- Nov 2024
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schriftexperte.de schriftexperte.de
- Sep 2024
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Der kalifornische.Generalstaatsanwalt hat einen Prozess gegen Exxon Mobil angestrengt, weil der Konzern.den Verkauf von nichtwiederverwenbarem Plastik über Jahrzehnte mit Fehlinformationen über Recycling gefördert habe. Die Firma hätte gewusst und bewusst verschwiegen, dass eines ihrer Hauptprodukte erheblich zur Plastik-Verschmutzung beiträgt. NGOs, die Exxon ebenfalls verklagten, begrüßen, dass damit ein Ölkonzern auch wegen der Plastikverschmutzung juristisch zur Rechenschaft gezogen wird, under erwarten weitere Prozesse dieser Art. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/23/climate/california-exxon-mobil-plastics-pollution-recycling-lawsuit.html
Tags
- Surfrider Foundation
- San Francisco Baykeeper
- USA
- Exxon Mobile
- Jane Patton
- Plastic Recycling
- legal action
- Beyond Plastics
- Center for Climate Integrity
- Sierra Club
- California
- Center for International Environmental Law
- by: David Gelles
- by: Karen Zraick
- The Fraud of Plastic Recycling
- Richard Wiles
- Heal the Bay
- Bruce Huber
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theconversation.com theconversation.com
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Regions where people most often reach 100-110 years old are the ones where there’s the most pressure to commit pension fraud, and they also have the worst records. For example, the best place to reach 105 in England is Tower Hamlets. It has more 105-year-olds than all of the rich places in England put together. It’s closely followed by downtown Manchester, Liverpool and Hull. Yet these places have the lowest frequency of 90-year-olds and are rated by the UK as the worst places to be an old person
High registered age caused more likely by bad admin and fraud pressures. Worst places in terms of aging, and listing the lowest number of 90 yr olds in the UK have the highest of 100yr olds.
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- Feb 2024
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Local file Local file
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As long as money hasexisted, the problem of counterfeit currency has too, but it became aparticular problem once printed notes went into general circulation. Ineighteenth-century North America, Benjamin Franklin – who owned a firmthat printed money for several of the colonies – hit on the idea of misspellingPennsylvania on official currency, on the grounds that forgers would spell it
correctly and the notes could easily be spotted as counterfeit, but that only went so far.
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- Jun 2023
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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family CBN
- family Christian Broadcast Network (CBN)
- knew it was a fraud and was complicit in it to weaponize fear
- family Christian Broadcast Network (CBN)
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strange phenomenon after 9 11 and the years after 9 11 and 00:38:39 in the Evangelical subculture of these uh ex-muslim terrorists who are taking the Christian speaking circuit by storm
- Within the Evangelical Christian community
- there emerged evangelicals that deceived the masses by weaponizing fear
- fraudulently represented themselves as ex-Muslim terrorists converted to Evangelical Christianity
- Within the Evangelical Christian community
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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family CBN
- family Christian Broadcast Network (CBN)
- knew it was a fraud and was complicit in it to weaponize fear
- family Christian Broadcast Network (CBN)
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strange phenomenon after 9 11 and the years after 9 11 and 00:38:39 in the Evangelical subculture of these uh ex-muslim terrorists who are taking the Christian speaking circuit by storm
- Within the Evangelical Christian community
- there emerged evangelicals that deceived the masses by weaponizing fear
- fraudulently represented themselves as ex-Muslim terrorists converted to Evangelical Christianity
- Within the Evangelical Christian community
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- May 2023
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view.connect.americanpublicmedia.org view.connect.americanpublicmedia.org
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To prevent fraud, Bob Brown, a founding partner of The CPA Solution, said businesses should focus on building strong systems that have checks and balances rather than relying on individuals who act as star employees.
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- Jan 2023
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docdrop.org docdrop.org
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"The Great Crypto Scam." James Jani, Jan 1, 2023
Bitcoin to Blockchains, to NFTs, to Web 3.0... it's time to find out if it's really all the hype or just part of one of the greatest scams in human history.
