We can still be friends

Quotable:
Saying "We can still be friends" is like your mom telling you
that your dog died and saying, "You can still keep it".

College Tuition: More money chasing the same goods

Did you hear about college educations getting better and better?  Neither did I.  From the Spectator's article on "Covid College" (lessons learned):

"Only a fool pays the full price for a second-rate product. Only a fool believes real-world contact can be delivered secondhand by Zoom. Our colleges may teach the higher foolishness, but the cost of higher education — ahead of inflation every year since 1980, and devalued accordingly — is a lesson in popular credulity."

The cost of education has gone up far faster than inflation.  But it hasn't got better.  The money pumping it up is going to go somewhere else after the Covid experience. The classes disappeared into the ether but the money kept going into the hole where they used to be.      This is inflation but not across the whole market, just in the college market.  It's unstable and will correct towards a mean.

Get over it. You always have viruses.

Get over it.  You always live with viruses, some 20 trillion of them call you their home.  Your body's immune system cleans the troublesome ones up.  Usually it's successful, even with a bad new one like the Wuhan coronavirus.  They are not going to go away.  As Bill Maher says, "You can't sanitize the universe".

You have about 37 trillion cells in your body.  And about 100 trillion bacteria.  When you step on the scales in the morning, bacteria account for several of those pounds.   There are about 10 viruses for every bacterium and some of them infect those poor little bacteria too.   Those cells of yours operate off about 22,000 genes.  There are another nearly 8 million genes beavering away in the same tissue, but they are bacteria and virus genes, not your own.   Add to that about 8% of your own genome which is re-packaged virus.  It's complicated in a lively way and not a simple fight between bad bat bugs and humanity.  (I Contain A Multitude by Ed Yong is an eye opener.)

About 8 percent of the human genome consists of retroviral DNA sequences that have inserted themselves into the human germline, where some of their functions have been adopted to serve essential functions for their host’s survival and development.

Here's one minute of common sense from Bill Maher:

Bipartisan Student Call For End Of Confucius Institutes

Colour me surprised.   As reported by Campus Reform, the "College Democrats" and "National College Republicans" issued a joint statement asking American universities to close all Confucius Institutes in the name of academic freedom.

Source

Surprising but not earth-shaking.  The College Democrat site doesn't mention this although the Republican one does.  Neither group is supported by mass voluntary donations from university students, as far as I know.  It's possible to take in higher ed and never run into either one.  Still, it is unusual to have left and right voices agree that a foreign agenda-driven group doesn't belong inside the beating heart of a university.

What may be significant is that larger bodies have not discouraged the smaller ones from taking this position.  Like the Catholic publishing "Nil Obstat", national parties apparently haven't discouraged it.

Evidence Of Politics in Fed Interest Rates

The chart shows the fed followed one policy during Obama's era  (near zero federal funds rate) and a different policy of ramping up during Trump's term.  This is fuel if you wish to dislike Chairman Powell.  The details don't match the narrative well.   Rates that had risen to pre-2008 levels are going down during the current crisis and the plummeting rates from the 2008 crisis corresponded perhaps only coincidentally with President Obama's election.  A little deeper is the thought that interest rate "setters" are always playing catch-up to reality.  As noted by Zero Hedge, even running interest rates several points negative won't fire up the economy because those rates are devastating to investors and savers, even while being a deal for would be borrowers.

Reproduced at Gateway Pundit

Seniors Fall In Love But Its Not That Simple

Youngsters can dream about "Making a life together".  Seniors already have a life that they spent half a century choosing and tending.    For the young, "Making a life together" is up-sizing, for seniors, it is down-sizing.

Young and Poor

Young at heart, but not so poor

Cheeky Babylon Bee - 3 Good Stingers

More at the source.

WSJ Editorial Goes There: "As for Mr. Schiff, no one should ever believe another word he says".

The Wall Street Editorial Board comes out and says it:

“Newly released Congressional testimony shows that Adam Schiff spread falsehoods shamelessly about Russia and Donald Trump for three years even as his own committee gathered contrary evidence.” “As for Mr. Schiff, no one should ever believe another word he says.”

