Apparently, ABC is so embarrassed by the debate performance of its midgets that it’s authorized one of its performers to depart, briefly, from the approved script

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Emmy Award winning abc news team

Witch doctory returns

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New study finds top medical schools value left-wing activism over science

Jay Greene:

…. My study — the first to document the prevalence of ideology in medical school curricula — focuses on schools’ publicly available course catalogs. 

Using the US News and World Report rankings, I started with the top-ranked institutions in the country, then worked my way down the list. 

I searched for how often specific keywords appear in each catalog’s courses, a widely used research technique known as “content analysis.”

Specifically, I looked for the usage of eight politicized words and eight scientific or medical terms that directly bear on medical education. 

Think “race/racism” and “equity” compared to “chemistry” and “physiology.”

All told, across the course catalogs I analyzed, politicized words appeared more than 2,400 times — while scientific and medical terms appeared about 1,900 times. 

In the top 10 medical schools with publicly accessible course catalogs, including top-ranked Harvard Medical School, only those at Duke University and Washington University skew more scientific than political, though not by much of a margin.

At Stanford’s School of Medicine, ideological terms appeared more than twice as often as scientific ones — and a look at specific Stanford courses makes it obvious how things have gone astray. 

Stanford offers a course called “Global Leaders and Innovators in Human and Planetary Health” that focuses on “environmental sustainability” and “social and environmental justice and equality.”

By contrast, the word “obesity” does not appear a single time in Stanford’s course catalogue, even though it poses one of the greatest challenges to American health.

The Baylor College of Medicine in Texas offers a course on “Human Rights and Medicine” that covers “immigration reform,” “the use of torture,” “gender issues” and “issues of distributive justice affected by militarization in society.” 

Judging from its catalog’s complete lack of words that are commonly used in medical research, like “randomized” and “placebo,” teaching medical students how to interpret — let alone conduct — research appears not to be Baylor’s priority.

Even courses with titles that seem to cover traditional medical topics have been infected by ideology, according to their descriptions. 

For example, Harvard Medical School offers “Integrated Human Pathophysiology” — which somehow incorporates topics such as “health equity” and “climate change.”

The Icahn School of Medicine’s catalog lists “Introduction to Anesthesiology,” which despite the title is described as “a core component of the Human Rights and Social Justice Scholars program” that’s “intended to provide students with a space for building critical thinking and community around social justice work.” 

It’s unclear whether students also learn how to administer anesthesia.

The degree to which ideological goals are eclipsing scientific ones extends well beyond top-ranked medical schools.

In 2022, the Association of American Medical Colleges issued competencies that effectively control what all these institutions teach. 

The list of topics that medical students must master includes everything from “intersectionality” to “colonization” to “systems of power, privileges, and oppression.”

While non-elite schools tend to have less politicized language today, that’s all but certain to change over time: The activists who dictate medical curriculum are demanding more radicalism.

Yet the de-emphasis on medical education will inevitably create a crisis of physician quality, which is already closer than Americans realize. 

UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine, which doesn’t publicly detail its curricula, is already well known for introducing divisive politics into its courses. 

According to internal documents shared with the Washington Free Beacon, the percentage of UCLA students who fail the frequent standardized “shelf exams” has soared, with more than half in some recent years failing routine tests on emergency medicine, pediatrics and other critical fields.

Just came back home, and learned that there was a second assassination attempt, but coverage of that is available everywhere, so try this to lighten your mood:

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From her speech, it’s reasonable to think that this woman attended college. Not that it did her any good.

Drive the discount stores out of the slums, pay higher prices at the small retailers who stay behind, and the mob will then turn on them; in fact, it already has.

And at filling stations too, Tim; we need a victory, and your fellow morons can provide it

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(I paid $1.67.9 per gallon in NH January 20, 2021: I remember, because Joe Biden was being sworn in while I filled my tank.)

Tim Walz Wants You to Have “Hard Conversations” With People at the Grocery Store

Kamala’s running mate Tim Walz was campaigning in Wisconsin this weekend when he told a crowd that the race is going to be a battle in which you speak to people in the grocery store and ask them if they’ve voted yet.