Original video: https://youtu.be/ORdWE_ffirg
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- Dec 2022
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www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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- Jul 2022
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www.open-contracting.org www.open-contracting.org
- Apr 2022
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www.delgazette.com www.delgazette.com
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Over the next month, Curry said troopers will be able to sign up to work federally funded overtime to specifically seek out and enforce distracted driving.
This is what following the PR schedule - instead of actual data is really about. It lets them cozy up and fill their bellies with overtime from the public trough.
American tax extortion victims should be demanding to know why Delaware County troopers are getting Federal overtime dollars to address a problem that is projected to be half as bad as last year.
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- Feb 2022
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osf.io osf.io
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Ivermectin and the odds of hospitalization due to COVID-19: evidence from a quasi-experimental analysis based on a public intervention in Mexico CityJosé Merino
This will be remembered, time will not be kind with people like Jose Peña Merino, this is not science, this is fraud and treason of the highest level against mexicans.
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- Nov 2021
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Borisov, A., & Lewis, J. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 on Transport Crime. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/7e3fn
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- Oct 2021
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science.thewire.in science.thewire.in
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Aeschlimann, J. R. (2021, October 15). Ivermectin Treats Many Infections in Humans – Just Not COVID-19. The Wire Science. https://science.thewire.in/health/ivermectin-treats-many-infections-in-humans-just-not-covid-19/
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www.canadaland.com www.canadaland.com
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Stories about the dirty business of Canadian mining.
Canadaland: Commons
Introducing our new season… Mining
Stories about the dirty business of Canadian mining.
Mining is a dirty business, but it is what Canada does best. Three-quarters of the world’s mining companies are best right here in the Great White North.
In our new season, Commons: Mining, we’ll be digging deep into the practices and the history of the extractive industry. From the gold rushes that shaped the country to the cover-ups and the outright frauds at home and abroad.
Canada was built on extracting what lay under the land, no matter the damage it did or who it ended up hurting.
The first episode of Commons: Mining comes out on October 13th.
Canada is fake
Canada is not an accident or a work in progress or a thought experiment. I mean that Canada is a scam — a pyramid scheme, a ruse, a heist. Canada is a front. And it’s a front for a massive network of resource extraction companies, oil barons, and mining magnates.
Extraction Empire
Globally, more than 75% of prospecting and mining companies on the planet are based in Canada. Seemingly impossible to conceive, the scale of these statistics naturally extends the logic of Canada’s historical legacy as state, nation, and now, as global resource empire.
Canada’s Indian Reserve System served, officially, as a strategy of Indigenous apartheid (preceding South African apartheid) and unofficially, as a policy of Indigenous genocide (preceding the Nazi concentration camps of World War II).
Theft on a grand scale
It’s really been about theft on a grand scale. Look at how the United Kingdom became rich, or England and then Britain as it was, at the time. It was through bleeding India dry, we bled $45 trillion out of India. We taxed the subcontinent until there was virtually nothing left, then used a small amount of that tax money to buy its goods. So we were buying goods with their own money. And then we used the phenomenal profits — 100% profits — from that enterprise to finance the capture of other nations, and the colonization of those nations and the citizens, the railways and the other things we built in order to drain wealth out of them.
— George Monbiot
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theoutline.com theoutline.com
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Canada is not an accident or a work in progress or a thought experiment. I mean that Canada is a scam — a pyramid scheme, a ruse, a heist. Canada is a front. And it’s a front for a massive network of resource extraction companies, oil barons, and mining magnates.
Extraction Empire
Globally, more than 75% of prospecting and mining companies on the planet are based in Canada. Seemingly impossible to conceive, the scale of these statistics naturally extends the logic of Canada’s historical legacy as state, nation, and now, as global resource empire.
Canada’s Indian Reserve System served, officially, as a strategy of Indigenous apartheid (preceding South African apartheid) and unofficially, as a policy of Indigenous genocide (preceding the Nazi concentration camps of World War II).
