2018 Year in Review: Part 2 |

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Part 1

Part 2

Human Achievement

“Opportunities don’t happen; you create them."

~Chris Grosser

We are now transitioning from economics and markets to the political and social events of 2018. As noted at the outset, I have over a hundred pages of quotes, notes, and anecdotes about Trump, Russian collusion, and the nefarious activities going on in the Deep State. It has grown progressively harder to wrap my brain around what I am actually witnessing. I can no longer write a chapter or two. I may be able to write a book, but certainly not in the months of November or December. It is what it is. I have focused on what catches my eye and what is achievable.

Random topics that come across my field of view that I capture are loosely defined as "Human Achievement". Who could forget the heroics in Thailand as cave divers saved the Thai soccer team?^{ref 394} Buddhist teachings by their coach helped them cope with stress and lower their oxygen intake for two weeks. Two heroic cave divers found them.^{ref 395} Divers from around the world suffering from toxic masculinity—no pussy hats or man buns on those guys—pulled them out. Meanwhile, Elon Musk was show boating with a useless submarine and calling one of the heroes a pedophile^{ref 396} and then gets sued.^{ref 397}

Although watching sports is too time consuming for me, I catch a lot on the fly. 2018 had some unlikely sports heroes. A 36-year-old accountant, Scott Foster, was called to play goalie for the Winnepeg Jets. The night before he was playing rec league for "Johnny's Icehouse" and probably did so the following weekend. On that one memorable night, however, he played 14 scoreless minutes in the Big League.^{ref 398} A 32-year old rookie got called up to play for the LA Lakers, came off the bench, and drained 19 points.^{ref 399} (It's not quite like those six three-pointers by the autistic kid,^{ref 400} but it's still amazing.) The winning Superbowl coach was coaching high school football nine years earlier.^{ref 401} (Trivia point: years ago, Cornell fired one of a long string of marginally successful football coaches. He was George Seiferth. You can't get talent into the Ivies.) The Boss of the sports world was an approximately 12-year-old fan who, when handed a game ball by the infielder, had the smarts to give it to a seriously hot chick sitting behind him… but not before switching it with the ball he bought from Dicks Sporting Goods.^{ref 402}That's metagame.

The PyongChang Olympics had six Cornell alums (mostly women's hockey).^{ref 403} In my opinion, women's hockey is as good to watch as men's hockey. Meanwhile, American Elizabeth Swaney achieved everybody's dream by competing for Hungary in the half pipe while being awful—seriously wretchedly bad.^{ref 404} She spotted a seam in the rules that qualified her for the Olympics by amassing top-30 finishes at international events. She traveled the world competing in all half-pipe competitions with fewer than 30 entrants.^{ref 405}

Other bulletable achievements included:

Tiger won his first tournament since 2013. It's all about redemption.
Jordan Bohannan tied Chris Street's University of Iowa record for most consecutive free throws, 34, that had withstood two decades. Chris had died in a car accident 3 days after graduation. Bohannan, stepping up to the line to set a new record, looked at his brother in the stands, bonked it against the iron, and pointed to the sky: "It was not my record to have." Superheroes don't always wear capes. I am tearing while I type.^{ref 406}
In March madness, #16 seeded UMBC beat #1 seed University of Virginia 74–54, busting every March Madness Bracket in the World.^{ref 407}
Drexel came back from a 34-point deficit, setting a new comeback record for Division I basketball.^{ref 408}
LA Tech football team lost 87 yards in a single play.^{ref 409}
Watch this kid play catcher; you wouldn't notice if I didn't tell you he has only one arm.^{ref 410(hotlink)} I hope he applies to Cornell.

"I think the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the right way to behave to honor our sport and to respect our opponents?"

