Two interesting pieces on big dairy--we've come a long way since dad consulted with the artificial inseminator over which bull to use for the one of our 12 cows which was in heat.
George WillBill Kristol
Mitt Romney
Kevin Williamson
You'll note the common thread running through the names.
Here's a skeptical article from Bloomberg on the economics of vertical farming.
The issue is mostly the cost of energy usage--if you have cheap energy and efficient lights (LED) you can grow leaf vegetables and herbs, charge a premium price, and break even. That's state of the art today. What happens tomorrow?
Interesting--as I write this I realize I've not been an enthusiast about vertical farming, but I have about sources of renewable energy. My theory has been that the learning curve for innovations in solar panels and battery storage will work to drive the cost down below carbon-based fuels. That seems a tad inconsistent with my lack of faith in the same factors in vertical farming.
Maybe I'll be around long enough to see what the results are.
As a UK man living in a mostly gun-less society answer me this America. Why do civilians need guns like this? pic.twitter.com/O2tB65pTB3
— Paul Samuel (@PaulSteveSamuel) January 16, 2021
That tweet, and the associated thread, got me to asking this question: Why do Americans need guns, and pickup trucks, and McMansions, and lawns, and...?
Mostly IMHO it's a matter of signaling to ourselves and to others our status and self-image.
As technology and society grow more complicated, the easy out for managers of an organization is to offload their uncertainties and angst to a consultant. At the very least it kicks the problem down the road. Sometimes more time is all that's needed to gain some clarity, perhaps even to have the problem solve itself. Sometimes more time enables the organization to learn to deal with the new. Sometimes the troublemakers who are raising cain about an issue have grown up, gone out, or gone to the grave, and some other issues are being raised by other troublemakers.
The NYTimes had a graphic on the Representatives and Senators who contracted covid-19 virus. I was interested because at the Powerline blog one or more of the bloggers had expressed skepticism over the efficacy of face masks and social distancing in combating the disease. I think enough time has passed for a fair evaluation. I also think the members of Congress are roughly similar so a comparison by party is valid. The outcome: 44 Republicans and 17 Democrats have contracted the disease.
I don't know whether that's statistically significant, but it impresses me.
The stock exchanges have "circuit breakers"--on a day when there's panic selling and the indices drop through the floor, they can suspend trading to allow nerves to calm down.
Kindergarteners have "time out".
Is it possible we could do something similar with social media? Rather than the drastic remedy of prohibitions, simply slow the twitter storm or whatever. Suppose X has 20 million followers, and he sends out a tweet. Instead of all 20 million receiving it in milliseconds, spread the impact over hours or days.
When I wrote before about getting vaccinated, I assumed that Kaiser would notify me when I was eligible and they had the vaccine. Having revisited their site today I'm not sure that's right. I've not seen any discussion from either Kaiser or Fairfax.
I see Fairfax County Health Department has a vaccine registration app, which I've completed. A fair number of questions on health--allergies, etc. but it was easy enough to complete in a couple minutes. (I'm a vanilla case, answering "no" to most of the questions.) Notably, they didn't ask for my medical provider so they don't have an obvious way to cross check with Kaiser.
Lots of discussion--"this isn't who we are" or "this is exactly who we are".
The idea of "imagined communities" is relevant. People imagine what America is, they develop an image of who we are which is based on stereotypes and narratives from the media, schools, movies and TV, etc. So when a big event happens, it can be inconsistent with the image. That's not necessarily the case however. For example if we looked at the reactions shortly after 9/11 or the Boston marathon bombing I'd guess most people thought the reaction to the events was very "American" or "Boston" ("Boston strong").
Over the long run I suppose the image is sustained if the positive events outweigh the negative events.
I suspect one of the big problems in vaccinating the U.S. is the degree to which it relies on bottom-up action.
What I mean is that presumably you can identify the hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities in your state, deliver vaccines to those sites, and rely on their management to get their people vaccinated. But once you go past that, once you start allowing people who are 65 or 75 and older to be vaccinated, you are essentially asking those people to take some initiative.
At best, like me, their health care provider, Kaiser Permanente in my case, will notify them when they have vaccine available. But people who don't have a healthcare provider with resources will have to search out a pharmacy.
As I write I realize the situation is not that different for the flu vaccine. Apparently 60-65 percent have gotten that vaccine in the past.
Seems as if this is a situation where we don't know until we see the history.
