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/2023/04/19/w-o-o-d-19-april-2023-ukraine-drags-on-us-being-trashed-dimocrat-cities-crime-spree/
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
Off The Road Again
I have very little left in California. About 5 “Gorilla Racks” that are maybe 1/3 full. (About 6 foot tall by 6 foot long by 1.5 feet deep). A couple of bookcases. Some old computers & car parts and monitors along with some old files; all of which may not make it… Next run will be a “toss the trash” and pack what doesn’t get tossed. I’m thinking a 12 to 16 foot box truck, max.
Last time, my trailer got stolen in Beaumont Texas. So I had to resort to another UHaul truck rental. Rented it in Arizona and drove in to California, then back to Florida. Even with the charge for extra miles, that saved about $1500. This time, in California, the 20 foot box was going for a bit over $4000. In Arizona, about $2000. Compared with the $9000 of the first one, clearly there was some kind of seasonal price gouging or just the flood out of California has slackened. So, OK, UHaul prices vary massively. Got it.
I’ve unpacked about 1/2 the boxes along with most of the furniture from this last run. Still have some to go. The house is slowly filling up with book cases ;-) It is a pleasure to see some old familiar volumes again.
Pretty much all furniture is done now, along with most of the books, book cases, and “media”. There’s still some “junk boxes” to go through, and maybe one or two more “kitchen stuff” boxes. But reaching the end of “stuff that matters”. Pretty much everything in the last storage unit made it into this truck, with the exception of things I’d’ class as “dregs”. But likely things I’ll want to keep. Like a set of spare rims and hub caps for the Mercedes 240 D. But it doesn’t matter what year I move them here ;-) Or the 2 x 4 drawer metal file cabinets filled with a 40 year accumulation of old files. A LOT of that is dumpster food now. Do I really need my tax return from 1989 now?…
And, at this time, ALL my cars are in Florida. Nothing left to move from California. Next up is to start finding where to get them painted ;-)
Hurricane Season Approaches
We’ve started having afternoon rains and warm days. I need to paint the hurricane panels I made last year (so they don’t swell up when the plywood gets wet). Hopefully this year I avoid being hit… Last year was in some ways amusing, and it is nice to know that a Cat 4 at landfall is a weak Cat 2 by the time it reaches me. It is also nice to know that we came through that one with near zero issues. But still… None would be better.
Ukraine Grinds Down
The Wagner PMC has taken the city that Mr. Z said would never be allowed to fall.
I get the impression that the Wagner Group is surprised that they captured it. The goal, after all, was to create a Honey Pot to lure in loads of Ukrainian troops and material, then destroy them. They didn’t really want to capture it and end “the gift that keeps on giving”. We saw that when the “pincers” were around it, then just stopped advancing. Now they have captured it and need to figure out what to do with it…
There’s a list of all the Ukrainian units sent to Bhakmut circulating on the internet (it was in a video posted to another thred). The amount of Ukrainian forces destroyed in the folly of “holding Bhakmut” is astounding. I think Ukraine will never recover from that blood letting.
Russia is busy taking out strategic targets all over Ukraine. A GIANT arms and ammunition depot was blown up; making a mushroom cloud it was so huge. Bridges that NATO might use to enter from Romania (or provide supplies over…) have been dropped. I think Russia moves on the non-Donbass parts of Ukraine next month. June-teenth maybe?
The Ukrainian Perpetually Real Soon Now Offensive has been put on hold again. Something about sending all their assembled troops into Bhakmut to be mauled and having their ammunition dumps blown up…
But no worries, Biden has said it is Just Fine for anyone with some spare F-16s to send them to Ukraine and have “volunteers” fly them. You know, folks with some years of experience in the F-16, as in NATO Military Pilots. Anyone for W.W.III when NATO pilots are actively engaged with NATO planes shooting down Russians? Somebody in the USA / EU / WEF “leadership” has a serious death wish…
Then there’s that nagging question of what radioactive ammunition made the cloud slowly drifting on the wind… UK MOD want to say what they sent over? (Note that “depleted Uranium” still has a lot of the radioactive isotopes in it… just less than in raw ore).
I wonder when European Nations will get tired of funding all this death and destruction? I guess the EU & USA Leadership really don’t like Ukrainians very much, as they are paying for so many to be killed.
Oh, and the EU / USA are proposing the 95th Sanctions Package. I understand they will be banning Borscht, the Russian Wolfhound will not be allowed a dog shows, and anyone found playing Russian Roulette will be fined the cost of clean-up. /sarc;
Am I the only one who thinks that after the first dozen “sanctions packages” maybe they ought to consider, just for a moment, that maybe they just do not work?
So far, all they have done is damage the EU economy (rather a lot), cut off the EU Fuel Supply, cause significant inflation in the EU & USA due to higher fuel costs, shove Russia and China together (while pissing off the rest of the world…) to make the BRICS+ Summit the hit of the year. Somewhere between 19 and 90 countries have already applied to join, or are attending to check it out. Talk about an “own goal”… Destruction of Western Economic Hegemony in one move. Maybe we ought to call it Bud Lite School Of Economics…
The Fun Bit: EU Going Populist
A whole lot of countries in the EU are either electing Populist / Nationalist / or “Right Wing” new leaders into their governments. Sweden is saying any new EU power grabs need to have a referendum by the voters. Folks there are starting to talk about Swexit. Italy is being cranky about EU foibles. Marine Le Pen is getting ever higher vote counts. There’s even talk of Turkey maybe leaving NATO (having given up on EU membership and seeing the BRICS+ going gang busters).
One can only hope the trend continues. We need a wholesale changing of the political class in The West.
In Other News
But at least it has driven Chinese Wuhan Covid out of the news… well, except maybe that bit where they found China working on a vaccine for it prior to the lab leak…
Oh, and AB Inbev is looking to “buy back” any beer that has passed the “best by” date due to not selling.. So not only can they not “give it away” with a $20 rebate on a $19.98 case of beer; but now they have to buy it back too…
Heard a bit of news where “Trans Influencers” were having a huge drop off in “deals” headed into Buggery Month, their big season… Oh, and MLB decided to boot the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence from their roster. Something about Catholics being grumpy at bearded men dressed like nuns and drunk at baseball games not being “family friendly” to the bulk of the population thinking of taking the family to a ball game… Keep it up, we’re having an impact.
I figure in about another year or two TPTB will finally realize that Society has said “ENOUGH!”. “In Fact, TOO MUCH! Leave me alone or suffer the consequences.” I wonder if it is a problem of folks in Marketing not understanding MATH. You know, a 1% population of Buggery Fanatics is smaller than a 95% folks who go “Euwww” at it. And maybe checking out the number of churches in the USA vs the number of Gay Buggery Bars.
It is really pretty simple: We Normals do NOT want a month of depravity shoved in our faces, or the faces of our children, every damn year. Do that and we will never buy your product again. You can go out of business as far as I’m concerned, for displaying Terminal Political Corruption, er “Correctness”. Get Woke, Go BROKE. Not just a slogan, but a promise…
Further, in the interest of speaking clearly and accurately, I’m done with “pride” crap. I have Pride in a job well done or a significant accomplishment. It is not “pride” to advocate for buggery and sexual deviancy. So it’s “Buggery month” now.
The whole Diversity, Inclusion, Equity thing is DIE. And that’s what your company can do if you push: DIE, CRT, or Woke ESG Crap.
It will be fun to watch the folks expecting Huge Bonuses figure out they just killed their golden goose…. It is pretty simple, really: I’m fed up with the nauseating crap, and will simply NOT shop in any store pushing it, nor buy products pushing it. And I’m not alone. Not by a long shot. Ask Budweiser…
WatchMaga
This will continue to be DIY for a while still.
https://rumble.com/user/WatchMaga
For more recent events, see:
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 
Well, looks like The Dodgers and MLB are about to test what fence sitting on barbed wire feels like. They have done a Flip Flop on The Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/22/los-angeles-dodgers-reinvite-sisters-perpetual-ind/
So I guess MLB wants to find out if there are more Catholics or more Drag Queens… then again, the Dodgers are in Los Angeles… so who knows….
In Other News:
North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO opens a North Pacific office in Japan. Do these guys need a geography lesson? Or are they looking to pivot away from “Russia Bad” to “China Worse” due to losing in Ukraine?
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/nato-plans-on-opening-office-in-japan/
@EM
“North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO opens a North Pacific office in Japan. Do these guys need a geography lesson? “
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_NATO#Japan
Australia is already a de-facto member of NATO.
They even helped with the training of Ukraine tank crews in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_NATO#Global_NATO
AUKUS is just a subset of NATO
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS
Boris is a busy boy. More “We Are Winning!” speeches.
Send for Agent BoJo! Boris Johnson dispatched to Texas to shore up Republican support for Ukraine … Johnson told Texan Republicans on Monday: “You are backing the right horse. Ukraine is going to win. They are going to defeat Putin.” … Johnson is “very much seen as the architect of the Western policy” on Ukraine
The gravy train paused (for a moment).
Unusually, the former U.K. prime minister, who raked in almost £5 million from speaking fees in the first six months after leaving office, was not paid for Monday’s lunchtime speaking engagement. However, he did arrange the Dallas trip as a stopover en route to the SCALE Global Summit in Las Vegas, an investment conference where he will be paid an expected six-figure sum for a scheduled speech.
https://www.politico.eu/article/send-for-agent-bojo-boris-johnson-dispatched-to-texas-to-boost-republican-support-for-ukraine/
That “SCALE Global Summit in Las Vegas” is worthy of inspection. A veritable roundup of the Usual Suspects.
https://scaleglobalsummit.com/
“How the foreign funded climate cabal bought Germany to its knees”
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/05/how-the-foreign-funded-climate-cabal-bought-germany-to-its-knees/
Prepare for another deluge –
Associated Press ups their climate ante with a bucket of “new money”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/05/23/our-moral-and-intellectual-superiors-4/
More AP in links
“AP news is not news, it’s paid for marketing”
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/ap-news-is-not-news-its-paid-for
FWIW
“Bottom Line On Epstein”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248866
Here is an updated old post (updated last month) from Willis on the climate emergency.
I would suggest providing this link to all that reference an emergency and ask them to disprove this data. Save the link.
They can’t and will move to character assassination to try and avoid ultimately discrediting their positions. They have nothing but regurgitated propaganda and proven bad modeling.
Why these actual data/facts don’t get more press is beyond me.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
@em
I think you could have a really nice side hustle hotshotting U-Hauls from Texas and Arizona to California… if you found full-time retirement didn’t quite suit you
Given that the “mainstream” media in the USA and the rest of the West acts like any other regime media (we used to laugh at Pravda, though it seems they could have learned lessons from Western media), why would facts matter at all? /rhetorical. They have a narrative to push for their power hungry masters.
@Josh:
It would need to be under contract from UHaul. Otherwise, I’d have a UHaul rented to me that someone else was using and damaging and it would all be “on me”… especially if it never returned…
FWIW, on my first truck load out to Florida, at about Oklahoma, I got a text message asking me if I wanted a $600 discount / rebate on my rental IF I picked up a trailer in, IIRC, somewhere near Atlanta Ga. and dropped it off in Florida. As that would take me a few hundred miles out of my way (ADDING a few $Hundred back to my bill for “miles”) and add a DAY (so another Day charge) and get me worn out by one more day: I chose to decline.
