DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Internal review found ‘falsified data’ in Stanford President’s Alzheimer’s research, colleagues allege.

In 2009, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, then a top executive at the biotechnology company Genentech, was the primary author of a scientific paper published in the prestigious journal Nature that claimed to have found the potential cause for brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s patients. “Because of this research,” read Genentech’s annual letter to shareholders, “we are working to develop both antibodies and small molecules that may attack Alzheimer’s from a novel entry point and help the millions of people who currently suffer from this devastating disease.”

But after several unsuccessful attempts to reproduce the research, the paper became the subject of an internal review by Genentech’s Research Review Committee (RRC), according to four high-level Genentech employees at the time; two were senior scientists and two were scientists who also served as executives. Three spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the allegations and non-disclosure agreements. The scientists, one of whom was an executive who sat on the review committee and all of whom were informed of the review’s findings at the time due to their stature at the company, said that the inquiry discovered falsification of data in the research, and that Tessier-Lavigne kept the finding from becoming public.

Tessier-Lavigne denies both allegations. Genentech said in a statement that “as part of our diligence related to these allegations, we reviewed the records from that November 2011 RRC meeting and saw no allegations of fraud or wrongdoing.” The company acknowledged that “given that these events happened many years ago … our current records may not be complete.”

After the review, which began in 2011, Genentech canceled research based on the paper’s findings. Till Maurer, a senior scientist at the company from 2009-2018 who said he was assigned to develop drugs based on the 2009 paper, told The Daily that his superior informed him that, in Maurer’s words, “the project is being canceled and it’s because they found falsified data.”

Read the whole thing.

WHY IS JOE BIDEN SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Biden refers to Maryland’s first Black governor as ‘boy’ in speech.

President Biden on Wednesday used the term “boy” while referring to Wes Moore, Maryland’s first Black governor, in a speech about the economy.

Speaking in Maryland, Mr. Biden gave a shout to the governor, recalling Mr. Moore’s days playing wide receiver on Johns Hopkins University’s football team.

“You got a hell of a new governor in Wes Moore. He’s the real deal and the boy looks like he can still play,” the 80-year-old Mr. Biden said. “He’s got some guns on him.”

Using the word “boy” to describe a Black man is often viewed a racial slur. That’s because, historically, racist Whites used the term to suggest Blacks weren’t on equal footing with them, both before and after slavery.

Flashback: Biden refers to his future boss as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

JIM TREACHER: Nikki Haley Scandal: She Goes By Her Middle Name.

This week Nikki Haley announced she’s running for president. I don’t know if she has a shot, but the libs sure seem to think so. They’re already attacking her for… going by her middle name.

And:

If Gisele Fetterman wanted privacy, she wouldn’t have pushed her husband to run for the U.S. Senate when he was obviously unhealthy. She wouldn’t have called for “consequences” when Dasha Burns reported the truth about John’s mental incapacity. He couldn’t hold a conversation with Burns, and she didn’t pretend he could. Then all the libs blamed Burns, including her own colleagues. If Gisele had her way, Burns would’ve been fired for telling the truth.

Gisele wanted this life, and privacy isn’t part of it. She was willing to lie her way into this mess. Now she gets to deal with the consequences of her actions.

Read the whole thing.

DON SURBER: Fetterman Nation.

We have devolved into a big, dull, goofy, confused, barely functioning nation that given the choice between obvious and ridiculous chooses the ridiculous every single time.

Consider homelessness. Despite spending trillions of dollars on welfare, urban development and mental health over the last quarter-century — driving the national debt to $31 trillion — we now have homeless taking over cities.

Security.org reported on “Homelessness in America 2023: Statistics, Analysis, & Trends.”

It said, “In December of 2022, HUD calculated that 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States and its territories. That number represented an increase of nearly 2,000 individuals over the last complete accounting of 2020, yet remained steady at 0.18% of the nation’s population.”

If we can count to the last digit the number of people sleeping on the streets, we can get every one of them in a bed, even if it is in jail.

Instead, they sleep in pup tents in the street and do drugs unabated by law enforcement. Local and state governments even give junkies free needles and places to buy and use drugs. We call it humane, but this is the opposite.

Treating the homeless is a great racket that puts many an unemployable nephew of a politician on the government payroll.

Insider reported, “San Francisco has a ‘Poop Patrol’ to deal with its feces problem, and workers make more than $184,000 a year in salary and benefits.”

