Category Archives: Crap For Brains

People and especially governments do some incredibly stupid stuff. This is about those stupid actions.

Citations needed

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With great eagerness I read the article, Crypto’s Decline Was Inevitable, Because It Is Based on a Classic Money Myth. I’ve been struggling for a long time to understand whether Bitcoin (and/or other cryptocurrencies) are the future or a Ponzi scheme:

I expected the author to make everything clear to me.

I was extremely disappointed.

While I tend to believe the main conclusion, the decline of the cryptocurrency market is inevitable, is true, I am exceedingly annoyed that he does not back up his claims. He merely asserts that, as a psychoanalyst, he knows his claims about the nature of money are true.

Even highly credentialed economists are not so arrogant as to make sweeping claims about the nature of money or the inevitable decline of cryptocurrency without detailed explanations and/or numerous citations. This guy is not even playing in his area of expertise and claims complete mastery of it.

That’s really, really lame. This discredits his entire profession. And, for a psychoanalyst, that is no easy task.

They must need more gun control

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The Seattle area,via their dominance of state politics, pushed a bunch of gun control down our throats in the last ten years. They promised us less “gun crime” for the tax on gun sales (Seattle only) the extended waiting periods, the standard capacity magazine bans, the training requirements for semi-auto rifles, and the banning of sales to people under the age of 21.

You would think with all those “gun safety” laws Seattle would be much safer now than it was ten years ago. Some people don’t see it that way:

A good August is when nothing happens. But this one has been more like the devil’s month, as some call it in South America.

During a time that, one hoped, was going to mark some summer recovery from the social dislocations of the pandemic, Seattle is instead continuing to slide backward — dangerously so in the areas of street crime and drugs.

Seattle has seen 11 homicides this month — making this the deadliest single month in the city as far back as the police’s crime dashboard has records (to 2008). The previous high for any month was nine homicides, and for any August before this one, six.

They must need still more gun control and defunding of the police.*

If that is their response then you know it’s not about “safety” or prevention of “gun crime”. It means they are delusional and/or it is about the control of ordinary people and/or the destruction of our society.

* Sarcasm.

Quote of the day—Nina Turner @ninaturner

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Student debt cancelation isn’t paid for by the taxpayers, the federal government is the lender.

It’s costlier for the government to hold on to the debt.

Nina Turner @ninaturner
Thought leader. Activist. Senior Fellow at @RacePowerPolicy. Former Ohio State Senator & Professor.
Tweeted on August 21, 2022
[“Thought leader”? Yeah, I can see that. She is thinking of things almost no one else thinks of. Of course that is because she is delusional and/or evil, but still, it is “leading”.

I wonder which political party she identified with to get elected as an Ohio State Senator. Having crap for brains apparently isn’t a disqualifier.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Leonard Williamson

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In order to obtain the permit, an applicant would have to show up with a firearm to demonstrate the ability to load, fire, unload, and store the firearm. But you can’t get a firearm without the permit. And under Oregon’s highly restrictive gun storage laws, no one can legally loan a firearm to another. That creates an impassable barrier.

Leonard Williamson
July 31, 2022
Oregonians to Vote on Gun Control Measure Opponent Calls ‘Strictest’ in the Nation
[You might be inclined to believe it was slopping drafting of the ballot measure. Others might be inclined to believe they really are just that stupid.

Many of them are suffering from Peterson Syndrome and cannot understand logical thoughts, so that may have contributed. But, overall, I’m inclined to believe they are so blinded by hate and prejudice they view obstacles such as this as features and not bugs.

I hope they enjoy their trials.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Melissa Chan

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Concerns over the firearm industry’s marketing practices and accountability grew Thursday, prompting more proposed legislation, a day after chief executives of two leading gun manufacturers told Congress they bore no blame in the recent mass shootings.

House lawmakers introduced a measure that would direct the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the gun industry’s advertising and marketing practices. It is the latest attempt by federal legislators to hold gun companies responsible after the massacres in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.

Melissa Chan
July 28, 2022
Concerns grow over gun industry’s accountability after CEOs tell Congress they bear no blame in mass shootings
[In related news Democrat lawmakers dismissed as “ridiculous” an amendment to include spoons and forks in the FTC investigation. This is despite spoons and forks being used in almost all obesity related deaths totalling 100s of times more deaths than “assault weapons”. This comes amid growing claims that people would be much safter if the general population did not have access to high capacity feeding devices instead of using chopsticks.—Joe]

She probably doesn’t trust numbers

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This is very telling:

She probably feels this way because she doesn’t trust numbers to give her the correct answer.

