Monthly Archives: November 2023

Phantom time:

The phantom time conspiracy theory is a pseudohistorical conspiracy theory first asserted by Heribert Illig in 1991. It hypothesises a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, to fabricate the Anno Domini dating system retroactively, in order to place them at the special year of AD 1000, and to rewrite history to legitimize Otto’s claim to the Holy Roman Empire. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence.^[2] According to this scenario, the entire Carolingian period, including the figure of Charlemagne, is a fabrication, with a “phantom time” of 297 years (AD 614–911) added to the Early Middle Ages. [Wikipedia]

That’s an odd one. Noted in “What Is the Truth Behind the Controversial Phantom Time Hypothesis?” Benjamin Plackett, Discover:

Contrary to what you might believe, you aren’t actually living in the 21st Century. Instead, you’re in the 1700s, and the reason that most of you don’t recognize this fact is that the elites of the early medieval period worked hard to deceive you. At least, that’s what German historian Herbert Illig puts forward in his phantom time hypothesis. “There’s this outrageous claim that all historians have made a mistake and that we’ve all had the wool pulled over our eyes and that the chronology we all follow today is wrong,” explains David Hamon, an independent researcher who has studied alternative histories.

As ever, we want to know the future, in this case the results of the 2024 election a year from now. In addition to the goat method of divination, which is messy and offends some people, there is analysis of lead-up elections, both special and scheduled, leading up to the elections in question. So what do we have and how do they look?

When it comes to special elections, so far the Democrats are looking good. Daniel Donner of Daily Kos Elections gives a summary:

In fact, there have been 27 typical special elections pitting a Democrat against a Republican in the 2023-24 election cycle so far, and Democrats have overperformed Biden in 20 and Clinton in 23. When numbers like that start to pile up, it’s time to sit up and take notice.

And what we notice is this: It’s beginning to look a lot like 2018 around here. That’s very good news. …

So far this year, Democrats in special elections have been doing an average of 7.6 points better than Biden’s margin in 2020 in the same districts and 12.0 points better than Clinton’s margin in 2016. Since Biden won the national popular vote by 4.5 points, and Clinton won it by 1.8 points, that translates to a political environment with Democrats running 12.1 points ahead based on comparisons to Biden and 13.7 points ahead based on comparisons to Clinton. Averaging the two values gives us a figure of D+12.9.

So how about scheduled elections? We’ve seen the 2021 elections in a few states, most surprisingly in Virginia where business exec Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) defeated former governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA), and, say what you will about the latter’s popularity, it remains undeniable that the Democrats lost an eminently winnable State. Have the Democrats figured out what went wrong? At the time, I noted at least one post-poll interview indicating the problem was their management of the trans issue, and I haven’t really seen much evidence of their recognition of this mistake.

But the Republicans remain the owners of the abortion issue, along with a gerrymandering issue that makes a lot of voters, even conservatives, uncomfortable, no matter how zealous the officials might, and that can be mighty zealous as the State of Alabama tried to ignore a SCOTUS ruling on the issue. (They were promptly bopped on the nose and told they were a bad, bad dog. It was not an inaccurate statement.) For conservative readers hopping from one foot to another in an urgent need to say Democrats gerrymander, too, it’s true: Maryland is heavily gerrymandered. Maryland, Wisconsin, Alabama, and other states require adjustment.

But that’s the far past (2021, that is) and the far future. What about now?

The 2023 elections are next week, and on the list is the Mississippi governor’s race, with incumbent Tate Reeves (R-MS) facing challenger Brandon Presley (D-MS). Reeves has been in the midst of the Brett Favre scandal involving the spending of Federal dollars on University of Mississippi projects for which they were not authorized, Reeves tends to try to apply inappropriate religious solutions to problems he’s supposed to be solving with the help of the Legislature, and he’s simply not really a strong governor.

Reeves won in 2019 by 5 points. Can he do better this time? Or is it possible that he’ll lose? The vote totals will give a hint on how the 2024 elections may go. If Reeves, in a quintessential Republican state, underperforms, then we may be seeing a potential for a Democratic wave in 2024, with Democrats retaking the House, possibly by a large gap as swing districts fall to the Democrats, and retaining the Presidency and the Senate. While professional pundits keep claiming Biden looks weak, and polls don’t look so great for the current President, the former President continues to look weak himself, not to mention some observers claiming he’s showing signs of dementia.

So keep an eye on Mississippi, as well as Kentucky, where Democrat Andy Beshear is the incumbent governor running for re-election. His results will be relevant as well. The latest poll I saw gave Beshear a large lead, but with a large portion of the electorate undecided, but that was a few weeks ago. Will Beshear ride the family rep and the abortion issue to victory?

The goat entrails may depend on the governors’ races.

This is MSR B1509-58, a pulsar, and its nebula (the purple “hand”), MSH 15-52.

More information here.

Senator and former football Coach Tommy Tuberville (R-AL … or is it Florida? Where do you live, sir?) must surely know that winning football involves, in large part, proper preparation. Even I know that, and I don’t even play a pro football coach on TV.

So what’s this all about?

Tuberville on the suggestion he take his beef with the Pentagon to the courts:

“I’m a football coach. I’m not a lawyer.”

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) November 2, 2023

“I’m a football coach. I’m not a lawyer.”

So? Proper preparation includes getting legal advice from qualified professionals. It’s just like working out in the gym for the players, except the lawyers generally don’t come so large.

His remark isn’t a defense, it’s an admission of ill-preparation, of incompetency.

How much longer are the citizens of Alabama going to saddle the United States with such an incompetent?

The latest on the Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) saga, former CEO of bankrupt FTX, which is in the criminal trial phase, has come to pass:

A jury on Thursday convicted FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, the culmination of a month-long trial that saw the former crypto mogul take the stand in his own defense after his inner circle of friends-turned-deputies provided damning testimony against him.

The decision was reached after less than five hours of deliberation by a jury of nine women and three men, who found Bankman-Fried guilty of two counts of wire fraud, four counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He could be sentenced to decades in prison. [WaPo]

Is it any surprise? Not really. I expect we’ll be seeing more convictions as people who thought they are clever find out they are not.

CNN has an article on something I’ve not heard of: White hydrogen:

A couple of hundred meters down, the probe found low concentrations of hydrogen. “This was not a real surprise for us,” Pironon told CNN; it’s common to find small amounts near the surface of a borehole. But as the probe went deeper, the concentration ticked up. At 1,100 meters down it was 14%, at 1,250 meters it was 20%.

This was surprising, Pironon said. It indicated the presence of a large reservoir of hydrogen beneath. They ran calculations and estimated the deposit could contain between 6 million and 250 million metric tons of hydrogen.

That could make it one of the largest deposits of “white hydrogen” ever discovered, Pironon said. The find has helped fuel an already feverish interest in the gas.

White hydrogen – also referred to as “natural,” “gold” or “geologic” hydrogen – is naturally produced or present in the Earth’s crust and has become something of a climate holy grail.

Sure, sounds nice, since it produce H₂O when ‘burnt’.

But I can’t help but notice that, once again, we’re looking at using a resource that doesn’t renew quickly. Contrast that with solar power, which comes from a source that will, in all probability, outlast us.

Which is better to be dependent on, all other factors being equal.

And it’s true, it is silly to think the other factors are equal. Energy density, transportability, pollution, all these other factors complicate assessments.

But I can’t help but notice that burning white hydrogen will eventually exhaust it, and, odds are, faster than we think. So being feverish about it is a bit premature.