1532
Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa
1849
A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor.
1857
Second relief of Lucknow – twenty-four Victoria Crosses are awarded, the most in a single day.
1904
English engineer John Ambrose Fleming receives a patent for the thermionic valve (vacuum tube).
1940
World War II: in response to the leveling of Coventry, England by Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
1943
World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
1944
Dueren, Germany is destroyed by Allied bombers.
1945
Cold War: Operation Paperclip – the United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology.
1965
Venera program: the Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, which will be the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
Venera program: the Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, which will be the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
***
The truth is that the jobs numbers have become more volatile in recent years because of declining business survey response rates. It’s similar to the problem political pollsters face getting representative samples.
***
In an interview, David Brooks argues that America’s core problems aren’t economic but sociological—rooted in the destruction of our “secure base” of family, community, and moral order that once gave people existential security.
***
Hayek pushes the point that markets are about price discovery. In controlled systems, the price is arbitrary. "Price discovery."
***
The Epstein Affair is now suddenly very important. Trump's vulnerability is, newly, that he "knew" rather than "did."
It is a seriously impaired topic, neither revealing trees nor forest, but, as usual, filled with innuendo.
The Left is now talking about Greene as if she were a hallowed political seer.
But Epstein was texting advice to a House representative during--DURING--a House hearing.
What a cathouse.
***
Sunday/The Nature of Nature
In today's gospel, Christ talks about the Apocalypse, where natural processes turn against mankind.
From Plato onwards, philosophers have generally agreed that living well means aligning with the rational order of things. ‘Live in accordance with nature,’ Marcus Aurelius urges in his Meditations. For these thinkers, nature serves as the ethical guide for our actions.
This view has somehow survived the Enlightenment. This picture of the Universe still informs how we think we should live. Our despair over the so-called Anthropocene, the notion that our planet has been fundamentally altered by human action, is essentially moral; our lives are threatened by our misalignment. We should join the Swedish Climate Cherub on the barricades to set things right and ‘get back to nature’.
But that is not the case. Energy and mass are constant, and energy is always declining. Throughout the entire universe, these two elements of physics seem irrefutable. The universe is in a constant state of dying. Running down like a pocket watch, solar system by solar system, galaxy by galaxy, until the entire universe is cold and dead. That is the true nature of nature: we, and it, are growing old. Space exploration is not so much an expansion as an escape option. At some point, we will need an alternative home. And at some later point, that will not be enough.
Perhaps "a little child shall lead them" (like the Swedish Climate Cherub?) out of the globally warmed desert to the temperate Promised Land. But the actual Bible quote promises a lot more than that:
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah 11:6-9
This quote discusses more than leadership skills and a good sense of direction; it predicts a negation of the very elements of natural behavior. A period of spiritual transcendence. It promises a time where ambition, intimidation, violence, and arrogant dismissiveness have passed away. That is, a world where the elements of nature's savagery have been overcome, not joined.
For you omen watchers, such a time has clearly not yet arrived. But it is much more in tune with reality.
***
Sunday/The Nature of Nature
In today's gospel, Christ talks about the Apocalypse, where natural processes turn against mankind.
From Plato onwards, philosophers have generally agreed that living well means aligning with the rational order of things. ‘Live in accordance with nature,’ Marcus Aurelius urges in his Meditations. For these thinkers, nature serves as the ethical guide for our actions.
This view has somehow survived the Enlightenment. This picture of the Universe still informs how we think we should live. Our despair over the so-called Anthropocene, the notion that our planet has been fundamentally altered by human action, is essentially moral; our lives are threatened by our misalignment. We should join the Swedish Climate Cherub on the barricades to set things right and ‘get back to nature’.
But that is not the case. Energy and mass are constant, and energy is always declining. Throughout the entire universe, these two elements of physics seem irrefutable. The universe is in a constant state of dying. Running down like a pocket watch, solar system by solar system, galaxy by galaxy, until the entire universe is cold and dead. That is the true nature of nature: we, and it, are growing old. Space exploration is not so much an expansion as an escape option. At some point, we will need an alternative home. And at some later point, that will not be enough.
Penrose and Hawking did calculations based on their research on black holes. Two of their conclusions:
“The odds against an ordered universe happening by random chance are 10^10^30th to 1, against," and, "The odds against life are 10^10^123rd to 1, against.”
“The odds against an ordered universe happening by random chance are 10^10^30th to 1, against," and, "The odds against life are 10^10^123rd to 1, against.”
Now that's a real miracle.
Perhaps "a little child shall lead them" (like the Swedish Climate Cherub?) out of the globally warmed desert to the temperate Promised Land. But the actual Bible quote promises a lot more than that:
"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah 11:6-9
This quote discusses more than leadership skills and a good sense of direction; it predicts a negation of the very elements of natural behavior. A period of spiritual transcendence. It promises a time where ambition, intimidation, violence, and arrogant dismissiveness have passed away. That is, a world where the elements of nature's savagery have been overcome, not joined.
For you omen watchers, such a time has clearly not yet arrived. But it is much more in tune with reality.
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