Friday morning links

Malthus (via Paul Erlich), Peak Oil, Global Cooling , Global Warming , Climate Change, Umpteen Worthless COVID-19 models, etc. all concur.

That's why, as amazing and formidable as they were intellectually, the ancient Greeks didn't explain the world and Universe as fully as they could have: They were far more "axiomatic" than "experimental".

Repeating a Feynman chestnut:

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

And corollary Feynman:

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

P.S. And it doesn't take thousands of words to acknowledge that, while it's math that gives you two roots to a quadratic, it's physics (or looking out the window) that allows you to reject one of those.

#2 Bill Carson on 2020-05-22 08:08 (Reply)

And when I see Actual experiments With actual recorded metrics, actions and results, replicated by unrelated parties, I’ll think about what climate science might mean. Excel spreadsheet sheets don’t count as experiments. Not science.

#2.1 Annie on 2020-05-22 08:46 (Reply)

Preach!

#2.1.1 Bill Carson on 2020-05-22 08:51 (Reply)

Re: Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger says online encyclopedia scrapped neutrality, favors lefty politics

That's too bad. Now it's just another case of something being worth what you paid for it.

#3 mudbug on 2020-05-22 08:22 (Reply)

Obviously employees who are offered a chance to return to work shouldn't be eligible for unemployment. If they're too medically fragile to return to work safely, what they should be trying to qualify for is disability.

#4 Texan99 on 2020-05-22 08:51 (Reply)

Getting the same in Canada where our clueless PM has been throwing money at all and sundry to the tune of $2,000 per month. Needless to say, a lot of part-timers are declining to return to work while they can collect these benefits. This is causing problems to small businesses who depend on part-timers to fill in for odd hours.

However, karma reigns: those benefits are taxable but no income tax is being deducted so those who chose to slack off and enjoy the government munificence will be given a nasty shock next April. My heart bleeds - NOT.

#4.1 Frances on 2020-05-22 23:53 (Reply)

Over and over, the same theme. Democratic Party leaders and operatives espouse high principals to garner political support and build the wave of excitement, and then turn on tactical dimes to discard them when there is an advantage to taking unprincipled action and doing dirty deeds. Democratic Party followers meanwhile thrill to the excitement of the principled wave and then float passively on the rip tides that take them into moral danger.

"Believe All Women" Oh wait, "Believe All College Women" Oh Wait, "Believe Joe, even if he boils babies, and by the way Orange Man Bad"

Hard to fight that effectively with reasonable discourse and debate. Violence still works, though - we have Antifa to thank for that reminder.

#5 Aggie on 2020-05-22 09:32 (Reply)

ACLU vs Due Process: This is a surprise? They long ago abandoned any respect for anything other than left wing ideology.

#6 Stargazer on 2020-05-22 10:13 (Reply)

When I lived in Boston we called those twisted doughnuts crullers.

#7 GoneWithTheWind on 2020-05-22 10:49 (Reply)

Modern Doughnut: A story I read many years ago said a captain lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvved doughnuts, and stuck them on the handles of the ship's wheel so as to have them handy, making holes thru them.

Writer At ‘The Nation’ – I’d Vote For Joe Biden Even If He Boiled Babies And Ate Them…Dems are VICIOUS. And evil. And vile.

The ACLU vs. due process: The nonprofit takes a surprising stand against more rights for those accused on campus.
Totes not surprising! It's the ACLU!

#8 Sam L. on 2020-05-22 11:11 (Reply)

If you want to better understand what the purpose of wearing masks and social distancing is take note of what the Michigan AG and Governor Cuomo have said yesterday and today. The AG berated Trump for not wearing the mask and yet her video showed her not wearing the mask and her picture (showed when they didn't show the video on the news story) showed her not wearing the mask. Governor Cuomo did the same thing today on TV, berating people as stupid if they didn't wear the mask which he now mandates that everyone wear the mask. And yet, he did this while not wearing the mask.

Are you understanding yet that this is NOT about your health it IS about power, their power over you. It is about making you dance to their tune. It is about giving them a reason to hassle you and to arrest and fine you. It is about turning the police into willing brown shirts. It is about getting the camels nose under the constitutional tent. It is about getting you to partner with them and turn in your neighbor. Soon you will see this abuse raised to a higher level. There will be state child protective services agents visit your home and threaten to take your children because your neighbor turned you in for not wearing a mask. There will be shaky videos of 4 or 5 police beating someone who refused to wear the mask. You doubt me???

