Yet some model's, like Neil Ferguson's doomsday models, are extremely convenient for politicians. When the projections fail, the politicians can say, "See how well we protected you?"
Only reason I can think of they keep that clown around.
It's incredible the amount of appologism for the failures.
I know many people who work in genetics research, so have a good grasp of biology, and you would have expected of the scientific method. They all go along with the narrative of masks work and "Sweden was much worse than it's neighbours", "the vaccines work" without any critical thinking or scepticism. They are smart enough to find nitpicks in exact points, while not looking at the bigger picture of practically no solid data supporting the nonsense that we have experienced for the last two years.
Good Aikido dojos are zen based, which is a value in itself. I am not going to claim that it is effective in a down and out fight. As you say, we never did that.
On th other hand, along the lines you mentioned, some immense guy try to mug me in Seattle. When I was slow to comply he made to punch me. My simply falling back in a moderate defensive posture, and lifting my arms and staring in his eyes with no flinching led him to pause, look at me curiously, and say "F**k this s**t, and run away, It was my greatest marshal arts success: Bluffing!
Jun 2, 2022·edited Jun 2, 2022Liked by el gato malo
Absolutely!
I remember how I (a green belt) was given a rubber pretend knife and was paired with a taekwondo black belt. Guess what, the "black belt" lost against a knife despite my total lack of taekwondo skills.
Anyhow, the vaccine scammers and "health experts" are afraid of debating ANYONE who objects to them. They are even MORE afraid of debating degreed experts like Dr Malone or Dr McCullough.
That is because the "health experts" and "vaccine advocates" are frauds and buffoons and they know it very well.
Hahahahaha! So our self-proclaimed “experts” class all think they are Obi-Wan AND Luke Skywalker rolled into one, but in reality they are this poor guy:
To this day, Fauci and the clown car hasn't ever had to get up in front of an actual hostile crowd and answer questions. Rand Paul is the closest we get, and Fauci straight up lies to his face.
And per congressional rules, the party in charge can request all questions be submitted in advance and no question needs to be answered. It's all voluntary as the party out of power does not have subpoena power.
maybe this story about a knife attack doesn't tell us much. maybe the sad reality is that knife attacks are extremely hard to defend against, no matter how much training one has.
It confounds me that we’re in a climate emergency according to young Greta and her acolytes, Yet my favourite hiking trail is a cliff made of fossils that were once at the bottom of a great sea and that now stands 200 feet above the farmland around it. Climate change has been the planets legacy and I don’t see what is happening now is being particularly dramatic.
When the "climate change" debate comes up (as it does here only when I bring it up, most everyone else being true believers) I find that the easiest way to discover whether or not to waste my breath in debate with someone is to just ask them for their thoughts about Maunder Minimums, the Medieval Warming Period, or the Mini Ice Age, or find out if they even understand how infinitesimally, immeasurably small 2 ppm/year really is - and that data is not fixed either. It's remarkable how little climate history most people have bothered to learn. That's up to the "experts". Usually they get upset and run away, calling me names like "denier" as they do. If they do understand, well then, they're not going to debate me, 'cause they agree with me that it's all bs and all about the money. And I love it when a volcano goes off in Iceland, those are fun days.
I get slammed for asking why I am paying ridiculous carbon taxes when Canada only contributes to 2% of the world's greenhouse gasses. Surely we have enough fucking trees in this country to offset that without me paying an extra 11 cents a litre in carbon tax.
When I was at college a few decades ago the world was going to run out of oil by 1985. Carbon was one of the "building blocks of life " and we were headed into a mini ice age inside a 100 years.
I've often said the same thing. Instead of guilting and shaming ourselves, we should be championing ourselves as the biggest carbon sink anywhere! It's all virtue signaling BS and we're paying for it at the pump.
Yes you would think that a true representative of the people would be proud of the assets and characteristics of the country, instead of kowtowing to teenagers who claim they can see CO2 in the atmosphere. This last bizarress courtesy of another poster
Do you remember the great wisdom and knowledge you had as a 16 yr old? Good grief!
What I DO remember as a young teen was the wellspring of pride and joy in our country during the 1967 centennial. It was electrifying. By contrast, the 150th anniversary was nothing but a guilt & shame fest. Self-flagellation has become a national pastime in Canada.
Carbon is a myth that generates a lot of money for some, and it extends through to forestry in this country (forester in BC). It absolutely aggravates me what govt is doing in the name of god carbon. Talking with my cousin in Ont this am, and having a guffaw over the idea of driving an electric car across this country (neither of us being ‘allowed’ to fly). Luckily, he’s near the western border of Ont, and it’s ONLY 2500 km, but can you just imagine?! We entered a grand solar minimum in 2017 that is expected to last at least 70 years. It’s not getting warmer.
I live in a town with one public car charger that was hit by a tornado last week. So the public charger is gone and everyone's power was out for at least 4 days. So yeah, no electric for me!
You can have more fun if you blame the mini ice age on the collapse of farming amongst Indians in the Americas as a result of Western colonialism (really, diseases), which drove a massive uptake of carbon by reforesting areas in the Americas, and a drop in CO2. But get them to explain also about the absence of sunspots in the middle of that period.
I like the way you think, Thomas. An excellent example - and there are so many - of "how climate change is racist". I also like to ask why they think the Obamas have not one but two homes on the beach. That really sets them off. Oh, and let's not forget Al Gore's oceanside property.
Thomas C. Mann puts the American plague population collapse (see '1491' and '1493') as a geometric proof for causing Old World climate change. Clumsy, but still interesting to consider if or how much the near-complete subtraction of slash and burn ag plus massive forest regrowth added to Maunder Minimum effects. Hard to say, but even harder to beat sunspots.
Fascinating how arrogant we can be; "If I use my dryer it will change the weather". Look at the statistics for volcanic emissions. A volcano exploding in Iceland, say, will pump more CO 2 into the atmosphere in a day, an hour, than humanity can in decades. These nefarious bastards, with the essential participation of the media, are manipulating well-intentioned people who seem to be guilt-ridden by nature and enjoy being punished. As with covid; there are glaring similarities.
1491 was SUCH a good book. You might enjoy the Dawn of Everything which treats the natives of the Americas not as "noble savages" but as people who built some advanced societies.
There's doubtless some effect from ag changes and population drops. I suspect people who think that was causal are behind the push to depopulate the earth now. When thinking about climate changes, as you note, best to focus on the gorilla in the solar system, the sun.
Thank you, it's all about Mr. Sun. It always has been and always will be. I had to hide my smile when I saw friends here on the West Coast literally constructing aluminum foil hats and capes after Fukushima. These people regularly fly in 747s. That altitude, you would get about the same level of radiation. And please correct me if I'm wrong.
Or you can point out that up until 12,000 years ago the Yosemite valley was still being gouged by glaciers. That's only 26 seconds ago on a 4.5 billion year cosmic calendar.
The hubris of mankind to think we're that "important". It's the same reason why folks thought we could "beat" a virus.
Yea, the level of hubris is simply breathtaking, as is the blatant and endless lies to support the ridiculous narrative.
One of my favorite episodes of the climate clown show is the glacier gaslighting in Glacier National Park, where the NPS had to remove and/or update signs and presentations noting that the glaciers would all be gone by 2020.
I completely forgot about that tomfoolery with the NPS. Thanks for reminding. Actually made me laugh.
Intentional indeed. If only the public were a little more "intentional" about thinking why the Globalist, et al are being Intentional. That'd be asking a lot for the sorry lot of sheople in our country
"I find that the easiest way to discover whether or not to waste my breath in debate with someone is to just ask them for their thoughts about Maunder Minimums, the Medieval Warming Period, or the Mini Ice Age..." Excellent approach.
I remember being quite worried as a gullible teenager in the 70's. To my recollection 100% of scientists agreed that we were going to enter into an ice age within a few years. Something about the magnetic poles of the earth swapping in a matter of months. It had been "proven" to happen in the past, we were overdue for another event.
Subsequent climate emergencies have failed to get my attention
You nailed it. That was their rationale. There was virtually 100% consensus.
It's funny how "expert" uniformity is memory holed, when it's counter to the "new" narrative.
Perhaps they didn't use the scientific method then and now? The scientific method has become just the opposite over the last two years.
It's like saying "we know mask work" and then not be able to site scientific data. Every conversation the "experts" had about masks started out with that phrase.
Yes as a young teenager I doubt it cracked my cranium, but my take away here from reading Ryan’s link is just how devious some of these PR firms can be when robustly funded with taxpayer dollars. I would love to know who came up with the fake times cover strategy so that could be pushed into the open those fucking hacks are so dishonest
We all need to listen to Greta. She has a very exceptional gift.
According to her mother, "Greta is able to see what other people cannot see". "She can see carbon dioxide with the naked eye. She sees how it flows out of chimneys and changes the atmosphere in a landfill."
All I know is, her famous "I shouldn't be here" speech was some of THE WORST acting I've ever seen in my life, and with twenty years in theatre and an MA in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, believe me, I have seen a lot. I can't say much for her showbiz family's coaching. Absolutely cringeworthy. What amazed me further were the multitudes who bought into it. Barnum was right, there's one born every minute.
While I agree with your main point that the climate is in a state of constant flux, the example from your hiking trail is more likely the result of plate tectonics, which is independent of climatic cyclicity. What is happening now (assuming anything is happening) doesn't seem dramatic because our lifetimes only occupy a small fraction of the timescale of climatic variation. Human existence occupies a slightly larger fraction, but still only tiny slice of geologic time.
That is all. Carry on with the chastising of idiots and charlatans we are doomed to share space with. It is refreshing to read this substack and the comments. They make me feel less lonely.
