Weekend Unthreaded

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405 comments to Weekend Unthreaded

  • #

    Interesting article conflating the difficulties of brexit with the left wing pressure on trump.

    Makes the interesting point that if trump had won and antifa and BLM had occupied the Capitol the MSM would likely have applauded them as fighters for freedom

    https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/brexiteers-so-perilously-close-to-being-cancelled/

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Goebbels and the New American Terror

      What purpose did it serve for President-elect Joe Biden to liken Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) to Adolf Hitler’s top propagandist Joseph Goebbels?

      In response to a question about the two Republican lawmakers following remarks on January 8, Biden said, “I was being reminded by a friend of mine…when we’re told [about] Goebbels and the great lie, you keep repeating the lie, repeating the lie.”

      Although Biden’s comparison was imperfectly stated, it was clear enough to follow. He was saying that the lawmakers’ efforts to challenge the Electoral College votes from disputed states was a Nazi-like effort.

      By speaking this way, Biden did many things at once. First, he whitewashed Goebbels’ barbaric crimes. Goebbels was the chief architect of totalitarianism in Nazi Germany and one of the lead architects of the Holocaust.

      In his literary warning about the fragility of freedom and the allure of totalitarianism, 1984, George Orwell demonstrated that total control over a society is achieved through total control over the information its members can see.

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      • #
        Ian

        “Although Biden’s comparison was imperfectly stated, it was clear enough to follow. He was saying that the lawmakers’ efforts to challenge the Electoral College votes from disputed states was a Nazi-like effort.”

        I disagree. Biden was doing nothing of the kind. He was saying Cruz and Hawley were following Goebels’ dictum to keep repeating the lie. A dictum Trump followed impeccably

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        • #
          R.B.

          It’s misattributed to Goebels. It’s actually one of Hitler’s accusation against Jews.

          Only because you blindly believe that its not true that you accept Biden’s lie that its some kind of Nazi conspiracy.

          Who is trying to push lie often and for long enough?

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        • #

          The left consistently accuses the opposition of what they are doing.

          I don’t know what will happen in the next few days, yet even if President Trump leaves public office, hope is not done…

          Excepting some very major surprise, President Trump will leave public office, yet there may be some unexpected long term affects from the Trump Presidency…

          Of course, as many have noted, 75 to 80 million patriots are not going away. The number one goal of any sane Republican party should be election reform. ( Without that, 100 million won’t matter) with truly fair elections anything may happen as global economics are fragile.

          The internet will find a way, and many millions of customers will flow into alternative venues.

          President Trump has been the great centrifuge, exposing the deep state ugliness, not just to US citizens, yet to the world as well. And he has exposed their global ambitions as well. And many soverighn nations don’t want to be ruled by the global fascists with their multi-nationals. This will have many repercussions in the future, as half the world says no to one world rule.

          Domestically the Rhinos are now exposed. Will citizen Trump truly reform the Republican party, or start a new one? Will he be able to?

          The half of the world that wants one world rule, working hand in hand with the multi nationals, will begin to fight among themselves. Over what? Why over who really rules. Will the US and European statist choose to become puppets to the China statists?
          History and the dark side of human nature indicate not.

          Economies and monetary systems are all very fragile, trust is very low. A reset of some sort is likely, and while we have general ideas on what reset the one world statist want, are there other, possibly more benign, forms it could take?

          President Trump’s astounding work in the middle East will not vanish. His domestic policies, and foreign policies were astoundingly successful, including the ideal of not starting foreign wars, withdrawing troops, etc… I think his policies have legs, and will look ever better to a watching world. History may be very kind to Donald Trump, and he may not be done.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Quick Question – Has Heels up Harris resigned her Senate Seat in California?

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      • #
        OldOzzie

        Biden is one letter away from bidet. I don’t yet know what to make of that?

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          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            But we’re supposed to believe this guy won 81 million votes?

            Without getting down too far into the weeds on the alleged election fraud, I don’t think it’s hard to understand that millions of voters in the centre 10-20% voted against Trump, rather than for Biden.

            A lot of people it seems were very motivated to ensure that Donald Trump was a one-term president. They probably would have voted for a tree-stump painted blue.

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            • #
              Kalm Keith

              Why did I know you were going to say that?

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              • #
                Tilba Tilba

                Why did I know you were going to say that?

                Well, I don’t think you need to be an expert on US politics to be convinced that many people voted against Trump, rather than being driven by Joe Biden’s charisma and magnetism.

                Would you not agree?

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            • #
              Peter C

              A lot of people it seems were very motivated to ensure that Donald Trump was a one-term president. They probably would have voted for a tree-stump painted blue

              That is probably very true. All those people who are about to be indicted for treason against the state.

              Stand By!

              I am told that Trump won 75% of the real vote, including tipping California.

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              • #
                Peter C

                Dear Moderators,

                Please explain why my comments (all of them) are now put into moderation?

                [No idea but all were released]AD

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              • #
                Peter C

                Thank you AD

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              • #
                Tilba Tilba

                All those people who are about to be indicted for treason against the state.

                Are you suggesting that voting Democrat makes someone a traitor? And who would do the indicting?

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            • #
              Kalm Keith

              “a tree-stump painted blue.”

              With most large, stubborn tree stumps it’s probably easier to just dynamite them.

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            • #
              Kalm Keith

              It seems I made a really dynamite comment and it’s been taken out of context by the auto mod.

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            • #
              Wokebuster

              Let’s not forget the headstones also voted against Trump on mass. Between the stumps and the headstones, he was always up against it. Curious how his vote share increased by 11.5 million though.

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          • #
            OldOzzie

            HERE THEY ARE: The Five Most Obvious Acts of Fraud in the 2020 Election that You Are No Longer Allowed to Discuss

            FIVE MOST SIGNIFICANT ACTS OF FRAUD IN THE 2020 ELECTION:

            1.) The Georgia Late Night Hidden Suitcase Hoist:
            2.) The Drop and Roll — Shutting down six states and then dumping hundreds of thousands of late-night votes for Joe Biden
            3.) Blocking GOP Poll Watchers in the counting rooms in swing states
            4.) Flipped votes from Trump to Joe Biden on Live TV
            5.) USPS postal service drivers speak out after they were told to transfer up to 288,000 completed ballots across state lines after the election.

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            • #
              OldOzzie

              Remember When Hollywood Said It Was ‘Patriotic’ and ‘Heroic’ to Overturn Trump’s Election?

              Remember when was “sedition” was “patriotic”? When “treason” was “voting your conscience”? Or when a “coups de grace” was “support and solidarity”? It’s understandable if you don’t remember, after all, it was four long years ago in an election far, far away.

              There’s been a lot of hyperbolic gobbledygook said about Donald Trump since then, so it’s understandable that this dreck dribbled down the memory hole of dumb things uttered by dumb people.

              Four years ago, the Hollywood glitterati produced a video asking Republican members of the Electoral College to ignore the voters and instead dump Donald Trump. They called the video “Unite For America” to “support the electors.”

              Oddly, calling for overturning an election was not dismissed out of hand as treasonous or seditious as it is now.

              Now, instead of being refused seats on swanky Harvard University committees like Representative Elise Stefanik or being “un-personed” like brilliant Harvard graduates Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Dan Crenshaw, Hollywood encouraged the electors to be “heroic” and dump Trump because it was “patriotic.”

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          • #
            OldOzzie

            Biden Is Already Rewarding Failure

            BY ROBERT SPENCER

            When Sundown Joe takes office on Wednesday, the old gang will be back in the saddle again: the foreign policy establishment hacks who have done nothing but fail, fail, and fail again, and in response keep getting rewarded not with dismissal and a forced return to private life, but with honors, awards, and promotions. AFP reported Saturday that Biden has appointed Wendy Sherman, whose chief claim to fame is negotiating the notorious Iran nuclear deal, to be deputy secretary of state. It’s a classic example of failing up.

            Biden said of Sherman and anti-Russia career diplomat Victoria Nuland, whom he named undersecretary for political affairs, that they “have secured some of the most defining national security and diplomatic achievements in recent memory. I am confident that they will use their diplomatic experience and skill to restore America’s global and moral leadership. America is back.”

            Well, that may be overstating the case, but there is no doubt that the disastrous State Department “experts” are back

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        • #
          TedM

          Perhaps one step away from the great flush.

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  • #

    Can anyone clarify what the ‘counterstrike’ against Australia by china might be?

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9154059/China-threatens-counterstrike-Australia-condemns-Beijings-assault-Hong-Kong-democracy.html

    Presumably more trade bans and tariffs but I don’t think their ban on on OZ coal has gone down well with Chinese citizens experiencing the resultant power cuts

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    • #
      Gf

      Tony I don’t know. But if I was them I would not stop Ausi exports to China but would stop all Chinese exports to Australia which will smash our non manufacturing consumer economy.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        We could place tariffs on Chinese imports much as they have with our exports to China.

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        • #
          Tilba Tilba

          We could place tariffs on Chinese imports much as they have with our exports to China.

          There seems little point.

          The alleged purposes of tariffs are (1) to protect local manufacturers, (2) to give other possible suppliers a better market chance, and (3) to stop dumping of goods at really low prices.

          I therefore can’t see a good outcome from tariffs on Chinese imports – about 90% of consumer goods come from there, we do not have the capacity to make them ourselves, all you’re doing is imposing a tax on all Australians, and finally – we are a tiny, tiny percentage of China’s total export economy … they would even notice, let alone care.

          Our only leverage is coal and iron … but they are also a significant portion of our national income. We are rich and comfortable because of China … it is high-risk to ignore that reality.

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          • #
            Klem

            I don’t think Australia has a choice. The government must arrange economic incentives to bring manufacturing back to Oz, like Trump did beginning in 2017.

            And Oz needs to stop doing business with countries that plan to destroy it, maybe start doing business with India. India’s population will soon exceed China’s, it will likely become the first 2 billion person country within 50 years. And India is a parliamentary democracy, not a soul crushing communist dictatorship. Its time to move on. India is the future, China is the past.

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            • #
              Tilba Tilba

              I don’t think Australia has a choice. The government must arrange economic incentives to bring manufacturing back to Oz, like Trump did beginning in 2017.

              I don’t disagree at all, but it’s going to be really hard egg to unscramble.

              Just walk through all the department and hardware stores, plus clothing and footwear, or furnishings and electronics – to see how much stuff is made in China. Food and drink are the only areas where “Australian” products still dominate.

              When I was a kid just about everything consumable was made here, and mostly by companies that were owned here. Except cars – I remember roads clogged with Morris, Austin, Vauxhall … and lots of other very ordinary products, before the Japanese invasion.

              But in reality, while Aussie (and US) jobs were shipped offshore, almost all consumers grabbed cheap consumer items from Japan then China with both hands … and here we are.

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    • #
      Earl

      “I don’t think their ban on on OZ coal has gone down well with Chinese citizens experiencing the resultant power cuts” – a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. China has a potential mass population revolt issue that goes hand in hand with any attempt to “punish” us so they are not so strongly positioned as some might think.

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      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        Earl,

        I’m not sure about that.

        CCP has a million+ Peoples’ Liberation Army (PLA) to ensure that the Chinese stay liberated, even it it means killing them to do so.

        The don’t care. They are Nihilists.

        The West is repeating the actions of Clement Attlee, another Labour Party buffoon, who was prepared to sell out to the Third Reich because he thought fascists were OK – especially socialist fascists. That’s generally the view of the left. They quite like fascists.

        Accordingly, until the West gets the lessons it’s so overdue for, we can expect China to do as it pleases.

        Call me sceptical.

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Victoria, especially, has been given its lesson.

          How much chance is there that they will understand what has happened and vote accordingly?

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          • #
            Peter C

            Not much. It makes me very sad to say it.

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            • #
              Kalm Keith

              NSW is no better.
              We have a token fem prem; Berys Gladachikliken, her job is to give a soft face to all the special deals done that may be a bit “overpriced”.
              Must keep the supporters well fed above all else.

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              • #
                William

                True Keith, the NSW government is very much a RINO led affair and has green policies that should shame each and every member, unfortunately most are part of a faction that owe their seats to a renowned renewable rent seeker.

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          Lucky

          Sceptical Sam: you may want to revise names and dates, 3rd Reich dates, Atlee UK PM from 1945..

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          • #
            Sceptical Sam

            Lucky.

            I’m sure you know that Attlee was a pacifist and Leader of the Labour Party in 1935. He opposed re-armament and helped ensure Great Britain was unprepared for the coming disaster. Too late, and realizing he was wrong, he joined Churchill in coalition in 1940.

            Chamberlain has been criticized for being the appeaser. However, he delayed and appeased to find time for Britain to re-arm.

            That’s the lesson the West has learn again. The left are slow learners it seems which results from their love affair with the socialists of all types.

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  • #
    dinn, rob

    “They want a single world government, a single army, a single currency, a single economy, also a single religion” https://balance10.blogspot.com/2021/01/they-want-single-world-government.html

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    • #
      PeterS

      Yes, that’s what they want and they will achieve it by whatever means but only for a relatively short while until Jesus returns to destroy them.

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        el gordo

        A single religion would be best and bring an end to religious wars. What would unify all religions into one?

        We have a single economy, working in orderly fashion apart from occasional trade wars.

        A single currency is now emerging, Bitcoin and the like. Beijing tries to dampen it down, to stop speculation, while Elon Musk said he would put all his money into Bitcoin if it wasn’t already tied up.