For a test of your cloth mask as a smoker friend to do this. Take a big drag on his cigarette, don the mask and exhale. Watch to see if there is any smoke. The smoke particles are about a million times bigger than the virus so there should be no smoke. And watch to see where the smoke comes out, not just through the mask but around the mask. So do masks work?

#9 Anon on 2020-05-22 12:21 (Reply)

It is always about power. They want more and will use any justification to get more. The justification de jure is but a facade to hide their real intentions.

#9.1 Stargazer on 2020-05-22 16:49 (Reply)

There is no "in spite of" here. Baby eating would recommend a candidate to anyone who writes for the Nation. It demonstrates the committment necessary in establishing a fair and just utopian society, for which they would eat their own babies.

#10 james wilson (Link) on 2020-05-22 12:50 (Reply)

I said it here before: the distinction between "can be modeled as" and "is" is unfortunately being blurred. This seems to be a consequence of too many academicians experiencing the world through screens rather than experimentation. The notion that the universe is an 11-dimensional toroid (whoops, diverged to the donut story) is meaningless outside of the equations that describe it. Similarly, a model that produces an output that ranges 4 orders of magnitude depending on how you set the parameters within their own error bars is useless for prediction, but since the numbers come out of the equations, they are deemed to have some sort of reality.

And one simple question mathematics cannot answer: How deep is a donut hole?

#11 Another guy named Dan on 2020-05-22 13:17 (Reply)

The donut story is a lie.

There is a painting in the National Gallery of Art from the 16th C that has several pastries on a table, and one of them is a donut.

I took a picture of it.

#12 DrTorch on 2020-05-22 14:24 (Reply)

Could you remember the name of the artist? It should be online.

#12.1 Gringo on 2020-05-23 09:47 (Reply)

I don't have that info. Don't see it on my photo.

I should have taken a pic of the info plaque by the painting. Not sure why I didn't.

#12.1.1 DrTorch on 2020-05-26 10:28 (Reply)

Until today I did not realize Biden boils babies and eats them. I find it abhorrent he's doing this and there is not even a peep from the mainstream media. I'll put that on my list of reasons not to vote for him.

#13 Jim on 2020-05-22 14:37 (Reply)

Re: Russia's Military Revival

I read the essay at the link, and it couldn't be more wrong. Russia is in deep, deep, doo doo. There are a variety of issues, but the main issue is that the Russian economy is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuel exports. But nobody needs their fossil fuels anymore. Yes, they supply a lot of natural gas to Europe, but big deal. Russian industry is in shambles. They got creamed by China. So if they don't make anything, and they can't sell anything, and they have huge pension obligations, then how are they going to finance a military revival? They can't. They'll be lucky if there isn't another revolution.

You can add to that the fact that young Russians are sick and tired of communism. They go to Western rock concerts by the millions. They don't want to hear about Marxism, or any of that stuff. They want to be happy, and they know that the existing system promises nothing but misery. But young Russians can't establish a free market all by themselves. The Russian government still sets thousands of "official" retail prices; and making a profit is still considered to be a moral crime. So there's a question: Should we go to the aid of those poor young people who are being held prisoner in the Gulag Archipelago? I say "Yes". Those kids are human, and they aren't supposed to be slaves. We have an obligation to promote and defend freedom, wherever and whenever necessary. If you want a better idea of what young Russians have to live with everyday, watch this movie.

The World is Big, and Salvation is Just Around the Corner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM8b2ecX5vA&list=PLHn5h9Df3lGGv3WIKOPRosJJHQGDLmrAC

But the Russians don't want to be seen as totalitarian monsters, which they are. So they try to promote the idea that communism is "cool" and that young people really like it. That's a huge lie. Anyway, watch this video by a group called the Communards. The song is a story about how communism is able to free kids from imprisonment. The singer is holding a red and black microphone to represent the "concept" of communism, and the lights from above represent the universal side of the square of opposition.The windows? Enforced logic. Communism is rock and roll! Those bad white men just don't want kids to have fun. So listen: When everybody is communist, there will be lots of sex, and parties! Being poor, because communists are just thieves, won't even matter.

Don't Leave Me This Way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RHBAd5YUR8

#14 Ron Lieberman on 2020-05-22 22:23 (Reply)

Add Comment

Name
Email	(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications. Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u], [url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here. Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry

Maggie's Farm

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

RSS Readers

Friday, May 22. 2020

Friday morning links