Nah, its dolostone that remained after softrr rocks eroded away when the (wisconsin glacier i think) burst as the planet left the grips of the last Ice Age. Leaving behind the great lakes
I think the point I’m making is that climate is always changing. If climate didn’t change humanity would not have left Africa, along with prey animals, seeking better conditions and First Nations couldn’t have made it to North America on a land bridge called the Bering strait
In our little NorCal town, we are sitting on a very deep subterranean lake comprised of 227,000 acre feet of water. To visualize this, imagine an acre of land. Imagine a column of water coming out of that acre that reaches 44 miles into the sky. That is how much water there is, that was the finding when the area was studied in the 1970s. In other words, we are drought-proof (though some people do run short of water because they didn't drill their wells deep enough). Many people here don't know this and/or refuse to believe it, though the oldtimers do. We have until very recently been supporting an ever-increasing cannabis industry, which collapsed this past year, when supply exceeded demand, and the pot mecca moved to Oklahoma. So many people have left, many people are no longer giving hundreds of gallons of water to thousands of plants every day. We've had delightful late rains. And yet you still hear the cries about "The Drought!!" An artificial drought, btw, and utterly evil. In 1936 our river was dry as a bone in June. Today - well, rain is expected this weekend. My roses have never been so exuberant.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but 227,000 ac-ft of water is not a lot of water. I hesitate to reply to your comment because I don't generally find internet discussions particularly productive and frequently end in shouting matches and/or general hurt feelings. I would PM this comment if I could. This substack's primary purpose as far as I can tell is to provide information backed with data that doesn't (but could, we would hope) fit the popular narrative and most here are craving a counter-point to the narrative. I post here in that spirit to inform, not to attack. I also post this reply because in water, particularly groundwater, I have particular expertise and more than 30 years of professional practice. So here it goes:
First, subterranean lakes do exist in the sense there is a body of water, that when drained, leaves a gigantic void. Groundwater always flows through some porous media, i.e. clay, sand, silt, gravel, fractures in impermeable rock, or solution cavities in rocks that can dissolve like limestone or dolomite. In your case, I suspect that the lake you are describing is a basin filled with sediment sand (silt, clay and maybe gravel) and surrounded by impermeable rocks. I'm not an expert in California geology, but I'm also not a novice either, so there may be some other geologic setting which also describes a small isolated aquifer.
Second, it is unlikely that 100% of the water in storage can be removed. 25-75% removal is more typical and through time, the costs for doing so increase because more and deeper wells are needed to maintain production. In this sense, aquifers are generally self-regulating because as costs increase, demand decreases. It is why we will NEVER run out of groundwater, or oil or any other so-called finite resource. When costs become prohibitive, the infinite creativity of humans will develop alternatives that are more economically feasible. Think "fracking" which has dramatically increased world oil reserves and lowered prices (the current mess excepted which is the result of government meddling, not a lack of reserves). Water reuse and seawater desalination will eventually look economically feasible for more and more places. They already are the lowest cost reliable alternative for a few.
Third, the average household uses about 360 gallons per day. One acre-foot is enough water for about 2.5 households per year. Assuming you could actually extract all 227,000 ac-ft, that is only enough water for about 56,000 households for 10 years...not exactly an game changing amount. Depending on the type of sediment below you, large amounts of groundwater extraction may cause other adverse effects, like land subsidence. My company recently completed a project that delivers 50,000 ac-ft of water PER YEAR to San Antonio, which is a only a portion of their annual need. It wasn't so long ago that the Houston area pumped more than 450,000 ac-ft of groundwater per year. The aquifers that allow for those supplies have billions of ac-ft of groundwater in storage. Perhaps your NorCal town is very small, average recharge is adequate to replenish your aquifer, and 227,000 ac-ft merely acts as a buffer to get you through the dry years; I don't know, I haven't studied it.
I'll also add that I've heard more incorrect information from well-meaning but ill-informed 'old timers' with regard to groundwater than I can recall. So-called environmentalists and a large number of people in my profession are emboldened by ideology and don't fare much better. Sigh...
First, I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to me. Your name says it all. We do have a more or less unique situation here, which I should have explained. I was repeating what I had heard from a surveyor who has lived for 45 years in our extremely isolated valley of fewer than 5,000 people. There is an Indian reservation here of about 1,300 people (their ancestors were rounded up and imprisoned here in 1856 through military-enforced relocation), and maybe another 1000 people who are old-time ranching and farming families. The rest are, well, carpetbaggers. Water depletion here has been the direct result of people from outside coming in to grow cannabis. It's estimated (here I go with unproven statistics again) that the town and its surrounding area - mostly National Forest - have seen over one million cannabis plants growing at one time. These plants require a minimum of one gallon of water per day to amount to anything (very very few people grow hydroponically). So even with a tiny population we were seeing a huge amount of water use. A lot of it was from "guerilla growing" on BLM land, with heinous diversion from local creeks and rivers, along with tons of toxic waste and the destruction of wildlife. That has all changed with the collapse of the cannabis industry in California, an event that has thrown many people into the Slough of Despond, while others rejoice. There is an economic crisis at hand and at least half of the carpetbaggers, especially the cartels, have moved on, having taken what they wanted. There will likely be at least 3/4 less overall water use here this summer than in the past five years. So we actually have abundant water once more, and this year has seen an unusual pattern of late rain. There should be water aplenty for all this year. Everyone understands this, yet many people (read that, the white liberals) continue to wring their hands. That is what I do not understand. We have weathered a crisis of extreme water usage, come out the other side, but the narrative remains the same. If you are interested in learning more about this unique place, I suggest "Genocide and Vendetta" by Estle Beard, and "The River Stops Here" by Ted Simon, which tells the story of how our beautiful valley was nearly dammed and flooded but for the efforts of one man here, Richard Wilson, a forester and rancher, and his friendship with then-governor Ronald Reagan. Thank you again for engaging me on this topic, and best of luck, you are doing good work.
I'm not sure about the "not particularly dramatic part". We will likely see wild weather oscillations as a feature of this part of the solar cycle coupled with the waning magnetosphere. And if the ancients are right, the catastrophe cycle is somewhere between due and overdue. And if the conspiracy theorists are right (a scary thought, given the last two years), the depopulation agenda is possibly driven by the fact that the catastrophe is coming regardless of what we do, and fewer people during a catastrophe is better than more. And best of all, it's "merciful" to spare people a slow, painful death, so the depopulationist feel justified.
I know a number of people who believe that covid was just the dress rehearsal leading up to the main event. The climate crazies will impose a loss of freedom that will make the covid lockdowns look like ten minute timeouts in the corner, followed by milk and cookies.
I think in the short term you are right (and I fear for my god-given rights as a Clownifornian), but that in the longer term, the sun and earth will foil their plans. This is the uplifting perspective shift one gets from researching magnetic reversal, micronova, etc. I trust nature to have the aces, when it matters. May not be in time to save my personal life, but I am confident the Schwabians will not be livin' large during/post the cataclysm.
Yes, it's not the end, nor the beginning got the end, but the end of the beginning. Either they shut down open discussion and discovery and preserve their positions, or they don't. If they do, they also shut down innovation and cross-pollination leading to economic collapse and the end of the surplus that allows "experts" to eat well while contributing nothing. We only cause them to suffer when we all suffer more, first. I'm willing to suffer that if that's the only way to do this.
But as Augustine wrote, the Truth is a lion, able to fully take care of itself. I want some prevarication throats ripped out by it.
"in 2019, i legitimately was not aware of what a near total sham public health is" - I agree completely with this sentiment. Economics is similar in that there are some 'useful' modelling techniques that help you try to understand a non-deterministic field... but it is mostly full of snake oil salesmen and con artists trying to validate a narrative. I think a lot of the behavioral economics/psychology techniques were also adopted by public health which were quite easy to spot if you were privy to them. Quite sickening in my opinion...
I worked with economists actually I worked very closely with economists they could talk so well so impressively but my team took what they said and measured it up with what actually happened ——they almost always never got it right. If they should by chance get it right we would make sure it got all over the media creating a bias that my company were ninja prognosticators - because we only ever promoted what they got right and rushed to remove references to what they got wrong from the web. Vastly they got things wrong
Very similar to my experience. I guess it comes down to human nature to want to be correct or be the one everyone idolizes... to the detriment of actual societal progress. It is even worse when these people don't have 'skin in the game' and continue to hold decision-making positions.
They were sometimes right about directionality, I could spin that — but usually they couldn’t even get directionality right. One rather well-known economist here in canada told me when I bought a house at the beginning of the pandemic (closed the actual day the pandemic was declared in Canada) he told me I would get trashed and I should sell it right away - that house i bought at 509k is today worth 1.25mil.
True that - this takes me back to the 90s when I worked as head of marketing for one of Canada’s biggest mutual funds. I offered our head equity portfolio manager to the Toronto star for a competition for who could deliver the best returns on a portfolio over one month. He was competing against a pre-schooler, a dog picking cards. A chimp picking cards And a dart thrower. I cant remember Who won but it wasn’t my guy in our relationship never recovered
"Economics" is a big field, lots of skills and concepts applicable to the current problem of public health chicanery. Data collection and analysis, Baysian analysis, risk assessment, incentive structures, behavioral econ, game theory, and just knowing the ins and outs of academic publication, grants and how to put together a decent study pretty much saved my life and sanity, revealing this as a scam from the start. Nobody can tell the future, and some economists getting out of grad school today are charlatans. Hell, look no further than Lisa Cook's recent confirmation, but let's not tar an entire field, about which you seem to have limited knowledge.
Excellent insights. Beyond a few basics like the law of supply and demand, you are absolutely correct. Economics is mostly voodoo, fairy castles in the air dressed up with "data" and "theories" from earlier economists, very few of which have any real-world predictive or descriptive value (two criteria required for a successful theory in the hard sciences.) One of the most damning pieces of evidence against economics is simply the bewildering number of flavors that have appeared over the decades, tailored to fit the then-ruling ideology or to suit current fashionable needs. In fact, the old term for economics, "political economy," hints at this weakness. That isn't a science, that is a protean political ideology, little better than propaganda or doctrine. As a discipline, it's very easy to "capture," much more so than the hard sciences, although this fact hasn't stopped real scientists from being muzzled, exiled or killed throughout history when their findings were inconvenient for the ruler at the time.