Quote of the day—Justice Samuel Alito

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In light of what we have actually held, it is hard to see what legitimate purpose can possibly be served by most of the dissent’s lengthy introductory section. See post, at 1–8 (opinion of BREYER, J.). Why, for example, does the dissent think it is relevant to recount the mass shootings that have occurred in recent years? Post, at 4–5. Does the dissent think that laws like New York’s prevent or deter such atrocities? Will a person bent on carrying out a mass shooting be stopped if he knows that it is illegal to carry a handgun outside the home? And how does the dissent account for the fact that one of the mass shootings near the top of its list took place in Buffalo? The New York law at issue in this case obviously did not stop that perpetrator.

What is the relevance of statistics about the use of guns to commit suicide? See post, at 5–6. Does the dissent think that a lot of people who possess guns in their homes will be stopped or deterred from shooting themselves if they cannot lawfully take them outside?

The dissent cites statistics about the use of guns in domestic disputes, see post, at 5, but it does not explain why these statistics are relevant to the question presented in this case. How many of the cases involving the use of a gun in a domestic dispute occur outside the home, and how many are prevented by laws like New York’s?

The dissent cites statistics on children and adolescents killed by guns, see post, at 1, 4, but what does this have to do with the question whether an adult who is licensed to possess a handgun may be prohibited from carrying it outside the home? Our decision, as noted, does not expand the categories of people who may lawfully possess a gun, and federal law generally forbids the possession of a handgun by a person who is under the age of 18, 18 U. S. C. §§922(x)(2)–(5), and bars the sale of a handgun to anyone under the age of 21, §§922(b)(1), (c)(1).1

The dissent cites the large number of guns in private hands—nearly 400 million—but it does not explain what this statistic has to do with the question whether a person who already has the right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense is likely to be deterred from acquiring a gun by the knowledge that the gun cannot be carried outside the home. See post, at 3. And while the dissent seemingly thinks that the ubiquity of guns and our country’s high level of gun violence provide reasons for sustaining the New York law, the dissent appears not to understand that it is these very facts that cause law-abiding citizens to feel the need to carry a gun for self-defense.

Justice Samuel Alito
June 23, 2022
NEW YORK STATE RIFLE & PISTOL ASSOCIATION, INC., ET AL. v. BRUEN, SUPERINTENDENT OF NEW YORK STATE POLICE, ET AL.
[I suspect that to Alito these are actually rhetorical questions. By now it should be increasingly clear anti-gun people are not rational. To many of them it is perfectly obvious that if someone, not an authorized government employee, possesses a gun they are “a bad guy”. That is their default way to determine good from evil. If someone has a gun they are evil and/or have intent to do evil, and should be taken into custody to prevent the crimes which they know will happen. That we want private citizens to be able possess guns is blindingly obvious proof that we want to create more criminals and crime. It’s “common sense” to them. No further discussion is needed.

And it happens at the Supreme Court of United States of America.

That is how messed up and prevalent their thinking is. It is how they justify summary execution and genocide for gun owners.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

This makes perfect sense

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Michael Moore Urges 2nd Amendment Repeal: Get Dogs, Not Guns

“I know that there are Democratic Party leaders that do not want me saying this. … I make no apologies for it because I understand the history of this country, and I don’t think we should be afraid to say this: Repeal the Second Amendment. Repeal the Second Amendment,” Moore urged.

“You don’t need a gun,” Moore added. “If you’re afraid of somebody breaking in, get a dog.”

If a dog is going to be a deterrent to a violent predator then they have to be large and capable of inflicting serious, life threatening, damage. So, essentially you have the same level of damage as a firearm but instead of under your complete control it is under the control of an animal brain over which you have moderate control.

The way I see this is that if you believe a dog is better than a firearm it means you believe some dog brain has better judgement and is less likely to make a mistake in defending you and yours than you are. Plus there is the lack of availability when you go to work, the store, or the movies, etc.. That is also a “cost” of making that tradeoff.

For this increased reliability and decreased availability you are willing to a pay a lot more. This says to me that the increased reliability must be an order of magnitude or so better than what you have with a firearm 100% under your control.

This makes perfect sense in the case of Moore. But he should not be speaking for others who are not so mentally handicapped that, by his own indirect admission, he believes a dog is ten times smarter than he is.

Quote of the day—The New York Times @nytimes

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What psychiatry calls psychosis, the Hearing Voices Movement calls nonconsensus realities. It provides support groups for people with hallucinations and is part of an effort to reform how the mental health field approaches severe psychiatric conditions.

