Category: Solving the wrong problem

Solving the wrong problem

It Didn’t Work

Have you heard of the bygone’s principle? It’s also known as the sunk cost fallacy. You’ve spent money and/or invested time into something. You use that past investment as justification to continue moving forward – independent of current factors. The problem is that the previous investment is the past. Decision making should be based on the present and future. You made a real estate investment that hasn’t panned out. The smart move might be to dump it, take the loss, and figure out what’s next. It’s all too common to not want to let go and just admit it was a mistake. As humans we tend to focus on the past and as a result, hold on to bad investments, jobs, and relationships far longer than we should. The smart choice if the current or future scenario isn’t right anymore… is to move on.

With that in mind, I had a thought the other day. The US and generally Europe, have decided that the release of carbon dioxide via fossil fuels is enhancing the greenhouse effect and causing global warming. This warming is the cause of seemingly every problem we’re experiencing on the planet and is dooming us to some sort of terrifying apocalypse. Whether that’s true or not is a debate for another day. Let’s assume it’s true for the sake of discussion. With certain destruction of the planet looming, we’ve committed easily trillions of dollars to reduce carbon emissions.

As a society we’ve completely altered our way of life – regulations, limits on how/what factories can manufacture, fundamentally influencing the development of vehicles, and doing everything possible to end the fossil fuel industry. Regardless of thinking that all those things are good or bad, here’s my point… it hasn’t worked.

Think about it. Everything we’ve done for the last thirty-forty years to combat climate change hasn’t changed the amount of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere one iota. Nadda. Nothing. Zero. We haven’t made the slightest dent. In fact, it keeps increasing at an exponential rate. So why do we keep doubling down, year, after year, after year on expensive strategies that don’t work?

Doesn’t that seem like the perfect example of the sunk cost fallacy to you? We know it hasn’t worked. It continues to not work. But we’ve invested so much… let’s just keep doing more of the same thing that’s not working. Why would we do that? It’s crazy.

I don’t know what the answer is, but banking everything on something that hasn’t modified anything in thirty years seems kind of loco to me. Maybe it’s time to stop the carbon reduction nonsense. Find a different approach. Heck, we can deploy Bill Gate’s idea to blot out the sun to cool the planet. Just kidding, let’s please not do that.

Perhaps we can stop trying to kill the fossil fuel industry and get fuel prices back in check. Maybe we can have incandescent light bulbs again. Heck, we could even kill the carbon offsets Ponzi schemes. Anything would be better than our current path.

It’s been a massive sunk cost. It’s going to sting a bit to abandon it. It’ll be hard to admit it didn’t work. Some egos will be bruised. There will be great gnashing of teeth. But the truth is, we’ve completely failed at controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide. Time to move forward and think differently.

Solving the wrong problem

Dude, Are You Even Green?

I woke up this morning to news that another whack job protester had glued his head to a famous painting in the Hague to demonstrate against climate change. Now I don’t generally advocate violence, but in these cases I might make an exception. The next time one of these protesters glues themselves to a wall, it would be lovely if the appropriate authorities would kindly assist them to the ground with some force when arresting them. Wouldn’t it be a shame if some of their newly glued skin remained affixed to the wall?

Ok, sorry. Had to get that out of my system. It baffles me that people can be so blinded by their religion, that they are able to justify anything to themselves as righteous. And yes, global warming is a religion. You cannot question it. You will be branded a heretic if you don’t believe. Never mind that every prediction ever made by the global warming/climate change/extreme weather cult hasn’t materialized… they just keep pushing the date out and hope you don’t notice. Ok, ok, I know we said there was only 10 years left to save the planet, 30 years ago – but this time we’re serious. We have graphs and charts!

The protesters belong to some group called “Just Stop Oil – No New Oil and Gas”. I guess it doesn’t occur to them that the vast majority of every modern product on the planet is some derivative of petroleum – including, ironically, the glue they used to fasten themselves to the wall with. The question the green zealots never seem to answer is, what is the alternative to all this nasty oil?

If pushed, their answer is often the elusive GREEN ENERGY. Wind turbines. Solar panels. Electric vehicles. Clean, renewable, and they don’t spew that nasty carbon dioxide that is literally DESTROYING the planet. Apparently in the green religion, products aren’t manufactured. They just magically appear – poof! Happy workers wearing hemp clothing scamper to the fields to collect the batteries and solar panels placed there by the green energy fairies.

I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to point out an inconvenient truth. Things like batteries are manufactured. In a factory. Factories that use many, many megawatts of energy and machines that run on that horrible oil and nasty diesel. And before that, all those components are made in other factories. And the components come from minerals and ore that must be dug out of the ground by, GASP, huge machines that run on oil and gas and diesel.