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- Aug 2021
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datacolada.org datacolada.org
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Perhaps the most peculiar feature of the dataset is the fact that the baseline data for Car #1 in the posted Excel file appears in two different fonts. Specifically, half of the data in that column are printed in Calibri, and half are printed in Cambria.
fraud / fonts
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had it not been for a few state election officials who withstood the pressure to ignore the results, Harris’s desk would still belong to him.
withstood the pressure to ignore the results
So, this author says the quiet part out loud.
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- Jul 2021
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Cardinal Angelo Becciu
...
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www.economicliberties.us www.economicliberties.us
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The New Money Trust: How Large Money Managers Control Our Economy and What We Can Do About It
WTF is wrong?
Where is the moral character and backbone of the American people. We know something is wrong! It smells and stinks yet no one does anything. Most of our elected politicians are useless turds floating in wastewater and the rest are multiple term professional corrupt politicians waiting for the appropriate revolving door opportunity. This has nothing to do with party affiliation, it is rampant on both sides. Political parties perpetuate the illusion as a control mechanism. We see it yet do nothing about it! WHY?
This paper (topic) is typical of the continued "head in the sand" passive financial regulatory system loaded with Sheeple and kiss-ass do nothing idiots. Alarms have been going off since 2005/6 and as predicted then, our financial system imploded in 07/08.
- What lesson was learned?
- Who were the players?
- What disciplinary actions took place?
- Who went to Jail?
Nothing has changed. Corruption and fraud fuel a dysfunctional financial system destined to cripple the American and Global economies. Economists and many within the financial sector know what is going on. Maybe they care about the average person but are afraid to come forward. Maybe they don't care and fully intend to rape and pillage as much of the global society as possible.
The question is what are YOU going to do to protect future generations, your children, grand children and so on?
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- Jun 2021
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www.migrationencounters.org www.migrationencounters.org
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She signed us up, but the people that were doing all the paperwork for us basically lied to us and basically committed fraud, because they told us that through this for certain we were going to be able to get papers, because we went through some kind of a violence.
Eligibility - application - fraud in the system
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- May 2021
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Katz, B. (2021, April 13). Fake Covid-19 Certificates Hit Airlines, Which Now Have to Police Them. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/fake-covid-19-certificates-hit-airlines-which-now-have-to-police-them-11618330621
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- Apr 2021
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www.bmj.com www.bmj.com
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Godlee, F. (2011). The fraud behind the MMR scare. BMJ, 342, d22. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d22
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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Coronavirus vaccination cards a target of scams—The Washington Post. (n.d.). Retrieved April 19, 2021, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/18/scams-coronavirus-vaccination-cards/
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- Mar 2021
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twitter.com twitter.com
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Anne Urai. (2020, November 15). All-inclusive authorship on large scientific papers can a be dangerous practice Alert: Potential unpopular opinion Thread 👇1/n [Tweet]. @AnneEUrai. https://twitter.com/AnneEUrai/status/1327934091929464832
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- Feb 2021
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www.npr.org www.npr.org
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Even If It’s ‘Bonkers,’ Poll Finds Many Believe QAnon And Other Conspiracy Theories. (n.d.). NPR.Org. Retrieved 24 February 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2020/12/30/951095644/even-if-its-bonkers-poll-finds-many-believe-qanon-and-other-conspiracy-theories
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10.11.66.200 10.11.66.200
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fraud.response@i2cinc.com
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- Nov 2020
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hereticalupdate.substack.com hereticalupdate.substack.com
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What this all means is that persuading people that there is no fraud is an integral part of committing fraud: controlling the social epistemological consensus becomes a weapon. That doesn’t necessarily mean that fraud claims are always true/decisive, it just means that claims against fraud should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Persuading people that no fraud took place is an essential part of committing fraud.
This doesn't mean fraud claims are always true. It only means we should claims against fraud with a health dose of skepticism.
