Cool Links

Communism Isn't A Solution For Anything, Certainly Not Climate Change

Mar 15 2023 | comment(s)

A recent op-ed argues that the way to curb climate change is to invoke Malthus, or at least 20th century progressives like Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and economist John Maynard Keynes and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who all believed that retreating to the past was the only way to protect the future - well, the future for white elites, anyway.

The ultimate state control of culture in the name of progress was not the National Socialists in Germany or the Fascists of Italy, it was the Soviet Union under communism. Communists fought to gain ground everywhere, Mussolini fought them in Italy and won, Hitler fought them in Spain and won(1) but they succeeded in a lot of other countries, which ultimately meant failure.

After Botching COVID-19, WHO Is Back To Undermining Public Trust In Science Using Salt

Mar 15 2023 | comment(s)

The World Health Organisation, fresh off nodding along while China claimed SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic resulted from American frozen food rather than their fake BSL rating at a Wuhan lab, is getting back to business as usual; manufacturing problems using suspect epidemiology.

They are claiming salt is killing millions per year, and Washington Post is readily repeating it (look for 'women, minorities impacted most' to appear soon) despite there being no scientific evidence it is true.

Bootleggers, Baptists, Battlestar Galactica

Mar 14 2023 | comment(s)

Do you want protection from changes that would increase competition and threaten your profits? Who wouldn't?

That does not make it better for everyone else.

The Older Ray Kurzweil Gets, The Crazier He Sounds

Mar 14 2023 | comment(s)

In the 1980s, "transhumanism" had an air of truthiness because digital became all the rage. Left out of that inconvenient math was that in order to digitize a human brain you'd need CDs as tall as a skyscraper.

This never stopped Ray Kurzweil from saying the singularity was just around the corner. The corner being 25 years from whenever he was speaking.

France Made Wine Great, But Israel Made It First

Mar 11 2023 | comment(s)

France made wine famous - the prominent chemist Louis Pasteur set out to solve the spoilage problem the domestic wine industry faced and his success set off an international craze- but they didn't make it first.

Pasteur Institute Stops Collaborating With Chinese Academy of Sciences

Mar 10 2023 | comment(s)

During the Obama administration, the government rightly exposed how Russia was using offshore donor advised funds to send dark money support to American environmental groups and NGOs undermining US science in energy and food, Russia's two biggest exports.

Electric Cars Are Better - If The Only Environmental Damage Counted Are Emissions

Mar 09 2023 | comment(s)

An environmental activist switched to an electric car. It cost $50,000, but wealthier people are fine with that if it is saving the planet, and she got a $7,500 rebate overwhelmingly paid for by poor people who can't afford electric cars. She says she did it because flowers are blooming two weeks early.

Coal Emissions Fall To Lowest Levels Since Before The American Revolution - But There's A Catch

Mar 09 2023 | comment(s)

A new analysis of energy use involving conventional fuels shows greenhouse gas emissions in the UK went down 3.4 percent. The bulk of that drop came due to coal but above-average temperatures helped. Unfortunately, so did record-high fuel prices, which means quality of life may have declined for the poor.

Certainly there has been no end to protests in the UK about the cost of energy but overall the economy has survived, which is proof that economies and conventional energy can be "decoupled."

Borgs: Blackout Rage Gallons Are Tide Pods For Dumb College Students

Mar 08 2023 | comment(s)

Last weekend, 46 University of Massachusetts Amherst students were hospitalized after participating in a drinking game popularized by China's second most dangerous export this century, TikTok.

The idea behind these "blackout rage gallons" - BRGs, pronounced "borgs" - is that a gallon of water and electrolytes will mitigate the after-effects of drinking 16 shots of a known carcinogenic central nervous system depressant.

The Lab Leak Theory Was Dismissed As Trump Xenophobia - Now Deniers Say It Was Not Accepted Because of Trump Xenophobia

Mar 02 2023 | comment(s)

In early March of 2020, I was aghast that the newest James Bond film might be postponed due to the pandemic. It seemed an overreaction.

It is not that I denied there was a disease, I noted the death of a Chinese "Wuhan Flu" whistleblower when corporate media still said that concerns and calls to ban travel were racist and xenophobia. It is because I believed the science community had the best interests of the public at heart instead of politics, for once.

Standardized Tests Are Not The Problem, A Government Union Run Education Industry Is

Mar 02 2023 | comment(s)

The US Army teaches by rote. Every basic thing will be taught and taught again. In preparation for the test, they tell you what will be on the test, then they teach to the test, then you take the test, and you keep on taking it until you pass the test.

They need everyone to have a fundamental understanding of many things and in all cases, it works. The US Army wants no one left behind, they want everyone to have a baseline and then exceptional people will be exceptional.

American public education has one thing in common - like the military it is government employees - but that is where it ends. Unlike the military, educators don't have standards. They don't want to be accountable if someone does poorly.

The Lab Leak Theory Is Finally Getting Scrutiny It Would've Gotten If Scientists Had Been Less Political In 2020

Feb 28 2023 | comment(s)

Now that the Biden Department of Energy and his FBI have stated a lab leak in Wuhan is a plausible SARS-CoV-2 scenario, you hear a lot less about such claims being racist and xenophobic.