The average EV battery requires 250 tons of ore to be mined. Things like copper and lithium. What do you suspect the carbon footprint is of those huge mining dump trucks and ore crushers? If you’re curious, I’d highly recommend you read this thread about what it takes to produce the copper wire for your Tesla battery or giant wind turbine. The energy expenditure and carbon footprint is absolutely staggering.

The real truth is that accounting for manufacturing, the lifetime emission footprint of an electric vehicle is greater than the average gas vehicle. Wait, what? Yes, you read that right. Then there’s the current electric grid which couldn’t support the swapping of all gasoline cars with EV’s. Oh, and the pesky issue of where the electricity is going to come from. It certainly won’t be from wind turbines. And if you’re green, I know you’re not going to support the MASSIVE increase in mining operations that’ll be needed to harvest all the minerals required. We’ll also just ignore the fact that most of those mines are in countries that, shall we say, aren’t inclined to be friendly to the USA.

The hard reality is that wind, solar, and electric vehicles is not the answer – in fact it probably makes the problem worse. If you’re a card-carrying member of the green religion, I’d love to hear the plan to overcome these manufacturing obstacles. Unfortunately, I suspect the vast majority of green folks have never given it a thought. Like slapping an “organic” label on something, they buy their “clean energy” vehicle and feel good about themselves. Almost… righteous. And when you’re righteous, you can condemn and lecture anyone who dares to question the orthodoxy. Facts not required.

I also read today that the US is down to a 25-day supply of diesel fuel. That’s good, right? Let’s stop using that filthy planet destroying petroleum! Some folks may be surprised when they hop in their EV to go down to the local Starbucks for their soy latte, only to discover Starbucks never got their coffee supplies delivered. Something about every product in this country being delivered by diesel trucks and trains.

That’s silly. I’m sure nothing like that could ever happen. Could it?

Solving the wrong problem, woke

Be Proud, Say It Out Loud

A thought struck me the other day while I was driving. Thoughts don’t happen that often, and usually disappear in a few hours, but this one stuck with me. As the miles rolled by, I was listening to some talking heads argue back and forth about the cause of increased gasoline costs. One of the pundits was trying to say that none of this was Biden’s fault, bla, bla, bla. It suddenly hit me – why aren’t these folks shouting from the rooftops that increased fuel costs are a good thing?

I’m serious. The stated goal of environmentalists and the high priests of climate change is to raise fuel costs to bring about reduced consumption. Time and time again the thought leaders in the climate change movement have said raising prices to Europe (or higher) levels is the only way to “break” America’s addiction to oil.

So, you either believe the president when he says climate change is an existential threat or you don’t. If you’re a more left leaning supporter of the current administration and climate change, then say it out loud. High gas prices are a good thing. Prices should be higher. Be proud of your belief and stand behind it. Don’t be coy about it. Say it. I’m happy prices are high, and I think we should raise the fuel taxes and regulations to drive it to $8-10 dollars a gallon.

Because if you’re not willing to publicly voice one of the tenets of your religion, you’re a coward. politicians won’t speak it out loud because they know high fuel prices causes actual pain for their constituents – and getting re-elected is far more important than campaign rhetoric. Causing too much pain for the serfs tends to lead to angry mobs. Can’t have that.

But you’re not a politician. You have nothing to lose. So, if you’re someone who’s ever espoused climate change/global warming/extreme weather on the socials or at cocktail parties… it’s time to put up or shut up. Go post something on Facebook right now declaring that high gas prices are a good thing and should be higher. Make that claim the next time you’re sitting around with friends. State it at work in meetings and in the breakroom.

Climate change either is an immediate threat to the planet, or it’s not. It can’t be an immediate, existential threat that requires action and change NOW… as long as it doesn’t cost me too much to drive to Disneyworld this summer or make my groceries too expensive. You can’t have both.

It’s time to be proud and stand up for what you believe in. Say it out loud. Otherwise, you’re a hypocrite and a coward.

Daily Life, Government, Solving the wrong problem

Responsibility And Lawn Darts

Reportedly the Alzheimer’s patient occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Ave will come out of hiding today and return to the White House to announce an executive action canceling student loan debt. What’s being reported is that $10,000 of debt will be evaporated for anyone who earns less than $120,000. It’s hard to describe how angry this makes me.

I feel like a chump. It’s that feeling when you pay full retail and then find out you could have had that same thing 30% off if you’d gone down the street and negotiated. Why-oh-why did I work and self-pay for school? All those folks who went into the military so they could go to college? Suckers. It’s the ultimate Fuck You to anyone who tried to be responsible and minimize the debt they took on.

