Most people who study physics at any level know the Inclined Plane as the first machine of their acquaintance. It’s the simplest machine I know of. It serves admirably to illustrate the fundamental nature and purpose of a machine: to make some human undertaking easier than it would otherwise be. The illustration commonly presented …
Category: COVID-19
Aug 06 2021
Fighting FB Disinfo
At every post that mentions the vaques, FB intrudes the tag shown in the picture below. While it is impossible to reply to the intruders, a rebuttal has been permitted and it gets copied and repeated. So there are ways to fight back, at least until FB decides to penalize every account that repeats it. …
Aug 06 2021
Your Decision Tree And What It Means For You
You’ve probably seen the phrase decision tree before. It’s become a frequent element in op-ed columns such as this one. While it looks forbiddingly formal and technical, it refers to one of the most pedestrian things in human life: our priorities and how we use them to make choices. Everyone has priorities. However, …
Aug 04 2021
One Of These Days
“One of these days, I’m going to cut you into little pieces” – Pink Floyd, “One Of These Days” One of these days, we will reckon the fall of the Republic from a point that’s already in our past. The Constitutional bounds of the federal government are violated daily. Thus it should …
Aug 01 2021
Trump Haters So Deranged They Now Unwittingly Align With Him
There are many irons in the fire incentivizing citizens to relinquish their rights bit by bit. The following provides a simple observation over the effectiveness of one tactic: fear. I don’t know if any reader will gain any use from this odd insight, but I felt compelled to offer it anyway. Just maybe the uncomfortable …
Jul 31 2021
How Can We Be Sure?
The great goal of the knowledge-seeker is practical certainty. Note the modifier: for most propositions in this universe of discourse, absolute certainty is unattainable. That’s in the nature of causal propositions. Only in completely formal systems such as mathematics can we be absolutely certain of anything. This has critical implications for the sciences. …
Jul 28 2021
Ch-Ch-Changes 2021
The attempt to subjugate Americans has run out of new ideas. The giveaway is the Establishment’s propagandization of the “Delta variant” to frighten us back into face masks and isolation. The bad news is that some people are buying the scare propaganda. The good news is that they’re greatly outnumbered by those who aren’t. …
Jul 12 2021
Body Armor II: Vaccine Fascism Privatized For Your Convenience
Yesterday’s brief piece was only one conception of how things could go. There are others – and one of them was stated explicitly by one of CNN’s “medical analysts:” A CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner said on Thursday that it’s time has come for private industry to demand that employees take “the …
Jul 11 2021
It’s Time For Body Armor, Gentle Readers
For more than a year, we were told that it was legally and morally imperative that we: Wear face masks; Stay away from one another; Stay away from churches, concerts, sports events, etc. All this for an infectious disease no more dangerous than common influenza. Then came the “vaccines.” For reasons too …
Jul 09 2021
Diseases And Cures
Informal conversation, and most writing, tend to be casual about the exact meanings of words. That doesn’t mean the words we use don’t have exact meanings. Moreover, those meanings are more important than most people are aware. For example: What is a disease? Could you define the word intensively, with confidence that your …
Jun 30 2021
The Fear Weapon
Allow me to lead off with a snippet of an old essay by humorist P. J. O’Rourke: Something is happening in America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the “baby boom,” a generation not known for its sane or …
Jun 03 2021
Suspicions Confirmed
You knew there was something dodgy, as our English cousins would say, about the way the government and the media heaped endless plaudits on Anthony Fauci. You knew, from the way Big Tech defended Fauci’s pronouncements from contradiction, close scrutiny, or even analytical discussion, that there were reasons to question them—and him. You knew, …
May 28 2021
So Perhaps We Weren’t Crazy After All?
Say what you will about Fox News and its steady slide to the left, it continues to provide a platform to at least one honest, courageous reporter: The evidence will be hard to gather, and probably harder still to verify and collate. However,. given the Chinese ruling class’s undisguised intentions: To rise to …
May 11 2021
Better Than I Could Have Said It Dept.
Every now and then, the penetration and eloquence of another Web commentator simply blows me off my seat. I’m reduced to clapping and wishing I could have said what he did, as piercingly as he did. Here is one such case. A small taste: The Mask is a visible sign of “who …
Fran’s Recent Novels
Margaret’s Recent Novels