The New York Times @nytimes
Tweeted on May 17, 2022
[While some delusions are functional that is not the way to bet.

I find it very telling that the NYTs is onboard with “nonconsensus realities”. That explains a lot of things.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Danny Westneat

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On Friday, 10 days after five people were shot in an apparent drug deal gone bad, city officials and various nonprofit groups met at City Hall to talk about what to do about the city’s homelessness emergency. They seemed bizarrely put off at the idea of shutting The Jungle to homeless access.

One talked of The Jungle’s “sense of community.” Another said some Jungle inhabitants would be worse off if they were uprooted. Others said it was stigmatizing to even call it The Jungle, preferring “Beacon Hill greenbelt.”

Instead, ideas for aiding The Jungle ranged from putting lockers under the freeway so the homeless could store their belongings, to providing encampments with bins for used hypodermic needles.

It was at this mention of needle bins that Dustin Davies and Angel Johnson couldn’t take it anymore. They burst into incredulous laughter and left the council chambers.

Davies was an alcoholic and meth addict who was homeless until 19 months ago. Johnson was a drug addict and prostitute who has been sober 12 years. In recovery, both have been helping the homeless through charity groups.

They came to the meeting to say that the very worst thing you could do for the denizens of The Jungle is keep it open. That the idea was even discussed seemed crazy to them.

Danny Westneat
February 5, 2016
Keeping Jungle open is the opposite of compassion
[“The Jungle” was a Seattle homeless encamping area over six years ago. This is the same author on last Saturday:

I’ve argued in this space for more than a decade now that allowing these makeshift encampments is a humanitarian catastrophe — back to the days of The Jungle, which itself was only closed after a mass shooting. The shantytowns are an embarrassment to both Seattle and the liberal project.

The “city officials’ have been told their ideas are crazy for many years and the data is there to back up those claims. Yet they insist the world should change to match their beliefs rather than their beliefs change to match reality. This, by some definitions, is insanity. A diagnosis of evil also fits the available data.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Gresham @Guntalk

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Gun banner thinking. “All criminals were once law abiding.  Therefore, all law abiders must be treated as criminals.”

Tom Gresham @Guntalk
Tweeted on April 4, 2022
[That is a reasonable hypothesis and almost certainly true for some gun banners. Others are just evil liars and will say things like this because they know their simple minded followers will latch onto the stupidity of the statement as if it were a revelation.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Walrus @ThrowawayGaming

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If nobody is armed, nobody will be oppressed. I’m sorry, but the state needs to come down hard on dissenters, which is Republican gun owners.

Walrus @ThrowawayGaming
Tweeted on March 28, 2022
[For several minutes I looked at his posts to see if I could confirm this is a parody account. Nope, insufficient evidence.

I didn’t know stupid was available in this dense of packaging. Two sentences, one impossible proposition, two falsehoods, one proposed unconstitutional act, and the second sentence contradicts the first.

I couldn’t pack that much nonsense into two sentences if I worked on it for an hour. And all without long practice with a parody account. That takes extraordinary talent in the crap for brains department.—Joe]

Layers of fact checkers

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NASA: Giant asteroid to pay Earth a visit today; it will come horrifically close to our planet. How many errors or exaggerations can we find in this article? I found three:

There is always a risk that even the slightest deviation from its path will result in the asteroid being trapped by Earth’s gravitational pull, causing it to strike our planet.

…

The asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth at a distance of 1,580,000 kilometers.

…

An interesting fact about 2022 FH is that it has a large deposit of silica, which is used in making silicon chips. With a global shortage of silicon chips, asteroids like these can be extremely crucial to mankind to conduct extraterrestrial mining mission.

The asteroid is not wandering around sniffing the trees on either side of a path and giving consideration to chasing a squirrel like a dog. The path is determined by it’s current direction, velocity, and the gravitational fields it is exposed to. These are all well known quantities. The asteroid is not going to deviate toward earth in an unexpected manner.

I don’t consider 1.58 million kilometers “horrifically close”. This is over four times the distance from the earth to the moon. Inside the moon’s orbit is something I would consider calling “horrifically close”.

The real whopper is the conflation of shortage of silicon chips with a shortage of silica. On earth silica is better known as sand:

However, the foremost common mineral within the sand is quartz–also referred to as silica.

As you might imagine silicon is rather common on Earth:

Silicon makes up 25.7% of the earth’s crust, by weight, and is the second most abundant element, being exceeded only by oxygen.