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Election fraud is even more interesting, because if you (the fraudster) can win the election then the victim of fraud has an incentive to back down and let you get away with it in order to preserve the general public’s belief in democracy. Democracy has both a practical function (effective government via peaceful transfer of power) and a “spiritual” function (keeping the peace by persuading people that they are being represented). Overturning an election seriously undermines the spiritual function of democracy as it confirms to people that elections do get rigged and fraud does happen and it does sometimes determine election outcomes.
Roko talks about democracy having a practical function (effective government via peaceful transfer of power) and a spiritual function (keeping the peace by persuading people that they are being represented).
Overturning an election would undermine the spiritual function. This creates an incentive for the loser to swallow the loss, even if he has been cheated, so as to preserve the spiritual function of democracy.
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www.unz.com www.unz.com
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Now in fairness, one significant point that fraud claimers can make is that even if the phenomenon is modest in scale in the US, it can still be sufficient to overturn the results of elections given the peculiarities of its election system, in which outcomes are sometimes decided by a few hundred votes in a key state. But while valid for some elections – most notably, 2000 – it is most certainly not the case during this election, where even a reversal of the Georgia and Pennsylvania results will not be sufficient to give Trump victory.
Even though fraud claimers say a small amount of votes can sway the election, this isn't the case for this election. Even swinging Georgia or Pennsylvania to Trump still results in a Biden win.
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And you also need the conspiracy to be competent. This is outright impossible. Even a reasonably effective and high IQ semi-authoritarian regime such as Russia hasn’t learned how to hide electoral fraud from statistical analysts over 20 years and counting for the banal reason that you can’t expect much in the way of conscientiousness or even intelligence from people who accede to participating in electoral fraud. You people seriously expect that level of competence from… inner city Dems?
Anatoly here makes the argument that to pull off large scale voter fraud, you need a large scale conspiracy and you need large scale competency. Particularly that last category is unlikely.
Russia, which can be considered a high-IQ semi-authoritarian regime, still hasn't figured out how to hide electoral fraud from statistical analysts.
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Census takers say they were told to enter false information
Actual fraud taking place under his watch in terms of counting people for votes, and yet Trump is focusing on fraud that doesn't really exist. It's all about convenience and supporting his own bias.
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- Oct 2020
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towardsdatascience.com towardsdatascience.com
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Statistical techniques: average, quantiles, probability distribution, association rulesSupervised ML algorithms: logistic regression, neural net, time-series analysisUnsupervised ML algorithms: Cluster analysis, Bayesian network, Peer group analysis, break point analysis, Benford’s law (law of anomalous numbers)
Typical techniques used in financial fraud classification
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In machine learning, parlance fraud detection is generally treated as a supervised classification problem, where observations are classified as “fraud” or “non-fraud” based on the features in those observations. It is also an interesting problem in ML research due to imbalanced data — i.e. there’s a very few cases of frauds in an extremely large amount of transactions.
Financial fraud is generally solved as a supervised classification, but we've got the problem of imbalanced data
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With ever-increasing online transactions and production of a large volume of customer data, machine learning has been increasingly seen as an effective tool to detect and counter frauds. However, there is no specific tool, the silver bullet, that works for all kinds of fraud detection problems in every single industry. The nature of the problem is different in every case and every industry. Therefore every solution is carefully tailored within the domain of each industry.
Machine learning in fraud detection
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- Sep 2020
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www.buzzfeednews.com www.buzzfeednews.com
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“With no oversight whatsoever, I was left in a situation where I was trusted with immense influence in my spare time,” she wrote. “A manager on Strategic Response mused to myself that most of the world outside the West was effectively the Wild West with myself as the part-time dictator – he meant the statement as a compliment, but it illustrated the immense pressures upon me.”
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Facebook ignored or was slow to act on evidence that fake accounts on its platform have been undermining elections and political affairs around the world, according to an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee and obtained by BuzzFeed News.The 6,600-word memo, written by former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang, is filled with concrete examples of heads of government and political parties in Azerbaijan and Honduras using fake accounts or misrepresenting themselves to sway public opinion. In countries including India, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, she found evidence of coordinated campaigns of varying sizes to boost or hinder political candidates or outcomes, though she did not always conclude who was behind them.
