Vandals cut down most famous tree in UK

This tree:

Voted Tree of the Year in 2016 by the conservation charity Woodland Trust, the Sycamore Gap Tree was one of the most photographed trees in the United Kingdom. It’s also known as the “Robin Hood Tree” because it appeared in the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, despite Hadrian’s Wall being some 130 miles north of Sherwood Forest.

According to the National Trust, this iconic sycamore tree was planted in the late 1800s by John Clayton, the saviour of Hadrian’s Wall, to be a feature in the landscape. 

So why would someone cut it down?  Tik-tok views:

Why would anyone do this? A question we are all confused over. Police officers are looking into claims that the tree was felled to be posted online and carried out as part of a TikTok stunt

Dumbass Tik-tockers.  Hang em.  From a tree.  As a warning to others.

Cheap guns!

The Miami PoPo are doing a gun buy-back "to benefit Ukraine". [rolls eyes]

They're offering peanuts, in the form of gift cards. Smartest kids in class, right there.  [rolls eyes again]

If you're in that area and looking to score guns cheap, show up at Miami City Hall on Saturday at 10:00 AM.  If you offer twice as much in cash, I expect you'll get first pick.  Looking at the price they're offering, that'd be $300 for an AR.

Stop protecting stupid people

Peter finds the Fed.Gov offering advice to stupid people ("Don't put gasoline in grocery bags.")  He is (naturally) horrified.  But he's a Man Of The Cloth, and you would expect that charitable reaction from him.  

Me, not so much ...

 (Language warning)

Coronavirus data, and some cautious conclusions - and an apology to Aesop

Ignore the hype.  The data are not hype, and the hype is not data.  This is the most important thing to know about the Coronavirus:

This is the weekly US COVID deaths as reported by the CDC.  Even with the shift from "dying from COVID" to "dying with COVID" to "dying in the same Zip code as COVID" (like the Florida buy killed in a motorcycle accident whose fatality is included in the graph here), we see that deaths are way, way down and dropping further.  The data are clear on this.

This is the second most important thing to know about the Coronavirus:

This is the US All Cause Deaths.  You can see the annual spikes during the winter Flu season.  This year is definitely not "just a bad flu season" - deaths are significantly up from two years ago (which was a bad flu season).  The dashed line is all cause deaths minus Coronavirus deaths but again you see the deaths dropping.  The last three dots are most recent reports which are incomplete and which will be adjusted upwards in the future as it can take 8 weeks for all deaths to be reported.

Data are from here, which is worth a read in full.

And this is where I was wrong and Aesop was right - this was not just a bad flu.  The data are crystal clear on that.

However, the data did not justify shutting down the economy.  The data did not justify preventing you from saying goodbye to Grandma on her deathbed.  The data did not justify prohibiting public gatherings at funerals.  The data did not justify shutting down Sunday church.  The data did not justify shutting down the schools.  The data don't justify mandatory mask wearing.  The data don't justify the hype.

The data do justify intelligent measures to protect vulnerable populations.  The data do justify additional health care resources to make sure the hospitals - and their employees - do not get overloaded.  There are probably a couple others that could go here, but I'd be pretty surprised if it's more than a couple others.

But we are not governed by Philosopher Kings, which means that we get the worst of both worlds - we get forced infection of vulnerable populations, we have great stress in the health care system, and we have Autocratic tyranny that would have had the Russian Tsars scribbling notes.

In a younger and more vigorous age of this Republic, the politicians who imposed all this useless misery on the population would have been horsewhipped through the public square.  The data don't say that, but we can figure that out all on our own.

So farmers are too dumb to understand hi tech?

Michael Bloomberg says farmers don't have the "grey matter" that's needed to understand technology.  (Hat tip to commenter Libertyman via email for the link)

The Queen Of The World tells a story about a new sales rep being taken around his region by his sales manager.  They end up out in the sticks, and pull into a diner for lunch.  A bunch of farmers are at a nearby table, dressed in overalls and John Deere hats.

The new sales manager sniffs at the spectacle.  "Man, they they sure look like a bunch of dumb hicks," he said.

His boss smiles.  "You see that field across the road?"

The young guy says he does.  "How much fertilizer do you think that would need for a corn crop?"  The young man doesn't know.

"If you wanted to plant soybeans, how many plants per acre would give you the best yield?"  Again, the young man doesn't know.

"When should you plant to minimize the risk of late frost while maximizing the growing season?"  Again, nothing.

