Mar 162020
 

The original source seems to be here:

 

 

 Posted by at 6:18 pm
Mar 162020
 

People are freaking the hell out. Not surprising given the reporting in the media… a combination of actual bad/scary news, and overblown hysterics. I am, perhaps oddly, fairly calm about things even though I know that if *I* catch the Wu Flu chances are pretty good it’ll kill me. Anyone been on this blog long enough may remember a number of bronchitis episodes some years ago that almost did me in then… something like the corona virus seems like it would ride the coattails of that issue to piledrive me straight into my grave. Yay. But a whole lot of people are losing their damned minds to panic. It is thus incumbent upon the media and the political leadership to try to put forward a calming influence.

And then THIS article comes out:

Asteroid Could Cause Atmospheric Explosion If It Gets Too Close

But the article *ends* with:

CNEOS said the asteroid is expected to approach Earth on March 18 at 11:15 p.m. EDT. During this time, the asteroid will fly past Earth from a distance of 0.04241 astronomical units or roughly 3.9 million miles from the planet’s center.

For frak’s sake. That’s not even close from an astronomical standpoint. There’s no valid math that would put that asteroid on anything like an impact trajectory, and thus “could” is in my opinion inaccurate to the point of dishonesty.

 Posted by at 3:27 pm
Mar 152020
 

There are few enough stories of new government initiatives actually succeeding in doign anythign useful. Look at the SLS, for instance,  But here, at last, is a project that has not only succeeded, it should be emulated:

Most Interior Employees Reject Mandatory Reassignments, Secretary Says

The Bureau of Land Management, which deals almost exclusively with land issues in western states, wisely is moving form Washington D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado. Given that the only reason to be in D.C. is to be near other government agencies, and nobody *needs* to be near other government agencies to do their jobs (since we have these things called telephones, fax machines, email video conferencing, etc.), moving to where the job is actually relevant makes all kinds of sense. And so in November 2019 173 employees were told that their jobs were moving and to reply by December if they were moving with them. As of December, about 80 had replied in the affirmative. With luck, the other 93 or so have been given the opportunity to explore new career opportunities.

And here’s the best bit:

(Interior Secretary David ) Bernhardt told lawmakers he has no concerns about unfilled positions, saying BLM is hiring at the local level to backfill any vacancies.

Good. Who would be best to understand the nature of BLM issues than someone from western states?

With the Wuhan Flu force-demonstrating the utility of telecommunications and also the need for decentralizing and de-densifying governmental systems, the BLM bailing from D.C. should be only the first in the scattering of the Fed Guv. NASA headquarters? Why not Montana? Social Security headquarters? Try Nashville. Or maybe Sioux City. Leave D.C. for just four things:

1: White House

2: Congress

3: Supreme Court

4: Museums

Spread the actual governmental apparatus around the whole country. This would play merry hell with lobbying… which would be a *good* thing.

 Posted by at 11:54 am
Mar 152020
 

 

A 100-watt lightbulb is no big deal, and quite often very insufficient to provide adequate lighting. But of you can make all one hundred of those watts into a single color, collimated into a series of parallel beams with a total cross sectional area of much less than one square inch, there is really only one rational category of response:

 

 

 Posted by at 11:23 am
Mar 132020
 

Political tattoos are always going to be questionable, as anyone who got a Mondale, Dukakis, Perot or Palin tattoo can attest. And then there’s *this* which has the dual feature of not only being of temporary relevance, but also *immediately* recognizable as being in astonishingly poor taste:

What we have here is a Comrade Warren staffer who got a tattoo reading “#B7E4CF,” the hex color code for the color used by the Warren campaign.

And… yeah. Took about a millisecond for people with more awareness than her to realize what it actually looked like:

Former Warren Staffers Criticized For Getting Ink That Looks A Lot Like Holocaust Tattoos

 Posted by at 3:22 pm