Perhaps it's unfair to single out Economics for a thrashing; the same indictment can be made against many other fields as well.
Correct it is unfair to trash Economics as a field of study. It is actually an interesting and fulfilling area to study. The trashing is more directed at the ones that abuse it nefariously for personal gain...
scientific, mathematical modeling economics is in need of a thrashing. this is virtually every economist in the mainsream.
logistical economics (i.e. austrian economics) is much closer to reality. it doesn't try mathematically predict and forecast. these are the ones the mainstream won't allow into the debate.
oh yeah. I remember that. even the most optimistic analysts were saying it would crash within 6 months or a year of Trump's inauguration.
by contrast, today, anyone looking to invest is stuck in a very confused/confusing state. inflation plus a stagnant or crashing equity market. housing's about to bust(?). and the government wants to wage wars against both Russia and China. there goes the dollar.
right now government seems to welcome anything that creates a crisis that justifies a complete financial reset plus an entirely new currency. it's like they want to reinvent the financial system, the debt, the money supply -- everything -- because they know the current thing is broken beyond repair.
They want the "no currency" system. All transactions will be digital, paperless, forcing people to go along with a digital I.D. system and giving Them complete control over our incomes. They can then cut off your funds if you do not comply with their dicta. That's the dream. Think they're going to encounter some opposition with that.
Brilliant!....... "The problem is not people being uneducated. The problem is that people are educated just enough to believe what they have been taught, and not educated enough to question anything from what they have been taught."
Your article is simply brilliant in its analogy. And if I may extrapolate further, it is why all of Klaus Schwab’s nonsense about the Great Reset will fail miserably.
It is so satisfying to see the Wizard of Oz’s curtain pulled back to display the utter vapidity and phoniness of what public health has turned into. It gives me hope that ordinary scientists, epidemiologists, doctors and nurses will lead us out of this ridiculousness.
One good thing that has happened over the past two years is how Klaus and the WEF's machinations have been exposed to the world. They went too far, too fast and now they are exposed. Their ideas will die in the light.
Sure hope so, but they have exposed how truly lacking the general public is in critical thinking and intestinal fortitude, so hard to be confident of WEF failure.
That's the thing about psychopaths. They don't understand people, so don't understand how massively their plans will fail once they meet the real world. We're not 1930's Germany or Stalinist Russia who had no idea where all this stuff led.
Boomers are suckers for credentials, easily dazzled by XYX Ivy diploma and letters after names. As soon as I hear "PhD" or "my model says", I'm out. It's all drivel for the drivel peddlers and nothing works in the real world because these people have never worked in the real world.
I am a boomer, and so is my husband. We are not suckers for credentials or easily dazzled by people who have XYZ diplomas. We have seen enough crap over the years like Vietnam War that destroyed my husband's endocrine system from agent orange. We saw early on in life that there are many good and honest people and there are many wicked deceitful people. We are very aware of what the Babylonians are up to and try to find good truth-seeking people to hang out with regardless of their educational opportunities or lack of credentials. We have been and still prepping for what may come.
The best part of social media is being able to locate like minded people. It's great to not feel lonely, because the people I know and associate with in daily life are clueless.
I'm about ten years younger than you and learned the hard way about the evil people involved in government and, in particular, medicine and pharma. They walk amongst good people in their profession, and to expand your point, the colleagues who are decent almost universally look away, allowing the evil to flourish.
When I talk to Millenial vaxxers, they simply don't believe there are wicked, deceitful people in power. They believe these people exist, yes, but that they are easy-to-spot racists and homophobes, and so they are very trusting of the authorities who are to fight those things.
Because they grew up with helicopter parents who told them what was good and what was bad rather than send them out into the playground to find out for themselves coming back with a few busted noses or a good case of poison ivy
Probably true, though some generations may have joint experiences that dispose them to trust authority. When March 2020 struck in England, the English I spoke to trusted authority, obviously with a few exceptions. But immigrants from ex Communist countries said at once: this is not right, this is Communism, I recognise it. And immigrants from countries with high levels of fraud and corruption also often said: the government is lying, why are you surprised? This is what government do.
The Lithuanians I worked with said the same thing it actually caused many of them not to get the vaccination not so much they are science deniers but that they distrusted to the extreme the stratagems they were witnessing being so very communist.
Not all Boomers. I’m one who agrees with you and as soon as I hear someone bragging about their academic credentials, I immediately suspect anything that comes out of his or her mouth.
I'm 72 and worked my way through a couple of college degrees in the 1970's. When I began college I was excited because I thought I would be around people who were open minded and who wanted to exchange all kinds of ideas. Those ideas were shot down rather quickly, and while I've had a few colleagues I liked and respected, the mediocrity of those in higher education was astounding to observe even that long ago. I always wondered where things were going, and now I know. I also realized early on that in college you gained some expertise in a narrow area of study, but the real value of education was in becoming a lifelong learner. Sadly, I'm not sure that happens now. Seems like people finish college and assume their knowledge is complete and fixed, nothing new to learn.
On occasion, I’ve had people flat out tell me that they don’t want to learn anything new. It’s too much trouble, maybe, or it is too challenging or too challenging to their worldview. I don’t understand that at all, coming from a family of teachers and professors, whose motto was “learn everything you can.” I enjoy being a lifelong learner. Keeps you engaged with life.
I am a graphic designer who worked in the newspaper industry for years. The sad state of that industry is another story unto itself. The local paper I worked for is still operating, but many other papers in small (and some large) communities that have been around for centuries have closed, to the detriment of the communities they served.
I had a late cousin who had a PhD in some obscure history field. He even put his credentials on his emails to family. He was a nice guy, and I hope he never realized how much the family laughed at this bit of pretension.
I think the millennials that I know of, like my three sons, are very busily engaged in raising their families, working, and trying to maintain their standard of living in this uncertain time. Every generation has troubles to overcome and endure. I do try to remember that we are here on this planet to hopefully grow in love and respect for one another and make this world a better place to live in regardless of the criminals that have a plan to destroy life as we know it.
Millennials are very distracted. Treading water, trying not to drown. The next economic down turn will make 2008 look like child's play. Maybe that will wake some people up. I lost a job in 2012, and that was when I finally had time to start looking into quite a few topic areas. Totally changed the trajectory of my work/life.
Millennials suffer the same as past generations. Advocate for change, and get excited only to realize the system sells you out every time. One generation got Kennedy then watched him get assassinated. 2000, we watched the Supreme Court interfere with an election, resulting in an unelected person serving 4 years as president (Gore won, once the votes were finally tallied). Hopey and Changey Obama galvanized young people only to be sold out again and again (Occupy, Standing Rock, NDAA). Young people showed up for Bernie Sanders, only for the DNC to rig their primaries not once, but twice to stop his candidacy. Trump promised to drain the swamp, then flaunted his nepotism while lining his pockets and not draining a damn thing. I'm not endorsing any of these politicians, just pointing out that our country grinds down the optimism of youth, either by impeding change directly, or by proxy. Most people get disillusioned and stop trying. Feature, not a bug. That's why the country burned last summer. That's why it will burn again.
My heart bleeds for the young children coming home from school with all these victim slogans they promote they spend more time on ideology than skills.
It’s awful! When I was finally allowed in my daughter’s school in April, I was horrified to see the word “hate” plastered all over the walls. The posters said “Hate is not welcome here” and guess what the largest word on the poster was.
Needless to say we’re not going to that school anymore.
Yeah we’ve got posters all over our neighbourhood saying “hate is not welcome here” and it makes me wonder where are they seeing all this hate????? Invent a bogeyman to rail against, i suppose. Irritating.
Agree. As I pontificate elsewhere 🧐 the great watering down of the value of education, from primary on up to post-graduate, really got underway in earnest in the 1960s (in the USA, can't speak for other nations). That means that us Boomers were probably the last generation where virtually all the professionals we met in our youths had "real" training and certification, and equivalently, that (relatively) blind trust in such professionals was warranted. Of course the watering-down was gradual, but by the 1970s the shift (erosion) in standards was evident, and has only gotten worse in later years.
Right! That's why I'll put my 1969 BS Statistics & Computer Sci against anyone's recent master or PhD in this field. Our professors were EE's and Statistics. We had analog and hybrid computation, probability and statistics at the masters level, lots of advanced math, numerical analysis (with no help from not-yet-invented Excel), dynamic programming, etc. Served me well. I'm obsolete, but I can problem-solve with the best of them.
“nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.” -Winston Churchill
I knew nothing of the things the cat and so many others uncovered over the duration of this scam. I learned a lot and it was great to see others learning as they went as well. I’m still an idiot on bio stats and epidemiology but I run rings around TV Joe bloke thanks to all these “amateurs.” So yeah I want to thank You ElGato, Steve Kirsch, Matthew Crawford, Situation Commander, Screaming into the Void, Utobian, Mark Oshinski, Tessa Lena and so many others. You really held the line and put in the hard yards. Thank you too Substack for staying afloat and not capitulating to tyrannical censorship. It’s obviously not over, for now we have to try to prosecute the guilty, track the damaging effects of the jab and all cause mortality. There’s still restrictions where I live against us unjabbed but I’m so happy I made it through despite mountains of pressure from everyone, despite evictions and social ostracism. Despite losing work and study opportunities. Despite being made homeless and having to live in the forest for a while. It was all worth it because I’m unjabbed. Hats off to the amateurs. You guys are the ultimate fighters.
"Never confuse credentials for credibility" is perhaps the biggest lesson of the past, two-year disaster. Epic article, El Gato! Thank you for all that you and Team Reality on substack have done to help us non-scientists to see reality so clearly. Muchas gracias!
Insightful, as always. One thing bothers me, however. You do not NAME NAMES. We never do. We call attention to "them" in general terms, but these frauds continue to circulate and pontificate with no mud on the back of their ironed white gi and no blood on their face. It has become increasingly crazy-making to me that we NEVER CALL THESE PEOPLE OUT to their faces.
