"Don't Bet The Farm On One Model". Bat Flu fails have a message for "Sky Is Falling" climate people"

As Richard Fernandez says, don't bet the farm on one model.

It will be interesting to see whether the demonstrated fallibility of Corona pandemic models will modify the unconditional belief some feel for Climate Change models that deal with even far more complex phenomena over far longer periods. Both recommend incredibly expensive economic solutions to disasters predicted by their respective models. But as we have seen, models while of some use, can be wrong or very inaccurate. It's not always wise to bet the farm on them. Experience suggests that one should always leave room to change course or go into reverse in case the model doesn't pan out.

Without fire, snow pack declined

When fires are suppressed, people pretend to be forest fires.
Their forest management changes snow pack.  Who knew?

Picture is from a Japanese study and gives
an idea what "thinning" might be like.

Absent fires, tree density climbs in managed forests. (I believe this is not true of a climax forest but we don't have them)    With tighter canopy,less snow reaches the ground and the sheltered ground by the trees is slightly warmer.  University of Nevada researchers tried thinning strategies on the shores of Lake Tahoe and learned that removing mid-size leafy trees had the most impact.  (The linked article doesn't give numbers for the reader to judge).

Five Lessons From History Fit The VIrus Crisis Like A Glove

Here are the best parts of Housel's insight, found at "Frontline Thoughts" by Mauldin.

Lesson #1: People suffering from sudden, unexpected hardship are likely to adopt views they previously thought unthinkable.
Lesson #2: Reversion to the mean occurs because people persuasive enough to make something grow don’t have the kind of personalities that allow them to stop before pushing too far.
Lesson #3: Unsustainable things can last longer than you anticipate.
Lesson #4: Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore.
Lesson #5: Wounds heal, scars last.

It's a good read.  Continue here.
There is a link to Mauldin's free newsletter.

Critical comment:  Lesson #2 is phrased poorly in my view.   The people and policies needed to sustain something are different from the ones needed to grow something.

Good joke on the lockdown beach cop patrol

Alphabet Sex Is Surplus Sex. LGBPTTQQIIAA+

Alphabet sex is surplus sex and so are weird personal pronouns.  They point to sex being surplus, not needed to survive today and influence tomorrow.  The employment of twats and thingies is optional. 

A motor that's revved out of gear can wind up to crazy rpm.  And the sexually viable who don't engage their drive to have babies wind up somewhere weirdly new.  This is normal.   Instead of seeing righteous revolution or vilest sin, take note that evolution is at work and the niches that prosperity have opened up are being populated by experiments.  Some will fail.  Some will propagate. Or the niches disappear along with prosperity, as would happen if the time of coronavirus prolongs.





Lewis Carroll has a prescient comment on pronouns:

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,

Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"

To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"

But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,

He had different names from these:

His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"

And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."

Fear of Corona is on the decline. (Laugh warning)

From Snopes a picture of real dead murder hornets.

They say real socialism has never been tried. LOL

"Think of socialism like a fancy baked good"

"The Science Is Settled" is Unscientific. Think global lockdown and climate change.

My hero, physicist Richard Feynman, said:  "All questions must be doubted and discussed".
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts".

"It is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding, we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt."

"The communist views are the antithesis of the scientific, in the sense that in communism the answers are given to all the questions — political questions as well as moral ones — without discussion and without doubt. The scientific viewpoint is the exact opposite of this; that is, all questions must be doubted and discussed; we must argue everything out."

And this:
"Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle with authority".

Climate change and Bat Flu Lockdowns are populated with experts who turn nasty when questioned.

RINCE BOUCHE ADDED: Isaac Asimov quote, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny...’”

Lockdown fix: Protect Nursing Homes. Free The Economy

Horowitz at Conservative Review documents that the horrifying preponderance of Coronavirus deaths are in nursing homes.  Everywhere else is now in a normal range. This is a no-brainer.  Customize the response.  Free people to do their work and pursue their happiness.  Make the major focus support for nursing home care with people and money.

"As I reported yesterday, not only do deaths in nursing homes now compose more than 50% (and in some states as high as 80%) of total deaths from the beginning of the entire epidemic, that percentage is sharply increasing in every state day by day. This means that nearly all the new deaths, depending on the state, are occurring in nursing homes. Every state has a recorded death count that you can track by date, but the recording of the subcategory of nursing home deaths is pretty new in most states."

This information wasn't being published separately nor was it collected in a timely manner.  Horowitz goes on to document new numbers from fifteen states.

CDC Seems To Be Tweaking The Lockdown To Help Democrats Win The 2020 Election

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Quoting from American Greatness "Is the CDC Meddling with the 2020 election"  And WTF is this about the CDC pushing mail-in voting for the Democrats' agenda?