It was a loan. You saw the terms. You saw the interest rate. You understood it was a legal contract you were signing. Of your own free will you acted like an adult and penned your John Hancock on the dotted line. My sympathy level for anyone who has massive student debt is exactly, ZERO. You made choices. I sincerely hope those choices resulted in a well-paying job. If so, then you made a wise decision. It also means you can afford to pay those loans back. If you have a low paying job and massive student loans… then you made a poor decision. That sucks. It’s also the way life works. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. You’re going to have to take on a second job and work your ass off to get ahead. That was the way this was supposed to work. So sorry, you may have to cut back on your soy lattes and make do with an older smartphone.

Clearly, I grew up in a different era. We were sent out to play after school on our own. The only requirement was to be home in time for dinner. Parents had zero idea where we were. We had to invent our own games and fun. There were no structured play dates or facilitated games with ten helicopter parents hovering over us at all times. I’d highly recommend reading this essay on how important it was (is) to foster the level of independence and learning we had as kids. And how much harm we’ve done to our kids today. We’ve created an entire generation of child-adults who expect to be protected from everything and for mom and dad (government) to bail them out of any situation or poor decisions.

So now we’ve decided to take a break from shipping billions of dollars to Ukraine, so we can print another 300 billion for kids who made poor financial choices. Because it’s not like increasing the money supply has anything to do with inflation. I’m sure there’s no possibility my taxes will go up to pay for the increased debt. Yeah, right.

With an unlimited money supply in the form of federal student loans, university tuition will only continue to skyrocket. Why not? They have no skin in the game. I’ll have to pay for that in the form of higher taxes, increased inflation, and responsible kids who don’t want to take on debt being priced out of higher education.

Can someone, anyone, please explain to me – in simple terms I’ll understand – why I need to pay for your financial obligation? And why I can’t get a refund for the same amount that I stupidly chose to self-pay? Anyone? How is that right or fair? I thought this generation was all about fairness?

While I wait for an answer, I’m going to head out for a solo motorcycle ride in the mountains. Because I wasn’t coddled as a kid on padded playgrounds and forced play dates. I had lawn darts. I am comfortable assessing risk and living with the decisions (good or bad) that I make.

Government, Health, Solving the wrong problem

It’s Time To Fear The Toilet

I like learning new things. Most of the time it’s useless information like, on average 100 people a year choke on ballpoint pens. Or Al Capones business card said he was a used furniture dealer. And that licking a stamp is one-tenth of a calorie. But once in a while I stumble upon something that’s interesting and useful. Like Covid is spread through the toilet. What?

If you have time, this article is an excellent read. It’s long and complicated. I confess, I’ve read it three times now and still don’t understand at least a third of it. It’s about the origins of Covid. But one section about transmission routes of Covid caught my eye. It turns out that the initial, and most probable, sources of infection were from fecal aerosols and Class B Biosolids. Fecal aerosols? That sounds horrible!

Toilet aerosols are, well… produced by the forceful evacuation of fecal material, followed by flushing (not sure how else to put it?). Large amounts of virus are shed in fecal matter. Part of the longstanding methodology of tracing virus spread is from testing wastewater. (I didn’t know that) So, you’ve produced a plume of virus containing aerosol that now wafts through the plumbing and hovers in air. Household member number two comes along to conduct their daily constitutional and, boom, transmission. The bulk of transmission, especially early on, came from intra-family and group living settings. Hmmm.

Next up is the Class B Biosolids. I’d never heard of that. I wish I hadn’t. It turns out that the “sludge” that comes from wastewater treatment facilities is repackaged as fertilizer. Yes, you read that right. Human feces, now branded as a “Biosolid”, is given/sold to farmers as fertilizer. Class B means it has NOT been treated to remove pathogens. So, we’re happily spreading Covid virus packed human feces fertilizer on our food source. This chart blew me away. It shows the top 500 US counties with Covid case increases early in the pandemic (Nov 2020). Next to it is the US counties with the highest level of corn production. The two are a near mirror image. Nah, that’s not frightening at all.

A few minutes of searching time and you’ll realize that none of this is new or novel information. It was well known science long before Covid, with plenty of papers in the various journals. Our various health departments and agencies clearly know about this. Yet, they spent over a year pushing respiratory droplets and fomites as the primary vector of transmission. We’ve been forced to wear useless masks in the hopes that they might stop the larger mucus particles and to panic buy sani-wipes to clean every conceivable surface before we sit down. Meanwhile the virus has been happily aerosolized and is wafting along in plumes, and slowly drifting down to be inhaled hours or days later in any room that doesn’t have adequate ventilation.