Michael Crichton noted long ago that when we read an article in an area of our expertise we see sloppy reporting and falsehoods constantly. We shrug it off and move on to another article outside of our expertise and forget to apply the same degree of skepticism--while somewhere a subject matter expert is laughing at THAT article's nonsense.
We have to stop fighting nameless, faceless foes. There needs to be a database of all the epidemiology, medical, virology, and public health frauds with their published failures. The same for politicians, incidentally. I am toying with a website that NAMES THE NAMES of duplicitous RINO Republicans who need to be IDENTIFIED, vilified, and primaried out of the party.
We're in a no-shiite-for-real battle for the survival of our liberties and we cannot even name the names of our enemies. What is up with that?
I think the WEF have had the curtain pulled back, but Early in his “reign”, Trudo paid off main stream media and implemented bills and regulations to silence dissenters so that no one could criticize the government or their policies or point out obvious things like he has introduced secret policy changes that attack our freedoms. And main stream media is paid to be the state propagandists.
I played high school and college football, both at small schools. I also read newspaper exploits of other Big Schools and their Big Players and all their individual awards and All-Whatever Team accolades. I was impressed. After all, I was just a little guy at a little school, and even though I had a particular talent that my gut said was better than average, I was a nobody.
I wasn't drafted, but I was asked to go to a pro training camp. I went, really for a weeks' vacation experience, never thinking I should actually be there. Plus, the same team also signed two guys with Big Names from Big Schools with All-Conference credentials, as well as an old veteran. I was pretty sure I was going down in flames, because I was a nobody without a proper pedigree.
Finally, after all the talk and strutting, practice started for real, pads and all. I. Kicked. Their. Ass. Daily. In fact, after three days, the vet retired and one guy just disappeared from camp, vanished.
I learned a valuable, massive lesson, and my confidence buoyed. I had a decent career until I got hurt.
Fast forward 6 years. After football, I went back to school for an MBA from a decent urban state university, a good school, but not anywhere near an Ivy or Stanford (and no student loans, and I worked two p/t jobs to live.) After graduation I went to work for a company that got acquired by a bigger one. The Big Company was littered with Ivy MBA's from the right families. I was added to that pool and given the shit assignments; after all I was an inferior nobody from a lowly public school. But I always won in my duties, and the ReallyReallyReally Kool Kids failed, but wrote excellent papers filled with buzzwords and bullshit as to why they failed, and it never their fault. Ultimately the Big Boss---a former Marine and college jock with great common sense and critical-thinking skilz---recognized I *performed* but didn't say much. Ultimately the Kool Kids answered to me, a nobody. One by one they quit, to take jobs where other Kool Kids infested and talked a lot. McKenzie seemed a special landing spot (never hire McKenzie & Co. if you really want good consultive advice.)
It was then that I developed Peregrine's First Law of Rhetorical Economics: The reason "talk is cheap" is because the supply exceeds the demand.
Yup. This is the next battle. Currently the priests of the church of climate woo-woo are using the psychological technique of talking past the sale. They are pretending that everyone already agrees that carbon causes the temperature deviation their models detect, and that this will necessarily cause catastrophe. Neither of these assertions has actual evidence behind it. Nevertheless, we must start eating bugs immediately to save the earth, while we shiver in the darkness as penance for our sins.
Add diet and nutrition to the list. The "experts" and 200-pound dietitians pushed plant-based, low-fat diets as the population got fatter. Then came the internet and people writing about low-carb and paleo diets, and not too many years later, low-carb and real-food diets are now conventional wisdom.
But, sadly, none of the people. especially the doctors, who pushed complete and harmful falsehood are man or woman enough to admit how wrong they were.
Two comments: Ad Hominem is not always a "fallacy" nor invalid. For example, consider a paid witness at a trial. He might be a true expert in his field, and so certified by the court. However, more than just his knowledge is a subject of relevant suspicion. Which side is paying him? There is a potential conflict of interest there. This issue is present in nearly all human affairs, yet is often overlooked. Looking at the example of that academic authority or government "expert," a skeptic should always consider who pays her salary, how she got the job, what likely influences, obvious or hidden, likely exist upon her. Yet this is almost never done. Gato's comments, in so many words, might be summarized as: Many people, even in high positions, are unqualified. It's quite possible they got the job because of who they know, not what they know.
That leads to a related observation: the dilution of academic standards. This is a topic about which entire books could be (and no doubt have been) written. For the young (say, under 40), they may find it hard to believe, but over a period of at least two, probably three generations, nearly all academic standards have been watered down substantially. There are many reasons for this, but not the least important being to answer the "need" to allow nearly anyone who wanted a degree to obtain one. This doesn't mean that one one learns anything or that all studies are worthless of course. Yet at probably at no time in history have so many Americans obtained so many worthless degrees. And if you haven't done some research, you have no conception of how far grading and other standards of intellectual rigor have slipped. A MS in Physics from MIT in 1960, 1980 or 2020? There is no comparison between them.
I speak partly from personal experience. I obtained a MA in Spanish in my 50s (for "enrichment") with a decent GPA, 3 or more, at a good not great State university. Yet I can scarcely speak the language. One of my professors even said that I should not have been accepted into the MA program. He was probably right. And 20 or 50 years ago, I wouldn't have been. If I were so inclined, I could probably have obtained a teaching job with that credential. How many millions like me have been extruded from this faulty system over the years?
Important observations here. You should see the pap kids drivel out in school today. You actually have to work hard to fail at university because you are a paying customer. Administrators bend over backwards to find a way that you can graduate. No doubt some gems are produced who through their own work ethic go on to be productive but too many of these ill educated fools go into politics or back into academia.
Brilliant analogy. I'm married to a professional warrior, and many of my friends are warriors who need to win real fights. When the crap hits the fan, woo-woo becomes irrelevant. We are now ruled by woo-woo. Let's hope the woo-woo masters in all fields are forced to emulate one of moviedom's greatest scenes: "Run Away, Run Away!"
"The problem is that you attacked me wrong." - Woo woo
"people keep refusing to act in accordance with our models."
"our models don't account for these outliers" -reality
🎯
Yet some model's, like Neil Ferguson's doomsday models, are extremely convenient for politicians. When the projections fail, the politicians can say, "See how well we protected you?"
Only reason I can think of they keep that clown around.
It's incredible the amount of appologism for the failures.
I know many people who work in genetics research, so have a good grasp of biology, and you would have expected of the scientific method. They all go along with the narrative of masks work and "Sweden was much worse than it's neighbours", "the vaccines work" without any critical thinking or scepticism. They are smart enough to find nitpicks in exact points, while not looking at the bigger picture of practically no solid data supporting the nonsense that we have experienced for the last two years.
Bagholders trying to convince you to baghold with them. Short it *not advice.
The economist's motto
Why, in a nutshell, all "isms" ultimately fail.
🎯
LOL
I studied Aikido for several years (more for the social aspect than anything else). The way we were told to attack people was completely unrealistic.
Good Aikido dojos are zen based, which is a value in itself. I am not going to claim that it is effective in a down and out fight. As you say, we never did that.
On th other hand, along the lines you mentioned, some immense guy try to mug me in Seattle. When I was slow to comply he made to punch me. My simply falling back in a moderate defensive posture, and lifting my arms and staring in his eyes with no flinching led him to pause, look at me curiously, and say "F**k this s**t, and run away, It was my greatest marshal arts success: Bluffing!
Control the narrative, you control the people.
“Lying is preferable to admitting a mistake. So I lied.” —Fow-chee Woo-woo
reminds me of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6XldR7pCFI
One of my mentors: If you find yourself in a fair fight, you have already screwed up.
MASTER woo woo!!
🎯
Absolutely!
I remember how I (a green belt) was given a rubber pretend knife and was paired with a taekwondo black belt. Guess what, the "black belt" lost against a knife despite my total lack of taekwondo skills.
Anyhow, the vaccine scammers and "health experts" are afraid of debating ANYONE who objects to them. They are even MORE afraid of debating degreed experts like Dr Malone or Dr McCullough.
That is because the "health experts" and "vaccine advocates" are frauds and buffoons and they know it very well.
Had a friend who'd been studying taekwondo for some time. Asked him if he could block a punch.
"Of course."
Okay I'm gonna punch you.
"All right."
You're gonna block the punch?
"Yeah."
You're sure now? You can block it. You're ready?
"Yes, I'm ready, punch me!"
Kicked him in the shin.
He didn't block it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQKrmDLvijo
There were a ton of complaints about that scene, all along the lines of “but that wasn’t fair, why didn’t Indy have a fair fight?”
🎯
Hahahahaha! So our self-proclaimed “experts” class all think they are Obi-Wan AND Luke Skywalker rolled into one, but in reality they are this poor guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU
THE BALLET OF DEATH.
Blast from the past!
“Wait, I wasn’t ready.” - every bullshitter, ever.
lfg!
Ahhh yes, I think I've seen this scene before: https://youtu.be/l0yUGtXzt2Y
Ahahah
LMFAO!
To this day, Fauci and the clown car hasn't ever had to get up in front of an actual hostile crowd and answer questions. Rand Paul is the closest we get, and Fauci straight up lies to his face.
Fauci really embodies everything that is wrong with the government pharma industrial complex...christ what a vain horse's ass
And per congressional rules, the party in charge can request all questions be submitted in advance and no question needs to be answered. It's all voluntary as the party out of power does not have subpoena power.
Which is why I expect Fauci to retire after the midterms.......
🎯
They have nothing to gain by engaging in real discussion. They can only lose.
Plus, they won't get any grants that way.
In Japanese sumo wrestling, you rise through the ranks by winning. But if you lose
a few matches (to a lower ranked opponent), you are not merely demoted to a lower
rank. You have to "retire"!
Never bring a knife to a gun fight, you will lose. These "experts" aren't even bringing real knives to the fight. It's all Kabuki Theater.