It’s going to be a more than a few years before it makes economic sense to mine asteroids for silicon to make electronic parts.

I would like to suggest the author of this clickbait provide services for used car dealerships and/or politicians rather than pretend dispensing technical news.

For the rest of us, this is another example of the unreliability of news sources. Keep this in mind whenever you read or hear anything. Reality is really really tough even when you are trying to get at the truth. And many people don’t even put minimal effort into it.

Quote of the day—Tam

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Bad guys might carry a gun without a permit!” is just an idiotic argument. Bad guys already carry guns without permits, because they’re bad guys. They don’t care about gun carry permits any more than they care about robbery or murder permits. That’s how you know they’re the bad guys. The permit process, no matter how streamlined, is only an impediment to lawful citizens who’d like a chance to shoot back.

Tam
March 22, 2022
Constitutional Carry in Indiana
[There is something many people don’t know. If someone asks you to justify your actions and you confidently answer it with nonsense most of the time it will be accepted. It’s only if you are silent, or fumble for words, that they will follow up and press you to give them a decent answer. This is what the anti-gun people frequently do, whether it is from training, because their heads are filled with nonsense, or both, I just don’t know. This is just another example.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Scott Mann MP @scottmann4NC

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Every knife sold in the UK should have a gps tracker fitted in the handle. It’s time we had a national database like we do with guns. If you’re carrying it around you had better have a bloody good explanation, obvious exemptions for fishing etc.

Scott Mann MP @scottmann4NC
Tweeted on March 14, 2019
[There are so many great responses to this. My first response was an English version of:

Une chose qui m’humilie profondément est de voir que le génie humain a des limites, quand la bêtise humaine n’en a pas.

Alex. Dum.

In English:

One thing that humbles me deeply is to see that human genius has its limits while human stupidity does not.

But the best responses I have yet seen came from private Facebook posts*:

I demand you recognize the amazing act of courage he performs every morning when he peeks out from under the covers.

…

Imagine getting the vapors over humanity’s oldest & simplest manufactured tool.

The presence or absence of knives is how we tell where the apes stop and the people start in the earliest pages of our species’ family photo album.

This is not the deluded ranting of someone in a random psych ward. This is the deluded ranting of someone in a very specific psych ward called Parliament.

But, as it turns out, this is almost for certain British humor that didn’t translate that well into the U.S. where we think the U.K. handling of private gun ownership is just as absurd as this suggestion about knives—Joe]

* If given permission (they sometimes read this blog) I will post their name in an update.

Quote of the day—Dr. Jennifer Walker

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The fact that we’re seeing an emergence of modern rates of rise at all of these individual study sites as well by the mid 20th century just further demonstrates the really significant influence of global sea-level rise especially in the last century. By delving into individual sites the better understanding we have of regional and local processes impacting sea-level rise will continue to improve our understanding for future impacts.

Dr. Jennifer Walker
Rutgers University professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
February 25, 2022
Burning coal has been driving sea level rise since the 19th century: study
[There are other things of interest in the article:

Utilizing a global database of geological sea level records from the past 2,000 years, the international team of researchers modeled global and site-specific sea level rise. They determined that in the United States, modern sea level rise can be discerned earliest in the Mid-Atlantic region somewhat later in the 19th century. By doing so, they hope to facilitate a better understanding of local processes driving variations in sea level changes.

This is not the first time I have seen stuff like this that I find bizarre. They appear to believe the ocean levels can change locally. Am I’m missing something? Or are they really that stupid?

How can you have local changes in the ocean level that do not become global within a day or less? There is a bulge of water than travels entirely around the globe in one day. It is due to gravity from the moon and sun. It is causes what are called tides, remember? Any local change in ocean level will spread out evenly around the entire earth, right? Why do these “scientists” claim there are local changes?—Joe]

Quote of the day—The Socialist Party @OfficialSPGB

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There have been no “failures”. To fail it must first exist. Which country’s population has managed to free themselves and create a class-free society where the PEOPLE collectively owned the natural resources, industries etc? Most people don’t know what socialism / communism is.

The Socialist Party @OfficialSPGB
Tweeted on January 21, 2022
[If it has never existed then all the millions of people who died in the failed attempts surely must be considered “a clue”. But that they persist tells us one, or both, of two things:

  1. They are totally without a clue.
  2. Killing tens or hundreds of millions of people is intentional.

Therefore, if they persist, we should just say, “No!” until we run out of ammo, then affix bayonets and continue with hand-to-hand.—Joe]

What are you thinking?