~Martina Navratilova, returning Serena Williams' serve

And then there were the darker moments. Serena Williams reached hero status by delivering her latest kid and in the blink of an eye making it to the finals of the US Open Singles Championship.^{ref 411} In the final match, however, a serious shitfit at the line judge put a dark smudge on the game. The authorities kowtowed (which is a Chinese term that translates to "acted like pussies"), causing much of the glory to be taken away from the winner, Naomi Osaka.^{ref 412} It wasn't Williams' first outburst.^{ref 413}

And for some more Bullets from the Dark Side:

Phil Michelson six putted (if you include the two-stroke penalty for whacking a moving ball) and then claimed (admitted) it was tactical to avoid an even worse outcome.^{ref 414} The Mets signed him because he could hit a moving ball.
USA Gymnastics admitted it had more coverups of pedophilia than the Catholic Church.^{ref 415}
Khabib Nurmagomedov—Khabib for short and for obvious reasons—beat Conor McGregor in the UFC. (Khabibe literally wrestled grizzly bears as a kid,^{ref 416} so it was not a shock.) Risk was brought to a new level when a huge and arguably most dangerous sports brawl in history broke out.^{ref 417}
A Russian curler was charged with doping using a well-tracked substance.^{ref 418} Something is fishy…so many questions.
Another female Russian Olympian donning a shirt stating, "I don't do doping" tested positive for doping.^{ref 419}
Nigerian soccer star Emmanuel Eminike divorced Miss Nigeria 2013 to marry Miss Nigeria 2014.^{ref 420}
The first zero-emissions solar-powered boat is said to be circumnavigating the globe this year.^{ref 412} Correct me if I am wrong but one of Magellan's zero-emissions wind-powered boats made it around some time back. Contrary to popular opinion, Magellan did not.

"The art world is the biggest joke going. It’s a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak."

~Banksy

Away from sports, Banksy punked the art world when, seconds after the auction gavel fell on one of his $1 million paintings, a mechanism hidden in the frame shredded it.^{ref 422} The art world punked him back by declaring the painting's value just doubled.^{ref 423} A guy jumped from 25,000 feet without a parachute and landed "safely" in a net.^{ref 424} Another got the coveted hat trick when, after having been mauled by a bear and bitten by a rattlesnake, he got attacked by a shark.^{ref 425} While astronomers recorded the first video from the surface of an asteroid,^{ref 426} others identified a new type of aurora and named it "Steve".^{ref 427} Watch this girl playing a concerto on the violin with a prosthetic arm connected from her collar bone.^{ref 428}That is toxic femininity! This woman piloting a passenger jet has the engine blow off the plane and blew a hole in the plane sucking a passenger out. She displayed nerves of steel.^{ref 429(hotlink)}

If you dig long and hard, you eventually find the bottom of the barrel. A couple raised $400,000 for a homeless vet and just squandered it before the courts could intervene.^{ref 430} The author of "How to Murder Your Husband" was arrested for allegedly murdering her husband.^{ref 431} A man who thought he was possessed by crocodile hunter Steve Irwin was arrested for tranquilizing and raping alligators.^{ref 432}

In the non-hominid division, Beadnose (Bear #409) displayed impressive salmon-sourced cellulite, toppling the reigning champ, Otis (Bear #480), in Alaska's 2018 Fat Bear Championship (Figure 46).^{ref 433} The Flying Dog Championship witnessed a new jumping world record of 31 feet.^{ref 434} I'd like to see Beadnose try that.

Figure 46. Beadnose Bear at top feeding weight.

Had to save two for last. Ten players and two coaches of the Humboldt Broncos Youth Hockey Team coming from Humboldt, Saskatchewan were killed in a bus crash.^{ref 435} They were dominant on the ice. GoFundMe raised a $15 million memorial fund,^{ref 436} but I don't know how that town of 5,578 inhabitants will recover. RIP boys. (I'm tearing again.) Keep it in perspective folks.

You know all those fires in Boston that lit simultaneously due to an over-pressurized gas line (without a peep from the news questioning terrorism)?^{ref 437} My son was at the "red dot" chatting with me on the phone when they started. Like I said, keep it perspective.

Nature

"I know what it means to know something, and it's hard."