With pro sports back in swing, how many “super spreader” events have there been from stadiums of 70,000+ fans? None. They’re outdoors or in facilities with fantastic air circulation. There’s clearly been some limited spread at events like Sturgis. While most of the Sturgis rally is outdoors, what other component does it have? In the evening everyone heads to the bars and clubs with little to no real HVAC capability. Why haven’t there been any large spread events documented with the airlines? If primary transmission was direct respiratory droplet spread, you’d think we’d constantly hear of entire planeloads of passengers that tested positive. We don’t. Airlines have some of the most effective air circulation you’ll find.

This is not to imply that you cannot get Covid via respiratory droplets. Of course you can. But that’s going to happen in an environment of close contact for extended periods of time. Bars, clubs, friends sitting around the kitchen table for hours. Coughing, laughing, touching their face, sharing drinks, smokes, and physical contact (what do you think the young kids are doing at the clubs, silly rabbit?)

You are not going to get Covid walking through the grocery store, strolling through the restaurant to your table, or passing people on the hiking trail. If you do, you most likely passed through an aerosolized plume that’s been wafting in the air for hours already. Unless you’re wearing a properly fit tested N-95 mask… nothing is going to prevent that. Sorry.

There’s much more to unpack in this article, this was just the first part that jumped out at me. How much further I go with it depends upon the current state of my ADHD attention span, the weather, and my natural inclination to throw up my hands and decide never to write again at any given moment (happens multiple times a week).

The image I’m left with after reading this is that poor fellow who you spot walking along by themselves, outdoors, alone, wearing a mask. Fearful and paralyzed with the idea that the ‘Rona is just waiting for them around every corner. Can you even imagine them finding out there’s Corona virus in fertilizer and fecal aerosols? Being unable to eat or ever poop again would be a sad ending.

Solving the wrong problem

Let’s Trust The Science

The other day I rambled on a bit about a question I had – can you name an actual harm that Trump did to the nation? Not mean tweets harm, but real identifiable harm. Well I was shocked to find out that someone actually read my post, and not only that but took the time to comment (which I appreciate, good or bad). The comments pointed out that Trump took some actions to remove or modify environmental policies from the previous administration. Clearly that would cause harm, wouldn’t it?

You’d think this would be an easy answer. We have climate. We have smart people studying things. We’ve been measuring this for a long time. Simple, right? And the answer is… it depends on what data you choose to believe. Sigh.

But, but, these are scientists man. Science is always objective, right? Not when there’s billions of dollars in funding at stake. Oh come on, these are experts. They wouldn’t push science that wasn’t proven. Really? Please point me to any county, state, or country that can show any clear correlation between implementing a mask mandate and a lowering of covid case counts. We have a year and a half of clear data on this. The correlation signal should be pretty easy to spot. I’ll wait. Hint, you won’t find it. Yet the experts continue to yammer on and on about masking. We’re creating an entire generation of kids who are afraid to go outside and play without a mask on. Yet nobody can actually point to any real “science” to this other than “the experts say”.

Anyway, back to global warming. Yes, I said global warming because that’s what this was about until the “experts” decided it needed to be re-branded. It’s now called CLIMATE CHANGE. Convenient, because any weather abnormality can now be attributed to CLIMATE CHANGE. The last few years we’ve tacked on EXTREME WEATHER. Because, of course, EXTREME WEATHER is naturally caused by CLIMATE CHANGE. It’s just science, man.

This is such an enormous topic, it’s virtually impossible to boil it down to easy, bullet point, talking points from any side of the argument. Have we experienced global warming? Yes. Somewhere between 0.3 and 0.7 degrees centigrade in the last century. The global warming hypothesis that started in the late 80’s is that there will be about a 1 degree increase in temperature for each doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. The kicker that Al Gore capitalized on is that the claim that greenhouse gases would cause a positive feedback loop, adding another 2-4 degrees of warming and eventually causing a tipping point that was unrecoverable. Throw in a scary hockey stick graph, some images of polar bears stranded on melting ice flows, and voila – we have a crisis!

The challenge with any hypothesis is that your findings have to be independently reproduced to have any credibility. Mann’s hockey stick graph used cherry picked data and code that turned any inputs into a hockey stick. The projections the IPCC uses year after year to predict gloom and doom are based upon models that have been laughably wrong. Not just by a little bit but by massive amounts. And wrong year, after year, after year.

But, but, what about the wildfires every summer? And the hurricanes? And the melting ice caps? And increased numbers of hot days? And rising sea levels? And polar vortexes? OH MY GOD, THERE’S EXTREME WEATHER EVERYWHERE!!

Burn acreage is down massively. Hurricane frequency is way down. Artic ice reached above normal levels this year. The number of hot summer days is actually down. Sea level isn’t rising. And on, and on, and on. Can you find a particular data point and extrapolate from that some causation? Sure. But when you take multi-decadal trends (which is what climate is), any changes seen are mostly… meh.