“This thing’s going to be a battle for the next 52 days,” he said. “It’s gonna be won in rooms just like this. It’s gonna be won door-to-door, call-to-call, $5 donation, trying to have that hard conversation in the produce aisle with the person you saw there at the grocery store.”

If I were a Democrat, I don’t think I’d harangue strangers while they’re standing in front of the meat section staring at rib eyes they can no longer afford, or at the check-out counter, paying three-times what they were paying in 2020. But then, I’m not a Democrat, so I’m not stupid.

Not even if they paid ME

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And we’ll even throw in Pennsylvania

EV Dealers Are So Desperate to Offload Stock That They're Offering Lease Deals For $20 a Month

How soft is the new EV car market? Some EV vehicles have been on their lots for so long that they're offering lease terms so generous, they may as well be giving them away.

A Kia dealer in Virginia only gets a couple of inquiries a month for EVs. The price tag of new vehicles scares them off, says Finance Director Ramon Nawabi. He's got a few EV 6 SUVs that have been on the lot for six months that Kia is now offering discounted leases on top of the $7,500 EV tax credit “just to move the car,” he says. “In a sense, we’re giving them away.”  

That $7500 tax credit helped dealers sell a million EVs in 2022. However, the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act severely limited how that $7500 tax credit could be applied. There are now price caps for EVs ($80,000 for SUVs and trucks; $55,000 for cars), and the batteries must be American-made. Also, the vehicles must be assembled in the U.S. There's also a cap on the net income of the potential buyer.

But you can avoid the restrictions if you lease a new EV. "That’s allowed car companies or dealers to bundle the $7,500 tax credit savings into the lease financing cost, lowering consumers’ monthly payments," reports Bloomberg News.

Also, the bottom has fallen out of the EV resale market. The average price of a used EV fell by 32%over the past year, while the average price of a used gas-powered car fell just 3.6%. It makes no sense to buy a new EV if your purchase loses one-third of its value in one year. 

There are enough worries in buying an EV, including charging, lack of choice, and driving range. Now, owners worry when it comes time to sell the vehicle, they’re not going to get much back.

“Consumers didn’t used to be worried about the resale value of an EV, but (Tesla chief executive Elon) Musk cutting prices made people feel like they owe $50,000 on their Tesla and now, it’s only worth $40,000,” said Pat Ryan, chief executive of free car shopping app CoPilot. "When people see the value of an EV drop so dramatically, it creates a new problem."

Who ya’ gonna believe, the Administration and Al Gore, or your own lyin eyes?

ABC:
More Americans are starting to embrace EVs. Sales of electric cars and trucks last year totaled 1.4 million in 2023, up from 1 million in 2022, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced in January.

“The progress that’s been made is phenomenal,” Albert Gore III, executive director of the nonprofit coalition Zero Emission Transportation Association, told ABC News. “The United States has been a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing and also has really been a leader in a lot of good policymaking with regard to investment in every part of the EV and battery supply chain.”

Gore also noted that electric vehicles can have a significant impact on the economy, saying, “There’s a huge amount of opportunity.”

The industrial Midwest, Southwest and Southeast already have seen investment and job opportunities in the production of minerals and battery components for EVs. Georgia, Nevada, Texas, Ohio and Kansas have grown as domestic hubs for battery manufacturing, while Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio and Arizona have risen as leaders in EV manufacturing.

“So a lot of really exciting economic opportunity in these places, and oftentimes it’s multiple parts of the supply chain,” Gore added.

Lest we forget our native homeless while we fret about foreign invaders; they’re still with us

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I'd be safe and warm
If I was in L.A.
California dreamin, On such a winter's day

Homeless Encampment Starts Massive Fire - Destroys Apartment Building, Flames Spread

Six people were injured after a massive fire broke out early Friday at an apartment building in Chinatown and spread to a nearby structure, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.

The fire erupted shortly after 4 a.m. at a three-story building in the 800 block of North Bunker Hill Avenue, officials said. The fire was believed to have started by homeless encampments.