~Richard Feynman, physicist

Every year nature takes a bat to us in predictable and not-so-predictable ways. I have long stayed away from the global warming (or climate change, whatever) debate just because it is too rancorous, and I have little to offer. I once told the Secretary of Energy I was agnostic. After cleaning snot off my glasses I explained that I had not put in the 10,000 hours needed to form an educated opinion. For that matter, few have. Thus, all my colleagues in science with relatively few exceptions will sign off on the notion of anthropomorphic global warming with what is a vote of confidence in their scientific brethren but inadequate self study, providing an overstated scientific consensus. Here's what I will say. There are highly credible scientists on both sides now, not just whackadoodles looking for ten minutes of fame. I was shocked when I started Googling some of the deniers on this list to find out they they are both prominent and disbelievers.^{ref 438} Let me be equally clear because I am a wuss and so you don't hang some PC label on my sorry butt:

If I had to bet a paycheck, I would bet anthropogenic global warming is real. If I had to bet ten paychecks, I would bet that we are going to do the experiment despite the best intentions of those who worry. Resource depletion is what scares me.

Let me make one important point: you can't watch the weather or make any anecdotal observations and say, "See. I told you so. You guys are full of crap." You sound like an idiot to anybody who is not an idiot (unless you are being a snarky punk, which is fine). Hundreds of hurricanes have hit North America in the last century; nothing says the last 20 are anthropogenic. Snow in October and warm days in January mean nothing:

"This week in 1936, North Dakota was 121 degrees. This week in 1913, California was 134 degrees. This week in 1901, hundreds of New Yorkers died in the streets from the heat."

The warming trend, even if raging and eventually creates wind chill factors of 114 °F, is well inside the detection limits of simple human observation. With 365 days in a year, 100 years in a century, and more metrics of weather than pregnant teenagers, do you know how easy it is to break an all-time record? Those who claim to see patterns are being Fooled by Randomness. And the celebrities all know there is global warming. Remember when the star in TV medical drama "Quincy, M.E.", Jack Klugman, testified to Congress about health care? Most celebrities are idiots as are members of Congress. Why do you think they didn't study robotics or bioengineering? Only good science supported by good data analysis can tease signal from the noise. And what may prove to be the most ironic part of the global warming debate is that NASA scientists have found that a "big crack opened in the Earth's magnetic field and plasma started pouring in."^{ref 439} Meanwhile, a disturbing lack of sun spots and solar flares suggest an impending mini ice age is coming.^{ref 440} "Men plan, God laughs" or as Emily Litella would say, "Never mind."

Why don't I worry about climate change? It is for practical reasons. Humans are not proactive; they follow the Law of the Commons, also known as the Law of Selfish Bastards. Look how happy the French are after being told they will get to pay a nominal energy tax to stop global warming. There was some serious heat on the streets of gay ol' Paris. We are going to do the experiment.

We had lots of hurricanes this year, with Hurricane Michael being the headline grabber. As it wiped out Mexico Beach, Florida,^{ref 441} it appears to have whacked a handful of our stealth bombers inside a hanger.^{ref 442} Although there is a nice tutorial on why not every stealth bomber can be moved on short notice,^{ref 443} it's less obvious why you would store billions of dollars worth of hardware in a hanger that was not hurricane proof. Moving on to Hurricane Florence and North Carolina, we find that only 3% of homeowners have flood insurance and those that do also have counterparty risk; the Federal program providing flood insurance is $20 billion in the hole.^{ref 444} On a funny note, Hurricane Florence appeared to be ravaging a reporter struggling to hold his ground against gale-force winds to get a story…until two guys strolled by in shorts:^{ref 445}

Figure 47. Risking life and limb.

Of course, fooled by randomness applies to other events like activity on the Ring of Fire. For those not paying attention, we are not talking about a Bangkok-hot curry but rather the ring circumnavigating the Pacific Ocean loaded with volcanic and other geological events. Seems to be acting up a lot lately. This year's Hawaiian volcano reminded homeowners that their houses built on formerly red hot lava might get squeegeed away, and they may no longer own ocean front property. Where some see disaster others see opportunities: can you buy futures on land that is not yet above sea level? I also waited with bated breath for Paul Krugman to write about his "broken pineapple fallacy". The Yellowstone caldera—an ancient super volcano—keeps rising a lot and spewing reminders that rare events happen.^{ref 446} By the way, "Krakatoa" by Simon Winchester is a great book and offers a fascinating description of plate tectonics.

