By Muriel Haggard and her Russian yes-man “Da” Quasson
Epigraph: “God does not play dice with the universe, but everyone else does.”
Are you the functional equivalent of a denier if you believe the following? (1) The globe is warming substantially. (2) Human activity is causing it. (3) Unless the warming is stopped, doom looms; (4) Unless the U.S. promptly reduces its energy consumption by at least eighty percent (80%), the worst will not be averted.
It seems to me that if (4) is true, then building a four-foot-high dike against a 100-foot-high tsunami is the same as doing nothing at all, like replacing the batteries in a flashlight with no bulb, so why bother? If the only thing that will actually save the world is for the U.S. (or the world) to adopt a carbon tax equivalent to $50 a gallon on gasoline, the world is well and truly cooked, for it simply won't happen.
Does "consensus" mean unanimity, or something less than 100% agreement? If the latter, what percentage constitutes "consensus"? required?
This poster illustrates every bird in North America. Or is the Declaration of Independence. Hard to say.
Is this where we’re headed or where we already are?
“Look! A squirrel!”
Selected clickbait (neutered):
Stones that move but whose movements no one has ever seen.
Electrical fire or gateway to another dimension?
University remote camera captures terrifying Northern California forest “firenado.”
Dad with four daughters learns his wife is having another girl, walks outside, just gives up.
Scientists recreate extinct virus. What could go wrong?
Saucy Aussie checks single beer as luggage when airline won’t let her carry it on board.
Smoke above Mt. Vesuvius forms skull shape.
(End of clickbait.)
"Ce n'est pas l'immensité de la vôute étoilée qui peut donner le plus complétement l'ideé de l'infini, mais bien la bêtise humaine." --Voltaire (“Genius has limits. Stupidity, not so much.”)
“What can’t go on, will stop.” --“Stein’s Law,” after Herbert Stein. The last word on sustainability.
The new 007: “Spheres. Darka Spheres.” “Spheres turned her head and the bullet missed her ear by a millimetre. She was shaken but unstirred.”
A friend (Bucky the Vampire Player) reports: “The Eleventh Circuit recently affirmed that Nationwide acted in bad faith by refusing to settle a claim against its insured for the policy limits of $100,000, exposing the policyholder to a $5.83 million verdict. The evidence at trial indicated that Nationwide knew its insured could be liable for damages in excess of the policy limits, but failed to timely respond to a reasonable settlement demand. A sharp lesson for Nationwide -- it not only exposed its insured to a verdict higher than the policy limits, it also exposed itself to millions of dollars in damages on a claim for that it acted in bad faith.”
Robert Recorde, long-ago inventor of the equals sign, died in debtor’s prison at age 48. Uncelebrated in his lifetime, he was a hero of mathematics and posthumously of computer science for more than that one contribution. By contrast, David Bradley (b. 1949), the inventor of the CTRL+ALT+DEL key command for reboot, is justly celebrated in his lifetime. Like Recorde, Bradley has other accomplishments; including (in Bradley's case) seven patents.
The above graph shows that Silver Street should be renamed Rue d’Biega.
On the subject of renaming local streets, how about renaming Main Street “Sailing, Sailing Over the Bounding Main Street” in honor of Middletown’s underappreciated nautical history?
Or call it “Mani Street” after the nowadays-underappreciated Iranian prophet Mani (c. 216-276 CE), founder of Manichaeism and the current sharply divided U.S. political situation.
“Neolocal” is an adjective that means “designating the domicile of a newly married couple as located separately from the homes of either of their parents.”
Hypograph: “It’s hard to be an elitist once you’ve met the elites.” --Will Rahn
(c) 2017 Ineffectual Ambition, LLC, a division of The Large But Poorly Defined Project, Ltd.: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” --Samuel Johnson