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- Aug 2020
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unherd.com unherd.com
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If a prominent magazine like The Lancet is publishing such rubbish, who is to say smaller and less well financed magazines aren’t doing the same on a langer scale?
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- Jul 2020
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osf.io osf.io
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Payne, J. L., & Morgan, A. (2020). Property Crime during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A comparison of recorded offence rates and dynamic forecasts (ARIMA) for March 2020 in Queensland, Australia [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/de9nc
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twitter.com twitter.com
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Ed Conway on Twitter: “Breaking: UK government was routinely overstating the total number of people who’d been tested for #COVID19 by as many as 200,000 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, according to new Sky News analysis.” / Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1281652670000844800
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news.sky.com news.sky.com
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Coronavirus: The inside story of how UK’s “chaotic” testing regime “broke all the rules.” (n.d.). Sky News. Retrieved July 17, 2020, from https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-the-inside-story-of-how-uks-chaotic-testing-regime-broke-all-the-rules-12022566
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outline.com outline.com
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Aaron Greenspan
Owner and operator of PlainSite
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- Jun 2020
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prime.economictimes.indiatimes.com prime.economictimes.indiatimes.com
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Known as messenger RNA, Moderna’s vaccine essentially aims to induce an immune response by sending instruction signals for a spike protein located on the surface of the virus. These immune cells are then expected to develop antibodies against the virus whenever a person contracts the coronavirus. Although promising, this pathway has not been successful or used to develop vaccines before.
Novel form of vaccine but not entirely worth it.
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For example, on May 18, Moderna shared data showing that eight persons who were administered its vaccine coded mRNA-1273 elicited neutralising antibodies against the novel coronavirus. Moderna’s is an exceptional case in the history of vaccine development. In a rather unusual twist, the vaccine skipped animal studies, a pre-requisite, before it was tested on humans.
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- Nov 2019
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scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
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we propose calling such a system “HYDRA” for High-frequencY Fraud Detection Reference Application.
Setting aside the negative connotations that come out of the Captain American movies...
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- Jul 2019
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Mississippi’s white leaders did not disguise their intentions. “There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,” James K. Vardaman, one of the constitution’s framers as well as a future governor and senator, once boasted. “Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger from politics.”
This quote alone should win the case to overturn it.
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- Jun 2019
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"Google Maps ... is overrun with millions of false business addresses and fake names" "Online advertising specialists ... estimated that Google Maps carries roughly 11 million falsely listed businesses on any given day ... They say a majority of the listings for contractors, electricians, towing and car repair services, movers and lawyers, among other business categories, aren't located at their pushpins on Google Maps."
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hackernoon.com hackernoon.com
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Stop telling your manager that blockchain will make information correct. It is a mechanism for detecting untruths, not a magical lie-detector.
Storing immutable proof of a crime on a blockchain isn't a good idea
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- Mar 2019
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www.ftc.gov www.ftc.gov
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Office Depot, Inc. and a California-based tech support software provider have agreed to pay a total of $35 million to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the companies tricked customers into buying millions of dollars’ worth of computer repair and technical services by deceptively claiming their software had found malware symptoms on the customers’ computers.Office Depot has agreed to pay $25 million while its software supplier, Support.com, Inc., has agreed to pay $10 million as part of their settlements with the FTC. The FTC intends to use these funds to provide refunds to consumers.
Lovely fraud scheme. Good thing that Office Depot and support.com are paying for this.
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www.consumer.ftc.gov www.consumer.ftc.gov
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Many customers who took their computers in for a free “PC Health Check” at Office Depot or OfficeMax stores between 2009 and November 2016 were told their computers had malware symptoms or infections — but that wasn’t true. The FTC says Office Depot and OfficeMax ran PC Health Check, a diagnostic scan program created and licensed by Support.com, that tricked those consumers into thinking their computers had symptoms of malware or actual “infections,” even though the scan hadn’t found any such issues. Many consumers who got false scan results bought computer diagnostic and repair services from Office Depot and OfficeMax that cost up to $300.