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I’ve been busy recently and haven’t posted some things I wanted to weeks ago. It has come to the point I’m irritated so much that I have to say it. I’m withholding names to protect the guilty. Please don’t take offense if you decide I’m talking about you. I could be, but just because I am does not mean that I am going to shun you or am deliberately shaming you. That’s not my intent.

I’m pretty open minded about a lot of things. Reality is hard. I know that. Can we still keep things friendly even though I think you might have a circuit or two crosswired in your brain?

God? Gods? Pro-Life? Pro-Choice? I can probably argue four or more different sides to each of those questions and be reasonably convincing to the average person even though I am pretty sure which is the correct answer. Believe what you want as long as you don’t insist everyone conform to your beliefs and as far as I’m concerned we’re all good.

There are things which are less certain. Some of the UFOs (currently called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena–UAPs) are alien craft? Global warming/cooling/climate-change? The 2021 presidential election was totally rigged? Bitcoin will replace the U.S. Dollar in the next ‘N’ years? Bitcoin is a great/terrible investment? I just don’t know. I suspect the general public does not have enough information to determine an answer with a high degree of certainty to any of these questions. Again, I can probably be convincing to the average person no matter which side I wanted to take.

There are other things which are more clear cut. Actual moon landing or faked? Flat earth or spherical? 9/11 was an inside job? Sorry. You don’t get any slack from me if you start trying to convince me we don’t actually have satellites in orbit or that because steel doesn’t melt at burning jet fuel temperatures the WTC collapses had explosive help.

Let’s think about the claim all test animals for the mRNA “vaccines”* died. I first heard this several months ago and went looking for the research papers. It turns out that, at least in the papers I saw, this was true! Damning evidence, right? No.The animals died because the researchers performed necropsies on all of them. The results, that I saw in the papers I read, were that everything looked normal.

It is as if someone was trolling the general population to see how many people would draw the incorrect conclusion from factual data. Good joke! I actually laughed at the cleverness. But why would anyone persist in believing that even if they didn’t find the research papers and read them? Think about it some!

Suppose all, or even 10% of the test animals, died from the mRNA vaccine. How many researchers are going to go before their human subject testing review board** (sample of what is involved here) and say, “All the test animals died. We are going to test it on humans next.”?

Sure, there are people that think people are a plague on the earth and all humans (except perhaps others like them who are sufficient “woke”) should be exterminated. They don’t convince tens of thousands of other people to work on their project, get billions of dollars to produce and deliver their product without someone getting cold feet about the prospects and delivering overwhelming evidence to the general public of the impending doom of half the human population. Even small religious cults have people leaving and telling the dark stories from the inside.

After giving this a little thought, if you actually believe the whole mRNA “vaccines” are “Going to kill 100s of thousands (or more)” and people knew this all along, I have to ask, “Really? What are you thinking? How do determine truth from falsity? What color is the sky in your universe?”

You want to talk about VAERS data? Okay. Let’s talk about it.

You might claim there is a huge increase in adverse reactions to mRNA “vaccines” compared to all other vaccines. Yup, it’s right there for everyone to see. But, there are some things to take into account before you reach valid conclusions. Unless you received a COVID-19 immunization you probably did not know people who received the “vaccine” were encouraged to sign up to receive and fill out a survey every day for a week, then once a week for several weeks, then another after a few months. They would send a text message to (IIRC) the CDC. Then they would receive text messages with links to the surveys. They would be asked how they were feeling. They were encouraged to report even very mild stuff, like a headache or muscle stiffness. Anything that might be considered an “adverse reaction”.

Suppose, they had a headache or some stiff muscles a month later; was it because they drank a little bit too much the previous evening or were hunched over the reloading bench all afternoon? Or was it because of the vaccine? They didn’t ask about those possibilities. The CDC just wanted the “adverse reaction”. I expect the noise was to be filtered out by looking for correlation with reports from other people at week ‘N’. To the best of my knowledge this has never been done with other vaccines. If you are looking at the raw data, without the noise filtering, you are going to see a lot of noise. And the number of reports are going to be much larger than with other vaccines because maybe 100x more people received the COVID-19 shots than your normal flu, MMR, and/or tetanus vaccinations. This combined with the encouragement and easy reporting of trivial “adverse reactions” results in the raw numbers being huge.

