Tag: Climate

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Harvard isn’t what it once was

And now I have a partial explanation for how COVID-19 became what it was and how vaccines that don’t work came to be foisted on the world as “Safe and Effective” when apparently they are neither.

An ars Technica article is reporting 37 questionable studies at a Harvard affiliated cancer research center.

For goodness sake. 

What the hell happened to data integrity? 

Anyone incorporating these research papers into their own research might be led down a research dead end not because their original theory was incorrect but because they used “facts/proofs” from these papers. 

That wastes time, money (in research grants) and potentially, lives of desperate people participating in clinical trials.

I suppose this is how we end up with snake oil being sold by “real” Doctors. I suppose it’s also how “real” Doctors can stand by, knowing that the “approved” treatment protocol for a disease, (For example COVID,) was doing more harm than good.

It’s how we get scientific “Consensus” that is almost entirely incorrect about a wide variety of things. Obviously, it’s not just medicine. The spooky thing is, if this is happening in medical research, where the highest level of diligence next to nuclear bomb research is supposed to be in place, then it’s probably everywhere.

Is current geologic research just slap dash and missing the signs of a 9.0 earthquake in Northern California where Mt St Helens, and the Yellowstone super volcano all blow at the same time? Are those signs being missed because the actual observation data doesn’t fit a shitty research paper, or papers and is being thrown out?

Have we missed new energy sources, or warp drive, because of some copy / pasted incorrect data dampening a brilliant mind that perceived an anomaly but decided not to research that anomaly because the literature said it’s an instrumentation or computational error?

SCIENCE is about truth! Above all else. 

Science is observing and recording what is. Science is using those observations to predict behavior of the natural world and once that behavior is understood, science can tweak the input variables to change the outcome.

Science is also about understanding and accepting that when we’re on the boundary of the “known” sometimes science can go no further. That road block is not failure, it’s a sign that either we missed something fundamental, or our tools aren’t sophisticated enough to proceed. While the initial data is checked, the sophistication of the tools increases and the road block turns out to be only temporary.

If so called scientists and researchers are willfully fucking over the integrity of data and disseminating false results, then the basic underpinnings of science and scientific process are contaminated and at risk. 

It is possible that Academia has sunk this low, and failed humanity in selfish pursuit of money over knowledge?

A reasonable question to ask at this point is:

“Is the lack of integrity and principals confined to Harvard?“

I strongly suspect that it’s not due to the competitive nature of grants and donors.

Can anything MIT, Yale, the entire UC system, Stanford, or in fact any “Top” research center or college publishes, actually be trusted?

Sadly, I think not. I say this with a heavy heart and ask you to consider the following.

Can we trust the climate change folks, or the climate deniers? We know that a large percentage of the “Climate Change Data” was falsified. The simulation used to claim the planet had 12 years left was rife with errors and inconsistencies where the data was manipulated to produce a dire outcome.

The reason for this appears to have been more research money, fame, & fortune! But it spawned the “Consensus” bullshit on the one side and the “Climate Change deniers” on the other. 

The impact is that instead of having real data that was as good as it could be, presenting that data to the people of the world and using it to become better stewards of our beautiful planet. Really good and accurate research was thrown out with the contaminated data by 1/2 the planet.

There are a few people like myself who think we each should do our best to limit our long term effect on the planet. At the same time, we must intelligently assess and balance human needs versus planetary ecology. We should also be able to place our faith in our advancing technological capabilities, because if we’re all thinking about using our resources wisely then our “mistakes of necessity” today can and will probably be mitigated by technology of tomorrow.

That only works IF SCIENCE is indeed TRUTH.

There’s danger in bad or politicized research too. Look at COVID. We were actively shutting down scientists, real scientists who had actual data describing the dangers of mRNA. They weren’t blue skying or theorizing. These scientists had actually used and in some cases abandoned mRNA because of its inherent instability.

Instability mind you, that made mRNA unsuitable for their research on rats.

The world censored them, and ignored their real world experience in the matter. That’s like ignoring the man with the charred hand telling you that fire is hot.

