Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve made it through the first week of 2023 and so far nothing has blown up. About the most ‘exciting’ thing that took place, at least on the national level, was the lengthy saga that was the election of Kevin McCarthy as the new Speaker of the House. If that’s the most exciting thing that happens this year I would be fine with that. But the cynic in me says we won’t be that lucky and that the kerfuffle that was the election of the Speaker will be seen as one of the few good events of the year.

And so it goes.

==+++==

How deluded can the woke pushing all the ‘-isms’ become?

How about this deluded?

White Men's Sexual Interest in Big Butts Is Now Racist.

Seriously? Is there nothing that can’t be declared racist...or sexist...or whateverist?

One of the latest things that is now racist?

Hair oil.

An influencer is accused of racism for using a hair oil 'made for black women.'

Beauty guru Danielle Athena's hair-washing tutorial with the hyped Mielle Rosemary Mint Scalp and Hair Strengthening Oil sparked a heated debate on Twitter after a woman, dubbed @aprettyPR on Twitter, called out the influencer for stealing from black women.

What’s next? Will the color of one’s socks or choice of boxers versus briefs now become sexist, racist, or both?

This ridiculous crap has got to stop. These woke narcissists need some help as in ‘mental health’ help.

==+++==

Is modern day Lysenkoism killing scientific advances?

I have to say yes, though it isn’t the only reason.

Over the past few months, I have been exploring the ideological capture of our scientific institutions.

I have reviewed the mainstream media’s roll is strangling rigorous scientific debate. I have explored how government agencies block access to important taxpayer-funded databases if they assert a scientist’s research may enter “forbidden” territory.

I, along with many others, have warned that the commandeering of science to push social, environmental, and corporate agendas would have a tsunami of unintended consequences. The scientific journal Nature has noted one of the most significant repercussions of ideological capture: The death of scientific innovation.

Is it a return to the Stalinist days of the Soviet Union when the ‘science’ of Trofim Lysenko which had little to do with actual science and more about conforming to Stalinist political correctness – Do your science our way or suffer from a 9mm ‘cerebral hemorrhage’? Today you are declared a terrorist, a white supremacist, an unperson, or worst, a conservative! Questioning the ‘science’ of the Progressive Powers That Be is likely to get you on a list for visit by the KGB...er...FBI.

Another reason for the decline in innovation in science?

“Disruptive” research significantly changes the way researchers look at a problem. It need not quite be an “aha!” discovery or theory, but it must at least be something close. It is the kind of research or discovery that changes subsequent research, rather than just being a continuation of a research path followed by many.

In fact, there is a high degree of correlation between the increase in the number of researchers and research studies and the decline in disruptive results.

Despite exponential growth in recent decades of research papers and patents, a new University of Minnesota study published in Nature suggests science and technology are becoming less disruptive.

--snip--

Simply put, most research done today is like a drop of rain into a pool. It gets lost in the great mass of water. It may, or may not, advance the science in some small way, but it doesn’t change things in any significant way.

I think that if one looked back a couple of hundred years you’d see disruptive science and technology tends to happen in waves, with some new discovery or series of discoveries spurring rapid advances in technology which then starts to taper off as the effects of the new scientific discovery fades. Then another disruptive discovery comes to light and the next wave crests and a new cycle begins.

This does not negate the effects of political influence on science, particularly the type of influence that quashes scientific development because it isn’t politically correct or isn’t convenient for The Powers That Be.

==+++==

OK, now I have a problem.

We keep hearing from some of the less knowledgeable Climate Apocalypse doomsayers telling us how we’ll see desertification taking place everywhere because of the higher temperatures.

Tell that to California.

It appears that California is now too wet, at least according to the New York Times.

As global warming brings more intense rainfall, experts say the state needs to give rivers more room to flood safely.

As California battles a second week of lashing rain and snow that have flooded communities, broken levees and toppled power lines, the state is facing questions about whether its approach to handling crippling storms is suited to 21st-century climate threats.

For decades, federal and state planners built dams and levees in California to store water and keep it at bay. But as climate change increases the risk of stronger and more destructive storms — like the one that was battering Northern California on Wednesday — experts and some policymakers are urging another approach: giving rivers room to overflow.

So which is it? A multi-decadal/multi-century mega-drought turning California into one big desert, or conversion of California into rain forest and swamps from border to border?

Or is it just weather, just like 1861 - 1862?

==+++==

Before I go, there’s this last tidbit about the effects of Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, the report coming from Biden’s own Department of Energy.

The Biden administration published a congressionally mandated report highlighting the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline would have had if President Biden didn’t revoke its federal permits.

The report, which the Department of Energy (DOE) completed in late December without any public announcement, says the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,000 jobs and would have had a positive economic impact of between $3.4-9.6 billion, citing various studies. A previous report from the federal government published in 2014 determined 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs would be created during construction which was expected to take two years.

But immediately after taking office in January 2021, Biden canceled the pipeline’s permits, effectively shutting the project down.

“The Biden administration finally owned up to what we have known all along — killing the Keystone XL Pipeline cost good-paying jobs, hurt Montana’s economy and was the first step in the Biden administration’s war on oil and gas production in the United States,” Sen. Steve Daines. R-Mont., said Thursday in a statement. “Unfortunately, the administration continues to pursue energy production anywhere but the United States.”

Biden went to the Saudis begging them to increase oil production. The Saudis turned him down stating they were already approaching maximum capacity. Did he think oil from Saudi Arabia generated less CO2 when burned in the form of gasoline, diesel, propane, and heating oil than oil from the US? He’s also been trying to aid Venezuela’s rebuilding their oil infrastructure so they could sell more oil to the US. Does Venezuelan oil burn with less CO2 generated than US oil?

Biden also canceled oil and gas lease sales, threatened to cancel existing leases, pressured oil drillers to stop fracking on federal lands, all within the first couple of months of entering office.

Is it any wonder oil prices started skyrocketing?

Despite claims by the Biden administration that the problem was caused by Trump energy policies, it was purely actions by Biden that caused the spike in energy prices and shortage of petroleum-based fuels. Later, the Biden Administration tried to lay the blame on Putin’s war against Ukraine, though by that time oil prices had reached very close to their eventual peak.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps have dropped to the teens, the ice is starting to form on the lake, and where the ski slopes are doing a lot of business.