The one area where technology is still genuinely advancing is DNA/RNA technology, and closely related technologies that are working towards nanotechnology from the biological end rather than the organic chemistry end. China used ten year old technology to develop test kits for SARS-CoV-2 in a few days, and now has millions of test kits. Australia and Singapore have an adequate supply of locally produced test kits, with which they appear …
The reproducibility crisis
Watts Up With That? does a good job covering the climate scam, the only flaw being that they post so much good data that one is apt to lose sight of the forest for the trees. The have recently posted an excellent post on the reproducibility crisis. The short of it is that nineteen out twenty science papers seem to be making up their data. I would say that this …
Oligarchs
The big winner of the Democratic Party presidential nominee debate was, of course, President Donald Trump. The commies called out the oligarch for being an oligarch, and the oligarch called out the commies for being commies. The commies lost and the oligarch lost worse. Following the debate Bernie Sanders gleefully referred to “our networks” – implying that some nominally private networks are in fact owned by the Permanent Government / …
Trump’s struggle for power.
The president attempting to actually exercise the powers of the presidency is rather like Queen of England attempting to actually rule England. As was revealed in the House impeachment hearings, the permanent government are shocked and outraged that a merely elected politician meddles in running the country, and are disinclined to comply. Trump cannot get anybody senate confirmed, and those few Senate confirmed appointments, who are seldom loyal, have a …
Warriors, Merchants, war, markets, and capitalism.
From the time of Xenophon to the Crimean war, every long distance campaign by westerners had a free market following the camp and the march. Every single man in the army fought, and the camp followers fed them, clothed them, and armed them. Alexander, fighting a long distance campaign, had ten camp followers for every soldier, but every man in Alexander’s army fought in every major battle, including Alexander himself, …
A prediction.
Because of rationalization, prediction is a good test of theories. One can always with sufficient cleverness find a hundred and one explanations of past events that fit your model. Wrong predictions indicate indicate false models, and right predictions indicate true models, but retrodiction is always suspiciously accurate. Correct retrodiction is sometimes valid evidence for the truth of a model when it makes sense out of phenomena that were formerly arbitrary, …
Current news
We in Flight 93. The plane is headed directly to the ground. Trump is in the cockpit fighting the hijackers, but even if he wins, that is no guarantee he can pull the plane out of the dive. I normally don’t pay much attention to the latest political events, nor cover them in this blog, because it is mostly a distraction, intended to confuse and mislead. It is more important …
Creeping coup
Doing illegal acts and getting away with it due to state power is a creeping coup. If one side in a struggle for state power can do illegal things, and the other side cannot, the illegal things eventually escalate till the political leadership of side that cannot commit crimes flees the country or goes into hiding. We are in hiding, and people in the military with dangerous ideas get prosecuted …
A merry Christmas and a blessed New Year to all men of goodwill
Impeachment
Trump: This Witch Hunt must end NOW with a trial in the Senate, or let her default & lose. Trump wants a trial in the Senate at which Democrats get to call witnesses, Trump gets to cross examine their witnesses and Trump gets to call witnesses, and they get to cross examine his witnesses. During which he gets to put on the greatest show on earth, unlike the ratings killing …