The anti-vaxxers may have a case, but the evidence against a number of claims is profound (convinced me). I have zero doubt that, all things considered, vaccinations save lives. In regions where anti-vaccination campaigns have gotten legs, we are starting to see epidemics reappearing for the first time in many years.^{ref 447} Disturbingly, polio has reappeared in Venezuela.^{ref 448} I guess we didn't eradicate it after all. I'd be vaccinating against that one. The only thing that scared me as a kid were (a) my Dad's stink-eye, and (b) images of iron lungs and polio wards:

Contrary to popular opinion, scientists in Big Pharma would love to cure diseases; there is no conspiracy there. Popular opinion is also correct that marketing teams will try to get you to snarf down as much healthcare as theoretically possible. We continue to be seriously outnumbered in our battle against bacteria. I think those in the know are worried. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is appearing before the drugs hit the marketplace. They are becoming non-cost effective to produce. At the street level, new flesh-eating bacterial infections of the genitals are somehow linked to best-selling diabetes drugs, causing the flesh around the genitals to literally rot away.^{ref 449} The CDC is now warning of an antibiotic-resistant strain of gonorrhea.^{ref 450} An oral cancer epidemic in men is linked to oral sex.^{ref 451} The message is clear: abstain. A mind-controlling parasite—yes, these things are precedented in biology and can have wildly cool effects on animal behavior—has been found in cat feces.^{ref 452} If you are eating cat feces you now officially have shit for brains. On the bright side, the virus has been linked with an almost reckless entrepreneurial spirit (not joking). It has been identified and named Elon Muskovitis (joking).

Of course, Nature's wrath amplified by Man's poor judgment was on full display as fires ravaged California. I was in a house fire in high school; I jumped out of a second story window into –2 °F weather buck naked (but who hasn't done that a few times.) People are dying from watching TV shows about fires. You have seconds to get the hell out. When your neighborhood is on fire, get out. Pepperdine University made the call to leave all students on campus.^{ref 453} That could have been a tragedy of a higher order. Some criticize the administration for commandeering the resources of all firefighters in the area. Others criticize them for doing it on purpose to ensure the university was protected. It is an interesting hypothesis, but I cannot fathom that level of sociopathy, even at a university.

I watch people lamenting the loss of their house and memories and think, "You're alive, your belongings were tacky, and your memories are safe in the cloud. Get over it." It is altogether different, however, when your house, school, church, stores, and employer burn to a crisp like in the ironically named Paradise, California. You really do have nothing now. It's not Yemen, but it's bad. There are regions in California that got one inch of rain since May in a much more secular (multi-year) draught. It was only a matter of time. I have read that the 20th century was the wettest of the last ten centuries in the State of California. It seems possible that millions moved into a desert without realizing the consequences.

Humans are a durable lot; they do not take guff from Mother Nature without a fight. In a battle against the weather, Volkswagen shoots off "hail cannons" near their Mexican factory to prevent formation of car-damaging hail stones, denying Mexican farmers rain for their crops.^{ref 453} We managed to finally exterminate the last white rhino because, well, who needs another large mammal that doesn't even make good stew meat.^{ref 455} Round-up is suggested to not only be solving our weed problem, but also eradicating those damned bees.^{ref 456} I'm sure Monsanto will figure out how to pollinate everything at some nominal cost. We are winning the war against sea creatures by filling the oceans with remarkable heaps of single-use plastic, generating an enormous wad of crap called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.^{ref 457} The Chinese are rumored to be planning condos or a military base.

Middle East

“We’re going to take down seven countries in five years. We’re going to start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan. We’re going to come back and get Iran in five years.”

~Wesley Clark, Four-star general in 2002, quoting a peer

According to Ellen Brown, none of these countries is "listed among the 56-member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked." And from an interview long, long ago…

Lesley Stahl: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it."

