Florida State Professor (Sally Karioth) Does Not Know What “Peer Reviewed” Means

Someone brought the testimony of Florida State University professor Sally Karioth to my attention yesterday. To be specific, it was prosecutor Jeff Ashton's vetting of her as an "grief and trauma" expert that was so hilarious. She either could not grasp the concept of what "peer reviewed" research was, or was trying to pull a fast one on the prosecution so she could testify and get paid. Either case is shocking of a professor that has been with a state university "for forty years." But the former means she is just an unbelievable idiot, or possibly suffering from the onset of dementia. The latter, however, means she technically committed perjury.

For anyone not familiar with peer reviewed journals, publishing in them is typically required for a college professor to make any real money. Also, it is inconceivable that a Ph.D. would not know what constitutes peer reviewed research since they have to use it in order to write their own dissertation; which, is also peer reviewed.

So, there is just no good explanation as to why Karioth could possibly not know what qualifies as peer reviewed research. She had to be outright lying to the prosecutor, hoping she could slip one by him in order to bolster her credentials as an expert witness. But why? The prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, caught her in lie after lie, but she kept giving him non-peer reviewed work; even going so far as say she was "an editor" on "several" peer reviewed journals, herself. (Of course, I could find no record of this — I even specifically checked the editorial boards of ten popular "trauma" journals.)  But what motivated her to lie like this? The only conclusion that makes sense is just pure narcissism. Or, in this case, criminal narcissism.

Personally, I think she should be prosecuted for perjury. Lying about ones credentials can affect the ethos of an expert witness's testimony, possibly influencing the outcome of a trail. And since Dr. Karioth claims this to be her thirteenth trail as an expert witness, in all likelihood, she will be one again. This performance should go down on her criminal record as "buyer beware."

Anyway, I was so blown away by it that I had to make a video. Because this kinda needs to go down on her permanent internet record for those attempting to evaluate her in the future. (Not contained in the video or video description is where — I believe — Dr. Karioth claimed to be the editor of the Journal of Traumatic Events. However, no record of this journal exists online, either. Whether or not she truly is the editor of this, likely, imaginary publication can only be known by Dr. Karioth, I suppose.)

Youtube Video Description:

Dr. Sally P. Karioth, Ph.D., RN testified as a "grief expert" during the Casey Anthony murder trail. In the video, Prosecutor Jeff Ashton asks Dr. Karioth to name which peer reviewed journals she has been published in — but she repeatedly named non-peer reviewed work, even after Mr. Ashton explained the definition of "peer reviewed" research.

She claimed to have been published in one publication using the word "journal" eponymously. However, no reference to its existence could be found on the internet. All other claimed work was found to be in non-peer reviewed publications, or simply could not be found through internet searches.

Dr. Karioth also claimed to be the editor of several peer reviewed research journals. Google searches found no journals where Dr. Karioth was even on an editorial board, let alone the actual "editor" of any journals.

Based upon her education and these professional credentials she testified to under oath, Judge Belvin Perry deemed Dr. Karioth a "grief and trauma" expert and allowed her to testify.

When Was the Last Time You Cried?

This was it for me:

I still watch this video anytime I need a laugh.

AT&T: Quit being mean to us!

AT&T Death StarI just got an email about AT&T's new Terms of Service. One of the additions struck me as pretty funny:

Abusive Treatment: We have added language that allows AT&T to terminate the
service of customers who repeatedly harass or abuse our employees.

As a customer that has spent hours on the phone dealing with AT&T customer service, I have uttered a profanity or two or three… oh hell, a bunch. But it is their horrendous customer service that drives us to cursing and yelling. Sometimes it is a shit-for-brains CSR. Other times it is poor training and AT&T’s contemptible CRM system. Whatever the case, it leads to crap customer service and irate customers that take it out on employees.

I do not understand how a company like this can be world renown for piss poor customer service, and it NEVER changes, EVER.

