Intro
This is another of the W.O.O.D. series of semi-regular
Weekly Occasional Open Discussions.
(i.e. if I forget and skip one, no big)
Immediate prior one here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/w-o-o-d-16-august-2019/
and remains open for threads running there (at least until the ‘several month’ auto-close of comments on stale threads).
Canonical list of old ones here:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/category/w-o-o-d/
I’m deprecating the use of “tips” pages. As the open discussion pages caught on, tips dropped off. For a month or two now I’ve not had a “tips” page put up, and nobody seems to have noticed. All the old ones remain for historical reference:
“Tips Pages”
What’s Going On?
Hurricane Season
Dorian is a Cat 4 last I looked. Trump is staying home and skipping his Poland trip. Guess that is a “stick in the eye” of the Democrat’s plans to call him heartless for abandoning the country during the ‘Shock and HORRORS!!! GLOBAL WARMING DISASTER!!!” of an absolutely typical hurricane. It skipped Puerto Rico so they were denied that “regurgitation’ opportunity. Now Trump is going to be here and they can’t denigrate him for running off. Wonder what Plan C Bleating will be?
Out near the Bahamas at the moment, the NOAA graph says arrival in Florida about Sunday, but… Seems to have a wide range of times over the last few days and the place is a bit up for grabs too. One graph shows a Monday arrival and another has it north of the Bahamas (all on the same weather station -Weather4us / Roku – and NOAA sourced graphs), but “earliest arrival” vs “present wind field” vs “wind speed probabilities” vs an un-named “swath of winds” graph.
My guess is that they are guessing…
Italy Gets A Government – AGAIN
From a “Far Right” coalition to a “Far Left” coalition, Salvini rides again. Still more or less on the “one a year” plan for governments… /sarc; (sort of…)
So no election right now, and the Southern Flank of the EU continues to be a PITA for the German / French core of control
What will come of it? Who knows. What’s in the news so far is that Italy wants to do yet more deficit spending get their economy going and the EU is still saying “No!”. With The Left on board, my guess is that Italy will do it anyway, and get spanked by the EU, and that’s going to accelerate the implosion of the EU. If they DON’T spank Italy, then Greece will be screaming about differential treatment and Spain will immediately follow suit. If they DO spank Itlay. then the risk of Italy following Britain out of the EU grows by a big jump.
Is more deficit spending really the solution? Probably not. Reduce regulatory burden, cut tax take, shrink government in general. Shown to work again and again and again. Lot of “regulation”, high taxes, big government: shown to result in economic stagnation, massive debt, and eventual economic and political collapse. Again and again and again…
It is a very bad parasite that kills the host, but Socialism isn’t a very good parasite, nor are Big Government Rent Seekers.
But for a while at least, Italy will be a fun show.. Chickens, roosts, and all that.
Deep State Skate
Comey gets a pass. “I’m shocked, shocked I say to find gambling is going on…” – Here’s your winnings…
Deep State still batting 100% on Top Cover.
USA Space Force
The USA now has a Space Force Command. Order signed. We’ve now got land, sea, Marines, cyber, air and now Space commands. (Oh, and centcom to try to coordinate them).
So gee, we have a Military Space Force, but are still hitching rides to space from the Russians… Yes, those “horrible” Russians are our ride to space, and work well with our guys. Somehow I don’t see Russia as being all that horrible to us…
Yes, Real Soon Now we’ll have our own way to get to space. Both SpaceX and Boeing are working on it. Any month now we will be able to field the capability we had in the 1970s…
Still waiting for that Single Stage To Orbit space plane we could have made in the ’60s if we’d wanted to. The X-15 went to space. A bit bigger and more fuel it could be turned into a “Space Plane”. But we didn’t. Oh Well.
It’s not about technology, it is about a decision to do it. We’ve regularly scrubbed programs right when they were ready to take that step. From the aerospike engine to over-sizing the shuttle so it needed SRBs to get off the ground. Not sure why…
Maybe with this move the Space Command will want a taxi to get guys on orbit. Or maybe they will just manage satellites and some anti-sat launchers on the ground. My guess is that it’s a Space Command that will not put anyone in space for at least several decades.
Ebola Watch
There’s been a new case in Uganda:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/world/africa/ebola-outbreak-uganda.html?searchResultPosition=1
JUNE 27, 2019
Ebola in Uganda, and the dynamics of a new and different outbreak
by Steven Hatch, The ConversationBy Rick Gladstone
June 13, 2019Uganda’s exposure to Ebola infection from the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo appeared to have increased on Thursday, as the death toll rose to two and three suspected cases were reported in a Ugandan border hospital.
The number of people in Uganda who may have been exposed to carriers of the Ebola virus expanded significantly, from eight to at least 27.
So have they got it under control in Uganda since June 13?
Uganda has confirmed a new case of Ebola in the country’s Kasese district. According to the Ministry of Health, the case is of a nine-year-old girl of Congolese origin.
A statement signed by Minister of State Joyce Moriku Kaducu said: the patient traveled with her mother from the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, and entered Ugandan territory on August 28, 2019.
So that would be a “no” as folks with Ebola continue to move around the continent…
Socialist Policies On Parade
Venezuela has a nice news story about folks in the country with THE most oil resources on the planet cutting down their forests to cook dinner. Welcome to the world of the future (and the past) where women walk miles every day with bundles of sticks so they can cook dinner and men chop down the forests and kill anything that moves for food.
Venezuela’s trees suffer as firewood replaces scarce cooking gas
Posted on August 29, 2019 by EnviroLink Editor
MARACAY, Venezuela (Reuters) – Endy Perez for years started her day by turning on the stove of her small house in the Venezuelan city of Maracay. These days, her breakfast routine begins with a search for firewood in a national park just behind her home.
Chronic shortages of natural gas in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves now mean that cooking fuel is increasingly coming from trees.“I have no other option, I have two children … I have to cook,” said Perez, 39, a homemaker, standing next to an improvised wood stove on her porch at the edge of the 108,000 hectare (267,000 acre) Henri Pittier National Park.
The growing use of firewood has triggered alarm among activists who say discussions of environmental problems are often eclipsed by diatribes about runaway inflation, economic collapse and a protracted political stalemate.Fires and home construction in the last 40 years have deforested about 10% of Henri Pittier Park, said Enrique Garcia, director of the ecological group Let’s Plant.
In addition, he said, the collection of firewood in urban areas can cause respiratory problems from smoke, rising temperatures in cities and increased risk of landslides in poor communities where houses are often built on unsteady terrain.
Wood stoves are now a common sight across Venezuela because of the shortage of gas. Tanks used to store and transport propane are in disrepair for lack of maintenance.
In some cases, people burn trash next to a tree to dry it out so the tree can be cut down and used for cooking fuel. Authorities are broadly ignoring legislation that prohibits cutting down trees without permits.
Welcome to the Socialist Future! Gather your “Sustainable Wood” for cooking before it gets shipped to Britain to make electricity… Forests? Who needs forests… /sarc;
Best practice those Rocket Stove Skills now…
In Argentina, they are “rescheduling” their debt. In other words, “Sure I said I’d pay you today, how about next year instead?”. Argentina is having a bit of an oscillator between Socialist and “right wing” governments. In some ways this can be worse as there is a constant whipsaw between directions. Even after pitching out the Socialists, the “Right Wing” have to deal with the debt problems and doing so can cause all sorts of follow-on problems, that then become justification for a return to Socialism that then… What is needed is an attention span of at least a decade as debt has decadal periods. Good luck with that in an era when folks don’t remember yesterdays news…
Argentina: markets still worried after demand for rescheduling
8/29/2019, 4:26:04 PMBuenos Aires (AFP)
The markets reacted negatively Thursday in Argentina after the request of the government of a rescheduling of the debt at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Investors, who had already shown signs of nervousness in recent days face the specter of default, seemed worried despite the announcement of the Minister of Finance, Hernan Lacunza.
At the close of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, the Merval index lost 5.79% to 23,984.23 points. Argentine shares listed in New York and Europe also fell, according to several specialized sites.
The intervention of the Central Bank, which injected $ 200 million into the foreign exchange market, however, helped to contain the decline in the Argentine currency.
After depreciating 3.5% at the opening, the peso finally moderated its losses. At the end of the session, he lost 0.61%, trading at 60.54 pesos for one dollar.
In the morning, center-right president Mauricio Macri called for calm investors. “It is up to us to contribute to peace without causing fear or confusion”, had urged the Head of State
On Wednesday, Argentina asked the IMF to reschedule its $ 57 billion debt contracted in exchange for fiscal austerity. According to the agreement signed in 2018, the first repayments must occur in 2021.
What is in our future in the USA as both the Republicans and the Democrats are unwilling to shrink government or government spending. Adding debt at the rate of a $Trillion / year is not “sustainable” (nor is burning our forests…)
But those who gain from putting the people of the world in chains of debt love to profit by it…
FUD Watch
“Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt”.
Great Barrier Reef: In the news (again and again and again…) we have an Authority claimed the Reef is DOOMED! due to climate change, yet again. The present claim includes saying the World Heritage Site folks may derank it (clearly the UN is on board with the Fud Factor Game).
Greenland: Another talking head saying it is Melting!!!, but an added claim that Camp Century is going to melt out any day now releasing tons of poo and maybe even radioactive crap. Um, not really. It’s still well under ice.
Brazil Burning: Record ever? Um, no. More or less the usual. You don’t think this might all just be a Hit Piece on a conservative (called “Right Wing”) candidate who is a Brazilian Nationalist do you? (Is there any way it could NOT be? – “Conservative Man Bad”…
Then we had The Greta arrive in NYC to not much fanfare. Seems our media isn’t interested in anything but “Orange Man Bad”. Sorry Greta. Besides, your white. Wrong race for a poster child story here… Nice Antifa shirt though:
Gretta & parents in Antifa Shirts
Hong Kong
Mainland continues to boil the frog. Hong Kongers continue to swim around in the streets. Slowly it warms…
Brexit
Boris and Her Majesty have proroged parliament. Given all the traditional and already scheduled days not in session, this adds all of about 3 or 4 days of “out of session”. Of course, the Remainers are filing court actions and conducting Street Theatre claiming this is the End Of Democracy! A COUP! And more. Not like ignoring the vote of the people for 3 years is a stick in the eye of “Democracy”…
IF Boris has Her Majesty on side, I think he’s in the stronger seat.
Hopefully the EU Masters Of The Universe are busy crapping their pants about now…
Speaking Of The Democrat Primary Race
They continue their Central Authority manipulation of who gets a voice, sidelining Tulsi Gabbard from the debates.
By Monica Showalter
Iconoclastic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard did the unforgiveable in the eyes of the hidebound Democratic Party establishment: She knocked down one their favorites, Kamala Harris.
Because right after this incident from the last debate:
Now, through the miracle of rule-rigging, the Democratic establishment has maneuvered to exact a price from her: No appearance at the next Democratic debate. No more taking down the next favorite.
You Go Dems! Keep on building trust with the American People by publicly manipulating systems, shooting down the candidates that have the most appeal to We The People, and promoting your internally selected Best Suck Up Loyalists. After all, you are the George Soros Bought And Paid For Shills… (by your actions it looks that way to me).
Musings from the Chiefio 
I like Tulsi OK, but I am glad she won’t be running against Trump because she might have a better chance. Even though she is the least evil of the bunch, she still has some pretty far left planks. I’m hoping for Biden or even Fauxahontus.
Well, yeah, for Trump’s Sake I’d like any of their Near-Socialist Losers…
But with Tulsi being the best, and the history of Clinton, The Fix, and The Loss; I’m just really surprised they want to block their strongest chance. Oh Well. Party Agenda over People’s Choice and another loss, I think…
It would be fun if Tulsi bought some commercials DURING the debate to give her debate answers ;-) Talk about stick in the craw ;-) “And now, Tulsi Gabbard giving her positions, paid for by Tusi Gabbard as the DNC rigged the debate to keep her out”…
Hey E.M.! “We’ve regularly scrubbed programs right when they were ready to take that step. From the aerospike engine to over-sizing the shuttle so it needed SRBs to get off the ground. Not sure why…”
Been a while, but my memory of the Shuttle size increase is this. NASA wanted a smaller shuttle, but the US Air Force said, “No. We want a shuttle that can get a single payload with a mass of foo and dimensions of foo cubed into orbit all in one chunk.” NASA said, “Why do you need that large?” Air Force said, “We want what we want.” and that was the end of the smaller shuttle.
Re “Even after pitching out the Socialists, the “Right Wing” have to deal with the debt problems” It’s best to get the facts the right way around EM
Back in late 2014 when Macri was elected Argentina’s foreign debt was about $5 billion – mostly to China. Under Macri it’s ballooned to well over $60 billion US. And anyone one with UD dollars is hoarding them for the default.
And Macri is toast.. Burnt to a cinder…With yet another leftish government inheriting the Macri mess.
Yes it’s whipsaw. But the current right wing Macri government is the mob who got Argentina in this mess.
Do I think that the incoming leftish mob can resurrect things ? very doubtful.
@Bill in Oz:
It is also best to not accuse me of stupidity.
The Left sets up massive entitlement programs that can not be stopped with a new election.
The Right, to get into power, must grease some palms with government gifts.
The end result is that the big bill tends to roll in just after the conservative got elected and his chouces are to not pay it, and crash the economy, or pay it and have lethal tax rates, or accept the debt while putting in place policies to make the economy work well and reduce future debt seversl years out. That is WHY it ends up as an oscillator.
Same thing happening now under Trump.
Same thing happened under Reagan.
And others.
The incoming conservative needs about a decade for a gradual ramp down of social program spending, entitlements, and pay-to-play. They will NEVER get it.
They must stimulate the economy to avoid a black recession (thanks to economy killing policies of their predecessor), get some goodies for their funders (or they can kiss off support), and then start making the changes that can fix things about a decade later.
Usually, they get 4 to 8 years. Things are getting a little better, but folks want more free stuff now, so vote back in the Tax And Spender who proceeds to undo what the conservative did, spend anything he gained, then put in place more irreversable entitlements to pay off his supporters. Usually on a “future payment” basis. These kick in after passing and setting up operations, just about the last year or so of his term. Landing the debt on the next guy.
You are making the same mistake as everyone else. NOT looking at lag time between creation of programs and bill coming due.
Do I have sympathy for the guy facing this mess? Not much. That’s the job.
I can criticize them for things like going ahead and buying military goods or improving security forces; but what is the alternative? “Granny off the cliff” ads per ending the latest socialist givaway program? NOT being able to field a defense force?
The simple fact is that Progressives/Socialists put in place generational spending programs they can not fund, and huge progressive tax rates (ignoring the Laffer Curve) that shrink both economies and tax revenues. This starts to bind, folks pitch them out and put a conservative in, just in time for the debt to roll in, and he gets 4 to 8 years to do a ten year fix AND must bridge the problems with debt for a couple of years or destroy the country.
Rinse and repeat.
Shorter form:
I, as an elected leader, can commit a country to a $Trillion spending plan in, say, my 2nd year, with the bill due in the 5th, all in one signature.
A new leader, arriving in the year the bill comes in, can NOT reverse that. Not even in 2 years. The Conservative is trying to set up conditions for organic growth of the economy that may start raising revenues by a few $Hundred Billion in 4 or more years. EVENTUALLY, that can fix things.
But NOT if every 4th or 8th year someone comes in who reverses them AND adds another $Trillion program with the bill arriving in 3 more years…
How much could we save by cutting the bloated military/national security complex? We could do without a lot of FBI,CIA,NSA buttsniffers, and our “volunteer” military looks more and more like a Dem jobs program every day. Those people ain’t gonna fight. They’re too busy scheming to collect disability payments for paper cuts…..Go back to a draft with real protections for those who fight – how much could be saved?
Put some of those funds in a wall + more border security, then get this government to start paying it’s bills.
One small spending request? We need large supplies of soap onhand for the next government employee who even mentions weakening encryption. They get to gargle with soap – or leave.
Re: Trump and Hurricane – The dems have already figured out the angle. Trump did not cancel plans when a TS sideswiped PR, but did when a Cat4 threatened lily white Florida. So he is a racist. Forget one was a mere TS, and the other a major hurricane – they have the same name. Forget that there are more brown people in Fla than in PR. You are not supposed to know the facts (Truth over facts).
The draft would not work today, the technology in use is out of the mental reach of many of the folks coming out of school today. The idiots who can’t figure out how many genders there are have absolutely no hope of operating a front line main battle tank, or an antiballistic missile system of today let alone maintain 5th generation fighters. It would take their entire 2 year draft enlistment just to get them smart enough not to blow themselves up. Not to mention train pilots or submariners etc.
The draft is only useful for filling cannon fodder roles or quick start rolls where they take college grads and give them LT bars and a few weeks of training on how to march through a jungle – we are well past that now, and the dumbing down of America is making it a fatal flaw in our defense systems. It now takes 6+ years to train the high tech soldiers
E M I said it’s best to get the facts right re Argentina.That does not mean you are stupid. It means you do not know the facts. I know Argentina I lived there a while. And history is my strong suit :
1 : There were Leftist governments in office from around 2000 till late 2014. Those leftist governments were in power because of the stuff ups that the previous right wing mobs did. That lead to the Argentine default in late 2001..That lead to mass unemployment, bank savings being seized by government and resulting political ‘instability’. Millions on the streets.
2: The leftist governments in the period 2001 -2014 mostly rebuilt the economy with a controlled & managed exchange rate. And because it was in default with the IMF, World Bank, etc it could not make foreign currency loans..The rebuild took a long time.. And yes the government did institute special programs for the poor. Over time it also became corrupt.
3: Since late 2014, Macri’s government has pursued a policy of opening up the economy completely to foreign loans, investment and a free exchange rate. And now Argentina is again on the verge of sovereign risk default.
Macri’s government needed to open things up economically and financially. But it has had an ideologically driven bull at agate approach . Opening up a national closed economy needs a pragmatic long term approach. ( Think China from 1979 -2015 )
One more reason for a draft to not work very well:
https://www.military.com/join-armed-forces/2014/05/14/80-of-military-recruitments-turned-down.html
By the way I strongly support the idea of a draft in the context of giving everyone some skin in the game but it would have to be completely re-engineered for today’s military. Perhaps an military auxiliary (think farm club) that gives some rudimentary training in military subjects does some physical conditioning while engaging in less rigorous beneficial service to the the country. If you get good enough marks you can use it for a stepping stone in the the military on completion of the draft, if not you can do things like trash pickup, brush clearing (fire risk management on public lands etc.)
The money might be better spent in funding phys ed classes in junior high school though.
Take a memo, stay away from the drunken bar scene in major cities. This happened right here In Denver a few days ago.
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/26/suspect-lodo-denver-vehicular-assault-police/
@EM – re “Real Soon Now we’ll have our own way to get to space.”
Is anyone running a book on how long before the first commercial spacecraft is knocked out of the sky by having a bit of space junk whack through it at a few ‘000 mph? :-|
Looking at that photo of the Thunbergs makes me wonder what would sales be of an
Anti-Greta T-shirt?
Personlly I think she needs the one I saw a couple of days ago:
Do Not Disturb
Already Disturbed
Need another reason to sell out, pack it up, and leave California?
Rent control! Coming soon to a landlord near you.
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/08/30/newsom-announces-deal-to-cap-rising-rent-prices/
Note: Can read free, but must turn off ad blocker
@Graeme No.3 – I could go for one of those t-shirts myself ;o)
Re, Greta: I’m not so much anti-Greta as I am angry about the cynical use of her by her parents and the GEBs funding her circus act. There have been arguments as to whether or not she was maneuvered into her current role or if she was offered the role and, just as cynically as everyone else, jumped at the chance. Regardless, she’s just a ‘dumb kid’ like I was at her age that doesn’t know how little she knows.
It just annoys the snot out of me to have her or anyone yammering on about “The Science! The Science!” when they demonstrably have no clue as to the current state of our understanding of the drivers of climate that cause large scale global changes. (Hint: We don’t know much yet because little money is being spent to find out. It’s mostly going to ‘CO2 bad’ and very little to ‘What’s going on?’)
Oh, and I’m still waiting for a list of any regions where the Koppen classification has changed within the past century. I’m not aware of any at the moment, though there could be one or two that have changed.
Who would thunk Tstorm’s in the Midwest saved Florida yesterday? We shall see as there is still more to go.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EDPu3mhWwAMEcvT?format=jpg
A public service announcment, before I cut the yard. ;-)
1. Don’t drink and drive!
https://mobile.twitter.com/AwardsDarwin/…8315947008
2. Don’t mess with the Rhino!
https://mobile.twitter.com/AwardsDarwin/…6695819264
Awe man, the link appears to have broken on my phone. Try cut and paste….
[The link is missing some elided bits and will never work. Any link with lots of … in it will break. E.M.Smith]
Interesting gun legislation for Florida residents evacuating for Hurricane Dorian.
https://www.westernjournal.com/florida-suspends-concealed-carry-requirement-people-fleeing-hurricane/
@Bill in Oz:
You might start your fact quest by noting that the 2001 to 2014 debt reduction was largely accomplished by defaulting on $100 BILLION of debt…
It is very easy to get out of debt by blowing it off.
Odd, 2nd attempt.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AwardsDarwin/status/1167409348315947008
https://mobile.twitter.com/AwardsDarwin/status/1167368346695819264
Latest Pointman
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2019/08/29/trumps-relationship-with-the-military-and-law-enforcement/
EM Yes you’re right. Argentina ‘s default back in 2001 was huge…And probably more than $100 billion…
The IMF& World Bank this time have loaded $57 billion but if we add in all the other loans made in the past 5 years…I suspect that it will be much more than that..
Now that makes me wonder about why international financial institutions such a s IMF, etc do not learn from past stuff ups.. And exercise caution when a new national government suddenly changes major economic policies. The emphasis being on “Suddenly” ..
If you owe a banker $10,000 he owns you. If you owe him $10,000,000 you own him, just add a few “zeros” for a government/bank relationship. Conservatives fix the fiscal problems, repair the lines of credit. The people get tired of the Conservatives saying NO and elect Liberals that promise Yes, and we will be responsible this time.
Just like Obamacare. After it is passed with NO Republican input and proves a wreak the democrats insist it is the Republicans responsibility to fix it. It is all the Republicans fault that it doesn’t work as advertised. Then the Democrats point out that it must be greatly expanded to make it work out! Even more astonishing, there are Republicans that agree ! We must fix it!!
We don’t need them…pg
On Greta… several of the posted pictures and quotes from her showed, in my interpretation, a teenager having the adventure of a lifetime. Even some spontaneity and smiles. Now, with parants once more… not so much.
An illustration of precisely how poisonous things are getting over Brexit, which turned up today on Breitbart as just the sort of thing you want to be reading on a Sunday morning:
“Mainstream media talking head Terry Christian has suggested Brexit supporters should be deprived of food and medicine in the event of a No Deal Brexit, and said he is hoping for a “good virulent strain” of flu to strike down pensioners who voted Leave.” There is more poisonous bile to follow.
Terry Christian? Can there ever have been such a outstandingly inappropriate name?
@Steven Fraser re Greta: Interesting observation. I’ve seen her in the two different modes but never checked who else was around at the time.
Your observation would argue against those who say she is cynically in her crusade for the ‘Science’ for the money and attention. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that in further photos and videos.
Meanwhile, all I’m willing to say is she doesn’t know squat about climate or science and is a poor source on which to base policy decisions.
This does not bode well for the N Bahama’s. The pro’s in the background are calling for this to peak later today at 185 mph.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT5+shtml/011457.shtml
@Steve C:
It is amazing to me just how much the Progressives and Globalists are prone to hate and violent speech. While those on the conservative side tend to just do quiet observation…
@Ossqss:
I’m having the spouse watch this one closely and reminding here that this is the normal fall in Florida. Watching and waiting…
The storm has slowed and the eye has filled with low clouds as expected over the Bahama Island. Now it hopefully weakens via upwelling and we soon see the Western flank start flattening out on Sat imagery. That would indicate the beginning of the turn sequence. So far, the flow over Florida has not changed yet, but should this afternoon, hopefully!
This loop may take a bit of time to load as the traffic is quite heavy.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/satlooper.php?region=05L&product=vis-swir
I am sure by now most of you have heard about the shooting in Odessa/Midland Texas.
They have finally identified the shooter but still little info about what went down other than a shooting spree triggered by a benign traffic stop for failure to signal for a left turn.
8 dead including the shooter and 22 others injured.
https://www.kcbd.com/2019/09/01/police-reveal-name-midlandodessa-shooting-suspect/
The Rachel MADdow virus …
A few years ago, TV celebrity Rachel Maddow was at Rockefeller University to hand out a prize that’s given each year to a prominent female scientist. As Maddow entered the auditorium, someone overheard her say, “What is up with the dude wall?”
She was referring to a wall covered with portraits of scientists from the university who have won either a Nobel Prize or the Lasker Award, a major medical prize.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/25/749886989/academic-science-rethinks-all-too-white-dude-walls-of-honor
h/t to Lubos …
https://motls.blogspot.com/2019/08/removal-of-dude-walls-and-bolsheviks.html
A blast from the past (and I’m not out of Scotch ;-)
Hurricane on windy is showing 24-25 foot waves, with 9 ft swells near the eye, next high tide in Palm Beach Fl. will be 11:38 tomorrow morning. Storm is currently about 130 miles off the Florida coast just south east of the Grand Bahamas.
H.R.: “she’s just a ‘dumb kid’ like I was at her age that doesn’t know how little she knows.”
Greta doesn’t know the difference between ‘know’ and ‘believe’, and it is not just Greta.
This Dilbert strip “No One Is Taking Advice” is great (age versus experience)
https://dilbert.com/strip/2019-08-30
One person says “dude wall” and poof — history disappears. Some want to erase history, and I’m sure some would like to rewrite history, to bring it up to modern standards. Call it “living history”, flexible, adaptable, always PC.
I would think some would rather keep the dude walls up and the keep the history visible in order to keep racism and sexism on the front burner. The movies do this with racism in the South to make sure that we don’t forget how bad it was.
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
(L.P. Hartley, “The Go-Between”)
For example, take this totally awesome, incredible documentary movie “Apollo 11 (2019)”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/
If you look carefully you will see a few non-male non-white participants (which must prove something, in those days before diversity quotas) but mostly there is almost zero diversity even among the white males. Same white shirt, same tie. Nobody looks like a geek, or even has the mad-scientist look. It was a different time. For everybody. I’m not going to judge the past, and certainly not by modern standards.
Except to say, that was amazing, incredible, what they did. Who were all those thousands of engineers, scientists, technicians? Where did they come from? Whatever happened to them?
Can you imagine a project so big, with a goal so far beyond what had already been done, ever being accomplished today? It couldn’t even get out of congress, much less off the ground.
Were those “guys” (all untold thousands of them) amazing, or what?
Kennedy wanted to achieve a “first” but he did say he wanted it “done right”,
Trying is easy, achieving is hard, but “done right” is a whole ‘nother level.
NASA isn’t what it used to be. There are countries where the current people live among the relics of their ancestors. Pyramids, temples, aqueducts, all sorts of things that are beyond what they could do now, not even the experts. The expertise was lost. Progressives imagine the future will be better; it doesn’t always work out that way.
Bahamas got hammered
@YMMV re the Dilbert cartoon: Yup. That describes most teenagers to a tee. I certainly fit the description when I was 15 – 16 -17.
Odd, but I wised up early. It might be because I learned a lot of DIY skills from my mom and dad; gardening, carpentry, mechanics and other practical stuff. They knew what they were doing and in helping or taking direction, I realized I had no clue and had better at least start off doing it their way.
“Respect your elders” used to be a thing, along with “Wisdom comes with age.” Sure, like all kids I only half-believed that, but at least those were common cultural teachings not all that many years ago.
Now it’s “Sue your own parents and teachers if you don’t get your way.” That’s a sure way to reach the bottom of the emotional and intellectual pits in a hurry.
A stationary hurricane should burn itself out at some point. It is heat pump, pumping energy into space and thus cooling the ocean around it. It is also a shield, keeping the Sun from re-heating the water.
If it dies down to a 3 or lower, it could give people a false sense of security. For when it moves, it can move over warming waters and rebuild strength.
Unfortunately it is sitting right over the gulf stream which will keep bring warm water in to feed it.
Now setting centered 100 miles west of Palm Beach about over Freetown and Freeport Grand Bahama.
Outer bands are starting to sweep down the coast near Ft. Lauderdale and Miami which both have coastal flooding advisories out.
Looks like it is just going to sit there and grind on Grand Bahama for a while, it is sitting over a huge pool of 86 deg F water with a steady flow of new warm water between it and the Florida coast.
Looks like a large high pressure is hanging out over the east central states (ie Tennesse and north) which may be blocking its move and turn to the north.
I really enjoyed our cruise with a stop in the Bahamas… I hope the place doesn’t take a reset. A lot of the old quarter stuff was very nice…
The ‘cane went through an ERC ( eyewall replacement cycle) earlier and has been up welling the water for a loooong time from so little movement. Subsequent weakening was inevitable and it is now 941 mb on its way higher. That is a good thing, not so much for the islands. It appears the modeling is taking it out further to sea also, once it starts moving later tonight or early morning.
Here is live recon if you are interested.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/recon/
Model tools also.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/
An outstanding example of pure ignorance and fundamental stupidity. And she is in a leadership position. Oh the pain!
https://mobile.twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1168598031329091584
Well it appears the post has been disappeared to protect AOC’s ignorance. She was boasting on electric cars and commenting on how people would not be able to get gas if the power was out. Not realizing the electric car was more dependent on electricity than the IC cars. True ignorance of reality.
Yes according to Ft. Lauderdale radar (West Palm beech radar appears to be down) the storm is a lot less well organized than it was a while ago. In fact it looks like it may have backed up to the east slightly, so hopefully it will turn and finally drift off to the north east.
It is shielded from direct input of warm water from the gulf stream now by the Grand Bahama Island so that might help it back out of the coast area and head out to sea.
Looking at the North American Model for the next few hours it is showing (at 700 mb level) that exact movement
In about 24 hours it will start moving to the north north west almost parallel to the Florida coast then around 40 – 48 hours from now it will accelerate and move to the north then around 60 – 72 hours it will begin approaching the Carolinas coast then come ashore somewhere near Kitty Hawk or the southern tip of Cape Charles area and then run across south east Maryland. Hopefully by then it will just be a tropical storm.
This morning on Grand Bahama
@YMMV – Scott Adams has been poking fun at the left a lot lately. But the left is not bright enough to understand what he is saying. He has gotten very political lately, but only those who understand what is going on get it.
@EM – I loved those roasts! Best comedy hours ever
Additional weakening is likely due to the more unfavorable oceanic conditions now being created by Dorian’s stall. The hurricane’s winds are mixing to the surface cooler waters from below that are limiting the hurricane’s heat and moisture supply. Dorian’s lack of motion means that it cannot move itself over to a new area of warm water to feed off of. The combined effect of the ERC and the reduced heat energy being supplied to Dorian could reduce the hurricane to a Category 4 storm with 130 – 140 mph winds by Tuesday afternoon.
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Dorians-Wind-Field-Likely-Weaken-and-Expand-Due-Eyewall-Replacement-Cycle
In Spanish (yes, I know I’m a sick puppy… music videos in Russian one minute, safety advisories in Spanish the next, native speaker of English but best 2nd language is French , and others…)
But it is rare I learn something in another language….This guy taught me that in lightning country, it matters where you put your feet… obvious in retrospect, but…
So even if you don’t speak Spanish, the illustrations carry the meaning. It is all V=IR at base, but applied…
Basically, don’t put your feet apart on the ground in the current path. If you must run away, do it in leaps and bounds.
Hmmmm this is curious – funny it takes a hurricane to bring this bit of news to the top of the pile.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/china-builds-port-bahamas-provides-military-assistance-equipment-180-miles-off-u-s-coast/
I can think of several reasons they might create a port on an island with nothing to use the goods from the port, but none of them are good.
I don’t know if the spanish guy said, but a metal pole like that will protect an area described by a 45 degree cone, apex at the top of the pole. Of course there will be ground currents, but if you crouch at the edge of the cone, but not too close to the edge, with your feet close together, you may be OK depending on how high the pole.
So now the real story is starting to come out about the Odessa Tx shooting.
It was likely a work place violence based rampage interrupted by a traffic stop.
https://apnews.com/eef251ac02a74cb7ba195f83a9494c45
A deeply troubled man in a death spiral and finally snapped.
On lightning. Don’t be there, and if you are, reduce your potential. I really couldn’t make it through the whole video but I’m sure that’s what he was talking about :-)
I would say, start here.
https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-science-ground-currents
I think we have a tactic for combating Antifa
drone – meet UV iridescent chalk powder.
El Foro de Puerto Rico
@elforopr
Follow @elforopr
Así quedó la isla Abaco en las Bahamas, luego del paso del huracán Dorian.
[ This is how Abaco Island was in the Bahamas, after the passage of Hurricane Dorian.]
[REPLY: NOTE THIS IS NSFW! The title has an F-bomb in it. -E.M.Smith]
For comment
“The Quickening”
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-quickening/
Predictive ability history?
Re lightning, every time I look out of the window here I see evidence that our intelligence is de-evolving. About eighteen months ago, the landlord of the adjoining property had a couple of lightning conductors installed on the chimneys front and back. (Don’t know why, AFAIK it hasn’t become a legal requirement or anything.)
The one outside my window is about two feel away from, and a foot or so lower than, the television aerial for the same property, mounted on the same chimney. Ho hum.
^^ Hmm. My own intelligence too, it seems.
Feet …
A look at browsers and other things
“A Quick Privacy Quest Update”
http://coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2019/08/a-quick-privacy-quest-update.html
Hurricane update
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/121995-since-the-joke-thread-is-gone-here%E2%80%99s-something-to-chuckle-at/page/9/?tab=comments#comment-1334050
Lightning If the lightning rods are well grounged begins at the ground and works it’s way up. the return bolt through the ionized track is the BIG one, followed by osculation bolts until the potential is exhausted. If the lightning rods are well grounded they will protect the taller but poorly grounded antenna…pg.
wow , me and wordpress really screwed that up! sorry
Lightning begins at the ground and works it’s way up. the return bolt through the ionized track is the BIG one, followed by osculation bolts until the potential is exhausted. If the lightning rods are well grounded they will protect the taller but poorly grounded antenna…pg.
Anyone else notice the sudden and profound absence of “Russia, RUSSIA, RUSSIA!!!!” In the news after the NYT decided to swap to “racist, Racist, RACIST!!!”?
It’s enough to make a fella think it’s all made up crap…
@EM, watch for climate change making storms stall to backfill. Coming soon to a theater near you.
What I noticed was London mayor Kahn and Serioso both pop up with British screeds that savage Trump about his control over Boris and the weak minded British electorate that is pushing this very bad Brexit Idea. Could it be that the GEBs are sending out their troops under orders.
Just a tech FYI:
I left the XU4 running overnight so that it could properly do the log file rotation and as a test of what leaving it up all the time would do. Unlike prior times when I’ve “let it run” to do something like download a file scrape or do a database upload; I left the browser open and with a bunch of pages open.
Infowars.com is a very “busy” or high “page weight” page. Lots of images. Dynamic things that keep changing the image. I usually do not leave that kind of page open (and in fact rarely spend time on that kind of page at all, not liking “dancing Java craplettes”… ) But this time “just to see” I left it open, though not the top page.
Well, when I came back to the machine (somewhere around 30-ish hours later, maybe more), not only was the ethernet light blinking a lot (where the cable plugs into the board) indicating it was still moving bits, but “swap space” had almost 2 GB in it.
Realize this board has 2 GB of memory and usually runs about 1/2 GB used. Maybe up to 1 GB used in a heavy session. It rarely does much of anything with swap. I tend to configure every system with at least 2 x memory as swap space (on real USB disk to limit u_SD card wear), and this on has 4 GB of swap on one disk (and another 8 available but usually not active on another disk).
So here I was looking at about 1/2 of swap full, all of memory full, and ethernet activity. All from a system that was nominally “idle” for a day, but with the browser open.
I closed the tab with InfoWars open in it. The ethernet light blinked one or two times more and what then not blinking. InfoWars was the “chatty Cathy”.
I clicked the “close box” on the browser…. and waited… and waited…
After a while the ethernet stopped blinking. A while later their was a notice that a web page was slowing down the browser… (this is FireFox). Eventually the FireFox window closed, and then in HTOP I got to watch as oh so slowly it emptied a couple of GB out of swap…
Moral of Story:
Don’t leave your browser open overnight. While I normally don’t do that just for security and “sanitation” reasons (i.e. it’s good practice to exit any program you are not using); it looks like browsers can churn a whole lot of memory and network bandwidth even when “inactive”…
One u_SD card based system, that use of real disk swap space can cut out a LOT of wear on the card from high page weight chatty Cathy web sites.
Never leave an InfoWars tab open. Close it when done looking at it. Otherwise it is chewing up network and machine resources for nothing. I have a habit of leaving a dozen or two tabs in my browser so I can just click a tab to check a site. ( I know, it is what bookmarks are for…) Some sites are not suited to this use, as they are heavy pages and active. This is one of them.
Every so often, shutdown and restart your browser….
FWIW, with Brave on the Tablet: I can have all the tabs open I want and nothing slows down or fills up. It looks like Brave is very tidy about how it handles many tabs. Some other browsers (cough, FFox) are prone to ever more bogging down behaviours as open tabs become very large in number. It might be worth repeating this experiment on other browsers and boards.
It appears that Climate Change/Disruption/Emergency has a long history.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2019/09/02/summer-heatwaves-it-was-hotter-in-1707/#comments
john cooknell
September 2, 2019 8:08 pm
Paul,
Parliament did declare a climate emergency during the reign of Charles 2nd just before the hot summers you describe.
The first time the UK Parliament declared such a thing was in 1661. History repeats itself exactly!
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/lords-jrnl/vol11/pp362-363#h3-0005
The Fast to be observed in Westm. Abbey, and the Bp. of St. David’s to preach.
“Whereas His Majesty hath been pleased, by Proclamation, upon the Unseasonableness of the Weather, to command a general and public Fast, to be religiously and solemnly kept, within the Cities of London and Westm. and Places adjacent: It is ORDERED, by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Parliament assembled, That the Lord Bishop of St. David’s is hereby desired to take the Pains upon him, to preach before the Lords of Parliament, on Wednesday the Fifteenth Day of this Instant January in the Forenoon, in the Abbey Church of Westm. being the accustomed Place where their Lordships have used to meet upon the like Occasion.”
Samuel Pepys Diary
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1662/01/15/
This morning Mr. Berkenshaw came again, and after he had examined me and taught me something in my work, he and I went to breakfast in my chamber upon a collar of brawn, and after we had eaten, asked me whether we had not committed a fault in eating to-day; telling me that it is a fast day ordered by the Parliament, to pray for more seasonable weather; it having hitherto been summer weather, that it is, both as to warmth and every other thing, just as if it were the middle of May or June, which do threaten a plague (as all men think) to follow, for so it was almost the last winter; and the whole year after hath been a very sickly time to this day. I did not stir out of my house all day, but conned my musique, and at night after supper to bed.
1. Samuel Pepys 21st jan 1661
It is strange what weather we have had all this winter; no cold at all; but the ways are dusty, and the flyes fly up and down, and the rose-bushes are full of leaves, such a time of the year as was never known in this world before here.
I won’t stress the parallels between fast & vegan, or listening to a sermon nor the fears of plague, death etc.
@James Glendinning:
Very nice Ted Talk. Does an effective job of explaining “why the gun”.
My only “complaint” about it (and it is a minor one) is that it glosses over the issue of abuse of the “Government Monopoly On Violence”. Ignoring that far more people have been killed by Government than ever were killed by individuals. Ignoring that “the legitimate use of violence” also rests with We The People. Essentially ignoring the real reason for the 2nd amendment: To assure our government respects the rest of our rights. It isn’t about murdering Bambi, it is about the availability of a “countervailing force”, the domestic Militia, that both deters foreign aggressors (even aggressor nations), private gangs and “armies”, and yes, even our own political class, from abusing their access to violence. Even the “State monopoly on violence”.
Here in the USA the State does NOT have such a monopoly. It tries. The Left (who want nothing more than an unarmed populace to yoke under the communist doctrinal plough) constantly push for that power, that monopoly over the legitimate use of force. Slowly they have advanced over that path (where once you could, in fact, own your own cannon, we know have “destructive device” laws, and where once you were expected to have a “military style” gun, now The Left vilifies it – unless, of course, under their control…). Here we still have the final resting place of the “legitimate use of force” in the hands of We The People. For self defense. For restraint on our government (i.e. politicians wishing to usurp the State)
Ever wonder why the USA never had a coup?
Ever wonder why the USA has not had a war on our soil in over 100 years?
Ever wonder why the USA is not invaded?
Ever wonder why the USA has not descended into tyranny?
I would assert that a big part of “why” is that the potential tyrant, invader, coup plotter, and war monger all realize there is not a “monopoly on the legitimate use of violence”. So while we DO have a strong and vibrant Federal Military, it is backed up by 50 State Guards, who are also in turn supported by We The People in the peoples Militia (defined as all males over the age of 18, btw) with our own means of violence.
And it works. Those States and Cities which erode this right of We The People the most, have the most rise of gangs, the most corrupt governments, the highest murder rates and chaos.
Eventually they will succeed at putting The Gun beyond the reach of We The People. Succeed at making it a State “Monopoly on the legitimate use of violence”. Shortly thereafter we will either turn into a tyranny, or be invaded (or both, who chooses to die to defend the Tyrant?)
But I understand that the presenter is European, so has the European perspective. He makes a very good case other than that one flaw. Unfortunately, while the period since W.W.II has been relatively peaceful in Europe, the European history is not one to lend comfort that the “Monopoly on the use of violence” has a good outcome. Many many times, the State there has used that monopoly to impress the population into uniform and apply them to avarice towards their neighbor. It seems a particularly European thing to do… Kings, Emperors, Kaisers & More revel in their “Monopoly on the use of violence”… Which is part of why our Constitution prohibits them.
So as long as Europe has an effective control of their Tyrant Wannabes by way of democratic processes controlled by The People, they will do well. But, at any time, should that control falter, and a Tyrant rise: Just who will remove them? We in the USA have done that job twice now. If we decide it’s not our problem? Or worse, if we are also talked into the notion of a State Monopoly on the gun and grow our own Tyrant… who just doesn’t care about Europe?
So I would urge a little skepticism about that one (very European) idea of a Monopoly Of The State as a “good thing”. Central Authority is ALWAYS a risk to freedom, peace and prosperity. It must always fear “We The People” and be kept as small as possible. If not, it will raise a Tyrant and descend into oppression and empire building.
@P.G.:
Yeah, there’s definitely a Central Authority that pushes the Talking Points Du Jour, which then diffuse through the influence tree.
Can’t really say which is an “Assigned Agent” and which is a just a “useful idiot” recruit “just following orders”, but the pattern is what it is. Central Authority -> Agents of Influence -> Useful Idiots. Classical Marxists structure at work.
In comparison, the Right Side has a whole lot of richness in ideas and beliefs. No one Central Authority choosing the one to push today (anyone remember when Black lives Matter was the one thing of the day?) and it suddenly shows up in the same talking head tag lines on all the controlled media… and then parroted by the U.I. clan. Instead it is a lot of different ideas offered and folks get to sort and chose them…
It is an incredibly easy thing to spot, once you are sensitized to look for it. Like the instant evaporation of the Russia, RUSSIA, RUSSIA!!!! crap once the switch was thrown to the next lie. Now, as soon as I hear the same line (especially on the same day) from 2 or 3 “different’ sources, the “suspect” flag goes up. “Who benefits” gets asked.
@Graeme No.3:
Now that’s interesting…. Mid 1600s. 400 years ago, or two of the 208 year solar cycles. Just before the Maunder Minimum. I wonder if hot spikes are normal / expected just before Grand Solar Minima? Would explain a lot.
Speaking of talking points, notice how the outrage over the Odessa / Midland Texas shooter has suddenly gone away? Well it turns out the shooter has a long history of mental problems and failed a background check a few years ago due to mental issues on his record.
He has been making incoherent phone calls to both the local police and FBI for years, including on the day of the shooting.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/texas-odessa-gunman-mentally-unfit-buy-firearms-gun-law-loophole-background-check
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-shooter-had-been-banned-from-buying-firearms-because-mentally-unfit-11567540321
The media is now mentioning that he “may have” purchased the gun he used private party (and exploited a loop hole in the background check system). The interesting point here is by now they should know exactly who he bought the gun from and when but since they leave that info out I suspect there is a clinker in that coal bin too – like he bought it a long time ago or he bought it from someone who is identifiable as being a Democrat or some such.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-gunman-purchased-weapon-private-sale-which-doesn-t-require-n1049351
Texas Department of Public Safety said the shooter had a rifle that may have been a .223 AR-15 style weapon.
“may have been??” give me a break they know exactly what caliber type and model he used – why the obfuscation?
Maybe the gun is traceable to the Fast and Furious gun sales or maybe to MX13 gangs since he may have purchased it black market?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/odessa-texas-shooting-sources-identify-gunman-as-seth-ator
Still mighty odd what info is being very slow to come out, info that in other shootings was available within 24 hours (like name of gun shop and owner of shop where the purchase was made, exact make and model / caliber etc.)
Larry re Odessa shooter: You are hitting on the key point; it’s not what is said, but what is not said.
Larry wrote: “The interesting point here is by now they should know exactly who he bought the gun from […]”
Yup, serial number and all that. I think who sold him the gun and where that gun has been is probably the best guess as to why the silence.
Also, if the serial number had been filed off, just that fact alone means that no law anyone could pass would stop the shooter from illegally getting an illegal gun. The YSM does not report anything that doesn’t advance the Regressive narrative.
I can see that debate now.
“What went wrong so we can prevent something like this from ever happening again?”
“Well, it seems that no gun store would ever sell to this guy because it would be illegal to do so. So he found some guy that knew some guy that would sell him a gun, cash, no questions asked. It turns out that the gun was reported stolen 6 months ago, so he was illegally buying an illegal gun from a fence.
Therefore I propose we ban all firearms and confiscate those already in the hands of citizens”
Let the politicians and YSM try selling that to the public as the reason for banning guns. Yeah… sure… uh-huh… lead balloon.
Every police car marked and not marked has guns in it. Wonder how many of these are lost and stolen every year?
Buying and selling guns is a known sideline of officers because they can easily buy at police discount and then sell as a private citizens.
@P.G.:
Typically the car gun (and often the personal weapon) is department issue not officer’s persobal property. HOWEVER, most officers I’ve known well had a “throw down piece” taken off some street scum at some point. Don’t know if modern forensics makes that unworkable now, though.
40 years back, if a cop shot a perp then found there was no gun he could just put the throwdown piece in hand… and it would trace back to bad guys if anyone.
Think many folks pushing streetdrugs would register a complaint if a cop pats them down and just says ” I’ll just keep these pills and the gun. Don’t do it again. Get going.”? Cameras will make this harder, but not impossible.
“TELL ME MORE: How do you communicate when the government censors the internet? With a peer-to-peer mesh broadcasting network that doesn’t use the internet.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/09/04/hong-kong-5/
A famous remark regarding privately owned firearms and opposition to Nazis
Let’s try this again in the proper thread:
Interesting read from General Mattis regarding President Obama and his failure to act responsibly to provocations.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/act-of-war-mattis-says-obamas-inept-response-to-cafe-milano-bomb-plot-emboldened-iran
Anyone with a brain knew this would be the outcome in Hong Kong from the day control was surrendered by the British. The people of Hong Kong will now pay a terrible price to be subsumed into the Communist Chinese state.
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/china-builds-port-bahamas-provides-military-assistance-equipment-180-miles-off-u-s-coast/
“ENSO predictions based on solar activity”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/04/enso-predictions-based-on-solar-activity/
In other news: https://spectator.org/lies-damn-lies-and-special-prosecutors/ . Memories come flooding back … we *have* seen this movie before (those of us old enough to have lived through it … young ‘uns only know what they’re told about things that happened before their time). Add to that the selective narratives. Leftists good, lovers of individual liberty bad.
There is this one: https://spectator.org/a-lament-on-grand-jury-secrecy/ , too.
fun with primitive technology – with a bit of modern enhancements -Expedient tent heater
enhanced Finnish torch stove
Own a rifle? Got a scope to go with it? The government might soon know who you are, where you live and how to reach you.
That’s because Apple and Google have been ordered by the U.S. government to hand over names, phone numbers and other identifying data of at least 10,000 users of a single gun scope app, Forbes has discovered. It’s an unprecedented move: Never before has a case been disclosed in which American investigators demanded personal data of users of a single app from Apple and Google. And never has an order been made public where the feds have asked the Silicon Valley giants for info on so many thousands of people in one go.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/09/06/exclusive-feds-order-apple-and-google-to-hand-over-names-of-10000-users-of-a-gun-scope-app/#469b78ec6135
Well that is a highly specialized restricted sale scope not just any random hunters rifle scope so other than the digital precedent (they have done this sort of things for decades to narrow the universe of suspects for all sorts of crimes), it has little relevance to average shooters.
Here is a adapter for regular rifle scopes. I don’t know if that list included this:
SOLOMARK Rifle Scope Adapter Smartphone Mounting System- Smart Shoot Scope Mount Adapter – Display and Record The Discovery
https://www.amazon.com/SOLOMARK-Adapter-Smartphone-Mounting-System/dp/B07DN65H7Q
Some light reading
“THE MAN IN TAN BLUES Part 1”
https://www.pickeringpost.com/2019/09/07/the-man-in-tan-blues-part-1/
And now just a bit of musical joy.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1KsyVFMu6Aq5x235IoalZQ
Fun with the gas law and global warming
Kind of demonstrates the quality of science being done by major “Climate ” scientists. Or at least those on the government payroll. Nice to see that Ned is getting traction. At least a few understand as much about gasses as a refrigeration mechanic does…pg
This is just to note the passing of another Nobel Peace Prize laureate — Robert Mugabe.
(find the sarc)
The British colony of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, doesn’t seem to have become a proud recipient of any British heritage. The independence story sounds familiar. But different, thankfully.
Rhodesia threatened to take sovereignty without British consent. Talks failed. The Rhodesian Front was unwilling to accept what were regarded as unacceptably drastic terms and the British would settle for nothing less – it was a formula doomed to failure. (Wikipedia)
Yup. Failure and then the nightmare.
In April, Washington Post announced that it had set a new single-month traffic record, with more than 52 million unique visitors. The figure represented not only a new record, but also a 65 percent year-over-year gain that led other big-name publishers, according to the Post.
…
In a nutshell, Clavis is technology that figures out what stories are about, categorizes them by topic, and assigns each a series of keywords. It runs that same process on the Post’s readers and identifies their presumed interests based on stories they’ve read. Clavis then pairs readers with stories that match their reading history.
https://knightlab.northwestern.edu/2015/06/03/how-the-washington-posts-clavis-tool-helps-to-make-news-personal/
LL – Jennifer Rubin has such a severe case of TDS, she needs to call an ambulance right now!
The Dimowits whine on just about anything that has made the US a great country, from oil to beef. We need to come up with a whine index to categorize their angst.
Here is a particularly whiny story about NC and hurricanes. It’s as if these NYT idiots woke up yesterday and learned hurricanes hit the East Coast. And of course, they blame climate change as the root of evil here. They don’t mention the folly of building flimsy houses near the ocean as a problem – idiots all around from NC coastal residents to the “journalists”. From the article:
As Dorian chugged northeast away from the Carolinas, many said they were happy to replace blow-away roof shingles and ruined furniture and carry on until the Next One. Others, storm-shaken and weary, wondered, How many more times would they have to pack up their pets and children and race for shelter at the closest middle school? How could they rebuild their homes to withstand hurricanes made wetter and more destructive by climate change? How many more times could they bear to reboot their lives?
Across eastern North Carolina, some residents who had been displaced by devastating inland flooding during Florence ended up riding out Dorian in the borrowed bedrooms and temporary apartments where they have stayed while waiting for slow-moving disaster aid and other help with rebuilding their homes.
@Larry L:
One wonders how much of that Chinese port survived the hurricane ;-)
But it is still “one stone” on the Go Board placed so as to build an eye… We either remove that stone, or watch as they complete the process of entrenchment and become un-removable.
@CDQuarles:
Good one! My but this sure sounds familiar… wonder if they were just rerunning the Nixon Script on Trump? (And thus were really astounded when it didn’t work?)
Hmmm…. Democrats, highly corrupt and working coups since at least the ’70s?
@Another Ian:
Yeah, Obama The Pure is not going to sell to a world with a memory…
@P.G.:
OH! NOW I understand why I couldn’t buy into the Global Warming Crap! I learned to do AC maintenance decades ago and I’m an AC Mechanic at heart! Hard to let go of that skill once you have it… I
‘ve got one of my cars AC running on a 20% propane 80% butane mix as that’s a “drop in replacement” for R12 and I’ve just not had the time to do the flush & oil change for the R134A conversion… Works really well, BTW. Also, California now has a $10 DEPOSIT on each can of 134a you buy AND has their own special valve. They think they will save the planet from “greenhouse gasses” by recovering unused coolant from when folks fill their AC. I make sure to drain mine ENTIRELY whenever I buy any here… Then again, I also buy a case of it whenever I’m out of State so my last buy was a couple of years ago… So I’m not in a hurry to convert to the California Mafia Can…
For anyone worried about “flammable gas” in the AC: It’s all of about 16 ounces. This in a car with 16 GALLONS of more flammable gasoline in it. Almost all of that gas is in the receiver / drier far away from the passenger compartment. In case of an interior leak, the gas is “odorized” and I’d smell it. I don’t smoke and don’t let anyone else smoke in my car anyway. I’ve run such a mix on and off since they first banned R12 back in the ’80s in everything from a Honda, to an International Harvester Scout, to a couple of Mercedes. All with zero problems. It just isn’t a real risk, even in a wreck. Notice nobody gets excited about carrying camp stoves and fuel in their cars? Well, this is safer than that.
@YMMV:
“Use the sarc, Luke!” ;-)
@Jim2:
Oh Boy, a “tool” to assure an echo chamber and spiral decent into confirmation bias…
As a person who seeks out change, I find such tools a big bother. Pretty quickly I’m bored and move to a different site for “some new news”…
Though I have found that swapping browsers / systems / history can also work. Part of why I run over a dozen browsers / systems … in addition to the privacy & security advantages… (IT’s the BORG! Rotate the shield frequencies!…)
Per Hurricanes:
Wonder how many folks in Rhode Island remember they got whacked in about ’53? Or folks in NYC know about their history of Hurricanes?
ANYWHERE on the East Coast or Gulf Coast can get whacked, and will. That’s why all the old big cities were either well inland or were only there to support the ports. Look at Atlanta then just run north along the freeway…
jim2: “We need to come up with a whine index […]”
Oh yes! A whine index is definitely needed. What would it be?
Lessee…
Level 1 – Crickets and frogs go silent
Level 2 – Dogs start to howl
Level 3 – Elephants begin stampeding
Level 4 – Drowns out the sound of a tornado
Level 5 – Start searching for an ice pick to puncture your eardrums
Now that doctors have been tasked to sniff out crazies who MIGHT go shoot or blow up something, the doctor-patient relationship we have come to know is gone. It’s best to stick to mundane topics and symptoms with them now.
@H.R.:
Having had my eardrumps punctured, I’d recommend against #5.
How about “Run screaming from the room” instead?
@E.M. When their whining gets to that level, it’s a viable option ;o)
Run screaming from the room is about a Level 3.5.
Anyhow, jim2 is right, we need a Whine Index. I’ve been busy in the basement putting up wall-mounted wire shelving and couldn’t quickly think of a numerical index. That first go at an index was fast and cutsey, but subjective and hard to remember.
Maybe just Sonic Booms? Oh! How about Mach numbers?
“That thar was a Mach 4 whine iffin I ever heerd one.”
I rather like the Mach numbers.
How’s this for headlines?
Via
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/09/08/your-moral-and-intellectual-superiors-126/
@Another Ian
“breaking news” — more like broken news.
If you haven’t seen this video clip yet…
https://www.cbc.ca/sports/tennis/bianca-andreescu-us-open-canadian-apology-1.5275031
@Jim2, if only that was something new, today. Sadly, that kind of thing dates to the 80s and 90s, thanks, in part, to EMTALA and HIPAA. Now with fully accessible electronic medical records …., and yes, the AMA, like its British colleagues before them, has betrayed its Everyday Joe physician and the public they serve. Can’t say folk were not warned. Even locally, when the Governor supported “Certificate of Need” boards back in the 60s, he was warned that the boards would become co-opted to serve the needs of the incumbents of the day and limit diffusion of cost and life-saving technologies.
Now here’s a thought
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/121995-since-the-joke-thread-is-gone-here%E2%80%99s-something-to-chuckle-at/page/9/?tab=comments#comment-1335928
Hmmm interesting background info on Israel, Iran, Syria and North Korea’s relationships.
Things are not always as they seem.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/290884/north-korean-israeli-shadow-war
Seems like some smoke coming from this direction too
“Flynn Lawyer Response to Threats and Targeted Harassment by Chairman Adam Schiff…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/09/09/flynn-lawyer-response-to-threats-and-targeted-harassment-by-chairman-adam-schiff/
And more further down
“Keynesian economics is guaranteed to make an economy’s problems worse”
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/09/10/keynesian-economics-is-guaranteed-to-make-an-economys-problems-worse/
@ Another Ian,
I agree, but will add this from the Austrian School, which I consider add to classical theory the idea (and fact) that money is also an economic good with supply and demand. That being so, governments monkeying with money add to the uncertainty when times are bad. That being so, make the internal rate of return (or interest … the time discount of money) increase. Again, as the article says, what should be done is opposite Keynes. Bank rates should go up, not down. Savers should be rewarded, these then supply the capital, and the badly mismanaged businesses should be bankrupted sooner, so that the cycle is shortened.
IOW, governments should get out of the way, other than enforce contracts and adjudicate bankruptcies. Also not to be forgotten is that values exist in minds. They are not physical objects, so they are subject to change; and do, rapidly, when people panic. I should also note that wide area malinvestment is something governments encourage when they intervene in economies where they shouldn’t.
Re cdquarles says:
“I should also note that wide area malinvestment is something governments encourage when they intervene in economies where they shouldn’t.”
Sounds like a description of “renewable electricity”?
And any other “government enthusiasm” I might add
I can’t find a reference now, and that makes me wonder why that is, but at any rate, there was one US recession during which interest rates were raised rather than lowered. It was a short recession. Of course the Keynesian apologists spun many tales why that didn’t matter. Does anyone know which recession that was?
Never mind, found it.
Sorry, here it is:
https://mises.org/library/forgotten-depression-1920
It wasn’t interest rates, but government spending was slashed and taxes cut. The Fed apparently stayed out of it, so there wasn’t the usual increase in money supply. It’s an interesting case and one worth knowing about.
Here’s a heart-warming video of ISIS-on-an-island being schooled in the particulars of the Kinetic Theory of Gasses.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/watch-us-bombs-isis-island-in-iraq
Almost looks like an Arc Light mission in Vietnam
A big player in the oil industry is gone from the scene –
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/oil-magnate-t-boone-pickens-dead
https://taskandpurpose.com/uss-new-york-world-trade-center
Hong Kong protesters halt protest activity on 09/11 to note the anniversary of the 9/11 attack on America.
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/09/11/hong-kong-activists-halt-protests-to-remember-9-11/
https://apnews.com/fd288d4209994ad1bc720c3754dae028
waste oil burner
He is running this first one stupid hot!
wood stove converted to burn waste oil with electric blower
Better discussion of the basics for a low tech garage heater etc.
simple oil burner with complete instructions for assembly
Prototype design uses only the draft to provide the air.
simple proof of concept draft only air supply
I actually like this better than the blower design, a little effort to induce swirl in the air supply would make a big difference.
@Jim2,
If I am remembering correctly, Ludwig von Mises wrote about the differences between Coolidge/Harding’s response to a panic in a compare and contrast with Hoover/Roosevelt, back in the 30s or 40s. Also if I am remembering correctly, the Fed was rather new at the time and Keynesian economics wasn’t the thing it became later.
I am not sure that the Mises.org site has it; but I do remember a book sold by Laissez Faire Books that did. I once had the quite extensive personal library … sadly lost after multiple moves.
I think the lesson from that short lived down turn, is that the market crash / contraction is the cure not the problem – sort of like a fever is a necessary short term fix for an infection, and the efforts to soften the down turn is actually the problem and prolongs the downturn.
During a strong contraction the hidden hand of everyone’s best self interests quickly nulls out the problems if given a chance to work. Instead of trying to fix the economy let it correct itself and limit intervention to things like soup kitchens that soften the blow on those hurt by the contraction but without meddling in the economy itself.
The problem is everyone is fixated on the “Do something” bias instead of “first do no harm”.
No programmatic solution will be as effective as millions of individuals taking local corrective actions to fix their personal problems.
@LL,
Exactly. The stock and bond markets are a bit of a trailing indicator. The post-WWI ‘bust’ lasted about a year in the US. It lasted longer in war ravaged Europe. Their response, in a large measure, was inflation. They wen’t off gold. The US didn’t. The gold fled Europe, exacerbating their problems … allowing Hitler his opening …. leading to WWII, which meant even more gold leaving Europe to America, for “safe’ keeping.
When your currency becomes a ‘reserve’ currency, people outside your borders demand it. You, then, have to supply it. Your money leaves your country …. so, when the money flows out too fast …. two sides of the same coin. Thankfully, President Trump is here to change the relationships. I’d like to see the USD lose ‘reserve’ status. I’d like to see gold come back. It’s not like we don’t have any gold already and not that we can’t mine some more, when needed.
@cdquarles: “It’s not like we don’t have any gold already and not that we can’t mine some more, when needed.”
You piqued my interest in how much it would cost to get more gold. I found what I believe is a reasonably credible source,American Bullion. Yup, they are in the business of selling gold with its attendant hype, but they are buying on the market and then retailing it. Since the market price is not directly tied to production cost, but rather supply, demand, and speculation, I think their analysis of mining cost is reasonably uncolored.
It turns out the cost is highly variable, depending on the mining region.
https://www.americanbullion.com/the-cost-of-producing-an-ounce-of-gold/
So we can mine more. I’m still uncertain about the rate of production if we had to increase the supply of gold in a hurry to meet accelerated demand.
I also wonder how much is laying around in forgotten safe deposit boxes, jewelry boxes, buried in backyards, entombed with the deceased, hidden behind the drywall, and other stashes not part of the day-to-day trading or industrial use. There is probably quite a bit that could be teased out without mining. I’ve run across estimates, but I just take to be WAGs. I don’t see how anyone could really know.
@CDQuarles:
Be careful what you ask for…
India and Russia have cut a deal (thinking about a posting on it..) to conduct their mutual trade in local currencies and dump the $US. China and Iran have worked up a deal to trade Oil for Stuff on similar terms. EU and Russia / China sporadically discuss shifting to € for trade.
Basically there’s a modest speed exit of the $US from the currency of choice in trade… Not enough yet to create currency problems, but given time…
@H.R.:
Any given mine has good deposits, bad deposits, and great deposits. A smart miner works the bad deposits when prices are crazy high and shifts to the good deposits when prices are crazy low (so as to stay in business long term). So a single mine can well have deposits ranging from $200 / ounce to $3000 / ounce to produce.
PRICE determines SUPPLY. With higher prices, all that highly diffused $3000 / ounce gold becomes “economic reserves”. If prices drop to $40 / ounce, there’s almost none that can be mined at a profit and “We are RUNNING OUT!!!!” panic stories get pushed. Higher prices pay for the fancier tech to get gold out of extremely dilute source rocks. There’s exponentially more in diffused sources than there is in concentrated deposits, so a modest price rise yields a massive increase in reserves…
In the limit case we use ion exchange mats to get it from sea water for giga tons… at a price…
So to answer “how much” and “how fast” you must answer “at what price”…
Now a completely separate but important question is: How much does it really benefit the people / society to spend all that money to extract a metal that’s pretty, but only used for a few other things, really; and would some other use be far far better? For example, I’d rather have $2000 of copper than $2000 of gold. (And I’d really rather have a copper / tin alloy…) So for my money, give me bronze first, gold not so much…
Last I looked into the cost of production a couple years ago, most of the major mines had true cost of production around $1200 / oz so that should put a flow on gold prices near that.
This gives a good idea of where the gold market boundaries are.
https://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gold_Inflation.asp
There are several chemical properties that make gold great as a physical monetary unit. One other thing is that people will readily trade it for other things precisely because its pretty, doesn’t rust or tarnish easily, and nearly all of it ever mined is still around. One of those things is that only one other chemical element that I know of is denser and one other nearly so. That one’s not nearly as familiar to most people as gold is. The other is, or was, such that it was used successfully, for a time, to scam people.
Oh, I almost forgot. The US Dollar is still defined as a specified weight and fineness. That dollar doesn’t circulate. The Fed still holds ca 260 million ounces (Troy) of the stuff, and buys and sells a few million ounces a year for minting, I guess, these days.
Old news on digital privacy but a good refresher:
View at Medium.com
This was written before Dissenter browser came out, which I also rank up there with brave (actually I prefer it over brave)
By the way side note Dissenter came out with an update if you use it do a re-install to make sure you are running the current version.
LL – I like your recession-fever analogy.
@E.M. – I was curious about the cost to mine in light of a change in policy that would switch us to gold.
A: How much gold is already available?
B: How much more would we need to make the switch?
C = B – A and is what we’d have to mine (and yes, I know some plays are gravy and some barely produce, same as coal, oil, etc. What’s the average cost to mine? It seems to be about $1,200/oz.)
What is cost of ‘C’? $500 Billion? $6 Trillion? I have no clue.
If we make the switch rapidly, is there enough money and time to buy and make enough mining equipment to get ‘C’? If ‘C’ is large, regardless of price, is it possible to produce the mining equipment in the allotted time? Will the mining companies be borrowing in paper dollars and paying it back in gold? Who the heck would want their loan paid back in paper?
Anyhow, the mechanics of such a switch just piqued my interest. Things could get really *ahem* interesting if we need a whole bunch of gold in a short time.
Does everyone have their gold pan ready to go? ;o)
Wait up…. If gold spikes that much, everybody will abandon the gold machinery production lines, grab a pan, and go try to make more money panning gold than they are being paid on a production line. We saw that movie before in the 1800s.
Perhaps one of those ‘return to the gold standard, NOW’ folks has thought it through completely and has run all of the necessary numbers. I might have a look for that online if I can catch a break from working on the basement.
There are secondary gold sources than traditional mining.
For example sand and gravel companies who process river sand and gravel often run an inline gold recovery system (sluice box) which covers part of the cost of processing the sand and gravel deposit.
Electronics recycling is recovering precious metals as part of their business model.
Last – when Space-x or someone similar opens up harvesting asteroids for metals, it could flood the world market with several important metals and drastically change the demand cost curve (at least for a while)
You don’t have to go to 100% metals based currency all at once. Right now there is 0% backing of hard currency for nominal currency, The government could set up a gradual adoption of a currency backing where every year an additional 1% of currency must be backed by precious metals, (also no reason the hard metal backing could not be a market basket of several precious metals)
At that rate it would take 100 years for us to return to a gold standard.
Nixon dropped gold backed currency in 1971, or 48 years ago. If you went to 2% coverage each year you would go back on a gold basis in 50 years.
On other topics – attention Beto
Are you sure you can finance that buy back you are talking about?
https://freebeacon.com/culture/report-nearly-400-million-civilian-owned-guns-america/
At just $100 a gun that would work out to about 40 billion dollars or 2% of our entire GDP.
“Art of the deal”
Straw packs and sharpie markers
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/09/13/art-of-the-deal-41/
Sounds a useful form
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/124473-change-your-signature/?tab=comments#comment-1337203
One Texas Congressman offered Francis his AR … sort of … :
Texas Rep. Briscoe Cain posted a tweet after Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Houston in response to presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s call for assault-style weapons to be confiscated, touching off a Twitter debate and possibly an FBI investigation.
Cain, a Republican from Deer Park, tweeted, “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis,” using the former El Paso congressman’s legal name. O’Rourke has said he would institute a national gun registry and a buyback program for “weapons of war.”
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/09/12/texas-gop-rep-briscoe-cain-says-his-ar-is-ready-for-beto-o-rourke-who-calls-that-a-death-threat/
Hmmmm major fire at a Saudi oil terminal started after 2 drones hit the facility!
Small commodity drones or nation state military drones?
Confirmed by Euro news, but still very little info.
Chatter on arabic threads is that it was likely an Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia, possibly by Iranian troops i Iraq.
Ooops link
https://www.euronews.com/2019/09/14/drone-attacks-on-saudi-aramco-facilities-saudi-media
And Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-oil-attack-idUSKCN1VZ02M
Old study on fats and heart disease counters assumptions of present dietary guide lines.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/records-found-in-dusty-basement-undermine-decades-of-dietary-advice/
E.M.
For your wine appreciation
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/14/washington-winery-releases-wine-called-the-denier/
Don’t miss the comments
@Larry L:
Looks like the Yemen / Saudi war is widening to a Sunni / Shia war…
The article says “10 drones” so I doubt they are the very large sized ones like the USA uses.
I’d suspect smaller DIY on commercial public use drones, or slightly larger purpose built in Iran and smuggled in. As an incendiary, all you need is something that can carry a couple of pounds. BUT, if you need to breach a tank wall, make it about 10 lbs.
Heavy crude doesn’t burn worth a damn, but Saudi Light? Rather like dirty K1 with light ends left in. I doubt they store it in open topped tanks, but they might have a thin polymer roof. If so, then a couple of pounds of incendiary / explosive on the top would be enough. I doubt their air defense is set up to detect a 2 or 3 foot diameter drone.
Well, I guess we’ve started into the Robot War era with autonomous robots doing the attacks…
On the heart disease thing:
It is nice to see the studies confirming that chasing fats is a dead end. IMHO the studies posted in a prior article are The Answer. The two key bits that make it “proof” for me are:
1) Gorillas on low Vit C diets get heart disease just like Humans. Leave them on their normal high Vit C diets, no heart disease. Pretty much proves it was our move from lots of Vit C fresh leaves and fruits to low Vit-C grains that was causal.
2) The mouse where they did the knock-out of its Vit-C making gene (so depends on Vit-C in diet like humans, great apes, and Guinea pigs – or was it hamsters…) then ADDED the human gene for the lipoprotein that patches over arterial leaks from low Vit-C (lipoproein-A ?) and when they were given a low Vit-C diet, got heart disease. High Vit-C, no heart disease.
That’s about as definitive as you can possibly get. Created, and removed, on demand.
For Great Apes (Gorillas) they get about 6 gm Vit C / day. Adjusted to human body weight, that’s about 1 gm to 2 gm / day. ( You would be the one gram, me being about 2 x as heavy would be the 2 grams…). Very few people on our “modern” diet get anywhere near that level.
Furthermore: I’m pretty sure those fat feeding studies didn’t bother measuring Vit C levels in the subjects or the diets. Why would you measure how much orange juice was drunk by whom if you only really care about who had bacon vs cereal an who had butter vs margarine?
When various studies of “the same thing” get semi-random results (some pro, some con) it is highly likely you are looking at the wrong “same thing” and need to find the random variation that is actually causal. For coronary artery disease, it looks like that is Vitamin C intake and that the “dietary guidelines” are too low. Enough to prevent scurvy, not enough to prevent coronary artery disease over a lifetime.
@Another Ian:
Good one!
I’d love to get a case, but I suspect they will be immediately sold out after the WUWT article…
Heck, Heartland Institute ought to order a dozen cases just for their events!
I’ll be asking about it at BevMo, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be too late to get any. I suppose there is always next year…
Since I know you like music videos, and this one is of the “classical liberal” variety, I thought you would enjoy this. What is most interesting is the femi-nazi response to it in its commentary.
It’s pretty easy to make thermite. Drop a burning half-pound of that on just about any tank and it will burn through.
Pingback: W.O.O.D. 14 September 2019 | Musings from the Chiefio
@Gary Smith:
Yeah, it takes constant effort to keep the professional troll brigades of The Left under control. Any straying from The Narrative is attacked and if you let that succeed, you just get more of it. Insisting on polite conversation seems to keep t of limited scope.
@Jim2:
Oh, yeah, thermite…. I’m also found of a chunk of magnesium. It will burn in water… Then again, sodium floats on water and self ignites…
In fact… a modestly evil thought…. One could make a molded block of magnesium with a sodium plug in it. Cover the plug with a water proof seal. To deploy, pull off seal and expose to water or wet air… Sodium ought to spontaneously ignite and then light the magnesium. For a good time, wrap the magnesium in a thermite bucket…
Properly done this could be made to look like any number of innocuous things, then to start it, just pull the patch and piss on it…
Would give a whole new meaning to “pissed off” ;-)
Then again, a simple road flare is a lot easier to get and works about as well…
Don’t tell Beto, though, or he will demand we ban fire…
Just some prepper food for thought
The last few days I have been doing an inventory of holes in my emergency preparedness planning.
As we all know, safe water is probably the single most important need aside from enough warmth to avoid hypothermia. Hypothermia can kill in minutes to hours, where lack of water kills in about 4 days depending on temperature and exertion levels. Lack of food on the other hand kills in about 40 days (30% body weight loss is usually fatal and unrecoverable).
It is not hard to make a simple sand filter (assuming you have ready access to clean sand), and you can easily buy very high quality water filters for camping – some that go down to less than 0.5 microns and a few that achieve less than 0.1 microns.
But the best way to treat water is to set up a cascade of filters that start at very rough (ie simple strainer) and progress to about 5 microns before you pass the water through your bacteria safe camping filter than can get down to 0.5 to 0.1 microns.
So that left me looking at the hole in that process and I decided all things considered there are relatively cheap over the counter house hold water filters that you can easily set up as a gravity feed filter system. No need to cobble together a rough sand filter when over the counter you can get better performance for less effort and about the same money for parts.
As a first cut I got these pieces today as a bare minimum to prefilter good enough to avoid clogging the bacteria safe 0.5 micron filters for final treatment.
Just toss these pieces in an old duffel bag and you can have a reliable safe pre-filter stashed in the closet for any situation that requires you to use non-potable water for an emergency.
I am planning on picking up a couple more of these housings over the next few months to set up a 3 or 4 filter cascade that should be good for over 3 months of normal water usage and perhaps 6 months to a year of restricted water use.
Rough water filter (15 to 30 microns medium sediment )
Parts list (minimum)
Brita whole house water filter model WHS-201 $19.97
2 pack of spare filters Brita part number WHF-103 $ 9.98
2 each pvc threaded 90 deg elbows (street EL ) 3/4” $ 2.28
2 each pvc riser theaded poly pipe 24” $ 4.76
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Total cost minimum assembly . . $ 36.99
Brita filters compatible with this housing
WHF-101 large sediment particles from 30 to 50 microns (rated 15,000 gallons or 3 months)
WHF-102 (string wound) large sediment particles (Particulate Class IV) @ 5 GPM, 15 to 30 microns
WHF-103 medium sediment particles from 15 to 30 microns
WHF-104 medium sediment particles from 5 to 15 microns – Performance Level 2 Carbon Wrapped
This appears to be a low cost compatible 5 micron filter
https://www.amazon.com/Hydronix-SDC-25-1005-Sediment-Filter-Length/dp/B00D04A32I/ref=sr_1_30_sspa
In many uses you don’t really need perfect potable water, such as for bathing, dish washing, or water you are going to boil anyway for cooking.
Add a few minor accessories like a couple ball valves in line to close off the in and out of the filter system, and a step up on the inlet size to 2-3″ PVC as as couple quart or gallon holding tank to feed the system, and ideally a barbtite fitting for the inlet size tubing on one of the 0.1 micron camping filters like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MPH1LEU/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title
To use this disaster water filter in a long running disaster you would definitely want the advantages of ball valves on the output line and some sort of reservoir on the top to pour the raw unfiltered water into. I am currently looking around for the best option for that inlet reservoir, something like a bar sink or even a poly bucket might be the solution of choice. A stainless steel bar sink would run about $50 and the bucket around $5-$8 but would not be as durable.
Choices choices.
Oddly, I have a couple of (about 1/2 gallon sized) plastic filter bodies and filter cartridges in the garage supplies stash ;-)
For the upstream tank:
Old used food barrels are cheap and have plumbing friendly bung fittings. I have 4 of them in the back yard. In a pinch, a simple siphon pipe is enough from an upright barrel…
Were I building something:
Look at the 4 inch or 6 inch PVC pipes (or even larger from construction companies). Make any size tank you want out of them. You can glue in a valve via drilling a hole in the low point side / cap… Some pontoon boat folks look to be using 1 foot or even larger sizes.
Put on an angle, it’s not that hard to make a modest storage “tank” that drains effectively.
Also, look at what the Hydroponic guys use for tanks / pumps. In many cases it’s as plastic tub (mine was about $10) for about 7 gallons (though there are larger). Simple plastic tub, drill hole for valve or use siphon.
BTW, the urgency of a “need” is inversely proportional to the density of it. You die without air in a couple of minutes. Make sure a gas mask or at least a respirator is in the kit… Food? That’s months away. Most folks can easily go a month or two on vitamin pills and water. At my lowest weight (after 3.5 months of “all I wanted to eat” in an isolation study that was mostly just laying on a bed…) I was 156 lbs. I’m now about 220. That’s about 65 lbs of “excess me”. I figure a pound a day, I’ve got 2 months ;-) Though admittedly I was pretty slim at that lower bound. It was about my 8th grade weight…
Oddly, we could have all we wanted to eat, but I just wasn’t interested. No activity and free feeding leading to weight loss? Who knew….
Yes that is the sort of thing I am looking for, just a matter of walking some stores to see what is available in my area. If possible make it so I can store the bits all together in a small duffel bag or similar, putting the filter elements inside the reservoir until you need to assemble it.
Water is a bit of a challenge for me, for a couple reasons:
1. I live in an apartment so cannot pre-build a disaster setup.
2. Annual precipitation is about 15 inches so not nearly as easy to collect adequate rain water as those of you who live in more coastal semi-tropical climates
3. very low summer humidity, so high evaporation losses.
4. I am within walking distance of some perennial water sources but back packing water a half mile or so with a 100′ to 200′ vertical elevation gain is not high on my fun list.
I need to checkout the local farm and ranch supply places too, this is a good possibility for a simple dump in reservoir which already has fittings you could improvise to to 3/4″ pipe fittings.
https://www.amazon.com/GAUN-Calf-Nursing-Bucket-Quart/dp/B073QZV4MZ/ref=sr_1_20
I don’t want a “tank” per se, but just a descent sized reservoir that you could dump a few quarts of water into easily dipping out of a rain barrel etc.
You can also get rather good sized emergency storage water bladders that would be good to have on hand if you can set them up and fill them in anticipation of an issue (like a Hurricane )
https://www.amazon.com/Goplus-Portable-Collector-Collapsible-Container/dp/B07VKYWRRM/ref=sr_1_13_sspa
I have two of these stored under the sink in the bathroom, but you need a bath tub sized object to set them in to keep them corralled.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01187TN6A/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title
Of course the big problem with the large bladders and poly food type drums is once filled they are almost impossible to move, so I much prefer water storage in the smaller 7 gallon water cubes.
These weigh about 58 pounds full so are about the limit for one person carry for storage water containers.
https://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Products-Aqua-Tainer-Gallon-Container/dp/B001QC31G6/ref=sr_1_1
There are also Jerry can sized water containers that hold 5 – 6 gallons which are a bit easier to handle.
https://www.amazon.com/igloo-corporation-42154-Gallon-Container/dp/B00DD5EMWQ/ref=sr_1_10
https://www.amazon.com/AquaBrick-Emergency-Container-Stackable-Containers/dp/B079WC3WXB/ref=sr_1_31_sspa
For full on disaster situation my plan is to tap into the rain gutters that surround the apartment building I live in and divert a bit of that water to a rain barrel. All I need is sufficient stored water to get by until that method starts to produce a steady flow of water.
Good news is, I have a 75 gallon water heater so that alone is good for about 150 days of essential use water only.
In the winter time I could literally shovel up water in the form of snow, so dry summer season and dry cold winter seasons would be the problem periods to work around.
You have a car. Consider the virtue of a large plastic container in the back… Initially you would have some gas, and driving 1/2 mile (1 mile round trip) you ought to be able to get through about a year pretty easy…
These folks seem to make / sell every possible tank:
https://www.plastic-mart.com/category/8/water-storage-tanks
Around here we see a fair number of plastic cubes with a wire / metal cage around them, on trucks. Used for water, wine, whatever. I suspect a trip to Tractor Supply would be enlightening..
They list 79 choices…
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/catalog/water-storage-tanks
Yeah those farm and ranch supply stores carry a bunch of nice solutions if you have the room and ability to transport. If I had a house like I am looking for I would do that in a heart beat.
One of those 1500 gallon water tanks earth bermed so it is mostly protected against freezing would provide year around water for one or two people.
For expedient transport a much cheaper solution than that, a card board box and two heavy duty plastic bags will work just fine as a water bladder holding around 30 gallons of water, depending on how big the box is. I’ve transported about 400 gallons like that in the bed of a pickup truck about 120 miles about 40 years ago.
But I am for planning purposed assuming no cars are running or allowed on the roads, and going back to the very basics. Could also easily ferry about 7 – 14 gallons by using those water cubes and a bicycle like the Vietnamese did on the Ho Chi Minh trail. A bike can carry 200 – 400 pounds of cargo if you can figure out how to load it, but you have to walk it instead of ride it.
Also almost impossible to pick it back up if you ever lose control of it and drop it on its side.
The North Vietnamese lashed a bamboo pole to the frame in front of the bike seat to make it easier to push and to lift it if dropped on its side.
Maybe you ought to just get one of those folding wagon / grocery cart things and use it… One trip of a mile / week, ought to do it. And it would almost be enough exercise to not be inert… 1/7 th mile / day average is pretty meager…
If I was on fairly level terrain it would not be too bad but, pushing a cart of water (or a bike) up a 1/2 mile long 6% – 7% grade is not high on the fun list, much better to collect it here where I live if I can.
I basically have two choices, 2.5 miles each way on pavement with 253 ft elevation gain/loss each way.
Or 0.87 miles each way with 164 ft elevation gain/lost each way over dirt trails with lots of rocks, and random rattle snakes and thorns over narrow foot paths.
If I did choose to hoof it I would either backpack a few liters over the shorter route or use a 2 wheeler with one or possibly 2 of the 7 gallon cubes over the long route. Both would be a pretty good work out.
Long route would take about 2.5 hours and short route about and hour or so (would also involve cutting a fence for access to what is a municipal water supply reservoir which they might not take kindly to.
A tap on the rain gutter would probably deliver a few gallons from any significant thunder storm or light soaking rain. Harvesting snow in trash bags would just involve running up and down 3 flights of stairs for each bag of snow. (or harvested icicles).