They don't even have knives. More like squirt guns filled with covid "holy" water...and pixie dust.
It's a shame the vast majority of the public have been so intellectually lazy, that they can't see through these charlatans - even to this day
The predictable and inevitable result of over a century of progressive "education".
They don't need to, instead they bring their big brother to the fight and he steps in when they start to lose.
So what. Aren’t they still in charge(power)?
maybe this story about a knife attack doesn't tell us much. maybe the sad reality is that knife attacks are extremely hard to defend against, no matter how much training one has.
They won't debate Steve Kirsch. He has offered over and over. Steve is a smart MIT engineer and he would crush them.
And some are downright evil Igor.
This substack is for the ages. Now do "climate science".
It confounds me that we’re in a climate emergency according to young Greta and her acolytes, Yet my favourite hiking trail is a cliff made of fossils that were once at the bottom of a great sea and that now stands 200 feet above the farmland around it. Climate change has been the planets legacy and I don’t see what is happening now is being particularly dramatic.
When the "climate change" debate comes up (as it does here only when I bring it up, most everyone else being true believers) I find that the easiest way to discover whether or not to waste my breath in debate with someone is to just ask them for their thoughts about Maunder Minimums, the Medieval Warming Period, or the Mini Ice Age, or find out if they even understand how infinitesimally, immeasurably small 2 ppm/year really is - and that data is not fixed either. It's remarkable how little climate history most people have bothered to learn. That's up to the "experts". Usually they get upset and run away, calling me names like "denier" as they do. If they do understand, well then, they're not going to debate me, 'cause they agree with me that it's all bs and all about the money. And I love it when a volcano goes off in Iceland, those are fun days.
I get slammed for asking why I am paying ridiculous carbon taxes when Canada only contributes to 2% of the world's greenhouse gasses. Surely we have enough fucking trees in this country to offset that without me paying an extra 11 cents a litre in carbon tax.
When I was at college a few decades ago the world was going to run out of oil by 1985. Carbon was one of the "building blocks of life " and we were headed into a mini ice age inside a 100 years.
Exactly.
People need to break away from the brainwashing about CO2 and their so called carbon footprint.
Every serious person who follows climate history should know that the biggest explosions of life on earth occur when C02 is high.
When C02 is low and the earth's greening goes in reverse that's when we need to panic.
I've often said the same thing. Instead of guilting and shaming ourselves, we should be championing ourselves as the biggest carbon sink anywhere! It's all virtue signaling BS and we're paying for it at the pump.
Yes you would think that a true representative of the people would be proud of the assets and characteristics of the country, instead of kowtowing to teenagers who claim they can see CO2 in the atmosphere. This last bizarress courtesy of another poster
Do you remember the great wisdom and knowledge you had as a 16 yr old? Good grief!
What I DO remember as a young teen was the wellspring of pride and joy in our country during the 1967 centennial. It was electrifying. By contrast, the 150th anniversary was nothing but a guilt & shame fest. Self-flagellation has become a national pastime in Canada.
Carbon is a myth that generates a lot of money for some, and it extends through to forestry in this country (forester in BC). It absolutely aggravates me what govt is doing in the name of god carbon. Talking with my cousin in Ont this am, and having a guffaw over the idea of driving an electric car across this country (neither of us being ‘allowed’ to fly). Luckily, he’s near the western border of Ont, and it’s ONLY 2500 km, but can you just imagine?! We entered a grand solar minimum in 2017 that is expected to last at least 70 years. It’s not getting warmer.
I live in a town with one public car charger that was hit by a tornado last week. So the public charger is gone and everyone's power was out for at least 4 days. So yeah, no electric for me!
Yes, hadnt thought of that…
You can have more fun if you blame the mini ice age on the collapse of farming amongst Indians in the Americas as a result of Western colonialism (really, diseases), which drove a massive uptake of carbon by reforesting areas in the Americas, and a drop in CO2. But get them to explain also about the absence of sunspots in the middle of that period.
I like the way you think, Thomas. An excellent example - and there are so many - of "how climate change is racist". I also like to ask why they think the Obamas have not one but two homes on the beach. That really sets them off. Oh, and let's not forget Al Gore's oceanside property.
Has the Goracle ever been right about anything?
"Goracle". Savvy
Mmm I think he stopped wearing lipstick. That was a good thing.
Thomas C. Mann puts the American plague population collapse (see '1491' and '1493') as a geometric proof for causing Old World climate change. Clumsy, but still interesting to consider if or how much the near-complete subtraction of slash and burn ag plus massive forest regrowth added to Maunder Minimum effects. Hard to say, but even harder to beat sunspots.
Fascinating how arrogant we can be; "If I use my dryer it will change the weather". Look at the statistics for volcanic emissions. A volcano exploding in Iceland, say, will pump more CO 2 into the atmosphere in a day, an hour, than humanity can in decades. These nefarious bastards, with the essential participation of the media, are manipulating well-intentioned people who seem to be guilt-ridden by nature and enjoy being punished. As with covid; there are glaring similarities.
1491 was SUCH a good book. You might enjoy the Dawn of Everything which treats the natives of the Americas not as "noble savages" but as people who built some advanced societies.
There's doubtless some effect from ag changes and population drops. I suspect people who think that was causal are behind the push to depopulate the earth now. When thinking about climate changes, as you note, best to focus on the gorilla in the solar system, the sun.
Thank you, it's all about Mr. Sun. It always has been and always will be. I had to hide my smile when I saw friends here on the West Coast literally constructing aluminum foil hats and capes after Fukushima. These people regularly fly in 747s. That altitude, you would get about the same level of radiation. And please correct me if I'm wrong.
Don’t even mention a grand solar minimum.
Same. I also like talking with climate boobs about the Cambrian Explosion, when CO2 was around 7000 ppm.
Or you can point out that up until 12,000 years ago the Yosemite valley was still being gouged by glaciers. That's only 26 seconds ago on a 4.5 billion year cosmic calendar.
The hubris of mankind to think we're that "important". It's the same reason why folks thought we could "beat" a virus.
Yea, the level of hubris is simply breathtaking, as is the blatant and endless lies to support the ridiculous narrative.
One of my favorite episodes of the climate clown show is the glacier gaslighting in Glacier National Park, where the NPS had to remove and/or update signs and presentations noting that the glaciers would all be gone by 2020.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/07/glacier-national-park-quietly-removes-its-gone-by-2020-signs/
It is all complete bullshit, all of it. And it is unquestionably intentional.
It's made a lot of people a whole lot of money. Trillions, in fact.
I completely forgot about that tomfoolery with the NPS. Thanks for reminding. Actually made me laugh.
Intentional indeed. If only the public were a little more "intentional" about thinking why the Globalist, et al are being Intentional. That'd be asking a lot for the sorry lot of sheople in our country
🔥
Well you only have to go back to the 1930s for the hottest temperatures in recent times.
Though the woo-woo clan are now committing data fraud to overcome this inconvenient period.
"I find that the easiest way to discover whether or not to waste my breath in debate with someone is to just ask them for their thoughts about Maunder Minimums, the Medieval Warming Period, or the Mini Ice Age..." Excellent approach.
Even art historians observe through the way paint dried that climate was changing in the middle ages.
Wait!, we didn't experience that "little ice-age" in the 70's?!
Were you around when the U.N. was warning us about "global cooling" -?
I remember being quite worried as a gullible teenager in the 70's. To my recollection 100% of scientists agreed that we were going to enter into an ice age within a few years. Something about the magnetic poles of the earth swapping in a matter of months. It had been "proven" to happen in the past, we were overdue for another event.
Subsequent climate emergencies have failed to get my attention
You nailed it. That was their rationale. There was virtually 100% consensus.
It's funny how "expert" uniformity is memory holed, when it's counter to the "new" narrative.
Perhaps they didn't use the scientific method then and now? The scientific method has become just the opposite over the last two years.
It's like saying "we know mask work" and then not be able to site scientific data. Every conversation the "experts" had about masks started out with that phrase.
When was that? Im thinking of that tv show where new york got flooded then frozen….. Often these shows are based on some of these predictions
76' and 77'
Yes as a young teenager I doubt it cracked my cranium, but my take away here from reading Ryan’s link is just how devious some of these PR firms can be when robustly funded with taxpayer dollars. I would love to know who came up with the fake times cover strategy so that could be pushed into the open those fucking hacks are so dishonest
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/30/how-google-and-msm-use-fact-checkers-to-flood-us-with-fake-claims/
Awesome funny how the PR firms that handle this stuff keep their names out of it
Yeah I remember we used to build snow tunnels when we lived in Montreal can’t do that now
Yep. I remember snow banks in Ont where, as a child, you could climb and touch the overhead lines (if you were stupid enough to do so 😆).
Love it!
We all need to listen to Greta. She has a very exceptional gift.
According to her mother, "Greta is able to see what other people cannot see". "She can see carbon dioxide with the naked eye. She sees how it flows out of chimneys and changes the atmosphere in a landfill."
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/05/02/quote-of-the-week-greta-thunberg-claims-to-be-able-to-see-carbon-dioxide-in-the-air/
Now THAT is some serious woo-woo.
All I know is, her famous "I shouldn't be here" speech was some of THE WORST acting I've ever seen in my life, and with twenty years in theatre and an MA in Dramatic Theory and Criticism, believe me, I have seen a lot. I can't say much for her showbiz family's coaching. Absolutely cringeworthy. What amazed me further were the multitudes who bought into it. Barnum was right, there's one born every minute.
I know a ton of smart Autistic folks. Once they obsess about a problem, they are lethally clearsighted. We just need someone to red pill Greta ;-)
It won't happen. And in truth, her autism protects her from a lot of criticism.
How Dare You™.
LOL! They do seem to think they have the market cornered on moral outrage, don't they? That phrase has become a joke.
Every time I've seen the elf in the news, it looked more like hauteur than autism.
As my dear grandmother would say, I got no use for her.