"The Coronavirus crisis is reaping big political benefits for Democrats. President Trump’s signature achievement—a booming economy with record low unemployment, rising middle-class wages, and a sky-high stock market—lies in tatters. President Trump has been denied access to his only stimulant—energetic political rallies where he connects directly with supporters across the country.  Instead, the president has been stuck in Washington, D.C., listening to the advice of “experts” who used fraudulent models to convince him in late March to “shut down” the country.  Trump’s rival, Joe Biden, has been safely shuttered away in his home studio where he struggles to read teleprompter scripts or offer articulate responses to softball questions from late-night hosts. The Democratic National Convention has been canceled so the American electorate won’t be able to assess Biden’s frailty and incoherence on a national stage a few months before Election Day.
The Centers for Disease Control is looking more and more like the 2020 version of James Comey’s FBI. The agency that foisted the disastrous experiment of “social distancing” on 330 million unwitting American lab rats continues to inveigh on matters far beyond its purview or expertise.   The CDC has prepared yet another outlandish plan to prolong the nation’s misery. ...
As one would expect, the guidance is a labyrinth of costly, unconstitutional, and draconian recommendations that would result in a permanent paranoid police state for the foreseeable future...
This latest guidance, however, isn’t the only politically-motivated stunt coming from the CDC. The agency has published a series of voting recommendations that fulfill long-sought goals of the Democratic Party. This includes mail-in ballots and early voting."

95% of CDC staff donations in 2016 were to the Democrats.  You have probably seen Dr. Fauci's fawning letter to Hillary Clinton:  "Please tell Hillary I love her more than ever"  This is way out of line for a guy given the chance to control all the democrats and republicans in America.

The Lockdown Has Been Effective to Capture Budget Increases and Inflate Power

See Parkinson's law and this from "Wretchard the Cat":

It seems that many coronavirus deaths were caused because political taboos, bureaucratic fiefdoms and virtue-signaling mandates stood in the way of common sense action. The system was paralyzed by its own rhetoric. To a great extent the bureaucratic empires performed as designed. They used the crises to capture budget increases and inflate their power while carefully avoiding anything politically incorrect. A winning strategy in normal times, a disaster in the present. Even though the press coverage is designed to make one side look stupid it has had the unintended effect of making everyone look imbecilic, including the press itself. Nothing about the people on TV inspires confidence. Nothing.

Parkinson's analysis fits here:
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion
and two later corollaries:
An official wants to multiply work for subordinates, not rivals.
Officials make work for each other.

New York City: Heads Should Roll for Coronavirus Hell

New York City is in a Coronavirus hell of its own, world class. Some heads should roll.
There are caveats but see the two lists.  If New York City is counted as a country, it is the most infected country on earth and it is the country that has the most deaths per million.
And NYC was the chief engine that sent the virus around the US.  Summarized from PJ Media Article   Some caveats noted below.

Infections:  The amount of testing isn't normalized between the 10 sources.  More tests will tend to have more "cases".  Some argue persuasively that essentially everyone will pick up the infection over time, thereby making antibodies.  In that case, a high rate of infection just means that infections were brought forward in time.

Deaths:  Policy placed sick people into homes full of vulnerable seniors.  Other reasons, click here.
A high rate of deaths cannot be defended.

Update:

Don't trust the Imperial virus model. Don't trust the people who do.

"There would have been no harm if politicians had understood that models were educated guesses.
But a technically naive political and media class approached it with superstitious awe and
beguiled by the trappings
fell prostrate at it's feet"   Richard Fernandez  a.k.a.  wrechardthecat .

Such will keep happening.
The naive political and media class are beguiled by what advances their agenda.
That agenda is for our people tell other people what to do, for their own good. Profit thereby.

He continues:

"Undocumented equations, no bounds checking, side effects of ad hoc code unknown among other possible problems. They didn't fully understand what their own model was modeling. If true this is a far more serious problem than Ferguson having an affair, tantamount to relying on a ouija board to guide important decisions. It sounds like they had a poorly understood problem with state, reentrants and maybe race conditions. Basically the accusation is that Imperial's model is legacy code based on assumptions nobody understands and gives different results for the same inputs."

UK Voters Smarter Than Government. Millions were cutting virus spread BEFORE lockdown.

Your government likes to get out in front of a parade, to preen with power and trumpet virtue. Data from Great Britain show voters were smarter than the government.  Without fines or force, they had cut 80% of their travel on shared public transport and 25% of their private car travel.  This makes sense, more sense than blanket rules.  Telling everyone to stay home does not.  The free market of ideas works.

