Epoch Times CFO Bill Guan is charged in alleged $67 million global money laundering scheme

[Reasonably Sane]

The problem with the increase in flerfers is a stupid (minor) internet fad building upon various psychological impulses: confidence in one's "own" ideas, being "special" because you have different ideas, conspiratorial thinking (the "ball earth cabal"), and advanced cases of Dunning-Krueger syndrome. Some are Bibilical ultra-literalists who latch on to the flat earth verses in the OT and think that Young Round Earth Creationism" doesn't go far enough. We could add the decades of anti-science propaganda from the creationist ministries, the fossil fuel industries and the anti-vaxxers. These things are all well known to those that study the sociology and politics of science denialism.

The problem is that there are people on each side of every issue that have something to gain. Look at scientists regarding global warming. There is HUGE incentive to toe the line on it, and careers have been destroyed when scientists switch to the "denier" camp. And they don't do it for the money. Case in point below. You can watch the whole thing. It's very good, but the point I'm making is discussed at this point in the video:
To see the video, copy this: youtube.com/watch?v=U0PQ1cOlCJI&list=PLPu9up22tsDRcRyVLY9wS6iYLfdQqoTdR

and add "https://www." to the front. For some reason when I try to post it I get a "video unavailable" message, though I can link to it just fine. It's a John Stossel interview with Judith Curry, a highly respected climate scientist until she stopped "drinking the cool-aid".

 

[Hans Blaster]

So, both sides like to run the same play?

No. All three of those people were charged when Biden's chosen AG, Merrick Garland, was in office. Those cases were not brought under a "Democratic DOJ".

How does that invalidate what I have said?

Because you lack understanding and awareness of what is going on.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The problem is that there are people on each side of every issue that have something to gain. Look at scientists regarding global warming. There is HUGE incentive to toe the line on it, and careers have been destroyed when scientists switch to the "denier" camp. And they don't do it for the money. Case in point below. You can watch the whole thing. It's very good, but the point I'm making is discussed at this point in the video:
To see the video, copy this: youtube.com/watch?v=U0PQ1cOlCJI&list=PLPu9up22tsDRcRyVLY9wS6iYLfdQqoTdR

and add "https://www." to the front. For some reason when I try to post it I get a "video unavailable" message, though I can link to it just fine. It's a John Stossel interview with Judith Curry, a highly respected climate scientist until she stopped "drinking the cool-aid".

I'm just not interested in a Stossel piece that starts with some lip-flapping performative activist.

 

[Belk]

The hyperbole is strong with this one.

I see that New York has a strong bias against Trump and any organization that supports him.

Did you sing this same tune when Trump asked about Biden's dealings in Ukraine?

Should I be charged for asking questions too?

They may be criminals - it's not for us to say considering that whole "presumption of innocence" thing.

Or are they already admitted criminals for supporting Trump?

Where do you see this bias?

 

[Zaha Torte]

Where do you see this bias?

In the court cases against Trump in New York

 

[Belk]

In the court cases against Trump in New York

That seems somewhat limited in scope to the breadth of the brush you used.

 

[wing2000]

They seem to be saving them up until the election cycle rolls around.

...or maybe you are just not paying attention to similar prosecutions in non-election years.

The fact is, bulding a case for prosectuion takes a long time. Inevitably, the progress of each case will fall on election years.

 

[The Barbarian]

Maybe that is true - but this supposed "yearslong scheme" was only uncovered now?

Most money-laundering schemes take somewhat longer to get, but these guys seem to have been almost comically careless.

How do criminals get away with money laundering and why is it so hard to detect? ​

Discouraging and minimising money laundering requires international cooperation, cooperation among local institutions and the use of technology, experts told CNA’s Heart of the Matter podcast.​

How do criminals get away with money laundering and why is it so hard to detect?

Discouraging and minimising money laundering requires international cooperation, cooperation among local institutions and the use of technology, experts told CNA’s Heart of the Matter podcast.

www.channelnewsasia.com

 

[The Barbarian]

The press and our leaders, including those within the realm of scientific study, have been caught so often in the last couple of decades, and called out on it on the internet, where everyone can be exposed to the information, that people are losing trust in everything we've been told, even for centuries.

