Beware the Boomer Christmas

 From Jeff “Tank” Hoover at the American Handgunner.

 It’s remarkable that Us Old Guys managed to make it.

 Here is the link.

 https://americanhandgunner.com/discover/beware-the-boomer-christmas/

 

On the maturity of macroeconomics

From John Cochrane.

Forget the math. The English conveys the message.

The moral of the story is that you cannot trust what you read and hear in the media and from many economists to be coherent.

 Here is the link.

 https://www.grumpy-economist.com/p/bob-hall-and-consumption

2024 Top Story in Cardiology: The ESPRIT Trial

 Here is the link.

 https://www.practiceupdate.com/c/173221/2/2/?elsca1=emc_enews_daily-digest&elsca2=email&elsca3=practiceupdate_cardio&elsca4=cardiology&elsca5=newsletter&rid=MzEwODYyNjA4MjA0S0&lid=20845073

 Here is an excerpt.

 Hypertension remains a common and undertreated cardiovascular risk factor throughout the world. The recommended target for the treatment of high blood pressure (BP) has long been a systolic BP of less than 140 mm Hg. The SPRINT trial¹ did show that targeting a systolic BP of less than 120 mm Hg was better than 140 mm Hg in patients at high cardiovascular risk but without diabetes or stroke. The ESPRIT trial² has now validated and extended the SPRINT findings to include patients with diabetes or stroke.

Mystery Illness Kills Dozens in Congo

 Here is the link.

 https://www.practiceupdate.com/c/173373/2/6/?elsca1=emc_enews_daily-digest&elsca2=email&elsca3=practiceupdate_primary&elsca4=primary-care&elsca5=newsletter&rid=MzEwODYyNjA4MjA0S0&lid=20849334

 Here is an excerpt.

 Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to try to identify the cause of a mysterious, flu-like illness that has sickened 376 people and left 79 dead in that country.

Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid

 

Here is the link.

 https://judithcurry.com/2024/12/05/wind-and-solar-cant-support-the-grid/#more-31718

 Here is an excerpt.

 In October of 2025, the isolated small city of  Broken Hill in New South Wales, Australia with a 36 MW load (including the large nearby mines) could not be reliably served by 200 MW of wind, a 53 MW solar array, significant residential solar, and a large 50 MW battery all supplemented by diesel generators.

 Many people falsely believe that wind, solar and batteries have been demonstrated to provide grid support and deliver energy independently in large real word applications. Few people realize that we are a long way away from having wind, solar and batteries support a large power system without significant amounts of conventional spinning generation (nuclear, gas, coal, hydro, geothermal) on-line to support the grid.

Another 737 issue

 Boing is not what it once was.

 Here is the link.

 https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/safety-ops-regulation/ntsb-probe-southwest-bird-strike-spotlights-737-max-engine?elq2=21fe123d83004c5d81ff3c9395dc7633&sp_eh=735021cff4c861024f94128455990f6b1cc07f078ecf304aec863602fd2eb988&elq2=21fe123d83004c5d81ff3c9395dc7633&sp_eh=735021cff4c861024f94128455990f6b1cc07f078ecf304aec863602fd2eb988&utm_campaign=49894&utm_emailname=AW_News_AirTransportDigest_NL_11262024&utm_medium=email&utm_rid=CPEN1000004535171

The Cosmos Teems with Complex Organic Molecules

 From quantamagazine.org.

 Here is the link.

 https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-cosmos-teems-with-complex-organic-molecules-20241113/

Who is anti-democracy

From Jonathan Turley.

 Here is the link.

 https://jonathanturley.org/2024/11/12/remember-remember-the-5th-of-november-democrats-seem-to-be-moving-on-from-democracy/#more-225319

A lesson on economics 2024-11-09

 From adamsmith.org

 The key line: “The aim of economic advance is - always - to kill jobs.”

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How disappointing, AI isn’t going to make us all that much richer

 We are told that:

 Artificial intelligence could displace between 1m and 3m private sector jobs in the UK, though the ultimate rise in unemployment will be in the low hundreds of thousands as growth in the technology also creates new roles, according to Tony Blair’s thinktank.

 Between 60,000 and 275,000 jobs will be displaced every year over a couple of decades at the peak of the disruption, estimates from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) suggest.

 It described the figure as “relatively modest” given the average number of job losses in the UK has run at about 450,000 a year over the past decade. More than 33 million people are employed in the UK.

 The aim of economic advance is - always - to kill jobs. Or, to enable us to gain the output without the use of human labour. That’s the same statement. For that means that we can now have that output from the machines, without labour, plus the new output that we devise that newly freed up human labour to. It’s that new output which is how much richer the machines have just made us.

 So, when people say that a revolutionary technology will only kill off a couple of hundred thousand jobs that is to insist that the technology’s not, in fact, all that revolutionary.

 As we - to excess perhaps - like to point out the tractor is what gave us the NHS. Before the tractor, the basic mechanisation of agriculture, 90% of the population had to work in the fields to feed the 100%. That 10% not up to its knees in mud is what gave us the Navy, cathedrals, the law, books and all the rest. Now we have tractors and only 2% work on the land. That means 98% of the population can work on not-food things - ballet, the NHS, a change of clothes for all and yes, I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. The wealth created by tractors is exactly that we’ve the human labour available to now staff the NHS.

 “Only a few jobs destroyed” is exactly what proves that the new tech is a bit of a damp squib.

 But then this is an estimate from the Tony Blair Institute after all. They’re not even aware that new tech doesn’t, in fact, mean unemployment in the first place. It just means that the newly displaced human labour goes off and does something else - like the NHS.

 Tim Worstall

Defensive Gun Uses By People Legally Carrying Guns

 From Crime Prevention Research Center.

 Here is the link.

 https://crimeresearch.org/2024/10/defensive-gun-uses-by-people-legally-carrying-guns-28-cases-during-july-2024/