Climate change could threaten sea snails in mid-Atlantic waters  Forget coronavirus, let’s get back to worrying about the real stuff.

Ace of Spades goes there.

Via Derek Hunter’s Daily Daily Caller Podcast. In today’s podcast, he starts with a warning that he’s going to curse in this show, because he can’t restrain himself from doing so talking about the media’s “evil” opportunism in deliberately trying to start a panic.

He also goes balls deep into Non-Binary Ben and the rest of the NeverTrumper Twitter Parrots for repeating the same talking points of their leftwing Twitter buddies.

He also notes that CNN featured “reporter” Jim Acosta to discuss Trump’s speech, and Acosta immediately leapt to the left’s newest Speech Patrol Initiative, that you can no longer identify diseases by their place of origin (if they’re place of origin is majority non-white).

But Jim Acosta called it “Wuhan Coronavirus” fifty days ago….

Read it.

There’s almost always at least one signature spacecraft for any of these space-based sci-fi shows, and I was realizing that they design of the ships, while varying wildly from movie to movie, seemed to be remarkably consistent for a given sub-genre of space sci-fi.

You could look at one ship and immediately know that, say, the show would take place in the relatively near future, and have a pretty good gorunding in science, or look at another and immediately know nobody gave two shits about physics, but it’ll be a fun ride.

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Plastics are a victim of their own success, so inexpensive, easy to use and versatile that the world is awash in plastic waste. Now researchers from the University of Houston have reported a new method of producing polyolefins — made from hydrocarbons and the most common building block of plastics — structured to address one of the biggest stumbling blocks to plastics recycling.

The process also would allow plastics to be produced from food oils and other natural substances.

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Photosynthesis is the process through which plants use the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose. Scientists have been trying for years to replicate the process, with the end result being electricity rather than glucose, and they have made some notable successes albeit all contained in the lab.

John Hinderaker at Power Line peeks behind the curtain.

I think there are several reasons for this, beyond legitimate concerns about spreading the disease.

First, a fear of liability that is probably misplaced. If other schools send their students home, and you don’t, and coronavirus makes some of your students sick, might they sue you for negligence? It would be a lousy case, but since anyone can sue anyone for anything, the fear of litigation is not wholly misplaced.

Second, many want to create a crisis that they can blame on Donald Trump in hopes of electing a Democratic president. This one doesn’t need any explanation.

The third reason is most interesting to me: I think many people are using coronavirus as an excuse for not doing things they didn’t want to do in the first place.

Read it.

Can’t see how this is ‘news’. I’d do the same if I were rich. That’s kinda what they’re for.

The Ballarat company making amazing things with recycled plastic

Bloom Energy blew through billions promising cheap, green tech that falls short

It’s Easy to be Fooled by a Climate Alarmist

GMA Guilt-Trips, ‘Do the Right Thing’ on Climate or No More Baby Seals

Oregon’s Dem Governor Signs A Climate Executive Order After GOP Lawmakers Flee For Idaho

Read it.

If, of course, that’s important to you.

I must admit that I find the thought of ‘unnatural peanut butter’ somewhat disturbing.

Guardian Climate Crisis: Coal Use is Not Falling Fast Enough

Environmental Activists Are Blocking The Clean-Up Of A Polluted Mining Site In Idaho

Climate change at Mount Rainier to increase ‘mismatch’ between visitors, wildflowers

Babylon Bee.

Self-quarantined before quarantine was cool.

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Persons of Color behaving badly — what are the odds?

John Hinderaker at Power Line reminds us of some pretty important truths.

Many are freaking out over the steep decline in financial markets over the last couple of weeks. Not me: I haven’t lost a nickel. Why not? I haven’t sold anything.

Sad Climate Scientists: “I see a group of people sitting in a boat … floating right into a … waterfall”

Even fish at the bottom of the ocean can’t escape climate change

Europe sees warmest winter since records began

For 9 years, multinationals like Shell and Bayer funded prominent climate denier  The swine.

More accurate climate change model reveals bleaker outlook on electricity, water

Pollution from tire wear is worse than exhaust emissions?  You could always walk.

