Bigger Richard

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

[Chef Andrew Gruel @ChefGruel]

This is nuts!! Voters chose @realSonjaShaw for State Superintendent in the primary, but instead of respecting the fact she may win, Newsom is fast-tracking legislation to shift key powers from the independently elected Superintendent of Public Instruction to a governor-appointed official. That’s an end run around the voters.

[Aesthetica @Anc_Aesthetics]

This perfectly explains the difference between right wing thinking and left wing thinking. Right wing politicians come from business so they operate under a revenue generation framework. Basically if you don't make money no one on the right is going to fund you.

Left wing politicians come from Government, NGOs and Higher Ed. They operate under the framework that money can always be siphoned from the taxpayer and therefore the only thing that matters is getting elected and owning the power of the purse.

[Chris Martz @ChrisMartzWX]

The science is settled! ✍️🤓🫴🧪

The New York Times reports today that the ongoing eastern U.S. heatwave is “virtually impossible without climate change.”

That sounds pretty bad. I'm pretty worried. 😨

The NYT's Raymond Zhong writes,

🗨️ “𝘛𝘰 𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬’𝘴 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘵��𝘰𝘯𝘴, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 '𝘸𝘦𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘣 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦,' 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵. 𝘎𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘶𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘢.”

🔗https://t.co/ZJahy8OD31

So, right off the bat, this analysis (which is executed by, you guessed it, World Weather Attribution) is questionable. For one thing, the heatwave just began and it will continue through Independence Day weekend. Even if you believe in this so-called “attribution science” (I'll address that further down), it is irresponsible to draw robust conclusions like this prematurely. You need to wait days or even weeks to gather all of the available data, then analyze it, plot it, and finally write about it. That's how things work in REAL science, which does not include WWA's witchcraft of climastrology.

🔗https://t.co/A50o2xyWdQ

And not only is this analysis largely a modeling effort (and I ought to remind y'all that model output cannot count as evidence), but it's modeling stacked on top of more modeling because the WWA “scientists” (and I use scare quotes there) employed forecast data to arrive at their bold conclusion, completely ignoring the fact that many numerical weather prediction (NWP) models such as the Global Forecast System (GFS) and European (ECMWF) have warm biases (likely due to their lower resolution compared to, say, the NAM) and predict daily maximum (Tmax) and minimum (Tmin) temperatures that are too high compared to physical observations. Legendary meteorologist (and my good friend OR “crazy uncle” as he likes to be called) @BigJoeBastardi has pointed out multiple times this past week.

In other words, this WWA analysis and NYT piece that promotes it is largely junk science.

But I digress, let's continue.

🗨️ “𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 [WWA] 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘷𝘦-𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘦𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘣 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘥𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺’𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 0.5 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳. ���𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘰 𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥.”

So, rather than assessing heatwave magnitude like has traditionally been done (i.e., examining the Tmax values), the WWA used a rather obscure metric that most people don't use, let alone understand, called the “wet bulb globe temperature” (WBGT), which is a composite index that combines the air temperature, humidity level, wind speed, the sun angle, and cloud cover. It was developed in the 1950s.

🔗https://t.co/3xVBhckhE6

The WWA examined WBGT over their study region, the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada, using the annual highest five-day averaged WBGT (WBGTx5x). To do this, they used the ERA5 reanalysis data, which integrates both physical observations and modeled simulations to produce a consistent, gridded, high-resolution dataset of atmospheric conditions globally going back to 1950. That's fine and all, I suppose, but it does not come without limitations.

Unlike most of the handwritten 19th century weather observations (which Dr. John Christy and I are in the process of examining and homogenizing), which contained very detailed notes about cloud cover and wind speed / direction, daily U.S. Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service) observations (~October 1890 to present) don't contain any data on local cloud cover, dew points, or wind speed / direction. The NWS now has that data (often in five-minute or hourly intervals) for ASOS sites, but said data only go back to the mid-to-late-20th century, at best. 1950 wasn't that long ago.

Without an abundance of real observations to work with, I have doubts about the WWA's high levels of confidence in their conclusions. Cloud area fraction, dew points, and wind directions are mostly guessed by computer model interpolation from scattered observations (which are fewer and fewer the farther back in time you go).

The NYT finally states,

🗨️ “𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘈𝘵𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯��𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙮𝙚𝙩 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙥𝙚𝙚𝙧-𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙘𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘 𝙟𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙖𝙡.”

And there it is. This analysis, if that's what you want to call it, has not been subject to rigorous peer review or published in an academic journal.

Now, I personally don't care about that, but alarmists always like to point out that nothing their critics say to contest climate hysteria (such as this WWA analysis) matters unless it is published in a journal. So, why are they not holding themselves to the same standards? Why should preliminary findings that haven't yet been published be newsworthy?

Other outlets have reported on this “flash study”, such as The Guardian and Reuters.

🔗https://t.co/u4GCKrlGyR

🔗https://t.co/SStyJzWEh4

Notice that these stories all use roughly the same language. “A rapidly warming world.” “Caused by fossil fuels.” “Virtually impossible.” These are copy-paste stories built from a list of talking points that these so-called “journalists” received in an email. There is ZERO investigative journalism here. They don't question these findings as real journalists should. They don't ask any follow-up questions either. They just nod in agreement because they are paid to push climate propaganda.

