MST

@luisbaram Defending Mao is the signature cause of many people on the left. It defined an entire movement in the ‘60s.

At this point, defending Fauci is like defending Mao. And yet, some people on the left are doing exactly this.

@Becky_Weiss_ You go, Becky!!!

What did I miss?

@nealasher @elonmusk We just need Faith. Actually, several Faiths. @Jringo1508

@elonmusk Apparently, in Spain, nobody expected them. . . I'll get my coat.

Wow, the situation in Spain looks crazy!

@ericweinstein So Zhu has never ever run across an Ed.D. who gets offended and growls, “That’s DOCTOR Jill!” *All* of them do.

We should have a scotch and a talk.

From the outside we see: 1) Scientific academic careers can be destroyed by faculty and forces both inside and outside your discipline. Witness either Weinstein brother. 2) Rocking anyone’s boat can endanger funding, so critics are crushed. 3) Much of basic research seems to have devolved into angels on heads of pins unresolvable questions, or massive boondoggles. Quantum Gravity, Dark Matter, Build a Bigger Collider… 4) Much of the publication world seems to accept very questionable data with very badly defined error bars and frequently fudged data. Whistle blowers fall into point 2 above. 5) Politicization of everything. “The Science” is in disrepute. If you can’t bring yourself to distinguish between XX and XY individuals, you tacitly dump 300 years of biological science progress in the trash heap. It’s lunacy.

All the focus on Fauci is burying the more important story, which is that scientists enforcing a common narrative to the detriment of truth has become extremely common. It's a strong case of in-group behavior in academia that, I believe, most of them are not fully aware of. As @LocasaleLab put it so aptly "the academic system punishes honesty". And this is the real story: This isn't just about Fauci. Fauci is just an extreme and very visible example in a case that has attracted a lot of public attention. But misleading the public about the status of scientific research has become extremely widespread.

On point 2: the CO2 doubling argument falls apart because it assumes the sensitivity is linear, whereas it is extremely likely to be logarithmic. Each successive doubling has less effect than the previous. I have seen no “warming” literature so far that even addresses this, much less which attempts to quantify it. There is a hard limit to how much impact the CO2 filter can have. There are four major bands of CO2 absorption. These bands can only absorb the IR that is emitted within those bands. As concentration increases, the bands will eventually absorb all the available IR in that respective band, and any further increases will have no impact, i.e. the bands will become saturated. These are windows that are heavily shaded already and are nearly closed. This limitation evolves along a log curve, and is the source of my first claim. This is based on the way all radiative absorption works. Three of the CO2 absorption bands are within the much much broader H2O bands, and are relatively minor corrections on the dominant H2O absorption curves. These three bands are relatively close to saturation. The fourth band is outside the radiative windows defined by the respective black body curves of either incoming sunlight at ~5000K or the outgoing earth radiation at ~300K. It sits in the no-man’s land between them, so has no real impact. One could also calculate the remaining amount of IR which is still leaking through the windows to add that to a radiative energy warming “budget” as an absolute limit to the total warming possible. Again, I’m not aware of any quantification of that number, which should be simple to integrate from actual data. There is an absolute limit. It would be interesting for some intrepid fellow to run those numbers. Otherwise, an excellent treatment. Thanks!