        The concept of a single army may take a little while to bring about, but I imagine as international tensions ease and natural disasters increase because of global cooling, then all armed forces around the world will be there for disaster relief.

        A single world government is undesirable and won’t happen, viva la difference.

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        • #
          PeterS

          You just contradicted yourself. You are one of those who don’t have a clue what’s happening. Go back to sleep.

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          GARETH LEWIS

          I can almost hear John Lennon singing along in the background, but you make some good points. Nonetheless the world I perceive has a “one step forwards two steps back” approach to a One World Government kumbaya future. Mistrust and fear of “the other” is hard-wired into us, surely? This applies for all others beyond the various concepts of “tribe” to which we imagine we belong.

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            el gordo

            Racism is natural, part of a primitive defence mechanism, but if they play our sport, speak our language and have a sense of humour, then they are as good as gold.

            World government is unnecessary and a revamped UN should be adequate.

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              PeterS

              I thought you agreed to go back to sleep. Please stop talking about things you don’t have a clue about.

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              • #
                el gordo

                I was raised in a strict catlike family and have an interest in theology, the cardinal instills fear in the ignorant masses.

                .“But above all, they are creating fear, a terrible fear among the people,” he warned.

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        • #
          Harry Passfield

          If you have a single, One World Government, why would you need an army?

          As for a single religion…oh dear.

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          • #
            el gordo

            I’m not in favour of world government and it won’t happen on my watch. The point is, governments already use the armed forces for disaster relief, Morrison evacuated people from south east Australia during the bushfire season. So as global cooling exacerbates the situation, their services will be useful.

            On the question of religion, it would require an external catalyst like the long prophesied return of the holy ghost.

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              PeterS

              Goes to show how little you know about God; zilch. The Holy Spirit remained here on earth to take the place of the Jesus as He left earth to go back to Heaven to be with His Father. Repent and be saved by the Grace of God through faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for you sake.

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                el gordo

                Importantly he will be there at the end.

                ‘If the Spirit were not present during the tribulation, no one could be saved. But the fact is that a multitude that no one can number is saved during the tribulation (Revelation 7:9–14). Therefore, those who come to Jesus during the tribulation period will also be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Give glory to God for making that provision, because tribulation saints will need the guidance and direction of the Spirit during that troubled time.’

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                PeterS

                So all you now have to do is admit you were wrong when you implied that the Holy Spirit/Ghost wasn’t here already. Otherwise, you would be blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, which is the one and only unpardonable sin.

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              • #
                el gordo

                All I’m saying is that Jesus cannot return alone otherwise the Jews might get upset.

                The spirit has been with us for a long time, never interfering in our puny wars, but when we let off the bomb it was all over red rover. This is according to Admiral Byrd.

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              • #
                PeterS

                Yes He is not returning alone, He is returning with an “army” of angels. The Holy Spirit has been among us since the beginning but never remained in any of us until the Day of Pentecost when the disciples witness the birth of the New Testament church in the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell all believers.

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              • #
                el gordo

                Its quite clear the angels are already here and they don’t have wings.

                https://www.history.com/news/ufo-sightings-speed-appearance-movement

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              • #
                PeterS

                I know you are trying to make fun of Jesus. Your tune will change when you see Him.

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              • #
                el gordo

                I have seen his works, without our big moon we wouldn’t be here.

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          • #
            Just Thinkin'

            Harry,

            “If you have a single, One World Government, why would you need an army?”

            To control the masses and stop any form of rebellion.

            Why do you think the CCP has and army? To keep their slaves in their place.

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        • #
          WXcycles

          What would unify all religions into one?

          No religion before Quaternary, paradoxically intelligence involved, plus abundant fungi in herbivore dung. Walking along feeling peckish, look over and medicine-man is eating goldcaps from a pile of bollocks, having visions of flying cars, cooking shows and Baywatch. Better write that down, invents leather scroll, needs to invent cuniform tablets for tithing, sells Indulgences. Only our indulgences work = sectarian warfare, the Woke go back to psycho-actives. Woke 2021.

          What would unify all religions into one?

          When great boogieman in the sky stories no longer work, and kiddies watch pron on their psycho-active programming device instead.

          Enlightenment™ by Google Ads.

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          Hanrahan

          So you believe the EU to be a roaring success?

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          • #
            el gordo

            Over the centuries empires have grown up and dissolved, Britain got out of the EU just in time. Political cultures are difficult to meld.

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        • #
          OldOzzie

          Comparative Theology as a Liberal Art

          Bin Song

          Theorists of comparative theology (CT)’s reluctance to fully recognize the CT of Keith Ward’s type as
          theology derive from their conception of theology limited by the Thomist model of “faith seeking
          understanding.” By investigating Aristotle’s theology as integral to philosophy as a way of life in ancient
          Greek thought, we can rediscover the disciplinary nature of CT as a liberal art. This resource of CT
          alternative to the dominant Christian models furnishes general terms and concepts to pursue CT from
          a non-Christian perspective such as Ruism (Confucianism).
          The Ruist view on inter-traditional
          learning, which can be portrayed as a “seeded, open inclusivism,” provides an enriched vision to advance
          the contemporary study of CT as a genuinely global enterprise.*

          Key Words: philosophy as a way of life, theology, Aristotle, liberal arts, “seeded, open inclusivism,”
          Wang Longxi, Ruism, Confucianism, Comparative Theology

          Theorists of comparative theology (CT) are concerned with resources of CT alternative to the
          dominant Christian models.1 As a CT theorist and a scholar working on comparisons of Ruism
          (Confucianism) and Christianity,
          2 I cannot help asking the following question: how does a Ru do
          CT today?

          The question can be furthermore elaborated as follows: if scholars identify themselves with
          Ruism, a comprehensive way of life, what is the significance and method for them to learn from
          comprehensive traditions other than Ruism? To answer it, Ru scholars need to present a Ruist
          project similar to the Christian theology of religions in order to provide a general framework for a
          Ruist CT.
          Within this framework, a cluster of minor issues need to be clarified such as what
          “theology” means for Ruism, how comparative a Ru theology can be, and of what significance
          theological comparison is to Ruism.

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      • #
        el gordo

        ‘ … until Jesus returns to destroy them.’

        Not sure about that, to bring about peace and harmony on planet earth it maybe necessary for the father and holy ghost to join him.

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      • #
        Ian

        As all religions claim theirs’ is the one and only God how does that compute? They can’t all be right. Perhaps that’s why there has been so many wars in the name of religion.

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      Furiously curious

      The new original sin is emerging from the new religion………………You are born white.

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      dinn, rob

      Meet Luo Qiang, Ye Xiang and Mu Lina!! Their pictures (bios now seem gone too) are totally scrubbed from the net, but at least Ye Xiang is a very very big fish. No picture at all? Find one, even one. But check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQSd1JEt0Zo Yet various fact-check laundry this whole matter repeatedly. O? HIDE.

      12-15-20 Based on public information, Ye Xiang served on the board of both UBS Securities LLC and UBS Securities Co. Ltd. until his name was removed from both entities.  Ye had been chairman of the board at UBS Beijing for more than 10 years. He previously worked at the Chinese regime’s central bank, the state-owned Bank of China, as well as the Hong Kong government’s financial regulatory agencies. He is also the founder of a China-based asset management firm VisionGain Capital Limited.
      Luo Qiang, another board member at UBS Securities LLC, also served on the board of UBS Beijing between 2004 and 2012. Mu Lina, who was a board member of the New York subsidiary, worked as the director of wealth management funds and head of fund operations at UBS Beijing, based on public information. Mu was previously a board member of China TransInfo, a major surveillance camera producer in China. It provides big data and artificial intelligence to Chinese authorities. Its chairman is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member. Mu served as a board member at China TransInfo for the past six years until she left the position in September.
      UBS group became the first foreign company to own a full securities operation license in China in 2018. The company’s board and executives are all Chinese nationals with strong ties to the CCP. https://www.ntd.com/ownership-of-dominion-draws-scrutiny-after-unusual-fundraising_540924.html

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      William

      They are working on a single world religion, it is known as AGW/MMCC – or more precisely, rampant alarmism with the Church anointing its saints – Greta, Attenborough, Gore, Flannery and the like. A gullible religion, worshipped by the gormless and led by the rent seekers.

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      dinn, rob

      1-16-21 Friday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson questioned Democrats’ push for so-called unity, which he suggested modeled conformity. Carlson said: Even Democrats considered Joe Biden a sad old fool, worn out, empty, and confused, a ghost from a working-class union centered Democratic Party that disappeared decades before. Again, that was just in February, but next week, Joe Biden will be sworn in as President of the United States.
      How exactly did that all happened? How Biden went from a much-mocked afterthought, liked by some, but respected by nobody, to becoming the single most powerful man in the world at the age of almost 80 is a remarkable story.
      Someday when the mania recedes and we can agree to stop lying for a moment, it will be told. But in the meantime, here’s part of that story. Joe Biden didn’t seem scary. That was not a small thing in a year when our core institutions appeared to be falling apart. Biden’s PR team told voters that Donald Trump he was a divisive figure. Even many of Donald Trump’s own voters had to admit there was some truth in that, so Biden pledged to be the opposite. Biden promised to be America’s gentle grandfather, gathering the nation around the hearth, soothing hurt feelings. Biden promised to unite the country. He said so again and again.
      (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: We want us to hear one another again, see one another again, respect one another again. So, let’s begin the work to heal, to unite. The only way we can do it is to come together, to come together as fellow Americans, as neighbors. If we open our arms rather than brandishing our fists, we can, with the help of God, heal. (END VIDEO CLIP)
      CARLSON: Holy smokes, yes. Let’s begin the work to heal, to unite, to come together as neighbors, to open her arms to the people around us. They are Americans too. All of us live under God, we should be united. That was the pitch. He seemed to kind of mean it. https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/16/tucker-carlson-democrats-promoting-a-new-version-of-reconstruction-in-the-name-of-unity/

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      Tilba Tilba

      “They want a single world government, a single army, a single currency, a single economy, also a single religion”

      That’s a lot of paranoia and conspiracy wrapped up in one small package!

      It’s fantasy … there aren’t a hundred powerful people on the planet who can agree on ANYTHING, and that’s been the case for millennia. Who are these magical “they” who can overcome jealousy, competition, greed, suspicion, distrust, and lust for power on their own accord? Let alone incompetence, mismanagement and lack of emotional intelligence.

      It would be interesting to have a beer with a few of them. Speaking of which, neither Trump nor Biden appeal to me as someone to have a beer with.

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        el gordo

        This place seems to thrive on conspiracy theories. There is no ‘they’, some of the punters have fevered imaginations.

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  • #
    RicDre

    The Ocean Warming Enigma

    There has been a nice discussion on Twitter, regarding the GWPF’s latest bulletin inconveniently pointing out that there has been no global warming in the last 5 years

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/16/the-ocean-warming-enigma/

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      el gordo

      From that post I grabbed this graph of sea surface temperatures and its clear to see that natural variables rule.

      https://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst3gl

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      • #
        RickWill

        When I see charts like this and claims that they mean anything, I have a chuckle.

        The BoM in Australia disregard any temperature measurement in Australia before 1920 as unreliable. And yet here are HadCRUT giving temperature anomaly data for the entire sea surface going back to 1840. The credibility of the organisation is in serious question when they even purport to call this rubbish “data”.

        The only reliable measurement of sea surface temperature is provided by the tropical moored buoys. They show no trend over the past 40 years:
        https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg3j-MHBpf4wRGuhf

        Earth’s surface temperature is thermostatically controlled. And completely independent of CO2. If you see data that purports to show a trend, look for the measurement errors.

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          WXcycles

          Not one of these captured anything unusual occurring in any region of the planet during the past 40 years.

          https://notrickszone.com/2018/05/03/its-here-a-1900-2010-instrumental-global-temperature-record-that-closely-aligns-with-paleo-proxy-data/

          Total mass-media and UN beat up.

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          el gordo

          Rick do you have a link to where these moored buoys are located?

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            RickWill

            This is the data display for the Pacific moored buoys. There are moored buoys in the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean as well.
            https://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/drupal/disdel/

            Not all buoys have the full array of data. And no buoy is without some missing data. Despite that they are a rich source of reasonably reliable data. It does not require the data torturing that data from satellites go through to produce something meaningful.

            Once you know the Earth’s thermostat is more reliable then an measurement system yet devised to measure temperature you soon begin to recognise reliable data. For the average surface temperature to have a trend other than zero inside millennia there would need to be an asteroid hit that altered the ocean circulations. Nuking the Bering Strait could cause a lot of Europe to get cold but that would be something we would likely know about and could be returned to current state with Of course there are certainly higher temperatures in heavily populated locations. Just shutting dow the power to ever city centre and removing cars from the streets would make a large dent in the currently measured global warming. City centres are the only locations that show any warming trend over the last 50 years. Arguably the burning of fossil fuels has caused the increased temperature but not due to the CO2 mixed into the atmosphere, rather just the heat of combustion and inefficient use of energy.

            I expect Earth will even leap the next cyclic period of glaciation; making the next 100kyr or so quite balmy even around the North Atlantic.

            Just spent the morning mowing the grass on my son’s block. It shows the signs of atmospheric CO2 enrichment plus good seasonal rain throughout 2020 in Melbourne. His grass is beyond lush; jungle-like would be a better description.

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              el gordo

              Thanks for that, note in the Western Pacific Warm Pool they have less buoys.

