budbromley

And now it is time to replace what sounded good with what worked.

“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area – crime, education, housing, race relations – the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.”
–Thomas Sowell

Scott Adams, the well known, expert, cartoonist, has persuaded himself that he is boxed in a corner by his lack of knowledge in science.  He admits that one side is right and the other side is wrong.  But he has convinced himself that he cannot decide which is which.   Scott’s bias is that someone, perhaps Scott himself, convinced Scott that climate science is somehow impenetrable knowledge for mere humans, non-scientists, as if a scientist was some special sort of human being.  But a scientist is just a normal human who questions the world around him, rather like Scott has become an expert in persuasion, except a scientist does not stop there.  Will Scott categorize my comment as an ad hominem attack?  Probably.  Scott has created a mental block for himself and wants to persuade you to join him.  Misery loves company.  Scott has decided not to study or think further about this particular subject, so he has built a persuasive wall to justify his position.  He ignores the mathematical fact that every expert in every discipline is growing in ignorance every day.  Orthodoxy is a security blanket, a safe place, where you believe you have the freedom to not think about what is happening to you in the real world.  Thinking is hard work and is rarely tried.  Our society has reached massive conformity about many questions which are still truly open questions.  This is done by media, politicians, cartoonists and educators etc simply by getting most people to accept roughly the same parameters on these questions.  Then the media, politicians, cartoonists and educators etc rip-off you off.  Some expert discusses two or three points of view, as Scott just did, lying safely within the parameters previously presented.  People consider those alternatives as presented, as Scott has done.  Then, most people adopt the comfortable illusion that they have thought about the alternatives and freely formed their own opinion.  They created their own orthodoxy about that question, comfortably boxing themselves into a safe place, just as Scott has done.  On the other hand, what a thinker and realist does is to seek out the conceptual parameters that define the range of all possible alternatives on a given question and then to imagine alternatives to those parameters.  A scientist does that and then devises experiments to test the alternatives against real world conditions, rather than a thought experiment or computer model.  The best scientists will test the hardest alternatives first.  For example, measure the greenhouse warming, or the forcing, caused by human-produced CO2 under real world atmospheric conditions.  Those experiments have been done and repeated many times.  The result is that the warming and the forcing due to CO2 are far too small to measure with acceptable accuracy and reproducibility.  Other climate variables are much larger.  In fact, no one knows whether the net result is warming or cooling in the real world because the effects of CO2 are too small to measure.  But, those who have vested interests will not explore, publish or think about that result or the next questions and dots connected to that result.  They are THE experts, comfortable in their orthodox, safe place and they enjoy the benefits you provide them.  So, they send you on a wild goose chase, or in this case, a polar bear or hurricane chase.  It is not in their interest for you to connect the dots.  If you accept that, if Scott persuades you, then tyranny of thought wins.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/155121836641/the-illusion-of-knowledge

Burning down the bridges as they retreat, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, other Obama officials met with Palestinian Authority to coordinate the UN resolution against Israel and Trump’s plans. Minutes of secret meeting: Rice “stressed the danger posed by the Trump administration.” Kerry and Rice “advised Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas to not take any preliminary steps that could provoke the Trump administration. “They [also] stressed the need to avoid military action or martyrdom [attacks], as these would greatly jeopardize the Palestinian position.” Palestinian negotiating team leader Saeb Erekat; ‘If U.S. Embassy Is Moved To Jerusalem, We Will Call To Expel U.S. Embassies From Arab And Muslim Countries.’

https://www.memri.org/reports/egyptian-daily-close-egyptian-intelligence-reveals-minutes-secret-palestinian-authority-0

Obama should offer to stop hassling Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, if Assad agrees to promptly take back all Syrian refugees who repatriate and guarantees their freedom in Syria. If Obama does it now before Trump is inaugurated, at least there would be one positive thing in Obama’s legacy. If Assad or any group harms the repatriated refugees, then the community of nations will remove him. I think Russia, the US, the EU, Iran, Egypt, Syria’s neighbors and other interested nations will agree.

Excellent article at this link.  Excerpt:

“Over the past three decades, the environmental movement has increasingly hitched its wagon to exactly one star as the overwhelming focus of the cause, namely “climate change.” Sure, issues of bona fide pollution like smog and untreated sewage are still out there a little, but they are largely under control and don’t really stir the emotions much any more. If you want fundraising in the billions rather than the thousands, you need a good end-of-days, sin-and-redemption scare. Human-caused global warming is your answer!”

http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2016/12/13/some-predictions-for-the-future-in-the-climate-game

Kalifornians and so-called “progressives” talk about income equality as did Hugo Chavez, but they don’t learn a thing from places like Venezuela. When they get what they asked for, then the bubble bursts and inequality is far worse because the bottom drops out. They are destroying their own safety net and also that of all seniors, who in fact worked their lives to pay for their old age and health insurance.

Sitting here on the beach in Montevideo on the “Day that will live in infamy” wondering whether or not Millennials will step up and be the Next Great Generation or the Generation that will live infamy. When the crisis is eventually triggered and the credit bubble finally bursts, at that point of weakness the free world and “great satan” will be attacked by the overwhelming demographic and single focused mindshare of Islamists…inside and outside our gates. There won’t be enough money for America to fight that war and also to pay to sustain the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security safety net for their baby boomer parents. Baby boomers worked their lives to pay huge sums for these safety nets for their parents, The Greatest Generation who put their lives on the line in WWII to save their family, their community, their nation and their way of life. Baby boomers will be too old to fight, except a few generals and admirals maybe and except to take on some jihadis in own their yards and towns. The fight will fall to the GenXers and the Millennials the follow them. Even if Boomers give up the safety net they are promised, which they paid for their parents, which is for many boomers all that they have to live on, will GenXers and Millennials in fact take up arms en mass and defend their homeland? Given the prevalence of diaper safety pins, safe zones, microaggression anxiety, sophomoric misinformation and complacency, I wonder whether we will be dead or dhimmi? If I wee alive in the Great Depression when FDR et al installed it, I would be the last person to have supported the collectivist socialist safety net. But that is what we have. I can see a free market replacement for that net too, but I can’t imagine that net being built when the world is at war and unlike WWII there is guerrilla war in American streets similar to that in Lebanon or Irag. It’s like the 1930’s when the American Nazis were marching in American streets while Hitler was preparing to blitz war Europe. But today we have easily 10 times as many jihadis here and a current president and incoming head of the DNC, mass media, Hollywood, and universities preaching tolerance and teaching amorality and weakness to the generations that must fight an internal and external world war against armies demographically 10 times larger than Hitler’s armies and even more brainwashed and ruthless. The theocrats have been waiting and training for this demographic advantage, when they can call their streets to fight big and little Satan, all the while pushing their invasion of Europe and America by their cultural jihad built on tolerance. I think they are more strategic than to attack on Inauguration Day, a high point. They will wait until we are suffering from austerity or economic crash so that our generations are divided. We could grow out of this mess with Trump’s leadership, but that is unlikely with almost half the nation, the UN, the EU, media, and global elites pulling against Trump and us. Baby boomers, most of whom are against war, we have a fight on our hands whether we want it or not.

Looking at the muddy river Rio Plata and far across to the horizon, as far as my eyes can see, Argentina is still far out of sight across this broad river. Somewhere over there is my next destination.  Darwin had his revelation on evolution down here on the Beagle voyage on the channel between the continent and Tierra Del Fuego.  I hope I have one too.

How will anyone repair or install wind turbines or solar panels in blinding snowstorms or sub-zero temperatures? Whereas horizontal drilling and oil and gas production can be entirely underground or under ice sheets or glaciers or under water if need be.