August 16, 2020

Is America Greater Than It Was Four Years Ago?

This is a spin on the Reagan quote of course, but with a finer point which pokes Trump's campaign slogan in the soft underbelly.

It is the bumper sticker question the Biden campaign should be asking the American people.

Again.

And again.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/transition-to-greatness-is-a-confession-of-failure/612073/

August 11, 2020

America's Lost Year of Education: A Warning!

I worry about the impact a lost year of education would have on today's students.

Without Social Studies, how will students be able to study the national emergencies and wars of the past? How will they be drilled with the lesson that even small sacrifices by each and every American can amount to a tremendous force for good which can pull us through major calamities?

Without Science, how can students learn the true nature of anthropogenic climate change, pandemics, the big bang, evolution, and other subjects which cannot easily be assessed in daily life? Any vacuum left by a lack of fundamentals and healthy skepticism will be quickly filled by the fog of supernatural beliefs and prepackaged misconceptions.

Without Mathematics, how will students acquire the engineering skills necessary to design tomorrow's nuclear plants, fusion plants, solar cells, and batteries in order to phase out fossil fuels? Without these skills, we can expect a diminished role on the world stage as other countries rise to the occasion.

The workforce and electorate of today have mostly enjoyed the fruits of a robust education system featuring in-person classroom training. If we take that away, we...uh...run the risk of...uh...

Oh fuck it.

August 2, 2020

My drunk driving conservative buddy informs me of three things

First, he has had more sobriety tests than ANYBODY else. He has had numerous roadside field sobriety tests. He's had blood tests at the county jail. He has a beautiful vehicle breathalyzer interlock system which he is very proud of and shows off to all his dates. All these tests (more than ANYBODY else) demonstrate how committed he is to sobriety and, naturally, how extremely low of a risk he is of having another infraction.

Second, this high level of testing (more than ANYBODY else) does result in positive results from time to time. However, if there wasn't so much testing being done, there wouldn't be NEARLY as many. This is simple math.

Third, one of his arrests came after drinking Tsingtao beer all night. Made in CHINA. He informs me that these are clearly "high-gravity" beers which are mislabeled as 4.8% ABV. Mislabeled in CHINA. So he doesn't drink CHINA beer anymore, even when EVERYBODY ELSE was still drinking it and saying it was fine. This demonstrates his remarkable foresight.

Do these analogies ever resonate with conservatives? It doesn't seem like it. But we can laugh.

August 1, 2020

New Rule: The Quarantine 15 Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

Maher flirts with fat-shaming which isn't my style, but I think he's onto an important message here.

Maher quotes a study from Public Health England that people with a BMI of 35 to 40 increase their risk of death from CV-19 by 40%, and it goes up dramatically from there. If accurate, he makes a fair point that the media should touch on this more. Face coverings help protect others as well, but only provide about 5% protection for the wearer as I understand it. That's nowhere near as significant as this.

I've never reached a BMI of 35 but was about 15 lbs over the top of my normal BMI range a month ago. After a month of hellish strenuous exercising I'm only about 5 lbs over now. So I started working on this before the Maher story. Perhaps I have confirmation bias?

August 1, 2020

Question for Dr. Fauci

Can Hurricane Isaias pick up the virus from the stricken state of Florida and precipitate it down on the Carolinas?

The MSM squanders Fauci's time with mostly moronic and superfluous viewer questions all the time, so why not.