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              Kalm Keith

              “Just shutting dow the power to ever city centre and removing cars from the streets would make a large dent in the currently measured global warming. City centres are the only locations that show any warming trend over the last 50 years. Arguably the burning of fossil fuels has caused the increased temperature but not due to the CO2 mixed into the atmosphere, rather just the heat of combustion and inefficient use of energy.”

              Rick, human origin thermal output, I’m very sorry to say, is quantitatively irrelevant in the scheme of things.

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                RickWill

                City heating is the major cause of measured global warming. You place a jet engine 100m from the temperature gauge, rev the engine and there is global warming.

                Likewise stick a million cars with idling engines in the proximity of the weather station and more global warming.

                Global warming is what gets measured. It may not bear any resemblance to anything that could lay claim to a global temperature but the bias toward city based measurements create the global warming. It is what is measured that counts. Nothing to do with energy balance.

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                Hanrahan

                When you see global pics of where the heating is occurring it is in the north. Coincidentally that’s where A/ Most people live and B/ Most thermometers live.

                Who says “heat island effect” can’t be on a grand scale?

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                Hanrahan

                You place a jet engine 100m from the temperature gauge, rev the engine and there is global warming.

                Why do you think BoM changed from mercury thermometers to electronic ones?

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      Pauly

      A more entertaining discussion regarding “ocean warming” can be found in this article by Andy May:

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/16/sea-surface-temperatures-hadley-centre-v-noaa/

      Andy makes two key points:
      1. There is an absolute temperature difference of 7 degC across the six recognised ocean temperature data sets, and
      2. The raw data from Argo shows that the oceans have been cooling since 2004, but the manipulated data sets from NOAA both show warming.

      The primary cause of these differences appears to be extrapolation of ocean temperatures in the polar regions where no data exists. It is another example of climate scientists turning any raw data into a warming trend by simply making a series of assumptions.

      The same must be true of the ocean temperature data presented in the link you provided. Andy May’s charts clearly show HADSST4 declining from 2004, yet the charts showing HADSST3, global heat content and Argo data from Climate4you all show ocean temperatures since 2004 are apparently warming.

      So which ocean temperature data set represents the truth?

      Andy May provides more discussion about the lack of rigor in ocean temperature data on his web site:
      https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/climate-blog/

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        Gary Simpson

        Although like most here, I am acutely aware of the scam being perpetrated on us by the climastrologists, I have a genuine question re this discussion – if the oceans are not warming (i.e. not releasing excess Co2), where does the extra gas originate?

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    RicDre

    This Tuesday, Jan. 19: Dr. Roy Spencer’s Friends of Science Society Livestream Talk: ‘Why There Is No Climate Emergency’

    On Tuesday evening, January 19, at 8 p.m. CST there will be a 30 minute livestream presentation where I cover the most important reasons why there is no climate emergency. I just reviewed the video and I am very satisfied with it.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/16/this-tuesday-jan-19-dr-roy-spencers-friends-of-science-society-livestream-talk-why-there-is-no-climate-emergency/

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    RicDre

    Record Atlantic Hurricane Season?

    There has been much alarm about last year being a “record Atlantic hurricane season”. As I pointed out at the time, the claim was based on the number of named tropical storms, which includes both hurricanes and weaker storms. The number of Atlantic hurricanes alone was not a record.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/15/record-atlantic-hurricane-season/

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      PeterS

      That’s a reasonable description of where we are headed. Some of the specifics might be wrong but the general theme of how a NWO of some description is going to take over is spot on. Eventually a lot of people will want the NWO to “be in their face” as they will be convinced the alternative is far worse, which is much more pain. That’s the main trick. It’s already working that way in some facets of our lives. Those who ignore what’s happening have their heads in the sand and will have their back sides whacked so hard they have no choice but to raise the heads out of the sand and they will say “What the hell has happened?” Many people simply don’t have a clue.

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      PeterS

      Resistance if futile, at least for those who don’t have faith in the Lord.

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  • #
    David Wojick

    Renewables deception revealed (my latest research)

    The scam is breathtaking, and not just in California. Nationwide we are spending untold billions of dollars on huge batteries, trying to keep the erratic nature of renewables from crashing the electric power system. But these stabilization efforts are routinely portrayed as storage for when renewables do not run. Stabilization is the opposite of storage. We are being lied to about renewables.

    https://www.cfact.org/2021/01/16/california-secretly-struggles-with-renewables/

    Please share this.

    For the record I learned about stabilization here on Jo’s wonderful blog, with special thanks to Tony. I hope to turn this expose into a campaign.

    David

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      David Maddison

      And President Defect Imposter Biden says (or his controllers say) he’ll spend $2 trillion on unreliables. And that’s just a small portion of the money he intends to spend in order to bankrupt America for his Chi-comm masters. Oh, and he is going to make 11 million illegal aliens “citizens”.

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      Pauly

      For comedic relief, someone should write a review on the economics of running a large battery farm. While renewable advocates promote battery farms as using “excess energy” from solar and wind, the economics of any operator on a grid is that consumption and production of electricity is managed through contracts, both short and long term.

      The economic reality is that wholesale electricity from renewable sources is three times more expensive than from fossil fuel sources. Since battery farms need to “sell” their electricity eventually, and cover their costs as well, they are incentivised to purchase long term contracts at the lowest prices. So their primary suppliers are most likely to be fossil fuel sources. But where can we find this information?

      Anecdotally, this appears to be how the market is working, because in times of oversupply from renewables, the regulator simply asks some renewable operators to disconnect their supply from the grid. They are happy to do it, because apparently, they get paid whether the electricity they produce goes to the grid or not!

      The following article points out the surprisingly high cost of frequency stabilisation services that occurred in South Australia in early 2020, when when the SA grid was again isolated due to maintenance on the interconnector:
      http://www.wattclarity.com.au/…/02/dont-forget-about-fcas/

      The AEMO caps FCAS prices at $14,700/MWh. As a number of charts show, the FCAS prices leapt to this limit, and stayed there for most of the next two days. Subsequent charts shown that FCAS “revenues” exceeded energy revenues in SA for the two weeks following the islanding event.

      The Hornsdale battery was fully functioning during this period. I can only conclude that, from an economic standpoint, battery operators prefer more grid instability, because “saving the grid” during periods of frequency instability is where they make their greatest income.

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      • #
        RickWill

        The HPR recovered its capital cost in that two week period. AEMO ordered all the wind generators off at the time of the event. Many stayed off because they pay the bulk of the FCAS cost because they are the cause of the instability – who would’ve thought that!

        The loss of the Victorian interconnector in February highlights how SA is leaching off Victorians.

        The situation in SA will get more manageable once the synchronous condensers are up and running. The first one is at the substation but still no news on its operation. It was supposed to be running last year.

        It appears that getting cheap wind and solar energy into the grid involves a lot of expensive extras. Why weren’t we told.

        Last year was the first year my grid connected solar system was regularly reducing output due to over voltage. A near neighbour installed a 6.6kW system courtesy of both State and Federal Government subsidies and that has pushed the voltage up to the 253V limit. I have seen it as high as 256V.

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      RickWill

      You are perpetuating the lie by using the term “renewable” unqualified.

      In Australia we have BHP (the world’s largest miner) telling us nightly each wind generator requires 4t of copper. So-called “renewables” have created endless demand for mined resources. It will be a long time before the illusion that they produce more than they consume is common knowledge and their use fades. That creates a broad window of opportunity for the miners of materials used in such devices and manufactures of such devices to command an ever increasing proportion of global wealth.

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    • #

      We recently had an article in the Australian (see link, it may not work for non subscribers)

      https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/origin-and-neoen-plan-1bn-batteries-for-nsw-power-plants/news-story/9468bdf90d596d429349e2a390445e00

      This article is riddled with arithmetic errors and slights of hand with figures. Long story short this “battery” will only hold the equivalent of 1% of Liddells daily output. I put the maths in the blog section and still had a complete idiot challenge them – such is the sway that the Left has over reality…

      We have Anthony Lyneham in QLD also championing a battery here as a “game changer” and it has a far smaller capacity. How it changes the game he needs to explain.

      The general public have been totally conned, again, as batteries are extraordinarily expensive. And the stabilisation need is only there because of the intermittent and variable nature of the ruinables.

      I am also concerned about the lies being put out by AEMO on ruinables, where they say that they are responsible for recent power price drops. Hello, but record low demand had no part to play??? Or coal price falls?? And any look across the world shows as ruinables % increases power prices skyrocket, due to their destabilising and catastrophic effects. AEMO have become just like the BOM under their woke head who has a history of wind power advocacy and seems hell bent on ignoring the reality that we must have baseload power and lots of it, to keep our grid together.

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    The following comment was rejected this morning by The Australian Newspaper. I thought it was reasonable, what say you?

    The media has adopted a new meme. “Unsupported” claims of voting irregularities has given way to “rioting Trump supporters”.
    Everyone admits voter fraud happens but somehow miraculously, the media seems to know precisely to what level, ranging from none to not enough.
    Likewise, everyone knows that social unrest, be it rowdy rallies or looting, burning and even murder, involves all sorts. Present day USA has, in alphabetic order Anarchists, Antifa, Bidenists, BLM, Proud Boys, Trumpsters and no doubt others including individual freelance nutters.
    As in the case with voting, the media likes to imply that somehow they know precisely and instantaneously who and how many are making trouble.
    It is often difficult to tell if the report is being presented by a journalist or a politician.

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    • #
      Harry Passfield

      AP: As I read earlier today – probably here – if voter fraud did not happen then the 2020 election was, notwithstanding the record number of mail-in votes, the cleanest, most legal vote ever. With the highest ever vote for a man who hardly ever campaigned (he knew he didn’t need to).
      Oh sure.

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        RicDre

        “…if voter fraud did not happen…”

        Most articles I have read do not say no fraud happened, they say no “systemic” fraud happened. Of course, they don’t define what they mean by “systemic” or even if “systemic” fraud would be required to flip an election.

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    • #
      Ross

      or a freelance nutter

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    GD

    January 17, the middle of Summer, and the temperature in Geelong (Melbourne) is currently 11 degrees Celsius.

    Where is the BoM to shout that this is unprecedented?

    Instead, the BoM is shouting that it’s the hottest year evah!

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      OldOzzie

      Planet sizzles through hot 2020

      Graham Lloyd
      ENVIRONMENT EDITOR

      The world’s leading weather agencies have ranked 2020 ­as either the equal hottest or ­second hottest year on record.

      According to NASA the Earth’s global average surface temperature tied with 2016 as the warmest year, 1.02C warmer than the baseline 1951-1980.

      A separate, independent analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concluded that 2020 was the second-warmest year in their record, behind 2016.

      The UK Met Office said 2020 was the second hottest, concluding the Earth’s warmest 10-year period on record.

      NOAA said the Australian bushfires had had a cooling ­impact on temperatures which was offset by lower industrial emissions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

      Australia’s Bureau of ­Meteorology has ranked 2020 as the country’s fourth hottest year on record.

      Globally, NASA said 2020 edged out 2016 by a very small amount, within the ­margin of error of the ­analysis, making the years effectively tied for the ­warmest year on record.

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        Greg in NZ

        Equal hottest… second hottest… fourth hottest…

        Great to see Their Science™ is settled then.

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          Harves

          I love how it never says they’ve actually ‘measured’ it as hottest or whatever, they’ve simply ‘ranked’ it based on some committee consensus I suppose? Perhaps 97% of NASA tea ladies?

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          Kalm Keith

          Yes Rick you’ve hit the nail on the head.

          Global Warming can only be claimed to exist when UHI is measured and those temperatures used to misrepresent the situation.

          Many’s the time we’ve driven into Sydney and looked across the top of the soup bowl, but that’s been after driving through 100 miles that’s mostly Bush.

          It was once mentioned that is every city in the world was assembled side by side they could all fit inside the boundaries of Spain.

          That’s probably not all that relevant from the point of view of the thermodynamics but it does help to suggest that the Human origin UHI effect overrated as a CAGW issue.

          Hanrahan’s point about the hemispheres also brings up the issue of relative land masses and oceans in each hemisphere.

          It’s a big multifaceted picture that’s been used by glitterati to confuse the issue so they can force us into the CAGW prison.

          KK

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        • #
          another ian

          Onr world government in action?

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        el gordo

        ‘The UK Met Office said 2020 was the second hottest, concluding the Earth’s warmest 10-year period on record.’

        The actual mechanism is interesting, the 1730s had a similar decade heat spike, until the sharp correction of 1740.

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        Richard Ilfeld

        NASA’s 2020 report ranks as their biggest lie ever.

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    RicDre

    A new Pause?

    At long last, following the warming effect of the El Niño of 2016, there are signs of a reasonably significant La Niña, which may well usher in another Pause in global temperature, which may even prove similar to the Great Pause that endured for 224 months from January 1997 to August 2015, during which a third of our entire industrial-era influence on global temperature drove a zero trend in global warming

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/01/14/a-new-pause/

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    dinn, rob

    1-16 Russia 24/518.5= 4.6% increase/day https://www.themoscowtimes.com/
    ………………………..
    Turkey 8.3/95= 8.7% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/turkey/
    ……………………………….
    Brazil 68/756= 9% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil
    ………………………………..
    India 15/200= 7.5% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/india
    …………………………………
    South Africa 14.9/197.7= 7.5% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-africa
    …………………………………………
    Canada 14.9/197.7= 9.4% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/canada
    ……………………………………………
    USA 249/9223= 2.7% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
    ……………………..
    Iran 6.5/148= 4.4% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/iran
    ……………………………
    Indonesia 12.8/125.4= 10.2% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/indonesia
    …………………
    Argentina 13.3/162.5= 8.2% increase/day https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/argentina

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    • #
      RickWill

      The vast majority of Victorians regard what was achieved in 2020 extremely hard won and extremely precious. It is a pity that an incompetent State government put the population to the test but most endured the inconvenience. Most already in a better place and some still looking forward to getting back to normal.