Office Depot scammed people all over the USA, tricking them into believing something was wrong with their computers.
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- Dec 2018
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it.wikipedia.org it.wikipedia.org
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La nascita della vaccinazione viene fatta risalire, secondo la storiografia più accreditata, all'anno 1796 ad opera di un geniale medico di campagna: Edward Jenner
**Niente di più falso: la pratica della vaccinazione risale a tempi remotissimi ed Edward Jenner non era un medico**. Il cosiddetto "padre dell'immunologia" Edward Jenner non era un dottore. • Fonte: Dott. Walter Hadwen, JP, MD, LRCP, MRCS, LSA., spiegò durante un discorso nel 1896: • "...Ora quest'uomo [Edward] Jenner non aveva mai superato un esame medico in vita sua. Egli apparteneva ai bei vecchi tempi quando Giorgio III era Re - in cui gli esami medici non erano obbligatori. • Jenner considerava l'intera faccenda come una superfluità, e appese "Chirurgo, farmacista" sulla sua porta senza nessuna delle qualifiche che giustificassero il titolo. Non lo è stato fino a vent'anni dopo che praticava. Cosìcché ritenne opportuno ottenere le lettere relative al titolo (MD) dopo il suo nome. • Di conseguenza con la Scotch University e conseguì il titolo di Dottore in Medicina per la somma di £ 15 e niente di più. • È vero che poco prima aveva ottenuto una borsa di studio della Royal Society, ma il suo ultimo biografo e apologista, il dott. Norman Moore, confessò che il titolo era stato ottenuto con poco meno di una frode. Venne ottenuto scrivendo un articolo straordinario su un favoloso cuculo, composto in gran parte da arroganti assurdità e freaks fantasiosi a cui nessun ornitologo del presente presterebbe la minima attenzione. • Qualche anno dopo, piuttosto insoddisfatto dell'unica qualifica medica che aveva ottenuto, Jenner comunicò con l'Università di Oxford e chiese loro di concedergli la laurea honoris causa di M.D., e dopo molti tentativi infruttuosi l'ottenne. • Poi inviò al Royal College of Physicians di Londra per ricevere il loro diploma, e presentò la sua laurea a Oxford come argomento a suo favore. Ma pensavano che ne avesse già abbastanza a buon mercato, e gli dissero chiaramente che fino a quando non avesse superato i consueti esami non gli avrebbero dato altro. "• Quindi, in sintesi, Edward Jenner era una frode con zero qualifiche mediche . Ha acquistato la sua "laurea" e il titolo di medico per £ 15. Era un ciarlatano e i pro-vaxxers lo lodano e lo coprono chiamandolo un "medico di campagna".
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- Nov 2018
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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“You threw us under the bus!” she yelled at Mr. Stamos, according to people who were present.
Just imagine how all of your users feel Ms. Sandberg! And let's be honest, the fish stinks from the head.
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- May 2018
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retractionwatch.com retractionwatch.com
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What took more than five years? Elsevier retracts 20 papers by world’s most prolific fraudster
research fraud
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- Jun 2017
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www.securityweek.com www.securityweek.com
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In a recent analysis of more than 500 billion events collected from multiple global online services, 18% of user accounts that originated from cloud service IP ranges were fraudulent.
Really cool statistics.
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- Dec 2016
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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The government had commissioned a report on fraud after a scandal in Tower Hamlets, a borough in East London, where the elected mayor was stripped of his office last year and found guilty of corrupt practices involving voting fraud
A case in England in which voter fraud changed who was elected for a local office.
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- Jul 2016
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books.google.ca books.google.ca
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Page 63
A discussion of fraud in the humanities involving a book on gun ownership
In one case, allegations of inadequate, and accurate, and unverifiable data to support much-publicized conclusions about the historical rates of gun ownership led to the revocation of a major book prize and the loss of the author's University position.