That 1996 60 Minutes exchange hasn't aged well.^{ref 458} In the sequel, we pick up the plotline in the same country by following the antics of Bush the Younger. Press secretary Ari Fleisher referred to it as "Operation Iraq Liberation",^{ref 459} somehow not seeing a problem with the acronym. I find our Middle East policy to be confounding except for one guiding principle: keep them all fighting. It is not really about oil but about war and banking. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union our multi-trillion-dollar defense industry needed a new foe. (Bombing Canada was a non-starter.) As we mow through conflict after conflict it all makes sense if you assume that our goal is to keep the Middle East in a perpetual state of war. Quadafi gets too strong? Kill him. Assad gets too strong, throw a false flag and bomb him. We also don't hesitate to remind those that we haven't bombed (yet) about the merits of the petrodollar: we agree to buy oil in dollars and, in return, they agree to fund our federal deficit and prop our asset markets with these dollars.

In case it isn't obvious, we don't really like democracies. As The Donald showed in 2016, we don't know how to control them. We are having issues with that will-of-the-people malarkey. They're tolerable for Europe but less developed regions—the shithole countries as the Donald is known to say—require focused targets for bribes and threats of death and dismemberment. Dictators are optimal—Shahs for example—but a small gaggle of warlords is manageable. Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow describes 13 explicit US-backed coups that overturned foreign leaders, including democratically elected ones.^{ref 460}

Our adventures in the Middle East have cost us an estimated $6 trillion dollars. Some is salary paid to soldiers but most is going to companies as part of our No Defense Contractor Left Behind Program (NDCLBP). Take a look at the price chart of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Raytheon, or any other defense contractor (Figure 48). They are well bid based on both past and future earnings. Trump promised to be the least militaristic president—a low bar—and then increased our military budget.

Figure 48. Share price of Boeing

The Saudi regime is ruthless. They fly planes into buildings, chuck gays out of windows, and behead people for non-violent crimes. Women are tortured who dare to drive a car, remove their hijabs, or have the audacity to get raped. If you are the wrong person in Saudi Arabia, Islamophobia is not even a theoretical construct because the fear is not irrational. You wanna see a hero in the flesh? She's Iranian (not Saudi), quite possibly dead, but now an iconic image of global feminism, a meme:

Figure 49. Principled when it's neither cool nor safe.

Meanwhile the Saudis are slaughtering Yemenis (Houthis specifically), risking starvation of as many as 18 million of them.^{ref 461} Let's go to CNN headquarters to get the latest on the global uproar:^{ref 462}

Rand Paul: "We are refueling the Saudi bombers. So we are essentially part of the Saudi campaign. We are helping them choose targets. It is said that thousands of civilians have died in Yemen because of this. Yes, we need to have a debate over this."

Wolf Blitzer: "So for you this is a moral issue cause, as you know, there are a lot of jobs at stake certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia. There’s going to be a significant loss of jobs and revenue in the United States. That’s secondary in your standpoint."

The stark truth of that must-see exchange slathered with latent sociopathy leaves me gagging on my vomit. The Pentagon insists we are minimizing civilian casualties when it's just infanticide masquerading as politics. "OK guys: let's keep it under 18 million if we can." US foreign policy is fostering this carnage by providing the Saudis with "the engines of death." You can blame Trump but don't you dare blame just Trump.

Enter one Washington Post journalist named Khashoggi. He gets suckered into an embassy, sliced into pieces, and fed to the camels.^{ref 463,464} The journalists kicked it into gear and denounced the horror.

"You gonna eat that?"

~Jeff Dahmer to Mohammed bin Salman

Here is my very unpopular take: It was a bit gruesome, but not by Saudi standards that we enthusiastically tolerate. He is also just one damned journalist. Let's put this in perspective: 18 million dying Yemenis versus One Dead Kashoggi (ODK). The world has gone collectively sociopathic on this one. You know why y'all care about some guy who

2018 Year in Review: Part 2

Contents

Human Achievement

Nature

Middle East

Community

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