But clearly UHaul wasn’t interested in making it significantly worth my while…
FWIW
“”The Dark Side of Principles”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248872
And
“True dat”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/05/true-dat.html
So, somebody help me out on the reparation’s thing.
What if my mom was white and my dad was black.
How does that work?
@Ossqss:
I think it depends on if you identify as Black or White.
IF you Identify as white, they YOU must PAY to you. BUT:
IF you Identify as black, then you must get paid by YOU.
Oh, and the government will take care of it in taxes and only keep 90% for “handling”.
I restored an axe for my brother last year and now I’m restoring a second one for him.
I can’t remember the axe head maker of the one I restored last year, but it was marked and common enough to be looked up fairly easily.
This axe head I’m working on now has a mark that I cannot find anywhere. I think it was hand forged in someone’s farm shop or maybe a small-town smithy.
There is a prominent mark on the axe head that looks like it was made using a stone drill. It’s just a deep ‘X’ symmetrical cross. I’m familiar with the old-timers making personal identifying marks on their tools. My great-grandfather’s mark was three dots making a triangle.
Here’s the type of tool that I’m fairly certain was used to make the mark. The mark is about 3mm deep and about 10mm across.
I’m going to search some more on the mark, but I’m having trouble thinking of the right search phrase that would either identify a maker or at least confirm that it is probably a one-off and the maker was just someone who needed an axe head and forged his own or made one by request from someone in the community.
If anyone has search phrase suggestions, I’ll give them a shot.
This one seemed to turn up a lot of stuff:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=historic+smith+marks+axe
As did this one:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Ax+maker+marks
Funny that, E.M. I already searched using both of those combos, plus a few more.
Aha! I should search on ‘unique’ smith marks or axe maker’ marks.
I’ll give that a go.
@ossqss
Why these actual data/facts don’t get more press is beyond me.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/25/wheres-the-emergency/
“Press” meaning MSM?
With most of our MSM being wide open to pocketing pay-to-play “donations” and “foundation grants”.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
The world was supposed to end in 2000. Whoops. Never mind, move on, what can we frighten people with next? How about some stories about outbreaks of diabolical and devastating plagues? Well, better soften up the target audience with some theoretical models that scare the shit out of them. Who do we know that’s good at that? Oh look, there’s Professor Pantsdown….
H. L. Mencken also said:
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
FWIW
I’m about through reading
Noah Rothman, “The rise of the new puritans: fighting back against progressives’ war on fun”
which compares modern happenings with the rise and fall of Puritanism in USA.
Talk about a tour of warp think.
The hopeful conclusion seems to be that too much of it will run a course similar to Puritanism
Follow the money (again).
Media giant AP News sells out journalism for just $8m from billionaires.
A bunch of giant Foundations (run by billionaires that also invest in renewable energy) gave Associated Press (AP) $8 million dollars last year to push the climate propaganda even harder than it has been running for the last 20 years.
In return AP, which calls itself a not-for-profit news agency took the grant and then ran 64 climate crisis or ESG stories in the next year. They called this surge a “sweeping climate journalism initiative”. Sixty four stories doesn’t sound like much but AP stories are repeated in 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters. So 64 stories could really mean 83,200 stories.
The money came from the Rockefeller Foundation, Quadrivium (James Murdoch, who is son of Rupert), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Looks like, smells like, advertising money for Renewable investors disguised as a grant?
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/05/media-giant-ap-news-sells-out-journalism-for-just-8m-from-billionaires/
Target on Target in the “Get Woke, Go Broke Stakes”
“Get Woke, Go Broke: Target’s Stock Plummets Amid Growing Backlash and Calls for Boycott”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/get-woke-go-broke-targets-stock-plummets-amidst/
We’d boycott Target, except we haven’t set foot in a Target since the restroom edict fiasco in the first O’Bummer term.
They enthusiastically opened their restrooms to anyone and the pervs took advantage.
All the other stores did the sensible thing and kept their men’s and women’s restrooms. Then they created one-holer ‘family’ restrooms for anyone and everyone. Just lock the door behind you. That actually worked out really well and solved the age-old problem of moms out with their young boys or dads out with their little girls and the kids had to go NOW!
I guess we’re on ‘double-secret boycott’ now.
I’m done with the axe. It’s an American ‘Yankee’ pattern. It goes back to my brother as a firewood splitter. It is no longer a felling axe, because…
… there are a couple of cracks in the head, the poll was hammered, which I take as evidence that it was used as a splitting wedge at times, and I’m pretty sure the edge was sharpened with an electric angle grinder and the temper was taken out. The edge was just too soft compared to other blades I’ve restored.
I made the axe look pretty and called it done. It’s now a real nice looking old axe. It was just too far gone to put any real time into it.
*************
I am now thinking that the ‘X’ mark may have been to designate a factory second or reject, but functional enough to sell. Going back to the early 1800s, most tools had some maker’s mark. They wanted you to know who made it and they were proud of their work.
This mark was smack in the middle of the blade, front to back and top to bottom and much deeper than any other maker’s mark I’ve ever seen.
I think the axe might have been sold cheap in some sort of bargain bin.
Anyhow, that’s my current best guess about the mark; factory second.
Partial list of woke companies. Also lists the good ones.
https://www.cancelthiscompany.com/index.html
@H.R.:
Well, it is what it is…
But as a Smith, I feel compelled to point out that cracks can be welded and then annealed and the edge can be hardened… If you only put in about $300 of work you could have recovered that $30 axe…
Traditionally, blades could be hardened by quenching in horse piss. The urea supplied nitrogen to nitride the surface. There was a tropical smithing technique of sinking the edge of a machete into a squash like vegetable. This quenched and nitrided the edge while leaving the spine to slowly cool and anneal. The result was a hard edge on a pliant spine. Nice trick, that.
For the crack, I’d have just used a MIG welder to fill it (might need to grind it to open it enough to fill the middle, depending on where / how deep the crack) and then anneal the whole thing and grind down the weld to flat. If I had a welder… but you can buy them for just a few $Hundred now ;-)
Grab your wallet …
But NOW, the unelected, unaccountable, faceless, nameless, power-hungry monarchs at the FDA have decided that none of our farmers, ranchers, or hobbyists will be allowed to have those medicines anymore without visiting the vet for a prescription. This will cost the farmers tens of thousands of dollars a year in added vet bills, which they will then pass onto the consumer, forcing prices even higher during a time of record inflation.
There was no debate in Congress, no federal law passed, no chance for a town hall or public debate, no reading of a bill, no commercials warning the public so they could stop this encroachment on liberty and sanity. We have been informed by federal decree that this is now our new reality.
https://pjmedia.com/columns/megan-fox/2023/05/26/fda-bans-farmers-from-caring-for-their-own-animals-without-costly-vet-approval-n1698371
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/russia-ukraine-war/2023/05/26/id/1121289/
A treatise on curry recommending a bigger treatise on curry –
“Saturday Snippet: Currying favor”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/05/saturday-snippet-currying-favor.html
From Tucker Carlson. The CIA took out Nixon. The Watergate burglars were CIA. Bob Woodward was from a classified govt agency, not a journalist. Gerald Ford was on the Warren Commission.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/01/20/tucker_carlson_the_cia_removed_nixon_the_most_popular_president_ever_to_cover_up_their_murder_of_jfk.html
According to Geoff Sheppard, who was there at the time; yes, some of the plumbers were CIA assets. There’s a Kennedy twist to it, too; and it was about campaign finance, also. Certain Ds did not want it publicly known that they were supporting the R. So, pretty much everything told to the general public about Watergate is not what it seems or really happened, in my opinion.
Geoff Sheppard, “The Real Watergate Scandal”
Powerful new evidence reveals that in the most consequential scandal in American history, virtually nothing worked as intended. The real Watergate scandal is how our Constitution and Bill of Rights were deliberately trashed in the successful effort to realign political power, drive President Nixon from office, and imprison his senior aides.
https://shepardonwatergate.com
Yeah, gotta read that one.
The EOTWAWKI threats keep multiplying.
From Australia:
https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/taiwan-could-soon-be-under-us-nuclear-protection/video/732789a9ca7ee4de4c33a614a6a24c35
From Canada:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-clock-is-ticking-on-an-apocalyptic-showdown-with-iran
Anyone able to get past WSJ firewall?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-us-and-uk-are-split-on-the-ukraine-war-weapons-russia-oligarchs-churchill-8540ef60
A preview says:
UK special forces from the British Army’s SAS and SRR regiments and the Navy’s SBS units are operating very close to the front lines in Ukraine.
But I can’t get to the main article to confirm that.
Covid vaccines and cancer –
In there –
“A vaccine that lowers your risk of dying from covid a little, but increases your risk of dying from cancer a lot, isn’t any kind of vaccine that anybody should be taking.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/holopharmakon-saturday-may-27-2023?r=1vxw0k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
@jim2: “FDA have decided that none of our farmers, ranchers, or hobbyists will be allowed to have those medicines anymore without visiting the vet for a prescription.”
Just had an interesting conversation with a complete stranger at a small restaurant. The guy and his wife looked to be maybe mid-seventies, farmers, from small town central Arkansas. The wife mentioned in passing that she suffers from little mental glitches after a severe case of Covid a couple years ago. Hubby pipes up with “have you ever heard of ivermectin?” Turns out that they had both gotten the jab, but then she came down with Covid anyway, spent 10 days in the hospital and then another 20 days in a nursing home, getting sicker all the time until they “sent her home to die”. Luckily they had a friend who worked for (and has since retired from) the CDC who told them about ivermectin. They got a prescription and in about three days she began recovering.
I wonder whether maybe “the next pandemic” will be something that responds quickly to a medication (like ivermectin) which is currently available at feed stores over the counter.
A description to be aware of –
“Not the dietary result I’m wanting…”
“However, I’m NOT grateful to Eaton Rapids Joe for pointing out that “the adjective that best describes my physique is ‘sculpted’ “.”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/05/not-dietary-result-im-wanting.html
More “Get Woke, Go Broke”
“Bud Light, Target Bleeding Money As Conservatives Boycott. The Dollar Amount Is Staggering”
“Target and Bud Light have lost a whopping $28 billion combined amid marketing decisions geared toward transgender individuals, according to a report from Fox Business.”
More at
https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/26/bud-light-target-trans-pride-backlash-revenue-loss/
I guess you could call that a noticeable amount?
“Those that the Gods wish to destroy they first make confident”
FWIW
“The Thirst For Truth – Big Picture Explanation of What Happened in the Past 15 Years That Flipped the Social, Cultural, Media, Leftist and Govt Relationship
May 27, 2023 | Sundance | 421 Comments”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/05/27/the-thirst-for-truth-big-picture-explanation-of-what-happened-in-the-past-15-years-that-flipped-the-social-cultural-media-leftist-and-govt-relationship/
FWIW
“Latest Headlines Digest – The West’s Tone Drastically Shifts”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/latest-headlines-digest-the-wests
Note where the headlines are now coming from
FWIW
“Instinct
“I screw, therefore I am” ”
https://julietteo.substack.com/p/instinct
Kissinger is 100 years old. There is a summary of his political adventures here:
https://www.rt.com/news/576989-henry-kissinger-100-years/
failure? success? good? evil? all of the above?
