Number three:
A few years ago, my wife and I overheard a conversation between two people (man and woman) at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. While looking at a model of the moon, the woman asked why it had craters all over it, yet the Earth had none. The dude said, dead serious, that it's because the moon catches all the meteors...since that's what it's apparently for.The Moon actually does act like a shield for Earth, to some extent. That's not what it's for but that's what it does, sometimes. He's not entirely wrong about that.
Then we get to number fifteen:
I was walking through Geneva airport behind an American mother and child. We walked under a sign that said, "Departures: goodbye, au revior, ciao, guten tag, sayonara," etc. The child asked, "Mom, what does 'guten tag' mean?" The mother replied, "I don't know, they don't speak French in Switzerland." I can't even begin to describe what's wrong with that.Well, you could begin with the fact that "guten tag" is a greeting in German, not a farewell, so the sign is wrong to begin with.
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Well, it's a big mystery why the ozone hole is still there, isn't it? What I should do is to figure out which post I wrote about this is the one that has the best utter destruction of the whole thing, and just link to it when these stories crop up. It'd be easier for us all.
"Ohhh, it's getting better, but not as quickly as we thought it would!" There is nothing to get better. The ozone hole over Antarctica is a seasonal phenomenon. It happens every year, and it recovers every year. The magnitude of the decrease in ozone over the Antarctic is about the same every year, and it always recovers to the normal level afterwards. It was discovered in 1956, explained, and forgotten about--until the 1980s, oddly enough about the time it was most convenient for DuPont; they needed a way to get cheap and easy chlorofluorocarbons out of the way, since they had a patent on hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants. The magnitude of the decrease seen in 1956 was about the same as the magnitude we see today--from about 300 Dobson units to about 100 Dobson units, give or take a few. Every year. And 1956 was before CFCs entered widespread use. And every year it goes back to 300 DU, +/-, without fail.
These are the facts.
Just about the only thing in that article that is correct is the picture showing the decrease in ozone over the Antarctic, in mid-September. That's when the Antarctic has the lowest ozone levels. And has, every year, since we could even detect the stuff.
Ozone hole stories never, never, ever mention that it's a seasonal variation, and they sure as hell never mention that the ozone recovers to normal levels. You run that satellite past the Antarctic in mid-December and you won't see that hole there; it'll be about 300 DU right across the board.
I mean, look at this--this is an outright lie:
The Ozone Hole took less than a decade to form, and the turnaround was nearly as swift, with depletion peaking in the 1990s and 2000s, after which recovery began to kick in. But because ODSs are long-lived, full recovery will trail behind the phasing-out of every damaging substance.It forms every year. It goes away every year. It's happened for the sixty-three years we've been able to detect it.
...and these are people who purport to "fucking love" science. *rolleyes*
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In Germany, "Immigrant" pushes a woman and her child in front of a train. No information yet on why, but he tried pushing three people in front of the incoming train and managed to move two of them--the woman and the little boy--and the little boy was killed. Of course these folks never try doing that sort of thing to people who are bigger or stronger than they. It's all allahu akbar of course but not when they could get their asses beat.
The incident has "...seemingly rekindled anti-migrant sentiment." You don't say.
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Another "settled science" that ain't. The big problem with Darwinism stems from the fact that none of its predictions have been borne out, ever. We've been studying bacteria for close to a century (if not longer) and even the strains with the shortest generations have never evolved new traits, something that would justify deeming the product a new species. The only thing that has happened there is that we have selected for certain existing traits (immunity to antibiotics) but no new traits have evolved in them.
We know that genetics and selective breeding work, because we've done that for a very long time. We would not have the vast panoply of dog and cat breeds if it didn't. But what we haven't seen, or done, is to evolve a dog into something else, not even through selective breeding. You selectively breed a dog or a cat or a horse for a desired trait and you're left with...dog or cat or horse. Not "neodog" or "neocat" or "neohorse".
