This early-weekend link sausage platter is brought to you by Situational Awareness™, but obviously not based on approved Texas public school curricula. Of course, sometimes true Situational Awareness™ means acknowledging that some of one's ancestors, religious and political leaders, and/or "influencers" were/are self-aggrandizing assholes as an explanation — even if only in part — for why some people distrust one on first sight. That's perhaps too much for Saturday morning sans sufficient caffeination, brought to you by memories dredged up by learning of the recent death of a college classmate (at an age that few people call "untimely," because I'm getting old).
- The current Selbsternannterreichskanzler of the Sunshine State appears to have a few problems selecting slogans. He says that rather than "Make America Great Again" (one wonders what that looked like in Tulsa 102 years and a few days ago, and whether "great" means what they think it does), he and his allies want to "Make America Florida". I'm hoping that they don't mean full of retirees from parasitic inherited wealth and New York white-collar jobs (not to mention other invasive species like snakes), alligators in the back yard, smuggling, heat, humidity, and a lack of situational awareness sufficient to create an ever-strengthening decade-long internet meme. Based on the attacks on public education, though, I think what they really mean is "Make Americans Florida Man," which I'm pretty sure would not be a good thing.
Look, the guy can't even use basic phonics and knowledge of a common, non-English language to pronounce his own last name consistently. It appears that he's already succumbed to his own education initiatives and forgotten about this other person whose last name is pronounced "Winner". That reflects disturbingly well on just how much Florida Heffalumps respect any secrets other than their own campaign-contributor lists and extramarital affairs and such. That is just about as Florida Man as it gets…
- After actually thinking for fifteen seconds or so about MAGA, though, one suspects that it's an exercise in alternate history that doesn't understand what "alternate history" is: A counterfactual. One doesn't get to ignore unpleasant facts like Founders as slaveowners and pretend that history has no warts (yeah, that's gonna go over real well with ardent Irish nationalists in Queens and the Bronx). But then, most ancestor-worship is entirely about ignoring inconvenient facts and retconning hagiography of multidimensional losers.
- That kind of tunnel vision extends to environmental memes, too. As it stands, virtually every big effort looks like a payday loan for the planet, leaving only a question with a disturbingly obvious answer: Who are the loan sharks dependant upon a legacy of slavery and colonialism (replacement technology is no better), inequitable initial positions, and outside-research-blocking patent portfolios to continue their well-above-market "lending activities" to those whose choices are taking the loans or doing without necessities?
- But that's better than outright forgery and bad faith in marketing cryptomathematical foofery, right? Right? And this doesn't have anything to do with the preceding link sausage, either…
- All of which might be better than outright quackery. Or maybe it's the same thing, and we're just fooling ourselves, especially economically, by enshrining in our accounting standards the right — indeed, the obligation — to discount the future liability costs of negative externalities to net present value (without any error bars, variances, or confidence levels). I think that's how we've ended up at "2.5°C" as a target…