This is not aberrant, not a data meteor from outer space.  Did you know that literacy was rising rapidly BEFORE it became government policy.  I used to think we owed it to our government.

From: "The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England"

"In the absence of externally provided schools, indigenously supported settings were responsible for the creation and transmission of popular literacy.  Thus, over several centuries, the literate popular culture of England largely made itself."  

And this detail from the same passage:

Pottinger of the US DNI addresses Chinese citizens directly in Mandarin. One of the most remarkable speeches I have ever heard.

Matt Pottinger (deputy head of the DNI) delivered this remarkable speech in Mandarin a couple days ago, building on his study of Chinese history before the Communists took over.  He calls for Chinese populism to recognize their home grown yearning for government for the people, not just for the elites.  He starts with the May 4th Movement of 1919 and ends today.   Although I'm linking to the English transcript, you are going to want to listen to the video with english subtitles to understand how powerful it is.

The leaders of the May 4th Movement gave decisive input to the UN's Declaration of Universal Human Rights.  They also led the change from an elite Chinese that no common people spoke to one that the governed actually spoke and understood.     Pottinger updates the story with Dr Li who was suppressed for reporting the Wuhan virus and with Hong Kong peaceful demonstrations.

"One final thought, from a U.S. perspective: Hu Shih famously preferred solving concrete problems to wallowing in abstract political theory. But let me break his rule against discussing “isms” to ask whether China today would benefit from a little less nationalism and a little more populism. Democratic populism is less about left versus right than top versus bottom. It’s about reminding a few that they need the consent of many to govern. When a privileged few grow too remote and self-interested, populism is what pulls them back or pitches them overboard. It has a kinetic energy. It fueled the Brexit vote of 2015 and President Trump’s election in 2016. It moved the founder of your university to pen a declaration of independence in 1776. It is an admonition to the powerful of this country to remember who they’re supposed to work for: America first.
Wasn’t a similar idea beating in the heart of the May Fourth Movement, too? Weren’t Hu Shih’s language reforms a declaration of war against aristocratic pretension? Weren’t they a broadside against the Confucian power structure that enforced conformity over free thought? Wasn’t the goal to achieve citizen-centric government in China, and not replace one regime-centric model with another one? The world will wait for the Chinese people to furnish the answers."

Lead taken from a reference in "American Thought Leaders" Jan Jekeliek interview of  Steve Yates

Social Distancing stopped being federal policy April 30

Did you know that the President's order mandating social distancing of six feet has expired, as of April 30th.   He did not renew the order.   The next moves are up to governors as is fitting in a federation.

As I recall, the distancing stuff started in my neighborhood before rules were declared. It arrived at first by bits and pieces, a shopkeeper here, a citizen there.   Then politicians found cover at the front of the safest parade.  Once there, the sceptre is raised, the fasces shaken but this isn't leadership.   "Safe" is soon going to be on the other side of the ledger.  Queue up hypocrisy but welcome it too.  "Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue".

UK And US Trade Talks Are Not A Side Show

Fast tracked negotiations for a free trade agreement were announced today, May 5.

The economies are linked in a big way already.  From the announcement:

The United States and the United Kingdom are the first and fifth largest economies in the world, respectively. Total two-way trade between the two countries is already worth about $269 billion a year. Each country is the other’s largest source of foreign direct investment, with about $1 trillion invested in each other’s economies. Every day, around one million Americans go to work for UK firms, while around one million Britons go to work for American firms.

Where are the grownups?

Such a shock it was to drop off my son at UVic.  I looked around and asked out loud, "What are all these kids doing walking around without their mothers?"  More sobering is to realize the kids I went to school with are running the country now. 

Kurt Vonnegut was there first.
It's bad and it's good.
Matters you saw neglected in your youth are now
public policy.  "Environment" and   "Recycling".
It's also good that big change can come in one generation.
This can sustain your hopes for the future.

N95 masks do less than you think. Viral load matters.

Viral load matters.   Social-distancing and masks aren't absolutes, for crying out loud.  They cut back the number of copies you receive of the COVID-19 bat flu virus.   After four months, here finally is something that recognizes degrees of threat instead of absolutes.  Astonishingly, the authour had to piece together the evidence from older sources and common sense instead of from shiny new research.  The topic has been ignored in the press and not touted by experts with mikes.  We need better data.

Initial viral load seems likely to have a large impact on severity of Covid-19 infection. If we believe this, we should take this seriously, and evaluate both general policy and personal behavior differently in light of this information. We should also do our best to confirm or deny this hypothesis as soon as possible.

The failure to collect more and better information about Covid-19 has been atrocious, shameful, expensive and deadly.