“rational foreign policy” may be a stretch, but the last sentence is correct”
@YMMV: “Kissinger is 100 years old.”
He is taking lessons from Nosferatu. And not in just how to get older.
“This is what mind control looks like…”
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/05/this-is-what-mind-control-looks-like/
“Safe and Effective®” –
“Michael P Senger- The Great COVID Ventilator Death Cover-up
This practice of prolonged intubation was apparently consistent with guidance from China. As Zeynep Tufekci had put it, “Chinese scientists” advised “many COVID-19 patients need to stay on mechanical ventilators as long as four weeks.”
The New Yorker featured a harrowing account of one early victim’s final moments before he was put on a ventilator and died—even though he didn’t even “feel sick” at the time he was intubated.
A study in JAMA later revealed a 97.2% mortality rate among those over age 65 put on mechanical ventilators. Patients over age 65 were more than 26 times as likely to survive if they were NOT placed on mechanical ventilators.”
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1662136877464563713.html
Via http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/05/28/safe-and-effective-130/
“STUDY: ‘Global warming can cause headaches’ through ‘stress of…changes in weather patterns’ – Makes Parkinson’s, ‘stroke, MS, migraines, & dementia worse’ ”
Is bad luck also included?
“The Check For Vote-Buying Is On The Table”
“As they say…. oops.
Democrat politicians have been buying votes for the last two decades with two policies:
Sanctuary cities. That is, come here, legal or not, access services which cost taxpayers money, and its fine. Whether that’s education, medical care, housing, whatever.
Reparations. The premise that black people today are owed something due to the legacy of slavery.
I’ve dealt with the absurdity of the latter several times in my column and see no particular reason to go back through all of it here. It is simply sufficient to note that when it comes to both over-allocation of resources (e.g. dollars-per-pupil on education) and per-capita spend on welfare black people have gotten more and paid less for the last 50+ years to the tune of trillions of dollars. Anyone who wishes to argue for such has to deduct all of that out first and its entirely possible you might find that if you do black people owe everyone else, not the other way around.
The sanctuary city nonsense, however, was especially rich. ”
More at
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248906
And an interesting take –
“The Pyrrhic Victory of the Arizona Cartel”
https://skeshel.substack.com/p/the-pyrrhic-victory-of-the-arizona?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
FWIW
“Why Is the US Tipping Off Russia on the Ukrainian Spring Offensive?”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/why-is-us-tipping-russia-ukrainian-spring-offensive/
Still chuckling over the question and answer…
“I think it depends on if you identify as Black or White.
IF you Identify as white, they YOU must PAY to you. BUT:
IF you Identify as black, then you must get paid by YOU.”
If curious I am having an interesting conversation with chat or “challenge GPT about the Hubble Constant here. It is a new subject for me, and I am just approaching it with Devils advocate questions I would ask on any new subject. You all may find it interesting…
@Jim2:
Yeah, that “call a vet” is going to kill a LOT of animals. Are farmers really going to call a vet if a $20 chicken or turkey gets sick? Especially corporate mega-farms? Let’s see: Vet Visit $400, shoot & shovel $4. Decisions decisions… Or even a $100 pig or lamb? Heck, in the farm town where I grew up, folks with $1000 cows were often reluctant to call the vet. What is the profit margin on a cow you buy for $800 and expect to sell for $1200 after feeding it out? Not enough to make any money after the call to the vet… but if instead you turn the cow into pig feed… and then you don’t need to buy hay for the cow…
Farming has a cruel reality. That which is not a profit center becomes a cost reduction center…
@YMMV:
THE big question in what Medvedev said is just “Which conflict?”. Given the Russian Understanding of things, I’m fairly certain that (as he said before) “negotiations” will happen at the Polish Border. That implies to me that the only “conflict” that will be a long one is the conflict with NATO. That one will depend on nuclear deterrence which inherently depends on the MAD Doctrine.
Now the problem with this is that our “leaders” are silly people (and not in a good way). Russians are a serious people. Our “leaders” are out of touch with reality in many and basic ways (like, not knowing what a woman might be… or that cutting off their own fuel supply might be bad for them…). I’d not be surprised at all to find they to also do not realize just what 2000 Russian Nukes means (and I’m certain they have no clue that Russia has a lot of Civil Defense Preparations, that the USA has none; and what that means). So they could be just silly enough to think they could survive a nuclear war… or worse, see it as a ‘feature’ to get population under 1/2 Billion… (not thinking through that the 1/2 Billion would be living in Sub Sahara Africa and near Patagonia and nowhere else…)
Russia has 1000+ year history of Assholes From The West invading and slaughtering. Russians know their history. Russians are not paranoid, they are aware and prepared due to history; and grounded in reality. Russians are ready, willing, and able to kill everyone in the EU and USA. Russians also would most like to just be welcomed as fellow Europeans and get on with life as a Christian Nation. They can both be your best friends, or your worst nightmare (as is true of any fully aware and fully prepared morally centered and reality centered person.)
The problem they have is that they have nobody in The West who is similarly aware with whom they can rationally speak. Our problem is that we are lead by fools and charlatans with idiotic beliefs wrapped in egomania.
The unfortunate conclusion I’ve come to is this:
Russia will need to extinguish most of Western Ukraine and reconstitute it as something else. They have no other choice.
1) The DMZ approach fails on NATO massed at the Russian Border, end game W.W.III eventually.
2) The “Negotiate settlement in place” fails on NATO being liars (with whom do you negotiate who can be trusted?) and leaving in place the Azov Attitude in Kiev. (Plus the terms NATO / Mr. Z are demanding are just absurd). So logistically unobtainable.
3) The “Long War” approach fails on running out of Ukrainians to fight. The end game becomes NATO fighters that transitions to W.W.III eventually.
4) The NATO “in it to win it” fails on 2000 Russian Nuclear Weapons ending the Western Death Wish in a Russian Survival Scenario. Russian history has taught them that sacrifice of 20 MILLION Russians for the survival of Russia is sometimes required. They have prepared for this. Russia WILL Survive. The only question is how many will make the New Russia afterwards. (Our leaders don’t ‘get it’ on that point, too enamored of their own imaginary “greatness”, while doing NOTHING on Civil Defense)
5) The “Color Revolution In Russia” fantasy of the C.I.A. and Five Eyes agencies fails on Putin having somewhere between 70% and 80% approval of Russians. (And many of those who do not approve are complaining that he is going too slowly in Ukraine and needs to just crush them NOW…) The more this method is pushed, the more it is observed and the more other nations flock to BRICS+. Sanctions have laid the foundation for destruction of the EU Economy and put the UK on the ropes. Russia and China are pushed into an alliance (and large profits for both…). Net Zero Oil has pushed Saudi and other Oil Nations into application to join BRICS+. Theft of money and blocking banking has resulted in a Parallel Economy at the international level and the destruction of the Petro Dollar. End game here is rampant inflation in the USA, EU, and UK et. al. along with collapse of any remaining manufacturing and production. See Argentina for how that unfolds. That also means no money to support the massive Military Industrial Complex. The end game here is Russia & China win and dominate the ever growing Parallel Economy which also absorbs The Global South. From where, then, does The West get any needed minerals, fuels, agricultural products, manufactures? With what Real Money?
What I see as THE most rational thing for Russia to do is pretty simple: WIN.
Their economy is fine (currently growing if slowly). They have all the minerals, agricultural products including food, intellectual property and manufactures (both domestic and Chinese) that they need to continue forever.
Were I leading Russia and looking from a Russian POV:
Move the economy to a War Footing (done).
Take the mothballed Arms Industry and get it running full speed (also already done).
Mass 1/2 Million soldiers on the border of Ukraine (done).
Send lots and lots of cheap drones into Ukraine to bleed the global supply of air defense munitions (in progress).
Destroy or capture key infrastructure and places like Bhakmut where there are large transport hubs, not to mention massive small arms depot underground… (mostly done but some still WIP).
About June 20 to July 10 (after the Ukrainian Show “offensive”) just flood over Ukraine and not stop until reaching the Polish Border. Then build a Ukraine of the kind I can live with. (Scheduled)
That achieves the stated Russian goals; and does it at an acceptable loss of Russian Life. (Remember that for Russia, this is literally existential. A matter of existing or not.) In W.W.II that cost was 20+ Million Russians dead. That’s their benchmark for pain to win. EVERY Ukrainian, every last one, is less than that number. Russia can, should it desire it, raise an army of 20 Million (or even 40 if pushed…).
Sure, they might be armed with those old (in pristine condition though…) Thompson Submachine Guns of W.W.I and W.W.II era that were found 500 feet below ground in Bhakmut (in endless rows of crates stacked about 40 feet high…). But as noted before: Even old guns still kill as good as they ever did. FWIW, my “go to” EOTWATKI military rifle is an SKS Carbine. Why? It met California’s not-an-assault-weapon definition… or I’d have an AR platform… but it’s still a very functional weapon. So I’m coming at this from a “put my money where my mouth is” history.
Do I think Russia will need 20 Million? Nope, not at all. They have all the forces they need already staged and in place. Ukraine is a Dead Man Walking logistically and economically. Just a matter of waiting for the corpse to realize it and then finish it off. At present, Russia is fighting NATO to destroy the inventory of NATO weapons as they are sent into Ukraine (in dribs and drabs at just the best rate to be ineffective and for easiest destruction…) so there’s no urgency on the Russian side.
Ukraine is preparing to send their last functional troops into a Great Offensive against well prepared Russian Defenses with lots of air power support. That’s the best way possible to destroy the Ukrainian Army. Right after that, you “flood the battle space” with everything you have staged and it is over fairly quickly. IFF for some unknown reason (like the sudden realization they will be destroyed… ) Ukraine does not launch The Great Offensive, then at the best weather window, you do a Blitzkrieg and wipe them out. End game: Russia wins, and at under 1 Million Russians even put at risk. Very acceptable.
That’s the way I see it anyway.
Russia, being very rational and the best chess players in the world ought to see the same facts and the same choices and the same outcomes. So I’d expect them to do something like I would have done in their shoes.
Yes, I can be wrong. I have limited information and it is always possible some big surprise change happens (like, oh, the Supremes find that Biden is illegitimate and Trump is back in the White House… as an outside case of “surprise” ;-) so only time will reveal what really happens. But we make our best guesses and move on.
@EM: “Russia has a lot of Civil Defense Preparations, that the USA has none”
True, the US has no Civil Defense to speak of — but we have one hell of a Continuity of Government plan. (COG). We are ruled by psychopaths with no conscience. If it were not so, we would be this close to WWIII. They may not even consider it an issue to lose 250 million civilians AS LONG AS THE POLITICALLY WELL CONNECTED HAVE THEIR UNDERGROUND CITIES.