That is just one of the more glaring examples of exploitation. The number of social workers, advocates and programs rise but the problem grows.

Well yes. “Despite its spending more money per capita on homelessness than any comparable city, [San Francisco’s] homeless problem is worse than any comparable city’s,” SF Weekly noted a decade ago, stumbling into the Fox Butterfield effect.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The truth about UFOs.

But various government agencies continued poking around, beginning (so far as we know) in 2007 with the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. This was followed by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force, which was in turn succeeded last year by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Possibly this was connected with the objects hovering and flying (and in one case rotating while flying) that could be seen on three cockpit videos taken in 2004 and 2015 and leaked in 2007 and 2017, videos that featured comments from naval fighter pilots that left no doubt that they thought they were looking at something very strange, flap fodder of the highest quality. And these occurrences were by no means unique. A preliminary report issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2021 was inconclusive, but contained enough to fuel Ufologists’ dreams: 143 events still a mystery, talk of ‘unusual flight characteristics’ and more.

Then came the crushing follow-up: an ODNI report released in January. The number of unexplained sightings was up, no surprise, given the overall increase in the number of UAP reports. And where answers have been found, they have been avian rather than alien, and there have been plenty of balloons too. The chance that those incidents that remain unidentified will be of alien provenance must be remote. For now, those hoping that what’s been going on is extraterrestrial in nature will have to pin their hopes on Nasa, which has formed a study team to look into UAPs.

And beyond the true believers, those rooting for ET ought to include quite a few who reckon that alien callers would be rather less of a worry than the prospect of Beijing’s balloon fleet probing America’s defences.

The truth is out there.

UPDATE: UFO shot down by $400K US missile may have been a $12 hobby balloon: report.

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade told Aviation Week on Thursday that it fears one of its diligently-tracked gasbags that recently went missing was mistaken as the mystery object taken out by the military over Canada on Saturday.

The Pico Balloon — a silver-coated, cylindrically shaped object — reported its last position at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska on Friday.

By Saturday, based on the balloon’s projected path, it would have been over the central part of the Yukon Territory around the same time a military Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same Canadian vicinity, the outlet reported.

Biden went from waiting a week to shoot down a CCP spy balloon to shooting down anything that flies. As Rich Lowry writes, “This is typical Washington — the under-reaction is always followed by the over-reaction.”

(Updated and bumped.)

EVERGREEN QUESTION: Sec. Buttigieg … What Would You Say You Do Here?

UNITED EARTH PRESIDENT ABRAMS UPDATE: Stacey Abrams Charity Has a $500,000 Problem In Its Latest Tax Filing.

The ethical questions raised by the missing money are the latest stumbling block for the embattled charity. The Free Beacon reported in November that the New Georgia Project was in turmoil as former senior staff accused the group’s leadership of engaging in rampant financial misconduct. And Georgia’s state ethics commission alleges that the group illegally worked to elect Abrams during her failed 2018 gubernatorial bid.

“This is something that the Internal Revenue Service should be interested in,” Alan Dye, a nonprofit attorney, told the Free Beacon, “particularly with the added element of the former officer possibly pocketing the money.”

“Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark,” Dye added, noting that it is a crime to knowingly file a false statement with the federal government.

Read the whole thing.

Classical reference in headline:

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Texas Universities Demand That Job Applicants Pledge Woke Allegiance.

According to documents provided to The Daily Signal by a Texas Tech professor who wishes to remain anonymous, Lubbock-based Texas Tech has begun requiring political diversity statements and references to prove how progressive job candidates are in applying for several positions, such as this job for an associate professor of arts administration, management, and advocacy:

At Texas A&M University, the so-called Office for Diversity demands letters proving the appropriateness of job applicants’ political opinions as they complete the application process[.]

As Iowahawk has said:

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Taken To Coroner For Annual Physical.

LATEST VANITY FAIR HIT PIECE ON DESANTIS DROPS: Ron DeSantis Shouldn’t Be Covered Like Just Another Republican. Florida’s wannabe autocrat and possible 2024 contender isn’t Trump, but he’s as dangerous to democracy.

But then, every Republican presidential candidate is just as dangerous in the fevered minds of the DNC-MSM:

WHY IS CNN SUCH A FONT OF AGEISM? Don Lemon on Nikki Haley: Women age out in their 40s, you know.

Also CNN: Oh, Joe Biden Is More Energetic Now Than in the Late 1980s, Huh?

UPDATE:

(Updated and bumped.)

