Thursday Throughput for 8/22/19
A new treatment for Ebola, if administered early, can cut the fatality rate to 6%, a stunning reduction from the normal rate of 75%. We now have this and a working vaccine.
Author: Michael Siegel
No, Google Did Not Steal The Election
This is one of the classic methods of junk science — multiplying humbug by humbug, extrapolating upward and onward until you get dramatic conclusions that defy any common sense.
Manifest Trumpestiny
Really the Danes should consider the offer. After all, this may be their one chance to sell the island to a President who doesn’t understand the Mercator Projection.
Short Story: Back to School
School had been out for a long time; longer than Jack could remember. He wasn’t sure why they’d had to stay away. But he was excited to be going back.
Thursday Throughput for 8/1/19
I’m not one of the “we have 12 years to save the planet” doomsayers. But it does feel like we are approaching an inflection point. We will survive; but our options for how we will survive are narrowing rapidly.
Gillette: The Best a Meme Can Get
There is no evidence that the “Better Men” ad had any impact on Gillette’s sales, positive or negative.
Mayor Pete
Symposium: I think a Buttigieg presidency would be incredibly boring. And frankly, I could use a bit of boring right now. Vote for Mayor Pete. And maybe, if we’re lucky, we can occasionally forget that he’s President.
Actually, the Film Was Better Than These Books
“The book was better” is not something I say very often, but it is no less true: books are a different medium and what works on the page my not work on the screen and vice versa.
Upheaval in San Juan
Where we go from here…I don’t think anyone knows. But we once again find ourselves in interesting times.
Thursday Throughput for July 18, 2019
People talk about American Greatness. Well, astrophysics, if I do say so myself, is one the places where America is truly great.
The End of the Citizenship Fight
There was a great deal of speculation that the President would simply ignore the Court’s ruling. In any case, Trump has effectively conceded the point.
AOC and “Squad” vs Nancy Pelosi
It’s a sign of how crazy the times have gotten that many libertarians and conservatives — including this one — now see Pelosi as the voice of reason.
Thursday Throughput for July 4, 2019
This has happened to me. More than once. In her defense, I think she was probably just nervous. So I post it more for amusement than mocking.
A Camp By Any Other Name Would Smell as Foul
I don’t want the extremely esoteric battle over what we call our immigration detention facilities to distract from what they are; a catastrophe, regardless of what you choose to call them.
Thursday Throughput for June 20, 2019
I really hope to live long enough to discover that we aren’t completely alone, even if the neighbors are only one-celled organisms.
Tenshot: Chernobyl
As a scientist, I have always been intensely curious about what caused the Chernobyl explosion. The HBO series does an outstanding job of explaining.
Thursday Throughput for June 6, 2019
If Musk’s full system comes on line, the simple fact is that no one has done the kind of careful study needed to figure out the impact of this constellation.
Tenshot: I, Claudius
I, Claudius has everything Game of Thrones had. Granted, there’s a few more British actors and not quite as many dragons. But it all happened in real life.
Thursday Throughput for 5/23/19
When people’s children are more likely to survive, they have fewer of them. This is a great triumph of the modern era.