My position on climate change in a nutshell: 1⃣ 𝐇𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝟕𝟓 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬? — Yes, but it has been warming since at least 1750. Only since ~1950 or so has there been any potentially significant anthropogenic influence. How can anyone on the alarmist side explain the previous 200 years? What caused the initial warming? What caused the warming between 1910 and 1945, which is ~40% of post-1850 warming, but only ~10% of emissions? So, if natural variability hasn't contributed to any warming since 1850 (which is assumed in the climate models), then you are ignoring that. 2⃣ 𝐈𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐧-𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞? — I think at least 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 of it has been. I don't know how much exactly because it cannot be measured. Perhaps 25% or 50%. Maybe 75%? Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is in fact a “greenhouse gas” (GHG). All else being equal, adding more of it to the atmosphere should cause at least some warming; that is, ~1°C (~1.8°F) per doubling of its concentration, plus any positive feedbacks that act to amplify it (the Planck feedback, which makes the sum of feedbacks net negative, is already accounted for in the RF2xCO2 calculation). In theory, this explanation makes sense. It's radiative transfer physics. Some of it is basic math, some of it is more complicated, but it is well-understood. But a challenge in actually attributing GHG emissions to all recent warming is that the natural energy flows in and out of the Earth's climate system cannot be measured with the accuracy and precision needed to ascribe all recent warming to GHGs. The uncertainty on the TOA flux is about 5-10 W/m², which is much larger than the estimated Earth energy imbalance (EEI) allegedly from CO₂ on the order of 0.8–1.2 W/m². What's more, the climate models are artificially tuned such that there can be no natural causes of warming, CO₂ is added, then it's declared that CO₂ is the only cause of global warming since 1850. 3⃣ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞? — I think that urban sprawl and land use have been significant contributors to local + regional warming trends. Theoretically, this could explain part or even most of the warming globally outside the north polar region, which is mostly rural. We are investigating this in more detail because we are convinced that urban influences have not entirely been removed from the temperature record. 4⃣ 𝐈𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐧𝐮𝐬𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐝 𝐨𝐫 𝐮𝐧𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝? — I don't think so. Alarmists always bring up the “rate of change” argument in threads, but the idea that the recent warming spike is unprecedented in the last few thousand years is based on Michael Mann's infamous tree ring-based “Hockey Stick” graph from MBH (1998, 1999) and the alleged independent look-a-like “verifications” that followed (e.g., PAGES2K). But the attempts to verify it with different proxies all used the same (or a similar) methods that will generate hockey stick-shaped graphs from red noise. The shape of the graphs are largely a statistical artifact, not an accurate representation of global climate variability over the last 2,000 years. I tested this myself using random data. Ex-post correlation screening always produces a hockey stick shape. 5⃣ 𝐈𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞? — Not really. There have been no increases in floods, droughts, thunderstorms + tornadoes + hailstorms, tropical cyclones, winter storms, or wildfires that can be attributed to GHG emissions at a global scale. There are definitely regional increases and decreases in some of these event types that are within the bounds of natural variability. In the case of certain drought types (e.g., hydrological and ecological) and wildfires that have increased regionally, that is usually attributable to land use change + poor water resource management and poor forest management, respectively. Evidence that GHG forcing has led to an increase in said events is, in my assessment, weak. You can maybe argue an increase in heatwaves and heavy rainfall since 1950 globally, but the increase in heavy rainfall occurred suddenly around 1990, which is largely an artifact of the change to automation and more efficient rain gauges. There is also a lot of data (usually legitimate extreme Tmax and precipitation values) that get falsely marked as “missing” in the digitized data, which means they get missed in every analysis published in journals and on databases. We are finding that when you look at the original paper forms, most “missing” data aren't actually missing and so we have to go in and correct the records. This is a major problem in the U.S. (in fact, filling all of the missing 20th century rainfall data in Texas in turns an increase in the top 1% of heavy rainfall events per station to a slight negative trend since 1900). I assume this problem exists outside the U.S., but at this point in time, I can't be too sure. I haven't looked into it yet. 6⃣ 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 “𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬” 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐧-𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠? — No, not really. All global warming, natural or man-made, will result in higher latitudes warming faster than the mid-latitudes and land heating up faster than water (and by extension, the Northern Hemisphere warming faster than the Southern). So, while these changes would be consistent with GHG forcing, it's also consistent with changes in solar activity, cloud cover changes, etc. The cooling in the stratosphere since the late 1970s is probably due to CO₂. So, at least some of the warming in the troposphere since then is due to CO₂. But not all of it can be attributed to CO₂ necessarily because the physics of heat transfer in the troposphere are far more complex than that of the upper atmosphere where radiation is king and the physics are simpler. In the troposphere, you have convection and precipitation processes (latent heating) that are highly uncertain and these processes can change naturally. The fluxes on these are larger than the relatively small EEI estimated by CERES instrumentation and assumed to be due to CO₂. 7⃣ 𝐈𝐬 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬? — As far as I can tell, no. The quality of life on Earth has never been better than it is today, and it is only projected to improve through 2100 by almost every measurable metric. We can adapt to whatever climate changes there are just like we always have. But just like with any climate change that has ever occurred, natural or man-made, there will be pros and cons to it depending on where you live. I am what you call a “lukewarmer.” I do not deny that there is anthropogenic influence on the climate system, but I'm also not running around like a hysterical chicken either. There are far more important environmental problems that need to be addressed that are within our control.

