Facts Don't Matter -- April 24, 2021

At the bottom of the page / bottom of the blog, I have a gazillion tags. Despite the huge number, they help me save time. Because the number of tags has become so large, I'm trying to minimize new tags, hoping I can find an existing tag for new posts. But after a reader sent me this link, I think I may need to come up with a new tag: "Facts_Don't_Matter."

From PowerLine: why wind and solar energy are doomed to failure.

No, I'm not going to add a new tag. We'll use the ones we have. 

For the archives. 

The only question that remains, when will the "house of cards" fall? 

By the way, the central them of the linked article, "land constraints," was pointed out by Exxon about ten years ago. I posted the link at the sidebar at the right, but it appears that article has long disappeared. Exxon was correct then and remains correct today. 

Archived.

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Words Matter

Whorfianism.

Wiki entry.

Another famous anecdote from his job [as a fire inspector for an insurance company] was used by Whorf to argue that language use affects habitual behavior.

Whorf described a workplace in which full gasoline drums were stored in one room and empty ones in another; he said that because of flammable vapor the "empty" drums were more dangerous than those that were full, although workers handled them less carefully to the point that they smoked in the room with "empty" drums, but not in the room with full ones.

Whorf argued that by habitually speaking of the vapor-filled drums as empty and by extension as inert, the workers were oblivious to the risk posed by smoking near the "empty drums."

M1: A New Era For The PC -- April 24, 2021

Apple: start here. 

Apple: now this. Archived.

• The 2021 iMac is the fourth M1 Mac, but the first to be built around the chip. I think they’ve been working on it for 3-4 years.
• It ushers in a new era of PC design centered on the ARM instruction set, not Intel’s long-dominant x86.
• Apple is no longer only the Mac company, so this trend will have less effect on them than others.
• But it also highlights a key portion of my long-term Apple bull thesis.

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The Literary Page

Over at the sidebar at the right, I link to a few literary blogs, for example, White Mischief. Near the end of the White Mischief, the author James Fox notes that his collaborator, who had dropped out of the project, Cyril Connor, had come very, very close to solving the murder.

1971: Cyril Connolly had written in his notes -- "The end of the trail." 

It was notes of his interview in 1971 with Juanita Carberry, June's stepdaughter, who was 15 years old at the time of the murder, and very, very close to Broughton, one of the few people who actually listened to Juanita.

"It wasn't quite the end of the trail, as it turned out. But he had come remarkably close to it, and it was only Juanita's evidence that had kept him [Cyril Connollly] a few steps away." -- James Fox, page 279 or a 299-page book.

Based on that little snippet, I decided to buy Cyril Connolly's Enemies of Promise, c. 1938; republished, in 1948, and the newest edition, 2008, is the one I have. It turned out to be a challenging book for me to read. But any book that gets published in 1938 and keeps getting re-printed deserves a look.

Today, I skipped to part three, his autobiography. Chapter XVIII: "The Branching Ogham."

The first time I read the book I skipped over "Ogham." It turns out "Ogham" has an interesting backstory.

From wiki:

Ogham: Modern Irish; Old Irish: ogam is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish language (scholastic ogham, 6th to 9th centuries). 

What amazes me: wiki seems to have an entry on "everything."

There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southern Munster.

The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

The vast majority of the inscriptions consist of personal names.

According to the High Medieval Bríatharogam, names of various trees can be ascribed to individual letters.

The etymology of the word ogam or ogham remains unclear. One possible origin is from the Irish og-úaim 'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon.

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The Last Interview

A Little Humor -- April 24, 2021

Link here.

Virginia Graham.

What Social Media Has To Say About California's Decision To Ban Fracking -- April 24, 2021

What social media has to say about California's decision to "unwelcome" US oil companies. It's important to note: Californians don't not want oil; they just don't want their own oil. By the way, this reminds me, I need to check out PowerLine's "week in pictures."

Link here.  

The graph below is only the last five years. That's how fast things can change.

I would like to see the governor of California declare no more diesel fuel or gasoline would be sold in the state after 2024. What's the sense of banning production of a commodity when all you do is import it from somewhere else.

SBM -- MBM -- Re-Posting -- Saturday, April 24, 2021

I'm re-posting this because I learned a lot, and the video -- actually the audio -- is so damn-hot. If you play the video, put on headphones and play at loudest level tolerable. This is when you really, really want the best bass speakers available. If you're a whale, you'll love this.

This video is worth the price of the subscription cost for "The Million Dollar Way" blog. LOL.

Re-posting:

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Oil: New Acronyms (First Time Mentioned On The Blog)

Link here. 