What can those masks do?  Less than you imagine.  The bat virus is about 125 billionths of a meter across.  The highest-rated hospital-grade N95 masks stop 95% of  the particles that are 300 billionths of an inch across.  And only if properly fitted.  In other words, you can expect about one in twenty to get through.  Those virus copies mostly aren't floating around like little no-seeums on their own but are in much larger water droplets breathed, sneezed and coughed, about 3000 droplets per cough.   A realistic goal of a mask is to stop fine spray getting up your nose. to reduce incoming viral load.  And to protect others from the same, but then you shouldn't be that close to them in the first place.       If the virus you fear is in your neighbourhood, you'll probably pick up some copies.  That's with or without social distancing and with or without a mask.  But you can reduce the viral load.

Light load of wind (virus)

More from the article:

Mostly we’re not collecting any data at all that isn’t massively biased.
The more I think about the Covid-19 situation, the more I think the highest leverage thing most people reading this can do is to find ways to get our hands on better data.

Heavy load of wind (virus)

Antarctica Ice Changes: 16 years of satellite mapping show it's complicated

Most of Antarctica has had slight gains in ice over the last 16 years but a small area in the west by the Amundsen sea has had major ice loss, over fifteen feet in some places.   Why there?  Will this detail be reported in the popular press?    Watts Up With That reprints material from the long term NASA ICESat-2 mission map.    First indications are that floating ice that was buttressing the adjacent glaciers has been breaking off, allowing accelerated motion towards the sea.

Economic Lockdown is a Giant Boo Boo. Who can save face now?

Worldwide Lockdown beats previous follies like Tulipmania and the South Sea Bubble.  What's missing is data in our inbox to evaluate the lockdown costs, a lockdown which has been called "The Greatest Mistake In History".   A quote for that:

Michael Levitt, professor of structural biology at Stanford Medical School and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry, recently stated, “There is no doubt in my mind that when we come to look back on this, the damage done by lockdown will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor.”

One side of the balance sheet is trumpeted while the costs in economic ruin are currently "de-platformed".  It's like the joke about a SWAT team chasing terrorists who run into a department store.  The team locks into place around the shop next door, "because it has fewer exits".   The workplace and its diseases are more complex than the lockdown narrative.  People with a badge of office and a received narrative have launched a simplistic experiment in economic destruction.  They don't know what will happen.  They hope it will make them look good and lives will be saved.   Looking good trumps saving lives.

The single biggest crunch of the lockdown is social distancing, with two meters (an arbitrary number) for some and indoors only for others.  This is a sensible thing to consider but  not for blanket enforcement.  It has never been tested like this.  It's an experiment.  The latest information points to an unsuccessful experiment.  An input for that statement:

Julie Kelly at American Greatness: "The history of science, sadly, is littered with bad experiments gone horribly wrong. The Great Social Distancing Experiment of 2020, when it is over, will very likely be toward the top of that list."

She points out that a sensible experiment in "bending the curve" to avoid overloading ICU resources  isn't currently needed but the lockdown fever burns on.   The correlation is missing between how much many lives were manacled with lockdowns and how many people were ill.

The lockdown seems to be settling into a political question, not a health one.  Politicians see no easy way to back down with glory. 

You'd be crazy to base policy on the IHME model

The IHME predictions of virus death have been flopping up and down as modellers fiddle with knobs.  Hinderaker at Powerlineblog fills in some blanks.   Good public policy cannot be based on the IHME model.

The numbers change because the model changed, not because the state changed.
A core input is Social distancing but the math isn't explained and effectiveness isn't measured.
The model doesn't try to evaluate partial opening-up of states.

As Hinderaker points out, week by week the predictions of IHME change bizarrely.

Death predictions made week of...  April 11       April 15     April 22
                  South Dakota                 356              181             093
                  North Dakota                 369              032             356
                  Iowa                               743              618             365
                  Minnesota                      442              656             360

It's almost like a random walk. What madness has seized us that elevates modellers and governors  to the place they are today, telling us how to do our jobs and how to run our home life?  Somehow the "flatten the curve so hospital ICU's won't be overwhelmed" has morphed into:  "Disobey me and you'll be sorry."

COVID-19 death counts riddled with BS

New York death stats for one month are up about 25% over last  year.  But deaths for all other reasons are down 60%.  I call bullshit.  The counts are wrong and the reasons various.

Financial incentive. (More money, sometimes a lot more money)
No testing done.   (Early days, lots of places didn't have the tests or didn't bother.)
Ventilators have been killing people.
Decision to just call them all COVID-19  (NY funeral directors and ProjectVeritas)
They were dying of other stuff and also had flu symptoms
One patient with three tests was counted as three patients.
Hospitals don't agree how to treat COVID-19. Some ways let more people die.

