How a lack of legitimacy undermines “Broken Windows Policing”

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In a 2011 New Yorker talk, Malcolm Gladwell described the central role “legitimacy” plays in motivating people.  Previously, political theorists had focused on “deterrence theory” that treats people as rational actors who decide whether to follow the law based upon a weighing of the pros and cons of compliance.

Protesting Illegitimate Authority

Gladwell cites NYU Professor Tom Tyler’s work on “legitimacy”, and argues that people will fight to the death and even go on hunger strikes against an authority they feel is illegitimate, despite overwhelming penalties that deterrence theorists assume would be effective.

Gladwell identifies 3 factors in establishing legitimacy:

  1. Does the authority grant one standing and listen to one’s petitions?
  2. Is authority administered with neutrality or is there one set of rules for one group and a different system for others?
  3. Is the system trustworthy — does it follow well-defined rules that are sensible and are not subject to arbitrary change?

[Read more…]

The amazing woman responsible for the Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines

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Here’s the amazing story of grit and perseverance about the woman who did the pioneering work for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine.
Katalin Kariko light corrected.jpeg
Katalin Karikó, born in Hungary
Temple University & University of Pennsylvania

Timeline: Development of Vaccine by Katalin Karikó:

(from Wired Magazine article)

  1. 1955: Katalin Karikó was born in Hungary
  2. 1976: She hears about ideas of using mRNA to target viruses while an undergrad at the University of Szegedin Hungary.
  3. She completes her Ph.D.
  4. 1985: As an immigrant from Hungary, Katalin Karikó immigrated to the US to do research at Temple University.
  5. After a dispute with her boss, Temple University tried to have her deported.
  6. She switched to the University of Pennsylvania, but her research was not considered promising because there were significant challenges in getting the immune system to accept the mRNA that the vaccine uses.
  7. The mid-1990s — She failed to get funding for her work at the University of Pennsylvania and was forced to choose between stopping work on her mRNA research or be demoted from a track to be a full professor.
  8. She chose to be demoted and continue her research.
  9. UPenn’s ultimatum was posed just after she had been diagnosed with cancer.
  10. She persisted and was able to get her research funded with the help of an established immunology professor — Drew Weissman — who she met at the photocopier.
  11. In the early 2000s: she read a study that gave her an idea of how to avoid the adverse immune system reaction that prevented mRNA from being used in vaccines.
  12. 2005: Karikó and Weissman published a study suggesting that there may be a way to avoid the immune reaction.
  13. After publishing their research and patenting it, Karikó and Weissman received no invitations to talk about their work.
  14. But Derrick Rossi, a postdoc at Stanford University noticed their research and created a company called Moderna in 2010 to commercialize the technology.
  15. Karikó and Weissman licensed their technology to a small German company called BioNTech, after five years of trying and failing.  (BioNTech was founded by a Turkish immigrant named Ugur Sahin)
  16. 2013: UPenn refused to reinstate Katalin Karikó as a full professor after demoting her in 1995. She told them she was leaving to go to BioNTech: ”When I told them I was leaving, they laughed at me and said, ‘BioNTech doesn’t even have a website.’”
  17. 2017: Moderna (founded by the Derrick Rossi Stanford postdoc) used the technology Karikó pioneered to develop a Zika virus vaccine .
  18. 2018: The German company Karikó and Weissman licensed their technology to partnered with Pfizer to develop an influenza vaccine.
  19. April 2020: Derrick Rossi’s Moderna received $483 million (£360m) from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to fast-track its Covid-19 vaccine program
  20. Pfizer developed their mRNA vaccine using Karikó and Weissman research, but without government funding.

Read More:

1) Read full “Wired” article:

Was the 2020 Election Stolen?

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ESS Election Systems


I’ve talked with friends who sincerely believe that this past election was stolen.

I wrote this post up in the hopes it serves as a reference for friends who want to discuss Election Fraud — the most proximate cause of January 6 Capitol Hill Riot.

Under Oath
Under Oath

1) Not Under Oath

The first thing you have to do is distinguish between different types of evidence.

Rudolf Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and others made many claims during press conferences but many of the claims and evidence provided were not presented in a court of law where testimony would need to be made under oath and subject to cross-examination.

Sidney Powell

When Sidney Powell did make claims in court, her cases fell apart.

Sidney Powell
Sidney Powell

Sidney Powell describes one source, code-named “Spyder”, in court filings as a former “Military Intelligence expert and filed a claim that he was an expert witness:

I was an electronic intelligence analyst under 305th Military Intelligence with experience gathering SAM missile system electronic intelligence. I have extensive experience as a white hat hacker used by some of the top election specialists in the world.

But upon further scrutiny, it was revealed that her “expert” never completed his entry-level training for the 305th Military Intelligence Battalion over 15 years ago. [Read more…]