"I saw it on You Tube; it has to be true." Unfortunately, the internet is flypaper for conspiracy buffs.

And yes, we live in interesting times.

 

[The Barbarian]

The problem is that there are people on each side of every issue that have something to gain. Look at scientists regarding global warming. There is HUGE incentive to toe the line on it, and careers have been destroyed when scientists switch to the "denier" camp. And they don't do it for the money. Case in point below. You can watch the whole thing. It's very good, but the point I'm making is discussed at this point in the video:
To see the video, copy this: youtube.com/watch?v=U0PQ1cOlCJI&list=PLPu9up22tsDRcRyVLY9wS6iYLfdQqoTdR

and add "https://www." to the front. For some reason when I try to post it I get a "video unavailable" message, though I can link to it just fine. It's a John Stossel interview with Judith Curry, a highly respected climate scientist until she stopped "drinking the cool-aid".

Even in the 1970s, the great majority of climatologists knew warming was on the way. Even oil company scientists knew this and some of those companies made plans to deal with the problems, even as they were denying the fact. But there are still dissenters. Some of them actually make a great deal of money from companies with a finanacial interest in denying climate change:

Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon's claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon

Exxon’s Climate Denial History: A Timeline

A review of Exxon's knowledge and subsequent denial of climate change.

www.greenpeace.org

 

[Reasonably Sane]

"I saw it on You Tube; it has to be true." Unfortunately, the internet is flypaper for conspiracy buffs.

And yes, we live in interesting times.

I read it in a book I got from the library, so it must be true!

i.e. that is a straw man.

 

[Reasonably Sane]

Even in the 1970s, the great majority of climatologists knew warming was on the way. Even oil company scientists knew this and some of those companies made plans to deal with the problems, even as they were denying the fact. But there are still dissenters. Some of them actually make a great deal of money from companies with a finanacial interest in denying climate change:

Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon's claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon

Exxon’s Climate Denial History: A Timeline

A review of Exxon's knowledge and subsequent denial of climate change.

www.greenpeace.org

Red herring.

 

[Pommer]

Red herring.

Hand waving

 

[Reasonably Sane]

Hand waving

?

 

[The Barbarian]

Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon's claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon.

Red herring.

Technically, it's bribery. They were paying Soon to adjust his findings to fit their wishes.

 

[The Barbarian]

I read it in a book I got from the library, so it must be true!

If you give YouTube videos the same level of credibility you give library books, we've located your problem.

 

[Reasonably Sane]

If you give YouTube videos the same level of credibility you give library books, we've located your problem.

That would be silly. But the fact is that unless it is your profession, it is not practical for most people to read technical manuals on highly complex or burgeoning science. So we are forced to read articles in Scientific american, or watch "in depth" reporting or youtube videos from sources like Sabine Hossenfelder:

 

[Reasonably Sane]

Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon's claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon.

Technically, it's bribery. They were paying Soon to adjust his findings to fit their wishes.

Kinda like what goes on in the Universities. That's the point screaming loud and clear in one of the videos I linked to in a previous comment. But I'm not seeing bribery in any case.

This is what you consider to be the offending text:
"Research by Greenpeace exposes Willie Soon as having failed to disclose that Exxon and other fossil fuel interests funded his research. Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon’s claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon between 2005 and 2010."

You might as well say that a leading engineer paid by Ford to analyze their cars was "bribed" to candy coat their cars. That is a leap.

And Soon is one man. "Guilt by association" doesn't work with me. The ol' "their paid by the evil oil companies" claim doesn't hold water, though there may be someone that IS paid by the oil companies and IS paid to make stuff up. But then, the climate scare crowd is rife with it. That's what this is about (timestamp is at 33:42:

And this

 

[The Barbarian]

That would be silly. But the fact is that unless it is your profession, it is not practical for most people to read technical manuals on highly complex or burgeoning science.

I don't have a lot of problems with such things, but if it's confusing to you, maybe you need to do a little study time so you aren't so easy to fool by nimrods on You Tube. And yes, there's a lot of good stuff on YouTube. But there is amazingly dumb stuff by people who don't know what they are talking about.

