Here is the press release in its entirety:

HENDERSON, Nevada – The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential campaign announced today new members of its “LDS for Ron Continue reading...]]> In a political move obviously intended to win support from — and undermine Mitt Romney with — Nevada Mormons, the Ron Paul campaign today released testimonials for his candidacy from Nevada members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints.

Here is the press release in its entirety:

HENDERSON, Nevada – The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential campaign announced today new members of its “LDS for Ron Paul” nationwide coalition.  The Latter-Day Saints Church members and member families joining the coalition hail from Clark and Washoe counties, both Nevada.

“It’s such a rare thing to find a politician that respects, and supports, our values.  How lucky we are to have a presidential candidate, Ron Paul, with a congressional record of supporting our faith’s understanding of the proper role of government,” said David Loyd Isbell of Las Vegas.

Mr. Isbell is a former Political Director of the Clark County Republican Party.

“We support Ron Paul because he is the only candidate we trust to defend our liberties.  He is a true believer in the U.S. Constitution and limited sovereign government.  We support Ron Paul because he knows that you cannot pick and choose freedom,” wrote Adam and Jorja Leavitt of North Las Vegas.

“Ron is a man of conviction and principle.  He is a man who has followed the Constitution, even if he stands alone.  I am happy to stand and support Ron Paul, as he not only talks about freedom, his actions and life have shown he truly believes in the principles of liberty and freedom.  His principled life is something we all should emulate,” said Jeff Gleason of Henderson.

“My primary consideration in electing any individual to public office rests on their belief in and adherence to the constitutional principles the founding fathers established 236 years ago.  During the last 35 years Ron Paul has proven that he believes in the inalienable rights of the men and women of our country.  His voting record proves that he’s a man of integrity and that he’ll stand for those rights – even when his fellow ‘conservatives’ are voting to the contrary.  I want my children to live in a free country.  I want them to be prosperous and help others because they choose to help others, not because they’re forced to do so.  Ron Paul has my vote because he is the only candidate that truly believes in my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Dustin Olenslager of Las Vegas.

“The direction given in the Doctrine and Covenants, and the fervent pleas and warnings of President Benson and other prophets, have made it clear – there’s no question – we are to support the candidate who defends the Constitution.  The other candidates are what would be called in the business world, ‘company men’ who support those laws and institutions that have sidestepped the Constitution, minimized our God-given rights, and legalized criminal acts such as the looting of our treasury.  Brother Romney voted for the bailouts and supports the corrupt Federal Reserve,” said Chloie Leavitt of Overton.

“As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we support Ron Paul because he completely and unequivocally supports, follows, and votes in favor of the Constitution.  Thus, he follows the admonitions found in the Doctrine and Covenants regarding the sacredness of this Divinely-inspired document.  Ron Paul is consistent in his voting record in favor of the Right to Life and has never changed his position regarding this fundamental principle,” said Terry and Raina Stump of Overton.

“The consistency which Ron Paul has shown through his voting record while in Congress is a concrete, documented proof revealing his character, which is true and genuine and has not been swayed by any outside political, religious, or financial agenda.  Ron Paul, like many great leaders of the past, emulates Judeo-Christian values, blending these beliefs with the principles of freedom and thus raising the level of public and private virtue.  It is not the religion that makes a man great, but the way in which the man carries forth his religion with truth and justice in his private and public life that makes him great,” added the Stump couple.

“As a husband and a father, my personal relationship to Christ and His Gospel has led me to care deeply for civic duty.  The standard that Constitutional government is a divine gift to be protected has become a crystal clear motivating force for my full support of Ron Paul for President.  As I have spent long hours examining key political issues espoused in my faith, I discovered that adhering to the guiding principles I have been taught since my youth is far more important than getting caught up in fanfare or personality.  Ron Paul and no other will restore the freedoms for our families that our Creator gave us,” said Jesse Law of Las Vegas.

“I support Ron Paul because he is the only candidate advocating for the principle of Agency – a principle that we as LDS hold near and dear to our hearts.  He has also shown tremendous integrity for 12 congressional terms in understanding and following the tenets of the Constitution – another principle we LDS are taught to revere.  Lastly, as if channeling President Ezra Taft Benson, Ron Paul has promoted and taught that the proper role of government is to protect our liberties, not rule by force and fear,” said Heidi Woodbury Kiene of Reno.

As a first basic step, those wanting to join the active “LDS for Ron Paul” nationwide coalition should visit the official page by clicking here.  Those residing in Nevada should email Meghann Walker, the Nevada Voter Outreach Director, at meghannw@ronpaul2012.com.

I’ll believe it when all the Republican candidates leave the campaign trail in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida and start flocking here to woo Nevada voters.

Or when national political analysts start mentioning us in their early state size-ups.

Or when one plus one plus one equals five.