I hear Barnum & Bailey are back in business…
While I agree with your main point that the climate is in a state of constant flux, the example from your hiking trail is more likely the result of plate tectonics, which is independent of climatic cyclicity. What is happening now (assuming anything is happening) doesn't seem dramatic because our lifetimes only occupy a small fraction of the timescale of climatic variation. Human existence occupies a slightly larger fraction, but still only tiny slice of geologic time.
That is all. Carry on with the chastising of idiots and charlatans we are doomed to share space with. It is refreshing to read this substack and the comments. They make me feel less lonely.
Nah, its dolostone that remained after softrr rocks eroded away when the (wisconsin glacier i think) burst as the planet left the grips of the last Ice Age. Leaving behind the great lakes
The geological record is there to see if you know how to see. So called climate change is the norm in the earth's history.
Precisely, thank you.
We had the "hottest day on record in 78 years!" a few days ago. I am left to assume that climate change was around then, too. ;)
I think the point I’m making is that climate is always changing. If climate didn’t change humanity would not have left Africa, along with prey animals, seeking better conditions and First Nations couldn’t have made it to North America on a land bridge called the Bering strait
In our little NorCal town, we are sitting on a very deep subterranean lake comprised of 227,000 acre feet of water. To visualize this, imagine an acre of land. Imagine a column of water coming out of that acre that reaches 44 miles into the sky. That is how much water there is, that was the finding when the area was studied in the 1970s. In other words, we are drought-proof (though some people do run short of water because they didn't drill their wells deep enough). Many people here don't know this and/or refuse to believe it, though the oldtimers do. We have until very recently been supporting an ever-increasing cannabis industry, which collapsed this past year, when supply exceeded demand, and the pot mecca moved to Oklahoma. So many people have left, many people are no longer giving hundreds of gallons of water to thousands of plants every day. We've had delightful late rains. And yet you still hear the cries about "The Drought!!" An artificial drought, btw, and utterly evil. In 1936 our river was dry as a bone in June. Today - well, rain is expected this weekend. My roses have never been so exuberant.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but 227,000 ac-ft of water is not a lot of water. I hesitate to reply to your comment because I don't generally find internet discussions particularly productive and frequently end in shouting matches and/or general hurt feelings. I would PM this comment if I could. This substack's primary purpose as far as I can tell is to provide information backed with data that doesn't (but could, we would hope) fit the popular narrative and most here are craving a counter-point to the narrative. I post here in that spirit to inform, not to attack. I also post this reply because in water, particularly groundwater, I have particular expertise and more than 30 years of professional practice. So here it goes:
First, subterranean lakes do exist in the sense there is a body of water, that when drained, leaves a gigantic void. Groundwater always flows through some porous media, i.e. clay, sand, silt, gravel, fractures in impermeable rock, or solution cavities in rocks that can dissolve like limestone or dolomite. In your case, I suspect that the lake you are describing is a basin filled with sediment sand (silt, clay and maybe gravel) and surrounded by impermeable rocks. I'm not an expert in California geology, but I'm also not a novice either, so there may be some other geologic setting which also describes a small isolated aquifer.
Second, it is unlikely that 100% of the water in storage can be removed. 25-75% removal is more typical and through time, the costs for doing so increase because more and deeper wells are needed to maintain production. In this sense, aquifers are generally self-regulating because as costs increase, demand decreases. It is why we will NEVER run out of groundwater, or oil or any other so-called finite resource. When costs become prohibitive, the infinite creativity of humans will develop alternatives that are more economically feasible. Think "fracking" which has dramatically increased world oil reserves and lowered prices (the current mess excepted which is the result of government meddling, not a lack of reserves). Water reuse and seawater desalination will eventually look economically feasible for more and more places. They already are the lowest cost reliable alternative for a few.
Third, the average household uses about 360 gallons per day. One acre-foot is enough water for about 2.5 households per year. Assuming you could actually extract all 227,000 ac-ft, that is only enough water for about 56,000 households for 10 years...not exactly an game changing amount. Depending on the type of sediment below you, large amounts of groundwater extraction may cause other adverse effects, like land subsidence. My company recently completed a project that delivers 50,000 ac-ft of water PER YEAR to San Antonio, which is a only a portion of their annual need. It wasn't so long ago that the Houston area pumped more than 450,000 ac-ft of groundwater per year. The aquifers that allow for those supplies have billions of ac-ft of groundwater in storage. Perhaps your NorCal town is very small, average recharge is adequate to replenish your aquifer, and 227,000 ac-ft merely acts as a buffer to get you through the dry years; I don't know, I haven't studied it.
I'll also add that I've heard more incorrect information from well-meaning but ill-informed 'old timers' with regard to groundwater than I can recall. So-called environmentalists and a large number of people in my profession are emboldened by ideology and don't fare much better. Sigh...
First, I want to thank you for taking the time to reply to me. Your name says it all. We do have a more or less unique situation here, which I should have explained. I was repeating what I had heard from a surveyor who has lived for 45 years in our extremely isolated valley of fewer than 5,000 people. There is an Indian reservation here of about 1,300 people (their ancestors were rounded up and imprisoned here in 1856 through military-enforced relocation), and maybe another 1000 people who are old-time ranching and farming families. The rest are, well, carpetbaggers. Water depletion here has been the direct result of people from outside coming in to grow cannabis. It's estimated (here I go with unproven statistics again) that the town and its surrounding area - mostly National Forest - have seen over one million cannabis plants growing at one time. These plants require a minimum of one gallon of water per day to amount to anything (very very few people grow hydroponically). So even with a tiny population we were seeing a huge amount of water use. A lot of it was from "guerilla growing" on BLM land, with heinous diversion from local creeks and rivers, along with tons of toxic waste and the destruction of wildlife. That has all changed with the collapse of the cannabis industry in California, an event that has thrown many people into the Slough of Despond, while others rejoice. There is an economic crisis at hand and at least half of the carpetbaggers, especially the cartels, have moved on, having taken what they wanted. There will likely be at least 3/4 less overall water use here this summer than in the past five years. So we actually have abundant water once more, and this year has seen an unusual pattern of late rain. There should be water aplenty for all this year. Everyone understands this, yet many people (read that, the white liberals) continue to wring their hands. That is what I do not understand. We have weathered a crisis of extreme water usage, come out the other side, but the narrative remains the same. If you are interested in learning more about this unique place, I suggest "Genocide and Vendetta" by Estle Beard, and "The River Stops Here" by Ted Simon, which tells the story of how our beautiful valley was nearly dammed and flooded but for the efforts of one man here, Richard Wilson, a forester and rancher, and his friendship with then-governor Ronald Reagan. Thank you again for engaging me on this topic, and best of luck, you are doing good work.
I'm not sure about the "not particularly dramatic part". We will likely see wild weather oscillations as a feature of this part of the solar cycle coupled with the waning magnetosphere. And if the ancients are right, the catastrophe cycle is somewhere between due and overdue. And if the conspiracy theorists are right (a scary thought, given the last two years), the depopulation agenda is possibly driven by the fact that the catastrophe is coming regardless of what we do, and fewer people during a catastrophe is better than more. And best of all, it's "merciful" to spare people a slow, painful death, so the depopulationist feel justified.
https://youtu.be/3avvdO7NtDo?t=232
I know a number of people who believe that covid was just the dress rehearsal leading up to the main event. The climate crazies will impose a loss of freedom that will make the covid lockdowns look like ten minute timeouts in the corner, followed by milk and cookies.
I think in the short term you are right (and I fear for my god-given rights as a Clownifornian), but that in the longer term, the sun and earth will foil their plans. This is the uplifting perspective shift one gets from researching magnetic reversal, micronova, etc. I trust nature to have the aces, when it matters. May not be in time to save my personal life, but I am confident the Schwabians will not be livin' large during/post the cataclysm.
I agree, 100%. Mother Nature is the last to bat.
Great clip crushing global warming lies
Yes, it's not the end, nor the beginning got the end, but the end of the beginning. Either they shut down open discussion and discovery and preserve their positions, or they don't. If they do, they also shut down innovation and cross-pollination leading to economic collapse and the end of the surplus that allows "experts" to eat well while contributing nothing. We only cause them to suffer when we all suffer more, first. I'm willing to suffer that if that's the only way to do this.
But as Augustine wrote, the Truth is a lion, able to fully take care of itself. I want some prevarication throats ripped out by it.
In the meantime you can always follow Tony Heller on YouTube or at realclimatescience.com
Love Tony Heller, you should see how the alarmists attack him though.
Yes, they are indeed the king fu masters of woo-woo.
Oh yes please!!
"in 2019, i legitimately was not aware of what a near total sham public health is" - I agree completely with this sentiment. Economics is similar in that there are some 'useful' modelling techniques that help you try to understand a non-deterministic field... but it is mostly full of snake oil salesmen and con artists trying to validate a narrative. I think a lot of the behavioral economics/psychology techniques were also adopted by public health which were quite easy to spot if you were privy to them. Quite sickening in my opinion...
I worked with economists actually I worked very closely with economists they could talk so well so impressively but my team took what they said and measured it up with what actually happened ——they almost always never got it right. If they should by chance get it right we would make sure it got all over the media creating a bias that my company were ninja prognosticators - because we only ever promoted what they got right and rushed to remove references to what they got wrong from the web. Vastly they got things wrong
Very similar to my experience. I guess it comes down to human nature to want to be correct or be the one everyone idolizes... to the detriment of actual societal progress. It is even worse when these people don't have 'skin in the game' and continue to hold decision-making positions.
They were sometimes right about directionality, I could spin that — but usually they couldn’t even get directionality right. One rather well-known economist here in canada told me when I bought a house at the beginning of the pandemic (closed the actual day the pandemic was declared in Canada) he told me I would get trashed and I should sell it right away - that house i bought at 509k is today worth 1.25mil.
Skin in the game - exactly! Thinking of that Thomas Sowell quote…
See Philip Tetlock research. “Experts are no better at predictions than a dart-throwing chimp.”