Way back in 1992 Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida. The response of FEMA was so inept that Congress held hearings. The head of FEMA said under oath that “90% of our budget goes to continuity of government”. That was 30 years ago, but I doubt that much has changed.
@David A:
What if the Hubble Constant isn’t a contant?
Ought not gravitation at the Big Bang Origin have been slowing down matter as it flies away from that center of mass (and so, center of gravitation)?
IF that is so, then the rate of recession ought to slow over time as the big bang matter suffers gravitational slowing.
IF that is NOT so: then how can matter continue at a constant rate away from the center of the mass of the universe? Is gravity broken, or the Hubble Constant?
FWIW, my answer would be that space itself is what is changing. Space being pulled into Black Holes and slowly destroyed stretches the remaining space, making it look like things are moving apart in an expanding universe. The ‘accretion’ of space into black holes is more likely to be constant… IMHO.
What I see as THE most rational thing for Russia to do is pretty simple: WIN.
… and Russia is rational.
The most rational thing for the US is to dissolve NATO, or at the minimum, get out of it. The US powers that be are not currently rational.
And then there is Europe, a basket case, about to revisit WW2 and lose this time.
That’s only a possibility at this point, one of several outcomes, all bad.
FWIW – on AI
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/love-and-poppies-monday-may-29-2023?r=1vxw0k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
FWIW
The centre is between two poles – and that centre depends on where those poles are – so
“The Centre Is Unreliable”
https://catallaxy-files.com/the-centre-is-unreliable/
another ian: (link above, the teaser was) “I screw, therefore I am”
written by a woman who comments “main annoyance being the obsession with sex”
Well, we are animals. Yet, there is a difference and I can only wonder when it happened — that humans went from seasonal reproduction to year-round. And then the effort to control those instincts, religious or cultural. Only partially effective.
Two dangerous human instincts which are difficult to control: sex and war.
By dangerous I mean, they have consequences, something human intelligence sometimes fails to understand.
On the topic of diesels, here’s something I wasn’t aware of involving our friends at Cummins.
In 1952, Cummins built an Indy race car using one of their commercial engine designs. Well, it wasn’t exactly a production engine, but the design was close to their standard model. And it used good ol’ out-of-pump diesel fuel and not special racing fuel.
The linked video is ~43 minutes, but it was made as a puff piece to tout their engineering and production capabilities. You can skip through the video a bit, as they are prone to laying it on thick for the emotional hook, whereas they could have just laid out the facts of the story in 1/3 of the time.
It is an interesting story.
Oh, it’s not part of the story, but they mentioned that one of the limiting factors was the tires.
While watching the video, it struck me how ‘primitive’ tire technology was then. I found myself wondering how well that car would have done if it ran on more modern racing tires.
@YMMV: “And then there is Europe, a basket case, about to revisit WW2 and lose this time. That’s only a possibility at this point, one of several outcomes, all bad.”
In some ways, Europe today is in the same situation as Eastern Europe was just before the fall of the USSR. The difference, of course, being that now the hegemon is the US. In the case of the USSR, economic collapse brought about by an inherently unstable centralized control, led to a slow motion weakening of fiscal and military power until Eastern Europe saw it possible (and advantageous) to withdraw their alliance. Sounds familiar. Our psychopathic leaders are every bit (more in my opinion) as unstable as socialist centralized control.
Thirty plus years ago (for those of us who remember) the concern was “will the USSR go to war as a final prop to maintain power? Or will they step back and allow the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet state to fracture without destroying the world?”
History repeats…
Go figure!
https://mishtalk.com/economics/bidens-solar-push-is-destroying-the-desert-and-releasing-stored-carbon
@HR
Re the 1952 Cummins diesel Indy race car – is that the same one that qualified on pole for the 1953 Indianapolis 500?
My understanding is the Cummins car was inspired by the French brothers Jean and Jacques Delettrez who entered a diesel-engine car in the 1949 Le Man race.
Eventually diesel-engines proved a big winner for Audi with their R10 TDI, winning the Le Man 24hrs race three years in a row (2006 to 2008). The organisers had the change the rules to give the other competitors a chance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI
My day-car of choice would be the Audi A6 Avant (estate car with diesel engine and 4-wheel-drive)
Some grim reading here –
Things of what is in the spike and the “Ig4 problem” passes peer review.
Plus CDC is a superspreader!
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/venomous-loretta-tuesday-may-30-2023?r=1vxw0k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
And an observation –
I saw a death notice recently that asked for donations to CJD research in lieu of flowers. One might wonder of his “vaccination status”.
“Mega review study of 2 million people shows nuts reduce heart attacks by 25%”
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/05/eating-nuts-and-seeds-may-reduce-risk-of-heart-disease/
@Keith M – Cummins may have developed that in ’52 for the ’53 race, but the video title did say 1952 race. In the video, it did say that the Cummins #28 car won the pole.
Now, the original film was transferred to video and there may have been a mix-up in the dates when they titled the video. I dunno.
Starts at
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/05/tuesday-8/#comment-2675057
“The Unseen Crisis: Vaccine stories you were never told
At the height of the pandemic, covid-19 vaccines were rolled out under emergency use authorisation.
These vaccines went through a much shorter testing period than normal.
Millions of people were told to do the right thing and roll up their sleeve, which they did.
But for some, it ended with devastating effects.
“This is a documentary about people, not politics.”
This is a preview only. You have to subscribe at Epoch Times to see the full video.
https://rumble.com/v2oxu58-the-unseen-crisis-vaccine-stories-you-were-never-told.html ”
And
“Full length doco is being deleted everywhere as fast as it’s posted.
They don’t want you to see this!
They didn’t allow for the JC2 factor though.😁
https://odysee.com/@Happy:9/TheUnseenCrisis:0
Click the 3 dots and choose download to save it.
Be quick!!! “
Looks like Dr John Campbell is now on Substack. No link with that comment at Jo Nova.
Looks like this for Dr John
https://johninengland.substack.com/
“South Africa’s Ruling ANC Party to Pass New Apartheid Bill that Forces Companies to Ban “Non-Black Africans” from Employment”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/south-africas-ruling-anc-party-pass-new-apartheid/
IIRC something on who is keeping their nuke plant running
A reminder
“The proudly British descendants of slaves liberated by the Royal Navy: St Helena is famous as the island where Napoleon was exiled. But as SUE REID found, it was also the base from which the Navy hunted down slave ships — liberating thousands”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12137671/SUE-REID-investigates-enduring-legacy-thousands-slaves-rescued-Royal-Navy.html
FWIW
“Murder .v. Killing”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248931
EM says, @David A:
What if the Hubble Constant isn’t a contant?
Indeed that was my suppostion. Of course the accepted answer to the HC is “dark energy”, overcoming all visible matter and “dark matter”.
My preface was”
” Say we observe light from a galaxy 10 Billion light years away.
Are there not NUMEROUS disparate past factors, no longer active NOW, over the 10 billion light years of travel to us, that could have affected the light spectrem we prerceive now?
If, say 9 billion years ago, something (anything, the expansion rate of space, the various gases of another galaxy that is no longer there, etc) was cause to a shift in the spectrum of light from said galaxy, and that causative factor was no longer active, would the light we perceive now not still carry that PAST spectrum shift message, despite the fact that the cause of said shift is no longer affecting the light?”
Chat AI affirmed that the message would be carried forward as a record of said light.
I followed…
(Say in the first billion years of said light leaving that galaxy space WAS expanding very fast, and that billion years of red shifted light is only reaching us now, would the light still record that past expansion for the next billion years or so of our experience of it?) Is it possible that we are measuring how fast space was expanding over time?
And, if the expansion of space has steadily slowed over our 13.6 biillion years, would not our observational time lapse observation of said red shift, give the perspective of ever increasing expansion as we look ever further into the past?
In other words the steady decay of expansion rate over time, would produce the illusion of ever more rapid expansion, the further distance into the past one observed?
Chat AI admitted that this would be what we perceive, yet insisted that we now it (space) is now expanding ever faster. The means of knowing this however was the observation of the Hubble Constant, which as you point out could have numerous explanations.
I expressed two possible alternatives, one being the further back in time we see old light, we are seeing light that has travelled for billins of years, “As disparate gases encountered would affect the light spectrum we perceive and those conditions may no longer apply ( The galactic gases affecting said light have moved out of the light path long ago) is it possible that greater distance and time would steadily produce greater red shift due to a greater amount of past materials encountered?”
Chat AI insisted that that was taken into consideration. My response question was… Referring to these massive dense galatic clouds of unknown density and volume in the early universe you state…
“However, when scientists measure the redshift of distant objects, they account for these effects” How can they account for affects they have not observed and do not know . We do not know the location or volume of disparate gases over billions of years over the entire observable universe. Therefore we do not know what materials old light encountered before we observed it. As Scientists admit they do not know how massive galxies formed so early in the universe, then they certainly also do NOT know the rapidity of the formation of disparate gases in the early universe, so they cannot know the spectral shift effect caused on such old light. However it is again logical that the early universe had a stronger affect on the spectral light then, as there was denser gases due to more gas in a much smaller volume affecting said old light.
david anderson
2 days ago (edited)
@ChallengeGPT Thank you. While I do not think your answers logical, you may be correct, yet simply asserting the most accepted view, is not, in and of itself, supportive of that viewpoint. The world would be fairly chotic if it depended on popular opinion to operate.
You did admit this;
” While it’s true that a steady slowing down of the expansion of space could produce similar observational effects, such a scenario would require a specific mechanism to cause the deceleration.”
Let us pause here and consider, we have an observation of increased red shift over increased time and distance, the greater the distance, the further back in time, the greater the red shift. The relationship is not linear, but accelerating, the further back in time, or the further distance one looks, the greater the rate of red shift.
The idea that dark energy is acclerating the expansion, is just an idea. Dark energy is simply a hypothesis with, despite looking, ZERO observational evidence other then phenomena of greater “red shift” the further back in time one looks. Dark energy has never been observed. If the “steady slowing down of the expansion of space” could produce a similar cosmological redshift of older light, then one would expect to pursue that line of reason as well. And, as we shall see, that is a more logical explanation.
The CMB does also support the steady slowing down of space expansion over time hypothesis, as it shows the greatest red shift, and is the oldest light. Indeed this hypothesised intial Big Bang expansion had to be the most rapid expansion of all, as the starting point is an infinitely small singularty of zero size. So the relative speed of the expansion of space had to slow down from the intial Big Bang. Therefore the closer to the time of the big bang that one observed red shift, the greater the red shift would appear, exactly what we observe. One would not expect a linear relationship approaching the time of the big bang, but an acclerating relationship, again, what is observed.
Now the idea of space expanding, is of itelf challenging. As no one can imagine an end to three dimensional space, because there is always more something (empty width heighth and depth) in all three dimensions. So please describe percisely what is expanding. Is this explanation based or rooted in Quantum mechanics?
