Terms of Debate, Seaweed Shrinkage & A Dose of Reality – Top 3 Takeaways – June 6th, 2023
- The terms of debate. Monday was another day with another official Republican candidate for president as former Vice-President Mike Pence filed his paperwork preceding his initial coming out party which is scheduled on Wednesday in Des Moines, Iowa. While one wonders if Pence really believes he can beat his former boss for the job (or if he’s just bored), in the grand scheme of candidates not named DeSantis or Trump, his bid is among the most credible. That said, with Trump and DeSantis consistently polling with over 75% of the Republican primary vote between them, that’s not necessarily saying much. Speaking of speaking and polls...the first time they’re set to officially matter this election cycle will be August 23rd. That’s the date that’s been set for the first Republican Presidential Debate. Hosted by Fox News, the field of candidates which will be able to participate will be determined based on two sets of criteria. The first, candidates must have received campaign contributions from at least 40,000 people. The second, candidates must have at least 1% support in three national polls or at least 1% support in two national polls and two early primary state polls. While the field of candidates continues to grow, based on these criteria, the level of potential participation in the first presidential debate probably isn’t from here. As of today, there are only nine potential candidates which are on a path that may allow them to qualify – three of which haven’t officially filed to run and two of which may choose not to. The nine who currently are on track to qualify for the debate stage are: Trump, Desantis, Haley, Pence, Ramaswamy, Scott, Youngkin, Sununu and Christie. The final three of which are all polling at the bare minimum necessary – 1%. And the far more interesting question than wondering if Glen Youngkin, Chris Sununu and Chris Christie will manage to qualify for the debate stage – will be if Donald Trump chooses to take the debate stage. As of yet, there’s still no indication he will. My inclination, especially given that Fox News will hosting, is that he will, after all he would literally be the center of attention – though one could understand why he might not be interested to step on it with a series of candidates which collectively don’t have the level of support that he does and whose goals would include getting him to step in it.
- Shrinkage. Much like George Costanza’s shrinkage, what’s happened with the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt requires an explanation. Unlike George Costanza’s shrinkage the explanation isn’t as clear. For months we’ve been warned that Sargassmagedon was coming Florida’s beaches. For months we've been told there would be a seaweed takeover like we’ve never seen before. After all this was a 5,000-mile-wide floating mountain of weed and it had to go somewhere. And apparently it has started to go somewhere but for the most part not on our beaches. Where did it go? The researchers don’t know. Why did it go? The researchers don’t know. What the University of South Florida researchers do now know is that between April and May, 15% of the seaweed in the belt shrank. Quoting the researchers: Such a decrease for this time of the year never occurred in history since the first year of the GASB. And what are the researchers now saying? Sargassum quantity is likely to decrease in June, which should be good news to the residents along the Florida Keys and east coast of Florida. So, will we still get some seaweed? Yes, we always do. Will it be Sargassmagedon for our beaches? Evidently not thanks to shrinkage. But here’s the broader point that comes to mind. Here was a theoretical record setting mass of seaweed which has been actively tracked as it crossed the Atlantic and made its way into the Gulf by a team of researchers for months. And yet the predictions that were made about what would happen with a slow-moving mass of seaweed were wrong. They only just figured out that it started shrinking in April. They can’t tell you exactly where the shrinking weed went. They can’t tell you why it went away. But what researchers can tell us is that due to our own actions South Florida will be underwater in twenty years. I used to say that the day meteorologists perfect the same day forecast I’ll be inclined to believe them about the future. In the case of climate scientists perhaps they should perfect forecasting big blogs of seaweed that they’re watching in real-time before forecasting the impact of manmade climate change decades into the future. And maybe, just maybe, South Florida won’t be underwater in twenty years due to the same types of reasons they’ve yet to identify that led to the unexpected seaweed shrinkage. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be good stewards of our environment – we should. It’s just to say that if they can’t predict slow moving seaweed in real-time, how reliable is their forecasting the rest of the time?
- Not even Apple. For the first time in nine years Apple has a new product line. And for the first time since the advent of the iPod they’ve created something I’ll not buy. Yesterday Apple announced a mixed-reality headset called the Vision Pro. While the price, at $3,499, is enough to scare a lot of people away, the concept itself is enough for me. The lines of reality are already blurred enough in today’s society without a headset blurring the rest. Not even Apple could make me interested in this one and I have a hunch their sales, or what may be a lack thereof, will provide Apple with a dose of reality.