BaalChatzaf

Happenstance. I am not out looking to receive non-fatal blows.

Any blow that does not break my back, makes me stronger....

Yes. Being smart and knowing one is smart and occupying a position of privilege can sap ambition and the urge to excel.

The is reminiscent of the Urey-Miller experiments. Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment

Those statistics are reasonably sound. But what of the causes? There is a hypothesis which I moderately subscribe to , to wit, the mating customs of Ashkenazim in Europe put a high value on males who mastered the intricacies of the Babylonian Talmud and the very strict reasoning of the Scholars, Rabbis and Sages. These bright young fellows had their pick of the women in the villages and shtetils. The matchmakers (marriages were arranged to advantage the families of the women who paid a bride prices for a good husband) would often pair up the brilliant young Talmud-Bucher with the daughter of the richest man in the Shtetel. It turns out this was a breeding program to make intelligent children (although the mechanisms of human biological inheritance were unknown at this time). Now contrast this with how Catholics arranged things. The best and the brightest sons were encouraged to go into the Priesthood where their opportunities for biological mating were .... limited..... So the Catholics were taking half of the gene pool for intelligence out of circulation. There you have a crude and semi-plausible account for why the Ashkenazim were "so smart". Also for cultural reasons every Jewish male was encouraged to become as learned as he could in matters of Talmud and Torah. The logic of and about the Talmud (and logic there was) was a kind of hybrid between inferential logic and inductive logic. It was, at its root Bayesian reasoning. To become an accomplished Talmud scholar of repute required decades of study. Jews have traditionally put a high premium on "being smart" and practical! It is just the thing one needs to survive in a hostile or potentially hostile environment. So in a strange way, the anti-Semites promoted the breeding of super-smart Jews. One had to have one's wits firmly attached to survive in that environment. Breeding programs of other sorts have emerged in the Asiatic nations. China is renowned for turning out its share (and more than their share) of very smart people. Some thousands of years ago China was several light years ahead of Europe in both abstract thinking and practical engineering. China, which has dumped Lenin and Marx for good old practical reasons is in the process of reclaiming its eminent position in the world of ideas and technology. Japan has also done well and in the smaller Asiatic nations as wells as Japan and China the "tiger-moms" who push their son's unmercifully is a known phenomena. There is a shortage of women in the Asiatic nations (sons are preferred to daughters for cultural reasons) so the brightest and most ambitious males are more likely to "score" in the reproductive struggle and competition. And so it goes. A combination of genetics and culture, in some cases, is an effective breeding program for intelligence. Ba'al Chatzaf --- a descendant of Abraham, if not in the flesh, then certainly in the spirit.

The combustion of natural gas produces one half the CO2 per joule of energy released by combustion as does burning coal. So if all our coal burning generating plants were replaced by natural gas burning plants the a amount of CO2 produced would be cut by a half. In addition burning natural gas is cleaner than burning coal and burning natural gas does not produce the horrendous poisonous ash heaps that burning coal does. In the ash heaps you find heavy metals (lead, arsenic...) and trace amounts of fissile elements. When the rain wets the ash heaps heavy metal compounds are leached into the the soil and find their way to nearby aquifers.

Individual weather events, be they fair or foul do not give us much information on climate. In the climate trade moving 30 years intervals over which temperature, humidity, and frequency of rain, drought is averaged. A 30 year average gives us a single climate point. Weather is controlled by some form of chaotic dynamics. Read up on Ed Lorentz and the butterfly effect to get a grip on that. Chaotic dynamics manifests a extreme dependency on initial and boundary conditions. Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory That is why weather cannot be accurately predicted more than a week ahead. Climate exhibits chaotic behavior but on a stretched time scale How difficult is it to model and predict climate? On a scale of 1 to 10 producing a quantum theory of elementary particles is a +5 (the standard model) and climate is 9.9. One of the reasons that a faithful climate model is not forthcoming is that there is currently no know algorithm for computing the solution to the Navier-Stokes equation numerically at all necessary scales of resolution. Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier–Stokes_existence_and_smoothness Climate not only involves temperature and humidity, but also the flow of matter from region to region. Thus a solution to the Navier Stokes equation is require. If one wished to compare the development of climate science with the development of basic particle physics or equilibrium thermodynamics, it would be fair to say climate science has not achieved the level that dynamics and mechanics was at prior to Galileo and Newton. Or the level that Thermodynamics as at prior to Maxwell and Boltzmann. Ba'al Chatzaf

I assume that means you would prefer to see fewer abortion and more use of birth control techniques and technology. Ba'al Chatzaf

Yup. Austrialion just had its own Rebellion of the Deplorables. England had BREXIT, the U.S. got Trump and Australia got rid of the Labor-Green kabal to impose wind turbines on the public, at public expense of course. Good for Oz!!!!!!

No. A right to food mean you are free to grow your own food or seek the means to purchase food from others. It is NOT mean someone has to feed you.

R U Serious?

Our detection of electron and other subatomic particles is theory laden. What we perceive is the output of a device which taken together with a theory or model that asserts the output is from an electron (or other subatomic particle) constitutes a "detection" of the particle. If we didn't have a theory we would not be talking about electrons and other non-perceivable objects.

The melting of the Arctic sea ice means the Northwest Passage will stay open long which mean more sea commerces can use this shorter route. It is good news for trade and business.

Right now we have no way of knowing for finding out. Anything done now is speculation and supposition.

Ask the cartoonist what it means.

Yup. It looks like a kippah

At means Natenyahu is leading blind Donald around by a leash.

Someone left that cake out in the rain. I don't know if I can take it, it took so long to bake it and I'll never have the recipe again... oh no......

There is a subliminal anti-semitism wired into our culture. Mostly it is out of site, but it is always there. One might think the Right Wingers would be most likely to manifest this attitude, but not so. Anit-semitism is alive and ill in the camp of the liberal progressives. And I think know why. Jews have overcome the disadvantages of their marginal position in our society primarily on their own initiative and effort. In short, they did not need the government to manage the problem. The fact that Jews have succeeded without government largess and assistance is proof positive that the the assumption government is needed to overcome racism and bigotry is a canard. And this pisses the Liberal Progressives off mightily.

If one of those modified apes resolves the Riemann Hypothesis we can reasonably conclude the Ape's intelligence was enhanced.

Say Amen, someone.

Do I detect a note of sarcasm and mockery?

Only in America (or Transylvania).

If the start of the next Little Ice Age happens around 2100 the Alarmists will claim it is due to AGW.

The politicians will ALWAYS deem it inecessary