"Evolution through man-made selection" has never produced a new species, or even the forebear of a new species. As a random process "evolution through natural selection" takes an extremely long time; the man-made variety should work a lot faster. And does--when it comes to selecting for desired traits that already exist within a species.
As much time as we spend studying biology, we have never, never, ever seen the process Darwin described work in the natural world. There is plenty of "natural selection" going on, but it doesn't do anything but reinforce existing traits.
It doesn't explain how those traits evolved, not without a great deal of handwaving. Literally, the explanation is, "There was this kind of animal, and over two million years of natural selection happened, and then it was this different animal." Okay? But don't you see that you're saying, essentially, "There was this kind of animal, a miracle occurred, and...?" It's really no different. You're not describing how the process made this new animal, nor are you able to pinpoint how the changes occurred. To be fair, that's because you have a fossil of the beginning stage, and another fossil of the end stage, and maybe one or two from the middle part; but what frequently happens is that there is no middle stage between traits which can explain how you got to B from A. B cannot have evolved from A--the middle steps would have been highly uncompetitive mutations which, by the rules of Darwinism, would be eliminated--but B is there and must be acknowledged.
It's obvious that trait B cannot emerge from trait A, fully-formed. But it's equally obvious that it's impossible for it not to have done so. Darwinism cannot contend with those cases, and yet there is a myriad of examples.
I think that Darwinism will have some part in the eventual explanation for the process; I think that natural selection does play an important part in evolution, in refining traits that emerge. But Darwinism is, standing entirely by itself, unworkable; it does not wholly explain the process, nor can it.
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I am very much of the same mind as Kim du Toit on this point. Let CBS withdraw all broadcast, commercial-supported television. I won't miss them, not even a little bit. The last time there was a show I wanted to watch on CBS was when Joan of Arcadia still ran; when they stopped running that show, I stopped watching the network. I wasn't boycotting them, nor was I making any real conscious decision. There just wasn't any reason for me to tune to their station any longer, is all.
I'm trying to remember the last time I deliberately tuned to one of the traditional broadcast networks in order to watch something, and coming up blank. My wife will put on Antiques Road Show on PBS but I don't really watch that. The network news--I avoid all of it like the plague, even Fox, because I'm of an age where high blood pressure becomes problematic and the semi-coverage managed by those "journalists" is just aggravating.
Let's face it: the news business nowadays is awful. It's not just a political issue, either. As that little pissant in the Obama administration said, young journalists nowadays know absolutely nothing. My corollary is that the older ones may know a little more, but they're all rancid Commies like has-been CBS anchor Dan Rather, so why should I bother with any of them?That's exactly so. And going further afield, there is not one television show I consider "appointment television". Not one. Mrs. Fungus has been watching The Office and it surprised me by making me laugh out loud a couple of times but I can take or leave that one--and it's old, in any case.
If we were to get rid of all our cable TV service tomorrow--retaining only Internet access--I would not much care. The Internet, I need that for work. The entire rest of it is purely optional.
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This is pretty cogent analysis. This is why the Democrat-media complex has attacked Trump for what he said about Baltimore.
As 2020 kicks into high-gear, the fact that the major challengers to Trump, either his opposing candidate or popular Congressional critics come from places where the Democrats have destroyed the American dream will become more and more relevant.The final three paragraphs of the post explain why in detail. But the post makes no prediction about how this will play with America.
It is a reasonable question to ask, how can we trust a candidate or Member of Congress to fix the problems they complain about at the national level if the states and districts they represent are slums and shitholes.
The media needs to nip that in the bud before a Trump/Harris debate where Trump brings up California's homeless problem, or streets covered with needles and human shit, or a Typus outbreak.
...and the post we saw saying that 67% of Americans agreed with Trump may be a clue. Just maybe.
That was a century ago. Why bring it up? The reason is simple: the only thing the Democrats have is racist! It's their only defense, the only thing they can use, because trying to argue the facts about anything is a losing proposition for them.