There are troubling sides to the sickness and the bad is very bad.
But our stats are riddled with misinformation.

Chart source CDC stats, reported here.

Extravagant Nature - Cherry blossom sex

Nature is profligate (Annie Dillard). Cherry petals  here lie in heaps.  Not just a few thrifty expenditures to get DNA-rich pollen delivered but a confetti-laden celebration, tossed in beauty and forgotten.





And if you think those flowers beautiful, that's because you are part of the message.  They are meant to attract you, me and the bugs for sexual purposes.

Three Top Democrats Show Signs of Brain Damage. Party needs a refresh.

Why do top Democrats show signs of brain damage?  Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.  Check the video clips if you have doubts.   This didn't use to be a problem.   If the Democrat operation was my company, I would worry about renewal.  People past their best-before date aren't getting moved on.  The top posts must not be for merit.

20 second clip of Joe Biden word salad here April 2020

here.

A

Excess Covid-19 deaths vary from zero to scary, depending on country: See chart detail

If you have a one-size-fits-all explanation for bat flu mortality, fix that by viewing the country chart below:  (Sourced here).

When are you grown up? The short answer is Never.

Auntie Nan, so the story goes, asked on her sixty fifth birthday: "Am I grown up yet?"  It's a good question.  Forty years later, I have the answer.
"No."
The fuel ages.
The fire does not.

The answer has competition.
- "Yes, if you have obtained the age of majority."
- "You are only as old as you feel".
- "Yes, but you will be raised from the dust of death to judgement at a later date".
- "It's Groundhog Day until you learn something useful.  That's karma"

The evidence of aging is plentiful.   As for growing, babies stop just over five feet tall and develop wrinkles with liver spots.  As for being an adult, the root meaning is "ripe" and is answered as soon as you can reproduce successfully.

My viewpoint:
The fuel ages.
The fire does not.
It's a process.

In English, the fuel is named  "I".
We don't know the nature of fire.
It's okay not to know the answers
but a good question helps.

Chinese companies acting like there is no future for them

Credit exists when people trust long term.  No future, no investment.  Planting orchards and making 30 year loans only happen when people believe in the future.   What does it mean when Chinese companies send crap PPE and masks?   It means the future has turned dead to them.

The clip below is from France (Daily Mail) as nurses try on PPE from China recently.

Dumb guy in kitchen comes up with tips

FILL THE SINK WITH HOT SOAPY WATER WHEN YOU START THE MEAL, NOT AFTER.

Hot soapy is ready

How come nobody else seems to do this?  My fingers stay clean and I get to re-use my favourite knife, spatula,and  bowl at will.  ALSO  find a way to hang the hand towel on the outside of the sink cupboard,  When you need it, you need it.

POTATO IN THE MICROWAVE
In several minutes you can be frying thin chips of potato for breakfast. Slice up a raw potato into a bowl, add a drop of oil to reduce sticking and hit high for about 3 minutes. Transfer to the greasy pan.
Or, make mashed potatoes in moments.   Same routine.  Check with fork to see if the spuds are soft enough to take out of the microwave.

CORN ON THE COB A LA MICROWAVE.
How come almost nobody does this?   Leave the husk on and give one cob about two minutes. It's sweeter and crisper than boiled corn and way faster.  Also, it's cute and country to serve wrapped in green tassels and it stays very hot for about ten minutes.  When you peel the husk back, you get a handle to hold onto.  If it's not quite done, the kernels at that end will look a little white. If so, with the husk still on, give it a bit more time.

Peel when you eat

HAVE GARBAGE RIGHT BY THE SINK NOT UNDER THE SINK
This should be a no-brainer.  Especially for a composting pail where you have to put wet greasy things.  An even better solution is restaurant-style to have a hole in the counter (with an easy to clean rim) and a bag underneath.  One guy did a study and found the garbage was the most frequented spot in his kitchen so he made it central.  Just find something that looks nice.

BOWLS AND SPICES AND KNIVES  YOU USE ALL THE TIME: MOVE  THEM CLOSE.
Another no-brainer.  Never mind where they were kept before.   Get them on the wall above the sink, hanging from cupboards, in canisters by the stove.

CROCKERY YOU USE A LOT SHOULD BE CLOSE AND  ALL THE REST SHOULD NOT
That means you split the plates and cups and glasses into a few you use at every meal.  Put them on the handiest shelf.   Move all the rest further away.   Two cereal bowls on the bottom shelf, 10 up above. And so on.

USE A "SPROINGER".  PROPERLY CALLED A "SPRING WHISK".
If the spring is right, you can mash potatoes,  mix up the flour-sugar-salt stuff for baking, whisk eggs, get the jello dissolved.  I bought a couple new ones and threw them away because the spring was too soft except for eggs.  This old timer works great.