      Like Taiwan and New Zealand, Australia is an island but so is the UK. Australia is a country of relatively low population density and probably fortunate that there are State Premiers willing to make hard calls on border closures.

      Reduced immigration and better understanding of the erosion of shared values due to past immigration may put the country in a better place going forward.

      I worked from home rather than a central office from 2002 to 2012. It improved my quality of life immensely. I expect that there will be long term productivity gains achieved by more people working from home. So Covid may leave the world with some enduring benefits.

      I am glad my middle son is a physician in a Melbourne hospital and not elsewhere right now. My eldest son in the UK has not been to his workplace for almost a year now. He has worked from home for some years but visited the office for meetings about once a week and also went to Europe occasionally. He lives in a two bedroom unit with two young children and a wife who has also been working from home, actually employed by AtraZenica. She had a funny story about a meeting when they went back to the office and were required to conduct meetings with masks on. They all ended up leaving the conference room and conducting a Zoom meeting from their respective offices. That was just before the birth of her second son so she is now on maternity leave. My son believes they had Covid last March but it was before testing was available. My 3yo grandson has now been tested 4 times because the childcare centres are good breeding places for bugs and any sniffle requires a negative test before going back. He may remember Covid.

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    David Maddison

    Absolute lies. This was also a news story on SBS TV from the BBC (I think).

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/13/climate-crisis-record-ocean-heat-in-2020-supercharged-extreme-weather

    Climate crisis: record ocean heat in 2020 supercharged extreme weather

    Scientists say temperatures likely to be increasing faster than at any time in past 2,000 years

    Analysis: why are ocean warming records being broken year after year?

    Damian Carrington Environment editor

    The world’s oceans reached their hottest level in recorded history in 2020, supercharging the extreme weather impacts of the climate emergency, scientists have reported.

    More than 90% of the heat trapped by carbon emissions is absorbed by the oceans, making their warmth an undeniable signal of the accelerating crisis. The researchers found the five hottest years in the oceans had occurred since 2015, and that the rate of heating since 1986 was eight times higher than that from 1960-85.

    Reliable instrumental measurements stretch back to 1940 but it is likely the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years and heating faster than any time in the last 2,000 years. Warmer seas provide more energy to storms, making them more severe, and there were a record 29 tropical storms in the Atlantic in 2020.

    (See link for rest.)

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      el gordo

      ‘ … it is likely the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years … ‘

      Sea surface temperatures haven’t been this hot since the Medieval Warm Period, sounds reasonable.

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        Lance

        And it is equally likely that they are not.

        For a mere trillion dollars, I’ll say whatever you wish.

        Cheap by comparison, as the Greens never quote a fixed firm price for their religion.

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      Graeme No.3

      David,
      so the oceans (or the top part anyway) warmed by 0.05℃ (maximum. How does that extra heat get into the atmospheric temperature?
      Is it evaporation, conduction or radiation (“settled” science).
      Yes I know that the heat content of the oceans far dwarfs that of the air, but what is the method of magnification? I ask because I want to develop a power source using a bar of iron 1 ℃ warmer than the ambient air to generate steam.

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      el gordo

      ‘Warmer seas provide more energy to storms, making them more severe …’

      That is a blatant lie, seas cannot warm beyond a certain limit (h/t Rick Will), so storms won’t become more severe because of it.

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        RickWill

        Cyclones are a major energy release. The sea surface can actually cool under the midday sun during the passage of cyclone. I have seen wakes 3C cooler over a two week period considering temperature just before the cyclone and just after.

        An interesting record is the 24 hour rainfall on land during the passage of a cyclone – actual measurement of 1825mm. In old money, that is 3″ every hour for a day. That occurred in 1966 before all the extra CO2 caused all the extraordinary increase in global temperature.

        Think of how much energy goes into evaporating that water from the ocean so it can be released over land to produce rain. That level of rainfall is equivalent to 50kW/sq.m being dissipated as the water condenses. Of course it occurred on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean at elevation.

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    David Maddison

    There is unprecedented security for President Defect Imposter Biden’s installation (I won’t say inauguration).

    Apart from that, it will be a very low key event, probably because his handlers realise very few people would bother going. They want to have a plausible excuse for a record low turnout so they simply said stay away….because COVID…

    Perhaps his handlers realise that despite the “record number of votes” Biden wasn’t the “people’s choice” after all?

    I expect that he won’t ever answer questions in pressers unless they are prearranged and he can read the answer from the teleprompter. Not that the press will ever ask him any hard questions. They’ll be questions like how his dogs are settling in to the White House.

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    robert rosicka

    Doesn’t pay to offer free speech these days .

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/parler-ceo-john-matze-family-forced-into-hiding-due-to-death-threats-security-breaches-filing_3659107.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-01-16-2

    If the Parler CEO is getting death threats for daring to offer free speech make me worried for sites like this .

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      David Maddison

      And the Leftists aren’t even yet in Government in the United States. It’s terrifying to think of what they’ll do once they have been installed into power after their successful coup d’état. I think they’ll have a “night of the long knives”.

      The Billionaire Socialists and other Elites must be salivating at all the new opportunities for power, control and money on offer.

      Note to Useful Idiots of the slave army of the Billionaire Socialists, you are no longer useful to them, your job is done. You will suffer along with everyone else.

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      Robdel

      I agree. I fear that they will go after this jonova site. Then what?….

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      OldOzzie

      Mack poked the dragon and parents paid price

      Gangs outside the home, constant threats, their business hacked… four years after swimmer Mack Horton outed a Chinese rival as a drug cheat, his family still pays the price.

      By Luke Slattery

      On a mild October day last year Cheryl Horton was cleaning the backyard pool at the family home – a chore she rigorously avoids until it can be ignored no longer – when the vacuum head made a curious grinding sound. She raised the appliance, felt beneath it, and winced with pain. Blood coursed down her hand, dripping into the pale water. She called to her husband, Andrew, and together they discovered a “bucketload” of broken glass on the floor of the pool. She holds one of these centimetre-thick glass chunks, ­glinting like a rough-cut diamond, as she speaks. “We keep it on the desk in the study,” she says, “as a reminder of how bad things got.”

      The couple knew immediately where the ­broken glass had come from, and why it was there. Just three months earlier their son, ­Olympic 400m freestyle gold medallist Mack Horton, had refused to join Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, a three-time Olympic gold medallist and 11-time world champion, on the medal podium at the World Championships in the South Korean city of Gwangju. Horton had just won silver in the 400m freestyle; Sun Yang gold. Mack Horton’s mute ­protest – standing up for clean sport by refusing to stand beside Sun – unleashed a wave of hostility more disturbing than anything the family had ever experienced. And since their son famously labelled Sun a drug cheat at the 2016 Rio Olympics, they’ve experienced a lot. “We’ve had so many death threats that we’ve stopped taking them seriously,” says Andrew with a grim chuckle.

      The family’s challenges are part of a broader pattern of harassment and intimidation of the Chinese Communist Party’s critics and dissenters. Says a national security analyst who keeps a close eye on the case, and spoke on condition of ­anonymity: “The Hortons’ story is very disturbing… It says something about the reach of foreign ­powers within Australia.” Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, tells me: “Australians should know that China’s secretive Ministry of State Security has been carrying out a campaign of intimidation in this country against critics of the regime. It’s illegal and nasty.” Hamilton, co-author of the upcoming Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World, says ASIO is trying to monitor activities of this kind. “I hope we see some arrests and prosecutions soon. When that happens, we can expect the usual hysterical ­denials and calculated outrage from the Chinese embassy, state newspapers and the Party-affiliated Chinese-language media in Australia.”

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      OldOzzie

      Troubling CNN Segment About Shutting Down Conservatives and Right Wing Media Outlets Should Concern Us All

      If you thought the suppression was going to stop with Twitter and social media booting President Donald Trump and other folks on the right, you would be sadly mistaken.

      Democrats and their willing acolytes in media are trying to milk the moment for all its worth to stomp on anything that is other than their prescribed political narrative.

      They are coming for media organs on the right and they will do it by going after any advertiser/company associated with that media organ, putting the social media mob on them.

      Listen to this, the fact that people have choice is bad, Alex Stamos, a former chief security officer at Facebook, tells Brian Stelter. He suggests the “leeway” they’ve “given” people with “broad range of political views” is not good. Then he suggests that Big Tech needs to deal with Newsmax and OAN the way they deal with ISIS. They need to “turn down” the capability of conservatives to influence people. Oh, my.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Tucker Carlson: Why Democrats wanted to impeach Trump again, and why the GOP went along

      Wednesday’s impeachment vote had nothing to do with moral outrage, but old-fashioned politics

      It is not hard, but apparently it is because for the last week, slow learners like Mitch McConnell have missed it completely. They’ve allowed themselves instead to be led into rhetorical cul-de-sacs on the question of Donald Trump’s personal character. At no point does it seem to have occurred to McConnell or any of the geniuses clustered around him that what is really at stake right now is not the future of Donald Trump, but instead the future of his voters, tens of millions of them, who in the space of the last seven days have seen themselves recast as domestic terrorists. That has happened, but Republicans in Washington don’t seem to have noticed.

      Just today, former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling announced that he has had his personal insurance policies canceled by his insurer. Why? Because Curt Schilling wrote a social media post defending Donald Trump, and in 2021, that’s not allowed. You could lose your insurance for that. You could also lose your bank account, your website, your access to email and social media, your ability to communicate with the outside world, and there’s nothing you can do about it because you can also lose your lawyer.

      How long before they cut off your water and electricity? Before UPS won’t deliver your packages? And not to wreck your day, but guess what? Amazon is now one of America’s biggest grocery providers. Good thing you don’t need to eat.

      But no problem, says Mitch McConnell, the real problem is Donald Trump, and once he’s gone, everything will be fine.

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      OldOzzie

      LONG-READ

      How Big Tech took over

      The establishment outsourced censorship to the private sector – and created a tyranny.

      ‘We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.’

      These are the words of cyberlibertarian John Perry Barlow in his ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace’, penned in 1996.

      So central was free speech to the mythos of the online world that when the tech giants we know and fear today began to emerge, turning a once anarchic space into hugely profitable businesses, they often appealed to that very principle. Free speech, for these would-be oligarchs, provided them with some semblance of deeper purpose.

      Last week, those two companies banned Donald Trump, the still sitting president of the United States, from their platforms indefinitely, effectively depriving a democratically elected leader of his access to what now constitutes the public square. They crossed a line few ever thought they would cross, and reminded us just how far that old dream of the free internet now is from the authoritarian, corporate reality.

      In its rationale for suspending Trump, Twitter cited a tweet in which he confirmed he would not be attending the inauguration of Joe Biden, saying it could be interpreted as a coded invitation to attack it.

      In truth, the historic decisions taken by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others last week were the culmination of a years-long campaign, waged from inside and outside these tech firms, to deplatform Trump. Supposed liberals and leftists have accused him of spreading hate and misinformation, and routinely heaped pressure on these companies to intervene.

      The political leanings of Silicon Valley are at this point beyond doubt. An analysis by Wired ahead of the November election found that 95 per cent of donations by employees at the six big tech firms – Alphabet (parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Oracle – went to Joe Biden.

      20

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    dinn, rob

    Facebook, Twitter and Google apparently a cartel for censorship https://balance10.blogspot.com/2021/01/facebook-twitter-and-google-apparently.html

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  • #

    Now WhatsApp stabs you in the back.

    “There’s a trick which has always been used by governments and corporates in the timing of announcements which they know won’t go down well with voters or customers. They simply wait until some big headline grabbing news event occurs such as the Titanic going down, the Twin Towers or the sudden death of free speech on the internet, and they deftly slip it into the day’s overloaded newsfeed which is being dominated by the big story, so it barely gets a footnote, if that.

    The American oligarch Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Facebook, did …”

    Read on at – https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2021/01/15/now-whatsapp-stabs-you-in-the-back/

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    • #
      Annie

      Thanks Pointman. I loaded Signal some days ago, though will keep WA alongside until I get the ultimatum. I never went for Twitter or Facebook.

      30

  • #
    RickWill

    This video provides some interesting development avenues for battery technology:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBBwx3Cbbk

    It appears graphene is a modern material that is already offering opportunities in battery development.

    There is a rapidly growing market for battery powered bikes and scooters. The batteries for these have come down in price in the last decade and all are using small can technology. The best of these cans are getting 260Wh/kg:
    https://lygte-info.dk/review/batteries2012/Samsung%20INR21700-50E%205000mAh%20(Cyan)%20UK.html

    There are the same size 21700 can that Tesla has been making. As the video points out, Tesla has released a larger 4860 can that is lower cost per unit of storage and higher energy density than the 21700.

    My son told me last week that Tesla now has a market cap that is higher than all other car manufacturers combined – that is hard to believe. Musk is now the wealthiest man on the planet. It is amazing how much money is gambling on Tesla’s future. But then I set up a Bitcoin wallet when the coin was selling for USD9. But did did not buy any Bitcoin because I was worried about the trustworthiness of the exchange.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      RickWill

      with a Kogan Qualcom quick charge 26800mAh Powerbank sitting in front of me, on which they sent an urgent recall (and they did refund purchase price) – I am still not sure of where I can dispose of it.