Our society did exactly that. This is not to say that at some point in the future mRNA therapies won’t be safe, stable, and effective. However, right now we just don’t know enough to call mRNA therapy Safe. The scientists warning against the use of mRNA weren’t saying it should never be used, they were saying that it wasn’t ready to be used, YET.

What about CERN? Those folks are playing with stuff that could really go awry, can we trust that they’re not faking data, or worse yet unknowingly using falsified data in their experiments? If they are using bad data, where might that lead given the nature of their investigations and experiments? I’m not in the “CERN will create a black hole that destroys the world camp.” But there’s a whole lot of energy CERN uses, and directs, I’d hate to think their math is wrong. 

I think that no scientist should be censored, and the politics has no place in scientific endeavor. I also think it’s time for cut / paste researchers or Phds to pay a price for their deceit. I believe they should be tossed out of their field and never allowed to work or teach their subject of study again. 

I know that’s super harsh, but the consequence should be so terrible that no-one would risk it. Mistakes are one thing, actual deceit for a grant is criminal.

It’s the only way I can see to restore the integrity of science.

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We have WIND!

And a lot of it.

There’s a severe weather alert in effect for us. 70 MPH wind gusts are possible. Based on what I’ve been hearing they’re already happening. Technically the worst of it shouldn’t be here until later tonight. The advisories don’t expire until Tuesday.

Great!

Winds this strong can pick up all kinds of crap and throw it.

I’ve already been out this morning, moving things around to secure them. I’ve stacked chairs so that their combined weight should prevent them from blowing off the deck. I’ve tucked the picnic table chairs under the stairs  to keep them in place. Other outdoor / deck things I’ve moved into the basement. 

I’ve got an event to attend this evening so yippee! The freeway will no doubt be a lot of fun. Hopefully I can make it to the venue and back without incident or debris on the road.

I’m thinking the pup will have to be inside, in his crate while I’m gone. He’d probably be okay roaming the house but I’d prefer to come home to things as I left them rather than shredded fabrics or whatever. He’s not done that kind of thing in a very long time, but if he’s bored and I’m gone for hours, he might go down the “Bad Dog” road.

My original plan was to leave him outside. He likes this time of year and often spends the evening surveying the world from his deck until 9:30 PM or so. With the strong winds such as these, a balmy 49°F quickly becomes uncomfortable as heck. 

According to the navigation information I’m going to be spending an hour and a half on the road, there and back. I know approximately where the venue is, I don’t recall it taking that long to get there. But it is in LA County and well,,, I guess that alone explains a bunch of ills.

I haven’t been in LA County for years. Literally! I think the last time I crossed the LA Country line was in 2020. I crossed then, only because I was taking a drive toward Mountain High in the summer. I wanted to get to the peak where it’s possible on a clear day, to see all of the LA Basin and sometimes the ocean.

Actually crossing into the LA Basin is another matter. I think the last time I did that, was in 2018. Going into the LA Basin tonight should be interesting.

It’s strange to me that once LA was someplace that I enjoyed. I worked in the area and there was a lot to do and see. Over time, LA lost its sheen and I became reticent to go into the city, especially if I didn’t have to. In part I chalked it up to not wanting to make the drive, when I didn’t have to make it for work.

The other half used to say, “It’s not that bad…” he’d cajole me then we’d go do something together. I noticed however that in more recent years, even prior to COVID, we’d only do things in the daytime and would be out of LA by early evening.

I thought it was his work schedule, or the distance, or that we were getting older and “Growing Up”. I wonder now if it was all of those things and that we’d seen changes in the city that concerned us on a subconscious level.

During the COVID lockdowns and the “Summer of Love” we watched in horror the events unfolding in LA and in an odd way silently agreed neither of us needed to go to Los Angeles for anything.

So we didn’t, even after the lockdowns ended and things started to return to normal.

We weren’t afraid per se, we just didn’t see any need to expose ourselves to the insanity that LA had become.

It’s amazing how much has changed since I moved to California in 1978. 

Followup 11/20/2023:

Prayers answered about the wind. It died down about 30 minutes before I left home. Jesse got to stay outside where he could run around and not be cooped up “His Room,” meaning his crate.

