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Saluting Canada
Polistra and friends salute Canada and Trudeau’s excellent action. And to customize the tribute, linking to a series I did back in August on Reginald Fessenden, Canada’s own radio pioneer. Fessenden was unstoppably creative, working on a wide range of problems, always strictly scientific, always coming up with unique ways to deal with every detail…
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Amazingly good
Trudeau’s response to Trump’s pointless lunacy is pretty damn good. He starts with a history of Canada and US working on the same side in wars and crises. He actually understated Canada’s WW2 contribution, since Canada started fighting a year earlier. Then he talks about the shared economy, missing the earlier period when Canada was…
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Unsolvably stupid
Journalism is beyond salvation, and journalists are beyond salvation. Even when they talk about checking their own hidden assumptions, they make the same fucking hidden assumptions. One paragraph: = = = = = START QUOTE: A lot of time and energy is spent by news organizations trying to convey that they know better than their…
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Sounds promising
Canada and Mexico are finally showing some guts after many decades of willing servitude to the US empire. Trump’s crazy threats of Mutually Assured Destruction for all sides have finally awakened some noise, if not some action. The clip features the premier of Newfoundland who has the right idea. This is a chance for Canada…
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Survival of the misfittest
Continuing inspiration from Sherri Olson’s marvelous book on English peasants in 1300. = = = = = Court sessions were participatory performances. = = = = = START QUOTE: Many ears are listening to a story that is being worked out as it goes along, a story that is searching for assent as it unfolds,…
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Did science as entertainment continue?
Yesterday’s mention of symphonies that wear out the bass drum and the eardrum with endlessly hammered final movements reminded me of Peter Schickele’s classical parodies. Schickele mainly focused on the finicky excesses of Baroque Purists. I was a finicky Baroque Purist, so I appreciated his work. This led to a broader thought about science as…
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Worthy question
Note seen on Substack: The only writing advice I can give is always cut your last sentence. 99% of the time you’ve already said what you want to say, and you’re just trying to tie it up with a bow. Writing doesn’t need bows. Unlike most notes, this is a worthy question, not immediately dismissable.…
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Powell holds the line.
Powell is holding steady to support HONEST business and REAL economics. He’s clearly sending a message to Trump and Elon that he won’t back down to satisfy Elon’s endless universe-consuming greed. Trump is NYC. Trump is Wall Street. Trump wants ZIRP and QE to return so his allies can finish bombing the country down to…
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Fast end to fakery
After only 9 days in office, Trump’s old trick is already obvious. = = = = = Reprint from 2019: Faker Trump has pulled his favorite fake trick again. He wrote a fake “executive order” designed to provide political ammunition for the enemies of populism without actually changing anything. His previous fake “order” encouraging religious…
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Meaningless meandering about dreams
For the last 10 years or so most dreams have signaled time to wake up by catching the bus from downtown Spokane to home. This was the real-life routine during the 90s. After 2001 I’ve been working from home. Dreams always run 20 years late; in the 90s most dreams were still in Oklahoma where…
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New meaning for old acronym
We know how the LBO predators work on corporations. Old-fashioned protection racket. They barrage the company with lawsuits and obstacles and “accidents” and low-priced competition until the company finally gives in and sells cheap. We’ve seen the same thing with the “global warming” racket, which gives insurers a “protective” reason to cancel coverage, again driving…
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Simplest explanation
Looking at the recent history of economics as reflected in the automotive industry, one pattern is clear. Companies that focus more on products and profit are able to survive hard times better than companies that focus more on Share Value. The most dramatic example is Studebaker vs Nash. Both were about the same size in…
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Lysenko again
New “scientist” covers the Chinese DeepSeek bubblepopper from the official “science” view. They show the standard blindness of our system, but they also show a rare objective understanding in a related area. Yesterday I discussed our blind spot that prevents us from seeing WHY other countries can do shit better. Sputnik was the classic example.…
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What we lost
In previous item I focused on our loss of innovation and flexibility after we switched to all finance and all monopoly. China and Russia didn’t make the switch, so they continued working with LIMITED RESOURCES. Now they’ve beaten our stupid MAX-FINANCE and MAX-THEFT approach to AI, with a technique that can run on normal computers…
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Trying to figure this out
The good bureaucrats in the Biden admin who worked to restore the New Deal restrictions on Men Of Monopoly are now seeing their work smashed and deleted. This didn’t have to happen. It didn’t happen the first time, so the alternative is POSSIBLE. The original New Deal was NOT smashed by the next few presidents.…
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