• "in the anchorage of Baniyas, away from the SBMs"
• "first glimpse of Syria's deepwater oil terminal in Tartous ... at either SBM/MBM input/output points"
• Fandom? this is not it;
  
• ah, here it is: MBM, SBM; video here;
  
• "Baniyas, Syria"

Background:

• Baniyas: wiki;
• alternate spellings: Tartous, ancient Tortosa; Latakia, ancient Laodicea;
• north of the city of Baniyas
• one of the largest oil refineries in Syria; and, a power station;
• the oil refinery is connected with Iraq: the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline (now defunct)
• on a nearby hill stands the Crusader castle of Margat (Qalaat el-Marqab), a huge Knights Hospitaller fortress built with black basalt stone

Who would have thought: multiple buoy mooring is better than single buoy mooring? LOL. 

Ramblings On A Saturday Morning -- April 24, 2021

Top stories for week 16 have been posted.

These are the things that I will be looking at today:

• Portland; absolutely fascinating on so many levels. There seems to be two "Portlands." The "Portland" that is still drawing a gazillion new residents who can afford to buy homes or pay rent; and, the Antifa-controlled "Portland-Downtown Area."
• So, we got "PDX" and "PDA."
• Apple, Inc: the M1 chip, the whole enchilada. Apple will report earnings later this week. I don't think the call will be boring. Expectations: Apple will increase its dividend (barely) and announce further stock buyback. Tim Cook is listening to Warren Buffett. But the whole Apple story is so incredibly fascinating on so many levels. Yeah, I'll be spending a lot of time on Apple today.
• The Covid-19 vaccine: I finally took the time to read about the difference between the mRNA-based vaccines and the viral-vector-based vaccines. I "grew" up with latter; old technology; mRNA vaccines, the new technology.
• JNJ vaccine: "Father Knows Best"
• Moderna vaccine: "Modern Family"
  
• The US equity markets. After yesterday, how could I not take a look? That was simply amazing.
  
• Journalism: finding the news -- it's become impossible. 
  

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Portland

Portland: the dream of the 90s died in Portland. 

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Journalism

In the 50's and 60's if I followed the news it was Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC. The three networks' evening news reported the same stories and the nation, as a whole, was on the same sheet of music.

In the 70's I was too busy to follow the news. Actually, women fascinated me during those ten years and the news did not.

In the 80's and 90's I was overseas and the only news I read came from the Stars and Stripes. Everyone I worked with read the same news; we were all on the same page of music, again.

But, sometime around "9/11" the news became disjointed, fragmented; everyone -- producers and consumers -- it seemed -- were now on different pages of music. Producers and consumers were not even looking at the same song, much less the same page. 

Sometime around the BC/AD break, producers and consumers of news were still on different pages of music but they had moved to producing and reading that news in echo chambers.

For example:

• Global warming: exhibit A.
• EVs: exhibit B.
• The end of fossil fuel: exhibit C.
• Portland: I really have no idea what's going on in Portland. Only one news outlet that I follow seems to be reporting on "it." Our adult daughter who lives in Portland, and my youngest sister, who recently left Portland, do not seem to know any more than what they read. And what they "know" depends on what they read.
  
• The southern surge: no one is reporting on the "crisis" at the border. Not even The Los Angeles Times. So, it can't be as bad as it is rumored. Kamala's policy: if you ignore it, it will go away. Wow, she did well for herself. Says a lot about how to get on top.
  
• Covid-19: if I have no idea what's going on in Portland, I certainly have no idea what's going on with Covid. Like the "mostly peaceful" riots in Portland, the JNJ vaccine is "mostly safe."
  
  
  

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Covid-19 Vaccines

Viral-vector-based vaccines: old technology. The technology I grew up with; the basis for most (all?) vaccines that I have ever received.

mRNA-based vaccines: the new technology. This actually might be huge. 

Moderna won't protect its pandemic during the pandemic.  

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The Market

SeekingAlpha: looking forward to next week.

Earnings, a few of the many that interest me:

• TSLA
• AAPL
• QCOM
• CMCSA
• XOM
• CVX

Earnings previews:

• TSLA: 75 cents and revenue of $10.5 billion; conf call after market closes, April 26;
• AAPL: 98 cents and revenue of $77 billion;
• MSFT:

Projected dividend increases:

• AAPL: to 21.75 cents from 20.5 cents; seems small, but it's a 6% increase;

Highest yielding names in the screen included:

• MRK
• SRE

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Apple Chip Technology

Start here. More later. This is perhaps the most-under-reported technology story in recent memory. 

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Oil: New Acronyms (First Time Mentioned On The Blog)

Link here. 

• "in the anchorage of Baniyas, away from the SBMs"
• "first glimpse of Syria's deepwater oil terminal in Tartous ... at either SBM/MBM input/output points"
• Fandom?
• ah, here it is: MBM, SBM; video here;
  
• "Baniyas, Syria"

Background:

• Baniyas: wiki;
• alternate spellings: Tartous, ancient Tortosa; Latakia, ancient Laodicea;
• north of the city of Baniyas
• one of the largest oil refineries in Syria; and, a power station;
• the oil refinery is connected with Iraq: the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline (now defunct)
• on a nearby hill stands the Crusader castle of Margat (Qalaat el-Marqab), a huge Knights Hospitaller fortress built with black basalt stone