Potpourri -- February 10, 2019

Wealth concentration. Link here. Also archived.

Riparian, a "Bakken word." From the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal this weekend:

Speaking of "new" words: see "gaslighting" below.

Bird-watching: record number of birds on the patio yesterday eating the bread and bird seed Sophia and I put out for them:

• two male blue jays (seldom see both of them show up at the same time)
• three dark-eyed juncos
• one male, one female, and one juvenile cardinal (at various times, not altogether at same time)
• a raven
• two mourning doves
• one squirrel shows up
• they all seem to take turns
• the blue jays are the most skittish
• the squirrel's tail is relaxed except when the blue jay(s) show(s) up and then the squirrel's tail is laying/lying stiffly up its back
• the two slices of bread always disappear fairly quickly
• the seed seems to last all day, allowing birds to come back later in the day for a snack

Global warming: perhaps the best "analyst" regarding the subject, Bjorn Lomborg, President at Copenhagen Consensus Center, notes, January 30, 2019, that fewer and fewer people die from climate-related natural disasters. This is all the more interesting when one realizes that more and more people choose to live along the coasts of the Americas and Asia.

Fake weather? This can't be happening with AGW:

Reality sucks. From Mark Perry this past week. Even Howard Schultz wasn't this dumb. He only went as far as "bathrooms for all."

Nine years after introducing pay-what-you-can restaurants to several U.S. cities, Panera Bread is admitting defeat and closing down its last remaining non-profit Panera Cares location.

At its peak, Panera Cares operated five locations, including ones in Dearborn, Michigan; Portland, Oregon; Boston, and Chicago.

Each restaurant was designed to sustain itself, but the restaurants weren’t financially viable. The Portland-based Panera Cares was reportedly only recouping between 60 and 70 percent of its total costs.

The losses were attributed students who “mobbed” the restaurant and ate without paying, as well as homeless patrons who visited the restaurant for every meal of the week. The location eventually limited the homeless to “a few meals a week.”

Britain's climate change scandal, all gummed up, or should we say, "gummer and gummer"? Reported earlier on the blog. Bottom line:

The chairman of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben (John Selwyn Gummer), admits to having received payments of more than £600,000, mainly from firms involved in renewable energy and electric cars. [See wealth concentration link above. The British lords have done very, very well. Now we know why.]

Occasional-Cortez doubles down on "free money" for people "unwilling to work." From ZeroHedge.

Meta-data, Saikat Chakrabarti is Occasional-Cortex' advisor on global warming, economic wealth. Some in the media are suggesting that Occasional-Cortex is "gaslighting" us.

Amazon re-considers. Headlines suggest Jeff Bezos is reconsidering his decision to move half has second new Amazon headquarters to Long Island City, Long Island, New York. Considering all his current problems, I doubt he wants to add Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio to the list of those who "hate" him and/or Amazon. But on such matters I am often wrong.

Gas lights in Great Britain: quick! What raw product was the preferred product for "manufactured gas" used for lighting London in the 19th, and probably early 20th centuries?

Global warming, again. A strong advocate of controlling "human-made CO2 emissions", Amy Klobuchar announces her run for presidency during a frigid snowstorm.

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The Book Page

109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos, Jennet Conant, c. 2005.

Years later, Robert Oppenheimer lost his security clearance. Edward Teller testified against him.

From page 107:

I.I. Rabi also advised Oppenheimer that, saddled with all the duties of being scientific director, he could not also be responsible for heading the Theoretical Division. Rabi proposed Hans Bethe for the job, and Oppie agreed. When Teller learned that Oppenheimer had made Bethe head of the T Division, and Serber his group leader, he was furious, Oppenheimer had known full well that Teller would feel snubbed, but his primary responsibility was to keep everyone on track and the work progressing as quickly as possible. Teller persisted in talking about his own ideas and introducing obstacles in an effort to control the project and move it in a different direction.

It is  interesting to read that bit of foreshadowing knowing what would play out about ten years later.

From wiki: Wernher von Braun summed up his opinion about the matter with a quip to a Congressional committee: "In England, Oppenheimer would have been knighted."