Eric J Hägerström 白鷺川

Ban air travel. Bring back sailing ships and horse-driven stage coaches!

Oh the drama of being surrounded by cops and screaming someone call 9-1-1. Is this the equivalent of a call for “more cowbell?”

HOLY CR*P 🚨 Minnesota Rep Krista Knudsen says they just found out the state TURNED OFF tracking for money being sent overseas They turned it on for 2 weeks. Saw all the money leaving, and Democrats quickly SHUT OFF TRACKING to allow it to keep happening READ THAT AGAIN “Today in the fraud committee, the Department of Human Services testified that they haven't been tracking the IP addresses of money that's being literally flown out of our state and where it's going. They did turn on that reporting for 2 weeks, and they found that yes, a lot of those IP addresses were tied to overseas computers, and then they quickly shut it off after just 2 weeks of seeing where this money is actually going” “Every time we turn around, it's just more and more fraud scandals in our state”

This will be the last thing I post today because I have better things to do. What confuses me about these generals is their visceral reaction to what most of human history would consider classic strength of purpose. Brute force if you will. Should every leader be like that? Of course not. But what's telling about these generals is their complete and utter revulsion at any other leadership style than their own. They are intolerant. And most know they're intolerant. The ones that look past it are those who've conformed to their way of thinking. What befuddles me is their absolute denial of the fact that millions of people respond well to the type of leadership they revile in Hegseth. They can't explain it because it doesn't fit nicely in their "MOPS/MOES" worldview. It is intangible. I'm just tired of these weak takes. I'm tired of these generals who go out of their way to appear "measured". They are the living embodiment of the 'proportional response'. They are self styled masters of limited war. That's why they scoff at terms like "unconditional surrender". Because they have never and will never be equipped to prosecute the type of war necessary to achieve it. No. They just refer to those of us furious after GWOT, growing up in the shadow of their inadequacy, as "potential war criminals" because we finally get to shoot back. Look, I'm not trying to be as mean as these bitter generals. I'm not. But I'm just so sick and tired of being lectured at about what war means from people who couldn't be bothered to win one. They couldn't win then. They can't win now. And they will try to take down anyone they can at some final shot at relevance. Because maybe if they can get that one last verbal jab in, they'll finally get that little victory that eluded them on the field of battle. This cohort of officer must be removed from the service almost entirely. Notice I said "almost". Because even I see the value in the occasional corporate GOFO. But if this department is to change for the long term, it must shed most of this archetype going forward. They should be the exception, not the rule. I will not be convinced otherwise.

Whatever it takes…

Are we to expect the next move in Finland is to confiscate and shred all existing Bibles and replace them with new versions that omit the passages that insult homosexuals?”

Almost exclusively everyone who moves into my place is on a statin. It's one of the first medications I work to get them off of. I show their doctors the research - high LDL is linked to longer lifespan, and the triglyceride-to-HDL ratio is a better indicator of heart disease than LDL alone. As long as the family backs me up, I can usually get them off. We've deprescribed statins from a lot of residents and they're doing fine. I can't think of the last time I've had a cardiac event in one of my assisted living homes.

In 1970, a 23-year-old physics student at Imperial College London found himself at a life-altering crossroads. Brian May was deep into his doctoral research on cosmic dust—specifically the zodiacal dust cloud, the tiny particles that drift through the solar system and scatter sunlight. His PhD was well underway, and a promising academic career in astrophysics lay ahead. But there was another path calling him. May was also the lead guitarist of a newly signed rock band named Queen. With a record deal secured and tours on the horizon, the band’s momentum was building fast. Faced with an impossible choice between the guitar and the telescope, May made his decision: he paused his studies and bet everything on music. Queen’s ascent was meteoric. By the mid-1970s, they had become a global phenomenon. Timeless anthems like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You” exploded onto the charts, while May’s iconic homemade guitar, the Red Special, helped define the band’s legendary sound. Stadiums sold out worldwide, and millions of albums flew off the shelves. Yet throughout his rock stardom, May never fully let go of his scientific passion. Even at the height of Queen’s fame, he stayed connected to astrophysics—reading journals, attending lectures when possible, and maintaining contact with his former supervisor, Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson, who had once told him: “You can always come back and finish.” Thirty-six years after stepping away, in 2006, May decided the time had finally come. He reached out to Rowan-Robinson, and together they revived the long-dormant project. Though the field had moved forward and his original data needed updating, his early observations still held real scientific value. Balancing his ongoing music career with late-night research sessions, May updated his work, incorporated new findings, and refined his analysis. In 2007, at the age of 60, Imperial College London officially awarded him a PhD in astrophysics—not an honorary title, but one earned through rigorous research and peer review. Dr. Brian May had finally completed what he started more than three decades earlier. His journey is a powerful reminder that passion has no expiration date. Whether on stage under stadium lights or studying the dust between the planets, Brian May proved it’s never too late to finish what you began.