PUT DIFFERENT STUFF IN THE SAME PAN.
I watched a retired army cook do a steak and vegetable meal for three on a single 8 inch fry pan.  He had the meat hanging over the sides and kept it in rotation.   When I've got the main thing fried or whatever, I keep it to one side and add the frozen peas in a corner, and the leftover mashed in another and let it sit on low for a few minutes, often with the heat off, usually with a lid.   I wash fewer pans and it's all warm and ready to serve at the same time.

FREE SALAD VINAIGRETTE
Those sweet and crispy Yum Yum pickles have juice that is wasted.  It's a great vinaigrette.

TRY TEAK TONGS.
They don't scratch the Teflon pans.  Flip tomato slices, bacon, fried chicken, scallops and stir almost anything in place of a wooden spoon. Pinch a noodle to taste for doneness. Fetch pickle slices from a jar.  Rinse and re-use until supper is ready.

ONE NEW RECIPE FOR THE WORLD:  MEATLESS BEEF STROGANOF.
You don't need the steak.  Just use your favourite recipe with the sour cream, mushrooms, onions, with broth, thickener, maybe Worcestershire sauce and dry mustard.   Same good taste.  When you bring the leftovers from the fridge, you can add steak later and it will taste fresh-made each time.  You won't be flustered having vegetarian guests.

GRIND THE GRUNGE IN THE SINK STRAINER.
A bristly scrub brush will break down the grungy bits in the sink strainer.  You don't have to grab the stuff with your pinkies and then rinse them and dry them.

MY QUALIFICATIONS AS A DUMB GUY IN THE KITCHEN ARE SECURE.
Although I've been cooking for ten years, I usually skip the apron, sometimes use the dishcloth to wipe up a spill on the floor, lick things I shouldn't, and have to be told when to change my shirt.

There may well be Democrats in Heaven

Some burns, some does not

Bat flu or COVID-19 is wildfire, consuming the results of decades of decisions to suppress risk and renewal, and the flames are uniquely tailored to our culture. The many survivors will populate the world going forward and their values will prevail. They survive because they survived, not because they were better or worse people. So of course, there will be some Democrats in heaven.

When wildfire races across the land, many creatures die in groups large and small. Others burrow underground. Some fly over top. The fast and strong do an end run. Clever mammals may build an asbestos suit or trap some breathable air below the surface of a lake. Heck, a few will watch safely from orbit. Those are the active players. Other survivors will just happen to be there: There will be lots of fish doing regular fin and gill stuff in deep water and they never notice a thing. Others will happen to be in a patch missed because the wind shifted for ten minutes. Virtue does not mean you will survive. Surviving means you survived.

We are experiencing a stress test of our culture.

Rapid change is upon us. Some of the dead-fall being burnt up is called over-regulation and some of the over-fliers are innovators. Big government is doing fine.

Ratchet effect: When the bat virus crisis is gone, government will keep its new fatness.

"The growth of government that attends national emergencies is not surrendered fully when the crisis ends. Instead, a ratchet effect operates whereby much of the crisis-borne growth of government becomes institutionalized in agencies and practices and, more important, in the dominant ideology of political elites and the general public."

This is quoted from Reason.com

Horgan and Boudreaux.

Death by expert. Do you want a virologist to tell you how to do your job and run your home?

Experts can kill you.   The write-up for Delaney's "A Plague of Experts" spells it out: 

"Danger derives ....from the ability of the expert to marshal the top-down legal authority and resources of government in the practice of their specialty."

We are living through such a hell with CORVID19.   The virus is invisible and there's nothing you or I can hear, smell, taste or measure to prove it's there or not and if we're avoiding it or not.  This is the perfect setup for global governance types to advance their top-down agendas to give voice to superior types of people like themselves.   "Trust me" is the mantra  (and I respect people who have studied and learned well their field).  "Trust me" is also the doorway that government loves best.  It didn't quite work for climate change but it is going like a house on fire for bat virus shutdown fear. You heard of the camel's nose under the tent.    With "Trust me", the camel gets to walk right in the front flap behind the experts who got you to open up. 

TRUST BUT VERIFY.
Puhleeze.

For an entertaining rant, see below for Sarah Hoyt's "A plague of credentialed experts" or from a few weeks earlier, "A plague of madness".

"The plague that has laid this country low, destroyed our economy and brought us to a place that no external enemy could have brought: this plague of experts. Or perhaps I should say “experts” since most of them have behind them only a long string of failed prognostications, followed by promotion within the “civil servant” echelons.  Yes, I am talking about Doctors Birx and Fauci. I’m already seeing people pointing fingers at the president and complaining that he’s relied too much on these “experts.”