Hey, it’s possible we’ll matter when Feb. 4 arrives, but that is by no means guaranteed.

Today I polled some Nevada political wags for their reactions to the claim that 5th is really better than Continue reading...]]> All righty, then.

I’ll believe it when all the Republican candidates leave the campaign trail in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida and start flocking here to woo Nevada voters.

Or when national political analysts start mentioning us in their early state size-ups.

Or when one plus one plus one equals five.

Hey, it’s possible we’ll matter when Feb. 4 arrives, but that is by no means guaranteed.

Today I polled some Nevada political wags for their reactions to the claim that 5th is really better than 3rd. Strangely, none of them agreed.

Tonight on Face to Face, state GOP chairwoman Amy Tarkanian reminded us that she pushed for and preferred the Jan. 14 date but was overruled by the executive board and the central committee. (She did not mention that she also lost the same-day registration battle, which I am sure must have pained her almost as much.)

After experiencing all the joys of her chairmanship, it is probably safe to say that stepping down (if her hubby runs for Congress as expected) won’t exactly break Mrs. Tark’s heart.

Should’ve posted a “Gone Fishin’” sign (and have done so now).

I’ll be back someday (when the time is right), but in the meantime here is where to find me these days:

– Editing and managing the Nevada News Bureau

– Blogging on The Blog there (now branded E!!Politics)

– Doing political analysis & commentary wherever I’m hired or invited

Also:  Follow me on Twitter @elizcrum

Dr. Swan to Infant Boys: Stop Being So Girly

First, an excerpt from Porter’s piece:

Continue reading...]]> One of my pet peeves is the funding of questionable “scientific” studies by federal agencies like the EPA. Another is the presentation of “junk science” in our court rooms by very well-compensated “expert” academics. A third is modern science’s obsession with gender issues, to the point of absurdity.  So naturally this headline by Curtis Porter at the American Council on Science & Health (ACSH) caught my eye:

Dr. Swan to Infant Boys: Stop Being So Girly

First, an excerpt from Porter’s piece:

So, WebMD relays the results of a new study by Dr. Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester Medical Center published in the International Journal of Andrology: “Mothers exposed to high levels of chemicals known as phthalates during pregnancy may have boys who are less likely to play with trucks and other male-typical toys or to play fight.”

If this sounds absurdly unscientific to you, it’s because it is. “Dr. Swan clearly started with her desired result and worked backwards to find some pseudo-scientific factors to justify it,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross.

“Shanna Swan has made a career out of studying phthalates and trying to find reproductive effects from them,” says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, who has crossed swords with Dr. Swan on the subject before.

“A few years ago she conducted a study that alleged there was a ‘feminizing’ effect on baby boys from phthalate exposure based on a metric she made up called ‘anogenital distance,’” explains Dr. Ross. “That study has since become part of the lore of anti-science groups who dislike phthalates. This latest study is equally horrendous. I could go through the article and say all the ways it is completely nonsensical, and we’d be here all morning, but I will mention that she reverts to her preferred strategy of using parameters that she admits she made up on the spot when she’s watching these baby boys playing with toys.”

“This is junk science at its worst,” adds Dr. Whelan. “And I’d just like to point out that Shanna Swan recently got a $5 million dollar grant from the EPA to continue with this terrible research.”

Question 1:  It costs $5 million to screen boys and watch them play with trucks?

Question 2:  What is “anogenital distance” and why is it alleged to be a “feminizing” factor?

Question 3:  Who is Dr. Shanna Swan? ACSH, a well-respected organization, seems to disagree with a lot of her work.

A Google search on “Swan” and “expert” and “testimony” returned this article from Forbes. It answers two of my three questions. (“Anogenital distance” is the distance between the anus and the genitals. More on this in a bit.)

From the Forbes piece:

Once upon a time–this week, actually–mothers all over the world woke up and wondered whether their little boys were increasingly behaving like little girls. The cause for this sudden concern: a new study claiming chemicals in everyday plastics might be feminizing their brains.

Was this a feminist plot to end patriarchy and violence? A cunning plan by doll manufacturers in a hitherto-hidden war with toy-truck makers? A long-term strategy to improve the growth potential of grooming products for men? No, it was just another study that the media rushed into publication without any pause to examine how it was assembled.

However, what the reports failed to mention was the weak statistical data the authors of the study employed to reach this conclusion.

As the author of Forbes piece goes on to say, we live in a “virtual junkyard of information, a growing, steaming pile of statistical garbage and toxic nonsense that won’t decay and disappear.” False findings in modern “scientific” research are common, and researching the accuracy of research is now a field of scientific study. On top of that, the media’s eagerness to quote Swan and other so-called “experts” births, as the Forbes piece also points out, that mythical beast known as “a growing number of scientists.”

The author of the Forbes piece goes on to cite a number of court cases, including one that made it to the Supreme Court, in which Dr. Swan’s studies and testimony were so poorly regarded that they were ruled inadmissible.