      Batteries require electricity and given the mobile phones in my household, whose battery life depletes rapidly. the World is going to have a huge disposable problem

      Porsche Taycan models with the larger 93.4 kWh battery are capable of ultra-rapid charging at up to 270 kW DC, and Taycan models with the 79.2 kWh battery are able to charge at up to 225 kW DC.

      Fast Charge Rapid 350kW – given when I installed a 15Kw Spa Heater in late 70s (Electricity then was cheaper than Gas – Spa Heater now Gas) I had to change to 3 Phase wiring – No idea what you need for Rapid 350Kw Charger

      and as David Wojick said above – miniscule supply by batteries, mainly there to smooth out Hz which was not a problem with base load Coal/Gas Power stations

      January 17, 2021 at 6:35 am · Reply
      Renewables deception revealed (my latest research)

      The scam is breathtaking, and not just in California. Nationwide we are spending untold billions of dollars on huge batteries, trying to keep the erratic nature of renewables from crashing the electric power system. But these stabilization efforts are routinely portrayed as storage for when renewables do not run. Stabilization is the opposite of storage. We are being lied to about renewables.

      https://www.cfact.org/2021/01/16/california-secretly-struggles-with-renewables/

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    RickWill

    There was a news report last week that private savings in Australia increased by $200bn over the course of 2020.
    https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/australian-businesses-and-households-have-200b-in-savings-treasury-data-reveals-ahead-of-jobkeeper-unwinding/news-story/86c0c618ca880e202b3a7319556b28ba

    Newly-released Treasury data shows households and businesses have amassed $200b in savings as Australians tighten their belts during the pandemic.

    That is the result of the Federal Government pumping in $86bn in 2019-2020 plus ongoing Covid support through the remainder of calendar year 2020. Very clear evidence that government debt ends up in the accounts of private savers.
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-23/federal-government-coronavirus-deficit-economy-debt-frydenberg/12483360

    Australia’s budget deficit hit almost $86 billion last financial year, the biggest blow to the bottom line since World War II, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has revealed.

    Of large economies, I think Taiwan would be the only country that has come out of 2020 in better economic shape than Australia. Maybe not so good for the higher education sector that had become reliant on Chinese students. There are jobs for those displaced from that sector in the orchards and soon the vineyards.

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    From the thread below – sums up where the World is today!

    A message to anyone who feels like ‘Winston’ in Orwell’s 1984

    “The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering . . . all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting– three hundred million people all with the same face.”

    That was a quote from George Orwell’s seminal work 1984— a masterpiece that describes life in a totalitarian state that demands blind obedience.

    The ‘Party’ controlled everything– the economy, daily life, and even the truth. In Orwell’s 1984, “the heresy of heresies was common sense.”

    “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.”

    “And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

    If you were ever caught committing a thoughtcrime— dissenting from the Party for even an instant– then “your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten.”

    Now, our world obviously hasn’t become quite as extreme as Orwell’s dystopian vision. But Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Government certainly seem to be giving it their best effort.

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    • #
      Harves

      Statues being torn down, documents (dossiers) being falsified, Harvard students demand degrees be made null and void, calls for Trump to be edited out of a 20 year old movie, social media deleting tweets, posts and videos … this is all happening in supposedly the greatest capitalist society in history. What hope for other countries once China and the US are on the same side?.

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      OldOzzie

      George Orwell’s “1984” is topping Amazon’s best sellers


      George Orwell’s classic 1984 has rocketed up Amazon’s book charts.

      The iconic story about a future dystopia reached the top of the company’s list of overall best sellers today before sinking to second (Amazon updates its bestsellers hourly). It was also selling well at competing bookseller Barnes & Noble, where it ranked second among the company’s top 100 titles.

      Several factors are driving renewed interest in the book and Google searches for related terms. On Jan. 7, Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, tweeted it was “Orwellian” after Simon & Schuster, a major US publisher, cancelled a contract for his upcoming book The Tyranny of Big Tech. The move followed widespread criticism of Hawley for challenging the results of the November election and accusations the senator helped incite the mob that stormed the Capitol after he was photographed raising a fist towards the crowd of Trump supporters.

      My statement on the woke mob at @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/pDxtZvz5J0

      — Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 7, 2021

      Donald Trump Jr. invoked the book as well last week when describing Twitter’s suspension of his father, the US president.

      We are living Orwell’s 1984. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and what’s left is only there for a chosen few.

      This is absolute insanity! https://t.co/s2z8ymFsLX

      — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 9, 2021

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      • #
        Bozotheclown

        George Orwell’s classic 1984 has rocketed up Amazon’s book charts.

        Should we expect that suicides will be on the increase in few weeks as the younger pups suddenly realize where we are at?

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        • #
          another ian

          Perhaps not – see #8.3

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          • #
            OldOzzie

            Heh – Goodbye crool world………

            Brad lived in California and was a lifelong environmentalist. He was sick of the world; of Covid-19, Brexit, Russian belligerence, China, global warming, ethnic tensions, and the rest of the disturbing stories that occupy media headlines.

            Brad drove his car into his garage and then sealed every doorway and window as best he could. He got back into his car and wound down all the windows, selected his favorite radio station, started the car and revved it to a slow idle.

            Two days later, a worried neighbor peered through his garage window and saw him in the car. She notified the emergency services and they broke in, pulling Brad from the car. A little sip of water and, surprisingly, he was in perfect condition, but his Tesla had a dead battery.

            Sad sad sad 😢

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      Stuart

      The irony will be that 1984 will soon be a banned book due to its “subversive content”

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  • #
    OldOzzie

    The White House Releases a List of President Trump’s Accomplishments – The List is a Mile Long

    President Trump’s White House put together a list of accomplishments to date from the President’s efforts while in office. The list is a mile long.
    (https://www.whitehouse.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/?utm_source=link)

    Below is the entire list:

    Unprecedented Economic Boom

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  • #
    WXcycles

    Heavy mid-summer snow in New Zealand again this week.

    https://i.ibb.co/FKN27FP/Screenshot-2021-01-16-Windy-as-forecasted.png

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    • #
      Dennis

      15C early morning here at mid north coast New South Wales.

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    • #
      Greg in NZ

      It ALWAYS snows in summer, doncha know! 🙂

      Via metservice.com –
      Fiordland National Park 3-day outlook:

      “Snow lowering to 1200m… 1000m… 800m”, plus Code Purple swells up the Tasman Sea (20 metres or 60 ft) yeehaah!

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    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      6.2 reported as actual minimum at Mudgee airport this morning, against a forecast of 12C.
      I haven’t seen the headline “Record error in forecast by BoM” anywhere yet.
      Cheers
      Dave B

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Record Cold of 2021 Reminds Us: Be Wary of Climate Predictions and Energy Priorities

      Japan reported 13 deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations in the past week due to the intense snowfall in the country. Residents in Spain were in awe over the record snowfall in their streets. Here in India, Delhi experienced one of its harshest winters in recent memory, with intense cold waves.

      Does this disprove global warming? Certainly not! However, the extreme cold events bring about questions over the media narrative that climate change is causing milder winters and temperatures increasing to dangerous levels.

      The most worrying aspect is that these extreme cold events are a reminder that we could be in great danger if our governments continue to adopt climate policies based on faulty forecasts and unreliable renewables. Here is why.

      The Cold Winter of 2020–2021

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    David Maddison

    The FY 2020 financial report for the Hepburn Community Wind Park Co-operative Ltd subsidy farm is now available from the following link. It is a small two windmill subsidy farm.

    https://www.hepburnwind.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/HW-Annual-Report-2020-2-2.pdf

    Does anyone care to analyse it for some insight into how operators make money from this? Most large scale wind subsidy farms don’t seem to publish their financials or at least not have them readily available. I wonder why? I would have thought they are legally obliged to do so.

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    • #
      Graeme#4

      I looked at the figures previously, and believe that it’s not a viable business case with subsidies. This seems to be verified by the association asking its members to petition the Government for more subsidies, as it appears some work needs to be done on the turbines, and I believe they cannot afford to do this work.

      00

  • #
    Saighdear

    asked to re-post herefrom “Psychic? Capitol attack,” : Thoughts on the SWAMP Well, according to “Appl Maps” when I headed EAST in NE Scotland today, there was a , W8 4 it -a C Change, whereby the North Sea around Aberdeen became the “NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN” … Hmmm.and it got me thinking again ( can only talk to /shout at the Gulls when I’m ploughing) The swamp is an Ocean. Well maybe indeed it may be as Large as an Ocean. So how to “drain”.Ask a Farmer type: 1. Gie it a guid Stir to mix the wetts with the shit. 2.Pump it out and spread out to dry and then plough it in – gone – just a bit o’ stink. THis is a little quicker than adding ANaerobic bugs – do we want more methane? 2. to prevent refilling, stop up the Sources – Spread the word BEFORE it gets to turn rancid. Aerate what comes through with much real Education and let the Aerobic bugs do their work ( for reference see https://blog.anaerobic-digestion.com/aerobic-digestion-and-anaerobic-digestion/ ) Shore up the infective agents or quarantine them. Since the Swamp is a lowlying area of woody scrubby miscellaneous Life, just waiting to be tapped into. if we can’t keep the floods AWAY, we’ll have to install large Drainage systems wih pumps. Where there’s a Will, there’s a Way. Now if Will isn’t forthcoming, there’s always Donald John – from the land ofthe Midgee. He needs support and encouragement. To turn the entire swamp back into beautiful green fields where truth is all around us,requires a HUNGER for real information, with the sharpeness of good Mustard to aid the Digestion of the products of Pasture development:Every good farmer KNOWS that Grass grows best when fertilised and GRAZED heavily. The growth takes up and therefore dries out the Swamp. Today I saw, so much the product of, Woke and Lazy farming in what used to be a very fertile and progressive part of NE Scotland: Fences and drains in great states of disrepair, Fields full of rushes, mud from outdoor pigs in a very wet winter, spillt grain in the fields from poorly set machinery and where nobody stopped and bothered to Check operations:talk about feeding the 10,000. Nobody seems to be interested:- “Don’t rock the boat” we get told – usually by folk milking he SYSTEM rather than the COWS, who have NOT HAD a decent Agric Education and Facebook/Youtube is there bibleand reference.. Big Society ( EU + our own “governments” ) paying too much to do lip service to the environment, etc …. Take from that what you wish. Something NEEDS to be done. Alice, where’s the Looking Glass?. Meanwhile the cows are bawling – Eaten their Neeps ( Swedes now -finished the Yellows off before Christmas) need their Hay dished out – been a long day away – but the dinner tonight was good.
    I just hope the Cracken is still out there in the Bay and can deal with the Crocs and Pythons. I think the Pennies have run out, but I hope there’s still a deck of Good Cards around (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deck_of_Cards ) to trump the field.

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    David Maddison

    White House Obamagate document dump.

    https://youtu.be/bIRQEfYuOpI

    50

  • #
    David Maddison

    These deaths from the side effects of this Covid vaccine were from among the vulnerable elderly. But they are the ones who are susceptible to the virus, nearly all others survive. So what’s the point of the vaccine if it can actually kill vulnerable people?

    We already have cheap and effective antiviral treatments for early stage infection. Why is at least one of these, HCQ, still prohibited in Australia?

    https://nypost.com/2021/01/15/23-die-in-norway-after-receiving-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine/

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    • #
      Harves

      HCQ is prohibited for one reason only … it was promoted by Trump.
      Orange man = bad

      170

      • #
        Chris

        The CDC has now changed it’s mind ( funny that) HCQ is now permitted to be used for the treatment of Covid19 .

        10

    • #
      Serp

      There’s some pecking order mechanism from WHO triggered our TGA which, against all logic, is locked in. Bureaucracy is an awful thing…

      50

  • #
    Dennis

    I still cannot rate?

    7.7 out of 10 based on 7 ratings

    [Try again Dennis, more options just inserted themselves .
    I get a weird request from Facebook wanting to track my activities while here if I click “like” and if I click “disallow” it won’t update that you like the page.]AD

    20

  • #
    Serp

    https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/01/statement-from-james-kathryn-murdoch.html has the Murdoch’s announcing their troika of pieties about which dissent is forbidden, being election, covid and climate.

    60

  • #
    Mat

    *****
    This is a call out to AndyG55.
    *****

    7 years ago, in January 2014, you and I made an agreement to meet back and assess your prediction that global temperatures had plateaued and were “almost certainly going to start heading down hill”.

    You can read the original discussion here.

    We agreed that 2-5 years was enough to settle the agreement. It has now been 7, and temperatures have not plateaued or gone down hill, but increased significantly.

    https://imgur.com/KI8SYY5

    I’ve raised this with you previously, for example in 2017 2018 2019 and 2020.

    So far you’ve refused to abide by your agreement to reassess your beliefs if you don’t see cooling within 2-5 years. After 7 years of an increasing trend at a rate of 0.34°C/decade, 2020 being second hottest in satellite records while in a La Nina, will this year be the year you rethink?

    [Just so you are aware Mat , Andy has not posted here for a long time.]AD

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    • #
      el gordo

      Note how the temperature has fallen since he start of La Nina.

      http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2020_v6.jpg

      It may fall a little further then stabilise a step down with a new hiatus at this lower level. We can be assured this will happen because the PDO is drifting into negative and should stay there for at least a decade, creating La Nina conditions and an absence of El Nino.

      As you are aware, ENSO is the temperature control knob.

