Some Memes You May Enjoy

Many a truth is said in jest.

- Fair is fair.

- Heh Heh

- Please like and share this post.

- A rose by any other name... 

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Tesla stock price drops 3.5% amid concerns.

- VDH on Hunter and his Doomsday bomb

- Heh Heh (HT The View from Lady Lake)

- Should America be more like Sweden?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Sweden abandons Green energy and returns to nuclear power. Common sense finally prevails.

- Interesting podcast from Russ Roberts and EconTalk on ChatGPT. Worth a listen.

- Reminder of the correlation of tobacco sales and lung cancer in the US. Also as a reminder - that "science" at one point was "settled" in favor of big tobacco.

- Patrice Bergeron wins his record sixth Selke Award.

Sweden Did It Right

No lockdowns, no school closings, no mask or vaccine mandates and yet the lowest mortality during the pandemic. (Via)

Turkey Lifts Objections to Finland and Sweden Joining NATO

Turkey on Tuesday after negotiations lifted its objection to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Any support for the Kurdish people in Turkey was the price of admission. When the full details of the negotiations are known I wonder how history will judge this transaction?

As for me - I would have agreed to let Norway and Sweden in but only if we got to kick Canada out as long as they have Justin Trudeau as PM.

Finland and Sweden : Reinforcing NATO's Northern Flank

Finland and Sweden are seemingly fast-tracking potential membership into NATO. I don't like that idea at all!

To me it isn't reinforcing NATO's northern flank - instead it would be an unforced error of escalating tensions unnecessarily.  Putin claimed Ukraine's potential of joining NATO putting NATO troops on Russia's doorstep as one of his justifications for invasion. Having Finland and Sweden join NATO would allow Putin, with some truth, to tell the Russian people, "See I was right! NATO is trying to surround us!"

Don't like this idea at all.

Is This a Good Idea?

On the surface this seems like a good idea but I have questions. First you have all the surveillance cameras needed to watch who is going at or under the speed limit with the intelligence to identify the car and who owns it. Are these surveillance cameras also being used to hand out speeding tickets? Or is there a police officer doing that? Should we really be rewarding people for obeying the law? Doesn't this have a Big Brother feel to it - a Benevolent Big Brother but Big Brother all the same? I have questions.

Via 

COVID, Sweden, and North Carolina

 As a reminder Sweden has suspended all COVID related restrictions and doesn't seem any worse for wear.

By population Sweden is about the same size as North Carolina. Also as a reminder, North Carolina has had 1,503,936 confirmed cases of COVID but only 18,431 deaths from COVID. That's a fatality rate of just 1.2% of people battling COVID. What's the justification for North Carolina having any COVID restrictions including vaccine mandates?

(Graph via) EDIT: Fixed some math

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

A spot-on nickname for either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris at this point would be "the Albatross" because both have become like albatrosses around the neck of the Democratic Party. Biden for his legacy of incompetence (after just 8 f*cking months!) and Harris for her pure unlikability... Matt Taibbi: We Failed Afghanistan - Not the Other Way Around. The cynic in me can't help but think that at least the silver lining is the billions that were being spent on waste, fraud and corruption in Afghanistan can now be used to pay the rising interest on the national debt due to the inflation caused by Biden's failing economic polices... "Soiree" is not a word you hear much, if at all, anymore. What happened? Did people stop having soirees?... I had forgotten how dark a writer James Ellroy was. An excellent writer but dark, very dark... Meanwhile in Sweden... And speaking of writers - The Lexophile would be a good name for a blog about books...  Still say the Spanish National Anthem has the best official lyrics... 

More Linky Links

More stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- How often do underdogs win outright in college football? Interesting - underdogs of between 10.5-14 points win one out of every five games while underdogs of 7.5 -10 points win outright one out of every four games.

- Sweden - "the country the media loved to hate is reaping the best of all worlds: Few current cases and deaths, stronger economic growth than the lockdown countries, and its people never experienced the yoke of tyranny."

- Some good news out of Africa

- Flying X-Wings Into the Death Star: Andreessen on investing and tech. A long read but Marc Andreessen interviews are ALWAYS worth the time.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Biden tells fleeing Cubans to get lost - while flooding southern border.