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Yale Woke Religion Vs. Yale Muslim Students: Push for  guaranteed religious accommodations as new housing process takes effect.

QUESTION ASKED: ‘Why Would You Want Some Lady’s Dirty Clothes?’ Biden’s ‘Non-Binary’ Ex-Nuclear Waste Chief’s Rough Day in Court.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Ignorant Boomer Shares CNN Article Thinking It’s Real.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: NY Times contributors and celebrities bash paper’s coverage of trans issues.

In accordance with the prophecy:

TRUTH BOMBS DROPPED: My goodness, Matt Walsh just dropped an unreal number of truth bombs on trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.

THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Transgender Cannibal Baby Rapist Put in Women’s Prison Near Mother and Baby Unit.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Why I Am Against Saving the Planet (and why you should be, too).

We are constantly being exhorted to “save the planet.” Indeed, saving the planet has become the de facto religion of politicians, business elites, and intellectuals in the West, replacing Christianity’s earlier mission of saving individual souls. But what does the environmentalist slogan actually mean? On examination, the phrase means saving the planet from us—that is, from human beings and our works.

Read the whole thing.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Nominee who called Biden a ‘senile gaffe machine’ withdrawn by State Department.

GREAT MOMENTS IN PERFORMANCE ART: U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in Kabul wins poster girl contest for everything wrong in Biden-world.

Dear God. This has to absolutely be one of the most horrific, shameless, brain-dead, appalling things I’ve ever seen an administration official do in my pretty long life, and that is saying a LOT.

And this classic tweet just before the lights went out:

Live look at Decker and her boyfriend explaining the ways of the west to the Afghans:

JAMES CLAPPER ON HUNTER’S LAPTOP: NEVERMIND! James Clapper Claims Hunter Laptop Letter Was “Distorted” By Politico.

IN AN EFFORT TO BOTH SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT, AND SAVE GRETA FROM HERSELF, I AM REFRAINING FROM BUYING A COPY. I SUGGEST YOU DO THE SAME: Greta Releases Book Printed On Dead Trees As Newest Bid To Save The Climate.

ANNA PAULINA LUNA KNEECAPS THE WASHINGTON POST:

“She is part of a new class of House Republicans that includes many elected to public office for the first time, including Rep. George Santos (N.Y.), whose fabrications about his biography emerged after his election,” Alemany and Crites write. See what they’re trying to do? Clever isn’t it?

* * * * * * * *

“Holy shit the Washington post just tried to claim my dad was never incarcerated, left out comments from my mom, said I was a registered Democrat, and did not report a convo they had with a former roommate, and interviewed “family” I don’t talk to. This is comical,” Luna tweeted on Friday.

Despite bothering to speak to multiple people internationally in pursuit of the Luna scoop, the initial Post story got a couple of key facts wrong. It described Luna as a “registered Democrat” in Washington, a state that has not required party registration for two decades. A further clarification concedes that while Luna’s roommate was the only person interviewed by police after the break-in, Luna is mentioned in the police report. The Post also said it couldn’t verify that Luna’s father had been in jail — when court records show that he was. Luna also posted a picture of him in a jumpsuit.

Wait until the Post finally discovers this fellow called Joe Biden and his family…

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Woke Crazy Believes Restoring Sight To The Blind Is Prejudice Toward The Handicapped.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Ex-CNN Star Brian Stelter Is ‘Basically a Prostitute,’ says Joe Rogan.

[Matt] Taibbi seemed amazed at how easily Stelter accepted the panel’s assessment that censorship is the answer moving forward. He recalled a WEF speaker referring to “hate speech laws,” a trend she hopes she spread across western culture.

“She touches the knee of somebody sitting next to her, and she says, ‘You’re gonna have that in America soon.’ And Brian Stelter is sitting there, grinning. That’s not offensive to him?” Taibbi asked. “Even though it’s completely antithetical to everything we believe in in this country.”

Rogan described why the corporate press is so beholden to approved narratives in the modern age, but he couldn’t let Stelter off the hook.

“He’s not suitable for that role [at the WEF conference]. He doesn’t belong there … you want someone in that position who says, ‘hold on. What do you think is hate speech? What’s hate speech to you, and what’s hate speech to me, and who gets to decide?’” Rogan said.

One of Stelter’s favorite guests on CNN was Dan Rather of Rathergate infamy, which spoke volumes about how seriously Stelter took the practice of journalism.