True that - this takes me back to the 90s when I worked as head of marketing for one of Canada’s biggest mutual funds. I offered our head equity portfolio manager to the Toronto star for a competition for who could deliver the best returns on a portfolio over one month. He was competing against a pre-schooler, a dog picking cards. A chimp picking cards And a dart thrower. I cant remember Who won but it wasn’t my guy in our relationship never recovered
What a statistician would tell you is that the fatal flaw Is the time. our PM would’ve won over a longer time frame
Milton Friedman rarely missed.
That you heard about :)
"Economics" is a big field, lots of skills and concepts applicable to the current problem of public health chicanery. Data collection and analysis, Baysian analysis, risk assessment, incentive structures, behavioral econ, game theory, and just knowing the ins and outs of academic publication, grants and how to put together a decent study pretty much saved my life and sanity, revealing this as a scam from the start. Nobody can tell the future, and some economists getting out of grad school today are charlatans. Hell, look no further than Lisa Cook's recent confirmation, but let's not tar an entire field, about which you seem to have limited knowledge.
Excellent insights. Beyond a few basics like the law of supply and demand, you are absolutely correct. Economics is mostly voodoo, fairy castles in the air dressed up with "data" and "theories" from earlier economists, very few of which have any real-world predictive or descriptive value (two criteria required for a successful theory in the hard sciences.) One of the most damning pieces of evidence against economics is simply the bewildering number of flavors that have appeared over the decades, tailored to fit the then-ruling ideology or to suit current fashionable needs. In fact, the old term for economics, "political economy," hints at this weakness. That isn't a science, that is a protean political ideology, little better than propaganda or doctrine. As a discipline, it's very easy to "capture," much more so than the hard sciences, although this fact hasn't stopped real scientists from being muzzled, exiled or killed throughout history when their findings were inconvenient for the ruler at the time.
Perhaps it's unfair to single out Economics for a thrashing; the same indictment can be made against many other fields as well.
Correct it is unfair to trash Economics as a field of study. It is actually an interesting and fulfilling area to study. The trashing is more directed at the ones that abuse it nefariously for personal gain...
scientific, mathematical modeling economics is in need of a thrashing. this is virtually every economist in the mainsream.
logistical economics (i.e. austrian economics) is much closer to reality. it doesn't try mathematically predict and forecast. these are the ones the mainstream won't allow into the debate.
No. It's a joke. Earn your own respect kiddo. Don't ride coattails.
100% work from those like Thayer were used for dark purposes. It's sickening.
I recall a recent Paul Krugman article arguing that inflation would be transient
Also, that the stock market would totally crash with Trump's election. Instead, it soared. It's crashing now under Brandon and taking my IRA with it.
oh yeah. I remember that. even the most optimistic analysts were saying it would crash within 6 months or a year of Trump's inauguration.
by contrast, today, anyone looking to invest is stuck in a very confused/confusing state. inflation plus a stagnant or crashing equity market. housing's about to bust(?). and the government wants to wage wars against both Russia and China. there goes the dollar.
right now government seems to welcome anything that creates a crisis that justifies a complete financial reset plus an entirely new currency. it's like they want to reinvent the financial system, the debt, the money supply -- everything -- because they know the current thing is broken beyond repair.
They want the "no currency" system. All transactions will be digital, paperless, forcing people to go along with a digital I.D. system and giving Them complete control over our incomes. They can then cut off your funds if you do not comply with their dicta. That's the dream. Think they're going to encounter some opposition with that.
Yep
Not sure what they’d replace it with that they wouldn’t also fuck up given a bit of time
yeah, I think you're right but if they reset the clock it buys them another 50 years. in the mean time it's game back on.
Brilliant!....... "The problem is not people being uneducated. The problem is that people are educated just enough to believe what they have been taught, and not educated enough to question anything from what they have been taught."
Richard Feynman
Fantastic quote. Thank you for sharing it.
Your article is simply brilliant in its analogy. And if I may extrapolate further, it is why all of Klaus Schwab’s nonsense about the Great Reset will fail miserably.
It is so satisfying to see the Wizard of Oz’s curtain pulled back to display the utter vapidity and phoniness of what public health has turned into. It gives me hope that ordinary scientists, epidemiologists, doctors and nurses will lead us out of this ridiculousness.
One good thing that has happened over the past two years is how Klaus and the WEF's machinations have been exposed to the world. They went too far, too fast and now they are exposed. Their ideas will die in the light.
Sure hope so, but they have exposed how truly lacking the general public is in critical thinking and intestinal fortitude, so hard to be confident of WEF failure.
doctors have been wrong too, sanjay gupta, jonathan reiner, leanna wen, peter hotez, atul guwande, scott gotlieb, etc
MDs are right there with epidemiology as credentialed charlatans that despise the internet.
some MDs. Not all.
That's the thing about psychopaths. They don't understand people, so don't understand how massively their plans will fail once they meet the real world. We're not 1930's Germany or Stalinist Russia who had no idea where all this stuff led.
Boomers are suckers for credentials, easily dazzled by XYX Ivy diploma and letters after names. As soon as I hear "PhD" or "my model says", I'm out. It's all drivel for the drivel peddlers and nothing works in the real world because these people have never worked in the real world.
I am a boomer, and so is my husband. We are not suckers for credentials or easily dazzled by people who have XYZ diplomas. We have seen enough crap over the years like Vietnam War that destroyed my husband's endocrine system from agent orange. We saw early on in life that there are many good and honest people and there are many wicked deceitful people. We are very aware of what the Babylonians are up to and try to find good truth-seeking people to hang out with regardless of their educational opportunities or lack of credentials. We have been and still prepping for what may come.
The best part of social media is being able to locate like minded people. It's great to not feel lonely, because the people I know and associate with in daily life are clueless.
I'm about ten years younger than you and learned the hard way about the evil people involved in government and, in particular, medicine and pharma. They walk amongst good people in their profession, and to expand your point, the colleagues who are decent almost universally look away, allowing the evil to flourish.
When I talk to Millenial vaxxers, they simply don't believe there are wicked, deceitful people in power. They believe these people exist, yes, but that they are easy-to-spot racists and homophobes, and so they are very trusting of the authorities who are to fight those things.
Because they grew up with helicopter parents who told them what was good and what was bad rather than send them out into the playground to find out for themselves coming back with a few busted noses or a good case of poison ivy
I don't think it's generational. Unfortunately, a great many people are intellectually lazy and easily frightened.
Probably true, though some generations may have joint experiences that dispose them to trust authority. When March 2020 struck in England, the English I spoke to trusted authority, obviously with a few exceptions. But immigrants from ex Communist countries said at once: this is not right, this is Communism, I recognise it. And immigrants from countries with high levels of fraud and corruption also often said: the government is lying, why are you surprised? This is what government do.
The Lithuanians I worked with said the same thing it actually caused many of them not to get the vaccination not so much they are science deniers but that they distrusted to the extreme the stratagems they were witnessing being so very communist.
Good point
Not all Boomers. I’m one who agrees with you and as soon as I hear someone bragging about their academic credentials, I immediately suspect anything that comes out of his or her mouth.
I'm 72 and worked my way through a couple of college degrees in the 1970's. When I began college I was excited because I thought I would be around people who were open minded and who wanted to exchange all kinds of ideas. Those ideas were shot down rather quickly, and while I've had a few colleagues I liked and respected, the mediocrity of those in higher education was astounding to observe even that long ago. I always wondered where things were going, and now I know. I also realized early on that in college you gained some expertise in a narrow area of study, but the real value of education was in becoming a lifelong learner. Sadly, I'm not sure that happens now. Seems like people finish college and assume their knowledge is complete and fixed, nothing new to learn.
On occasion, I’ve had people flat out tell me that they don’t want to learn anything new. It’s too much trouble, maybe, or it is too challenging or too challenging to their worldview. I don’t understand that at all, coming from a family of teachers and professors, whose motto was “learn everything you can.” I enjoy being a lifelong learner. Keeps you engaged with life.
Sad to hear. The 80s were the same. What field were you employed in?
I am a graphic designer who worked in the newspaper industry for years. The sad state of that industry is another story unto itself. The local paper I worked for is still operating, but many other papers in small (and some large) communities that have been around for centuries have closed, to the detriment of the communities they served.
I had a late cousin who had a PhD in some obscure history field. He even put his credentials on his emails to family. He was a nice guy, and I hope he never realized how much the family laughed at this bit of pretension.
The millennials are suckers, largely.
I think the millennials that I know of, like my three sons, are very busily engaged in raising their families, working, and trying to maintain their standard of living in this uncertain time. Every generation has troubles to overcome and endure. I do try to remember that we are here on this planet to hopefully grow in love and respect for one another and make this world a better place to live in regardless of the criminals that have a plan to destroy life as we know it.
Yeah, millennial here and I agree that busyness with young children kept me from having the capacity to look fully into these things until 2021.
Thankfully we’re less and less taken up with the “standard of living” garbage.
I hesitate to condemn a generation. I have neighbours of all ages and the more you know someone the more you see them as a person vs a group member.
True, that!
Millennials are very distracted. Treading water, trying not to drown. The next economic down turn will make 2008 look like child's play. Maybe that will wake some people up. I lost a job in 2012, and that was when I finally had time to start looking into quite a few topic areas. Totally changed the trajectory of my work/life.
Millennials suffer the same as past generations. Advocate for change, and get excited only to realize the system sells you out every time. One generation got Kennedy then watched him get assassinated. 2000, we watched the Supreme Court interfere with an election, resulting in an unelected person serving 4 years as president (Gore won, once the votes were finally tallied). Hopey and Changey Obama galvanized young people only to be sold out again and again (Occupy, Standing Rock, NDAA). Young people showed up for Bernie Sanders, only for the DNC to rig their primaries not once, but twice to stop his candidacy. Trump promised to drain the swamp, then flaunted his nepotism while lining his pockets and not draining a damn thing. I'm not endorsing any of these politicians, just pointing out that our country grinds down the optimism of youth, either by impeding change directly, or by proxy. Most people get disillusioned and stop trying. Feature, not a bug. That's why the country burned last summer. That's why it will burn again.