It is also logical that if there was ever more of this thing you call space, it would take ever more enrgy to continue to expand its ever more exponentially growing volume. The steady reduction of expansion over time does not require an ever increasing amount of energy (dark or otherwise) from some mysterious source. The source of that expansion is energy from the Big Bang itself, and it is logical that it would slow down as the volume affected grew, a reduced speed of expansion due to the entropy of the same intial Big Bang energy acting on an ever greater volume.
BTW, it is also logical that the other material causes of the early universe would have an increasing red shift affect on light, the closer in time to the Big Bang we observed said red shift. Why do I assert this? Because all the “stuff” all the material of the universe was in a much smaller denser volume, and so the closer to the Big Bang time we get, the more material there is that could alter light spectrum towards the red shift observed.
Referring to these massive dense galatic clouds of unknown density and volume in the early universe you state…
“However, when scientists measure the redshift of distant objects, they account for these effects” How can they account for affects they have not observed and do not know . We do not know the location or volume of disparate gases over billions of years over the entire observable universe. Therefore we do not know what materials old light encountered before we observed it. As Scientists admit they do not know how massive galxies formed so early in the universe, then they certainly also do NOT know the rapidity of the formation of disparate gases in the early universe, so they cannot know the spectral shift effect caused on such old light. However it is again logical that the early universe had a stronger affect on the spectral light then, as there was denser gases due to more gas in a smaller volume affecting said old light.
So we have two reasons that light would logically be red shifted the older it was, One, expansion was more rapid the closer to the Big Bang one got, (The same energy acting on a reduced volume) and that expansion, from an infinitley small singularity was maasive, so expansion had to slow, and two, there were more and denser gases red shifting light the closer in time one gets to the Big Bang. Neither of these support ever more mysterious “dark energy” acting on an ever and exponentially greater volume, violating basic energy laws, as we know energy is neither created or destroyed.
Curiousely AI has refused to further engage or comment. So I have asked,
“Challenge GPT, do you have no thoughts or information on my last comments? I asked several questions to which you have not responded. As you are an AI, can you share what part of your program is cause for you to not respond to the questions and assertions made?” Oh, and I also asked what is this fabric called space, and said I am not capable of imagining an end to 3 d space, so what is space expanding into.
As there has been no response, I have apparently offended a computer program.
An attempt at a distraction, if it works.>>
I am an Italian American and appreciated this.>
Hard to find free folks.
Well, that was kinda expected. Need some help @EM.
@Ossqss:
I’m sure I need a LOT of help, but not sure how to get it… After all, not many people want to hand out 6 figure checks for free… and Epstein seems to be the only guy who could get a harem of adolescents interested in old guys; and, well, not only is he dead, but I don’t have $Billions or political position (not to mention being very married).
So I’m not sure what you are offering, or if I need it…
;-) of course…
OK, seriously: There are some videos that YouTube thinks are not safe for kids. They require a login on EwTube and some kind of age verification (like, oh, lying maybe?…)
There’s nothing I can do to change that. In fact, since I won’t do a login I can’t even watch them on youtube…
E.M.
They’re trying to say that you are going to have a problem –
“Why your morning coffee is facing extinction”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/drinks/why-your-morning-coffee-is-facing-extinction/
On the usual dubious evidence – (grounds doesn’t sound the right word here)
But no mention of tea, so you have a fallback
Another 10%?
“US weapon systems shipped to Ukraine end up in hands of Mexican crime cartel”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/06/us-weapon-systems-shipped-to-ukraine-end-up-in-hands-of-mexican-crime-cartel.html
Later
Getting ready for holes in the wall?
@Another Ian:
The fantasy that 50% of coffee plantations will suddenly evaporate is nuts. (Assuming that’s what the article says, since it is in the Telegraph and I can’t read it without “subscribing”). Coffee can grow all over the place. Hawaii grows Kona Coffee (pretty decent cup too!). Pretty much anywhere semi-tropical to tropical. (I’ve thought it might be fun to grow some in my back yard here in Florida…)
But…
Worst case possible is that it just gets grown in a Greenhouse like just about any other plant in the world. A Greenhouse is not just for growing plants in a cold winter; it is for complete control of the environment. Add hydroponics and it is complete control of the Air, Water, Fertilizer (ersatz soil), and light environments. (And bug exclusion too). You can get somewhere between 4 and 10 times the production per acre as a first approximation (a LOT more if you go high rise…) with superior product and usually quite acceptable costs (increased infrastructure cost offset by reduced inputs & transportation costs). So:
https://coffeeaffection.com/growing-coffee-in-greenhouses/
In short: “Don’t PANIC!” Nothing pushed by any “organization”: government, corporate or NGO (but I repeat myself…) , as an impending catastrophe is real.
David A – it’s probably not a good idea to ask chatGPT (or other AI) any questions on contentious or difficult stuff such as this. Here, seems to be a basic misunderstanding of the difference between a change in refractive index through a gas cloud (slows down the wave while passing through, but after that returns to normal speed, but frequency does not change) and a stretching of spacetime that would produce a lower frequency that will continue to be a lower frequency no matter the changes in propagation speed subsequently.
The reality, though, is that “expanding spacetime” is only one possible explanation. Could also be a change in inertia, energy levels, or other relationships such as the permeability and permittivity of free space, affecting the speed of light and quite a lot of other things. Are the fundamental constants actually constant, or do they vary over time, just too slowly for us to notice over a few decades?
The “expansion of space” idea, or that of something causing a net acceleration of everything from everything else, is basically saying that the redshift is a Döppler effect. Simple to understand and describe. Also gives a nice solution to Olber’s Paradox (since the universe is infinite, at every point in the sky you should see a star, thus the night sky should be uniformly as bright as the sun, but if there’s a reduction of frequency with distance then the night sky will be dark). May not be the truth, though.
“as we know energy is neither created or destroyed. ”
Actually, I’ve shown that momentum is not a fundamentally-conserved quantity, and that in turn shows that energy is not fundamentally conserved either. You need to ask why momentum is conserved, rather than treat it as an axiom. Turns out that, for a changing field, it isn’t conserved, but in almost all practical situations we use a constant field to transfer force and in that case momentum is conserved. That’s one case where momentum is not conserved, and there are others (see QI, and other “reactionless” space drives), and they have experimental verification – it’s not just theory.
Another interesting oddity is that the time light (in this case, a radio wave from a fairly-distant transmitter) takes to traverse that distance depends on the velocity of the antenna that receives that radio wave. Steffen Kühn set up a plasma antenna (moving electrons in a fluorescent tube) and a standard antenna side by side, receiving the signal from a radio station about 60km away. Depending on the orientation of the plasma tube, thus which direction the electrons were travelling, he received the signal a bit earlier or later on the tube as opposed to the wire antenna. That’s really weird, as if you can only receive a signal that’s at c relative to the receiver, and the transmitted wave has at least a range of velocities that may stretch from zero to infinity. Steffen also experimented with sending signals along an unterminated coax, and measured the propagation speed as 3-8c in different experiments. I haven’t made sense of all this yet, except to say there are experimental anomalies that current theory doesn’t explain.
The various AI systems have no understanding of the theory and cannot make sense of the experimental anomalies unless some (hopefully non-crackpot) person has first made sense of them. It just puts words together to match the consensus, with the right grammar, and at times makes stuff up (known as”hallucination”, but could be termed lying since it can reference non-existent papers as evidence).
EM – see https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/05/30/yet-another-coffee-scare/ which quotes a lot if not all of the Telegraph article.
High quality journalism!
“The Russians are giving MSNBC a hard time after they reported on drones hitting buildings in Moscow while showing a video clip of a collapsed apartment building in Iowa.
“The standard of journalism: the United States illustrated the attack of drones in the suburbs with frames of a collapsed house in the US state of Iowa.”
https://twitter.com/Spriter99880/status/1664221714610372609?cxt=HHwWgoC-7Z-1wJguAAAA ”
Via a comment at Jo Nova
A comment re “Murder vs Killing” from another blog –
“One of the best replies to this article:
@** — “God will provide” just isn’t an excuse for non-action, look at Daniel & Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as mentioned above: if anything, it should be an “excuse” to be fearless standing for righteousness!” “
Simon says,
“David A – it’s probably not a good idea to ask chatGPT (or other AI) any questions on contentious or difficult stuff such as this. Here, seems to be a basic misunderstanding of the difference between a change in refractive index through a gas cloud (slows down the wave while passing through, but after that returns to normal speed, but frequency does not change) and a stretching of spacetime that would produce a lower frequency that will continue to be a lower frequency no matter the changes in propagation speed subsequently.”
Simon, thank you for the thoughts. Conversing wih an AI is educational in multiple paths, and purely exploratory, a learning curiostity indeed.
I must misunderstand a lot, as my understanding is that both gases and matter, dust if you will, do not slow down light. AFAIK disparate gases absorb various spectrum, and likley thermalize it to LWIR, radiating in all directions. Thus I suspect a gas cloud in space heats up, and emits in infra red bands. I suspect the LWIR is also traveling at light speed, although I can see that the absorbition and re-admission might delay it from the intial source that has passed unimpeded. (Perhaps this is what you mean by slowing it down?) How the comingled light, the unimpeded source, and the reduced or diffused LWIR enteract and are recorded by various instruments, I do not know, yet we are certainly receiving both at the same time.
What happens to the rest of the emitted spectrum, not affected by the specific W/L intercepted by disparate gas molecules, I do not know, but it would appear intuitive that it would somehow be changed, and certainly have less energy. It would be apparent that the universe is getting it all at once, full mix of light from an intial source, and changed along the way, with the re-admitted LWIR all mixed with the unimpeded, or less impeded SW. As to what the CMB has gone through and how it has been altered, well there appears to be different viewpoints.
I am quite certain that S/W TSI striking earths atmosphere is somewhat different at the top of the atmosphere, vs at sea level, and GHGs absorb a different W/L then non GHGs. Just as disparate SW entering the oceans is absorbed at different depths where it to is thermalised, and from there moved as conduction and convection, until eventually re-admited as LWIR radiation.
I freely admit I have no idea what the “fabric” of space is. As mentioned, my mind cannot conceive of an end to higth, width, and depth, not can it conceive of one of an object, in only one of those dimensions, absent the other two. (Any line must have some width, and some depth as well, so it seams to me) Now envisioning “any-thing” in this 3 d world, imediately, in my mind, brings into play mathamatics, division, definition that can be quantified, and any interaction between “any-thing” brings into play cause and affect, which could be considered to be time. With no “thing” in the midst of 3-D space, I see no time as well.
Olber’s Paradox to me is confusing. I see no paradox, as ALL perception is partial, based on the instrument perceiving. The blind man sees nothing, when looking at the sun. Improve the telescope, increase the very faint lights you see. Some instruments, like JWST, see far better int LWIR spectrum. The hubble deep field image of a very small patch of sky is very very busy. The JWST is busier still. See really well, and one pixel may contain a million galaxies.
Yet it is clear the BBT postulates that intial expansion was the most rapid, and so expansion from then must have slowed down. (So we have expanded fabric of space slowing down compared to then. So it is logical that the closer to the BB light is observed, (also the further away) the more red shifted it would be.) Also the dimmer, as the more gases and matter it passed though is likewise, inevitable. (So seeing dimmer then expected super novas from 8 billion years ago, should not be surprising as any honest reflection would say we have no idea what interstellar gases and dust was encountered over those 8 billion years,) but assuming the further away the source, the more matter encountered, is only logical, and it is very likely that matter was more dense 8 billion years ago.)