I should also regurgitate my point in other posts that I've made that climate change, by definition, is an outcome, not a cause or an accelerant. It describes a change in climate, the latter of which is a statistical description of the mean and variability of Earth's climate system. An increase or decrease in heatwave frequency / magnitude would be evidence of climate change, but climate change itself does not cause or worsen them. You could argue that mankind's slight enhancement of the greenhouse effect has, but that isn't the same as saying “climate change caused this event / made this event worse,” which is an outright false framing.

If we really want to examine whether or not this July heatwave is unprecedented in the northeast, well, the metric used historically to evaluate heatwaves is the afternoon Tmax.

On June 29th, 1853, Washington, D.C. reached 102°F. The following day, it reached 105°F, which is hotter than anything in forecast for D.C. this weekend. It was 106°F in Detroit that day. How did that happen in June of all months? Then, during this exact week in 1911, there was the hottest July 4th weekend on record in the U.S. On July 3rd, 1911, 13.1% of the country reached 100°F and nearly half of the nation was ≥90°F. Much of New England was also ≥100°F. During this week in 1901, much of the eastern half of the country reached 100°F (it was one of the deadliest in history).

While we don't have any dew point data to infer what humidity levels were during these events, from a pure temperature standpoint, there is nothing unprecedented about this heatwave despite the fact the planet is ~2°F (1.3°C) warmer now than it was in 1850. There is no doubt it is hotter than a hoochie coochie this weekend, but this is nothing that hasn't happened several times before. It's summertime; if it were, say, May or mid-September, there'd be a leg for alarmists to stand on here.

All of that to say that this is just another example of day-to-day and week-to-week weather, not climate.

Stay cool with your A/C, don't leave your pets outside, hydrate, and rest easy tonight knowing that your Chevy Suburban did not cause this heatwave to occur.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@FoxNews Mamdani has built nothing. He is a taker, never a maker.

[The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist]

Notice the opening. "When we gain power." Not when we are trusted to restore liberty to the individual, not when we earn the right to protect a free people, but when we gain power. That is how a man thinks who sees government as a weapon to wield, not a servant to restrain.

Then read the method: "through executive action." He proposes to reshape the entire labor economy by decree, bypassing Congress, the branch that actually makes law. That is not a republic or even a democracy. It is rule by pen, the tool of a man who cannot win the argument and so skips the legislature entirely.

And the substance is force. "Tie federal contracts to union recognition" means using the taxpayer's money to coerce workers and employers into an arrangement they never chose. @RoKhanna calls it standing up for the working class. It is standing on their necks and calling it help.

A free man does not need you to "gain power" over him. He needs someone to defend his right to his own life which means to leave him free to produce and trade and keep what he earns.

[Bruce Blakeman @NassauExec]

Are you kidding me? @GovKathyHochul shuts down power plants, hands our energy grid over to foreign-owned solar companies, and now, in the middle of a heat wave, she's telling New Yorkers to turn off their AC? People are elderly. People have kids. People are sick. This isn't a request; it's an admission that she broke the grid and she's making working families pay for it, literally and physically. I'm done watching New Yorkers get gaslit by a governor who caused this mess and then blames the weather. Enough.

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

"If Kristof does not believe me - then perhaps he will believe his own publication home. New York Times, back in 2014, called South Sudan 'in many ways an American creation, carved out of war-torn Sudan in a referendum largely orchestrated by the United States, its fragile institutions nurtured with billions of dollars in American aid.'"

This article took three days to research and write. And the horrifying thing is - this pattern repeats for many African countries. USAID attempted to install a democracy; it failed; China reaps the spoils.

My latest.

[Benjamin Watson @BenjaminSWatson]

21 years of marriage.
Lord, you are so good.

[Flopping Aces @FloppingAces]

The intelligence community is out here acting like they’re the victims of some authoritarian power grab because Bill Pulte wants a list of who they’re actually spying on.

Oh no. How dare the guy legally in charge of overseeing them ask to see the receipts. It’s giving “I promise I’m not cheating on you, babe… but you can never, ever look at my phone. That would be a violation of trust.”

That’s the energy. They spent years running operations they swore were over, then got extremely religious about “secrecy” the second someone with actual authority said, “Cool, show me the list.” And when that didn’t work, they ran to the New York Times like a teenager whose parents found the weed, crying about how their mean new boss might misuse the information.

Then Hillary Clinton, of all people, pops up on a podcast to openly root for federal employees to slow-walk and withhold information from him. Because nothing says “we have nothing to hide” like the Russiagate architect publicly encouraging insubordination.

And just to really ruin their week, Trump casually mentions that while Pulte’s there, he can declassify whatever he wants. You can almost hear the filing cabinets locking in unison across Langley and FBI headquarters.

This isn’t resistance. This is a bureaucracy that got way too comfortable operating in the dark suddenly realizing the lights might actually come on. And they’re not handling it well.
(article below)

[Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze]

The entire "Elon did a genocide" is a set up for the next democrat president and DOJ to prosecute him. It's all this is.