On Monday, Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, a respected physicist and periodic contributor to The New York Times, appeared in a YouTube video with US-born, Japan-based Holocaust denier and self-titled “geopolitical analyst” Ryan Dawson, who interviewed her on problems unrelated to her field during a livestream via his “Antineocon Report” program.

Dawson — who has been banned from platforms such as PayPal, Vimeo, and Google Adsense for his antisemitic, racist, and homophobic hate speech — is known for his highly offensive and extremely disturbing social media activities, including content denigrating noted academic Deborah Lipstadt and denying facts about the Holocaust in a video that lifts and modifies, without authorization, a TED Talk in which she spoke.

Additionally, Dawson has disseminated content on [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ute — a video-focused website that attracts white supremacists because of its laissez-faire approach to moderation — that supports the ideologies of the terrorist known as the Unabomber, who murdered people by sending them explosive devices, by calling him “legit” and urging people to “read the Unabomber’s manifesto.”

Most disturbingly, Dawson uploaded a video to his YouTube channel that features him saying, “And now, for your moment of zen, an Israeli tank driver getting shot in the face,” followed by violent footage purporting to show exactly that.

The question remains then, why Hossenfelder — a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies (FIAS) in Germany whose articles not only have appeared in the Times, but also in Scientific American , PBS’s NOVA blog, and other publications — would deign to appear with Dawson in any capacity, let alone a discussion of physics. Hossenfelder primarily generates opinions and other texts on her blog that don’t, in general, relate to any of Dawson’s ideologies, so it’s possible that she didn’t realize the nature of Dawson’s proclivities.

Yet if that’s the case, surely it would have behooved her to research her interviewer before agreeing to come on his show.

Interview With a Holocaust Denier: A Physics Conundrum - Algemeiner.com

There’s generally a broad line between antisemitic conspiracy theorists and legitimate scientists, but this week, the gap got a little smaller in one particular instance. On Monday, Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, a respected physicist and periodic contributor to The New York Times, appeared in a...

www.algemeiner.com

Interesting... She seems like a very competent physicist:

Minimal Length Scale Scenarios for Quantum Gravity - Living Reviews in Relativity

We review the question of whether the fundamental laws of nature limit our ability to probe arbitrarily short distances. First, we examine what insights can be gained from thought experiments for probes of shortest distances, and summarize what can be learned from different approaches to a...

link.springer.com

With an unfortunate failure to detect foolish and evil people.

 

[The Barbarian]

Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon's claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon.

Technically, it's bribery. They were paying Soon to adjust his findings to fit their wishes.

Kinda like what goes on in the Universities.

In Soon's case. But that's not a common thing. Because a scientist is in big trouble if his findings can't be reproduced, it's dangerous to do what Soon did.

"Research by Greenpeace exposes Willie Soon as having failed to disclose that Exxon and other fossil fuel interests funded his research. Soon had served as one of the few climate deniers with a science background referenced by climate-denying politicians. The news further debunks Exxon’s claim that the company had stopped funding climate deniers in 2007, as Exxon provided more than $300,000 in funding to Soon between 2005 and 2010."

You might as well say that a leading engineer paid by Ford to analyze their cars was "bribed" to candy coat their cars.

No. It would be so, if an engineer was paid by Volkswagon to fake emissions test results.

What we know: the Volkswagen emissions test fraud scandal

BERLIN (AP) — Just one week ago Volkswagen was a company oozing confidence, the world's best-selling automaker with a global brand that appealed to car buyers seeking trustworthy German engineering at an affordable price.

apnews.com

That is a leap.

That is what Soon was paid to do.

And Soon is one man.

Yes. Most scientists would not be willing to fake research for money. It's not just a matter of honest; it's dangerous, since such research tends to be checked by others.

"Guilt by association" doesn't work with me.

Me either. Soon as an unfortunate example, but an uncommon one. Most scientists are more honest than that. On principle and because it's not safe to do that kind of thing.

The ol' "their paid by the evil oil companies" claim doesn't hold water

They got caught. No point in denial.

(YouTube video offered as evidence)

Give us a checkable link, and you've got something.