Unfortunately people cherry pick and alter the data. What? Yes, the temperature data is altered. Half the US weather stations are “zombie” stations – they don’t actually exist anymore. Their data is computer generated from a model/algorithm. Weather stations that 40 years ago were in a field are now surrounded by asphalt parking lots and building exhaust vents, a.k.a the urban heat island effect. Most scary graphs start from the 1960’s/70’s. Why? It was a very cold period – remember they were predicting in the 70’s we were heading into a new ice age. It’s not convenient to start your data points earlier than that due to the extreme global heat of the 1930’s (the dustbowl).

It goes on and on. Our data collection is a mess. And unfortunately scientists actually do lie. Remember climategate? Emails showed they were conspiring to find a way to “hide the pause”. We’d had a 17 year pause in any signs of warming at that point. A very inconvenient truth. So yes, count me as a skeptical when it comes to experts making any extreme global warming claims.

And the cherry on the cake is the UN/IPCC climate treaties. The US was correct to pull out. They achieve nothing except massive wealth transfer from the US to other countries, while not actually requiring other countries (CHINA) to do anything. China is building out coal fired plants as fast as they can go, meanwhile the US and Europe doom themselves to voluntary CO2 restrictions that cripple our energy production. Here’s a perfect example of looking at the data – we had a near complete shutdown of the world a year ago. A more extreme version than any UN agreement could have hoped for. And what happened? Atmospheric CO2 didn’t budge in the slightest. Zero change. So tell me again how any UN agreement (costing gazillions of dollars) is going to “fix” global warming when a global shutdown didn’t make any impact?

The global climate is ungodly complex. Solar impacts, ocean currents, equatorial winds, and yes even manmade issues… there are so many factors impacting the climate. We’re still in the infancy of understanding the impact of things like solar cycles and ocean currents. I think it’s foolish to think we can point to just one possible cause with all its associated faulty data, politics, and agendas and say conclusively – ah ha, that’s the issue.

So, did Trump cause harm by pulling out of the Paris Agreement? Since none of the previous four UN climate summits achieved anything… I’d argue it made zero climate impact. The effect of substituting Obama’s Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy rule will depend upon which side of the global warming/greenhouse gas side of the coin you’re on. If you think, like the green new deal zealots that the world will end in 12 years if we don’t do something NOW!… then yes it caused harm.

My position is that when you strip away all the politics, media hype, and academics jockeying for the next round of funding – we honestly don’t really know. Lots of hypothesis, very little reproducible findings that conclusively prove correlation/causation. And with the frightening rise in fuel and energy costs (and the associated rise in the costs of all goods) happening right now, I’m going to be a skeptic when it comes to making changes that will make things economically worse for the planet.

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006 and claimed we only had 10 years left before we reached the point of no return. And 15 years later… the polar bears are thriving. The west coast isn’t under water. We’re not wearing shorts in the arctic. I’m pretty sure we don’t need to panic. My prediction? At the current rate of change it will take about 100 years before we’ll see a clear enough signal in the data to show if we’re really warming or not vs one or two year abnormalities. Climate is measured in decade and century time scales. And in a century from now, I’m reasonably confident we’ll have alternative energy sources we currently haven’t thought of. Our technological advance is going to happen independent of global warming fears. It’s our human nature.

The entire point of science is to question. Question the data. Question the findings. Question the methods. Question the motivations. Question, question, question. And when you run out of questions and can’t find fault with the results, you’ve arrived at a solid scientific theory. With climate, we’re still at the very beginning. Questioning isn’t denial, it’s what we’re supposed to do.

Back off, man, I’m a scientist.

 Dr. Peter Venkman

Government, Solving the wrong problem

A Return To Chaos

In about a week we’ll be watching the most consequential election of our times… according to the news. It’s for the governorship of Virginia. I’m sure there’s other elections going on in the country, but for some reason all the smart people believe the outcome of this one will signal the how the rest of the elections will go for the next four years. Whatever. The democrats are apparently worried and have brought out the heavy hitters to help campaign. No, not Brandon but Obama. And yesterday the former and current acting president said something during his speech that caught my ear.

“We’re not going to go back to the chaos that did so much damage” said Obama. Hmmm. Just exactly what damage is he referring to? That’s a serious question. I’m not talking about the four years of hysterical teeth gnashing and wailing brought about by Trump Derangement Syndrome. That’s entirely an issue brought about by the left and fueled by the “media”. Madonna and Ashely Judd wearing pink pussy hats and caterwauling like scalded cats about blowing up the white house and being nasty women perfectly encapsulates the TDS that started right after the election and grew steadily for four years. While annoying, that’s not destruction.