"There have been several fires at this structure here. And they come out and they put it out, the police chase the homeless out, but they keep coming back. So this time, they set it good," said resident Ken Ferris.

Video from AIR7 showed dramatic flames spewing from the upper floors of an adjacent building and through the roof after the fire engulfed the original building

More at ABC

Just in time for the election, Disney/ABC create Fantasy Land Entertainment Network

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ABC News Caught Grossly Deceptively Editing Kamala Harris' Disastrous Solo Interview

As RedState reported, Kamala Harris' first solo interview since wresting the nomination away from Joe Biden did not go well. The vice president seemed ill-prepared, rambling on about things unrelated to the questions being presented by ABC News reporter Brian Taff

One particularly egregious example occurred when she was asked to give just two specific things she'd do to bring down costs for Americans. What followed was a mind-numbing word salad in which she spent nearly a quarter of the interview (which was only 10 minutes long) rambling about being "middle class."

The above exchange can be seen online by going directly to ABC 6's website. Guess who didn't see it? That would be the network's television audience. According to Tom Elliott, who runs Grabien, a media service that archives news coverage, ABC 6 and Taff made an astonishingly dishonest edit to the interview before playing it on the nightly news. 

Specifically, the above word salad was completely cut out of the interview, and instead, a later portion was spliced in. In the recording of the live broadcast, you can hear Taff ask the question posed in the above excerpt, yet the answer Harris is shown giving was not her actual answer in the interview.

I realize that the Episcopalians ditched the guy long ago, but I'd thought the Jesus thing was still a part of Catholic belief. That leaves the Baptists; anyone else?

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The idiotic lockdown can be blamed for lots of things, but I’d look elsewhere on this one: try DEI, and die.

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The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

The course, titled Math MA5, will run alongside two established math courses — Math MA and MB — with an expanded five-day schedule.

Kelly said that students in MA5 will meet with “one of two instructors all five days” with “a variety of different activities” on Tuesdays and Thursdays. [finger painting, finger pointing, and wailing about injustice? — Ed]

He said the Covid-19 pandemic led to gaps in students’ math skills and learning abilities, prompting the need for a new introductory course.

“Students don’t have the skills that we had intended downstream in the curriculum, and so it creates different trajectories in students’ math abilities,” Kelly added.

These Harvard students - despite their incapacity for college-level work - will likely graduate with straight-A grades, since that is pretty much the only grade that Harvard gives out:

Harvard gave 79 percent ‘A’ grades in recent academic year

A newly released report revealed 79 percent of grades given to Harvard students in 2020-21 were in the A range, nearly a 20 percent increase from a decade ago.

Approximately 60 percent of grades given in the 2010-11 year were in the A-range, The Harvard Crimson reported Thursday.

A faculty-administration meeting was held to discuss what, to outsiders at least, might be considered a problem. Here’s one proposed solution, an obvious cure that just restates clearly what has always been understood, at least in Cambridge: “All Harvard students are exceptional, so there’s no need to distinguish among them — to hire one is to hire all.” Looking at the quality of the people Harvard has unleashed upon corporations, politics and the country’s new fourth branch of government, the Administrative, I’d say that policy has been in effect for at least the past 100 years.

During the meeting, faculty brought up several strategies to address grade inflation and compression.

Romance languages and literatures Professor Annabel Kim suggested the “abolition of grading” and the institution of “narrative-based” evaluations, according to The Crimson. 

That’s all well and good, but is there room in our schools and in our government to accept still more of these illiterates? To make sure there is, the Charles River Trouts have created yet another specialty, one that will produce a new place to slot useless hires

Harvard to Train 'Planetary Healers' to Save World From 'Climate Change' and 'Structural Racism'

Students in this concentration will also learn about the health inequity born out of environmental degradation. Structural racism and international economic policy have exacerbated the climate crisis, with communities of color, poor communities, and the Global South being disproportionately impacted. You will be equipped to use research, leadership, advocacy, and policy to implement solutions that better serve these populations.