Friday Night Open Thread

Posted by Basil on 3 April 2020, 10:00 pm

I love Weird Al.

Do you have something you’d like to share? A link? A joke? Some words of wisdom? A topic to discuss? It’s Friday Night Open Thread.

What’s on your mind?

Hi. How You All Doing?

Posted by Oppo on 3 April 2020, 9:30 pm

Another Reality Check

Posted by Oppo on 3 April 2020, 9:00 pm

May we all daily count our blessings!!

This image was taken by the government’s “National Child Labor Committee” in November, 1914.

(Shaw Cotton Mills, South Weldon, North Carolina.)

Their horrific caption:

A menace to Society. The ******** family. The entire family, including the mother, totally illiterate. No one could read or write.

The mother does mill work some.

Alice, 17 years, has steady job. Makes from $5 to $6 a week.

Alfred, 13 years now, worked here when he was 12, and in other mills before that. Makes $4 a week. Recently crippled by getting his hand caught in the cogs of a spinning machine.

Richard just reached 11. Been working here 1 year; began when he was 10. Makes $2.40 a week. “The work runs him down too.”

William, 6 years old, nearly blind.

Lizzie, 5 years old.

Home in utter neglect; filthy and bare.

When investigator called the mother had been gone about an hour, leaving a roomer’s 3 months old baby in the cradle before an open fire on the hearth, and only two children 5 and 6 years old – one nearly blind, playing around. She came back and fed them a lot of cheap candy.

What will Society reap from its neglect of this family?

Rainforests Where?

Posted by Oppo on 3 April 2020, 8:00 pm

Traces of Ancient Rainforest in Antarctica Point To a Warmer Prehistoric World
Imperial College London / April 1, 2020 / phys.org

Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time.

A team from the UK and Germany discovered forest soil from the Cretaceous period within 900 km of the South Pole. Their analysis of the preserved roots, pollen and spores shows that the world at that time was a lot warmer than previously thought.

The science was subtled.

The discovery and analysis were carried out by an international team of researchers led by geoscientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in Germany and including Imperial College London researchers. Their findings are published today in Nature.

Co-author Professor Tina van de Flierdt, from the Department of Earth Science & Engineering at Imperial, said: “The preservation of this 90-million-year-old forest is exceptional, but even more surprising is the world it reveals. Even during months of darkness, swampy temperate rainforests were able to grow close to the South Pole, revealing an even warmer climate than we expected.”

What a boom time for panthers! (And, of course, Global Coolists.)

The work also suggests that the carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere were higher than expected during the mid-Cretaceous period, 115-80 million years ago, challenging climate models of the period.

Fake news, either now or then. Climate models can’t be false. Or falsified. Every iceberg that sheds off Antarctica is proof of global warming, so its glaciers had to have always been there.

“Restore the Antarctic Rainforest, man! No . . . Wait. That came out wrong.”

Argentine Antarctica Has Hottest Day on Record
Phys.org / Feb 7, 2020

Goes to show you how far back man-kept records go.

———-

I’d just like to reiterate:

Rainforests in Antarctica.

_____________

So: Coronavirus = Aliens?

Posted by Oppo on 3 April 2020, 6:00 pm

They meant to take Wimbledon all along!

Wimbledon Canceled Due to Coronavirus Pandemic
ESPN | 4/1/20

The Wimbledon Championships have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the All England Club confirmed in a statement Wednesday.