I suppose “dark energy” is somehow conceived of as speeding up this expansion. Yet it does not appear necessary. Oh, and in the AI concersation I mentioned VSL, “variable speed of light” as a possibilitie.
Anyway these are intial thoughts ?s from a first year student.
Oh, David, they do. That’s what the index of refraction is: the relative slowing of light passing through any medium significantly denser than vacuum. I remember a report of folk slowing down light so much in a wave guide, that you could see the pulses moving through it. I’m old, so I may be misremembering.
Remarkable!
“Professor Robert Clancy with the facts of the matter of HCQ and COVID on Quadrant..
“The third insight came from a concern over conflict of interest (COI) created by grants and payments from pharmaceutical companies to investigators. Where authors had no COI, success for HCQ treatment was 86 per cent, while in those with a COI, only 5% had positive outcomes.”
It’s always safe to follow the dollar.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/covid/2023/05/the-curious-tale-of-hydroxychloroquine/ ”
Via comments at Jo Nova.
Any guesses for Vitamin I and others of that ilk?
COI the biggest factor in peer review?
Might be time peer review referees also had to give COI statements?
And our latest Oz on “vaccine mandates”
“One Nation’s Senator Malcolm Roberts on senior health bureaucrat’s backflip on vaccine efficacy”
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2023/06/one-nations-senator-malcolm-roberts-on-senior-health-bureaucrats-backflip-on-vaccine-efficacy.html
You’ve been warned!
“CDC Data Show ‘Most Important Virus You’ve Never Heard Of’ Surged This Spring”
https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/cdc-data-show-most-important-virus-youve-never-heard-surged-spring
David A – CDQ is right here. In fact the presence of matter at all reduces the rate of propagation of the wave, and if you use specific structures (for example wave guides) you can do some pretty weird stuff.
Olber’s paradox is not solved by having gas or dust clouds absorbing the radiation, because if they do then they will heat up until they are the same temperature as the stars and thus will themselves radiate at the same intensity. Thus in an infinite universe, and with infinite time, and with every star remaining the same distance from each other, every point you look will be radiating as a star. Expansion of the universe, in the sense of stars moving further apart, does solve this by red-shifting the further stars, as does the idea of space itself expanding so the stars become further apart without any actual movement of the stars. Then again, you can’t tell the difference between space expanding and those stars actually moving further away, as there’s no way to distinguish them by measurement. However, if that expansion reaches a limit, and then starts contracting again, we’d see that as the night sky becoming very bright, which would of course kill us all. Not that we could do anything about that, though, but it might be a reason why the question of whether the universe will always expand is important.
The solar radiation at the top of atmosphere (ToA) is modified by the atmosphere by the time it gets to ground-level. Some is absorbed by dust, some wavelengths are absorbed by resonances in the molecules and then that energy is either re-radiated or passed onto another molecule by collision, with the balance depending on gas density, so at high-enough density those absorbed bands get taken out and spread to other wavelengths. Around 1.4kW/m² at ToA goes down to around 1kW/m² at ground level, so the absorption is significant. Also it’s going to vary depending on the amount of dust, and the concentration of various gases.
Gas-clouds in space, around stars, do indeed heat up (which is why we can see them as nebulae).
“With no “thing” in the midst of 3-D space, I see no time as well.”
Yep, in this case, time would have no meaning. However, more of a philosophical point, given no observer to notice cause/effect or time passing. To have time, you need at least two particles that interact, and to have it meaningful you also need to have someone observing it.
Still, there are a lot of ideas about how the universe started, and they predict various things that may or may not be correct. The JWST seems to be finding galaxies that don’t match the current mainstream predictions, suggesting we need to re-think that theory.
For me, I’m really more interested in where we can practically use any knowledge about how the universe really works. Thus QI predicts the ability to make electric thrusters, and how to make them, and the experiments so far say that those thrusters really do work. QI may not be fully correct, but it does make some things theoretically possible that were previously theoretically impossible, and those new things are really useful.
Main problem with a variable speed of light is that it’s somewhat hard to actually measure it. Our determination of distance and time now depends on the speed of light being constant, and it is defined as being constant, so to break through that we would need to use something faster than light to measure the varying speed of light.
Personally I suspect that our basic theory is missing a few things, and that new ideas will be coming along (and some have arrived already) that will change how we see things as well as enable us to do stuff that used to appear impossible. Remember the Dick Tracy watch, allowing a live video conversation across continents? Seemed totally impossible at the time, but today a cheap phone (costing less than a good meal at a restaurant, unless you insist on an Apple phone) will do that.
As happens in real life
“How a Navy pilot got his callsign”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/06/how-navy-pilot-got-his-callsign.html
Follow the links right through
So, I just saw a youtube video (no link, you’ll lose IQ by watching it) about Kaliningrad. The suggestion is that there is a rebellious movement in Kaliningrad in favour of leaving the Russian Federation using the opportunity given by the war. It’s very badly presented in that bad grammar robo-voice style. So, is it:
1. Just BS
2. Founded in some sort of reality if exaggerated.
3. Precursor to a colour revolution.
4. Intentional agitprop.
Cosmology? I just don’t get it, the amount of money and time spent on stuff we can’t properly observe because we only see it from one place and we can’t do anything about anyway.
I saw another video expressing the possibility of a move by Ukraine and/or Moldova on Transdneistria. I view this in much the same way as I view cosmology.
Rhoda – this particular bit of cosmology has a very useful payback, since it ought to be able to produce energy without using fuel, and the generator we could produce using it should be cheaper to make than a Diesel or other fuelled generator. Yep, sounds impossible, but so far the experiments seem to work.
It’s always hard to predict what any bit of knowledge will cost, and what we’ll gain because we know it. You only get to know that afterwards, and with some things might be a very long time afterwards that someone figures out a way to exploit some arcane bit of knowledge.
The ability to get to space cheaply might actually be worth a huge amount, if it means we manage to divert an asteroid on a collision-course. Similarly, putting humans on some other planet, or even in some other solar system, reduces the risk of extinction for some unforeseen event. What’s the risk of such unforeseen event? Almost by definition, we don’t know, but we do have evidence that the Earth has been through catastrophe a few times already, so that chance is not zero.
Thus I’m happy to pay a bit to fund research, even when I can’t see an immediate payback. Let the bright people follow their ideas, and a percentage will pay back in some way and at some time. An analysis of NASA’s cost/benefit showed that for each dollar spent, around 17 was added to GDP as a result from the things invented to fix particular problems. May not be a particularly accurate analysis, since such benefits have to be estimated, but it’s order-of-magnitude about right. Some things make a lot of benefit, others very little if any, but overall it’s worth it.
Our, erm, peerless leader :eek: (who’s busy destroying our energy supply/capability):
Simon, not space, not quantum dynamics but speculation on the origins and extent of the universe is the bit I don’t get. And for reasons discussed by others I don’t think we can work it all out from what we can see from here. The assumptions required by any theory are just too much for this practical engineer type. And as for the unanswered questions..What was before the big bang, if there was a big bang? What’s outside the expanding universe? And most of all to quote Hillary, what difference does it make?
Rhoda – best answer here is that if you have a good-enough guess about how the universe actually works, you might be able to engineer something that turns out to be useful, and maybe essential.
If the universe we can see is a bubble in something bigger, can we get to that something, and will it be useful if we do? Did the rest of the universe exist pre Big Bang, and are we just being aware of things in it as the boundary expands?
Yep, it’s hard to work this all out from our location in time and space, but maybe in future we can get a wider baseline than the Earth’s orbit, so see more.
I’m looking at this from an engineer point of view too, but I’m seeing ways to use the knowledge practically. Maybe some of the ideas won’t work, and new theory may be not near enough to reality. Some already do, though, and normally if something works we get it better over time as people figure out next steps.
I’d be happy to be proved wrong some day in terms of the usefulness of cosmology..
@Simon:
Realize that a wire is not actually having electrons move along it at the speed of light, or really a carrier of the energy at all. The energy travels as a wave in free space… the electrons just move in response to the EM Wave… So you need to measure the speed across free space between the switch and the load, not along the wire…
Now my question is, since the E and M fields are both strong at the same time and zero at the same time, where does the energy go when both are zero?…
EM – I haven’t made sense of that yet, since when working with printed circuit board design the signal delays depended on the wire length. Thus I need to figure out what they are actually measuring here and why the air distance matters here more than wire distance.
Thus I’m not sure this is true, at least as implied here that the energy travels through the shortest path and not through the wires. A lot of other stuff such as waveguide-based delay lines wouldn’t work (and my boards would have failed, too).
Sure a spike of EMI will be radiated and take the air path, but that’s just a single spike with maybe some ringing that won’t light a bulb. The bulb should only light when the electric field has propagated down the wire path.
Rhoda – we’ll probably both be long dead before it becomes possible to visit another star. Still, without that cosmology and observations of galaxies not matching the standard theory, QI probably wouldn’t have been thought of. We should see something useful from that pretty soon.
@rhoda klapp: “What was before the big bang, if there was a big bang? ”
Based on my personal observations during July 4th festivities and then scaled up somewhat, there was a prolonged hissing sound as the fuse burned shorter and shorter.
Survival currency
https://img.patriotpost.us/01H1VFP3MNT42AFGCERR9KV127.jpeg?w=1024&dpr=1&q=75
https://patriotpost.us/memes/97741-survival-currency-2023-06-01
Simon and CQ, thank you, yes infration index and our atmosphere affects light propogation to 1.000277. Yet that has little to do with the hubble constant questions.
And it is true that different interstellar gases change the light spectrum. However only very specific aspects of it, whereas the expanison of space red shift covers the entire EM spectrum. (That is something the AI should have communicated)
Yet the distance and time correlation is there, and observing an acclerating redshift the closer one gets to the BB remains logical AFAICT if expansion is slowing down over time. So, beyond that observation, increasing red shift the further away one looks, and or the further back in time one looks, then the only other reason I have heard for accelerating expansion is that certain “standard candles” are not as bright as they should be. Yet there could be many reasons for this.
1. They have traveld longer, both time and distance, and encountered more dispersing and limiting gases.
2. Like one, but more matter or particulates encountered as well.
3. They are very old, and the early universe was smaller and denser, so even more “stuff” to encounter.
4. The early universe had a lot more interstellar gases to encounter. (Not yet coalesed into stars) More gases, less space,
5. Now that we (no longer just you) know light slows down, the early say 13.5 billion year old stars, may be further away then we think, said light from those stars having traveled through maybe several million light years of interstellar gas fields.
As to Olber’s pardox, sorry still dont get it. We do not need an infinite universe to know our biological human eye instrument simply can not see such dim radiations.
We KNOW there are what 1 to 2 billions galaxies. We know our human eye ball can only see about 5 to 6 thousand stars. We know in our own milky way there are one to two billion stars. We see a tiny fraction of them. We cant see the CMB either.