So what exactly did the bad orange man destroy? The economy? Jobs? Gas prices? Border security? A rapid vaccine development in the face of a pandemic? Trust me, there’s plenty not to like about the guy but I can’t think of any actual harm that happened or was exacerbated on his watch other than triggered snowflakes devastated by mean tweets.

It must be really painful for the left right now, as evidenced by the complete radio silence about this president. Nobody is even attempting to defend anything the administration is doing. CNN spends its time covering ani-vaxxers, an actor shooting someone, and never ending analysis of the Laundrie murder. MSNBC still covers the devastating capitol insurrection 24×7. Meanwhile kids, pull up a chair and lets think about the achievements under the current administration:

  • A disastrous Afghanistan pull out that got US solders and marines killed, droned a car full of kids, and left behind hundreds of Americans. Oh, and gifted the Taliban $80 some odd billion dollars in military hardware. Tens of thousands of unvetted Afghans have been brought in as refugees and released into the country.
  • Rapidly accelerating inflation, gas prices, food costs, and a worker shortage that nobody can explain.
  • A supply chain crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen before. Hundreds of ships anchored offshore with no way to offload. Store shelves are empty, manufacturing is shut down, and consumer goods like cars and appliances are non-existent. Meanwhile the transportation secretary who was already AWOL on this issue, goes on paternity leave (and nobody in the media even notices).
  • A mishandling of public health messaging that’s so inept it’s causing reasonable people to question vaccines simply because they no longer trust the governments message. Public health officials demanding you “follow the science” while actually ignoring the science. Our covid czar Fauci is caught lying about funding gain of function research in, wait for it… Wuhan. A president to actually believes millions of people should lose their jobs if they don’t submit to the jab.
  • An unimaginable border crisis that grows by the day. A record 1.7 million unvaccinated and unvetted people intercepted and released into the country. Hundreds of thousands more that snuck in without detection. New caravans of thousands are heading to the border at this moment. Secret flights are sending folks to cities across the country in the middle of the night. The Vice President, appointed as the border czar is… simply AWOL. But dammit, we will investigate the border patrol riding horses. The public imagery is horrific!
  • From a foreign policy standpoint, we’ve managed to piss off the French, provoke the China/Taiwan issue and North Korea is back to launching missiles. Straight out of the gate our secretary of state attempted to lecture Chinese officials and got his ass handed to him. Speaking of China, they’re now actively posturing and provoking militarily on the sea and in the air.
  • Crime and murder are at all time highs across the country. Meanwhile the attorney general appears to be more concerned with parents attending school board meetings.

In times past, any one of those issues would be enough to hamstring a president for the duration of their term. All of this and we’re not even a year into this administration. The growing list of crises is causing actual damage, with no relief in sight. There doesn’t appear to be anyone in the administration even attempting to get out in front of any of this. All efforts appear to be solely on getting the two, five, seven, ten trillion (I’ve lost track of what it is now) in new spending passed. Because printing new trillions of dollars during inflation/stagflation is clearly sound economic policy.

No offense, but I preferred the previous chaos and damage.

Government, Health, Politics, Solving the wrong problem

I Want The Data

A short one today. The local hardware store in our little town just reimplemented a mask mandate to shop there. The city council is contemplating reinstating the city-wide mask mandate. I’m sure cities across the country are evaluating the same thing with the new delta (sshhh, don’t mention the country) variant of the virus which shall not be named.

For roughly a year every city, county, state, and federal public health office has been collecting extensive data on Covid cases. We know exactly how many new cases we had for every single day in every corner of the country (and world). Every single person in the country has seen multiple instances of the bell-shaped curve graphs showing the current state of Covid case counts.

So here’s my question – with all that data it should be very simple to show a strong correlation between the implementation of a mask mandate and the reduction of case counts, right? The entire point of the mask (as we’ve heard ad nauseum) is that they protect you and others from transmission of the virus. So, across the country the data should easily show the date of a mask mandate and shortly afterwards case counts dropping. Seems like simple science, no?

I have yet to see any data that shows a mask mandate having any impact whatsoever on case counts in any part of the country. Have you? Don’t you think the powers that be would be hammering the news talking heads every night with these charts to prove how effective their mask mandates were? Instead, the CDC’s strongest case for masks seems to be a report on two hairstylists who were positive and saw a bunch of clients. They all wore masks and nobody else was infected. So there you go – based upon two hairstylists, we all have to wear a mask.

We’ve had a real world, year long experiment with extensive amounts of data. Before you force me to wear the damn mouth diaper again, I want to see the data. Not theory, not anecdotes from hairstylists or isolated lab experiments attempting to measure droplet velocities. We know the date we started wearing the damn masks. Can you correlate a drop in case counts afterwards? It doesn’t seem like a hard question, does it?

