tomo,
Flip comment on the code is that *not enough of it* was unreachable.

More seriously, it looks pretty hard to maintain. Those 4-digit constants are very likely a bad idea, and the variable names speak of cargo-cult programming (rootnode sounds nice and techy).

VB seems an odd choice of language too. With financial systems it's wise to have a strongly-typed language and use fixed-point types to help make sure money won't go missing in rounding errors. Of course the PO system's problems go beyond rounding errors.

Was looking in at Judith Curry's which is still stuck on the Happy New Year thread. It's now up to 678 comments, 186 of which are from one alarmist (ganon1950 + sock-puppets). Is he mad or is he paid?

Anyhow, I've only skimmed, but one video he pointed out seemed somewhat interesting. It ostensibly explains how climate can be stable and predictable despite weather being chaotic.

I see it as mathematical sophistry, but for argument's sake let's let it through. A snooker ball is made up of molecules all jiggling chaotically, yet we can still do a passable job predicting where the ball will roll.

The thing is, once you average all the molecules out to model the snooker ball, you've lost track of the individual molecules. The best you can say is that they're probably somewhere in a vicinity.

Likewise with the "climate". Even if it (mean surface temp) isn't chaotic, and even if it can be accurately modelled, you can't draw *any* conclusions about the underlying weather which (obviously) remains chaotic. So what's the bleeding point?

I know this is very similar to my common complaint about modelling means and panicking about extremes, but the video makes a virtue of the disconnect between climate and weather. I think that path serves us better than it serves the alarmists.

tomo,
That's Senator Leyonhjelm from the Liberal Democrats. He's not been in the senate for a few years. They were a proper *small government* party; unpopular with the main parties and media.

Here's the similar snippet the party released 4 years ago. Goes a a little longer. I wasn't aware of it at the time, and only 1k views suggests it wasn't given much coverage in our media. Certainly doesn't fit with the ABC narrative.

Mailman,
It's damning for Biden if he did inform them. Any "humanitarian" objective, that they only wanted to disarm the Houthis, would have been satisfied by an open publication of the targets in the media. Informing them on-the-quiet suggests an I'll look tough, but you'll not suffer collaboration. Of course the true signal is I am a weak leader of a weak country.

The Germans might adopt Trudeau's fascist tactics, but a nebulous Net Zero pretext is not going to have as wide support as people threatened with the dread pandemic, especially in the midst of proper brass monkey weather.

https://joannenova.com.au/2024/01/net-zero-uproar-in-germany-mass-farmer-protests-spread-to-other-workers-and-other-countries/

Robbo,

Those pesky farmers better keep an aye open on their backs because Das Reich has seen how to effectively handle mass protesters they dont like by watching Canada and how they handled their truckers.

I suspect Das Reich will allow the protests to carry on for as long as it doesnt seriously affect their agenda. As long as the protests dont do that then there will be no problems.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/did-biden-warn-houthis-of-attack-before-air-strikes/?unapproved=118334&moderation-hash=7a0c4e11b437289d05eff056bc25db67#comment-118334

Hmmmmmm? Given this administrations past behaviours (with Iran and China and by "this administration" Im also county Barry's presidency as this is nothing more than his third term) then...yea, this is a huge concern...and should be a major f99king concern for the UK who was right there blowing the f88k out of, potentially, empty fields?

But you know, at least 10% China Joe's handlers got to maintain the fiction of being tough on terrorism or something.

tomo,
Sciencepriest might be useful, though high priest works well enough and saves quibbling, letting Brian Cox and his ilk be lumped in with Al Gore and his.

Darleen Druyun story is interesting. IMO the "punishment" is an incentive for the same to happen again: is that all? Would be interesting to see it play out as I recently suggested here: that the government side gets *all* the punishment, and the contractor gets rewarded if it is the whistleblower: is this a genuine bribe, or is this guy just fishing for the reward?

tomo,
Thanks, the Juan Brown video was good. Tricky business paring the costs of a company. Bad strategy to pare until the problems start, then back off. Danger of hitting a real tipping point.

Very much liked this in the comments:

Ladies and Gentlemen we apologize for the delay. The Captain found some serious manufacturing flaws in the aircraft, and it took some time to locate a new Captain.

Quite a good Econtalk, interviewing Matti Friedman, a former (ca. 2010) Reuters correspondent for Israel.

Not a huge surprise that reporting is a dead art at Reuters, but there were some fun points.

  Reuters had 40 journalists dedicated full-time to Israel, which was more than it had covering India, China and sub-Saharan Africa *combined*.

  At the time, the annual death toll in the Israel-Palestine conflict was less than a year's murders in Indianapolis.

  Stories were always vetted by the Palestinians and this was never disclosed, but stories that were vetted by the israeli authorities were always tagged as such.

  Reporting is firmly about Israeli actions, with Palestinians being the passive butt of those actions. It is something I've noticed in current reporting: that Israelis are in there and fighting, we hear about all the innocent Palestinian victims, but *nothing* about the people fighting from the other side. There are people shooting back aren't there?

  There's also the laughable business of accepting the Gaza "Ministry of Heath" casualty figures. About as plausible as Lancet figures for war deaths (or coal-power deaths).

What has always impressed me with the coverage is the endless footage of people running, carrying children to ambulances. Heartless of me I know, but I can't help picturing the view from 20m futher back, and the director with megaphone saying Cut! Cut! Do it again. Give that boy a smack so he won't be smiling next time.

Jo Nova's article du jour is hardly new ground, covering the fact that disasters are becoming less disastrous despite growing CO2 levels, but there was a comment that hit me as a new thought. Previously unseen/unnoticed commenter No name man:

... the record always addresses the losses to Insurers – not the public: those ‘losses’ are not a negative to the Insuring public; they are as a plus, as the transfer out of the Insurers hands back into the public’s hands is to the latter’s advantage.

While I've always seen insurance as a form of socialising individual risk, I hadn't previously thought about the huge injection of funds it represents when there is a regional disaster (floods or whatever). Insurance as a voluntary *public benefit* tax.

That's probably the best way to do it, but large numbers of politicians would prefer the largesse to come from their benificent hands and we do see them stepping in (at least in Australia) which will mess up the whole thing: why contribute to insurance if the government will bail us out anyway?

And on the Post Office saga, apparently the documentary is viewable here, as my brother was telling me about it. Sounds like it presses the right buttons. Notably *not* a BBC production.