters dictators on occasion in the same way he flatters New York Zoning Board officials. Denying the election loss is a narcissistic tragedy, but not an “authoritarian drift.” Using the legal system to ban opponents from the ballot on the other hand… Well, let’s not go too far channeling Trump Republicans, here, you get my point. You do not have to accept that Republicans are “authoritarian” to accept Friedman’s later arguments. So why throw in the swipe, and undermine the credibility of later arguments? If he’s wrong about Republicans, Republicans will say, surely he’s wrong about Israel too.

Well, I’ll amend my motto to, don’t write things that piss people off needlessly unless you’re absolutely sure none of them are reading, or you don’t care if they tune you out. Perhaps Friedman and the Times care nothing about trying to persuade Republican readers, or perhaps the times doubts there are any left.

The shame is, at least half of it is a good essay. Friedman starts with Dubai:

…two generations of monarchs in the United Arab Emirates … had a powerful vision of how the U.A.E. in general and the emirate of Dubai in particular could choose to be Arab, modern, pluralistic, globalized and embracing of a moderate interpretation of Islam. Their formula incorporates a radical openness to the world, an emphasis on free markets and education, a ban on extremist political Islam, relatively little corruption, a strong rule of law promulgated from the top down and a relentless commitment to economic diversification, talent recruitment and development.

There are a million things one could criticize about Dubai, … But the fact that Arabs and others keep wanting to live, work, play and start businesses here indicates that the leadership has converted its intensely hot promontory on the Persian Gulf into one of the world’s most prosperous crossroads for trade, tourism, transport, innovation, shipping and golf — with a skyline of skyscrapers, one over 2,700 feet high, that would be the envy of Hong Kong or Manhattan.

Friedman’s first (finally) point, which I liked because I agree yet find it well expressed, is that Hamas and Gaza could have chosen to be Dubai. And they tragically did not do so

Compare that with Gaza, …

Among the most ignorant and vile things that have been said about this Gaza war is that Hamas had no choice — that its wars with Israel, culminating on Oct. 7 with a murderous rampage, the kidnappings of Israelis as young as 10 months and as old as 86 and the rape of Israeli women, could somehow be excused as a justifiable jailbreak by pent-up males.

No.

Let’s go to the videotape: In September 2005, Ariel Sharon completed a unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli forces and settlements from Gaza,… In short order, Hamas began attacking the crossing points between Gaza and Israel to show that even if Israel was gone, the resistance movement wasn’t over; these crossing points were a lifeline for commerce and jobs…

In January 2006, the Palestinians held elections hoping to give the Palestinian Authority legitimacy to run Gaza and the West Bank.

News to me,

the Bush team insisted that Hamas be permitted to run without embracing Oslo, hoping that it would lose and this would be its ultimate refutation.

Well, that worked out well. To the choice:

Hamas then faced a critical choice: Now that it controlled the Palestinian parliament, it could work within the Oslo Accords and the Paris protocol that governed economic ties between Israel, Gaza and the West Bank — or not.

Hamas chose not to …

These were fateful choices. Once Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza, Palestinians were left, for the first time ever, with total control over a piece of land. Yes, it was an impoverished slice of sand and coastal seawater, with some agricultural areas. And it was not the ancestral home of most of its residents. But it was theirs to build anything they wanted.

Had Hamas embraced Oslo and chosen to build its own Dubai, not only would the world have lined up to aid and invest in it; it would have been the most powerful springboard conceivable for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, in the heart of the Palestinian ancestral homeland. Palestinians would have proved to themselves, to Israelis and to the world what they could do when they had their own territory.

But Hamas decided instead to make Gaza a springboard for destroying Israel. …

Hamas is not simply engaged in some pure-as-the-driven-snow anticolonial struggle against Israel. Only Hamas’s useful idiots on U.S. college campuses would believe that. Hamas is engaged in a raw power struggle with Fatah over who will control Gaza and the West Bank, and it’s engaged in a power struggle in the region — alongside other pro-Muslim Brotherhood parties and regimes (like Turkey and Qatar) — against pro-Western monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and the U.A.E. and military-led regimes like Egypt’s.

In that struggle, Hamas wanted Gaza isolated and in conflict with Israel because that allowed Hamas to maintain its iron-fisted political and Islamist grip over the strip, foregoing elections and controlling all the smuggling routes in and out, which funded its tunnels and war machine and the lifestyle of its leaders and loyalists…

But it’s easy to accept well written argument that aligns with your priors. I found his analysis of Israel harder going:

Benjamin Netanyahu, …also made choices. And even before this war, he made terrible ones — for Israel and for Jews all over the world.

The list is long: Before this war, Netanyahu actively worked to keep the Palestinians divided and weak by strengthening Hamas in Gaza with billions of dollars from Qatar, while simultaneously working to discredit and delegitimize the more moderate Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, committed to Oslo and nonviolence in the West Bank. That way Netanyahu could tell every U.S. president, in effect: I’d love to make peace with the Palestinians, but they are divided, and moreover, the best of them can’t control the West Bank and the worst of them control Gaza. So what do you want from me?

Netanyahu’s goal has always been to destroy the Oslo option once and for all.

There is a difference between writing about facts and actions, and writing to assert motivations. The fact is Netanyahu allowed direct subsidies to Hamas, from Qatar, from the EU, from the US, from the UN, and was pretty asleep at the wheel about security threats. Was he just waiting it out, hoping to keep down the violence and someday they would come to their senses? Was he in fact negligently left-wing, slowly encouraging a two state solution to emerge as Gazan life got slowly better, first directly then under the Abraham Accords? The PA is “committed to Oslo and nonviolence?” That’s a stretch. What’s the evidence for these assertions about his motivations?

Netanyahu’s greatest political achievement has been to persuade Israelis and the world that it’s never the right time to talk about the morally corrosive occupation and how to help build a credible Palestinian partner to take it off Israel’s hands.

Really, the Israelis can “build up” a “Palestinian partner?” Too bad Friedman didn’t let the US on to that magic sauce in Iraq and Afghanistan. I also note Friedman is back to Israel alone must somehow work this miracle. The more likely path is that Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait and the U.A.E., Egypt, Abraham Accord countries who are sick of Hamas and Iran will step in and gradually make life better for Palestinians.

Well, you see my priors are different here. I was reading Friedman to put my priors to the test, to hear a different view, to be persuaded. If he had not needlessly framed the essay with what I regard as silly and ignorant (in the technical sense) virtue signaling on climate change and Republicans, and an announcement of bias against Netanyahu, I might well have changed my mind more.

Don’t piss people off if you don’t have to. It’s not easy, and I find myself doing it too often.