Gore did not win when the final votes were tallied; where did you get that idea?
Great summary. Agree on all points.
My heart bleeds for the young children coming home from school with all these victim slogans they promote they spend more time on ideology than skills.
It’s awful! When I was finally allowed in my daughter’s school in April, I was horrified to see the word “hate” plastered all over the walls. The posters said “Hate is not welcome here” and guess what the largest word on the poster was.
Needless to say we’re not going to that school anymore.
Yeah we’ve got posters all over our neighbourhood saying “hate is not welcome here” and it makes me wonder where are they seeing all this hate????? Invent a bogeyman to rail against, i suppose. Irritating.
Agree. As I pontificate elsewhere 🧐 the great watering down of the value of education, from primary on up to post-graduate, really got underway in earnest in the 1960s (in the USA, can't speak for other nations). That means that us Boomers were probably the last generation where virtually all the professionals we met in our youths had "real" training and certification, and equivalently, that (relatively) blind trust in such professionals was warranted. Of course the watering-down was gradual, but by the 1970s the shift (erosion) in standards was evident, and has only gotten worse in later years.
Right! That's why I'll put my 1969 BS Statistics & Computer Sci against anyone's recent master or PhD in this field. Our professors were EE's and Statistics. We had analog and hybrid computation, probability and statistics at the masters level, lots of advanced math, numerical analysis (with no help from not-yet-invented Excel), dynamic programming, etc. Served me well. I'm obsolete, but I can problem-solve with the best of them.
Good observations
Truth!
You could have stopped at “Boomers are suckers.”
Yes. Witness "Dr." Jill Biden.
“nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.” -Winston Churchill
Beat me to it. That's been my #1 quote for the last 2 years.
Such a great quote. It's amazing how the wisdom (and knowledge) of a previous generation is so quickly lost and/or disregarded.
Perfect quote!
I knew nothing of the things the cat and so many others uncovered over the duration of this scam. I learned a lot and it was great to see others learning as they went as well. I’m still an idiot on bio stats and epidemiology but I run rings around TV Joe bloke thanks to all these “amateurs.” So yeah I want to thank You ElGato, Steve Kirsch, Matthew Crawford, Situation Commander, Screaming into the Void, Utobian, Mark Oshinski, Tessa Lena and so many others. You really held the line and put in the hard yards. Thank you too Substack for staying afloat and not capitulating to tyrannical censorship. It’s obviously not over, for now we have to try to prosecute the guilty, track the damaging effects of the jab and all cause mortality. There’s still restrictions where I live against us unjabbed but I’m so happy I made it through despite mountains of pressure from everyone, despite evictions and social ostracism. Despite losing work and study opportunities. Despite being made homeless and having to live in the forest for a while. It was all worth it because I’m unjabbed. Hats off to the amateurs. You guys are the ultimate fighters.
Thank you for your kind words! You're right, there's still a lot of work to be done.
"Never confuse credentials for credibility" is perhaps the biggest lesson of the past, two-year disaster. Epic article, El Gato! Thank you for all that you and Team Reality on substack have done to help us non-scientists to see reality so clearly. Muchas gracias!
Insightful, as always. One thing bothers me, however. You do not NAME NAMES. We never do. We call attention to "them" in general terms, but these frauds continue to circulate and pontificate with no mud on the back of their ironed white gi and no blood on their face. It has become increasingly crazy-making to me that we NEVER CALL THESE PEOPLE OUT to their faces.
Michael Crichton noted long ago that when we read an article in an area of our expertise we see sloppy reporting and falsehoods constantly. We shrug it off and move on to another article outside of our expertise and forget to apply the same degree of skepticism--while somewhere a subject matter expert is laughing at THAT article's nonsense.
We have to stop fighting nameless, faceless foes. There needs to be a database of all the epidemiology, medical, virology, and public health frauds with their published failures. The same for politicians, incidentally. I am toying with a website that NAMES THE NAMES of duplicitous RINO Republicans who need to be IDENTIFIED, vilified, and primaried out of the party.
We're in a no-shiite-for-real battle for the survival of our liberties and we cannot even name the names of our enemies. What is up with that?
I think the WEF have had the curtain pulled back, but Early in his “reign”, Trudo paid off main stream media and implemented bills and regulations to silence dissenters so that no one could criticize the government or their policies or point out obvious things like he has introduced secret policy changes that attack our freedoms. And main stream media is paid to be the state propagandists.
steve kirsch has a shortlist. https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/dhs-here-is-a-list-of-top-covid-misinformation
maybe you should start compiling your own. i did. prosecutors will need them eventually
Agree. These are not faceless enemies.
Excellent, and I can totally relate.
I played high school and college football, both at small schools. I also read newspaper exploits of other Big Schools and their Big Players and all their individual awards and All-Whatever Team accolades. I was impressed. After all, I was just a little guy at a little school, and even though I had a particular talent that my gut said was better than average, I was a nobody.
I wasn't drafted, but I was asked to go to a pro training camp. I went, really for a weeks' vacation experience, never thinking I should actually be there. Plus, the same team also signed two guys with Big Names from Big Schools with All-Conference credentials, as well as an old veteran. I was pretty sure I was going down in flames, because I was a nobody without a proper pedigree.
Finally, after all the talk and strutting, practice started for real, pads and all. I. Kicked. Their. Ass. Daily. In fact, after three days, the vet retired and one guy just disappeared from camp, vanished.
I learned a valuable, massive lesson, and my confidence buoyed. I had a decent career until I got hurt.
Fast forward 6 years. After football, I went back to school for an MBA from a decent urban state university, a good school, but not anywhere near an Ivy or Stanford (and no student loans, and I worked two p/t jobs to live.) After graduation I went to work for a company that got acquired by a bigger one. The Big Company was littered with Ivy MBA's from the right families. I was added to that pool and given the shit assignments; after all I was an inferior nobody from a lowly public school. But I always won in my duties, and the ReallyReallyReally Kool Kids failed, but wrote excellent papers filled with buzzwords and bullshit as to why they failed, and it never their fault. Ultimately the Big Boss---a former Marine and college jock with great common sense and critical-thinking skilz---recognized I *performed* but didn't say much. Ultimately the Kool Kids answered to me, a nobody. One by one they quit, to take jobs where other Kool Kids infested and talked a lot. McKenzie seemed a special landing spot (never hire McKenzie & Co. if you really want good consultive advice.)
It was then that I developed Peregrine's First Law of Rhetorical Economics: The reason "talk is cheap" is because the supply exceeds the demand.
Love it! Isn't McKenzie consulting largely responsible for US outsourcing of manufacturing to China for cheap labor?
Just.
Like.
Climate.
Science.
LoL.
Yup. This is the next battle. Currently the priests of the church of climate woo-woo are using the psychological technique of talking past the sale. They are pretending that everyone already agrees that carbon causes the temperature deviation their models detect, and that this will necessarily cause catastrophe. Neither of these assertions has actual evidence behind it. Nevertheless, we must start eating bugs immediately to save the earth, while we shiver in the darkness as penance for our sins.
Great handle. "Grape Soda"
Add diet and nutrition to the list. The "experts" and 200-pound dietitians pushed plant-based, low-fat diets as the population got fatter. Then came the internet and people writing about low-carb and paleo diets, and not too many years later, low-carb and real-food diets are now conventional wisdom.
But, sadly, none of the people. especially the doctors, who pushed complete and harmful falsehood are man or woman enough to admit how wrong they were.
Two comments: Ad Hominem is not always a "fallacy" nor invalid. For example, consider a paid witness at a trial. He might be a true expert in his field, and so certified by the court. However, more than just his knowledge is a subject of relevant suspicion. Which side is paying him? There is a potential conflict of interest there. This issue is present in nearly all human affairs, yet is often overlooked. Looking at the example of that academic authority or government "expert," a skeptic should always consider who pays her salary, how she got the job, what likely influences, obvious or hidden, likely exist upon her. Yet this is almost never done. Gato's comments, in so many words, might be summarized as: Many people, even in high positions, are unqualified. It's quite possible they got the job because of who they know, not what they know.
That leads to a related observation: the dilution of academic standards. This is a topic about which entire books could be (and no doubt have been) written. For the young (say, under 40), they may find it hard to believe, but over a period of at least two, probably three generations, nearly all academic standards have been watered down substantially. There are many reasons for this, but not the least important being to answer the "need" to allow nearly anyone who wanted a degree to obtain one. This doesn't mean that one one learns anything or that all studies are worthless of course. Yet at probably at no time in history have so many Americans obtained so many worthless degrees. And if you haven't done some research, you have no conception of how far grading and other standards of intellectual rigor have slipped. A MS in Physics from MIT in 1960, 1980 or 2020? There is no comparison between them.
I speak partly from personal experience. I obtained a MA in Spanish in my 50s (for "enrichment") with a decent GPA, 3 or more, at a good not great State university. Yet I can scarcely speak the language. One of my professors even said that I should not have been accepted into the MA program. He was probably right. And 20 or 50 years ago, I wouldn't have been. If I were so inclined, I could probably have obtained a teaching job with that credential. How many millions like me have been extruded from this faulty system over the years?
Important observations here. You should see the pap kids drivel out in school today. You actually have to work hard to fail at university because you are a paying customer. Administrators bend over backwards to find a way that you can graduate. No doubt some gems are produced who through their own work ethic go on to be productive but too many of these ill educated fools go into politics or back into academia.
If you hear a funny noise, that's me clapping my hands and cheering.
Brilliant analogy. I'm married to a professional warrior, and many of my friends are warriors who need to win real fights. When the crap hits the fan, woo-woo becomes irrelevant. We are now ruled by woo-woo. Let's hope the woo-woo masters in all fields are forced to emulate one of moviedom's greatest scenes: "Run Away, Run Away!"