Daily Life, Government, Lists, Politics, Solving the wrong problem, Travel

The Ex Post Facto Study
  • As humans, we really like passing new laws, creating processes and procedures, and establishing new rules to solve the problems we’re experiencing. What we don’t do a very good job of is any sort of analysis of our newly created bureaucracy to see if it actually did anything useful. Laws and processes, once created, tend to stick around forever. For example at the start of the pandemic that shall not be named for fear of woke xenophobia, my hospital started a screening process for anyone entering. They purchased fancy stand alone scanners that let me scan my badge and take my temperature. I never use it because I have to log into it the night before (a software system the hospital had to purchase), answer the same stupid four questions, and then the next morning my temperature never registers with the automated machine because I just walked across the parking lot in 40 degree temps. The backup to the automated station is an employee who asks the questions, manually checks my temp (which still fails), and then gives me a sticker to put on my badge to “prove” I’ve been screened that day. When the ‘rona started everyone was panicking and I’m sure this process seemed reasonable at the time. It’s been in place for quite awhile now, so a retrospective study seems appropriate. Has this system actually “caught” any cases of Corona? I doubt it. How many people with 104 degree temps and difficulty breathing actually go to work or randomly show up to visit aunt Sally in the hospital? Or, they are asymptomatic and would have passed the screening anyway. Naturally the in-person screeners are only going through the motions at this point. I walk up say “no changes”, they try to scan my temp for 0.2 seconds, I grab my sticker and go. So in retrospective, is it worth continuing this? What made me think of this was something Grandpa Joe said during his weird state of the union speech last night. He dredged up the standard we need more gun laws rhetoric, saying we need to ban ghost guns and pass universal background checks. Ignoring what drivel that is for the moment, this seems like a prime opportunity for a retrospective study. We have tons of historical data in the form of crimes committed with guns. If we looked backwards and applied the new proposed laws, how many of those crimes would have been prevented? e.g. how many shootings have occurred with “ghost guns”? How many people went through some sort of firearm purchase at a flea market or gun show, bypassed a background check, and then went on to commit a crime? It seems pretty simple to look backwards to see if something would work moving forward. But that assumes you actually want the answer.
  • Spell check is a wonderous thing. Without it my writing would look like a five year old’s. Spell check elevates it to at least sixth or seventh grade. But the problem with spell check is you have to be roughly in the ballpark for it to give a suggestion. Take for example “bureaucracy”. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it right first time. Unfortunately I never even get close enough for spell check to offer a helpful hint. I end up Googling things to stumble across the right spelling. Which brings me to my new phone. I like using the “swype” keyboard rather than entering in individual letters. The default swype implementation on the old Pixel phone was marvelous. I only had to get semi-close to the actual letters and it somehow knew what I was trying to type. It often had the correct contextual suggestions for the next word and the next word… magical. Samsung’s implementation on the other hand is very disappointing and more often than not I have to go back and type everything out. Sigh. I know you can download other swype keyboards, but that would take actual effort.
  • I violated my newly vowed rule to simply pay a professional to install things rather than me spending 10x the amount of time to do the same thing. I got some parts for the new ginormous motorcycle but the idea of waiting for an appointment and then paying someone $75 an hour to do what I should be able to do just killed me. And sure enough… two and a half full afternoons, many expletives, phone calls to customer support, and two new one-time use tools and everything is installed. But at least I feel good about my manliness. Cue Tim the toolman grunt.
  • This past weekend was very rainy and outdoor stuff wasn’t an option. I was bored and decided to conduct research and do an actual experiment. I’ve been needing a navigation solution (long story) for the backcountry while on the motorcycle. I wanted to use my phone rather than purchase a $600+ GPS device. I ended up spending the better part of a day researching options, downloading software, creating routes and maps, and really learning the systems. And the pièce de résistance, I created three custom routes and then went out and drove them to see which system performed the best. An actual experiment. I am a dork of huge proportions. But, at the end of the day I think I have a system that’s going to work.
  • I don’t think there’s much to say about the weird state of the union last night. Grandpa Joe is not a gifted orator. For all his flaws and ignoring content, Obama could deliver a good speech (as long as the teleprompter was working). Clinton too. For speechmaking ability I’d rank the presidents in the following order: Obama, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 43, Bush 41, Biden. As far as content goes, all SOTU speeches are stupid. They’re long whish lists of crap that never gets done. If you’re a fan of everything big government, you loved Biden’s speech. If you’re a minimalist government type, it was abhorrent. I don’t think there was much in the middle for this one.
  • I’m going to ride the ginormous motorcycle a fair number of hours north today, then come back on Saturday. Sort of a pre-travel trial run. I’m waiting for my soft luggage panniers to arrive and then all the pieces will be in place to hit the road! Interesting how much effort, planning, and research it’s taken to be able to experience the “freedom” of the road. LOL.