Back in 2002, I had a long fight with AT&T over cell phone roaming charges. They incorrectly billed me for roaming in a city that was a part of their network: Houston, Texas. Ever heard of it? Well, AT&T pretended like they had not.

Despite my phone displaying AT&T on its screen and the dozens of AT&T wireless stores in the city, they insisted that I was roaming – that Houston was not part of their nationwide network. Yeah, I know. I must be leaving something out of the story, right? Nope. Houston was included in my plan. But instead of crediting the charges, they just put up a brick wall of irrational, illogical denial.

After countless phone calls and speaking to multiple CSRs and supervisors, they eventually offered to knock the $250 down to $50. By this point I was just worn out and capitulated. I cancelled my service with them shortly thereafter.

FYI. If something retarded like that happens to you, take them to small claims court. As has been documented on the internet many times, these companies will settle out of court 99% of the time, even paying the lawsuit filing fee. It costs them more to go to court than to settle the case out of court.

Unfortunately, I now have internet through American Thieves and Thugs. Not one time in the past year have they gotten the bill correct. Every month requires a phone call because, for the love of God, they cannot pull their heads out of their asses.

Now AT&T is moving all their residential internet customers to metred usage. 150 gigs per month for normal customer and 250 gigs for U-Verse customers. And if you go over your allotted amount, you actually end up paying more for each additional gig than you do for your first 150 or 250 gigs.

What jackholes. Clearly, instead of expanding their network for ever increasing bandwidth usage, they are using this as a stop-gap measure.

They say 2 percent of users are using 20 percent of the bandwidth, and this is a measure to put them in check. But trust me, way more than 2 percent of their customers are using more than 150 gigs per month. It may sound like a lot, but if you watch a lot of television and movies online (or use VoIP like Vonage), you have probably already exceeded that before. And there is no language in their policy to adjust that cap for bandwidth inflation. Will it still be 150 gigs ten years from now? Your guess is as good as mine.

Going to be a lot of angry and surprised AT&T customers at the end of May. Good thing they got that new “Don’t be mean to our employees or ELSE!” punitive policy in place. They are going to need it.

Donald Trump is My Guilty Pleasure President

When I first heard that Trump was thinking about running for president, I laughed and called it another one of his media-whore schemes. But then I heard him speak. And I must confess, I like what I hear. Despite being almost a parody of a rich white Republican (think of Jack Donagy from NBC's 30 Rock), he is a shot of penicillin to a bad case of douchebag, pantywaist, liberal syphilis. However, it is disappointing and troubling that the US seems to be see-sawing back and forth between extremes since Bush Jr. But make no mistake, I would have absolutely no qualms with Trump taking over the Oval Office tomorrow. As he said himself, he cannot do any worse than Obama.

Ain't that the damn truth.

Last night Trump was interviewed by Sean Hannity, where he called Barack Obama "the worst president ever."

I always said the worst president was Jimmy Carter. Guess what? Jimmy Carter goes to second place. Barack Obama has been the worst president ever. The history of this country, Barack Obama is number one.

I will give Trump a pass on Bush. Because he actually used to call Bush the worst president in US history, not Carter. Bush indeed was an amazing president. He synergized the very worst parts of Democrats and Republicans into one gigantic "Fuck you!" to Americans at large. I always say this when slamming No Child Left Behind and the attempted '06 amnesty legislation (yes, it was amnesty): Whether you are conservative or liberal, any legislation that Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush championed together had to be bad. Total guilt by association. And we are still suffering from Bush today, as he is squarely to blame for the nation's hard swerve to the left with the election of Obama.

Carter, on the other hand, was just an all-around failure — particularly with the economy. The only good thing you can really credit him with is his work that led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. For that President Carter, we salute you. Now go away. Move to Cuba, Venezuela, or whatever dictatorship will take you. You ceased being relevant to the world in 1981.