The WSJ editorial is behind a paywall but a goodly chunk is excerpted at foxnews.com/opinion.

Who Got General Flynn Unmasked.?

This list shows who got eavesdropping material on General Flynn that should have been unavailable.  Names include Joe Biden, John Brennan, and Obama's chief of staff.  It was collected as part of overseas spying by the NSA and someone asked to unmask the name of an American citizen who was "incidentally" in the conversation.   Someone specifically asked to find out who he was and what he said.  This list is not a list of all the un-maskings out there during those three months.  It's a list of people who wanted to know about General Flynn specifically.  There was no approved pathway to do this directly but they piggybacked on foreign snooping to get around the rules.   The names were published today by Acting DNI Grennell.   There is also snooping done within the USA by the FBI and this is not referenced.    Click to EMBIGGEN


  Commenter Chojun at Conservativetreehouse adds:  "Note that Obama’s Chief of Staff requested to unmask Flynn on Jan 5th – the same date of Obama’s “By the book” meeting."  Also:  These are word for word transcripts, not summaries that were being circulated.

Coronavirus Vaccine: Get some context

Daily headlines tout a new vaccine breakthrough.  If the story is simple, it's not useful.

From Rud Istvan at WUWT comes a better perspective.

Excerpted:

There are at least 8 promising vaccines in active global development, not just one.
Vaccines can last a lifetime (smallpox) or five years (shingles, tetanus).  No one knows how this will work for the Wuhan flu virus.  To date, no one anywhere has developed a vaccine against a coronavirus  (SARS is a coronavirus).
The Wuhan virus (before it enters your cells ) has three sites than can be targeted with a neutralizing antibody:  Each works differently.  There's the capsid N protein and on the S spike are sites S1 and S2.

Amplified:  A vaccine has to deal with a moving target.  One ampoule is unlikely to fix you forever.  All viruses are mutating all the time, and since their generation is measured in hours rather than decades, things move along briskly and usually without much consequence.  There are already dozens of subspecies around, just like there are Scots and Englishmen and within England there are Lancashiremen and Cockneys, but still pretty much all homo sapiens.   Don't freak out about "THE VIRUS IS MUTATING OMG" stories.

Trump: 100 Trade Deals won't make up for the Plague from China

President Trump tweets:   "As I have said for a long time, dealing with China is a very expensive thing todo.  We just made a great Trade Deal, the ink was barely dry, and the World was hit by the Plague from China.  100 Trade Deals wouldn't make up the difference - and all those innocent lives lost!"

Americans With Disabilities Act Reduced Disabled Employment

John Stossel points out:

Once the ADA passed, my stutter makes me a member of a “protected class.” ... I could have accused them of failing to “accommodate the disabled,” as the law requires. Even if I didn’t win, the lawsuit would be expensive. It’s safer for employers to avoid members of “protected classes.” Far-fetched? Look at the stats:
Before the ADA passed, 59% of disabled men had jobs. After it passed, the number fell to 48%. Today, fewer than 30% have jobs.   Once again, a law that was supposed to help people did the opposite of what politicians intended.

"I made my reputation
curing that"

Like any law,  the ADA successfully increased manpower and budget for a bureaucracy. Other consequences matter less unless a public stink is raised.

Found at Powerline

"Destroy The Economy And You're Done". Sarah Hoyt Calls It Like It Is.

"Once you allow your rights to be stripped away, you’re not getting them back.

People are humoring you now – sort of --- but it won’t last.
Destroy the state economy and you’re done."

Excerpts below but read the much longer original for the full meal deal.

This isn't Sarah's real picture but fun anyhow

"Even had the Xi disease been as lethal as the stupid model said, and set to kill a million people (out of a population of 300 million) it might be the lesser cost. Yes, go ahead, it’s callous and I want people to die, as all the trolls say. ......realize the choices are "death" and somewhat "less death, maybe", and think that the “less death, maybe” is on the side of not destroying the economy.