"Well, if you go over and ask those 'dumb hicks', every one of them can give you the answer."

And if you go to your local County Fair, you can see all the computer monitors in the tractors and combines.  Oh, and the latest GPS farming tech.  Just sayin'.

Little Mike showed once again that the intelligence of the political class can be pretty stupid.  The Re-Elect Trump 2020 Campaign thanks him for his support.

Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

- Ambrose Bierce

Prescription pain killers do not lead to addiction or overdose death

So says a 20 year study in Germany:

The newer study, published last March in Deutsches Arzteblatt International, estimates that in 2016 there were 166,294 "opioid-addicted persons in Germany." The researchers add that "comparisons with earlier estimates" indicate the number was about the same two decades before then, prior to the dramatic increase in opioid prescriptions. In other words, a large increase in consumption of narcotic pain relievers did not lead to a surge in addiction, whether to those drugs or to illicit opioids such as heroin.

What's more, OECD data compiled by J.J. Rich, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation (which publishes this website), show that deaths involving licit and illicit opioids did not rise in Germany either. In fact, both the number of deaths and the death rate declined during the same period when prescriptions were climbing.

So what does the brutal crackdown on prescription pain killers accomplish (other than to keep Americans in chronic agony)?   Well, it keeps the loot from Asset Forfeiture rolling into Law Enforcement coffers: Law Enforcement Took More Stuff From People Than Burglars Did.

The War On Drugs is stupid, and is being run by stupid people.

The seductive mirage of "We have to do something!"

There is an excellent debate in the comments at Comrade Misfit's place, about what do to about mass shootings.  I particularly like her proposal to restrict the first amendment (it's at least trying to address the "copy cat" issue).

But as enjoyable as the debate is (it's intelligent and respectful; that's quite a salon she hosts over there), the whole premise is flawed.  There's nothing that you can do to stop mass shootings.  That's a pessimistic premise, but it's true.  The United States isn't the top of the list for mass shootings, not even close.  The top five countries for mass shootings all have much more restrictive gun control laws that are on the books here.

It's a seductive mirage, the idea that smart people implementing smart policy can eliminate (or even reduce) horrible events.  But unless everyone else in the world is a dummy - and the people proposing "solutions" are the only smart people around - then why would anyone think that the new proposals will work where everything has failed before?  The failures have been global in scope, across different societies.  The failures have been total.

Or maybe Mitch McConnell is an actual Philosopher King and his nifty new gun control proposals (due out next month, we're told) are just the tick to World Peace.  That would sure be something.

But maybe he's just a run of the mill idiot, like most of the folks proposing things that have been tried in various forms around the world, and come up empty time and time again.  Maybe the world is a lot more complex and unpredictable, maybe human psyche is a deep - and sometimes dark - well of unknowable.  Maybe the smartest thing that we could do is to not do something stupid.  After all, a lot that seems intelligent is actually pretty stupid.

Nah.  Cocaine Mitch is on it.  The future's so bright, we have to wear shades.  All is for the best in the best of all possible policy proposals.

How sophisticated was the Russian "hack the election" attack?

Based on a reading of the NSA disclosures, not at all:

IMHO, this “attack on the election infrastructure” is nothing more than a “Russian Prince” [similar to a "Nigerian Prince" - Borepatch] story. Most likely some Russian or Chinese based (trying to blame Russia) group working for personal gain via Identity Theft. Potentially a government TLA [Three Letter (Intelligence) Agency - Borepatch] on the side who lets them operate free of prosecution in exchange for any interesting intel they turn up. It didn’t break any voting machines. It didn’t even target voting machines, nor counting operations. The mode of attack and the method of compromise do not lend themselves to compromise of the vote. (It would take several more steps directed in a different way to start to approach that).

So THIS is what they have as a smoking gun? THIS is what is classified? THIS is what 20-something Ms. Winner will go to prison for leaking? A Russian Prince spearphish campaign of the sort run every day against every company on the planet?

It seems pretty clear that Ms. Winner is an idiot, not just for leaking classified documents in such a clumsy manner but for leaking lame classified documents.  This seems rather a pittance for the likely decade she will spend behind bars, but stupid is supposed to hurt.

Overheard in the office

Note to self

Be more careful when introducing different food to Wolfgang.  Explosive diarrhea every 2 hours for a day makes for an exciting day (and night).

Dear self: don't do that again.

Off to the vet.