I wonder how much of medicine is driven by drugs. For example, why did they decide that LDL cholesterol is the main marker for heart disease, rather than triglycerides or insulin? After all, triglycerides and insulin are better markers of heart disease risk. The reason? Probably because LDL cholesterol is "targetable"--there's a drug (statins) that will lower it. So it matters less that LDL is a good marker, and more that it's a number we can change with a drug. And of course, make money in the process. If there were a drug that lowered triglycerides really well, I suspect mainstream medicine would focus more on triglycerides. (Incidentally, the best way to lower triglycerides and insulin is to control consumption of refined carbohydrates.)

This (see below from Dominic Frisby) is an excellent perspective on the current Iran crisis and its effects on energy markets, and cause for some calm, but not complacency. Something I think could be added is a bit more about why oil is central to late C20th/onwards economies. Green thinking has created the view that there is something almost mystical about oil, and that "dependence" on it is arbitrary, whereas the value of oil to a rational perspective is what it enables within the economy -- it enables the money to move around, and for buyers to find sellers, and so on. The first wave of (post) modern environmentalism more or less coincided with the first oil shock. And it seemed to confirm what the neomalthusians were saying. Resources were running out, there were too many people, and pollution was bad. But the first and second oil shocks were subsumed by the Cold War, and by the 1980s, the neomalthusian's predictions were beginning to have failed. The third oil shock coincided with the UK's Climate Change Act. I recall listening to the BBC World Service late one night that year, and on some news show Caroline Lucas was breathlessly claiming that "the era of cheap energy is over". The other guest was an owner of an oil well in Texas. He couldn't get enough of what Lucas was claiming, and agreed with her absolutely. He was delighted with her prediction that oil would soon reach $200 or more and would stay there. What strange bedfellows. Oil prices thereafter fell, and the US became the world's largest producer. It's amazing what you can find when you look for it. At its face, the Climate Change Act turned into law the idea that dependence on oil (and gas, and coal, and uranium) was arbitrary, and that you could just replace nodding donkeys with wind turbines. That's perhaps what MPs who voted for it believed and told the public. But underneath the façade, a deeper axiom of environmentalism was operating. Greens were not just sceptical about oil. They were sceptical of wealth, and especially sceptical of economic growth. And they were sceptical of industry. Environmentalism had invisibly established itself politically and culturally within British institutions, and from there it was made law with practically zero resistance. Can it be a surprise then, that the third oil shock coincides with the climate change act, and marks an era of deindustrialisation, rising prices, and on some economic metrics, an era of economic stagnation? And that is despite that era being preceded by two centuries of growth, in which economic depression, recessions, world wars and oil shocks were suffered, but the economy soon recovered. The green claim is that the shock of legislating the "transition" (to a low carbon economy), which is is functionally equivalent to an indefinite economic depression, can be mitigated through social reorganisation and redistribution of wealth (yours, not theirs, obviously). That is to say that oil shocks are welcomed by environmentalists, because they accelerate green policy agendas -- you can't just "build back" after such a crisis, you must build back "better", which is to say that economic recession must be locked in, and society reorganised around the changes seemingly caused by economic shock, that being the design of green ideology. During covid lockdowns, for example, private transport was immobilised because movement was prohibited. "Building back better" required that as much of that restriction persisted as was possible. This is framed as "resilience", but it is simply ratcheting: we're no more impervious to future shocks. We might use less gas now, but we're not less dependent on it. Renewable energy has not displaced fossil fuels, it has just closed down the industries that used them, and moved them and their jobs overseas. Meanwhile, at each turn, our political agency, sovereignty and capacities to recover are diluted. That is the real object of hostility: not the oil, but what the oil makes possible. The green conception of freedom is a seemingly extremely permissive one -- one in which you can indulge in hard drugs, late term abortion, sexual partnerships/marriage of nearly all kinds, zero regulation of borders, and so on. But its also one in which lifestyle is extremely tightly regulated -- what you may eat, how you may travel, what temperature your house is and how it is maintained. Do not doubt it: oil at $200 means depression, and European and British politicians want it there and higher, in perpetuity, because that is the only way they can cement the foundations of the green economy.