Delingpole: Wikipedia Airbrushes List of Climate Sceptic Scientists Out of History

Jane Fonda Throws Support Behind Bernie Sanders, Calls Him The ‘Climate Candidate’  If I thought that the climate change situation was really a problem, that would scare the shit out of me.

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Rahm Emmanual famously said, ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’. Let’s hope the Administration takes that advice to heart and uses this latest hair-on-fire exercise to make some progress on the Wall.

Since I am in an ‘at-risk group’ (curmudgeonly geezers), I intend to self-quarantine for, oh, let’s be on the safe side, the next twenty years.

‘But Tim’, I hear you say, ‘you don’t leave the house anyway. What changes?’

Well, I’ll tell you: I get Pokemon Victim Points for Good Intentions; and, as we all know, Good Intentions solve all difficulties and erase all bad stuff. (And those points can be traded for valuable prizes later, and the way the markets are doing, I’m depending on them for my retirement.)

So if you should see me in public, be advised that it’s not me, and you should believe me rather than your lying eyes. Yeah.

Michael Fumento.

China is the origin of the virus and still accounts for over 80 percent of cases and deaths. But its cases peaked and began ­declining more than a month ago, according to data presented by the Canadian epidemiologist who spearheaded the World Health Organization’s coronavirus mission to China. Fewer than 200 new cases are reported daily, down from a peak of 4,000.

Subsequent countries will follow this same pattern, in what’s called Farr’s Law. First formulated in 1840 and ignored in ­every epidemic hysteria since, the law states that epidemics tend to rise and fall in a roughly symmetrical pattern or bell-shaped curve. AIDS, SARS, Ebola — they all followed that pattern. So does seasonal flu each year.

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Grab any random bottle of honey from your kitchen, coffee shop, or restaurant: According to a number of honey experts who spoke with VICE, the odds are high that your honey isn’t what it claims to be. Honey imported from overseas is often adulterated—either by having sugars added to it or by being cleaned, heated, or filtered—and then is blended with small amounts of true honey until the sticky substance is uniform.

World to end – film at 11. Women and minorities (and bees!) hardest hit.

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You have a choice. You can be a specialist, or a generalist. Which route should you choose?

My question is: Which pays more?

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Don’t ever say we don’t have useful stuff here.

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pioneer of synthetic biology at the University of California, San Diego, Jeff Hasty has spent his 20-year career designing strategies to make genetic circuits in engineered bacteria work together. But several years ago, Hasty had to admit that even he couldn’t outfox the humble bacterium Escherichia coli.

Hasty didn’t have a problem engineering useful, tightly regulated new genetic traits or getting them to work in cells. That was the easy part. What’s harder, he discovered, is maintaining those traits. If a cell needs to divert some of its resources to make a desired protein, it becomes marginally less fit than cells that don’t synthesize it. Inevitably, cells acquire mutations deactivating the introduced genetic circuitry, and the mutants quickly replace the original cells. As a result, the desired characteristic disappears, often within 36 hours.

Natural selection works, even when you don’t want it to.

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Assuming, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Somebody tell Joe Biden.

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Most of us know the stories of medieval monks toiling in their scriptoria, diligently copying other manuscripts, either for their own or other monastery libraries, or perhaps as a private commission for the Duke of Thusandsuch, who had his own collection, and enough money for the purpose, and who wanted to show off his erudition and wealth. The end result, whether or not it was the tactical objective at the time, was the preservation of the wisdom of the ancients, and there’s nothing not to like about that.

But what was involved in getting a manuscript together? And suppose I wanted to duplicate the process today. What would it actually take to do that?

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

‘I’m profoundly sad, I feel guilty’: scientists reveal personal fears about the climate crisis  The Guardian.

Cartoons: A climate change pandemic  Washington Post.

Times: Coronavirus will Kill All the Old Climate Skeptics

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How likely do you think it is that ‘the author of national pandemic strategy’ will say ‘Nah, it’s nothing to worry about’?

This is why I am skeptical of most ‘experts’.

Read it.

No, not Warren.

To find out, we spoke with industry experts, chefs, and buffet owners. As it turns out, it’s harder to “beat” the buffet than you might think.

Well, shucks.

I ate from all-you-can-eat buffets for six years — we called them ‘mess halls’, and, boy, they were.

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In the wake of Elizabeth Warren dropping out of the presidential race on Thursday night, NPR’s All Things Considered only the considered “opinion writers” who were feminist Democrats. The question from anchor Audie Cornish was “what did this primary season teach us about the state of things for women seeking the highest office?” Not considered: Shouldn’t angry feminists actually endorse a woman for president before they complain about everyone else?

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People have different ways of reacting to the coronavirus or Covid-19 situation. I have identified at least eight of them, all starting with the letter “P,” in a taxonomy that I hope is at least somewhat useful in making sense of a somewhat unusual situation.

Read it.

I’m waiting to see how ‘facial recognition tech’ fights back.

Funny how ‘artists’ never fight anything that might get them hurt, like crime or disease.

Read it.

Results are the reason that while I thought Trump a con-artist in 2016, I will now vote for him in 2020. I strongly mistrusted his character, personality, and intentions. Yet he has delivered on the promises he made in 2016. The economy is stronger, the judiciary is better, taxes and regulations are lower, the United States is safer, and our enemies are weaker. Do I like the man? No. Do I like the results he has delivered? Yes.

Give me good results over good intentions every time.

Preach it, brother.

Coronavirus Fears Thinning Attendance at Greta Thunberg Climate Rallies

UK Climate Madness: Does Boris Johnson want to Transform Britain into Tolkien’s Middle Earth?

The unholy crusade against gas appliances

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World about to end. Film at 11. Women and minorities hardest hit.

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Good luck with that.

Democrats will die in the last ditch to defend their principles — unless it gets in the way.

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Since the 16th century, Cremona’s luthiers—including Stradivari himself—have been using an unusually resonant wood from Paneveggio, known as Italy’s “violin forest,” to handcraft the world’s finest string instruments. Then a 2018 storm decimated the forest. A band of experts in Cremona is now rallying to save this iconic tradition.

Since we know you don’t have anything more important to worry about.

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… the “objective” media is falling all over itself to explain Elizabeth Warren’s collapse as the result of sexism, despite the mountain of evidence that voters (including women voters in her home state) just don’t like her. Reminds me of the old story about the dog food company that spent millions hiring marketing consultants to determine why their dog food wasn’t selling, and after a lot of elaborate theories, someone came up with a clear explanation: dogs didn’t like the food.

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That didn’t take long.

New Mass-Timber Sustainable Building Takes Shape in Boston

Greta Thunberg Trashes The New EU “Green Deal” Climate Law  Elizabeth Warren in training.

Freeberg speaks for all right-thinking people.

Okay so we have to talk about what Elizabeth Warren did yesterday. Oh no, that’s not right is it? It’s about what we did to poor, poor, perpetual-victim Elizabeth Warren. It’s sexism, right? There’s stuff on the Internet that says so, so it must be true. Mean, nasty sexist conservative Republicans, somehow stopped enlightened liberal democrats from voting for Fauxahontas.

…

Someone, somewhere I know not who — could be a man, maybe? — has made the call that women have to be unpleasant and angry all the time, like Senator Warren, in order to be in charge. They didn’t ask me. It’s true in our politics, in our movies, our teevee shows, and anyplace else we come together and experience any form of art that is assembled in a central location and then distributed hither & yon. Somewhere there is a script: Women have to be mousey little types that stay in the kitchen and bake cookies, or else they have to give you a migraine. There can be no in-between.

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What piqued our attention several years ago was Miso Robotics, a Pasadena tech company with the focus of developing robots for fast-food restaurants, has seen the price of its burger-flipping robot drop from $100,000 to $10,000 in four years.

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The biggest issue you’ve never heard of.

Greta Thunberg Trashes the new EU “Green Deal” Climate Law

These plastic-chomping caterpillars can help fight pollution

Climate Change Did Influence Australia’s Unprecedented Bushfires

The Eleventh Tenth First Climate Change Refugees

Time Magazine: The EU Could Force the USA to Act on Climate Change  Um, I think not.

Babylon Bee.

Hey, I believe it. Waffle fries will save us all.

Read it.

Voice of the Crust The Atlantic actually does some investigative journalism for a change.