One comment:
What happened 100 years ago not only represents Chicago's past but also it's present? Guess that means when groups of anywhere from 10-20 teenage blacks attack and rob Asian, or white people downtown or on the lakefront in 2019 that represents Chicago's present black community. Lightfoot is an ignorant racist fool.So you look at a place like Detroit or Baltimore, where Democrats have held sway for decades, and you see filth and poverty and disease and pestilence--the argument is that it's because of racism? Somehow, white racists caused all that?
The argument for that point seems to imply that white racists purposely emplaced policies which led to that outcome. "We're poor because of racism!" All right; can you point to the policies and programs which specifically caused your poverty? "Well...they ain't paying the teachers enough!" We don't see how that makes you poor, but we spend $18,000 per year per student, which is a staggering amount of money. How much interest do you personally take in making sure your kid learns to read and do math? "Aw, that's the teacher's job!" All right, we understand that you must be very busy. What do you do for a living? "I'm on disability." What for? "I cain't work!" Right, but what specifically is your disability? "Well, they ain't no jobs around here anyway." But surely there are other jobs you could do? I mean, you'd have to commute a bit, but-- "I ain't commutin' to no job." But if it meant you were no longer poor-- "Leave me alone. I'm late to play ball with my friends." And the "disabled" man picks up his iPhone X and his basketball, and leaves.
What policies and programs make black people poor? As far as I can tell, there is an enormous government bureaucracy dedicated to helping poor people. The government spends two trillion dollars a year on various kinds of welfare, assistance, and employment programs. The policies emplaced by the cities that are shitholes were designed specifically--we are told--to lift people out of poverty, to make jobs easier for them to get, to help them live better lives. None of these policies are emplaced to keep black people poor and ignorant; they'd rightly be struck down by the inevitable lawsuits that would come in their wake if they were.
So why is Baltimore a rat-infested, violent shithole? What is the racist program that causes it to be filled with violent people? Who is the racist who prevents garbage collection? What piece of human filth is preventing the poor of Baltimore from teaching their children to read and write, to pay attention in school, to work hard?
The simple fact is that it is Democrat policies and programs which lead to this outcome. I could not make that statement so baldly and positively if the outcome of continuous Democrat leadership were not as predictable as the tides. There are no hard Democrat enclaves where this outcome is not true to one extent or another. Blue cities in blue states are the worst places in the country to live, bar none, but blue cities in red states are a close second.
If it's "racism", then it's the result of Democrats being racist.
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Thomas Jefferson versus islam. Shame that the US seems to have forgotten the lessons we learned in dealing with the pirates of the Barbary Coast. 9/11 might not have happened if we hadn't.
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So, last night I watched the playlist. Flying Witch ep 2 is a treasure; if the rest of the series is like that I'm going to be very sad when I get to the end of it. Fantastic. Worth building a new computer to watch it in full HD.
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Today it is not hot outside, but it's humid. Last night it wasn't warmer than 65; today it's about 80. The heat index has been dropping steadily, though; when I got up it was 85 and now it's 82, and the dewpoint is 59--which means it ought to be cool and dry enough tonight to open up and ventilate with outside air.
That will be later, though.
Tonight I would like to go out to the garage and work on the motorcycle a bit. At least get the carbs out and start working on them, getting them cleaned out. I want to ride, damn it.
What I have to do is something of a two-fer, though. I need to get Buttercup out of the garage, then get into the attic to put a few other bits and pieces up there; but as long as I'm doing that I've also got to try replacing the transformer for the doorbell. Whcih means shutting the power off and going up there with a headlamp. Yeah. And once that's done--
*sigh*
So it's not just an uncomplicated, "Okay, let's fix the bike," but "do all this other horseshit first so I can clear off the workbench so I can fix the bike."
With the temperature around 60-65 I can stomach all that, though, so I'll give that one a try tonight.