Even worse, he actually said: “undocumented Americans.” The grand compromise for the SAVE America Act would be to declare all inhabitants (legal or illegal) to be U.S. citizens, thus all become eligible to vote.

May as well rename Spain “al-Andalus.”

So basically: a) ICE deploys somewhere b) TSA lines plummet c) Traffic vanishes d) ERs clear out e) Construction sites are ghost towns f) Class sizes shrink ...and we're still supposed to believe there are only 11 million illegal aliens in the country?!

@elonmusk @philthatremains Facts. I also like how @jeffdeist explains it:

Jensen Huang just explained why China is winning the technology race in two sentences. Huang: “Our country’s leaders… they’re mostly lawyers. Most of their leaders are incredible engineers.” One country sends engineers to lead. The other sends lawyers. One builds. The other regulates what was already built. Huang: “They showed up at precisely the time when technology is going through that exponential.” China did not stumble into the AI era. They arrived engineered for it. The education system produces engineers at a scale the West refuses to match. The competition is not tough. It is Darwinian. The culture rewards builders. Not commentators. Not consultants. Builders. Then the accelerant. Open source. When your talent pool runs that deep and that hungry, you do not hoard breakthroughs. You release them. The community multiplies everything. What costs American companies a quarter, Chinese teams finish in weeks. Not because they are smarter. Because the entire system points one direction. Zero friction between idea and execution. No committee. No review board. No eighteen-month compliance process. Then Huang said the part that should terrify Washington. Huang: “Their country was built out of poverty.” Comfort makes nations careful. Poverty makes nations relentless. When you built everything from nothing, you do not slow down to protect it. You accelerate because you still taste what nothing felt like. America built its dominance with engineers. The highways. The moon landing. The semiconductor. The internet. Then it handed the keys to the lawyers. Compliance departments. Regulatory bodies. Oversight committees. Review processes for the review processes. Every layer of protection is a layer of friction. And friction is a luxury you cannot afford when your competitor rides an exponential curve. Fridman: “It’s a builder nation.” Huang: “Yeah, it’s a builder nation.” No pushback. No qualifier. The West is not being outspent. It is being out-structured. Engineers ask how do we build this faster. Lawyers ask how do we build this without getting sued. One of those questions wins the century. The other writes a detailed report about why it lost.

Your post would be more credible if you had an actual Japanese name and a legitimate personal grievance.

Nearly one in three British women are now predicted to have no children, compared to around one in 20 in 1970. The assumption is that this is because young women have simply lost interest in becoming parents. But on the contrary, nine out of ten say they hope to become mothers one day, and the desire for a home and a family to call their own remains stubbornly persistent. ✍️ Cara Usher-Smith Article | spectator.com/article/yes-wo…

The People’s Republic of China, a creation of the Chinese Communist Party, was not a member of the Allied Powers thus not a signatory to the 1945 surrender document. Rather, Chiang Kai-Shek, leader of the Kuomintang Party was recognized by the Allied Powers (the United Nations) as the legitimate head of the Republic of China.

A great egret rides on a capybara across the water

Seemingly innocuous conspiracy theories about aliens, moon landings, and a flat earth degrade people's discernment, and trust, making them susceptible to really bad ideas and more insidious conspiracy theories like antisemitism, or believing Erika Kirk had something to do with her husband's death. Podcasters like Joe Rogan have unfortunately entertained so many foolish conspiracy theories and bad ideas over the years that they no longer seem capable of discerning between truth and obvious fiction. Beware of the bad ideas you entertain. Remember: Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims.