A bit of wisdom

For a while, I've been urging my family to take it easy on air conditioning because, quite frankly, the environmentalists are working hard to cut us off from abundant supplies of fossil fuels required to keep the A/C going.  Hence, we might do well to get used to a little wider range of temperatures than is today typical in various ways.

Ways I've recommended to my family include natural fiber clothing, learning to use fans well (75 watts for a fan is much better than the kW used for A/C), and conditioning ourselves through exposure to thermal extremes.  Today, The Art of Manliness presents us with a list of ways to recognize the signs of heat stroke, and to avoid them.  One interesting fact that I'd not previously known--odd because I grew up running cross country, track, and road races--is that a healthy marathoner can be as hot as 104F and still be OK.

And that's a key issue for us, really.  The recommendations linked indicate that being physically fit is a key part of this, and that's intuitive because (think whales and seals) fat is a great insulator.  Along with that, it's key to nourish ourselves well, especially with fluids, and then bit by bit get used to the higher temperatures.

This could go really badly

While it's been known for decades that the state-supported "Catholic" churches of Europe aren't terribly "Catholic" in practice, apparently "Catholic" authorities in Germany are contemplating rewriting Catholic doctrines to suit their preferences.  The Pope is, not surprisingly, not amused.

Really, Germans of all people ought to remember, ahem, how things went down the last time German government authorities tried to redefine their churches.  Do they really want to go there?  

Here in the U.S., we are so blessed to have a First Amendment that (at least for now) puts the kibosh on this sort of thing.

Russia's real aims

BS Artist Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is admitting that their real territorial aims go well beyond Donbas, and that their end goal is a Ukraine with, in effect, no weapons systems in range of Russian territory.  But on the flip side, as the Russian lines advance, Russia is arguing that they are assimilating Kherson and other territories into Russia.

Doesn't sound like there would be much to Ukraine when they get done, if they're allowed to.  Praying they won't be allowed to do it, as it would put not only Ukraine, but also Russia, under totalitarian rule for another generation.  Hopefully somebody gives Mr. Putin a case of "acute lead poisoning" before too many good men are dead.

Putin delenda est!

The end of Soviet era weaponry?

The Russian assault on Mykolaiv, Ukraine--ahem, predominantly on civilian targets--is apparently being done increasingly with S-300 antiaircraft missiles.   Having worked a bit with defence related contracting at two different jobs, suffice it to say that the guidance systems for antiaircraft missiles, which need to hit a moving target, are most likely far more complicated (and expensive) than ordinary surface to surface missiles.  

Implications; the Russian supply chain for relatively inexpensive surface to surface missiles is breaking down, so they're burning precious surface to air missiles instead.  Along with using ancient T-62s and such, this is not a good sign for Russia.  Putin delenda est!

Translation guide to green energy

This Fox News article about solar panels illustrates, inadvertently, something I've suspected for a long time; that when we're talking about green energy, one ought to double the estimated cost and halve the benefits, and then the numbers are a lot closer to reality.  How so?

Well,  the article states that in California, mass deployment of solar panels started in 2006, and that now, these solar panels are reaching the end of their 25 year lifecycle.  Now, of course, 2006 to the present is actually only 16 years, so we would infer that the actual useful lifespan of solar panels is not 25 years, but rather 16 years or less.  So if we divide the prospective benefits by two, we're a lot closer to reality.

In the same way, how do you dispose of a used solar panel?  Well, due to the toxic heavy metals like selenium and cadmium in solar panels, you need to handle them as hazardous waste.  Now yes, manufacturing solar panels is expensive, but so is creating a hazmat site with a clay underlayer to prevent leaching into the groundwater with containers that will prevent leaching.

In other words, double the costs, and you're just about there.  And how, precisely, it is better to make solar panels with coal fired power plants (no scrubbers to pull sulfur out of the exhaust there!) in China than to simply burn the coal here (with scrubbers and bag houses) to create electricity is not altogether clear to me.  And yet we are subsidizing one and penalizing the other.

Let's go back to Econ 101

While even the Austrian School of economics (lewrockwell.com, mises.org, fee.org) agrees that a primary driver of high prices is the Federal Reserve and loose monetary policies, I half wonder whether we ought to simply consider the basic supply and demand graph as indicative of how to solve the problem.  We have closed off oil drilling and pipelines, paid people not to work, and a whole bunch more, all while providing generous  subsidies to all those people who are not working.

Looks like we're suppressing supply and increasing demand, and then we're wondering why prices are rising.  Maybe it's time to change our approach.

Counting on the scientifically illiterate

Russia responds to Ukraine hitting one of their ammunition depots, creating a monstrous explosion, by claiming that what had actually been hit was a storehouse for saltpeter.

Problem:  saltpeter is not explosive.  Congratulations, again, to Russia for failing to run their propaganda past anyone who had passed basic chemistry to the point of being able to decipher, say, the CRC handbook and related materials.  

Update: if you look at the image of the ammunition dump getting hit, you will see any number of secondary explosions that occur as ammunition is blown up into the sky by the initial set of explosions.

They also appear to have a problem figuring out that, yes, when they've invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian defenders are indeed going to attack the very Ukrainian cities the Russian army has taken.  In other words, they believe that they can pull the wool over the world's eyes, and the front page of Pravda is increasingly looking like it did back in the 1980s--a pure mouthpiece for the ruling officials.

On the light side

Gwynneth Paltrow's Goop line apparently makes candles that not only smell like, well, remember that painting from Gustave Corbet, but also appear to be flammable in a way that, well, ordinary paraffin and beeswax are not.  As a result, a couple of customers are dealing with some fairly significant burns.

I would dare say it's one of the greatest moments in quality assurance by a company since Lululemon decided not to control the sources of the fabric used for their products, or since the Russian Army decided that routine maintenance wasn't that necessary for their trucks and armored vehicles.

Putin et Goop delenda est!

Looks grim for Russia

Now yes, the Russian terrorist force Army is making slow but steady progress in Donbas, but these comments from Vladimir Putin do not, despite their apparent bravado, bode well for Russia.  The reason here is that any officer worth his salt knows that the artillery is targeting mostly civilian targets, T-72s subjected to the "Jack in the Box" treatment by the Ukrainians are being replaced by T-62s (obsolete since the 1960s) with untrained crews, and the Russian Air Force Al Qaida is reduced to launching missile attacks (again, at civilian targets) from over the Caspian Sea, 500 miles from the border of Ukraine.

Any officer worth his salt knows the number of BTGs in the army, and that 70% of them went to Ukraine, and that there's no way in H*** that conscripts are going to replace the 30-40,000 soldiers who are dead, and tens of thousands of others who've been wounded or maimed.

And now the Russians are facing an enemy whose artillery has a far greater range than their own while they see a terrorist in chief making comments they know full well are BS.  As officers, at least those below the general staff rank, wake up to what Putin has done to them, there is going to be H*** to pay.

Putin delenda est!

Now this is interesting

Apparently urologists are seeing an uptick in inquiries about vasectomies in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision.   Well, it's not quite the result I'd like to see--people deciding that maybe promiscuous sex is a bad thing--it is at least a start to a touch of responsibility on some peoples' part.

On the pro-life side, it strikes me that our challenge in fighting abortion is twofold; first,  eliminate subsidies for the likes of Planned Parenthood on the grounds that it's simply wrong to tax pro-life people to support abortion clinics.  Second, keep emphasizing that promiscuity is the fast road not only to unwanted pregnancies, but also STDs, mental illness, and more.

We'll never win 100%, but we can come a lot closer than we are now.