      30

      • #
        Mat

        Thanks AD for letting me know about Andy. Hopefully I don’t conjure him!

        El Gordo: “It may fall a little further then stabilise a step down with a new hiatus at this lower level.”

        AndyG55 had been saying that for a decade, cooling was always “just around the corner…”. Can you not see this folly? 2020 was a La Nina year, and yet it was second warmest in the satellite record. Doesn’t fit with “ENSO is the temperature control knob”, does it?

        In any case, ENSO is an exchange of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere… but both ocean and the atmosphere are warming, so ENSO can not be the cause of long term warming in the atmosphere.

        21

        • #
          robert rosicka

          Not sure where you live Mat but here in northeast victoriastan it’s supposed to be summer not freeezing cold jumper weather.
          I love it when I’m being told it’s warmest evahhhh and I’m freezing my beetoota off !

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        • #
          el gordo

          ‘Doesn’t fit with “ENSO is the temperature control knob”, does it?’

          Admittedly there was a flaw in our hypothesis, we didn’t account on the PDO returning to neutral around 2014, so El Nino came stalking. Now with the PDO going negative and the AMO heading more or less neutral, its the very start of global cooling. Don’t take your eye off the ball.

          20

        • #
          Peter Fitzroy

          Mat, most of the comments here conflate local weather, with regional weather, and climate. RR and eg, are particularly good at that.

          14

          • #
            robert rosicka

            Cmon Fitz you were never able to answer The question Andy put to you time and time again , as for weather V climate I thought the planet was getting hotter but it seems at a local level where people live not so .
            Only in a computer simulation somewhere.

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            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              not quite, Andy never agreed with any of the the studies I posted, always claiming that they were not the study he wanted. The physics is telling you how the planet is warming, and the observations are following the physics.

              03

              • #
                robert rosicka

                That’s because you never supplied anything in the way of proof ! Only studies that ended in “May” , “Could” , “Possibly” , even “Consensus” but never quite cracked the proof that was evidentiary.
                Did you ever supply a link that didn’t somewhere discount your claim anyway ? I’m not sure you ever have in any thing .

                30

          • #
            el gordo

            Fitz we are all aware that 30 years is climate and the coming decade will be cooler than the previous 10 years. Do you disagree with my theory?

            20

    • #
      Kalm Keith

      Hello Mat,

      Temperatures have been falling worldwide for the last 7,000 years since the peak warming at the end of the last Glacial Maximum.

      This is also confirmed by the accumulation of ice on the poles and elsewhere.

      Globally, ice only accumulates when the world is cooling so obviously the planet is still not warming.

      So Andy was right, the planet is not warming.

      KK

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      • #
        Kalm Keith

        “but both ocean and the atmosphere are warming,”

        The above comment from Mat.

        Still suffering from foot in mouth disease when I’ve just said that the poles are accumulating ice, still, after 7,000 years.

        20

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        KK – can you point to a time series to prove your claim The NSIDC site shows the exact opposite

        02

    • #
      RickWill

      Earth’s temperature has not changed in the last 40 years when you look at reliable data like the ocean moored buoys:
      https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNg3j-MHBpf4wRGuhf

      Earth’s temperature is thermostatically controlled. Heat uptake of tropical oceans goes negative at 30C so there are only a few nooks and crannies near land that exceed 30C. At these locations, the cloudburst cycle is disrupted by the wind caused by the proximity to land.
      https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNhArF7wOhjkSkQWa-
      There is only one body of connected sea surface that gets above 32C – the Persian Gulf. It also has the unique history of never experiencing a cyclone although it is sub-tropical water above 27C. Cloudburst is rare in the Persian Gulf and only occurs on the southern and SW shores.

      It is no accident that three separated Oceans have tropical warm pools all reaching 30C. What are the odds of some delicate radiative balance achieving such an outcome over three disparate and largely separate oceans.

      When water surface cools it eventually freezes at -2C. The ice then insulates the water below and rate of heat loss reduces dramatically.

      Cloudburst works to provide shutters over the tropical ocean. The persistence of cloud increases rapidly above 26C.
      https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNhBGGUgx8VRSon9HW
      This is due to the Level of Free Convection increasing faster that the altitude of the cloud base over the ocean surface. It means the period of clear sky reduces as the surface temperature increases. If the ocean surface was internally heated to 34C then the surface would never see direct sunlight. There would be perpetual cloud. When the surface is at 30C the net heat input is close to zero; meaning the temperature is stuck at 30C. The control system is quite good but it wanders about 0.5C rather side of the control temperature depending on the regularity of the cloudburst cycle.

      There is a fairytale called the “Greenhouse Effect” and this is a belief shared by those who follow the preachings of the Climate Change priesthood. I could be rightfully accused of religious vilification if I commented further on the value of the faith so I will leave it there.

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      • #
        Harry Passfield

        For Mat:
        I’ve come to this a little late but I’ve always had a high regard for AndyG and his commenting here and elsewhere. When it comes to whether the climate (do you really mean ‘weather’?) is cooling or warming my response is basically, ‘so what’.

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  • #
    Furiously curious

    I’ve been mulling over the lefts creation of new terms that are designed to stop discourse. The latest possibly is ‘whataboutism’? Manspaning is another. All the phobs – homophobe, transphobe, islamaphobe. Old white men. It is quite a rich field to mine. Please remind me of others. Anyway, whataboutism is getting a real workout with the Capital Riot, so you aren’t allowed to bring up the summer of love. The other thing that occured to me was, how often whatabout is used in climate debating. As in ‘whatabout the bushfires? Whatabout the arctic ice? Whatabout koalas or the Amazon? Perhaps it could be used back at them?

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/149157242@N05/50843067727/in/dateposted-public/

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    OldOzzie

    The Democrats’ Paranormal Economics

    US government debt now stands at $20 trillion, or roughly 100% of GDP. This should be a concern, but Democratic economists are not worried. A much-discussed November 30 paper by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Council of Economic Advisors Chairman Jason Furman suggests that Democratic thinking has veered into the paranormal, with an emphasis on levitation. Governments will be able to borrow and spend as much as they want for whatever purpose they want, the authors argue in so many words, and interest rates will remain low forever.

    As Washington Post editorialist Charles Lane commented Dec. 7, “Far from burdening future generations, governments have a golden opportunity to fund long-standing needs by borrowing for investments in future prosperity—the list includes child care, early education, job training and clean water.”

    The argument so easily refuted by casual reference to the facts that it takes a doctorate from Harvard (which both Summers and Furman hold) to suspend disbelief in the obvious. The authors aver:

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    • #
      RickWill

      The only concern really for US sovereign debt is that elections are so cheap. China won the 2020 elections with a measly redemption of USD106bn of their near USD1tr in US bond holding.

      The only way the US will have fair elections again is if Japan are willing to redeem a small portion of their USD1.2tr in bonds to help the other side.

      Once interest rates are negative, the debt becomes a source of revenue. Danes can get mortgages at negative interest rates; meaning the bank pays the borrower to use the money. The government is paying the banks to use the money to keep the economy spinning and the banks make money by paying the borrower less than the Government pays them.

      There are currently three countries with their reserve bank offering negative interest rates but there have been more. Covid has eroded savings in some places like Sweden and EU where rates are back to positive.

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    Matt9732

    Serp, That is why I closed my Murdoch subscription.

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    OldOzzie

    Nancy Pelosi’s waiting games prove ‘boot Trump’ movement is just another political ploy
    By Post Editorial Board

    Déjà vu all over again: For the second time in just over two years, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has led the House to rush through impeaching President Trump, citing an urgent need to rid America of a dangerous threat in the White House — and then turned around and dawdled in delivering the charges to the Senate for trial.

    The House on Wednesday passed an article of impeachment charging Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in his supporters’ Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. But on Friday, Pelosi refused to say when she would send it to the Senate, forcing it to drop all other business until the trial is done. “You’ll be the first to know when we announce that we’re going over there,” she haughtily told reporters.

    Pelosi played the same games with Trump’s first impeachment, which passed the House on Dec. 18, 2019, but wasn’t submitted to the Senate until Jan. 16, 2020.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Double, double toil and trouble;
      Fire burn and caldron bubble.
      Fillet of a fenny snake,
      In the caldron boil and bake;
      Eye of newt and toe of frog,
      Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
      Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
      Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
      For a charm of powerful trouble,
      Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

      Double, double toil and trouble;
      Fire burn and caldron bubble.
      Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
      Then the charm is firm and good.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Got Hypocrisy? Pelosi Pimps Photo-op With Same Troops She Called ‘Stormtroopers’ During BLM and Antifa Riots

      House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has no shame. But you already knew that. Not only will this hypocrite do anything for the sake of political expediency; the depth of her hypocrisy is unequaled on Capitol Hill — where Democrat hypocrisy runs deep on a daily basis.

      So it comes as no surprise that Pelosi has once again taken home the coveted Hypocrite of the Week award, which by my calculation has been won by a Democrat — with a few CNN and PMSNBC lapdogs sprinkled in along the way — for a record 8,769 weeks in a row.

      Pelosi’s mind-boggling — though not at all surprising — winning effort came in the form of a photo-op with National Guardsmen who were lined up in front of the Capitol in advance of Wednesday’s inauguration of Joe Biden and Willie’s chew toy Kamala Harris.

      The above image, of course, was splattered all over Twitter, many tweets going with the “THIS is how you honor the troops” theme and other liberal-loon nonsense.

      “Today, it was my honor to join @chefjoseandres and @WCKitchen to provide meals to our heroic National Guard troops who are keeping our Congressional community safe during this difficult time.”

      “Heroic National Guard troops,” Nancy? Short memory? One of those vapor locks in your brain when you start mumbling incoherently during your awkward press conferences?

      Did I mention that this is the same Nancy Pelosi who in July referred to the same National Guardsmen as “stormtroopers“? Remember, as Black Lives Matter Marxists and Antifa anarchists burned and looted cities across America, in which at least one child and two police officers were shot and killed? Yeah — same Pelosi, same National Guard.

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    OldOzzie

    Federal government seeks information from Norway after Pfizer vaccine deaths in the elderly

    Natasha Robinson
    HEALTH EDITOR

    The Federal government is urgently seeking more information from Norway after health authorities in the Scandinavian nation reported multiple deaths in patients over 80 who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

    Norway has adjusted its advice on the Pfizer vaccine following the deaths of 23 patients shortly after receiving the vaccine. But it says there is very little risk associated with the vaccine other than for those who are extremely frail.

    “It may be a coincidence, but we aren’t sure,” Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NOMA), told The British Medical Journal. “There is no certain connection between these deaths and the vaccine.”

    More than 20 000 doses of the vaccine have been administered over the past few weeks in Norway. NOMA has investigated 13 of the deaths in the elderly so far and concluded that common adverse reactions of mRNA vaccines, such as fever, nausea, and diarrhoea, may have contributed to fatal outcomes in some of the frail patients, the BMJ reported.

    The government has been under pressure to roll out the Pfizer vaccine quickly after several overseas countries granted approval for its emergency use. But it stood firm in insisting that the TGA go through a thorough review process of the vaccine. The government has emphasised that in holding off until the vaccine can be fully assessed, Australia has the benefit of examining post-release data on the vaccine from other nations who have approved it.

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      OldOzzie

      Gripping ’09 Documentary Featuring Fauci, Redfield, & Other Now-Familiar Faces Inadvertently Sheds Some Very Interesting Light on COVID-19

      The result of Leung’s dogged determination to get to the bottom of this disease he’d been taught to obsessively fear is about the most fascinating, can’t-stop-watching-even-if-you-want-to, 90-minutes of video that you’re likely to encounter.

      I don’t want to spoil the impact of any of the remarkable facts Leung uncovered or cause anyone to go into the film with any preconceived notions. So I’m going to let you discover them on your own as well as form your own judgments.

      I’ll merely say that—given the momentous events that made 2020 so uniquely dreadful—many of the surprising but altogether basic facts Leung uncovered about AIDS just might strike an eerily familiar but, I’m sorry to report, not altogether pleasant chord.

      That would be so even if the massive worldwide upheaval we experienced in 2020 had been nothing more than an awful bad dream.

      But, of course, it was, sadly, all too real.

      As such, Brett Lueng’s documentary—though released way back in 2009— winds up inadvertently shining a very different and interesting light on the obsessive fear of COVID-19 that overcame the world in 2020.

      I’m genuinely very curious as to what effect if any, watching Fauci, Redfield, Mullis, and the other bigshots explain the genesis of the 1980s worldwide panic over AIDS has on people’s views about the even vastly more severe worldwide panic over COVID-19 we’ve been in for almost a full year now with no sign of any exit coming soon.

      But even if you don’t have time to comment on any of that, please do watch Brent Leung’s amazing documentary.

      You won’t just find yourself fascinated.

      Take my word for it, your mind is about to be completely blown.

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    Ian Wilson

    jo, have been in Tamworth hospital 272 days – 235 days in icu – cannot use hands – no email. Have guillium barre syndrome – starting 6 months rehab please tell jo

    [We will pass this on to Jo as soon as possible. Please take good care and get as healthy as you can soon.]ED

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    OldOzzie

    Impeachment Problem? Chief Justice Roberts May Not Have Constitutional Authority To Preside At Trial Of FORMER President

    Donald Trump no longer will be president as of noon on January 20, 2021, when Joe Biden is sworn in. At some point after that, possibly just hours, the Senate under control of Democrats will initiate an impeachment trial of the then-former president.

    As detailed in a prior post, there is no constitutional basis for the Senate trying a former president, Impeachment 2.0 – No, the Senate cannot convict Trump after he leaves office.

    But there is one question about a trial I had not thought about, and was raised in a column by Prof. Jonathan Turley.

    First, Turley starts by pointing to the weakness of the case against Trump, then goes on to reject the notion that a former president can be tried by the Senate:

    He then debunks a couple of the historical “precedents” many people point to, and raises the issue of whether Chief Justice John Roberts even would preside:

    It is unclear, for example, if Chief Justice John Roberts would be called upon to preside. After all, the Constitution stipulates that when “the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside” — but the president will be Biden, not Trump.

    Here is the wording of Article 1, Section 3, provides (emphasis added):

    The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

    Will Roberts preside? If he does, he needs to address this constitutional issue. After all, he is Mr. Nitpicky on not expanding the role of Supreme Court Justices.

    If Roberts refuses to preside over the trial of an ex-President as beyond the Chief Justice’s jurisdiction under the Constituion — as he should — then that will render the “impeachment” trial not an “impeachment” trial at all.

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      Hanrahan

      Roberts will do as he is told.

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      OldOzzie

      The Trial Of Citizen Trump Would Raise Serious Constitutional Questions

      Authored by Jonathan Turley,

      Below is my column in USA Today on the upcoming Senate trial of President Donald Trump. The Hill recently ran my second column on why the best defense of Trump could be no defense — to skip the Senate trial and force a threshold vote on the constitutionality of the trial of an ex-president. Here is my column:

      With the second impeachment of President Donald Trump, the Congress is set for one of the most bizarre moments in constitutional history: the removal of someone who has already left office. The retroactive removal would be a testament to the timeliness of rage. While it is not without precedent, it is without logic.

      The planned impeachment trial of Donald Trump after he leaves office would be our own version of the Cadaver Synod. In 897, Pope Stephen VI and his supporters continued to seethe over the action of Pope Formosus, who not only died in 896 but was followed by another pope, Boniface VI. After the brief rule of Boniface VI, Pope Stephen set about to even some scores. He pulled Formosus out of his tomb, propped him up in court, and convicted him of variety of violations of canon law. Formosus was then taken out, three fingers cut off, and eventually thrown in the Tiber River.

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    OldOzzie

    Military Buildup In D.C. Makes No Sense, Unless They Know Something We Don’t
    Comments Permalink

    Posted by William A. Jacobson Saturday, January 16, 2021

    This massive military show of force smacks of protecting against a threat that has not yet been disclosed publicly. They seem to be planning against a military mutiny. That’s how it feels.

    You don’t need 25,000 armed National Guard troops to protect an inauguration, and you certainly don’t need that and more to protect a mostly virtual inauguration.

    The riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, likely could have been contained and people kept out of the building with a couple hundred more riot police, or maybe a few hundred.

    The failure to have any semblance of adequate security, despite apparent FBI warnings of possible trouble, is one of the baffling aspects of that day. It’s why the Chief of the Capitol Police has resigned, and there needs to be a thorough investigation of how the Mayor of D.C. and others rejected requests for additional help.

    Yet what is happening in D.C. now looks more like a military defensive posture than riot control or even an attempt to defend against small groups planning violence.

    There are the National Guard troops, and bridges to the city will be shut on Tuesday. The 8-ft non-scalable fences around the Capitol are being replaced with 12-foot fencing. US Citizen and Immigration Services is closing its offices for two days.

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      Harry Passfield

      As I read somewhere: Considering Biden was against fencing the southern border it’s a bit of an epiphany for him to want them now especially as he has such a mandate from his 90 MILLION (cough) votes.

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      OldOzzie

      Armed Protesters Begin To Arrive At State Capitols Around The Nation

      Armed protesters have arrived at multiple state capitol complexes across the country Sunday morning. This follows a special bulletin from the FBI last week that warned: “armed protests” were being planned at 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington, DC, ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.

      While the protesters are being identified across various platforms as members of a so-called “boogaloo” movement, they largely appear to be generic anti-government anarchists – some of whom call themselves “liberty boys,” and others who oppose the conservative Proud Boys. Their sudden emergence surrounding the inauguration is curious, to say the least.

      “We are not a pro-Trump group,” said one of the armed protesters at the Ohio demonstration.

      An armed protester in Ohio told the “Proud Boys do not come here.”

      On top of this all, civil flight observers have said, “amount of USAF cargo aircraft (C130s C17s KC135s KC46s) bringing National Guard troops to Washington DC/Capitol is truly impressive. Almost a constant air bridge for the past several days.”

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      Stuart

      The military is not there to protect against Trump Protesters, come the time the soldiers will just do an about face and join the protests. They are there to stop the offenders from escaping the Building.

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    OldOzzie

    Dems Reject Bigger Survival Checks, Float Tax Breaks For The Rich

    Party leaders are backing off a chance to push for a new round of full $2,000 survival checks — while Democratic lawmakers consider new tax breaks for the wealthy.

    At the same time, Democratic lawmakers are reportedly considering resurrecting their past proposal to temporary repeal a cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions that high earners can deduct on their federal taxes. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, temporarily repealing the current $10,000 cap on the SALT deduction would cost $136 billion over the next two years, which was the timeframe proposed for such a repeal in legislation pushed by House Democrats last year.

    California Republican Rep. Mike Garcia is touting new legislation to repeal the limits on SALT deductions. Bloomberg News reported that “Democrats have been trying to restore unlimited SALT deductions since the 2017 tax law capped the benefit at $10,000.”

    If Democrats choose to permanently repeal the cap, it would cost almost $600 billion — or three times the amount it would cost to boost the $1,400 checks to $2,000.

    The survival checks and the SALT tax breaks are mirror opposites when it comes to distributing benefits.

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      Richard Ilfeld

      No, actually, they are much the same. A majority of the money in the “survival checks” goes to people who have not missed a paycheck during the pandemic,
      many of whom have had significantly reduced economic costs. The US savings rate isn’t bad for those who are saving. The 10% who work for
      government, and the middle class working for large companies who have not been commuting, and for whom every day has been casual day, can simply bank the money.
      Now, there is much hardship for these families as well, that the savings rate does not measure. Economics has earned its moniker as the Dismal science.
      But almost every democratic program, from the SALT deductions, to college loan forgiveness, to PBS and Lincoln Center Subsidies, to susidies to build out 5g, turns out to be poverty programs for the well-to-do.

      In a real world, governnment ordered business closures would be “takings” under the constitution, and would require specific compensation of those harmed.
      Permitting selected operations and not others, without showing specific cause is eminent domain . The actual resolution will prove that for the left, our constitution is pure BS.

      The government will continue to shovel money to the comfortable in its constituancy, while our dystopian and leftist controlled cities with their dependent and despondent populations, many of color, fall further behind. Anyone who expects that the already defeated children in our inner cities, who have lost a year of indifferent education to COVID,
      will be caught up by the teacher’s union when they receive their bounty from the federal government, raise their hands……

      I don’t see any hands.

      The left has managed our biggest problems for generations–giving them more money gives me confidence that they will make the problems bigger. The only thing that was shovel-ready the last time this crew tried to goose the economy was the speeches. In the world of the Democrats, 500,000 “jobs” insulating urban buildings will create 50,000 PI lawsuits for ingesting toxic insulation materials, and the plaintiffs bar will compete with the teacher’s union as top campaign donors. Its the American way.

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    OldOzzie

    Wall for Me, But Not for Thee?

    PHOTOS: Feds Build Walls in D.C. for Anti-Border Wall Joe Biden, Kamala Harris

    While the barriers will be in place through next week’s inauguration, Biden has promised to stop all construction of wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and has claimed that such barriers do not reduce illegal crossings, though federal data indicates otherwise.

    In his call to end President Trump’s national emergency at the southern border, Biden claims that “building a wall will do little to deter criminals and cartels seeking to exploit our borders.”

    Similarly, Harris has criticized wall construction at the U.S.-Mexico border as well. Specifically, in 2019, Harris blasted the Trump administration for stationing American troops at the border and for using concertina wire along barriers to help deter illegal crossings. These are the same two tactics now being used in Washington, DC, to protect the Biden-Harris inauguration.

    Photos below show the extent of security in the nation’s capital:

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      Kalm Keith

      How much did this show cost.

      Materials.
      Transport.
      Erection.
      Security while up.
      Removal.
      Transport.
      Storage/dump/send to Mexico border wall.

      Many millions; basically all for show.

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        Serp

        All along I’ve thought the viper’d be inaugurated in a secure underground bunker; has he had his Pentagon briefings and is Kamala going to be both senator and veep?

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          David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

          G’day S,
          This report says she will.
          ” United States vice-president-elect Kamala Harris will resign her Senate seat two days before she and president-elect Joe Biden are inaugurated, making way for California’s first Latino senator. ”
          https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-18/vice-president-elect-kamala-harris-to-resign-her-senate-seat/13065496
          Cheers
          Dave B

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            OldOzzie

            thanks that answers 1.2

            OldOzzie
            January 17, 2021 at 11:24 am · Reply
            Quick Question – Has Heels up Harris resigned her Senate Seat in California?

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            OldOzzie

            Ric Grenell: Susan Rice Will Be Biden’s ‘Shadow President’

            Former ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell on Sunday claimed Susan Rice, tapped by the President-elect Joe Biden to run the Foreign Policy Council, will really act as the “shadow president” in the administration.

            In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Grenell said “you need to watch Susan Rice very closely.”

            “She will be the shadow president,” he claimed. “We have a president-elect in Joe Biden who clearly is not the Joe Biden of 10 years ago. He’s not even the Joe Biden of 5 years ago when it comes to policy issues.

            “We saw him raise his hand during the Democratic primary for some really radical ideas. The progressives have clearly taken over him and I think that that’s why he won. They wanted someone… that they could control and Susan Rice being right there at the White House to be the shadow president is probably exactly where she wants to be, behind the scenes. And unchecked.

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    another ian

    Or cause the invention of A NEW STORY

    Should go with 11.1

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    Harves

    So this Democrat supporter was arrested for inciting anti-Trump violence on Facebook. But clearly he wasn’t banned by Zuckerberg. Oh, the hypocrisy. Not a single MSM outlet seems to have picked up this story … how strange.🤔
    https://flaglerlive.com/160280/fbi-plotter-arrest/

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    RicDre

    Annie, if you’re out there, I just wanted to say thank you for mentioning on an earlier thread that you were re-reading Dr. Zhivago because it reminded me that I hadn’t read the book in a very long time, so I downloaded it from Barnes and Nobel as a “Nook Book” (I couldn’t find my hard copy) and re-read it and enjoyed it very much.

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      Annie

      Thank you RicDre. I am glad that you have enjoyed it again. You have beaten me to it as it happens! I found my original copy and it’s still sitting by the bed! Now I really will start; thanks for the reminder. 🙂

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    another ian

    A couple of things about one world government.

    Years ago in a management course the lecturer was demonstrating the Pyramid Principle – one chief, many indians (maybe for correctness these days I should say slaves?)

    From the audience came this comment:-

    “Oh that’s how it is supposed to work. I thought it was more like a vegetarian’s dunny – the turds float to the top”

    And well before they get to deciding the biggest turd they’ll be well past the collective upper limit of “The Peter Principle”

    (IMO)

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    Harves

    Perhaps Trump has simply locked down DC so the arrests can be made without incident?

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    Furiously curious

    Pretty big news on the Ivermectin front – The US National Health Institute has just revised its recommendations on using Ivermectin in the treatment of covid. Should I be cynical? Lots of info.

    https://covid19criticalcare.com/

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    another ian

    Windows 10 progress

    Typing this on Brave. Seriously considering (on principle) going to the GAB version of it which has the right ring about it – “DISSENTER”

    I followed the recipe in that Hellotech article and no problem to get it unlocked.

    The only “Microsoft considers essential” that I haven’t been able to axe as yet is that bloody white space on the LHS of the task bar that links to Edge.

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    Tides of Mudgee

    This is a link to a January 16th update from Simon Parkes, but at the 33m:23s mark he says that if John F. Kennedy Jnr. is still alive he will go around from state to state healing and holding meetings etc. etc. and in 4 years time he will stand as President of the US. Hmmmmmmmmm…….. que? Can anyone throw some light on this strange comment? ToM

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      Hanrahan

      What do you make of this guy. He sounds like Q before he dropped off my radar 6 months ago.

      I’d LIKE to believe, but…….

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        Tides of Mudgee

        Hi Hanrahan, I think I echo your last sentence “I’d LIKE to believe, but ………..” then he throws in a curly one like the one I mentioned and I go back to zero again. ToM

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          Serp

          Pompeo’s tweet frequency went progressively down to five minutes and then stopped therefore everybody is in position.

          It’s very exciting waiting for the plan to unfold to completion.

          A peaceful transition from Donald Trump to Donald Trump (Biden being unacceptable to the milt).

          MSM to be taken down, be patient…

          “We’ve won we just don’t know it yet” Simon’s slogan. All planned since the murder of JFK for trying to go back to gold standard.

          I thought I’d had enough of Simon but he gets a firm grip of my curiosity and doesn’t let go.