What a way to go: Lab pups smother toddler

Too cute not to post.  As one Twitterer put it:  "When my time comes, this is how I want to go".
Golden labs bury this toddler in love and curiosity.

Tsunamis mess with GPS and radio.

The Richter 9.0 earthquake underwater near Honshu, Japan on March 11 2011 pulsed seawater sideways.   And it pulsed air pressure up.  As reported eloquently by spaceweather.com "When the earth trembles, even the edge of space moves."   It was more than a single burp.  As the water tsunami propagated and bumped into things underwater, the ocean's surface pulsed.  Ocean ripples we couldn't see from earth were  interfering with each other from a satellite's perspective.  "The waves scramble GPS signals and interfere with radio communications"

Picture:  Rippled ocean rings detected from space. (Reproduced from spacewather.com).















Video below:  A reminder of the horrific flood in some corners of Japan.
"Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, 2011"

Fire liars: If California on fire in 2019 freaked you out, get perspective.

If it bleeds,it leads is newspaper lore.  "Burns" or "Scandal targets our political opponents" lead too.  Take a closer look at BURNS.

2019 as California was apparently being burned to the ground, 4.3 million acres burned across the US, rather less than usual and far below historic averages  See the chart for 1926 to 2017.


Zoom out a bit more.  Were those 40 million acre numbers from the '30s a blip or a background?

Further back as mentioned in a California study: 

“It was apparent from the fire record that there were two dramatic changes in the fire pattern. First, fires became less frequent and more widespread in the study area following the substantial Euro-American settlement of the 1850s. Secondly, fires were generally eliminated from the study area after 1924 when fire suppression efforts were becoming more effective in accessible areas.” Many of these studies mention American Indian burning for enhancement of food, materials, basketry, and other resources: “People have affected fire regimes and forests in the study area during different times in known and unknown ways. Before European settlement, native Americans set fires that may have burned through the study area. Local Klamath [mountain] tribes used fire extensively to promote acorns, berry, root and fiber production and to hunt game.”

No Bird Apocalypse: Populations rise and fall with habitat change and guessing rules.

I was sad that songbirds were disappearing until I read this by a scientist who did bird counts.  It's complex.  There's good news.

First, here's an example of a bad news headline:  Three billion North American birds have vanished since 1970, surveys show.  

Counter-information you need to know:

-1 to 3 billion birds are killed each year by cats.. (Note the uncertainty.)

-About 1 billion birds die each year crashing into window reflections.  (Again uncertainty)

-Another third of a billion get whacked by cars and trucks each year. (Uncertainty)

Baby barn swallows, Knight's Inlet

-Almost half a billion of the loss is in three non-native species: House sparrows, pigeons and starlings.  

-Forests loving species are approaching pre-colonial levels as forest cover has rebounded.  

-Before spraying for spruce budworm in the US,  Tennessee warblers that specialized in eating those morsels exceeded 110 million. Their number has dropped to 30 million as the budworm count
dropped.

-COUNTING IS GUESSWORK.  The models used are no more accurate than the COVID-19 ones.

The models assume that each stop will account for all the birds within a 400‑meter radius. Because a crow is readily detected over that distance, no adjustments are made to the number of observed crows. But hummingbirds are not so easily detected. The earlier surveys assumed a hummingbird could only be detected if it was within an 80‑meter radius. So, to standardize the observations to an area with a 400‑meter radius, observations were multiplied by 25. Recent survey models now assume hummingbirds can only be detected within 50 meters, so their observations are now adjusted by multiplying by 64.  Thus, depending on their detection adjustments, one real observation could generate 50 or 128 virtual hummingbirds. That number is further scaled up to account for the time‑of‑day effects and the likely number of birds in the region’s un-surveyed landscapes.
Setting aside assumptions about the regional homogeneity of birds’ habitat, one very real problem with these adjustments that has yet to be addressed. If one bird is no longer observed at a roadside stop, the model assumes that the other 127 virtual birds also died.

"Spot the difference" Sex is weaponized by the party.

Sure looks like Blasey-Ford lied and was lionized by the agenda of the press and the Democrats, and it sure looks like Tara Reade told the truth and is being de-platformed by the agenda of the mainstream press and the Democrats.  The common principle is NO PRINCIPLE.  If it's good for our guy, promote.  If it's bad for their guy, promote.  (from ace.mu.nu) 

Update:  We hear from Tara.

Tara Reade: I Used to Think That Charges of Media Bias Were a Republican Talking Point. But Now I'm Living It In Real Time.

Every Good Marriage Ends With Somebody Dead

There's a nice jingle about "something borrowed, something blue" in wedding prep.  Think of the blue as a reminder:  You may be crying the blues someday.   Marriages can end in lots of ways but all the good ones end with somebody dead.   We sign on eagerly and if we do well, we sign off in tears.

