Debunkers.org Blog

Law Firms fall for forged check scams

SPQR — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 23:45:31 +0000

This piece here was amusing to me on a couple of fronts. Not merely because the ABA article is of old news. Years ago when I was working for a law firm that handled consumer phone calls for a group legal plan, I would review the calls and the responses that the handling attorney made. I was astonished at how often the firm’s attorneys would fail to spot common con games and scams from the callers initial description.

Hoaxed or incompetent?

SPQR — Wed, 12 May 2010 21:25:07 +0000

That is the question when the Think Progress progressive blog posted an article purporting to “out” the “secret” telecom plan to fight net neutrality legislation.

The only problem was that their smoking gun was a student project for a competition and was neither the product or, nor related to the telecom industry.

“Green Jobs” are inefficient jobs

SPQR — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:37:21 +0000

The Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, a German think tank, issued a report on its analysis of German subsidization of “green jobs”. The PDF is here for your enjoyment.

Not a pretty tale, for it finds that subsidization of “green jobs” in alternative energy is simply a failure.

Although Germany’s promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in the media as setting a “shining example in providing a harvest for the world” (The Guardian 2007), we would instead regard the country’s experience as a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits.

Requesting a login to our Discussion Forum

SPQR — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:49:52 +0000

We’ve been experiencing a lot of spam attacks on our discussion forum and bots have been filling our login request emails with bogus login names. So we apologize if you tried to sign up and we didn’t activate the login. Please use the contact page on the bottom of the top level page on our website to give us a heads up that you are a legitimate user when you sign up.

–SPQR

Another attempt at legal thuggery

SPQR — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:44:42 +0000

As the lawyers for the Guinness Book of World Records sends a frivolous cease and desist letter to Fail Blog.

Chief Walking Eagle Got Zero

SPQR — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:46:57 +0000

The decision of Denver District Judge Larry Naves is out. Pirate Ballerina reports that Ward Churchill got no reinstatement and no pay.

National Geographic Documentary on fireworks

SPQR — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:32:27 +0000

This is a good video from National Geographic on Youtube about fireworks

Fun With Canadian Healthcare … and the media that apologizes for it

SPQR — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:52:05 +0000

From this news article, we learn of the latest amusing episode of Canada’s health care system. And we learn of the media that covers up for it. Get the lede on this article:

A critically ill Hamilton preemie turned away from McMaster Children’s Hospital is all alone in a Buffalo intensive care unit because her parents don’t have passports to get across the border.

Uh, no. The premature infant is all alone because Canada does not have enough neonatal intensive care units. Period.

The infant is in Buffalo, because a decaying ex-industrial town in the United States has more health care resources than an entire Canadian province.

Enjoy the contrast in these two lines of the news story:

A second area mom has also been separated from her children since being turned away from McMaster’s NICU, which is closed to new admissions about 50 per cent of the time….

Dr. Peter Fitzgerald, president of McMaster Children’s Hospital, said he’s in discussions with the Ministry of Health about getting more beds for the NICU, which is already the largest and most modern in Ontario.

Speechless

SPQR — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:48:22 +0000

That’s what politically correct university academics really want us to be.

–SPQR

Japanese Panel Skeptical of IPCC Report

SPQR — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:56:54 +0000

Reported in The Register, a Japanese panel is expressing skepticism on the supposed “consensus” about anthropogenic global warming.

Three of the five researchers disagree with the UN’s IPCC view that recent warming is primarily the consequence of man-made industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside.

One of the five contributors compares computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. Others castigate the paucity of the US ground temperature data set used to support the hypothesis, and declare that the unambiguous warming trend from the mid-part of the 20th Century has ceased.

Hat tip to JustOneMinute blog.

–SPQR