Did the moon sink the Titanic?

The Titanic rammed an iceberg and sank on April 14, 1912. There were so many icebergs in the normal shipping lanes at that time that shipping lanes were moved south. Perhaps because on January 4th of that year…

It was the closest approach of the moon to the Earth in more than 1,400 years, and this configuration maximized the moon’s tide-raising forces on Earth’s oceans.

…the unusually high tide in Jan. 1912 would have been enough to dislodge many of those icebergs and move them back into the southbound ocean currents, where they would have just enough time to reach the shipping lanes for that fateful encounter with the Titanic.

https://www.txstate.edu/news/news_releases/news_archive/2012/March-2012/Titanic030512.html

Coronavirus catastrophe

An analysis of how the United States ended up with one of the world’s most catastrophic responses to COVID-19.

Coping with a pandemic is one of the most complex challenges a society can face. To minimize death and damage, leaders and citizens must orchestrate a huge array of different resources and tools. Scientists must explore the most advanced frontiers of research while citizens attend to the least glamorous tasks of personal hygiene. Physical supplies matter—test kits, protective gear—but so do intangibles, such as “flattening the curve” and public trust in official statements. The response must be global, because the virus can spread anywhere, but an effective response also depends heavily on national policies, plus implementation at the state and community level. Businesses must work with governments, and epidemiologists with economists and educators. Saving lives demands minute-by-minute attention from health-care workers and emergency crews, but it also depends on advance preparation for threats that might not reveal themselves for many years. I have heard military and intelligence officials describe some threats as requiring a “whole of nation” response, rather than being manageable with any one element of “hard” or “soft” power or even a “whole of government” approach. Saving lives during a pandemic is a challenge of this nature and magnitude.

It is a challenge that the United States did not meet.

It’s a fascinating read. Sections:

  1. The Flight Plan
  2. The Air Traffic Controllers
  3. The Emergency Checklist
  4. The Pilot
  5. The Control Systems
  6. The Crash Landing

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/how-white-house-coronavirus-response-went-wrong/613591/

Swami Beyondananda on COVID-19

Stressing out about the pandemic? Words of wisdom from the Swami. For example:

Meanwhile, here are three evolutionary practices that will help you turn this time of retreat into an advance:

TANTRUM YOGA. Given how cooped up people are, ranting has become the latest rage on the path to ire consciousness. Thanks to Tantrum Yoga, you can now use your anger to heat your home in the wintertime…

MENTAL FLOSS. In times of stress — particularly if paying attention to the news — thought particles tend to get lodged between the ears, a leading cause of truth decay….

HA-HA-HA BREATHS. As you may know, each of our chakras has a vowel sound associated with it … the solar plexus is “Oh” the heart chakra is “Ah”, and the third eye is “Eee.”…

Click here: https://laughlearnlinks.home.blog/swami-beyondananda-on-covid-19/.

Also see the Swami’s website, https://wakeuplaughing.com/beyondanews.php.

The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

I thought this was interesting: a discussion of the final battle in the movie Lord of the Rings from the viewpoint of a military historian. It includes comparisons to the book, recognizing that books and films are different media. He also has discussions of other literary battles (for LotR fans, the Battle of Helm’s Deep).

A historian’s look at the Siege of Gondor in Peter Jackson’s Return of the King.  We’re going to discuss how historically plausible the sequence of events is and, in the process, talk a fair bit about how pre-gunpowder siege warfare works.

…a sustained study of a single campaign from the angle of all of the participants, these posts discuss campaign logistics, siege techniques, battlefield physics and cavalry dynamics.

https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/

Also see https://acoup.blog/resources-for-teachers for the full range of his posts.

The CRAAP Test

When you search for information, you’re going to find lots of it… but is it good information?

You will have to determine that for yourself, and the CRAAP Test can help.

The CRAAP Test is a list of questions to help you evaluate the information you find. Different criteria will be more or less important depending on your situation or need.

Currency: The timeliness of the information.
Relevance: The importance of the information for your needs.
Authority: The source of the information.
Accuracy: The reliability, truthfulness and correctness of the content.
Purpose: The reason the information exists.

https://library.csuchico.edu/help/source-or-information-good. Also available as a one-page PDF from that site.

State of the Universe 2020

Swami Beyondananda explains what’s going on and how to fix it. Excerpt:

Meanwhile, in the impeachment case, Republican Senators called it acquits before seeing any evidence they didn’t want to see. Talk about notseeism! Well, as the old saying goes, if it quacks like a duck and steps like a goose, there is something fowl afoot.

Click here: https://laughlearnlinks.home.blog/state-of-the-universe-2020/. This was written between impeachment and coronavirus.

Also see the Swami’s website, https://wakeuplaughing.com/beyondanews.php.

Where did the money go?

I think the graph below pretty much speaks for itself:

The United States had plenty of money half a century ago. In the 1950s and 1960s, we paid down the huge World War II debt at a time when we maintained a much larger military than today and fought wars in Korea and Vietnam. We built the Interstate Highway System and much of the other physical infrastructure we use today. We funded vigorous research and development, including the fabulously expensive Apollo program. We supported higher education well enough that middle-class students could graduate from elite universities without crippling debt….

Corporate representatives complain about high corporate income tax rates, but this is the most lucrative lie of the last century. Corporate tax rates don’t mean much because most corporations don’t pay them.

Full article: https://blog.usejournal.com/where-the-money-went-44a838a441ef