Song of the day: Sugar Ray Fly 1997

Confirmation bias, Daily Life, Government, Politics, Solving the wrong problem

I Don’t Know, But I’ve Been Told
  • GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you haven’t heard that expression before, it’s an old-school programing adage. Your belief systems are a product of the inputs you consume. Consistently consume information from just one source and that’s what you’ll believe. A recent, annual, survey that focuses on false beliefs broken down by political ideology, gender, etc… illustrates this. The questions ranged from Covid, race, gender, and the climate. Biden voters had false beliefs 61% of the time, while Trump voters were wrong 42% of the time. If you consume your information solely from CNN, MSNBC, Facebook, and like minded Twitter follows, then of course you’ll have a skewed vision of the world. The same is true of Fox, but per the survey to a lesser degree. Take for example the recent expose of CNN by Project Veritas. Oh, you didn’t hear about it? That’s because there’s zero coverage of it on CNN, MSNBC, Politico, and Twitter permanently banned Veritas’ account. Veritas published video footage of a CNN technical director saying the networks focus was to get Trump out of office. “Look what we did, we got Trump out. I am 100 percent going to say it, and I 100 percent believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out. … I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that,” Chester stated. He then said, “[COVID] will taper off to a point that it’s not a problem, anymore. Climate change can take years, so [CNN will] probably be able to milk that quite a bit. … Climate change is going to be the next COVID thing for CNN. … Fear sells.” You would think “The most trusted name in news” getting caught talking about pushing a specific social/political agenda might be a story. The fact that it’s not even mentioned by the major outlets speaks volumes. This really shouldn’t be a surprise, but clearly a large percentage of people take whatever the news media says as gospel. Hear it often enough and it starts to become a core part of your beliefs. The goal of the School Of Contrarianism is not to claim what I say is correct. I’m probably full of shit 38.4% of the time according to the latest surveys. The goal is to get you to question. Question everything. Just because some 23 year old “journalist” did a copy/paste of an AP story and then added their own opinions to give the story some “depth” doesn’t make it correct. We’ve gone from the 1960’s Timothy Leary/counterculture slogan “Question Authority” to becoming mindless lemmings of corporate wokeness. Ever see the movie The Truman Show? That’s us today. We’re all stars of the show, only we don’t know it. (P.S, lemmings don’t really jump off cliffs and commit mass suicide. Boom, mind blown.)
  • Speaking of blindly following a narrative, the Biden administration continues to give focus to the cult of global warming. Here’s a good place to start practicing your path down Contrarianism (TM). In the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) the Monthly Energy Review, they report that energy-related CO2 emissions decreased by 11% in the United States in 2020 primarily because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions. Furthermore, U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions fell in every end-use (consumer) sector for the first time since 2012. We had a record reduction in CO2 emissions, so we have the first actual laboratory experiment to see what happens with CO2 in the atmosphere. Remember, reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere is the entire goal of the green new deal that’s supposed to save us from this existential threat. So what happened? Nothing. Zero change in atmospheric CO2. Not even a blip. Meanwhile, China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Yucheng on Friday said, “Some countries are asking China to do more on climate change. I am afraid this is not very realistic”. On Wednesday President Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, admitted Wednesday that the US reducing its emissions to zero wouldn’t make much of a difference in the global climate change fight. Yet we’re moving forward on a $2 trillion climate agenda. How does this even make sense? As a junior Contrarian, start questioning this sort of crap.
  • The Minneapolis City Council has voted 11-1 to oppose the use of tear gas and other munitions as part of Minnesota’s response to civil disorder. Closing arguments in the Chauvin trial start Monday. I’ma gonna grab my popcorn for this one. I’m sure Minneapolis will come out just fine from all this. A few mostly peaceful protesters and some bad words shouted. It’ll all be good.
  • You should read this letter from a parent who’s pulling his kid out of an expensive private school. We’re creating an entire generation of mindless lemmings (I can’t help but perpetuate this lemming myth). I’m reminded of a meme I saw the other day that speaks truth. “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times”. Sorry for the blatant cisgendering stereotyping. If I’ve insulted your personhood and cosmic aura, I apologize.
  • I decided to install a part on the ginormous motorcycle yesterday. I was going to have the dealership do it, but it kills me to pay someone to do what I’m (mostly) capable of. It took half a day, one trip to the auto parts store for a specialized tool, several skinned knuckles, many four letter words, and watching a how-to video approximately thirty times before I realized there was a specific orientation to get the parts to fit. I should have just gone to the dealership. Do you think I’ve learned my lesson? Probably not. As Forest Gump says, “I’m not a smart man”.

Song of the day: Fatboy Slim – The Rockafeller Skank