@DefiantLs Jews and Asians are obviously not demographic blocs, apparently.

Rep. Crockett: "Black women, the most educated demographic in this country, somehow ended up the most unemployed out of everyone."

Dunno. I’ve got some stud that has been running continuously for at least five years. Others that are on a considerable amount of the time for more than five. I started moving to LED when they banned incandescents and tried to shove fluorescents down our throats. That was a non starter. Yeah, I’ve had a not inconsiderable few go out, but it’s usually one LED of the five or more , and you can jumper around them. Maybe something like 10% have died, but I also had a bunch of an early special of a Sylvania bulb that were clearanced really cheap at Home Depot, and most of the failures were from that set. I suspect that’s more power supply than LEDs, but never bothered to check.

Guys, I’m starting to think they lied to us about the LED light bulbs lasting 10,000 hours.

@nobleisawinner Delusional.

@nealasher Couple of flamethrowers would take care of that infestation.

World War Z.

@WesternLensman I think Cargill caught Biden’s senility. But it’s hard to tell because he’s always had rabies.

This is what James Carville decided to go with in response to the Fauci revelations: "This was basically an honest guy…There is no evidence that he tried to make any money off of it." "I don't think the guy really made any mistakes."

@VodkaPundit Absitively! Saw it in the theater, took me years to run down video tape. Now it streams.

That moment as a kid when you realize that you're definitely straight.

@james_xond Used to. My leftist friends have ghosted me, starting about 2011.

Can two people with completely opposite political views still be close friends?

@dunebat I thought that honor went to 2007. 2000? Maybe 1992.

Define "normal," please.

@LTCTheresaLong Can’t get emergency exemptions if there’s an existing treatment. Can’t bank a couple hundred billion. ☹️

The website earlyc19.org I gave the link to senior medical leaders and they rolled their eyes because the "anointed one" was not blessing HCQ or IVM...interesting fact one of DHA first acts was to put a policy in place that PREVENTED providers from prescribing HCQ for covid!

@LozzaFox @naomirwolf How would we know it’s her sitting the bench?

This is wrong. This should be banned. I need to see your eyes.

From the Flappers and Zoot Suits, to the cigarette pack rolled up in your white t-shirt, to the James Dean jacket and pompadour hair, to Beatles mop-tops, and later Lennon’s granny glasses, to blue jean, and particularly Levis loyalty, which flipped to double-shirt Izod preppiness— *sigh* — it does get tiring. Between the piercings, the gauges, the tattoos, and the neon hair, not to mention the performative poverty, I call it the new barbarism. Or as Billy Joel sang: “you can’t dress trashy unless you spend a lot of money.”

Ever notice how the radical left all wear the exact same "anti-establishment" uniform? 🧐 From septum rings to specific brands, the reality of modern progressive style might surprise you. It turns out that screaming anti-capitalism while engaging in heavy corporate brand loyalty is the ultimate contradiction. Let’s break down the actual sociology and spending data behind visual virtue signaling. Drop your thoughts in the comments below! 👇 #culturalanalysis #politicalcommentary #consumerism

Not mentioned in your litany is the monster under the bed: Fauci was the ultimate mover and funder of US biological warfare research; the primary reason he threw down with the “it’s not a lab leak” crowd. It was _his_ lab leak. How far down that rabbit hole that investigation could go is the next question. Intentional, or prospectively intended. Certainly “never let a crisis go to waste.”

@deaflibertarian You do if you think your memoir is gonna be a best seller.

Grown men, in this century, do not write diaries.

@ThrillaRilla369 Smarter than me.

Describe those that decided to remain unvaccinated in 3 words or less. 🤔