In 2020, though, such smears were common. I was not the only one to note that researchers had previously been convicted of selling lab animals to the Wuhan wet market and that China had taken down its coronavirus database and scrubbed the Wuhan wet market clean for nine months before letting a Beijing-picked team of UN investigators visit. For just four hours of pre-approved questions under the supervision of Chinese officials.

France Is Exploiting US Waffling On Energy Science

Feb 27 2023 | comment(s)

Activists who live in a bubble where solar is 'ready' and electric cars save the planet spend a lot of time waffling when it comes to reality; pipelines are bad except when railroads are in the news, but one thing US anti-science activists don't flip on is nuclear energy.

They hate it, and have since the 1960s. In 1994, American Woomeister-in-Chief President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry (now President's Biden's Special Presidential Envoy for Climate)(1) officially got nuclear science run out of the US, long a goal of Democrats, during which time a series of suspect alternatives have been touted, from hydothermal to natural gas to ethanol to solar.

Standards Of Identity: FDA Says Plant Juice Can Call Itself Milk - But Must Note Nutrition Differences

Feb 23 2023 | comment(s)

Once upon a time, American standards of identity were so strict that a sliced cheese company was forbidden from noting how much milk when into its cheese lest consumers believe that is how much calcium it had.

Were American consumers that stupid in the 1990s? If so, FDA no longer believes it, nor do they believe that consumers will be fooled by anything, because products made from juice squeezin's can be called "milk." The public knows it is not really milk, FDA says. Alternative milk companies don't like it anyway.

Mamavation: Sponsored Reviews Of Organic Food And 'Green' Products Target New Mothers

Feb 21 2023 | comment(s)

Bookieboo LLC claims to be the largest wellness consulting firm targeting moms on social media in the world. There is no basis provided for that claim, and when you see the kind of anti-science conspiracy gibberish they promote, you have to wonder if anything they say is true.

Their beliefs about science sure aren't. When you see posts like that a dishwashing detergent can affect your microbiome, you know the target demographic is not just the anti-science left, but the anti-science left that is also wealthy and female.

Environmental Working Group Says Dirty Dozen Delayed Until Toxic Organic Pesticides Are Left Out Again

Feb 21 2023 | comment(s)

The Environmental Working Group wants to insure allied journalists like Sheila Kaplan that their new "dirty dozen" list is almost ready to be copied and pasted into articles promoting the organic industry.

They just need actual scientists to compile everything for them. That's right, EWG employees do no real work at all, they are instead beholden to government scientists they intend to smear and insist are secretly controlled by the companies that compete with the companies who give Environmental Working Group up to $10 million per year.

Environmentalists Are Spreading Disinformation About The East Palestine Train Accident And No One Is Surprised

Feb 17 2023 | comment(s)

Ask an environmentalist and there is not only a conspiracy to hide 'the truth' about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, but there is a convergence of accidents designed to draw attention away from something more sinister.

Among the false claims making the rounds by activists are that animals are dying hundreds of miles away and residents have been locked out of their homes. Neither is true. Some fish may have died but the Ohio river was shown to have safe levels of butyl acrylate and no vinyl chloride. There were no toxic chemicals detected in any homes. People were told to evacuate as a precaution but all were back home by February 8th. Over 500 refused to leave their homes and were fine.

With WHO Now Balking At Only Sending In Investigators Chosen By China, COVID-19 May Never Be Solved

Feb 15 2023 | comment(s)

The World Health Organisation has admitted they will never get answers to how COVID-19 happened, because China won't let them. How much of that was pre-planned with WHO remains a mystery, since WHO is the United Nations body that said there was no pandemic long after there was, and then only agreed to let a group chosen by China into Wuhan nine months after the Wuhan wet market was scrubbed clean - for four hours of pre-planned questions. It is entirely possible that they are subtly blaming China as part of a deal because both know China, like Russia, does not care about criticism.

East Palestine Derailment: No Vinyl Chloride Or Hydrogen Chloride Detected In Homes

Feb 14 2023 | comment(s)

A train accident in Ohio, and the controlled release of chemicals that can be toxic at high levels, will have the Biden administration asking his appointees how they can make things safer for people. The answer is something his administration and the Obama administration when he was Vice-President opposed; pipelines.

The United States has the most stringent environmental protections in the world and a pipeline is the safest of the safe. Railcars, ships, nothing compares to the safety, and therefore nominal environmental risk that pipelines afford. Yet time and again politics has pushed science to the back.(1)

Where To Live If You Want To Relax: Wyoming And...Washington DC?

Feb 13 2023 | comment(s)

When you think of relaxing, you probably don't think of Washington, DC. Contrary to beliefs by many in the 50 states, Washington, DC employees, overwhelmingly political staffers, are very nice. They hate each other as part of the job, like Sam and Ralph in "Don't Give Up the Sheep", by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros.(1) They then clock out and are lovely, usually to each other but almost always to everyone else.

And they work hard, usually for little money. While career government jobs tend to pay better than the private sector, for Congressional staffers it is somewhere between earning nothing and having a poverty lifestyle in one of America's most wealthy places.