The expected winds along the South facing foothills also didn’t materialize until well after 9PM. While I was at the venue I checked the conditions and noted that the High Wind Advisory and High Wind Warnings were not being shown on the weather app. Driving home there were a few gusty conditions but nothing like the 70-75MPH winds the warnings all mentioned. I got home about 11pm to find the pup curled comfortably on his outdoor bed sound asleep.

The garage door opening didn’t even rouse him. It was the lights throughout the house, as I was getting out of my suit that caught his attention. He gave me the obligatory sad puppy face (for guilt’s sake) and then spread himself crossways on the bed making sure that I understood for my transgression (of leaving him,) I would have to wrestle my way into the bed, or bribe him.

The dinner was very good. The music was lovely, I’ve always been a sucker for Viola da Gamba. Chatting with the folks at the table was fun and interesting. The talk about Samuel Johnson was also interesting. It had never occurred to me that there would be competition among lexicographers either contemporaries or those separated by time.

I’ve never opened a Johnson Dictionary, I don’t usually like Merriam Webster Dictionaries, (Although due to their ubiquity I seem to find myself using them often.) I’m more of a Funk & Wagnalls kind of guy, I have spent many happy hours wandering through the Oxford English Dictionary , and various other unabridged dictionaries.

I can say that the speaker last night gave me a new appreciation of the dictionary. Now if only more people used a dictionary and the words and meanings contained therein more frequently.

The point of a word is to convey meaning, if a word is disconnected from its commonly accepted definition then meaning is lost. If only one word in a sentence suffers this kind of misuse, the context of the sentence can still allow the reader to glean the meaning intended by the misused word. That ability rapidly degrades if several of the words in the sentence are also ambivalently defined.

There is no better example of this, than Kamala Harris’s famous “word salads”.

I walked away from this event having learned some new things, and heard a number of new words being used conversationally. (NO, Not new dirty words… Dang it!) Even If those new words were being spoken by an attorney.

It’s time for me to be off and continue with my chores around here.

Have a good day.

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Woe is the puppy!

It’s rained most of the day.

The pup hates being rained on.

About every hour or so, he’ll go to the door, I’ll let him out. He will wander from one end of the deck to the other verifying that the rain is really coming from the sky and not some other source, then he’ll come back in with this pitiful look on his face.

I’d put on appropriate clothing and walk him in the rain if he wanted to go.

On the other hand, I’m just as happy to not go out in the rain. It’s nice that accidentally the dog has some common sense.

I think I needed the day off. We walk at least a mile, usually more every day seven days a week. That distance isn’t much, but it is downhill and then uphill, usually I’m being dragged a bit by the dog with 4 paw drive on. It puts a bit of stress on my knees both directions.

I’ve noticed that when I have a rare day off from the “exercise” that I feel better and stronger the next time we’re walking.

The down side is that tomorrow he’s going to have a lot of energy. So I’m likely to be really dragged all over hell’s half acre.

Eh, it’s worth it.

For some reason I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night so I’ve been a lazy slug all day. Neither the dog or I have gotten anything done.

On the plus side, at least he’s not using my pillow!

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DAMN! I hoped to not need the heat…

For at least another week or two. I was drawing runes on the floors asking Odin for another month without needing it. 

But alas, when I woke this morning, the house was in the low 50’s. That is too dang cold!  So I broke down and kicked the heater on.

I don’t like being super coldDSC0174, but I like even less the high cost of Natural Gas and don’t want to pay another outrageous bill like January and February of this year. This coming winter, my place is likely to be much colder than in years past.

With the other half’s harps out of the house I can keep it cooler because I’m not risking damage to the harps or having strings break due to the temperature.

My guitars, on the other hand, are going to be sharp as hell! So I’ll need to retune them frequently until the temp stabilizes.

I guess this means that Autumn is really here.

On the one hand perhaps the risk of fire danger is lower, on the other hand, It may feel like, the endless winter from Narnia. 

No matter, it’s a milestone. Another season passing. The first Autumn in many years that I’ll be alone. Later today, I’ll dig out my seasonal jackets. 

Life goes on. I need to get out and socialize a bit more, even if it means dealing with what passes for human beings these days.

I also need to observe humans interacting if I’m going to write stories containing humans. I’ve been thinking that perhaps a Jane Goodall approach might be appropriate. I’ll venture out into the wilds of Palm Springs, and begin observations without interacting until they don’t see me as a potential rival or threat.

I suppose I also need to check the Autumn “ToDo” list. There are a few things that need to be done before it gets to the point that I’ll need winter gloves when I’m outside. That’s a month or two away, but it seems unusually cold for this time of year. Oh perhaps it’s normally cold, and we’ve been experiencing warmer than “normal” fall weather for the past few years. 

Either way, it doesn’t change that there’s stuff I need to get done.

I’ve agreed to take a neighbor to a medical appointment on Wednesday. Perhaps while I’m waiting on him, I’ll head out to a local hardware store for supplies that I’ll need to winterize the house. I’m not going to get any painting done this year thanks to the flood control guys. Sand, dust, and debris blowing into wet paint just doesn’t look right.

It’s okay, if it’s a rough winter as predicted, I’d probably have to paint again come Spring, especially if I sell the house.

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It’s a clean new morning!

A certain someone woke me as soon as he figured out the rain had stopped.

I have to admire the way the dog resets every day. He makes me smile more than most other things, so I’ll keep him around for now.

For those of you still below the grey cloud cover, here’s a sample of what you have to look forward to, later today.

The morning smells clean and fresh. The dog is beside himself exploring the yard. He’s already pushing for a walk, which he’ll get after I’ve had at least one cup of coffee…

I’m not sure if the trash folks are coming up today or not. I don’t know how crazy things are beyond what I can see.

I never lost power, or was inconvenienced in the least by the storm. I got to stay inside most of the day enjoying a movie or two, the dog cuddled up beside me with the sound of rain on the roof and the wash behind the house roaring away.

It looks like there’s some kind of inspection crew down at the bridge, I can see the lights but not what they’re doing. I guess I need a decent pair of binoculars at the very least.

I’ve been waiting for a pair that were all “techie” range finder, night vision, predator weapon interface. You know, loaded with SciFi shit like you see in the movies. You’d think by now someone would have put something like that together! 😁

I wanted to see if the smiley face would work. Don’t expect me to start communicating in modern hieroglyphics but I wanted to test it as an option.

It doesn’t look like there’s a lot to clean up immediately around the house. I’ll wander out in a bit to do an inspection just to make sure. I don’t believe there’s any damage either so I don’t have to deal with insurance claims or FEMA.

As you may have noticed I’ve posted some video in the past day or two. Yesterday it was because I was bored, and a video shot on my phone was not to my liking. I set about cleaning it up and learned more about editing video. I’ll never be a pro at it but it’s interesting to dabble with.

The reason I shot the video in the first place was to send to my neighbor who is helping out a sick loved one in Palm Springs and was curious about his house and the neighborhood. I suspect that he’s dealing with a number of messes out there which are more severe than what happened here.

Once I’d exhausted my patience with video stuff, I spent the rest of the day answering inquiries from family on the East Coast who had watched too much CNN. From the way they were talking I imagined CNN was saying that the end of days was here and it was starting in California?

Anyway after quieting their concerns and reminding them all that an 8000 Ft mountain stood between me and the storm, they lapsed back to normal anxiety levels. I’m so confident about my mountain I dare a CAT 5 hurricane to hit it directly!

Bring it! Mother Nature.

Seriously, most storms that come in from the South are gutted on the peaks of the mountains. I live in their shadow, the upside is those storms I don’t usually worry about too much, the down side is that in winter it’s dark at my house by 3pm.

The only storms I really worry about are those swirling storms that come in from the North. Those are usually bitterly cold and batter the town for days on end.

Those of you who were impacted by the storm, I hope you fared at least as well as I did. Remember things are still gooey in some places. So pay attention and don’t take any chances with mud or innocent puddles across the roads.

Have a good day

I just found out that part of my little town is cut off due to some roads and bridges being washed out. This doesn’t affect me per se because I don’t need to go anywhere today or probably tomorrow. When I secured the place due to the unknowns of the storm, I secured to stay in place for days… Even a week or two if necessary.

I find that having laid in supplies, having a plan, and not having to go anywhere tends to make me a whole lot calmer about this sort of thing.