I’ve heard things to the effect of “Bill Gates is behind it and he is evil.” Gates was ruthless as a business man. I would have had serious moral qualms doing many of the things he did to competitors. He was good to his employees. When I worked at Microsoft I had numerous people who know him far better than I do say things to the effect that he would be more than fair to employees in situations where he had no obligation to be so. I’ve know people who talked to Melinda Gates about the work done by the Gates Foundation. I know people who worked on the Gates house and had long term personal contact with Bill and Melinda. I know one woman who went on a date with him. I know a woman who volunteered at the same charity has Bill’s mother and worked with her frequently. None of them even hinted at any dark side with him or his family. He was sometimes a little odd, but this was in a geeky rather than evil genius or creepy way.

Could Gates be bankrolling the deliberate extermination of millions? The odds are extremely low. He couldn’t hire enough guards or pay them enough money to keep the angry mobs at bay once it was discovered. He is not stupid. He is not suicidal. I believe the Gates Foundation really is intended to make the world a better place for humans. There is no intent to make the world a better place without humans. It is inconsistent with everything I know about him, his family, and the foundation. I think there is enough public information for anyone to arrive at a similar conclusion without many reservations.

Do I agree with all his politics and projects? No, but I think they are well intentioned even if they are misguided or flat out wrong.

On a different tangent maybe we can work out some answers on our own without relying on information from questionable sources like random podcasts, YouTube videos, word of month, memes, and worst of all, the CDC and other government sources.

Let’s run a little statistics experiment. In the comments or by sending me an email tell me how many people you have personally met*** which meet one or more the following criteria:

  1. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in an ER visit and/or hospitalization.
  2. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in long term (two or more months) adverse effects.
  3. Had a reaction to a mRNA “vaccine” which resulted in death.
  4. Had COVID-19 which which resulted in an ER visit and/or hospitalization.
  5. Had COVID-19 which resulted in long term (two or more months) adverse effects.
  6. Had COVID-19 which resulted in death.

Don’t double report anyone. For example, if the person died don’t also report them as having long term adverse effects.

Here are my answers:

  • One person for item 1.
  • One person for item 4. (Added on 1/25/2022 after I remembered someone else).
  • One person for item 5.
  • One person for item 6.

Please be honest. “Stuffing the ballot box” isn’t going to change anything beyond a tiny corner of Joe’s world. And, almost for certain, the statistics will point you out as being a liar.

Next weekend I’ll collect the data and make a short report. My guess is that this little experiment will be more “interesting” than most people think it would be.

* Quoted as a deliberate concession because I don’t think that point is particularly important one way or the other.

** I had to do this for one project I worked on. I was gathering anonymous data from computers about the movement of the mouse. I was not gathering any information about what applications they were using or even if they clicked the mouse. I only collected timestamps and the position of the mouse at that time. It took weeks and answering lots of questions to get approval.

*** This needs to be carefully defined to get valid results. Consider “personally met” as meaning you were, at least once, in the same room/location as them and there is a good chance they would remember you as well as you remembering them. My brother’s niece, on his wife side of the family, who I have never met, having serious complications from COVID-19 linger after a year doesn’t count.

Quote of the day—Rhona Redtail @Rhona_Redtail

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the DOT should charge Walmart trucks to use the interstates.

Rhona Redtail @Rhona_Redtail
Tweeted on January 4, 2022
[Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.*

If I were to make up ignorant and/or stupid stuff about people saying something like this you wouldn’t believe it.

It should be no surprise she is anti-gun too. Anti-gun attitudes are highly correlated with ignorance and stupidity.—Joe]

* There used to be a couple of morning DJs on KJR in Seattle that had a regular “thing” of telling stories about stupid/ignorant stuff and they used this as their tag line.

Quote of the day—Dan

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High-pressure weather systems in the winter bring lots of sun (at a low angle) and little or no wind, just when energy demands are at their highest. The clear skies also let the earth’s heat radiate off into space at night, so it gets real cold. In the summer that same system will also result in little or no wind, and the high angle of the sun and the clear skies will result in lots of heat, and airconditioning demands lots of electricity.

Politicians don’t consult meteorologists or engineers. They consult people like Greta.

Dan
January 2, 2022
Comment to We Don’t Need No Stinking Frozen Fans
[The critical component of the article being commented on:

Alberta’s entire fleet of 13 grid-connected solar facilities, rated at 736 megawatts, was contributing 58 megawatts to the grid. The 26 wind farms, with a combined rated capacity of 2,269 megawatts, was feeding the grid 18 megawatts.

Be cautious of the inclination to “let them freeze in the dark” to “learn their lesson”. That may not turn out the way you might hope. We need a better way to show them the light.—Joe]