"Til Death Do Us Part".  As a survivor, you can say, "Our marriage was completed".    Whatever was in the IN tray, is now in the OUT tray.  Duty and privilege are done.

Space News April 2020

Artists version from Science Daily

1.   There is a flash of light BRIGHTER THAN A TRILLION STARS, every twelve years.  In galaxy OJ 287 a black hole (150 million solar masses) is zinging around one of the biggest ever found (18 billion solar masses).  Every twelve years the little one grazes the big one's disk.  The Spitzer telescope was on the other side of the sun for the predicted date of July 31 2019 and recorded what Earth bound astronomers could not.   Picture a NASCAR crash with sparks flying as the chassis scrapes against a wall.  Then replace it with the image of the light of a trillion stars exploding into view inside a single galaxy, over and over again.  That galaxy may be nearly sterile, the last place we'd want to go looking for intelligent life.  Science Daily

2.    Comet ATLAS made the news and then fell apart and those pieces too, just as it was getting bright enough to see with the naked eye.   Great picture from the Hubble








3.   Comet SWAN is incoming.  Just discovered two weeks ago when it burped some hydrogen, it has rapidly reached magnitude +5.5 and is just barely visible to the eye April 29th.  It appears to have been bumped towards the inner solar system for the first time ever. Maybe we will all get
to see it.    Spaceweather 













4.   A big rock flew by today.  It didn't miss by a mile.  It missed by millions of miles and is only news because it is big.  Named OR1998  (the year it was first identified) it is a couple kilometers wide and tumbling.   You can see the list of all asteroids down to about 5 metres diameter that are coming anywhere near earth by checking the list at Spaceweather.com for updates.  What's interesting is the Arecibo observatory made a radar film.





5.    Is Space-Time Smooth Or Chunky?

Or is gravity particular at the smallest scale?  A clever measurement has moved the decimal point over.  The answer is still "apparently not".  Light from a wobbly pulsar beam some ten billion light years distant was measured for energy spread.  The tool they used is called ESPRESSO.  The rationale:

"If space-time really is frothy and bubbling, then this should affect anything passing through space-time. For example, a beam of light going along its merry way will encounter all sorts of microscopic bumps and jostles — a Planckian gravel path rather than a smooth highway.  Sometimes those little jostles will give the light a boost, nudging up its energy level, and sometimes the light will encounter a little speed bump, slowing it down. The net effect is that light traveling through a frothy space-time will slowly spread out in energy. This effect is incredibly, incredibly minute, so tiny we couldn't possibly hope to measure it in a laboratory. But thankfully, nature can provide a laboratory for us. If we can find a nice, coherent beam of light in space (in other words, a natural space laser), and that beam of light travels over billions of years to our telescopes, we can measure the spread in energy and use that to measure the frothiness of space-time."  (They found it and found a cloud in front of it with iron atoms that absorbed light in a precise way.)

For General Flynn, here at last is the smoking gun.

General Flynn was just about the first casualty when the Deep State turned on Trump and his people.
I never expected Priestap's words to be so plainly evil. Only a journalist or Democratic politician can fail to see what's going on here.

"What is our goal?" he muses.
"Truth/Admission
or to get him to lie so we can
prosecute him or get him fired."

This is moving the Overton Window, adding weight to whatever is revealed next.









UPDATE 1:

UPDATE 2:

Believing stuff that isn't so: Jumping cactus and viral doom.

We make up stories to explain stuff.   In the Okanagan, a lot of people believe in Jumping Cactus. Why?  Because they cross a patch of desert and find cactus bits stuck to their pants.  Do they look at the cactus closely to see what mechanism gave it muscles?  Do they wonder how come the vegetable kingdom is acting like the animal kingdom?  No.  They make up a story and tell others.
I like a good story too but this one just isn't so, as Reagan said.

Bits of cactus stick to the back of my shoe.  My foot has a little snap forward at each step and the cactus is sticking from my shoe on a spine, a sort of springy pole vault.  Up she goes.

 Viruses are tiny but they don't work by magic. They can't live outside you for many hours and they don't have jet packs to get around.    They have to be physically shipped across the space between you and they need to do it while they are fresh.  That means that most of the outdoors is almost absolutely safe everywhere at all times, if you aren't up close to people.  And if no one has been there for a few days, the viruses are screwed and dead.

None of this means compromised seniors should be casual about infection.  Absolutely not.  But for the rest of the population, a little common sense, please.   There are thousands of KINDS of bacteria and virus making their home in you all the time, you're never without them.    Purity isn't the goal.