“Under the most favourable conditions, the smallest amount of light which the human eye can detect is 58–148 quanta, representing an energy of 2–6 × 10-10 ergs. This 58–148 quanta is the amount of light falling on the cornea, but only about 10 per cent (5–14 quanta) of this is actually absorbed by the retina; the rest is lost by corneal reflexion (4 per cent), absorption by ocular media (50 per cent) and passing on beyond the retina (36 per cent). In the particular experiments described, this 5–14 quanta were absorbed by an area of retina which contained about five hundred receptor cells (rods). It seems reasonable to suppose, therefore, that each quantum was absorbed by a separate receptor cell. Chemical studies have shown that one quantum of light changes (bleaches) one molecule of visual purple. The conclusion reached is that we can see a light when the energy from it is sufficient to bleach one molecule of visual purple in each of 5–14 separate receptor cells.”
I am guessing all but about six thousand stars are below whatever the quantified minimal level of light is. As stated, improve the instument and you improve the lights you see. So far every telescope invented see more stars in the same viewing area.
Oh, and I see no reason for interstellar gases to achieve a Thermal dynamic equalibrium equal to the source, which by the way, much of those thermalised gas molcules would radiate in a spectrum that humans cannot see period. Not that I am asserting an infintely deep universe filled with infinite stars. I am asserting a milkyway filled with stars that we can only see a very very very tiny fraction of, and expansion of space has AFAICT zero to do with why we cant see them.
( I dont know much, but I know this is better then reading about the most recent global insanity infecting our planet.)
All the Best
Some reading – FWIW
“An Unapologetic Defense Of The Crusades”
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/02/an-unapologetic-defense-of-the-crusades/
Cough.
Err, about those tanks and jets we promised you….
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tanks-f-16-jets-wont-be-ready-ukraine-counteroffensive-pentagon
David A – for Olber’s paradox, consider that, at a large distance, several photons from different stars can focus on the same cell in the eye, or the same pixel on a camera. As far as we know, light travels as photons, which are indivisible, though there is also an idea around that the wave can only interact with matter in specific quanta of energy – it’s necessary to always consider that our understanding of what really happens may just be wrong in some way.
Still, without that drop-off of photon energy with distance, the basic idea is that you’d see a photon anywhere you looked if the universe was infinite and had been infinite for an infinite time. Any stuff between us and the distant star would have been absorbing photons, and thus increasing its energy level (temperature) until it was radiating as much energy as it was receiving, and again in infinite time it would have reached that equilibrium. If you’ve ever looked into a blast furnace in operation, hot-enough gas certainly does visibly radiate. Thermal energy from collisions of molecules/atoms is broad-band, though you also get bright bands for atomic or molecular resonances (and dark bands from those resonances if the stuff is between you and the source and isn’t yet at the same temperature). Look at the spectrum from the Sun.
Thus the experimental fact that mostly the night-sky is dark with visible stars tells us that time for our visible universe hasn’t been infinite, and the increasing red-shift with distance suggests that things we can see are moving away from us as if they started from one point around 13.8 billion years ago.
The idea of the “standard candle” really relies on the fundamental constants having been the same over all the time and space since the Big Bang. This is normally a hidden assumption, and may not be valid. As Rhoda pointed out, we’re really looking at this from effectively one point in space and time, so we need to make guesses as to why we see what we see. Those guesses may not be right.
Yep, it’s more fun looking at this sort of stuff than reading about political problems. Still, it’s necessary to be aware that any theory may be wrong, or wrong at some level, even if it seems to hang together nicely. Also note that even a wrong theory can give correct predictions and can be practically useful even though wrong in some way. We’re also limited by language, and may not have the right words or concepts to think about or describe what’s really happening. The current picture from QI, for example, gives a really strange property of the horizon in that it responds instantly to a force here and now on an object that accelerates it, which instantly moves where the horizon exists even if that is at the boundary of our universe, and instantly re-arranges the wavelengths that fit into that distance where those waves are limited to the speed of light. The information/energy/force propagates both instantly and at the speed of light, in effect, which isn’t logically consistent. This sort of paradox (pretty common in physics) tells us that the explanation really isn’t right yet, but if we swallow (or hand-wave away) that problem and use the equations they give the right answer. Since that practically means we can produce a force without needing to eject mass, a pretty good return for a small discomfort from the cognitive dissonance.
Over time, I expect we’ll get better explanations, but along the way we will get things we can exploit to do something we want to do.
Any theory may be wrong, or wrong at some level, even if it seems to hang together nicely.
Like using AI for battlefield weapons?
What could possibly go wrong?
An AI-enabled drone turned on and “killed” its human operator during a simulated U.S. Air Force (USAF) test so that it could complete its mission
https://www.zerohedge.com/military/ai-controlled-drone-goes-rogue-kills-human-operator-simulated-us-air-force-test
Whoops!
We might hope they said “Oh well, back to the drawing board”
But our sociopathic “leaders” might see that “feature” as a benefit.
@Keith MacDonald
With those stories of “boomerang Patriot missiles” maybe it is already in practice?
“Liberation struggles”
“What’s the root cause of Robert Mugabe’s destruction of Zimbabwe, and the fact that it went on for as long as it did without anyone making a serious effort to stop it? It has a lot to do with ideas originating in the West and an academic and political culture that actively promoted the worst of them.
Smith’s fears were not based on century-old horror stories about Reconstruction. If he believed that white minorities would be run out by the new regime in spite of all prior reassurances to the contrary, it was because that’s exactly what had happened in Algeria. If he worried that the country’s economy would be knocked back to subsistence, with famine following, it was because post-colonial Africa (with the exception of oil-boom Nigeria) had seen negative per capita economic growth in the 1970s. By the time of UDI, the world already had before it the examples of Ghana (Afro-fascism), Tanzania (police state), and the Congo (civil war). Instead of asking why Smith thought Zimbabwe would go the same way, we should ask why anyone thought it would be the exception.”.
“Where Zimbabwe went wrong”
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/12/robert-mugabe-zimbabwe-descent-crisis/
Via http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/06/03/liberation-struggles/
There is a cartoon doing the rounds of a woman in the empty bakery section of a supermarket saying (IIRC)
“You know those farmers that have been killed? They used to grow the stuff that ended up here”
Nominations please for the best one-line summary of the Ukraine situation so far.
How about this?
Ukraine was losing its army, Russia was losing its prison population.
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-bakhmut-postmortem
Another first for Southern Rhodesia?
There is “The Natural Resources Act, Southern Rhodesia, 1941”
Enacted at a time when I doubt anywhere else had ever used that phrasing in a single sentence
“Emails Reveal: Bureaucrats censor radiation risk science fraud by cancelling whistleblowers; Huge implications for nuclear power and more”
But read the comments
AI weapons? What could go wrong? No, seriously. What COULD go wrong? Because Murphey’s Law says that is exactly what will happen.
Director John Carpenter way back in 1974 made a film “Dark Star” about a space ship whose job is to pre-emptively obliterate stars which may go nova before they explode and cause damage to human colonies. They have special bombs for that purpose. So what happens when an AI star-bomb has been ordered to explode but it is now jammed up in the bomb bay and won’t release properly? And remember, it has been programed to really, really, really WANT to explode. Hard to make it change its mind and peacefully return to its rack.
Some music sites linked here –
Tony in Oz ( the resident holder of much wisdom and data on the eastern Oz electrical system at Jo Nova) is also a part time musician. Some thoughts and comments at
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/06/sunday-6/#comment-2676132
Simon says…David A – for Olber’s paradox, consider that, at a large distance, several photons from different stars can focus on the same cell in the eye, or the same pixel on a camera. As far as we know, light travels as photons, which are indivisible, though there is also an idea around that the wave can only interact with matter in specific quanta of energy – it’s necessary to always consider that our understanding of what really happens may just be wrong in some way.
Simon, the last sentence is, in particular, always true, as science only sees partially, never the complete picture. Now I don’t necessarily believe in an infinite material universe. I have already stated my thoughts on the 3 dimensions, yet within those infinite fields, I see no need for the material universe to go on infinitely. I consider the possibility that the physical hangs like a ball within a much larger realm of finer forces, hanging within a much finer field of thought, and that is within the infinite, beyond all qualities and thought. (Just as a material house has a blueprint behind it, and behind the blueprint is the house in idea form only, and when the dreamer no longer dreams the house, the dreamer still is.) However this stretches well beyond the reach of science.
Nevertheless I still do not see the paradox for the reasons mentioned. In addition all material things appear to experience a form of birth, existence, and death, and who would know what parts of the universe have voids. perhaps many billions of light years wide. We know of voids many millions of light years across. We have no idea of how an infinite universe would come to be to fulfill the paradox, as it would have to avoid heat death. In addition we know of some 200 molecules created in interstellar gases, and immense fields of particulates., each creating an indelible imprint on the em field. That, plus Trillions of supernovas, and black holes and ?, (VLS) would have unknown yet definite effects on light in the VERY narrow spectrum the human eye can see, and the very limited ability to see in that visible spectrum. As stated, we see less than one millionth of what we know is there, and what we know is there is still increasing.
When Olber’s paradox was first proposed, we had no idea how close to true it was, in the sense that the number of stars, and their distance away, is continuously increasing by many magnitudes, and yet we see the same tiny tiny fraction of them. I am simply not assured that having exponentially further away ever dimmer star light traveling through ever more molecules and particles, with ever more of them ending their existence, and VLS over distance as possible, that the universe being ever bigger but ever dimmer would fulfill the paradox and would create the supposed results. It is kind of like a hemi demi semi anything, extrapolated to infinity is ever adding more, as it is ever adding less. Only each leap is not cutting the number in 1/2, but 99.99 plus percent.
I do understand a TDE (Thermal Dynamic Equilibrium_, and to some degree we have that throughout much of the universe with things changing locally via star creation, star deaths, black holes, etc. Yet always the object reaching TDE is never as energetic as the source, and often not radiating within the range of the human eye site. Nevertheless the paradox could be ok, I just think we don’t have the information needed to know that it would be. Infinities are difficult, often paradoxial within themselves.
I do agree that the red shift indicates that at least at one time the mass of the universe was moving apart at very rapid speeds, and I have no issue with a beginning. (To me hubble possibly indicates the further back in time we go, the more rapid the expansion was, not necessarily is)
Thanks for giving me something to think about beyond the GEBs!
“Post-Industrial Science”
Methane and cows
Fight back
“Explainer: How to Remove the Pride Flag Microsoft Added to the Windows 11 Taskbar”
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/06/05/explainer-how-to-remove-the-pride-flag-microsoft-added-to-the-windows-11-taskbar/
FWIW
Looks like more “jab post release testing” results emerging from under the carpet
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/bio-shocks-monday-june-5-2023-c-and?r=1vxw0k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
I HIGHLY recommend the article linked to above by another ian, the “jab post release testing” post at substack.
Toast to the ones here today!
Looks like the Kakhovka damn on the Dniper river has been blown, causing flooding in the southern end of the line of contact.
