The virus on the rise.

Country by country.

From Jennifer Chu at the MIT News Office

How Ultracold, Superdense Atoms Become Invisible

And hears why it matters:

“Whenever we control the quantum world, like in quantum computers, light scattering is a problem, and means that information is leaking out of your quantum computer. This is one way to suppress light scattering, and we are contributing to the general theme of controlling the atomic world.”

Who knew that quantum computers leaking light was a problem?

Now, we know why DOD funds MIT.

But what about spreading acronyms?

Smack on the heels of the Glasgow climate change conference comes this from Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice.com:

• “Having just hosted COP26 in Glasgow, Boris Johnson is now coming under pressure to cancel plans to explore the Cambo oilfield – a project that is thought to hold 800 million barrels of oil.

• “Climate groups argue that the Cambo oilfield exploration contradicts all of the promises and work that was put into COP26.

• “Scotland’s First Minister has yet to speak out against Cambo, with industry experts claiming it will produce much-needed low-carbon oil.” 

I will be AMAZED if the UK walks away from developing the CAMBO FIELD. Britain was fast on its way to becoming a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY when North Sea oil was first discovered.

Seriously . . .

Given that it’s a) once again a stand-alone country in need of economic juice b) in the throes of a severe energy and power generation crunch and c) realizes from history the role oil can play in sparking its economy — how likely is the UK to look this “crude” gift horse in the mouth?

Of course, Scotland must weigh in as well, but if the Brits fail to develop this field, some other country will surely offer to PAY THEM FOR THE RIGHTS TO DO SO. Just look at the frantic, multi-country natural gas grab going on in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Get used to it, folks. Carbon will be with us for DECADES.

Here’s the piece in full.

The 800 Million Barrel Oilfield Getting Boris Johnson in Trouble

The double-down metal.

For some time, I’ve been stressing the likelihood that as AI and other forms of automation kick in, HUMANS WILL BECOME INCREASINGLY EXPENDABLE.  Even to the point of no longer being considered ASSETS as opposed to LIABILITIES.

In fact, it’s already happening.

To some, migrants are seen as LOW-COST ASSETS while others see them as COMPETITOR/CULTURAL OUTSIDER-LIABILITIES.  Take that to its logical extreme, and one side wants more of them and the other side fewer.  Take it one fatal step further, and one side sees BENEFIT IN THESE PEOPLE REMAINING ALIVE while the other DOESN’T CARE, to say the least, IF THEY SHOULD SIMPLY DISAPPEAR, i.e. die.

My term for the latter preference?  SOFT GENOCIDE.

The linked piece deals with this.

Global Humanitarian Crisis 2020-2030: From Eliminating Poverty to Eliminating the Poor

Quite a title, right?  Juxtaposing “eliminating poverty” with “eliminating the poor?”  Is there a hint there of it being — potentially — a COIN FLIP?

Unfortunately, as I let my GEAB subscription lapse, the entire article was not made available to me.  I’m nonetheless including the piece in its truncated form, bearing in mind that the 9 bullet points below provide more than enough information on where the author must have wound up.

“There is no doubt that the collective unconscious of the West feels threatened by an overpopulated humanity. Everything contributes to this diffuse feeling:

• The post-pandemic return to life and street crowds suddenly made unbearable by comparison with the calm of the lockdown.
• The highlighting of a non-Western world ten times more numerous than ‘us’, questioning our societies, our identities, our models.
• The environmental obsession having turned humans into systemic enemies of our good Mother Nature.
• The existential crisis linked to the questioning of the humans’ usefulness, neither workers (because of technology) nor consumers (because of pollution).
• The disappearance in the West of social and humanist thinking in favour of environmental and naturalist thinking.
• The growing difficulties of our social systems, crushed under the weight of a 30-year liberal disinvestment, the ageing of the Baby-boomers, and the additional costs linked to the pandemic and its consequences (unemployment, impoverishment, physical and psychiatric illnesses, drugs, etc.).
• The gradual distancing from the world brought about by the rise of borders, the blurred relationship to reality of humans connected to the virtual world, and the control of information, re-launching the classic process of dehumanisation of the ‘Others’, these swarming and threatening faceless masses who come from elsewhere.
• The trans-humanist totalitarianism that is taking hold.
• The fantasies of degrowth that accompany all of this and imply, without daring to say it, a demographic decline to begin with . . . .”

And here is for me the PIECE’S KEY:

“Ambient pessimism feeds both on the feeling of growing exasperation with the Others and on the horror that arises from the prospect of the consequences of this feeling, i.e. the gradual acceptance of letting people die (social aim), or even of making them die (geopolitical aim).

“We anticipate that over the next 5 to 10 years, hundreds of millions of people will disappear prematurely from the face of the earth in various ways. This great human depletion is in the making as much in the collapse of social systems . . . as in the rise of geopolitical tensions . . . .”

SOFT GENOCIDE, INDEED.

And it’s no longer just me warning of it.

The INQUISTION is back.  The WOKE inquisition.

Here’s Kathleen Stock’s recent account in The Spectator of her “encounter” with it.  And she’s a gay feminist and until recently, a philosophy professor at a British university.

How To Be a Heretic

Stock’s opener:

“Two weeks ago, I resigned my post as philosophy professor at Sussex University. For three years, I’ve faced bullying and harassment for my views on sex and gender. More recently, this intensified into a full-blown campaign. Posters and graffiti went up denouncing me. Masked students held protests, set off flares and gave interviews saying they felt unsafe with me around. The problems all started when I began making such controversial statements as: ‘there are only two sexes’ and ‘it’s wrong to put male rapists in women’s prisons’. I even went as far as worrying out loud about the consequences of children being given body-altering drugs based on potentially temporary inner feelings. It has been all too much for certain colleagues. My critics have produced an apparently unstoppable narrative, according to which I’m a bigot and a terrible danger to trans students. What they lack in evidence, they make up for in conviction. Eventually any hopes I could lead a relatively normal life on campus were definitively extinguished. My feelings are mixed. What exactly I’ve lost has yet to sink in, but there’s also some exhilaration and a new sense of freedom. Finally, I can admit to the really heretical aspects of my character. For instance: I’ve never read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.” 

AND THEY’RE AFRAID OF HER?

IT’S SHE WHO SHOULD BE TERRIFIED.  THEY BURN HERETICS, DON’T THEY?

No?

But they DO get them FIRED!

READ THE WHOLE PIECE.  IT’S COMPELLINGLY LUCID.

The greater the CLIMATE ALARMISM, the MORE COAL BURNED.

From Mike Shedlock:

And it’s not just China.

“India now burns more coal than Europe and the U.S combined and miners are betting on rising demand over the next decade from countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and Indonesia, although pollution concerns and cheaper alternatives threaten to derail those plans.”

OR NOT.

“Developing countries that invested in coal-powered electrical plants that have many years of useful life want reparations to develop new plants. 

“New wind and solar plants are cheaper but unreliable. And they are not cheaper than plants already built. 

“Moreover, wind can die for days and solar has on average 12 hours a day of outages.

“This places additional capital investment requirements for countries to build energy storage facilities.”

So, coal-fired plants are still being built.

There’s nothing like UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

But the real lessons?

PLANNING AND ENGINEERING TRUMP VIRTUE.

And what’s right is what works.

Hypersonic trumps hyperreal.  What you see is what you get.

And MORE SO in Mexico.