Author: Kim du Toit

Proper Analysis

Numbers & Statistics

Over the years, several people have pointed me to Willis Eschenbach’s Skating Under The Ice, and it’s very, very  good.  Of late, however, this post has (and should have) become a landmark in the seemingly-endless debate on climate change, in that Willis applies an age-old accounting principle to the issue of carbon dioxide levels, thus:

Now, for me, discussing the “social cost of carbon” is a dereliction of scientific duty because it is only half of an analysis.
A real analysis is where you draw a vertical line down the middle of a sheet of paper. At the top of one side of the paper you write “Costs”, and under that heading, you list the costs of whatever you are analyzing … and at the top of the other side of the paper you write “Benefits” and beneath, you list those benefits. This is what is called a “cost/benefit analysis”, and only considering only the “Costs” column and ignoring the “Benefits” column constitutes scientific malfeasance.

…and then, in brilliant detail, he shows the other half.  It’s a very long read, but if you don’t do it all, you’re doing yourself a disservice.  His conclusion is stunning:

[T]he benefit that we get from emitting that additional tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is an increase in goods and services of $4,380 … which dwarfs the assumed social cost of carbon of $40. When we do an actual cost/benefit analysis, the result is almost all benefit.

I admit that I had only thought in vague terms about this topic, because I always took it for granted that social benefit came from industry, and that the greater the industry, the greater the benefit.  What I had never done was quantify  the benefit;  and now I don’t have to, because now it’s been done, irrefutably.

Bravo.

Begging Your Indulgence

Friends and Family

…in that today is a special day for me.

The Son&Heir turns 30 today (and if you’re a Longtime Friend and/or Reader, you have my permission to go ahead and feel very old).  It is customary for a proud father to brag about his son, but in my case, I am truly blessed.  (And those of you who have met him, please feel free to weigh in with your opinions.)

Eagle Scout, champion pistol shooter, drummer, cum laude  college graduate and now junior executive at a successful retail business;  he’s popular with everyone who meets him, works with him or has anything to do with him.  He’s witty, polite, well-mannered, intelligent, astonishingly well-read, and the best dinner companion anyone could wish for.

He never reads my blog — not one of my kids has ever read anything  I’ve written: blog, novels, whatever — so he might or might not read this, but I don’t care.  I bless the day he came into my life, and every day since.  He is my son, I love him dearly, and he is a fine, fine man.

Happy birthday, boy.

— Dad

(aged 15, at Faro Airport in Portugal)

Dueling Uglies

Drive Time

Let’s play like the folks at Top Gear / Grand Tour guys for a moment, and consider a comparison between two outrageously-expensive performance SUVs for a moment.  (Acting like Clarkson et al. means I don’t wanna hear any guff about “I’d rather buy a new house for that kind of money” or “No car is worth that much” or “I’d rather have a Caddy Escalade and bank the rest of the dough.”  I want opinions on the two SUVs, and nothing else.)

So let’s kick off with the Bentley Bentayga V8 Design Series, with its 4-liter, 542hp  V8 pulling this land-barge to a 0-60mph in 4 seconds, all the way to around 180mph at the top of the speedometer.  In typical Bentley fashion, all that will be done fairly discreetly — it does not  sound like a Ford Mustang 500 doing the same — but remember, Bentley’s mechanicals are 90% German.  As for its looks?

Look, let’s be honest:  the “U” in “SUV “almost always stands for Ugly, and this Bentley is that.  It’s not as ugly as a Range Rover or Escalade — Bentley is always going to find as much classy beauty as it can — but like a plastic surgeon trying to make Amy Schumer beautiful, you can only do so much with what you have.

Unless you’re Maserati, making their statement in the “hyper-luxury SUV” segment with the Levante Trofeo.

Its engine is a Ferrari-based 3.8-liter 590hp V8 which gives 0-60mph acceleration of 3.8 seconds and a top speed of 187mph.

I should mention at this point that the Bentley will sell for about $120,000 more than the Maserati, if that means anything.  (Personally, I just know  that the Mazza will be Italian — i.e. not as reliable as the Bentley — but then again, 120 big ones buys an awful lot of maintenance and repairs, even at Maserati prices.)

So, Gentle Readers:  which one would you choose?  The Anglo-German fast utilitarian vehicle with more than a touch of class, or the Italian sorta-Ferrari, with a decidedly Latin feel and all that that  entails?

The World’s Luckiest Man

Men & Women

This is one-time supermodel (and still-gorgeous) Helena Christensen, from Denmark:

…and this is one-time model and current actress Diane Kruger, from Germany:

So the question of the day is:  Apart from modelling, what do these two examples of extreme pulchritude have in common?

Answer:  Both women have had children fathered by Norman Reedus.

Let that sink in for a moment… and for the math geeks among you, here’s the diagram:

Still in math mode:  Q.E.D.

Definitely No Snowflake

History, Military

Yikes.  Try this wilting flower for size:

Virginia Hall was fluent in French, Italian and German when she went to work for the US foreign service before World War II but was invalided out of the service after a hunting accident in Turkey.
Her shotgun slipped from her grasp and as she grabbed it, it fired, blasting away her foot.
By the time she got to a hospital, gangrene had set in. To save her life, the surgeon had to amputate her left leg below the knee.
Always able to see the funny side of things, Miss Hall immediately named her wooden leg Cuthbert.
…
When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, she fled to London, and with her language skills, was soon recruited by the SOE.
After training in the clandestine arts of killing, communications and security, she went to Vichy France to set up resistance networks under the cover of being a reporter for the New York Post.
After the November, 1942, North Africa invasion, German troops flooded into her area and things became too hot even for her.
She hiked on her artificial leg across the Pyrenees in the dead of winter to Spain.
During the journey she radioed London saying she was okay but Cuthbert was giving her trouble.

…and then she got really serious about doing bad things to Nazis.  Read the whole thing.