I will be in Erie tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll begin an experiment to see just how bad business is up there. I know how awful it is here in Pittsburgh already. I know what it was like last Wednesday. I’ll know what it was like today. If it isn’t any worse, I may return for additional such visits in January and February. But if it is, then I’ll have to abandon any hope of moving to Erie for as long as I’m stuck being an Uber/Lyft driver.
Climate crisis
It appears many missing people presumed dead at a Kentucky candle factory have now been found safe:
Initially as many as 70 people were feared dead in the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory, but the company said Sunday that eight deaths were confirmed and eight people remained missing, while more than 90 others had been located. Bob Ferguson, a spokesman for the company, said many employees gathered in a tornado shelter, then left the site and were hard to reach because phone service was out.[1]
It was hoped the death toll in Kentucky “might be as low as 50,”[2] but 74 are now confirmed dead in Kentucky with a storm total confirmed total of 88.[3] I am still waiting for other uncertainties noted in the previous update,[4] including whether this was one tornado or several, to be ironed out. What is already known is that this was an exceptional event in many ways. Whether it is exceptional in even more ways remains to be seen.[5]
Valerie Bauerlein, “Tornado Death Toll Rises to 88, Including 74 Dead in Kentucky,” Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/kentucky-puts-current-death-toll-from-tornadoes-at-64-11639410110
Sarah Kaplan, “Crucial Antarctic ice shelf could fail within five years, scientists say,” Washington Post, December 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/13/thwaites-glacier-melt-antarctica/
Bruce Schreiner and Claire Galofaro, “Thousands without heat, water after tornadoes kill dozens,” Associated Press, December 13, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-business-arkansas-kentucky-mayfield-b6ef6a901cc2e4552e760a36c749937c
Washington Post, “The record-breaking tornadoes that swept the United States, by the numbers,” December 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/13/tornado-mayfield-kentucky-amazon/
Joe Manchin
Michael Kranish and Anna Phillips, “Manchin cites a blind trust to justify climate votes. But much income from his family’s coal company isn’t covered,” Washington Post, December 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/13/manchin-blind-trust-enersystems-stock-climate-change/
Atheism
Dan Piraro delves into the limits of what we can and can’t know about what positivists would properly regard as epistemologically dubious and manages to touch on syncretism, a process in which a colonizing religion superimposes itself on indigenous practices, in the process. It’s a pretty good response[6] to those atheists who make the mistake of presuming that because we can’t prove something exists, it therefore must not.[7]
Dan Piraro, “Changing Channels,” Bizarro, December 13, 2021, https://www.bizarro.com/blog/2021/12/13/changingchannels
Donald Trump
There is a new blog post entitled, “Trumpism, Donald Trump, the January 6 coup attempt, and a smoking gun that may never be found.”
Emma Brown et al., “Election denier who circulated Jan. 6 PowerPoint says he met with Meadows at White House,” Washington Post, December 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html
Quinta Jurecic, “Why the January 6 Investigation Is Weirdly Static,” Atlantic, December 11, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/january-6-committee-investigation/620973/
Greg Sargent, “Mark Meadows’s coverup of Trump’s coup attempt is falling apart,” Washington Post, December 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/13/mark-meadows-jan-6-committee-contempt-coverup/
Pandemic
Konstantin Toropin, “Oklahoma Guard Leader Tells Vaccine Refusers to Prepare for ‘Career Ending Federal Action,’” Military.com, December 10, 2021, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/12/10/oklahoma-guard-leader-tells-vaccine-refusers-prepare-career-ending-federal-action.html
Lolita C. Baldor, “Navy Commander Fired After Refusing to Get COVID Vaccine,” Military.com, December 11, 2021, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/12/11/navy-commander-fired-after-refusing-get-covid-vaccine.html
Associated Press, “US air force discharges 27 service members for refusing Covid vaccine,” Guardian, December 13, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/13/us-air-force-discharges-27-service-members-for-refusing-covid-vaccine
- [1]Bruce Schreiner and Claire Galofaro, “Thousands without heat, water after tornadoes kill dozens,” Associated Press, December 13, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-business-arkansas-kentucky-mayfield-b6ef6a901cc2e4552e760a36c749937c↩
- [2]Bruce Schreiner and Dylan Lovan, “Tornado toll in dozens, yet not as high as initially feared,” Associated Press, December 13, 2021, copy in possession of author↩
- [3]Valerie Bauerlein, “Tornado Death Toll Rises to 88, Including 74 Dead in Kentucky,” Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/kentucky-puts-current-death-toll-from-tornadoes-at-64-11639410110; Bruce Schreiner and Claire Galofaro, “Thousands without heat, water after tornadoes kill dozens,” Associated Press, December 13, 2021, https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-business-arkansas-kentucky-mayfield-b6ef6a901cc2e4552e760a36c749937c; Washington Post, “The record-breaking tornadoes that swept the United States, by the numbers,” December 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/13/tornado-mayfield-kentucky-amazon/↩
- [4]David Benfell, “Always remember: The status quo is worth dying for,” Not Housebroken, December 12, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/12/12/always-remember-the-status-quo-is-worth-dying-for/↩
- [5]Washington Post, “The record-breaking tornadoes that swept the United States, by the numbers,” December 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/12/13/tornado-mayfield-kentucky-amazon/↩
- [6]Dan Piraro, “Changing Channels,” Bizarro, December 13, 2021,