- Awesome bit of history (Via)

- WTF? Seriously WTF? How does 6,300 compare to the number of COVID deaths in the US last week?

- Probably don't hear much about the Swedish Model because it's working. And with just a reported 37% vaccinated rate,

- Heh Heh

- Agree 100%. (Via)

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- How Bourbon rose from a humble grain to embody American exceptionalism. (HT Stephen Landry)

- Make Learning a Lifelong Habit

- Well this would explain UFO's

 - Matt Taibbi: If Private Platforms use Government Guidelines to Police Content, is that State Censorship? Yes and it should be noted that Brett Weinstein is a hero for speaking the truth despite the consequences. 

- Reminder - Sweden didn't have lockdowns

Sweden's Covid-19 Deaths

Chart may be tough to read but basically Sweden, which did not lockdown the country or economy, is experiencing basically a single Covid-19 death per day.  The population of Sweden is roughly 10.23 million.  That's a little smaller than North Carolina and a little larger than Michigan. 

WWSD?

 

Was the Lockdown Worth it?

 

The total deaths in Sweden over the past 6-years have basically been about the same. Sweden did not lockdown the country or the economy.

In the US many are coming out to say that the lockdowns were a huge mistake. Looking at the facts makes me wonder how anyone could argue otherwise. 

Linky Links

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Storing energy in red bricks. Common red bricks. Just "50 bricks would enable powering emergency lighting for five hours." Still trying to wrap my head around this.

- Sweden's disease expert says just wearing masks could be "very dangerous."

- Funny because there could be a grain of truth to it!

- Also funny because there could be a grain of truth to it!

- A college kid's fake AI generated blog becomes one of the most popular on the web. This is a little scary when you think of the potential ramifications and uses. I was amused by him choosing a "blog category that doesn't require vigorous logic: productivity and self-help."

- Fantastic Roger Moore story. He was such a gentleman.

Linky Links

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Star moving so fast it visibly warps space-time

- David Sinclair's book Lifespan is definitely on my reading list

- Awesome - How to make a Blockbuster Movie Trailer

- Federal agents trick Hamas into sending Bitcoin to Uncle Sam

- Did Sweden accidentally achieve COVID-19 herd immunity?

- Aussie man beats up shark to save wife

Linky Links

 Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Interesting look at the Master Class phenomenon

- Excellent point!

- New study finds Sweden's refusal to lock down saved the economy without sacrificing lives

- How about NO THANK YOU!

- Army V Corps HQ to be moved to Poland

- California will be paying $1,250 to people who test positive for Covid-19. The people who run California have no idea how incentives work.

- This made me laugh

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

The more I think about it the more I think the NFL will put a Saturday night schedule of games out to bid make up the revenue shortfall from a lack of in-person ticket sales this season. There will be many bidders... "Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination." - Thomas Sowell... Just asking but when's the last time you heard Bernie Bros or any Democrats for that matter arguing we should be more like Sweden... It is so wrong that I laughed at this... Many scientists are going to look silly when it is discovered that the only natural cure for COVID-19 are the sweat and tears of Tim Tebow (blessed be his name)... Speaking of scientists who look silly - if people knew back in March that most models from "experts" would be off by a factor of 20 then all nations would have followed the Swedish model. Is anyone who has stats to back themselves up arguing otherwise?... Just saying but a while back the New York Times printed a story alleging Russian bounties on US soldiers but the NYT has yet to offer a shred of actual evidence backing their claim. The New York Times simply has no shame...

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- VDH on Peak Jacobinism. I think the peak has yet to hit - the real peak will come in August at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.

- Heh Heh - Kanye West drops out of race after Elon Musk offers him position of President of Mars

- Mount Bromo really looks like a gateway to hell

- Interesting look at The Ballad of the Green Berets. Sgt Barry Sadler lived a very interesting life and as an aside The Ballad of the Green Berets would be one of the worst lap dance songs ever.

- Comparing the epidemic curve in Sweden and New York State

- Heh Heh

- FCC approves operation of "Starlink Router" for SpaceX. Interesting to note that the device is apparently "Made in Taiwan" which must make the Chinese really happy.