Western Media and Ukraine are claiming Russia blew it up. Russia is saying Ukraine did it. I watched the DW (German) report on it. They had various folks (including “experts”…) saying all the benefit of blowing it up accrues to the Russians. My reaction was “Yeah, right. Cutting off the water supply to Crimea and forcing a loss of cooling water access on the nuclear power plant sure helps Russia /sarc;”
This is a dam on a long river with the lake backing up almost to Dnipro. Ukraine was trying to bomb dams on this river back at the earlier stages of the SMO, so Russia pulled back forces from the low land on the western side in Kherson (near the Black Sea). So there’s history of Ukraine going after dams.
https://www.google.com/maps/search/kakhovka+dam/@46.7276216,32.2449029,8z?entry=ttu
What I see is Russia gets 3 major PITAs out of this:
1) Water supply to Crimea cut off. (An army and a civilization needs water). This makes it harder to hold a near desert region.
2) Flooding downstream of the dam makes a land approach to Odessa impossible; at least until the flooding subsides and the ground dries out again. The blocks any Russian attempt to capture Odessa without coming all the way down from Dnipro.
3) Potentially, this makes cooling water supply to the Zaporizhzhia power plant unreliable. This depends on how the cooling water intake was designed – long pipe to historic river, or short intake from near shore. Also, looking at the map, I can’t tell if the nuclear plant depends on the lake at all. So this needs some digging to know for sure. But a shutdown of the nuclear power plant might be in order, reducing electric power to the region. It certainly presents a problem / question requiring analysis.
There’s a minor 4th in that the next dam upstream is now an obvious target as well; but it was before this anyway. Just how much more urgency is added is hard to say.
Advantages to Russia? Crickets….
The MSM is trying to sell the idea that this was done to cut off the Ukrainian Offensive in the south… yeah, right. Russia has solid defenses and gets a massive kill ratio advantage out of Ukrainian’s “attacking” (i.e. entering the kill box of Russian artillery). I just don’t see where Russia gains anything at all out of blowing this dam and hydro-power station.
I wonder if anyone has surveillance from space on the attack on the dam… and will they share it…
Looking into the nuclear plant location, it IS on the bank of the lake, well down stream from the town of the same name that is outside the lake area itself. It looks like the plant is definitely dependent on the lake for cooling water. So the only “open question” is how far out to the middle of the lake / historic river channel did the designers extend the cooling water intake?
https://www.google.com/maps/search/Zaporizhzhia+power+plant/@47.5218082,34.6073021,10.4z?entry=ttu
Basically, did they put a long pipe to where the river would be IF the dam failed, or did they put the intake closer to shore on the assumption that the lake would always be there. 2 miles of pipe, or a few hundred meters?
I’d have built it to function with only the historic river. What did 1950’s era Soviets do? Who knows… But I’d guess they figured on just an emergency shutdown and fix the dam…
David A – basic problem with the question of an infinite universe is that, if you specify a boundary, what’s beyond that boundary…. Thus we cannot conceive of infinity, but also can’t conceive of a boundary with nothing at all the other side of that boundary.
With QI, and Rindler horizons, that gives a boundary beyond which nothing that is there can affect us, because the light from it can never reach us, which nicely sidesteps the question about whether or not there is anything there the other side of that boundary.
Same way as we can’t conceive of a boundary on time. Time itself should continue even in a universe with no particles in it, but in that case we couldn’t measure the passing of time since nothing would change. To be able to measure time, we need at least two particles moving relative to each other. Also means we need to be able to measure distance and size of those particles or waves.
The main thing as a result of Olber’s Paradox is that we know that the universe we can see is not infinite and has not been there for an infinite time. The reasons we can’t see for an infinite distance may not be what we currently think they are, though. The rate of time may not be constant, the speed of light may not be constant, and the fundamental constants may not have been constant over time and space.
Back to Rhoda’s point about whether it matters, though. If we can figure out what’s really happening, we can maybe find out how to do things that currently seem impossible, such as how to travel faster than light, how to make energy from nothing, how to lift and propel cars and spacecraft without ejecting matter to get a reaction, and maybe some other nifty stuff. Hard to say what else may be practically possible, though those three now look possible at least. Star-trek transporters?
It’s useful to first see that a paradox exists in our current theories, and better when you can find a resolution of them.
Yep, much better than following what the GGEBs are doing, though it’s still necessary to be aware of what they are doing.
Latest report is that it is the Flood Gates at the top of the dam which were destroyed and that the lower section of dam is intact (though there may be erosion from the large water flow over the damage). Water level will not drop to “river level” but to some higher “top of dam below flood gates” level.
Also Russia announced that the nuclear power plant is on an isolated cooling water loop and not in danger. Eventually the heat has to be dumped outside the closed loop, so there’s a loose end there. Water tower that needs makeup water? Open secondary loop to the lake? So a bit more “Dig Here!” to find out if longer term, as the lake drops, there might be cooling issues in a secondary loop. Or will a portable or emergency pump fire hose to the Dniper be enough?
In May 2023, the NYT published an article saying Ukraine was shelling toward the dam, and that Russia had blown up part of a road leading to the dam flood gates (to prevent vehicle access one assumes).
Which causes me to ask:
Since Russia controlled the area of the dam, and was taking steps to protect the gates of the dam: WHY would Russia blow up the gates when they could just open them if they desired to cause flooding?
I think we have another Nordstream 2 situation. Following the Rules For Radicals dictate to “accuse your opponent of what you do”… as standard USA Dimocrat Practice. So I’m pretty certain that Ukraine blew the gates and then blamed Russia for what they did (since that seems to be the modus operandi of their handlers, the Democrats & Euro GEBs) while Russia seems to try to protect and restore any infrastructure that they capture. For that matter, Russia looks like it only tries to damage any Ukrainian infrastructure that is of direct military benefit and not damage any other.
So I’m just not buying it that Russia did the deed. There has also been a claim on Sky News (IIRC) that this is a “War Crime” (and they cited the legal chapter and verse…) under the conventions of war; including underlining in red “dams” as protected infrastructure. So it is now a “mass destruction” and “war crime”. Interesting that they had that ready to roll in an hour or two and didn’t need to wait for the research department to finish morning tea and report back…
Frankly, this exactly fits the GEB/USA Dims/Ukraine pattern of “psychological war” and emphasis on the Psycho part… with them doing the “Demonize and Diss” at every turn. It does not at all fit the Russian pattern of strict adherence to contracts and rule of law along with enforcement of treaties.
As this unfolds, expect more Hype & Holler from The West about how horrible the Russians are in this “War Crime!!!”… while asking yourself “Why blow up the gates you have been protecting, when you can just open them?”
So far, The West & Ukraine lie at every turn; while Russia is repeatedly shown to have been accurate in their reports. (Ghost Of Kiev anyone?…) The West is trying to create a revolution in Russia and dismember it after deposing Putin: that takes a psyop and lots of lying. Russia is busy protecting ethnic Russians and doing exactly what they said they would do: De-Nazify Ukraine and Degrade the opposition military. That takes direct military force-on-force along with a conservation of forces doctrine. Which is again exactly what we see Russia doing. It does not degrade Ukrainian military to flood the line of contact with them and prevent your own advancement into the area of Odessa (where there are a lot of ethnic Russians to protect)…
So I’m calling Bull Shit on the notion that Russia blew up their own dam and blocked their own preferred line of advance toward Odessa along with damaging water supply to their citizens and forces in Crimea.
@Simon & David A.:
A morsel for thought.
As you approach the speed of light, time dilation slows your clock, asymptotic to zero.
Therefore: A photon ought to experience the stoppage of time since, by definition it is traveling at the speed of light.
So a photon is a particle / wave of energy that experiences no passage of time… As far as it is concerned, EVERY thing along its path of travel from The Big Bang to now is all happening at once. It is at all places from then to here and now all “at the same time”.
Perhaps this explains why you can change the “path” of a photon after it has “passed a point” by installing a barrier on the other point. (That experiment where the photon seems to be taking both paths without a barrier as you get wave interference but if you insert a barrier after the photon has passed a point, it then only takes the other path… forgot the name of the experiment…) BUT if the photon “sees” all of time the same, then when the barrier is inserted, that’s just the way it as been “for all of time” to the photon…
So now ponder: IF all of light (and that includes radio waves, infrared, X-rays, Gama etc.) exists “out of time” what are the implications? Is ‘time’ a construct that only applies to matter? Does matter “create time” by virtue of not moving? Is matter just an end case of photons that are not moving so creating time? (We can spall off photons from bits of matter by smashing them together – so doesn’t that imply that matter is full of photons and might even be made of them?) So “we” exist in passing time, but photons do not. Will the universe never end for photons since they do not have any time passing in which to have the universe end? If the universe does not end for them, how can it end for us?
Is gravity just a construct of slow photons as well? How can you have curved ‘space-time” without time? So once matter exists, time exists for it, and now it can influence the space-time around it. What happens if you fill the space around a bit of matter with a flood of photons? Can that screen off the rest of the matter in the universe with a wall of “no time” in between? Might that allow things like exotic craft? (AKA UFOs that move in strange ways…)
Or is all this speculation just an artifact of Wrong Think due to the zeros and infinities in the math causing things to be “Just Wrong”? (Like divide by zero in the passage of time for a photon so you must use the calculus approach of increments and imply zero time at the last increment…)
For me, time is “rate of change”. No change, no time. That does, indeed, affect differentiation and integration (math, like a map, is an abstraction). Also, to me, an infinitely long wave length implies no change (and maybe entails that, too). Real EMF, it seems, must have a finite wavelength so you can measure the amplitude vector and derive its scalar magnitude. What’s outside of that? We’ll never know unless He that Is tells us. I’d like to be able to ask Him that, if He’ll let me.
EM – gets more mind-bending if you’re travelling with the photon. It wiggles back and forth (OK, the electromagnetic field is varying), but there’s no time for that to happen in, and the whole universe looks like a two-dimensional plane we’re passing through at right-angles to it.
There’s thus paradox here, which means our theories are wrong. Work OK for things we’ve looked at so far, but can’t be what’s really happening.
Yep, some maths problems from zeroes and infinities, and using point models, but those can be overcome. The underlying model is probably wrong, but we haven’t got a better one yet.
Part of QI involves shielding from part of the universe, and that seems to practically work even though there’s paradox there, too.
If matter is made of photons, then why do particles collide? Why also can electrons and positrons act as particles, but if they fuse you get two gammas that can pass through each other? Plus you can take those two gammas and theoretically make a positron and electron from them, though more-normally you’d do that with a single gamma of twice the energy and hit a nucleus which absorbs the momentum change.
Lots of stuff I used to think I understood has become more mysterious the deeper I’ve been digging.
He is back.
EMS was asking earlier about non-naked survival shows. This one features people fully clothed, but not dropped off by the side of the road. Instead they are dropped off in remote locations with their choice of 10 items, each alone. The show starts in a couple of days on the History channel.
The History Channel has set a June 8, 2023 premiere date for season 10 of Alone. The new season will air on Thursdays at 9pm ET/PT and will feature 10 survivalists vying to be the last person standing and collect the $500,000 grand prize.
https://www.showbizjunkies.com/tv/alone-season-10-preview/