So, now, the “anogenital” thing (again quoting from the Forbes piece):

Take the chemicals in vinyl and cosmetics that are supposedly feminizing baby boys. Though phthalates have been a target of environmental activist groups for years, they only rose to recent prominence thanks to one highly-publicized 2005 study by Shanna Swan.

Swan claimed that levels of certain phthalate metabolites in pregnant women correlated with a lower anogenital index (AGI) in their male children. AGI is a measurement of the distance from the anus to the base of the penis, divided by the weight at the time of measurement.

There wasn’t a consensus as to what a normal range for AGI was in baby boys or whether it is significant, but there was evidence that a shorter AGI correlated with a slower rate of testicular descent in animals. When a National Institutes of Health (NIH) expert panel later evaluated her study, it didn’t find her evidence wholly convincing. All the babies in the study had normal genitalia with no sign of defects.

But Swan wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle claiming that “In-utero exposures to phthalates can lead to birth defects and genital malformations … in baby boys.” Such a claim disregarded her own study and would never have passed peer review. Environmental activists and journalists then seized on her public comments as proof the public was at risk. Phthalates and Shanna Swan suddenly became the poster boy and girl for deformed penises.

Dr. Swan later mined through new data she compiled. On the basis of finding two correlations that reached statistical significance, she announced to the world that some phthalates could change male behavior and feminize little boys.

Two?

Two correlations are a long way away from evidence of causation, friends. On that basis, Swan feels justified striking fear in the hearts of mothers regarding the health and/or masculinity of their boys?  And Dr. Swan is supposed to be a well-respected expert in her field? It seems, as the Forbes piece said, that:

The logic of her approach to evaluating risk was so precautionary that virtually nothing could provide sufficient proof of safety while pretty much anything could provide sufficient proof of danger.

Right. And it is the potential danger of non-scientific “approaches” like Swan’s – including fabricating metrics like “anogenital distance,” over-valuing minor correlations, and placing unsubstantiated, theoretical op-eds in major newspapers – that fairness can be thwarted in our justice courts as well as in the court of public opinion.

It should be noted that such “methods” and “research” can also lead to unnecessary and costly EPA regulations that don’t make us one bit safer. Dr. Swan sure seems to be playing fast and loose with our tax dollars, which is the real source of the $5M in funding for her “research.”

Reason.com has a new video on it, spoofing UPS’ white board ad campaign.  And with an interesting spin on the issue at the end.  (Hint:  The real evil doer is neither UPS nor FedEx.)

For Reid fans and those on the left who will think it funny, you’re welcome.  (Oh wait:  nobody from the left reads my blog because I am a right wing nut job.  Silly me!)

For those on the right who will be mad when they read Continue reading...]]> Those who read E!! and/or know me well are familiar with my love for a good parody no matter who is being mocked.  And Jon Ralston has penned a good one on Harry Reid’s would-be GOP challengers.

For Reid fans and those on the left who will think it funny, you’re welcome.  (Oh wait:  nobody from the left reads my blog because I am a right wing nut job.  Silly me!)

For those on the right who will be mad when they read it, it’s ok. We must never – any of us – take ourselves too seriously.

Both sides should take a deep breath.  We’ve got 13 months to go until the 2010 elections.  Before it’s all over, Nevada politics being what it is, we’re all going to need a few laughs.

*For those who didn’t catch the film reference in the header of this post, it’s a twist on a great Kilgore (Robert Duvall) line from Apocalypse Now (<— 59 second clip):  “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you all the milk you need.

Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the Continue reading...]]> (Source: Unknown)

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you all the milk you need.

Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you should need.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbours help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

Real World Communism: You share two cows with your neighbours. You and your neighbours bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.

Perestroika: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the “free” market.

Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Militarism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbours decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheep’s brains and they go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.

Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

Pure Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbours try to take the cows and kill you.

Pure Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

American-style Capitalism: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral.

Environmentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.

Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is a symbol of the phallo centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently – aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.

The two have now said buh-bye to one another, presumably as part of the fallout from the uber-sordid Ensign affair with a campaign staffer (and wife of a close friend).

There’s a rumor afloat that Ensign MAY have hired Sig Rogich to help him limp through this next phase of his Continue reading...]]> Well, as they say, all good things must come to an end.  And apparently the longstanding relationship between political consultant Mike Slanker and Senator John Ensign is not exempt from that rule.

The two have now said buh-bye to one another, presumably as part of the fallout from the uber-sordid Ensign affair with a campaign staffer (and wife of a close friend).

There’s a rumor afloat that Ensign MAY have hired Sig Rogich to help him limp through this next phase of his political career. Rogich already advises Harry Reid on various and sundry, so an association with Ensign would mean Rogich has the ears of both Nevada senators.

Well played, Mr. Rogich.

Watch; laugh; cry; share.