For some reason, I like seeing the red squiggly underline beneath both words of today’s post title telling me the words are misspelled or non-existent.

 

We had heavy rain Saturday night and last night into early this morning. Neither event was forecast by the National Weather Service. Since we are in monsoon season, they will estimate the probability of precipitation at a cover their ass number of like 15%. If rain events are independent, then the probability of rain on consecutive days each with a 15% likelihood is just 2%, 15% times 15%.

On Saturday the rain began before “sunset.” (Once again, the sun does not rise and set.) The temperature of record at the time was 104° (40° C). An hour later, it was 77° (25° C).

In addition to the rain and strong winds we had vivid lightning, the like of which I have seldom, if ever, seen before. I don’t know if it’s due to our location, but sometimes we would see brilliant lightning that seemed right on top of us and not hear thunder, meaning the flash was far away. Other times, we would see bright lightning and hear thunder within a few seconds, meaning the flash was close by. Sadly, the exterior light was not enough for me to shoot any pictures or video.

The storm on Saturday night distracted me from something important, the Season 2 finale for Transplant on NBC. I love this show and it is certainly one of my favorite five or six TV shows ever. No, I am not damning it with faint praise.

I was sad at show’s end because no new episodes will air for awhile. The next morning I became even more sad after learning that, despite previous reporting, NBC has not decided if it will air Season 3. Transplant is actually a Canadian show broadcast on CTV. NBC decided to air it in 2020 while the damn virus was wreaking havoc on TV production.

Transplant is the most-watched and most-awarded scripted show in Canada and, obviously, will continue in production. Its Season 2 ratings in the US, however, were far worse than those for Season 1. The only bright spot, if you will, is that its ratings improved after it was moved mid-season from Sunday to Saturday. The bad news, of course, is that Saturday has long been considered the graveyard for prime-time programming.

I do not watch a lot of TV and almost nothing from the major networks, except football. I will be very disappointed if I can’t continue to watch Transplant. I continue to be appalled at what passes for entertainment.

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Chevrolet/General Motors have officially announced pricing for the soon-to-be released Z06 version of the C8 Corvette. The base MSRP for the coupe will be $106,395 and $113,895 for the convertible. Apparently, anyone interested can order theirs beginning on July 28.

It is extremely unlikely that anyone will be able to buy a C8 Z06 at MSRP. Dealer markups of $20,000-$35,000 would not surprise me. Thousands of people ordering the car will not surprise me, either.

 

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From Why Evolution Is True is the Hubble Space Telescope photo of the week.

 

 

More from the post:

 

“This intriguing observation from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a gravitationally lensed galaxy with the long-winded identification SGAS J143845+145407. Gravitational lensing has resulted in a mirror image of the galaxy at the centre of this image, creating a captivating centrepiece.

Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive celestial body — such as a galaxy cluster — causes a sufficient curvature of spacetime for the path of light around it to be visibly bent, as if by a lens. Appropriately, the body causing the light to curve is called a gravitational lens, and the distorted background object is referred to as being “lensed”. Gravitational lensing can result in multiple images of the original galaxy, as seen in this image, or in the background object appearing as a distorted arc or even a ring. Another important consequence of this lensing distortion is magnification, allowing astronomers to observe objects that would otherwise be too far away or too faint to be seen. . .”

Gravitational lensing was predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity and that prediction is visually confirmed by pictures like this. Remember that Einstein had no computers, no calculators. Many of his theories resulted from “thought experiments,” mental exercises without the use of data, but that used deductive reasoning to reach a conclusion. In this post I asked where are the Einsteins of today. I think they would be hounded by the idiocy of woke, of faux equality. People may have equal rights under the law, but all people are NOT created equally.

Here are links to two other Why Evolution Is True pieces. If you are very religious, you will be very offended.

The Freethinker interviews Richard Dawkins

The faithful write in about my post on Intelligent Design

From the latter post, a reply to one of those comments and involving Albert Einstein: “As for Einstein, he believed in God as a metaphor for the laws of the universe. As I [Jerry Coyne] show in my book Faith Versus Fact, he didn’t believe in a personal god at all, and certainly not the Yahweh you are touting above. Einstein said as much. Do a bit of research!”

The word counter at lower left exceeds 870 so I will stop. As always, I welcome thoughtful comments and your recommending this blog to friends and acquaintances.

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