The book is called arming America. The Astorian is Michael Bellesaies
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- Mar 2016
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www.nature.com www.nature.com
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The winner-take-all aspect of the priority rule has its drawbacks, however. It can encourage secrecy, sloppy practices, dishonesty and an excessive emphasis on surrogate measures of scientific quality, such as publication in high-impact journals. The editors of the journal Nature have recently exhorted scientists to take greater care in their work, citing poor reproducibility of published findings, errors in figures, improper controls, incomplete descriptions of methods and unsuitable statistical analyses as evidence of increasing sloppiness. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)As competition over reduced funding has increased markedly, these disadvantages of the priority rule may have begun to outweigh its benefits. Success rates for scientists applying for National Institutes of Health funding have recently reached an all-time low. As a result, we have seen a steep rise in unhealthy competition among scientists, accompanied by a dramatic proliferation in the number of scientific publications retracted because of fraud or error. Recent scandals in science are reminiscent of the doping problems in sports, in which disproportionately rich rewards going to winners has fostered cheating.
How the priority rule is killing science.
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mbio.asm.org mbio.asm.org
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The role of external influences on the scientific enterprise must not be ignored. With funding success rates at historically low levels, scientists are under enormous pressure to produce high-impact publications and obtain research grants. The importance of these influences is reflected in the burgeoning literature on research misconduct, including surveys that suggest that approximately 2% of scientists admit to having fabricated, falsified, or inappropriately modified results at least once (24). A substantial proportion of instances of faculty misconduct involve misrepresentation of data in publications (61%) and grant applications (72%); only 3% of faculty misconduct involved neither publications nor grant applications.
Importance of low funding rates as incitement to fraud
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The predominant economic system in science is “winner-take-all” (17, 18). Such a reward system has the benefit of promoting competition and the open communication of new discoveries but has many perverse effects on the scientific enterprise (19). The scientific misconduct among both male and female scientists observed in this study may well reflect a darker side of competition in science. That said, the preponderance of males committing research misconduct raises a number of interesting questions. The overrepresentation of males among scientists committing misconduct is evident, even against the backdrop of male overrepresentation among scientists, a disparity more pronounced at the highest academic ranks, a parallel with the so-called “leaky pipeline.” There are multiple factors contributing to the latter, and considerable attention has been paid to factors such as the unique challenges facing young female scientists balancing personal and career interests (20), as well as bias in hiring decisions by senior scientists, who are mostly male (21). It is quite possible that, in at least some cases, misconduct at high levels may contribute to attrition of woman from the senior ranks of academic researchers.
Reason for fraud: winner take all
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- Feb 2015
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well.blogs.nytimes.com well.blogs.nytimes.com
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The New York State attorney general’s office accused four major retailers on Monday of selling fraudulent and potentially dangerous herbal supplements and demanded that they remove the products from their shelves.
As early as the opening, we can see issues with the handling of the subject matter that give ample room to herbal supplement apologists.
The apologist could start with the semantic objection, "What is an herbal supplement that does not contain the ingredients on the label -- it is just a filler pill." He will go on to establish that this constitutes supplement fraud for sure. But the author seeks to smuggle the idea of danger into the idea of herbal medicine and would not be able to do that if the products were more carefully engineered. In other words, these fraudulent herbal supplements only present dangers because they're fraudulent; if they contained what they were supposed to they would be safe.
The apologist would be deeply mistaken.
Sadly, even though this is just one little paragraph, the problems do not stop there. The 4 major retailers targeted by the investigation are being set-up (through the use of that "major" label) as giants in the industry. While this may be true by the numbers, it's also a very easy point for an apologist to knock down. One can almost imagine the smaller scale "herbal remedy" operation -- "Is it really any surprise big corporations fail to provide a quality herbal product? They care about you. They only care about their bottom line."
Suffice it to say, the handling oo the reporting, as well as the circumstances of the investigation look like they're going to leave much to be desired. If thee early presentation fails persist throughout the article, it would have the effect of turning this should-be exposé into little more than a flash the pan.
We'll see this is exactly what happens.
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