[Ben Shapiro @benshapiro]

John Adams, writing to Abigail, about the Continental Congress' vote in favor of independence on July 2, 1776:

"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. -- I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. -- Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."

[Bonchie @bonchieredstate]

Whether you care about antisemitism or not, there’s no denying it’s heavily third-world coded.

All these DSA politicians are either first or second generation immigrants from third world states with average IQs comparable to a cool spring day.

[Students For Liberty @sfliberty]

In 1825, a rich Welsh industrialist bought an entire American town to prove that socialism could work.

He had the money, the buildings, the theory, and hundreds of eager followers waiting to move in.

Two years later, it was over. 🧵

[Greg Price @greg_price11]

She has a law degree from Notre Dame, was fired from her law firm for publicly calling them out for not supporting Palestine after October 7, and at 29-years-old, made a total of $30K last year while being $250K in debt. And Democrats elected her to Congress.

[Ken Gardner @KenGardner11]

This is for the people who think that AOC personally isn’t as bad, malicious, or evil as her politics.

Think again.

[Will Flanders @WillFlandersWI]

If you told someone 20 years ago that Mississippi would someday surpass Wisconsin in fourth grade reading scores, they would have thought you were insane. But a DPI that puts more effort into hiding reality than improving outcomes has led us to this point.

[Allan 🇺🇸🇮🇱🇺🇦🇬🇱 @UnrealAllan]

250 years ago today, July 2, 1776: the Continental Congress, by a vote of 12-0-1, adopted the Lee Resolution, which had been proposed by Richard Henry Lee on June 7, following the instructions of the Virginia Convention of May 15.

"Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

TODAY is the day, my friends - NOT Saturday. Our course of liberty has gone up, down, backwards, forwards, and sideways since then, but I wouldn't live anywhere else.

Happy birthday, America! #America250 #LeeResolution #Independence 🇺🇸

[SightBringer @_The_Prophet__]

⚡️Universal high income is a system requirement of the machine economy, and reading it that way inverts both its credibility and its meaning.

Start with the circular flow.

Capitalism’s engine is firms paying households who buy from firms.

Automate labor fully and the wage channel dies, which kills the demand that machine output must be sold into. A robot economy has no customers unless it manufactures them. Some transfer mechanism therefore becomes structurally necessary for the owners’ own revenue line. Ford’s five-dollar day, inverted: Ford paid workers so workers could buy cars; the machine economy pays non-workers so there is anyone left to sell to at all.

This makes Musk’s forecast more credible than the philanthropy reading, because the dividend arrives out of necessity rather than virtue, and simultaneously darker, because income calibrated to sustain aggregate demand gets set at the level that maximizes owner revenue rather than recipient flourishing. Customer subsidy wearing the costume of liberation.

Second layer: the wage was never only income. It was leverage.

The ability to withdraw cooperation is the only power non-owners have ever held, and every institution of labor’s dignity (strikes, quitting, scarcity premiums, the eight-hour day) was built on it. “Work optional” reads as freedom and functions as disarmament.

A population that produces nothing negotiates nothing; its income is pure transfer, and transfers to the politically inert get conditioned, means-tested, and trimmed. Rome ran the experiment: the grain dole was real, durable, and paid in exchange for the plebs’ exit from politics. Bread and circuses was a transaction, and universal high income is the same transaction quoted at planetary scale, income for irrelevance.

Third: the claim has a hundred-year base rate, and it is brutal.

Keynes, 1930, forecast a fifteen-hour workweek within a century, derived from productivity growth he called almost exactly right. The capability arrived on schedule. The leisure never came, eaten by distribution fights and positional competition, precisely the mechanism Musk’s sentence leaves unnamed.

A century of the engineering half delivering while the social half fails is the prior this promise must overcome. One honest difference this time: the wave targets cognition itself, so the historical escape valve, labor migrating up the skill ladder, has no next rung. That strengthens the capability claim and worsens the distribution problem in the same motion.

Fourth: “optional” inverts Veblen.

The machine owners will keep working; the man in the photograph works hundred-hour weeks by choice and will until he dies. In the world he describes, real function becomes the scarcest luxury good, hoarded at the top, while the displaced receive income stripped of purpose.

The unemployment literature is unambiguous that joblessness damages people through purpose loss even when income is fully replaced. The promise solves the channel that is easy to measure and ruptures the one that actually breaks humans.

A high-income, zero-function class at scale is historically novel and politically combustible, and “work will be optional” names its creation as a benefit.

[MAHA Action @MAHA_Action]

The editors of the world's most prestigious medical journals are sounding the alarm, and nobody is listening.

"We have peer reviewed, high impact editors in most of the journals that are the most high impact, saying that they don't believe what is being published in those journals is trustworthy anymore."

"The BMJ, The Lancet, all of those editors have come out and said, we have a huge problem. We can't replicate this research and we actually don't even know who did the research."

"Everywhere we've looked for corruption, we've found it."

Emily Kaplan, co-founder of the Broken Science Initiative.

@broken_science