But one thing that clearly separates Obama from Carter: Carter would never have spent us into the financial straits we are in right now. Obama is rocking all the fiscal ineptitude of Carter, but adds a zealous tunnel vision of ideology that has manifested itself in indiscriminate, out of control spending. From a 2009 promise of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term, to nearly shutting the government down and withholding pay to the military over a TINY reduction in 2012's projected $1.6 trillion deficit. Obama is absolutely on track to be the worst president ever.

Infantile Alcoholism

Another incident where a toddler was served an alcoholic beverage at a restaurant:

Olive Garden restaurants are making changes after a toddler was served alcoholic sangria instead of orange juice at a Florida location.

News of the incident comes after an Applebee's in Michigan accidently served a margarita to another toddler.

This does not surprise me a bit. Although I must admit, some pretty negligent carelessness had to occur in order to mix up apple juice with premade margaritas and sangria with orange juice. They are not even the same colours.

But this reminds me of a time I was a part-time bartender while going to school. A waiter came by and asked for a virgin strawberry daiquiri. I was pretty busy at the time, and by the time I got around to making it, all I remembered was strawberry daiquiri.

Luckily, the waiter had some common sense and double-checked with me that it was indeed virgin when he came to pick it up, because it was going to a child. Of course, it had an ounce and a half of rum in it. Close call.

So for you parents out there: If you order virgin drinks for your kids. Always remember to double-check them for alcohol. Accidents do happen.

No Warranty on the New Shelby Mustang?

2012 Shelby Super Snake

Shelby announced that they are going to offer updated aftermarket Super Snake packages for the factory Ford Shelby Mustang 500GT. However, drivetrain warranties for these are in absentia:

While the base Super Snake will produce a mere 750 horsepower, those who feel the need for more power will be able to add an optional upgrade package that will provide 50 more. Shelby provides no warranty on the engine and transmission, in either case.

I hear you cannot even keep Porsche out of the shop — and Germans are world renown for their engineering standards. But an American musclecar without a warranty? Nah, what could possibly go wrong!?

I know this is aftermarket and all. But Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bugatti all offer warranties. But Shelby, not even a warranty to cover the machine until it can get out of your parking lot!? Interesting. Shows you how much confidence they have in their products!

"I'll build it. But I ain't guaa-ron-tee-in' it!"

Setting Up WordPress Multisite on GoDaddy.com

Recently, I decided that I wanted two separate blogs for my site, but still interconnected. Instead of two different installs, WordPress Multisite seemed to be the way to go. I can administer both from the same back end; and share addons, widgets, and information.

There are two ways to go about this with WordPress 3.1 Multisite. First, you can have it setup to run additional blogs in subfolders (i.e. http://centraltendencies.com/new_blog/). Your second option is to run them as virtual subdomains (i.e. http://new_blog.centraltendencies.com). I wanted the latter. Only problem is, GoDaddy does not support the virtual subdomain WordPress install on shared servers.

But alas, there is hope! (That is if you are content with manually creating the subdomains.)

At first I thought it would be as simple as creating a subdomain manually, too. But I was missing a key ingredient that, thankfully, Keith Lock figured out. I have to give him props — and a link! — in hopes that others beating their heads against the wall will find his workaround sooner than I did.

The short story here is that you follow all normal instructions for activating WordPress Multisite for subdomains, including the creation of the subdomain blog. (You can follow the instructions at either GoDaddy or Keith's link above.) After that is done, manually create the subdomain on GoDaddy. Point the subdomain at the same root directory at your WordPress install — the folder with wp-config.php in it.

But here is the catch to making it all work. You now have to go back into the wp-config.php file and DELETE out:

('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

Then, your new subdomain WordPress blog will function. Brilliant!

Couple additional notes: You cannot name your new blog, "blog," if you use the subfolder method. (Well, technically you can. But, trust me, you are asking for a world of hurt if you insist upon being that hard headed.)

And, check your permalinks after you activate Multisite. If it is not a new install, very likely you are going to find a "blog" slug corrupting your permalinks (i.e. http://centraltendencies.com/blog/_year/_month/_generic-post). Go back in your settings and change your permalink structure back to your previous style.