"Why were we doing this all in a rush and following a completely unproven strategy, rather than actually taking a few days and working through “Who is most at risk” and then protecting THOSE people? I mean, if we were going to confine the healthy with the sick, shouldn’t we know which of the healthy were likely to become sick, first?

"We know now the chances of your catching this out of doors, or in any situation you’re not shut in with someone infected and sneezing (the myth of asymptomatic spreaders appears to be just that, a myth.

"I have had idiots tell me that fat Jared’s orders are “the law” as if he were the emperor or something. [She is writing from Colorado] .... I can’t begin to tell you how incoherent that makes me. It’s not the law, and it is unconstitutional.
As Das Bild put it, this was possibly the greatest criminal insanity the West ever committed upon itself

"NOW that we know that opening does not in fact bring a huge death toll, what are we doing?
Most sane, normal people — are sick to death of this, and there is a seething anger everywhere. But the politicians are trying to hang on to just a little bit more glory.    ... Inconsistences, panic and outright crazy decisions...  I’ve lived under regimes that rules arbitrarily. Totalitarians, drunk on power, and using their position for petty revenge.
People are humoring you now – sort of --- but it won’t last.
Destroy the state economy and you’re done."

Mouse Brain: Micro Detail And A Video Tour

The NY Post reports on thrilling new detail of the mouse brain developed at the Allan Institute for Brain Science.  This is the twenty first century we were promised.  Also, a video.

"An average of the inherent fluorescence in the
   brains of mice imaged using serial
         two-photon tomography"

"The Allen Mouse Brain Common Coordinate Framework 
(CCFv3), a 3D reference atlas"

Text for the video: “This video depicts a fusion of data in the CCF frameworkThe background grayscale image represents the average anatomy of 1675 individual specimens forming the basis for the common coordinate system.The colored curved lines represented sampled streamlines. The mouse cortex is a 3D sheet organized into layers where connection between the layers are typically perpendicular to the surface, suggesting a hypothetical columnar organization.”

What Is Love, Exactly?

Perhaps it's a simple little fire consuming the fuel life offers, neither moral nor personal.

I"m for it.


A smaller question is "Why is falling in love so pleasant?"   I believe it's part of the same question as "Why do salt and sugar taste good?".  The three rewards are for behaviour that gives our animal self a future, to be fruitful and multiply.

The ghost in the machine or operating system prefers its own protocols and needs to be given baked-in guidance from the animal to pay attention to the animal's needs.

Happy to oblige.  Falling in love is great.  Sweet and salty is tasty in a high value meal of carbs, protein and fat.

Keep Government In Check

"He governs  best who governs least"  I believe Thoreau's point is true. "Least" will vary with the hazard of a situation. 

Rand Paul makes the same point: 
"The founders never intended for Americans to trust their government.  Our entire constitution was predicated on the notion that government was a necessary evil, to be restrained and minimized as much as possible."

Most troubling to me with the current pandemic lockdown is the proliferation of health officials and governors who declare this and that to be the law but without constitution and without the consent of the governed through legislation.  Equally troubling is the equanimity of millions who accept being told how to run their homes and do their jobs.   Let such authority be robustly challenged on the facts.  When the rulers rely on "because I said so", you need better rulers.

Does The Lockdown Still Have An Exit? The Cure Is Becoming Worse Than The Disease

Look at these two quotes.
Richard Fernandez: "If you lockdown long enough, there's no longer enough battery to restart the systems."
Jonathan Turley:  "De Blasio just said on CNN that New York cannot open because it has no money to do so."

(Source is wretchardthecat's twitter feed.  Fernandez is a rewarding read.)

Pandemic Prophets Deserve To Be Resolutely Questioned.

Listen, think, but don't believe each jot and tittle of expert prediction.
Powerlineblog reminds me that "Prophecy is the most gratuitous form of human error."
The quote is from George Eliot.    Experts and politicians selling us models of infection control have destroyed more than a trillion dollars of human capital and yet those models have never been tested properly.

Yogi Berra: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
Ronald Reagan:  "Trust but verify".
Richard Feynman:  "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts".