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/2022/03/30/w-o-o-d-30-march-2022/
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/
“Me” News
House is sold. Stuff is is storage. We are now relocated to Florida in temporary housing as we house hunt.
I’m posting via Tablet, one finger typing, and hot spot (while working on fixes for same). So expect lots of typos and terseness. Tablet seems to get a misspelling on about 1 in 3 words.
WatchMaga
This will be DIY for a while as editing HTML and urls is a Royal Pita on the Tablet.
News
Also will be terse.
Looks like Ukraine propaganda (from both sides) is still running thick. My guess is that having broken most of rump Ukraine, Putin is hunkering down to protect the Dunbass acquisition.
Trump having rallies that are getting huge crowds. Biden continues as a NOOP.
Covid masking & mandates making a comeback as China shuts down the manufactuing & export center of Shanghai. Watch for more product shortages…
Gas in Florida is wonderful… instead of $6/gallon in California, it is $3.89/gallon. Yeah, almost $4/gal looks good to me after Kalifornia prices….
Expect horrible CPI / inflation numbers. Time to dump cash for inflation assets (now that I’m carrying a lot of cash… sigh.)
The destruction of oil & gas supply in the USA is also the destruction of production and economic viability. Prepare for that.
For more recent events, see:
Trump Social Media site:
Bongino Report:
Or Whatfinger:
https://generaldispatch.whatfinger.com/
I’ve also gotten addicted to the Top Ten Memes of the week from WatchMAGA here:
They have interesting “bite” to them, along with a tendency to highlight the news of the week in memes, so good as a social attitude pointer too. Plus they are “way fun” ;-)
Musings from the Chiefio 
“Dunbass” That was a close one. :)
I am behind on my WatchMAGA views, but hope to catch up.
Moving is hard – that is why I have done it so rarely as an adult (but did it every 2 years growing up).
Glad to hear you are settling in.
In dry areas, utility poles accumulate dust/dirt/debris.
Wet snow and/or drizzle (rare in dry areas) causes a shorting issue, starts fires, and poles burn. People lose power.
On the lee side of the Cascades in Washington State such an event caused widespread power outage in the Yakima Valley on 4/11/2022. Friends there were without electricity for 6 hours.
Fifty miles north of Yakima, I got 5 inches of snow – the first 2 inches didn’t stick around.
Of course, because the science is settled, this rare mid-April snow in the shadow of the Mountains is caused by increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Excuse me, I have to go feed the wood stove. My current temperature is 31.5°F.
Cheapest gas in the area is $3.15 cash price, but close to me, I pay $3.50 with a credit card. [Gas in central Washington State comes from Montana in a pipeline, then by truck to my area – 50 miles west of the terminal.]
“Brilliant! “Critical Grooming Theory” ”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/brilliant-critical-grooming-theory.html
“Left are now ‘taking over how we communicate’ ”
Well … this sux …
The U.S. will extend its formal Covid-19 public health emergency by another 90 days, according to an administration official with knowledge of the matter, prolonging special measures as the country grapples with new cases driven by a new Omicron subvariant.
Extension of the declaration first made in January 2020, allows certain emergency powers and programs to continue, such as those that allow free at-home tests for seniors on Medicare or fund certain Covid treatments. Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra has pledged to give 60 days’ notice of the formal emergency’s expiration, to allow preparation.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-13/u-s-extends-covid-health-emergency-declaration-as-cases-rise
There isn’t a spike in cases that I can find, anyway.
When you find somewhere a little less temporary, you’ll be needing a bit of extra energy for all the unpacking, I’m guessing. Look no further, this will invigorate both your Germanic and Celtic roots.
Handel’s “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” is widely loved in the UK, and has floated high in the BBC’s “Your 100 Best Tunes” pretty much forever. I have several copies myself, all frequently played and enjoyed. I really thought that, at age 70, I knew it backwards.
Until, that is, I came across the Irish band De Dannan celebrating, on RTÉ’s Late Late Show,
“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba in Galway” …
Yes it does! So much so I am driving to NJ! Eff those Dictators!
The “emergency powers” will continue to be “needed” and renewed as long as they are of benefit to the Power Elite and their political minions. It is not about medical needs, it is all about control and monetary gains.
Reuters COVID data indicates no significant upswing in cases in the US. Mexico and Canada both show a small peak that is now decreasing.
Worldometer shows a big Omicron spike back about Jan, now trailing off to near irrelevant…
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
Mexico has a spike sbout a week ago yhat looks like a data error
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/mexico/
But Csnada has sporadic rising cases
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada/
South Korea has a bizzare jump
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/
Oh Boy: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $54.20 / share…. cat eating Pigeon time!
Massive unrest and brutal crackdowns in Shanghai, China. Soon to come to a theater near you….
Deepstate swamp trashes Trump and the rest of us.
https://palexander.substack.com/p/dr-alexander-how-fauci-francis-collins
The Covid memory hole
“Remember when the public health authorities assured us that herd immunity would be achieved when a large percentage of the population was fully vaccinated? Someone needs to remind them of that, since they clearly seem to have forgotten. Who needs accountability when you can just redefine failure out of existence?”
More and links at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/14/down-the-memory-hole-2/
“Is There Anyone Taking This Green Energy Transition Thing Seriously?”
“New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, enacted in 2019 and effective in 2020, commits the State to the energy transition. And to prove its own bona fides, the City Council just enacted legislation at the end of 2021 banning new buildings from burning natural gas starting for smaller buildings (up to six stories) in 2024, just two years from now, and then applying to all new buildings by 2027, just five years away. Yup, natural gas is definitely on the fast train to oblivion around here.”
“So it’s great to know that we will shortly have a new natural gas distribution system in Greenwich Village, ready for the next hundred years or so.”
“A Working Hypothesis You Will NOT Like”
Vitamin I and cancer
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245628
https://www.rt.com/business/553889-us-not-returning-russian-assets/
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow has no plans to nationalize foreign assets in Russia in response. “Unlike Western countries, we will respect property rights,” he said.
“Yes, It Is”
“What Fauci just admitted as policy is criminal extorsion”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/14/yes-it-is/
“Prison Canuckistan”
Viva Frei – watch it all!
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/15/prison-canuckistan/
In comments from BARD “The Pandemic Worship”
Prison Australia anyone?
The UK has a COVID plateau, it has been running at over 30,000 new cases per day with additional spikes since July 2021.
This is not a seasonal desease like the Flu as I think it is being maintained by a reservoir of vaxxed people.
Too funny… Oh, the Ironing….
pMSNBC this moning (breakfast room of the hotel) is having explosive oral diarrhea over Musk buying Twitter stock.. ~”Billionaire using money to attempt control of Social Media…” What they really mean is “The WRONG $ Billionaire removing their control from social media…”
The fear of Elon is strong in them.
@another ian – That ‘Working hypothesis’ link is an eyeopener.
Ivermectin and cancer have come up here before, but IIRC, it only went a little way into the possibility of Ivermectin helping to prevent cancer. If it’s a repeat of the link, then I didn’t go very far into the article the first time and that’s shame on me.
Thanks for that one.
H.R. – note that Fenbendazole was covered here too. Another antiparasitic having anti-cancer properties. For Ivermectin, the data shows it to be safer than Aspirin, so if there’s a chance it also reduces cancer when taken every few months, looks like a no-brainer. Very low risk, possibly a massive reward. Plus it gets rid of parasites. In order to avoid the problem of the parasites becoming immune to Ivermectin, it makes sense to not use Ivermectin continuously but to clear them out at sufficient intervals, and maybe to change the ‘mectin type you use now and again.
Medical trials are expensive, so only a government would finance those for Ivermectin given that the patent has run out and there’s little profit for Big Pharma. Thus getting solid evidence of the efficacy against cancer isn’t going to happen. We’ll only get anecdotal evidence. Still, looks like a no-loss bet anyway.
@Simon, I know from personal experience that Cannabis extracts reduce Cancers and improves cognitive abilities. Big pharma has tried to copy them as medicals but a natural “full spectrum” is what is needed. Mostly CBDs and only a small amount of THC, also the terpines are important to the mix.
Small wonder that Big Pharma is desperate to prevent it’s use. Anyone that can grow Tomatoes can provide much of their own beneficial medication just as Humans have been doing for 10s of thousands of years.
“DuckDuckGo Search Engine CEO Announces Changes to Internet Search Algorithms to Promote Approved Content
April 15, 2022 | Sundance | 88 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/15/duckduckgo-search-engine-ceo-announces-changes-to-internet-search-algorithms-to-promote-approved-content/
And
“Twitter Responds to Elon Musk Proposal by Creating Poison Pill
April 15, 2022 | Sundance | 136 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/15/twitter-responds-to-elon-musk-proposal-by-creating-poison-pill/
“Musk v. Woke”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245650
“Free speech on Twitter? Oh, noes! Catastrophe! Eleventy!!!”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/free-speech-on-twitter-oh-noes.html
I have already dumped DDG.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/15/duckduckgo-search-engine-ceo-announces-changes-to-internet-search-algorithms-to-promote-approved-content/
In comments:
No idea how they measured censorship…. surprised at Bing….
Duck Duck Gone…
Along with “the Mouse”…
https://yandex.com gets the English language version.
Gee… Brave browser on the tablet had Yandex as an option. I’ve now set it as my default search engine. We’ll see how that goes. A test with “Ukraine war” returned a diverse set from western oriented BBC, NYT, and Wiki; to other more diverse results including some from Russian sources.
Looked fair enough and wide ranging at first blush. Needs more trials though to be sure.
Using Yandex to search on “Ivermectin Cancer” gives a first result in Russian (you can force only English results with a token on the search line) and then many more:
Looks like there’s a lot out there, and like Yandex did a good job of floating to the top a lot of good stuff.
So, OK, I’ve set it as the default search engine on my temporary workstation Pine64. (From which I’m posting this…)
There does seem to be a LOT of good from Ivermectin and a lot of Big Pharma attempting to hid and vilify it…
E.M.
Interesting – in Brave I get the choice of Brave, DDG, Google, Qwant, Bing, Startpage and Ecosia
E.M>, you might like to read this on Ivermectin as well.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ja201711
@AC Osborn:
I Did!
@AC Osborn, that’s a good find. 2017 — could it have been published any later?
Here is the citation, for future reference.
Crump, A. Ivermectin: enigmatic multifaceted ‘wonder’ drug continues to surprise and exceed expectations. J Antibiot 70, 495–505 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ja.2017.11
Latest Pointman
“THE UKRAINE WAR – THE MILITARY REALITIES.”
Guess I am going back to Bing. DDG is DDDead
@ANother Ian – Just posted that link over on the March 30 WOOD for p.g. Sharrow. He seems to have a different view, and I would love to have him debate pointman on that.
I lean to Pointman’s view as the censorship of all things Russian is preventing logical assessment of what is happening there. And unlike Biteme, Putin is not stupid! Egotistical? Hell yes! But not stupid.
I believe 0 of what the fake news tells us. They are not reporting news, they are pushing a fake narrative.
My only quibble with the Pointman view of things is a very minor one.
The Ukraine Army has a percentage of ethnic Russians in it as some of the population centers are mixed. I’d expect Putin to be trying for a surrender of those forces rather than a destruction. (Though English is a bit ambiguous here… one can “destroy” the army as a fighting force via surrender without killing all the people…)
He doesn’t want to destroy the infrastructure in regions he hopes to capture (no more than necessary to win). He doesn’t want to destroy any more Russians nor Ukrainians than necessary to win, as he hopes to keep them tolerably neutral after this is over.
Oh, and agree fully about the MSM & Ukrainian biased propaganda flood. The lies are incredibly thick. One simple one? They touted and promoted Citizens attacking Russians (Remember the blond babe in blue with rifle?…) then bleet about Russian “atrocities” in killing citizens. OK, which is it? Citizen Combatents by the thousands, or innocent civilians not involved in the fighting?
The data we have available is far too biased, filtered, and politicized to draw any valid conclusions about the state of the fighting. But we can observe Zalynsky doing everthing possible to expand the Hot War to include NATO and the USA; while Putin has every justification to exact reprisal on the Economic War started by us and the flood of arms snd mercenaries being supplied… but has restraint. Of the two “styles”, I find Putin’s the wiser…
The Great Barrier Reef is still there (/s)
“Leonard Lim’s Exquisite Photography of John Brewer Reef”
And
“Yet the New York Times is reporting a sixth massive coral bleaching event and The Guardian is explaining that John Brewer Reef is at the centre of it all.”
Reckon they’d fact check any better on, say, Ukraine?
FWIW
“REMDESIVIR IS DEADLY—SO WHY DOES FAUCI PU$H IT?”
https://richardsonpost.com/howellwoltz/26626/remdesivir-is-deadly-so-why-does-fauci-puh-it/
Well this is bizarre….
So I’m on the Pine64 using WiFI. Sound does not work. Oh Joy, the “pleasure” of trying Yet Again to debug sound on a Pottering Screwed SystemD system…
So I figure first step ought to just be an update / upgrade as it’s been many moons since I did that on this board (as it was “living in a box”… not in service).
Did that. Could not get to the internet any more. During debugging found that Wicd does work on this one, but that using it to make the connection didn’t work. OK…
They (Armbian) stopped doing the boot flag that tells the OS to use the old reliable eth0 and Wlan0 tokens and instead lets it use the New Imscrewed Pottering naming conventions…. So my WiFi dongle is now named the very memorable and easy to type: wlx14cc20223060 (yeah, me too…)
OK again…
Well, after some screwing around, I decide to at least move the WiFi dongle off of the board proper and onto the USB Hub that supports the hard disk. Without even a reboot, it all just works. WT? (Yes, I did do a re-run of Wicd to say ‘bring up the connection’, and this time it worked whereas before it failed).
Now what’s bizarre about this is just that I’d been using this board with the same WiFi dongle in the same USB on the board connector prior to the upgrade and it worked fine.
Whatever…
It’s now back on the internet with network connectivity and I can live with that. Sound I’ll get from my Tablet (at least until I get this one working or fix the XU4 WiFi issue).
I remember back in the days before Pottering started screwing around with All Things Linux when it was a nice reasonably stable OS that mostly just worked…. At least for major Distros like Debian. Oh Well….
The amount of non-deterministic behaviour and “doesn’t work out of the box” that has arrived since Pottering and SystemD is just way too large. It’s almost enough to send me off to Walmart to buy a Chromebook or (GASP!) even a Windoz Laptop…
You’ll find few references to it in the propaganda blitz but the “Russian” forces contain a lot of ethnically diverse formations. For instance, Chechens against whom the Russians fought a war not too many years ago.
Putin won that war as well, but without massive destruction of the country’s infrastructure, needless slaughter of civilians nor reducing their cities to rubble. No juicy reconstruction contracts to be shared out with your mates. Yesterday’s enemies become today’s allies. Fight hard but fight smart. The Ukraine war is being fought in the same way.
Pointman
“You’ve Been Misinformed”
Around Musk and Twitter
“https://kunstler.com/clusterf243-nation/youve-been-misinformed/”
Adjust to access
[Reply: I think you will find that fcuk passes the moderation filter AND that it in the URL gets auto corrected to the working one (at least on all my systems). So links like: https://kunstler.com/clusterfcuk-nation/youve-been-misinformed/ ought to work fine and need no moderation retrieval by me. -EMS ]
Well that didn’t last long….
Yandex has asked me to do a capcha to prove I’m not a robot twice now….
I’m not interested in doing captcha puzzles….
So, OK, for now I’m trying Bing.
Oh, and searches for a Youtube tended to return a lot of Russian language videos….
I hate captchas.
Some opinion-pieces from GB News that give me hope that not all journalists are woke and thus blinded to reality.
Neil Oliver has been sound (that is, I agree with him…) on all his articles so far. In this piece he’s laying out the GEB path for all to see.
https://www.gbnews.uk/gb-views/perhaps-joe-bidens-decline-is-a-metaphor-for-a-new-reality-for-the-us-says-neil-oliver/273723
Mark Dolan weighs in on Elon Musk and how he’s upsetting the apple-carts.
https://www.gbnews.uk/gb-views/can-elon-musk-save-free-speech-asks-mark-dolan/273783
Darren Grimes looks too young to have things sussed, but also puts things clearly.
https://www.gbnews.uk/gb-views/its-baffling-to-me-that-nobody-is-criticising-the-extinction-rebellion-love-child-just-stop-oil-says-darren-grimes/273625
I don’t know how many people actually read GB News in the UK or around the world. I’m pretty sure the fact-checkers won’t like what they say, though. Pointing out the Emperor’s lack of clothing….
We all know the MSM filters the news. Recently, Saudi TV ran a sketch that mocked Joe Biden. It was pretty good, so I tried to find the best version of it on YouTube. Of course I did not see the news networks that did not run it. Of those that did, it was interesting how much editing was done to it. Making it shorter. Zooming in so that the Arabic subtitles were not visible, or covering those up with their own logos or subtitles. Or just yacking forever and not showing the skit. The Fox version was poor. The Sky News Australia version was best.
Pointman
Russia destroyed Grozny and Aleppo. They have similarly pulverised three Ukraine cities. Hardly winning hearts and minds
know what’s about to go wrong by what the media is trying to normalize: https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/know-whats-about-to-go-wrong-by-what
and https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/new-world-disorder-trying-to-stay
Just sayin’.
“Just stop oil” needing some thinking
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/yeah-but-thats-cookin-oil-magnificent.html
“Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop
April 17, 2022 | sundance | 110 Comments”
“The only way Twitter, with 217 million users, could exist as a viable platform is if they had access to tech systems of incredible scale and performance, and those systems were essentially free or very cheap. The only entity that could possibly provide that level of capacity and scale is the United States Government – combined with a bottomless bank account. A public-private partnership.
If my hunch is correct, Elon Musk is poised to expose the well-kept secret that most social media platforms are operating on U.S. government tech infrastructure and indirect subsidy. Let that sink in.
The U.S. technology system, the assembled massive system of connected databases and server networks, is the operating infrastructure that offsets the cost of Twitter to run their own servers and database. The backbone of Twitter is the United States government.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/17/jacks-magic-coffee-shop/
E.M. “fcuk” puts it into moderation at Jo Nova hence the adaptation
“The Green Hydrogen Swindle”
And
“Vehicle electrification”
On Covid
“There’s An Off Ramp – But It Has A Price*”
“The Israel data has told us both what pharma did, what they probably knew, but also how to get out of the box.
And yes, there’s a way out of the box.
A reminder: The spike protein that is part of Covid-19, and which all the current vaccines instruct your body to produce is, by itself, pathogenic. This was first published as a pre-print, it came out before we went on a wild jabbing spree, the original study that set off the alarm bells came in September of 2020 and when the study work was done it was dismissed by many as being “not peer reviewed” (who remember, endorsed a whole bunch of other bull**** such as masks, denial of early treatments and so on.)
Well, that excuse is gone now. Two articles, both now published, and which I originally discussed as pre-prints before we mass-jabbed people are now out in public and published form here and here.”
More at
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=243442
RE: Twitter infrastructure
Look like they are hosted on Amazon cloud. Amazon definitely has the kind of resouces required for a app like Twitter. Like it or not, cloud services are scalable, redundant, and flexible. You can pay only for what you use or otherwise. It makes setting up shop easy and easy to take down if it doesn’t work out. It makes sense for businesses and government. I like my own computer, however.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/system-design-twitter-backend-bhavin-gandecha
Añ important point about computing infrastructure and scaling:
Computing hardware for network speed applications is nearly free. 10000 x nearly nothing is still nearly nothing….
A single ARM core can drive a telco text channel at full speed. A single ARM core in bulk on gang chips costs under 1¢
The argument that Twitter can’t get enough revenue selling your info to cover that level of cost per subscriber seems like weak tea to me. It isn’t like they are doing a massive database search of TB of disks, or computing Pi to a million places. It is just spreading 140 or 280 char to a mass of penny computes…. The network and power bill will cost more than the compute engines, and even they will be low.
140 bytes to 1 million followers is 140 MB. .That’s about 1.4 seconds of a giga bit leased line. (Bytes with network overhead are about 10 bits. 140 MB is about 1400 Mb or 1.4 Gb. A 1 Gb/sec line will transmit that in about 1.4 seconds. Home networks are often 100 Mb (10 MB) and with glass fibre to the home, going to Gb. Commercial telco services can be much faster…
Oh, and I can get a $50 computer with GigE network speed and support… it isn’t rare or expensive.
I just don’t see the need for massive server farms for tweet sized processing these days….
Col. Macgregor
Sounds much like Pointman’s take on it
Apart from this bit
“What Col. Macgregor states toward the end rings very true to the practical events being discussed.
The most dangerous time will be when the Russians are close to achieving their objective in Eastern Ukraine, and the western media will be faced with having to reconcile the difference between the propaganda they have been selling to western citizens and the actual truth on the ground. That’s when the western alliance is likely to do something drastic.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/17/col-douglas-macgregor-discusses-current-status-of-conflict-in-ukraine/
@all
Shopping for a VPN and wondered if y’all have any suggestions. I currently use xfinity for my internet if that makes any difference. I appreciate any help :)
VICTORIA, Texas (AP) — Infowars filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as the website’s founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones faces defamation lawsuits over his comments that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/companies/alex-jones-infowars-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/ar-AAWkcQk
Sure looks like the leftard lawfare effort is world wide.
The European Union’s anti-fraud body has accused Marine Le Pen and several of her party members – including her father – of embezzling about €620,000 while serving as members of the European parliament.
France’s investigative website Mediapart published a section of the new 116-report alleging that the MEPs misused EU funds for national party purposes.
The claims come a week before the second round of the presidential election, on 24 April, in which Le Pen will go head to head with Emmanuel Macron.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/17/eu-anti-fraud-body-accuses-marine-le-pen-france-election
Another Ian
Being British I have no idea who the people being quoted are; This from wiki-Perhaps he was misquoted?
“After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Macgregor appeared on three Fox News programs to speak in support of Russia’s actions. Russian state television broadcast excerpts of Macgregor’s appearances, which included a characterization of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “puppet,” that Russian forces had been “too gentle” in the early days of the invasion and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was being “demonized” by the United States and NATO. Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted. After one of his appearances, Macgregor’s comments were characterized by veteran Fox News Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin as “appeasement” and that he was being an “apologist” for Putin. After Griffin’s remarks, Tucker Carlson — who hosted Macgregor on two successive nights — remarked, “Unlike many of the so-called reporters you see on television, he is not acting secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. No, Doug Macgregor is an honest man.” Trey Gowdy, another Fox News host who interviewed Macgregor, said his viewpoint was “stunning and disappointing.”[35][36][37][38] U.S. representative Liz Cheney said of Macgregor “This is the Putin wing of the GOP”
So should Russia be allowed to seize whatever part of Ukraine they want (as they did in Georgia)? .I seem to remember Biden said a small incursion would be ok.
Too gentle? really? Its not what the millions of refugees are saying and the bombed out buildings don’t appear to show that. Our first Ukrainian refugees have been arriving in our neck of the woods in South West England over the past 2 weeks. They appear traumatised and fearful.
@Climatereason:
Using emotional state to judge attact severity just rewards people for acting nuts and yields bad answers.
It looks to me (and admittedly I’ve avoided watching MSM Non-news shows including FOX) like Putin is deliberately doing a slow escalation hoping for surrender. When folks do not, then the litteral big guns come out and a place gets destroyed.
There was one in the news (radio in car) today somewhere in South Ukraine. 10 minutes for troops to surrender. Claim was something like 400 did, but many did not. At the 10 minute mark, exit closed and shelling began. (Didn’t take notes or expect to quote it, sooo apply salt…)
Personal opinion is that Putin doesn’t want to kill people and destroy things, but is quite willing to “go there” if the offer to surrender is rejected. I don’t see what else can be done IFF the goal to win is not negotiable and surrender is rejected.
Per Wiki:
It is heavily biased hard left on anything political or PC related and will demonize anyone not so aligned with the Globalist Left. Do not expect truth from it.
Per seizing parts of Ukraine:
That depends on what point in time you start your history clock….
Start it in 2000 and Ukraine is a free and independent nation not connected to Russia, but friendly to it. Things are peaceful, but Euro GEBs are greedy and unhappy.
IIRC, the Orange Revolution was orchestrated about 2004 and made Ukraine a future NATO missile base, P.O.’d Russia (as that all violated several agreements…). That date starts the present inevitable war over Ukraine neutrality as it is an existential threat to Russia (nature of tank and missile warfare on the European Plane).
Start history in 1990 and both Russia and The Ukraine are part of one country, the USSR.
Start history about 1938 (give or take a couple) The Ukraine Socialist Republic had been extracted from Russia by the communists and it was a separate country for a few years.
Start history between about 1200 AD and 1920-ish, The Ukraine was a small district of Russia under the Tzars. For about 100 years before, all of Russia was Mongol dominated.
From about 850 AD to about 1100 the capitol of Russia WAS Kiev and no distinction was made between Ukraine and Russia – it was all Kievan Rus.
So basically Ukraine as a country has about 100 total years out of 1200 or so, while the rest of the time it WAS a part of Russia. Based on total time (and seasoned by the fact that the hiving off of Ukraine from Russia was usually by external actors and against Russian desires) I lean toward “it is mostly a part of Russia”. But do note that post W.W. 2 some western parts were glued on from Poland and other countries. So, should you wish to unwind that history: western Ukraine is not Russian and ought to be given back to Poland et.al.
So where do you start your history clock, eh.
I posted the below regarding Col. Macgregor’s take on the Ukraine situation, which I agree with:
.
Initial Ukraine deployment was in the east on the line facing off the Russians and their local allies. Initial Ukraine reinforcements were sent to reinforce the east with the invasion. These forces were not withdrawn and reports are that they did not have the fuel to reposition when it became obvious what the Russians were attempting.
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I use this site to get a feel for what is happening on the ground, but knowing it is heavily biased in favor of Ukraine.
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https://www.understandingwar.org/
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The maps for the above tend to be misleading unless also viewed on a national Ukraine map, see below.
https://www.ezilon.com/maps/europe/ukraine-road-maps.html
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Two cities control access into the east from the west, Kharkiv and Donetsk, and the road nets at both have been cut.
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Current eastern conflict line has moved to Rubizhne, which looks to scale at apx 150 km from the east border by the road map. Initial Ukraine positions in the east have been overrun.
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The terrain in the east is very open, large areas of wheat fields, making movements and defensive positions very obvious.
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So yes, looking at the current points of combat contact, the Russian advance locations and directions, and the road net that allows resupply, reinforcements, and large scale troop movements, I do believe that the main part of Ukraine’s more experienced army is cutoff from withdrawal, have limited supply options, and is in danger of being defeated in detail.
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“Rafe Champion guest post. Hydrogen is not the new LNG”
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/04/rafe-champion-guest-post-hydrogen-is-not-the-new-lng/
“Nuremberg 2.0”
“We are setting the stage for a tragedy of history and we’re obligated to resist ”
Via http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/18/nuremberg-2-0/
A nice rant
“Do You Want To Benefit Planet Earth?”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245674
More at
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/memes-that-made-me-laugh-105.html#more
@Jon K:
I’ve been thinking of getting a VPN set up too, but others things keep putting it off
Any VPN is better than no VPN.
The big names are likely OK, but any USA based big name will be TLA monitored or perhaps even have CIA or FBI directly involved. (I.e not suited for spies or crooks).
Foriegn VPNs will risk their govt TLAs doing similar.
They will all be something of a Black Box of trust.
You can set up your own VPN on services like AWS, IFF you trust them.
IMHO (and not strongly informed) probably the best you can do is a VPN you control at a cloud services provider that then routs via a VPN Service in a relatively trusted foreign country. Deciding if Russia or Switzerland is less likely to work with USA or UK Law Enforcement while actually being safe is a hard nut. Both will get monitoring at the telco (thus wrapping in a personal VPN prior to shipping overseas..)… I’d likely prefer something Japanese or South Korean, but based only on personal cultural biases.
In the end, what you need depends on what you do and what protections you want. Want to just stop your ISP snooping on what sites you visit and text you send? Any VPN is fine and set up a Caching DNS Server of your own inside your house network via that VPN. Need to sell contraband drugs or report to your “handler” as a foreign agent? Likely as not even my dual layer approach is a bit too weak unless one of them is at your “handler” agency…
My interest is just to obscure my physical location from potential “Twitter Mobs”, DOXers, and “Cancel Culture Assault”. For that, my method as proposed would be fine (though I’d likely go commercial VPN overseas first then bounce off a cloud VPN I controlled here 2nd… and have it in the name of a friend so anyone seeing ownership and billing doesn’t see me….).
Hope this is helpful.
BTW & FWIW:
As I’m presently using a no contract “burner” hotspot and a somewhat sterilized Linux generic computer, it would be hard to geolocate me as is. (For anyone but a TLA skill level agency) My VPN will likely happen when we buy a house. Until then, I don’t really care if the Telco knows I did a web search on “Linux Laptops” or the Ukraine war, or local Mercedes repair shops…. or even that I comment here a lot 8-)
So once again: what I use depended on what my need level was. I.E. not much… and an anon hotspot in a high turnover vacation mecca is quite enough for now. In a couple of weeks it will rotate to a different provider… so I’m also doing a slow rolloff of history, month by month….
https://restoreprivacy.com/vpn/reviews/
Looks like it has decent reviews and tests
“Victorian government should ‘hang their head in shame’”
@Another Ian:
I have never been happy about my decision, in the 1980’s, to NOT emigrate to Australia. Until now.
I had a job offer to staff the Australia office of a mainframe database company (for whom I already worked as Principle Consultant). Turned it down for a job “ashore” with better longevity prospects (the “on the road” cosulting staff had great expense accounts, but also very high and growing body mass and alcohol intake…)
Now I’m very happy with the ability to move to The Free State of Florida, and glad to not be in the land of Jack boots of Australia (or Canada…).
Sad, really, to see a once great nation of liberty returning to the penal colony roots…
Thanks for that link Chief. That’s going to save me a lot of time for what I what I was manually going through.
@another ian and reason 5 why farm trucks are never stolen:
VW made a Golf III back in the mid-90s called the Harlequin… i could imagine a similar description going out on radio if something happened with one of them. On the bright side, probably not too hard to find replacement panels :)
On the VPN item, I have used Norton 360 for a while, and it comes with VPN capabilities at no additional charge. It works, but as with most VPN’s, it throttles.
I think I last paid $25 for a one year 5-device package from BJ’s wholesale. It is $34 for 10 devices. I just checked and that is still the current pricing.
The trick there is they require an autorenewal, so subscribe, then cancel it and you are free from commitment. Last time I did that, they sent me a 3-month incentive to resubscribe, so I did, then cancelled that too :-)
I know many are not fans of AV software, but I can attest that once I placed this on friends and families’ laptops, the need for me to help fix bad things disappeared to the 99th+ percentile.
Side note: Most all primary ISP’s will provide a security suite free with their service. I just didn’t want McAfee.
“@GovRonDeSantis – In addition to congressional reapportionment, this week’s special session will include termination of [Disney] legacy special districts and removal of exemptions from the big tech accountability law.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/19/punch-back-twice-as-hard-3/
@Anothrr Ian:
Disney has a LOT of clout in Florida. It will be interesting to see who wins this battle. Having their own “building permit & inspection” department PLUS being exempt from Orlando city taxes is a HUGE benefit. They will not let it go quietly.
Watch this space for hidden political nukes…. (remember Disney owns a network with news….)
“The talking heads on the mainstream financial media seem to be genuinely baffled as to why Netflix is bleeding subscribers, but the main reason is that once the marginal consumer has paid the food and gasoline bill, there’s precious little left over for streaming services.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/19/cancel-my-subscription/
Time to begin hoarding? maybe getting late for that. Last time I saw these things was in the Carter years, but nothing as bad as this,
There’s also that whole pedophilia Cuties ruling and then the Screw You Conservatives thing….
I have zero interest in Netflix anymore. Used to have it. Disney+ is headed for the same destiny with about a 2 month counter for them to change … running now. Spouse has suggested Paramount is up for a dump, what with Star Trek Disappointment and Pessimistic Picard being dismal…
Hollyweird has cooked their own goose (in woke bitter sauce…)
Apparently, there are more orders for train cars than can be fulfilled. RRs are taking measures to fix it, but there isn’t a magic wand to wave. Speculation about some entity attempting to produce a famine is probably a step too far and can’t be supported by facts.
Each railroad reports “unfilled orders” referring to the number of cars a shipper, such as a grain elevator, ordered but did not receive. Between the first quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, the number of unfilled orders jumped from 93,000 to 137,000 — a 47% increase. | Photo by BNSF
https://www.michiganfarmnews.com/railway-supply-chain-issues-reach-farm-level-unfilled-orders-up-47-
@PG, Black Swan’s everywhere…
We dropped Netflix when they hired the Obamas. Never did Disney anything. Have boycotted different businesses and bought a cart load of Goya products. One thing I do still have is Amazon Prime. If you have that and want some entertainment to distract from the dark comedy we call the world, and if you haven’t already, check out “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” It’s set in the 50’s and parts are extremely funny and parts show off what acting should be.
@Jim2, ESPN is a Disney feeder. Pisses me off too>>
Via SDA
Another Col. MacGregor on Ukraine
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/19/biden-distributing-another-800-million-to-ukraine-still-nothing-for-u-s-border-crisis/#more-232051
The axe cometh?
“Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN’s longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward, five sources tell Axios.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/20/this-is-cnn-90/#comments
Speaking of entertainment going down the tubes…
It was mentioned that Netflix was bleeding users partly because of food and fuel inflation. There are a lot of people being squeezed by inflation already and discretionary income is shrinking or gone. They look at the extras and start cutting the easy stuff such as Netflix.
An easy thing to cut is a pay channel or service. Movies at the theater might do OK, but popcorn and soda sales will suffer, and that’s where the theaters make their money. Still, movie theater attendance will eventually suffer because people won’t want to go without having the whole package. They think of the total bill, including snacks, at the theater and that will not fit into a squeezed budget.
Woke Hollywood movies won’t help. They will just provide an excuse for those who haven’t yet quit going to the movies already to sit them out now. The wokeness was ignored, but with eyewatering prices and no spare money, theater attendance will become sparse.
Wokeness is already hurting the entertainment sector. Wokeness plus a lack of discretionary money will really cut into revenue.
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Next up on the no-money-to-spare list will be dining out, and that includes ‘fast food’.
Relative to Another Ian’s post about CNN+:
Incidentally, I made a mistake on the reaction-engine CoE exception by not considering the energy required to accelerate the reaction-mass up to the working velocity. Thus the “classical” violation of CoE this way won’t work (I jumped too soon before I’d considered everything). However, the electric thrusters will, if experimentally confirmed in space, still allow us to generate energy from nothing. Maybe also if they don’t work in space, but still produce a constant thrust irrespective of velocity.
Netflix probably got a boost when COVID came, as did Peloton. The stock of both are tanking now that people are out of the house en mass. Also, it’s Northern hemisphere summer and people are just bustin’ to get out.
No Netflix for me. Obama and Netflix. “high eight figure deal.” Harry and Meghan and Netflix. “£112 Million”. And it is buying out many of the big Hollywood stars for big bucks. One news report called this “the golden handcuffs”.
https://www.ft.com/content/0d0af37a-c8b0-4237-bc57-737f097ecb3d
A rough guess would be that Netflix would need 100 million subscriptions to pay for that content cost. Sounds iffy to me. On the other hand, Squid Games has had 142 million views. Zero from me.
“Never underestimate the bad taste of the American public.” (H.L.Mencken)
Aside: H.L.Mencken also said about Puritanism:
“the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”
Woke is the New Puritanism.
@Jim2 &PG:
I find it telling that 50,000 of the missed orders are ftom BNSF – A Birkshire Hathaway company. Warren Buffet has given his shares to The Gates Foundation. He is also a highly “connected” Democrat…. 137,000 – 93,000 = 44,000. So BNSF alone covers all the increase this year….
Most grain is fed to animals. Most corn is fed to cars. The “famine” will be at feed lots…and gas stations… if anywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_States
15 Billion bushels / 300 ish Million people in the USA is 15000/300 = 50 bushels / person as a first approximation.
https://www.derthickscornmaze.com/interesting-about-corn/how-much-does-a-bushel-of-corn-weight.html
Corn is 56 lbs / bushel. So that’s about 2800 lbs per person. At one dry pound per person day, that’s enough gross food calories for 7.7 years…. per year. From ONLY corn.
Repeat that math for wheat, rice, soy beans, barley, oats, rye, field peas, white beans, peas, pinto beans, etc. Etc.
We are drowning in food.
Places like India and Egypt not so much. Shipping failures will hurt them, not us.
@H.R:
In the recent road trip / temp housing, we have at times resorted to “Fast Food”. My standard through the 80s, 90s and a bit beyond was the under $5 meal. Breakfast Jack was about $1 each. Now they are nearing $3 and a typical meal is just barely under $10. Sometimes over (and that ignores shrinkflation…)
Even being a bit flush with cash, we are cutting out fast food / dining out when possible.
Priced a movie out with spouse: Close to $40 with snacks and hotdogs. No thanks.
Then figure in that AMC Theaters is owned by China now…. though it looks like they cut back % during the pandemic losses:
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/china-wanda-group-amc-theatres-1234929145/
So given anyone making a movie will want it to show in the biggest chain… and that means kissing Chineese Butt, I see no reason to fund that at $40 a toss…
With our big screen TV, and library of media, we can watch GOOD movies whenever we want, for free, with much better snacks, potty breaks on demand, and no noisy kids or big hair / hat problems.
Hmmm! Looks at NATO’s Articles and – –
“NATO Is Invalid And The Nations In It Deserve What They Get”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245696
It’s a bit OTT to call NATO invalid, but it is an interesting point that the USA and other NATO members are violating the treaty by flooding arms into a hot combat zone and inviting engagement in war.
Wonder what the UN Rules incorporated by reference might be….
Then again, clearly the folks running the USA & EU don’t give a damn about the rule of law anymore, so good luck enforcing that….
Speaking of imploding Netflix:
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/netflix-loses-subscribers-q1-earnings-1235234858/
But it looks like mostly it comes down to cutting off Russian citizens for the actions of their government….
So Yet Another case of woke political activism causing corporate losses…
Here’s what I found about Netflix …
The company shed a net 200,000 subscribers the first three months of the year, well below its projected 2.5 million gain. All told, it added 500,000 accounts, bringing its worldwide total to 220 million, which is more than double what it had five years ago.
The streaming service lost 700,000 subscribers when it pulled out of Russia after the Ukraine invasion. But that drop-off is dovetailing with broader viewership declines as pandemic restrictions recede and consumers increasingly find other entertainment options, and now the company expects another 2 million subscribers to fall off this quarter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/20/netflix-loses-subscribers-russia/
from that WaPo article: “And 85 percent of U.S. households subscribe to at least one streaming service, according to Kantar Group, a data analytics company, with the average home subscribing to nearly five services.”
Those costs begin to add up. The 85% number seems high but credible, the “average home subscribing to nearly five services” does not.
@YMMV:
I think it hinges on what is a “streaming service” and what is “subscribed”.
Is Pluto a Streaming Service? I think so. It is basically a cable TV system via the internet. Am I “subscribed” when I install their Icon / App in my ROKU? I think that would count as “subscribed”. But it is free…
I’m similarly “subscribed” to Crackle, and a half dozen others that are free (advertising / commercial driven).
From PAID Only, we have Disney+ (but considering dropping it), Amazon Prime (because it is free since we, meaning spouse, buy so much stuff from Amazon that the shipping alone makes it worth having meaning the TV bit is a free bonus… in fact, we didn’t even have the TV part in use for about a year…) and Paramount (for the Star Trek … but that’s on the block too, maybe). I think that’s it for paid services…
There’s a hoard of other services that want money in the trivial size (like $1 / month) on the Roku. I’m not subscribed to them, but folks could easily rack up a half dozen of them and not care much…
I think that’s the key. Each “channel” on things like the Roku or Apple TV or Firestick can be thought of as a “service” and many have a trivial fee or are even free.
“Rex Murphy: The United States is adrift, and Joe Biden is no captain
The U.S. is in turmoil, beset by factionalism, and absent a real leader”
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-the-united-states-is-adrift-and-joe-biden-is-no-captain
Via SDA.
And they’re trying to stir up a war with Russia? Sounds like “Hold my beer” on steroids!
“CNN Subscriber Platform Will Shut Down April 30th
April 21, 2022 | Sundance | 246 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/21/cnn-subscriber-platform-will-shut-down-april-30th/#more-232102
“2022 State of The American Experience
What does the American landscape truly look like?”
https://culturalhusbandry.substack.com/p/2022-state-of-the-american-experience?s=r
Via
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/21/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire-19/
E.M.
To help in your search for solid ground
“Sinking Cities and Sea Level Rise”
Just up
“Elon Musk Unveils Financial Bid for $46 Billion Deal to Purchase Twitter, Through the Board or Directly to Shareholders
April 21, 2022 | Sundance | 33 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/21/elon-musk-unveils-financial-bid-for-46-billion-deal-to-purchase-twitter-through-the-board-or-directly-to-shareholders/#more-232114
Concluding comment there
“I have no idea how this is going to end, but we can all see the Deep State is going bananas.”
Per Elon and Twitter….
A Lot of folks are talking up the data processing load of a many to many compute mesh behind Twitter, and how expensive that must be. I’ve pointed out that with ARM cores down in the ¢s each, you could make those computes pretty cheap. I also pointed out they can run gigabit network speed…
But missing from this discussion is the communication costs, paid by the users…
Elon is building a massive global PAID satellite communications system.
Say he buys Twitter and doubles traffic. That doubles network demand. Exponential processing increases give exponential network demand and exponential paid ….
Could it be that simple? Giving away razors so you buy more blades?
What % of internet traffic is Twitter? IFF you double that, who wins? IF you route it over Starlink, who pays for those bits?
I see this as the guy selling shovels and picks buying the biggest mine and letting folks dig in it “for free”…
“Fauci on Federal Mask Mandate – Laws and Courts Have No Right to Impede on CDC Science and Regulations
April 21, 2022 | Sundance | 9 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/21/fauci-on-federal-mask-mandate-laws-and-courts-have-no-right-to-impede-on-cdc-science-and-regulations/
Short history of Twitter: It was nothing until Trump discovered it. Then they kicked Trump off Twitter and it went back to being nothing. So why does Elon want it? I would believe what he says — if he can grab it and give it and us back free speech, that is a huge win, and it will force other media outlets to respond.
Interesting video about how zero is special and how one is also special, which elaborates on this possible strategy of Elon.
Be sure to catch the bit at 11:25. The host of a TV show (Morning Joe) says: “Elon could actually control what people think. That’s our job.”
Elon could allow people to opt out of ads and,if all users did it, collect 400 million a month. And that’s not counting on-boarding new users.
Sorry – that above comment is missing the stipulation that Twitter charge 1$ per month to opt out of ads.
Covid cases are dropping in Canada and Mexico. Rising ever so slightly in the US. Very, very shallow rise. Not sure I trust that.
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/united-states/
Florida legislature passes bill repealing Disney special tax status
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/04/21/florida-legislature-passes-bill-repealing-disneys-special-tax-status/
Some interesting studies starting to emerge.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2791253
Some under the radar economics.
https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/king-dollars-demise-israel-dumps?s=r
It really looks like the fastest spreader wins the race!
https://nextstrain.org/ncov/gisaid/global
“DeSantis Signs New Congressional Map, Legislation Removing Disney Special District and Stop Woke Education Bill
April 22, 2022 | Sundance | 18 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/22/desantis-signs-new-congressional-map-legislation-removing-disney-special-district-and-stop-woke-education-bill/
“Col Douglas Macgregor Delivers Truth Bombs Surrounding Ukraine Conflict and Status of $4.7 Billion Spent Sending U.S. Equipment and Aid
April 22, 2022 | Sundance | 233 Comments”
Link here
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/22/col-douglas-macgregor-delivers-truth-bombs-surrounding-ukraine-conflict-and-status-of-4-7-billion-spent-sending-u-s-equipment-and-aid/#more-232151
This means nothing in the big picture, but still interesting …
UK doctors believe they have documented the longest Covid infection on record – a patient they treated who had detectable levels of the virus for more than 16 months, or 505 days, in total.
The unnamed individual had other underlying medical conditions and died in hospital in 2021.
Persistent infections such as this are still rare, say the London medics.
Most people naturally clear the virus, but the patient in question had a severely weakened immune system.
Chronic infections like these need studying to improve our understanding of Covid and the risks it can pose, say experts.
The patient first caught Covid in early 2020. They had symptoms and the infection was confirmed with a PCR test.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61173945
“West Ukraine war propaganda firm LynnPR’s official agenda document leaked
See how the propaganda script works:
https://www.lynnpr.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ukraine-CoNaC-v4.pdf ”
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/04/weekend-unthreaded-408/#comment-2541226
“If you want to read an excellent synopsis of everything that went wrong with pandemic policy over the past two years, look no further than this analysis. I’ve not run across anything which so consistently ticks all the right boxes, one after the other. Every single paragraph hits it out of the park.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/22/two-years-down-the-drain/
A covid dissection
“If you want to read an excellent synopsis of everything that went wrong with pandemic policy over the past two years, look no further than this analysis. I’ve not run across anything which so consistently ticks all the right boxes, one after the other. Every single paragraph hits it out of the park.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/22/two-years-down-the-drain/
Jim2 quotes,
“Persistent infections such as this are still rare, say the London medics”
I read, persistent infections are becoming less rare as OAS kicks in.
Something, apparently google, has corrupted or usurped Louis Motls’ excellent blog, the Reference Frame. Brings up a request to sign into a google account, and I assure, he’s NO fan of google.
motls.blogspot.com/?m=1
Blogspot is a Google thing, if I am remembering correctly. That might be why the change happened. If he is not a fan of Google, then he needs to move his blog to something else. My own, though limited experience, is that WordPress is a better platform. On the other hand, I do use my WordPress credentials to comment on other WordPress blogs.
I vaguely remembered a discussion of closing of Reference Frame. A brief search turned up this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luboš_Motl
“As of April 2022, the blog is no longer publicly accessible and is open to invited readers only.”
Blogspot — Google hosts the blogs, which are accessed through blogspot.com but that content management system is actually called Blogger, which was acquired by Google in 2003. Just in case anyone is considering using it, be warned. Read this first — 11 reasons to avoid it. Including that Google OWNS your content. https://www.gotchseo.com/blogspot/
As for whatever happened to Louis Motls’ “The Reference Frame” blog, I have not been able to find out.
I do know that a day or two before it disappeared, he commented that he was going to close the blog. Without explanation as far as I know, but with hints it had something to do with (no) free speech. And of course, I can’t read that post any longer.
It’s a mystery why he ever used that CMS and why he did not switch. He must have other places he comments…
He was my go-to expert on Ukraine, Bitcoin, wokeness in physics, and other topics.
Thanks for the info. I might understand him restricting who can post (some of the replies to him are nasty), but seems odd to exclude even viewing his website w/o some kind of invite. Oh well…
In a world filled with nasty attacks, Trolls wasting valuable time, and cancel culture looking to kill you socially and financially: The risks of running a blog are high, while for anyone not in the monetized 1% the rewards are few. I’ve thought of packing it in a few times.
But I don’t have a job to cancel. My name is functionally Anonymous Anonymous anyway. I’ve taken fair steps to obscure who and where I am (effective so far – note I’m posting this via a Cash Burner hotspot from an address that is not where I get mail nor the one on my driver license…). I’m a small enough fish to not really matter much. I’ve typically only had one suspected Assigned Troll at a time, so that workload not too wearing nor time expensive. Then I’ve been a systems admin by profession so I’ve been under professional hacker atrack for decades, and with that comes a thick skin and protective skillz. So if not me, then who to speak truth? Eh?
Now compare a young Motl. Has a job that needs protecting. Works in a field where reputation, being published by others, and professional sabotage are the norm. Has A Name that’s known and relatively unique. His employer, home address, etc. hard to obscure. Likely posts from his home computer / IP. Likely has attracted a fair number of Trolls and Snarkers, and less willing to contend with them. Really ought to use his time to push forward Physics, since few others can.
Frankly, I’m surprised he ran public so long.
You could always send him an email asking if you could get read access. If you have commented before, he ought to recognize the handle.
Mrs. H.R. watches Tucker Carlson and I pay half or less attention.
This past week, Tucker had a segment on an explosion and fire at a potato chip factory in Texas(?) He went on to mention that there was nothing odd about industrial accidents, but it seems that in the preceding 2 weeks, there we about a dozen explosions and/or fires in food processing plants or food warehouses. He did not enumerate them by plant and location.
He ended with no conclusion, but he did mention it as a thing that makes you go hmmmmm…
Oh, I can’t recall if he brought up the reduction in fertilizer shipments in conjunction in conjunction with the explosions/fires. That would add a few more ‘m’s to any hmmmmmmmmmm…
So the Mrs. asked if I’d seen any discussion of the topic and I said, “Nope.” Has anyone here seen more information or perhaps stumbled on a discussion of the topic?
I’m going to do a search on “recent food processing or food warehouse fires explosions” but I don’t hold out much hope for someone having put it all together. I believe all the reports were only on local news and none hit national news, where the number would create a stir. If all were only reported locally, that would make a search more difficult.
If I get lucky, I’ll post.
Well, huh! Found something right away. It was a dozen or so in the past year, not the last two weeks, but several were in the past two months and two were caused by planes crashing into the facilities. What are the odds?
The first link mentions that there are a 1,000 or so warehouse fires per year, but food storage and food production fires are much less common.
The two links (same source, different dates) below give much the same info, focusing a bit differently on the details, but together they paint an interesting picture.
https://ussanews.com/2022/04/21/multiple-large-food-processing-distribution-plants-in-us-have-recently-exploded-or-burned-down/
https://ussanews.com/2022/04/22/why-are-americas-food-processing-plants-suddenly-exploding/
H.R.
IIRC one was a LARGE salad pack producer in California recently
https://www.marketbeat.com/articles/california-food-plant-fire-prompts-evacuation-of-thousands-2022-04-14/
@H.R.:
I’d expect some of this to have 2 root causes (beyond the usual…).
1) Mandated jabs after 2 years of being heroes working through the pandemic has caused a LOT of the smartest Old Hands to just quit. Replaced by younger, more clueless, and often illegal immigrant workers. I’ve noticed this even at Walmarts and Fast Food places. The crews now are not as clueful as those from decades past. More screwups. Similarly pilots getting recertified after a couple of years not flying…
2) In some cases, I’d bet they let deferrable maintenance be deferred too long. Or equipment idle for 2 years decayed but wasn’t fully maintained before return to service. Was “rust remover” an “essential job”? Or just food packer…
@Another Ian:
Watch out for giant numbers of tiny things. One report called it a giant 1 MILLION square feet… That’s about 1000 feet on a side, or 1/5 th of a mile square. Call it 5 suburban blocks long. Big, yes, monster? Not at all. It is shorter than an oil supertanker. About 23 acres I think.
For the students of strategy
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/russia-ukraine-invasion-military-predictions/629418/
Back to Covid…..
Excess deaths in the younger ages.
“The Millennial generation, aged about 25 to 40, experienced a staggering 84% increase in excess mortality in the fall of 2021, former Blackrock portfolio manager Edward Dowd told Breitbart’s Steve Bannon in an episode of his War Room in March. Dowd described it as the “worst-ever excess mortality, I think, in history.” ”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/most-covid-deaths-happened-after-jabs-and-mandates/
“Fraud Vitiates All Agreements”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245717
Just for everyone’s information. Yesterday morning a Long train of rail flat cars passed through Red Bluff, exclusively loaded with what looked like an Armored Division’s equipment,. from tanks to Humvees. Destination unknown, but there is an Army Depot near Port of Stockton
“Increase in Industrial Accidents at Food Processing Plants Has Raised Suspicions
April 24, 2022 | Sundance | 17 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/24/increase-in-industrial-accidents-at-food-processing-plants-has-raised-suspicions/#more-232263
In depth
FWIW – just got an email re CATL of lithium batteries and Hunter Biden. Fact checks are saying false. So likely true?
@another ian – That CTH article on the food processing plant fires had the Tucker clip that I mentioned. Sundance’s analysis is fairly reasonable.
I’ve been in manufacturing all my life and I have been in plants where it’s all out 24/7 and also when it’s been tight times and the plant is just barely keeping the doors open. What Sundance observed about deferred maintenance and tiered people making mistakes is true when a plant is going all out… unless the plant was designed to go all out 24/7. I did work in a plant like that.
If there’s something nefarious going on, I think it would show up as a fire or explosion in plant that is a critical input supplier to several other processing plants.
–
–
–
As for fact checkers, you will rarely be wrong if you assume the opposite of their pronouncement, particularly when it comes to anything that might embarrass a Dem.
Remember, Hunter’s laptop was just a conspiracy theory = True… until it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory any longer. Then the contents were a nothingburger = True… until the contents were shown to be a bombshell.
And on and on it goes with the alleged “fact checkers.” (quote marks well deserved)
I tend to a certain pragmatic utilitarian cynicism. IF a thing has been show consistently right I’ll assume it is likely correct until contrary evidence arrives. IF a thing is consistently wrong or backwards, I’ll assume the opposite is the truth until contrary evidence arrives. So…
Folks like Snopes and other Left Wing Fact Hiders are so consistently ass backwards in their political zeal to cover up Democrat Dirt that the inverse is about 100% of the time the truth. If you have multiple Left Wing Fact Hiders denying at once, pretty safe to assume The Directive went out from the DNC & Related to shovel the kitty litter fast and hard over the latest Biden cat turd.
@P.G.:
Drat! During war prep, I’d often see such a train (BNSF) going past Barstow toward the LA ports. Now I’m too far away to run over and take a look…
OTOH, with L.A. and Long Beach screwed up, maybe they are just swapping to the Port Of Stockton… or Oakland…
We know that many tons of weaponry are being shipped to Ukraine. But mobilizing Armor is a whole ‘nother level of escalation….
Wag The Dog coming?
BTW, the Russian attack on Liviv (western Ukraine) was claimed by Russia to be the destruction of a warehouse full of that “Advanced weaponry”… so we are shipping it in and they are blowing it up. My guess is that it is time to look for “Defense Industry” kickbacks to Biden, the DNC Mob writ large, RINOs et.al. Leaving all the gear in Afghanistan could be seen as assuring future sales to take it out. “Support” for Ukraine as a big sales opportunity. Follow the money.
Tanks on trains in Canada… but just for training…
https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/03/train-tanks-401-toronto/
Through out NATO Non-American made equipment is being gathered for movement to Ukraine area and is being replaced with American made equipment. I haven’t heard of heavy lift aircraft being sent to eastern NATO bases ……YET.
Putin’s psyops to justify his Liberation Invasion is beginning to crash as the truth of the operations ugly results become obvious. “The Net That Covers The World” never sleeps.
Hmmmm …
Last week, my PJ Media colleague Athena Thorne reported on a fascinating trend shaping up for November: Hispanics hold the Biden administration in the lowest esteem of all ethnic groups, according to a Quinnipiac poll.
“But by far the group that can’t stand President Blither the most is — hold onto your narrative! — Hispanic Americans, she writes. “And of those who disapprove, an overwhelming majority (41% of the 59%) disapprove strongly.”
Hispanic approval ratings for the president are at a dismal 26%, barely a quarter, according to the poll. A paltry 12% strongly approve of Biden. It’s brutal, and one of the main reasons for it is the Democrats’ far-left stances on cultural issues.
Hispanic voters are far more socially conservative than many other groups. The gender debate is one of those issues. Over at the Washington Examiner, Tom Joyce points out that Hispanic communities haven’t taken well to the gender cult’s hold on Democratic policy.
“In 2018, for example, the overwhelmingly Hispanic city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, voted against making gender identity a protected class in Massachusetts, even as the state voted 68% to 32% to make it happen,” he writes.
https://pjmedia.com/culture/chris-queen/2022/04/23/hispanic-voters-prove-how-dangerous-the-democrats-far-left-shift-has-become-n1592241
Hispanics are largely Catholic, males are macho and females like being hot. Family maens a lot. Allegiance to country is strong and many volunteer for military service. Hell yes they will largely hate Biden and the gender bending DNC Left.
“Did We **** Up (Again)?”
“J&J’s Covid-19 vaccine is based on an adenovirus “modified” to be non-replication competent — that is, unable to reproduce in the human body. The AstraZeneca jab widely used in England is similar, using a chimpanzee adenovirus that is allegedly harmless in humans.”
More at
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245723
Anyone braved the move from Windows 10 to 11?
OssQss
Re a subject you mentioned in the last “Wood”
A “must have” paperback
https://americasbestpics.com/picture/just-letting-you-know-that-the-book-understanding-women-is-HC5f6p7z7
another ian says: 25 April 2022 at 5:21 am
Anyone braved the move from Windows 10 to 11?
Still v7 here.
Re Windows 11 question
A pretty new HP laptop that came with W 10 and I’m being nagged to “upgrade”
By way of comment has a bloody awful keyboard that will probably send me to an external one.
I might get to needing one or two new ones in my time but HP will have lift their game – user since the early HP calculators
Since illegal immigrants are counted in the census, this affect Congressional apportionment. So the Diomowits get an effect more immediate than votes. Although they will do everything they can to make it legal for illegal immigrants to vote, of course.
Fix for Windoze 10 …
https://itsfoss.com/install-ubuntu-1404-dual-boot-mode-windows-8-81-uefi/
More info …
https://search.brave.com/search?q=windows+10+dual+boot+with+linux
Some problems may have dropped off the radar due to chaff, but they still fester.
Swedish police have reported that 104 officers were injured in the riots that took place across the country last week in reaction to Danish anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan and his followers burning a Qur’an.
The 104 officers are said to have received varying injurie,s from fractures of hands and fingers to brain damage, as a result of attacks from rioters, some of whom attacked officers with rocks and stones.
“There is a large amount of injuries and reports that have been received. This is the worst I have seen,” Staffan Brandt, police and work environment specialist at the Swedish Police Authority’s HR department, told broadcaster SVT.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/04/24/over-a-hundred-police-officers-injured-during-swedish-quran-riots/
Good on Florida, congrats EMS!
Following the arrest of a prolific criminal home invader, a Florida sheriff is encouraging residents to take gun safety courses and be prepared to stand their ground in the event of a break-in occurring at their own homes.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Santa Rosa County Sheriff Bob Johnson told homeowners they are “more than welcome to shoot” at burglars as he announced the arrest of Brandon Harris, who Johnson described as being one of the “frequent flyers” breaking into local homes.
You aren’t just more than welcome to stand your ground, it’s actually preferred if you do, Johnson stated.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/stand-ground-florida-sheriff-says-prefer-homeowners-shoot-burglars-save-taxpayers-money-watch/
@Another Ian:
Per virus warping: THE biggest Fubar is the hubris of the virus diddlers in thinking things go as planned AND STAY THAT WAY. Biology is messy. No one can make it clean and stable as that is not its nature. Things exchange genes. You can’t stop that. From viruses to bacteria to planaria worms; heck something like 20% of our genes came from viruses (including the protein that lets mammals have a placenta and not immune attack it). Oh, and events are in the trillions so a 1 in a billion event will happen thousands of times. The odds of big numbers is a killer and why it is messy.
Put ANY novel genetic package “inert” virus into several thousand people and you have several thousand X a few million virus packages of odds of a variation. So “only” in the 100 Billion interactions / variations range. Enough to sometimes be an issue maybe, but sometimes test as “no problem”. Roll that out to a few billion people, you are now in the 1in a 100 Trillion odds event range. Do it with something that replicates, it becomes 1 in a Quadrillion to 1 in Pentillion range events that happen. Good luck predicting that.
Per Windoz 11:
THE big change is that it requires a particular hardware security chip VERSION 2. It is made security paranoid, but since they couldn’t be bothered to fix their legacy bad decisions and numerous security holes, try to patch over it with boot hardware and some boot time code. This doesn’t work out well and is lethal on old hardware without the V2, BUT since Microsnot only gets paid when you buy new hardware, that’s OK with them. (Even some new hardware being sold is not V2 and can not be upgraded).
Before I’d attempt an “upgrade” to Windoz 11, I’d do a hardware audit for compatibility, a full backup to external disk, and get an installable Linux for a recovery disk if things go sideways… which for many folks they will.
I had the name of the chip that had to be at V2 a year or so ago, and a web search will turn it up quickly, but I’ve retired from ever doing Microsoft again… so that detail has left my brain (I think it stayed in Kalifornia :-)
FWIW, the only MicroSnot releases that are on any computer I own (presently in a storage unit…) are a Windows 7 and an XP. There is one copy of Server 2003 NT on a client box removed from service but kept for recovery deep archive, and a couple of NT disk sets: But I had great joy in dumping my cannonical set of Microsoft disks and licence packs dating from the ’80s to about 2010 into the trash bin. It is a joy to see them all where they finally belonged. Wish I’d taken a photo.
Personally, I’d stay on W-10 while I moved my stuff to Linux or BSD and kissed off MS… OR for the less comfortable with technical pain crowd, move to Macintosh. (Which is really the same move but for $1000 extra Apple have removed almost all the tech pain points. They are much easier to support than Microsoft and not as suprise prone as Linux. I’m very tempted to get one. Most of my family are on Macs and I get zero requests for tech help from them, even the least technical ones. Daughter runs her business on one.)
So cheap SOBs with tech calluses go with Linux. Hard core tech folk go to BSD. Folks who just want it to work with little care (but kilobuck added money) go to Macintosh. Folks stuck in the non-tech non-money bucket are stuck with Micro$oft….
Oh, and it is likely easier to go buy a new computer with Windoz 11 on it and let Bill Gates take your money and win. To quote the Microsoft support site about a bug in how they handled 2 default gateways being set: “This behavior is by design.”
@Jim2:
I was thinking it would be fun to post his comments… but I have a day sail scheduled instead, so you saved me from the guilt of being lazy :-)
He also said his citizens need to improve their aim… since the shot missed the perp and it would have cost less to pick up a shot perp than chase him all over the neighborhood 8-)
The attitude of most Florida Sheriffs seems to be ~”Citizens shooting crooks is a good thing and saves a lot of trouble and money”. Also looks like crime rates in such areas are pretty low…
I think Florida is a “shall issue” State and I can get a CCW just by asking; but I’m leaving that for after the house hunt when address is more stable. There’s A Lot of folks carrying in Florida. Seems to make things more polite too ;-) I think I fit right in…
Yep, reading this should make anyone fear Windoze 11.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=351727
You can get a desktop or laptop with Linux installed here. I got one for my wife because I didn’t want to take the time to build and/or fuss with installing Linux. Some brands of computers are not Linux friendly as I found out the hard way.
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/
Since windows 10 has support until 2025… my suggestion would be to find a way to block the upgrade nag through 2024….
Windows 10 isn’t that bad and can be hardened, if needed. I am running a middle-aged (motherboard design 2013, built 2015) system I built myself. I also dual-boot Windows 10 and PCLinuxOS. Windows 10 will be the last Windows I use, unless I need to rebuild my computer again and can’t get old parts; or get enough money to buy a newer one with Win11 on it. In that case, I’m still going to dual boot.
Re: running Linux and Windoze
Rather than setting up a dual-boot arrangement if/when one goes to Windows 11, what about remoting from Linux to Win, or vice versa?
Has anyone here ever done that?
Of course, the assumption is that one has 2 separate computers in play. When I migrate to a new(er) computer, I tend to leave my older computer(s) in the condition I formerly used them in (rather than upgrading the older one to whatever newer OS is being pushed). Therefore, remoting back and forth might be the first thing I’d try.
Of course, that would probably require making sure both can get on the Internet to make RDP work…but is that really required? Can’t you set up an in-house network that will let them talk to each other, maybe with only one of them getting onto the Internet?
Since I cut my computer teeth on stand-alone operations, I kinda like operating that way. I’ve been known to use sneaker-net at times just because I don’t have to do unnecessary upgrading.
Well, this isn’t good. Looks like a way to make people accept drugs that haven’t completed a clinical trial. Why would anyone take medical advice from Bill Gates?
Building a pandemic-free future won’t be easy, but Bill Gates believes that we have the tools and strategies to make it possible — now we just have to fund them. In this forward-looking talk, he proposes a multi-specialty Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization (GERM) team that would detect potential outbreaks and stop them from becoming pandemics. By investing in disease monitoring, research and development as well as improved health systems, Gates believes we can “create a world where everyone has a chance to live a healthy and productive life — a life free from the fear of the next COVID-19.”
Power Grab – you can run Linux from a USB and even have persistent storage. That way you keep your bookmarks and installed apps when you power it down.
https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/14912/create-a-persistent-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive/
@ HR re explosions/fires at food production plants:
I have been seeing comments about those on Twitter.
Things like that remind me of a couple of restaurants that burned down years ago. The scuttlebutt was that they were burned down for the insurance money. One is now a different restaurant. The other is a vacant lot.
But nowadays, the claim that a plane landed on a production plant makes me wonder two things:
1) Was it a plane, or was it one of the larger drones?
2) If it was a plane, was it manned?
2a) If it was manned, (personed?) what were they thinking?!?!?
2b) If it was manned and the pilot(s) were in their right mind, did it have anything to do with altimeter problems caused by nearby 5G transmitters?
One more thought: how about DEWs or similar devices?
another ian says:
25 April 2022 at 5:21 am
Anyone braved the move from Windows 10 to 11?
———————————————–
I got a work laptop that has 11 on it. It is ok, but things are different there.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/windows-11-vs-windows-10/
I did peek at the Lenovo Yoga option with Linux preinstalled but went with 10pro instead.
On the 11-upgrade nag, this was something I found that worked.
https://www.windowslatest.com/2022/04/25/windows-10s-full-screen-setup-nag-screen-returns-heres-how-to-disable-it/
“To turn off the alerts, simply open the Settings menu, click on ‘System’, and then click on ‘Notifications & Actions’. Select the option that states “Show me the Windows welcome experience after updates…” and turn it off. You can also turn off the remaining options to further reduce the chance of seeing the nags in future.
If the options are already unchecked, enable and disable them again. The same method also applies to Windows 11.”
@ jim2:
Thanks! I do have a homemade Ubuntu live disk that I prepared when I was called upon to rescue a laptop for a friend. I reckon a USB drive would be more flexible in the types of devices it would work with. Hmmmm…..
Thanks everyone for the W11 wisdom
“Elon Musk Successful Deal to Purchase Twitter for $44 Billion Likely to be Announced After Stock Market Close at 4pm Today
April 25, 2022 | sundance | 426 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/25/elon-musk-successful-deal-to-purchase-twitter-for-44-billion-likely-to-be-announced-after-stock-market-close-at-4pm-today/
A comment on a western carnival theme of “Lets Go Brandin'”
“Be funny to get shirts made saying let’s go Brandon and have a picture of a brand on a jackass that says FJB”
E.M. – you’ll likely disagree with this!
“American “Climate Refugees”? ”
Guess what may be coming to an end at Twitter :)
Unlimited PTO, generous Mat/Pat leave & newly added 80k lifetime fertility treatment allowance
https://www.glassdoor.com/Benefits/Twitter-US-Benefits-EI_IE100569.0,7_IL.8,10_IN1.htm
A fair point
More at
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/memes-that-made-me-laugh-106.html#more
@another ian re the totally blown-to-bits, bombing-rockets-tossed cars that didn’t disturb so much as a single geranium in a pot on a doorstop nor erase any of Jack Frost’s artistry on any windowpane.
Well daa-a-yy-a-am! Ain’t that remarkable?!?! I gotta call TeleFlorist to get me some o’ them bomb-proof plants to my mother-in-law.
Mrs. H.R.’s mom could kill a cactus if it was put in her care in an apartment in Dubai. Wet, dry, humid, whatever, her mom can kill any living thing that gets planted in soil. About 15 or so years ago we caught on and limited her to silk or plastic flowers and plants. (she managed to kill a few of those, too!!😲😲😉)
If the Aussies want to restrict foreigners entering the land of Oz, I humbly suggest that they start with my M-I-L. She could kill a Eucalyptus! 😉
“Who can you trust?”
Note the mask pore size diagram
“Heterosexuals
Preventing human extinction for the last two million years”
https://michaelsmithnews.typepad.com/.a/6a0177444b0c2e970d02788079b011200d-800wi
Via Michael Smith News
“Tucker Carlson Gives His Perspective on Musk Successfully Purchasing Twitter Platform
April 25, 2022 | sundance | 108 Comments”
Plus Sundance
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/25/tucker-carlson-gives-his-perspective-on-musk-successfully-purchasing-twitter-platform/
I can’t find the “ukranian windows” image on any news site. I’m thinking it’s just a red-meat meme to trigger people skeptical of the Ukraine war.
@HR
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2022/04/23/whats-with-all-the-food-processing-plants-blowing-up-lately-n1591921
RE: Fires and explosions. Just as we criticize climate scientists when they present data with no historical context, the current fire and explosion events should be compared to historical events of like nature. It all may be completely within the normal range of such events.
So right off the bat, looking into the fires, I find this:
El Paso firefighters battled a blaze Tuesday morning at a building near Downtown.
Flames and dark smoke erupted from a building with “Bonanza Meat Co.” painted on it on Paisano Drive at Park Street in the Segundo Barrio. The building was vacant.
https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/el-paso/2022/02/15/el-paso-firefighters-battle-burning-building-segundo-barrio-near-downtown/6796712001/
Tyson fire:
Officials animal by-products and grease were apparently involved in the blaze at the poultry meal facility in Hanceville, AL.
John S. Forrester | Aug 02, 2021
A Tyson Foods-owned poultry meal plant in Hanceville, AL received significant damage during a fire that ignited at the site Friday afternoon, local news organizations reported.
Looks like it happened August, 2021.
https://www.powderbulksolids.com/food-beverage/fire-damages-tyson-owned-feed-ingredients-plant
@jim2 – There is no bomb damage. The cars are just flipped for some odd reason. I suspect you are right.
Still, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write about my M-I-L’s uncanny knack for k!lling plants. That’s all true. Poison Ivy would die in her care. It’s that bad.
@Ossqss – That link fills in a few more things in the food processing fires big picture. That link mentions 18 incidents in 6 months.
Same conclusions, though. It’s making everyone go hmmmmm, but there’s nothing anyone can point their finger to as definitely being part of something nefarious.
The public Covid response strategy is moving into Dead Horse territory.
Dr. John says it is time to abandon the vaccine “cure-all” (my words).
He says it was useful during Delta, but now it is not useful.
The other current news item is a new very serious hepatitis in children.
Mostly, the news blames this on Spike particles from Covid,
so I have chosen a link which says it is Spike particles from the vaccine.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220425/COVID-19-vaccine-can-elicit-a-distinct-T-cell-dominant-immune-mediated-hepatitis.aspx
The vaccine is worse than useless,,,Walgreen’s most recent covid-19 report shows that, among its customers, the unvaccinated are now far less likely to test positive for a covid infection.
[image:20661828-7BFF-4EE3-85FE-F6D9700B427C-15548-000085EA357044A2/F03E1A87-9D0A-4388-B87E-D47C01E281CF.png]
Unvaxxed — 10%
1 Dose — 16.1%
2 Doses — 35.4%
3 Doses — 41.3%
Walgreen’s data also shows that unvaccinated folks test MORE OFTEN than anyone other group, presumably due to workplace testing requirements.
Even more interesting, those who’d had 3 doses were the MOST likely to test positive (41.3% of all positive tests). It’s almost like the vaccines are working in reverse, or like there’s something wrong with the immune systems of the most highly jabbed folks. So weird. It’s the opposite of herd immunity.
“Apoplexy!: MSNBC host warns that Musk could use Twitter to silence candidates and influence elections.”
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/04/apoplexy-msnbc-host-warns-that-musk-could-use-twitter-to-silence-candidates-and-influence-elections/
And there is an eye full in the barf chart there!
“All modellers are wrong, some are honest.”
“The results are obvious because their entire model is just overly complicated algebra: the vaccinated get infected at higher rates when unvaccinated are presented and unvaccinated do worse with unvaccinated. This model is so insightful that I had to double check the credentials of the modellers because I could have sworn they were 3rd year undergraduate students.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/26/all-modellers-are-wrong-some-are-honest/
Supplemental vaxx item.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027869152200206X
“Goya CEO Bob Unanu Discusses Food Production, Security and Sustainability from Field to Fork
April 26, 2022 | Sundance | 11 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/26/goya-ceo-bob-unanu-discusses-food-production-security-and-sustainability-from-field-to-fork/
“BOMBSHELL! DOCS RELEASED: JOE HID $5+ MILLION FROM GOV; PAID HUNTER’S CHINA DEAL BILLS! +IMPEACHMENT”
And
“Tucker: This will happen unless conservatives get their act together”
Via SDA
“Why Is Latin America still Poor”
I guess The WEF et al think the west has got to where they can enforce the Spanish model then?
“Tony Abbott writes for India’s The Hindu newspaper on Russia’s war with Ukraine”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/tony-abbott-writes-for-indias-the-hindu-newspaper-on-russias-war-with-ukraine.html#comments
“John Kerry Old School Playground Bully on Climate”
So that is how Heinz gets those baked beans in a tin?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FRRXTWCXoAE1crN?format=jpg&name=small
Via New Cat
A “nice little earner”
“[T]he president’s financial filings reveal that he declared almost $7million more income on his tax returns than he did on his government transparency reports, an analysis by DailyMail.com of the president’s financial records shows.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/27/10-for-the-big-guy/
FWIW
“The call for “school choice” may be an extremist trap”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-call-for-school-choice-may-be.html
Denmark suspends covid vaccination
And in comments there
“https://twoplustwoequalsfournews.wordpress.com/2022/03/05/steve-kirsch-proof-covid-vaccines-cause-prion-diseases/
Steve Kirsch – PROOF: COVID vaccines cause prion diseases ”
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/04/denmark-suspends-covid-vaccination-campaign/
I wonder if the “smartest people in the West (/s)” will finally connect the dots?
“Kremlin’s mouthpieces on Russian state television openly discussing ‘probability’ of nuclear war with The West”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/kremlins-mouthpieces-on-russian-state-television-openly-discussing-probability-of-nuclear-war-with-t.html
Add to above – this ain’t “The Mouse that Roared”
Re Biden’s “Ministry of Truth”
In case https://newcatallaxy.blog/2022/04/28/meme-of-the-day-38/
@Another Ian:
Have not The Western “mouthpieces” discussed the risk / likelyhood of this going nuclear? Is it not a real possibility? I see no news in stating a fact. It is a fact. One worth discussing.
The lady said nothing different than that said by our own faux news fabricators. ~”Given the nature of Putin, he could easily go nuclear rather than lose”.
Given that Putin does see NATO in Ukraine as the end of Russia as an independent State (and likely as an existing State…) and given that is, in fact, likely accurate, and noting it is NATO Nations that have violated the agreements (repeatedly…) to keep Russia secure: his reasoning and response to that existential threat is predictable and, from the Russian POV, reasonable.
Tactical nukes are in Russian military doctrin as acceptable battlefield weapons (and we have them too). Strategic nuclear weapons are in Russian doctrin as nuclear deterrence weapons via M.A.D. (and in our doctrin too). So where is the surprise when they perceive their destruction as imminent they would choose to exercise that doctrin?
It is the notion that nukes are world ending so would never be used that is in error and likely to cause their use. Mess the place up? Sure. Lose millions of people in big cities? Yup. End the world? Nope.
If, right now, a big nuke were dropped on Orlando, I would survive it as I’m outside the blast radius. This is true for the suburbs of pretty much every major city. It would take some luck with winds to avoid fallout, but doable. Most of the compass rose avoids fallout, by definition. Life would go on.
Saying “Russia would never use nukes, so put NATO in Ukraine to defend it.” is what will result in Russia using nukes. Recognizing that nuking the threat is a rational thing for Russia to do. Discussing it (on Russian TV or elsewhere) is reasonable and “a good thing” as discussion leads to understanding and better outcomes. Emoting at it and calling Putin names is the stupid response. Demanding NATO intervention, the suicidal one.
Whatever else may be or not happening, excess deaths in the US are negative for the first time in a long time.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm#dashboard
Mainstream media are reporting possible use of nukes by Russia.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-04-27/u-s-russia-s-talk-of-nuclear-escalation-irresponsible-video
So it is irresponsible to talk about the worst case risk of a western jump into the Ukraine war?
Why?
Because folks might realize just how much is at risk and how bad the result from a NATO entry into a hot war with Russia?
EMS – did someone say it is irresponsible to talk about the worst case risk of a western jump into the Ukraine war?
the powers that be: we need a new crisis
@Jim2:
The Bloomberg link you posted:
“u-s-russia-s-talk-of-nuclear-escalation-irresponsible”
says in the link text that it is irresponsible to talk of (the potential and consequences of) nuclear escalation in Ukraine (which is most likely to happen in the case of NATO in Ukraine).
Can’t have a Russian stating the obvious…
Oh, OK. That meant Russia’s talk of nuclear escalation was irresponsible, not the media reporting on it. IMO, all policy and potential consequences of the Ukraine war should be explicit and transparent to the public. In a sense, we all have skin in the game. OTOH, both Ukraine ( a Dimowit piggy bank) and Russia are being degraded. As long as it doesn’t go nuclear, it’s a win-win IMO. Now we just need to do something similar to China, the real problem.
IMHO it is Very Responsible for your opponent to inform you what they are thinking.
When they say things like “We may go nuclear”, it says one thing. Should they say instead “We want a peace talk” , something else is clear. Saying they need to shut up and sit down is just normal Progressive Censorship Lust.
“Musk and the Looney Left”
https://michaelsmithnews.typepad.com/.a/6a0177444b0c2e970d0282e152d2ae200b-800wi
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2022/04/musk-and-the-looney-left.html
“White House NSA Organizes Security Summit With 50 Nation Peers to Discuss Future of the Internet
April 28, 2022 | sundance | 249 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/28/white-house-nsa-organizes-security-summit-with-50-nation-peers-to-discuss-future-of-the-internet/
“Patrick Byrne: Major risks of Dominion Voting machines hidden before US Election”
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/04/patrick-byrne-major-risks-of-dominion-voting-machines-hidden-before-us-election/
@EM – Family maens a lot.
Yep! My wife reminded me of that, I will be forever in her debt for making me realize that family is the friends god gave you!
@another ian – re: “Anyone braved the move from Windows 10 to 11?”
Yes. SOme quirks (I do not like the centering of the task bar, and the moving of the start menu), but all can be rectified. And it is cleaner than Windows 10! Not a bad upgrade so far!
@EM – THE big change is that it requires a particular hardware security chip VERSION 2.
They already came out with a hack to that.
Wow, what a coincidence.
Musk gets Twitter and the Fed’s implement a disinformation censorship platform within 48 hours.
Just sayin>>>> Why would they state they are targeting the Hispanic population in particular?
New Hispanic’s maybe?
All,,,,, several million of them recently….
Seeing the woods through the trees comes to mind.
@Ossqss – conservatives need to sue the hell out of the feds now – before the liberals pack the court. The new function of DHS is clearly unconstitutional.
Reuters’ COVID cases and deaths page errors out, but the one for Mexico works just fine.
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/united-states/
After the error, if you examine ‘page source’ you will see cases are at 7% of peak and rising. It has been at this level for days. Not sure what’s happening, but at any rate I’m not seeing any significant case increase.
Errors out for the United States, that is. The link is for the United States.
World Meter COVID, US … nothing to see here.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
According to this report, there are a lot of explosions and fires occurring in Russia.
Maybe you’ll find this catchier: There’s a lot of stuff getting blown up in Russia, and it might not just be the Ukrainians blowing it up.
The weirdness got going in a normal way, with reports earlier this week of Ukraine’s “embrace of the British special forces model” to strike targets inside Russia that the regular Army (or even Ukraine’s inadequate Air Force) could never reach.
https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/04/28/what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-russia-n1593602
Per Russian explosions:
IMHO, to be expected. Ukraine has a LOT of native speakers of Russian who are very familiar with the geography / layout of Russia. Very easy infiltration and “passing” as Russian. They were part of the USSR and likely have all the technical means needed to make any “papers”.
Add to that the ability of a small drone to carry a pound of explosives or a lit highway flare even… and you can easily get 1/2 mile from something that burns and go drop an incendiary on it with a small, very quiet, higher altitude than normal drone.
Then there’s the Way Out There possibles. I’ve often wondered about a big IR CO2 laser in space. Maybe we have one and are lighting ground fires with it ;-)
Steve McIntyre has been looking at the unsealed stuff from the last Durham release. Thread reader version (hopefully)
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/04/29/when-the-fbi-does-it-that-means-that-its-not-illegal-238/
EMS – so the Russians are IR lasering our food plants and we their military resource facilities? :)
@Jim2:
Well…. it does fit all the known facts… and it is the simplest explanation….
(Maybe sometimes Occam isn’t quite enough….)
Though you can make a case for millimeter wave instead of IR. MASERS are easier to make at scale, and as you see with aluminum foil in microwave ovens, getting an “ignition source” spark happens at 500 W to 1 kW power density on the target, so relatively low power needed…
Watch for Popcorn Volcanoes in Iowa to confirm millimeter wave attack.
;-) of course… I hope…
Hummm,,,, Musk put up 53 more sat devices today from Florida. What exactly are those?
Just sayin….
“Naomi Wolf Eloquently Deconstructs the Terms Dis, Mis, and Malinformation
April 29, 2022 | Sundance | 99 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/29/naomi-wolf-eloquently-deconstructs-the-terms-dis-mis-and-malinformation/
I followed a link over on Small Dead Animals. It’s about a tax on vacant business properties in Vancouver. I thought politicians could be dumb, but the Vancouver city council goes beyond dumb. They have pegged the Stupidometer.
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouvers-empty-stores-tax-doesnt-get-to-root-of-the-problem-say-opponents
Latest Pointman
“ARE PEOPLE FINALLY GETTING SICK AND TIRED OF BIG TECH?”
And now for something completely different….
https://www.gbnews.uk/news/university-midwife-students-taught-to-care-for-men-giving-birth-through-their-penis/283839
You’d think that medical folks would be able to realise that men can’t give birth. The thought of a baby passing through a penis is in any case faulty, since women don’t give birth through their urethra. Plus, of course, it makes the mind boggle a bit as to how the insemination would happen if the plumbing was done that way.
@Ossqss:
Part of the StarLink Constellation.
There’s some thousands of them in the final build. Right now they “cover the world” with the exception of the extreme polar areas ( I think…) but with limited capacity. As usage grows, they need more total Sats over any given city so that the total volume of data can be carried.
So right now, if you go to sign up for StarLink, it asks where you are. Depending on how many other people in the area have the service (ground stations) it may or may not saturate the uplink capacity available given the existing satellites. Before they can add more folks in that space (if saturated) they need more satellites on orbit so on average more of them are overhead at any one time.
(However, if you are in somewhere like N. Canada where there’s nobody and even fewer using uplinks, you can get a new base station and service as the satellites are basically unused as they pass overhead…
Expect a bunch more of these ‘near 60’ launches until the final several thousand are in LEO. Then, as they are in a very low LEO, a “run rate” each year to replace any that failed or finally deorbited from drag or runing out of fuel.
The Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
says fully operational size is to be 4425 sats but that ultimate capacity will be about 42,000 of them. Currently flying (as of Feb 2022) they have 2091, so expect a lot more launches…
Musk is using rockets that have already flown as many commercial flights as they can reliably guarantee and sell. This lets him find the ultimate reuse life of his rockets without losing any customer packages. Essentially, his launch vehicles are “free” and it is just the launch services that have a cost; as otherwise he could not sell the launch of the vehicle. As he shows that the rocket is reliable at 7, 8, 9, … 23, 24… reuses (and learns what parts to replace to get there….) he can then sell more of the series of launches. But there will always be a ‘flight too far” to sell that still has high odds of working as an experiment, and those will carry a bit more of the cluster.
There was some mention of a few polar orbit sats, so it may be that the poles have operational coverage now too.
Pingback: W.O.O.D. – 30 April 2022 | Musings from the Chiefio
EM – that problem of orbital decay in LEO is the reason that those electric thrusters will be very useful. AFAIK Musk is interested in them, and one of the people I know working on them knows Musk. Thus the expense of Starlink will go down just as soon as those thrusters are tested and installed – no fuel to run out, and they can run on solar power alone. After that, we’ll be down to electronic failure rate for the satellites, so they’ll last very much longer.
Simon Derricutt says:
30 April 2022 at 10:41 am
“And now for something completely different….”
I am gobsmacked. I did not know mass psychosis on such an inane level was possible. Today while in a store a young woman, speaking to my wife and another woman, went on about the new woman supreme court judge, and how the bad guys tried to get her to define a woman. When neither my wife or the other woman supported her lunacy, she went off the deep end, raving about old white people. I have seen two other such breakdowns in the last month, Maybe it is a vaccine side effect that has crossed the blood brain barrier.
@ David
RE mass psychosis
The official framing of this “phenomenon” is misleading and wrong. The false hope-addicted psychologists and their acolytes want you to believe this is “just some temporary occasional” madness by the masses that has been going on since only about the 20th century when it is but a spike of a CHRONIC madness going on for aeons with “civilized” people — https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
One of these mainstream psychologists who have been spreading this whitewashed reality, Dr. Desmet, also fails to see that the Covid Psyop is a TOTALLY deliberate ploy because he doesn’t think it’s ALL intentionally sinister. This makes him witting or unwitting controlled opposition.
Worst of all, perhaps, the mass formation/mass psychosis notion frames the problem as the public being a mere unaccountable non-culpable victim in this phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth (see referenced source above)…