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    Hanrahan

    here’s a flyover of Crescent Dunes Solar project.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWzE9ALROgo

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    Richard Jenkins

    The mayor of Wagga Wagga promised to drive to Sydney and back in counci’s new electric car. What happened?
    Journalist took an electric Jaguar from Sydney to Canberra. He didn’t make without some recharging. He charged in Canberra on his mother’s domestic gpo and rented a car for 3 days waiting. I note the charge rate is quoted in kilometres. 3 per hour is apparently good. No passengers no heating no cooling as they reduce range. They suggest open windows for cooling and use a blanket and gloves to avoid turning on the air conditioner or heater. Musk must be laughing at people’s gulibility making him rich.

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      Hanrahan

      They are perfectly good for your daily commute, but so is a 2hd hand Corolla.

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        another ian

        H

        Don’t forget that lot that advocate bicycles for thyat

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        Richard Jenkins

        Depends how far. A 12 hour daily charge gives you 36 kilometres on a moderate day.

        My question is genuine.
        That mayor vowed to take the trip to Sydney.
        I had read the Jaguar journalist and am intigued to know what happened to the mayoral promotion of his investment of other people’s money.

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          another ian

          Richard

          Most likely on tomorrow’s agenda

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          Chad

          Richard Jenkins
          January 17, 2021 at 6:18 pm · Reply
          Depends how far. A 12 hour daily charge gives you 36 kilometres on a moderate day

          I am not a fan of EVs, however, that comment is totally wrong. ..bull5h1t to be precise !
          An EV will typically use 1kWh to travel 4 kms, so 36 kms would require 9.0 kWhs
          Any domestic wall outlet can supply 2kW, so the 9 kWh could be charged in 4.5 hours, and 12 hrs could charge 24 kWh or 96 km worth.
          Using one of the many public EV charge stations would have allowed a minimum of a 15kW charge rate , …and more likely 50 kw,…
          …..such that a1 hour charge would have been enough to make the return journey.

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            Richard Jenkins

            Thanks Chad. My source was a sales promotion on the charging. I see no sense in quoting kms. Surely number of passengers, luggage, wind direction, temperature, auxillaries used and gradients all influence amps per km. Reading about batteries charge rate is dependant on ambient temperature. Fast charging destroys batteries quicker. The battery is expensive and toxic waste. Buying as a used car the battery life left is extremely important. Fast ‘charging stations’ suggest it is like buying petrol. More sensible people realize that there are queues wating. Some suggest 100 charging points and a restaurant so that 200 people can have a meal while they wait.
            The Jaguar article was promotional and dscussed many fine features. The journalist had to protect his own integrity and wrote I have to admit though that….. The battery was 95% charged when he checked it so he put it on his gpo to charge and the rates were in kms. He left Sydney fully chaged. When his gauges showed he wasn’t going to make Canberra he detoured 11 kms to a fast charge sufficent power to get to Canberra. Fast charges are hours not minutes. It took three days to charge at his mother’s gpo. He had to rent a car for business around Canberra.
            I suspect there are loses in the gpo charging systems. Power in does not equate to power stored. Like power loses on transmission lines.
            My socialist council went to electric vehicles. Breakdowns were common RACV could not help and towing bills huge. Probably battery charge problems with staff? The budget meant return to petrol.
            Wagga is large area. The charging will have that car off the road often. Did the supplier discourge the promotion knowing that the performance would destroy the hype?

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            Richard Jenkins

            Chad you do realize that watts are volts x amps don’t you? A kwh is 1000 watts for an hour. At 250 volts that is 4 amps for an hour AC. Car batteries are DC. Our power is usually only 230 volts. Fuses are rated in amps. 15 amp fuses are for high demand like kettle(s). 9 x 1000 watts per hour is boiling 9 x 1000 watt kettles constantly for an hour.
            Even at 250 volts that requires a 36 amp fuse. DC requires a flow of electrons in one direction. AC is vibration of electrons. There is a large loss of power if the electrons are only used when moving in their direction. Diodes can change the direction but imagined as a pendulum the direction at the extremes can both be used but in the middle the power is lost.
            I don’t know how much power is used or how many amps it takes to push a car 4 kilomtres on level ground at 30 kph using 12 volts DC.
            I think the promotion of 3kms per hour from a 10 amp gpo seems good. That is 2300 watts AC for an hour.

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              Graeme#4

              What a strange mix of comments Richard. For a start, Chad knows a heck of a lot about electricity, and I have to say that I find your comments interesting to say the least. For a start, electrons don’t “flow” in conductors, regardless of whether it’s AC or DC. And Chad was talking about kWh, which is absolutely correct. And as far as energy losses are concerned, it might interest you to know that most long-distance power transmission lines are DC, not AC. And another thing – the motors in EVs are certainly not 12 V.

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                Hanrahan

                it might interest you to know that most long-distance power transmission lines are DC, not AC.

                DC transmission is only used where there are good reasons to bury cables. MOST transmission is still AC and by a country mile. I do know about BassLink. There is one I found, the Qld/NSW interconnector and the reason for that is probably for frequency isolation and preference for a buried cable in such populated country. Less right of way problems.

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                Richard Jenkins

                Graeme thank you for commenting. Chad’s comments like yours suggest very little knowledge about electricity or electronics. I try to keep in simple language and avoid sine curves and complex maths. DC is not used for transmission. Electricity can be likened to plumbing. Voltage is pressure. With gas we have small strong high pressure pipes. High tension wires are small high voltage AC. It is simple to change voltage with AC as the vibration works transformers. To transport power DC requires huge wires. That is why Tesla beat Edison. Edison’s DC required lots of metal and short distances. A generator every block.
                A kwh involves time. The h is hour. Battery charging is ‘put simply’ putting electrons back in the battery.
                Battery charging does not work with AC as it gives and takes many times per second. That adds to complications with solar panels as they are DC power and have to be converted to AC for transmission.
                A friend bought or had us indirectly give him domestic solar panels. After 13 years his power bills were too high. The power company explained the panels were drining power and needed to be replaced. He just got them disconnected. He has left them on his roof as the toxic waste disposal is expensive. Fascinated I asked an astute school principal about it. He had had the same event. The school’s panels are disconnected, his bill reduced but the panels remain in place. The government won’t pay for the removal. For 2050 target allow to replace your solar panels twice.

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                Graeme#4

                Umm Richard, after 60 years working in the electronics field, including designing complex electronic products and teaching electronics, participating in overseas standards conferences and heading electronics research teams, I think I do know a lot about electronics, and you are quite wrong that DC is not used for power transmission. Try researching HVDC transmission lines as a start. And never ever assume that folks here don’t know they are talking about.

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                Graeme#4

                Hanrahan: No, HVDC and UHVDC transmission is now used for many long-distance lines, not just undersea cables. As an example, look at the Wikipedia article that lists the Chinese long-distance lines, and most of the long lines 1500-2000 kms use DC.

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            Hanrahan

            and 12 hrs could charge 24 kWh or 96 km worth.

            So you MUST garage your car for half a day to use it for an hour at highway speeds. I’d preder the used Corolla thanks.

            Using one of the many public EV charge stations would have allowed a minimum of a 15kW charge rate , …and more likely 50 kw,…

            I spent a couple of hours [it’s OK, I’m retired] checking out public charge stations in Qld. 22kV is the fastest rate available with just two in the Valley, Brisbane, only one of which is available overnight. That’s about 1,300 kms from me.

            …..such that a1 hour charge would have been enough to make the return journey.

            Trip calculator says it’s 284 miles or 457 km Wagga to Sydney so you may want to reconsider this. A fully charged Tesla could not do the return trip at highway speeds and it takes quite a while to fully charge. They talk of time for 80% charge using super-chargers because that last 20% takes time and shortens battery life.

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              Richard Jenkins

              Thanks Han.. Your Corolla could have electric windows, a full sound system and be driven at night with the wipers full speed, lights on and heater full blast. They are economical so one full tank may make the whole trip.
              Being second hand you may even sell for what you paid.
              EV resale is subject to remaining battery life as replacing the batteries is expensive. I don’t know what voltage the motor runs on but 12 volts would conform with all the other bits and probably is sensible. They require the same wattage anyway and changing voltages for different functions seems complex.

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    Just about any pro Trump comment is rejected by the Australian newspaper , unbelievable that they have gone the way of Fairfax, ABC etc

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      Hanrahan

      Is Patricia still there? She would be having a ball slinging sheet.

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      • #
        Chris

        No, but Tallulah and Silly Filly continue to fill her space . I think Peter Ridd’s success in the first legal case knocked the wind out of Patricia’s sails. As for The Australian , I too have had enough of their wokeness and viciousness, it’s sad to see a reputable newspaper turn into sewage.

        10

  • #
    MICK MULLER

    I have lived in the tropics both here in OZ and in the Pacific for a few years of my working life, and been unfortunate enough to have been through three cyclones of varying intensity over the years.
    Last year, This Article from ABC news made me sit up and take notice.
    QUOTE
    Cyclones have been notoriously hard to predict over decades, but a new scientific model could prove to be a circuit-breaker, particularly in the cyclone-battered Pacific.
    Cyclone modelling has traditionally been difficult due to complex interactions between the sea and atmosphere
    A new Australia-New Zealand forecast model now synthesizes these interactions simultaneously
    This could strengthen the Pacific’s preparedness for its annual cyclone season
    The University of Newcastle, in collaboration with New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research, has released a new predictive tool call Long-Range Tropical Cyclone Outlook for the Southwest Pacific (TCO-SP), which can forecast cyclones up to four months in advance.

    Current modelling only produces forecasts one month in advance, while actual cyclone paths may not necessarily follow predicted paths.

    At the time of reading, I was a little sceptical, especially the last bit about modelling can only produce forecasts one month in advance. The reason for my scepticism was that I cannot recall the BOM predicting any cyclones a month in advance, it was highly unusual to get even a weeks notice
    much less a month. I thought that four months was pushing it up hill a bit.

    We have had two cyclones this season , neither was predicted to occur within a week of their forming. Indeed in the case of tropical cyclone Kimi, it seemed to pop up out of nowhere with no warning. There was no mention of a tropical low even forming. The monsoon trough hanging over northern Australia has a good chance of producing another one next week of the northern coast of WA. But not a word from these new found models.

    Once again, the press releases seem to be of more import than the actual science.

    60

    • #
      Hanrahan

      AFAIK BoM has no idea until the low pressure is forming.

      They are not much good at reporting the current state of a cyclone. I remember one that passed over Rocky some years ago. They were still calling it Cat 2 while videos were popping up on youtube of the curious and cleanup crew already out on the street with near calm winds.

      I remember being in the eye of a small one in ’54. It really was eerie.

      70

    • #
      RickWill

      It is reasonably well known that cyclones rely on Convective Available Potential Energy to spin up. There are some satellite monitoring systems that can now determine convective instability using just a few atmospheric measurements. This paper details those instability factors:
      https://cwg.eumetsat.int/global-instability-index/

      I like Figure 1 because it shows how intimate precipitable water is tied to instability. I have a high vertical resolution single column model that produces a level of free convection once TPW exceeds 30mm and goes into cyclic cloudburst at 38mm. That ties in well with the indices developed for the satellite predictions.

      So cloudburst is an essential for a cyclone. This paper covers that as well as the current state of cyclone modelling:
      https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16000870.2018.1433433
      It is unlikely that a sea surface cooler than 27C will develop sufficient CAPE to get a large area involved i.e. updraft causing wind in adjacent locations. Then the latitude needs to be at least 7 degrees or possibly up to 10 before there is sufficient Coriolis acceleration to get the wind spinning.

      The evaporation associated with the rapidly moving air takes a lot of latent heat from the surface so there needs to be a suitable shallow temperature gradient below the surface to keep feeding the latent heat so it does not fizzle. My observation is that they chase the warmer surface. Once spinning, it does not appear to need CAPE to keep going because they make their own weather from the surface evaporation as long as they can keep the low pressure zone.

      50

  • #
    • #
      RickWill

      It is nothing short of extraordinary to have so many troops for a non threat.

      I cannot help but wonder why there are so many troops for no serious threat.

      If I was involved in election fraud in the 2020 elections and located in DC I would be more than a little concerned about the military build-up.

      About 5 days to go here in Australia to see how it all turns out.

      I will remain a little perplexed with Trump if he just walks out on 20th January.

      100

      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        It is nothing short of extraordinary to have so many troops for a non threat. I cannot help but wonder why there are so many troops for no serious threat.

        I don’t know whether the right-wing threat is real or a beat-up (both in DC and a number of the 50 state capitals-capitols), but I do know that governments are in CYA mode, and are not going to caught out again like they were with the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January.

        08

        • #
          Peter C

          Caught off guard?

          No Way. The whole thing was pre-planned and executed according to plan.

          Did you read all of Howell Woltz’s post?

          140

          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            No Way. The whole thing was pre-planned and executed according to plan.

            You clearly have a lot more faith in the capacity of nefarious forces to plan and execute a sophisticated false flag operation than I do. The US Capitol was essentially defenceless, despite the pretty clear threat; a shameful (but not atypical) lapse of competence.

            They are now over-compensating … also not atypical.

            01

    • #
      Stuart

      The troops are there to help Trump, not for the Democrats.

      11

  • #
    Bruce L

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=RsXs5CrUEdI&feature=share

    [Bruce you will get more views if you give a description of what is in your links.]AD

    30

    • #
      RickWill

      This is the only link I could find to this interview. It is not the origin. It is dated 16th January. I wanted to see the time of the actual interview. There is a date stamp 6 Jan when Flynn is speaking so probably outdated now.

      30

  • #

    Beware, danger danger!

    ABC reports super high extreme intensity Category 1 Cyclone Kimi off the Coast of North Queensland, with a central pressure of 752HectoPascals, with mega strength winds up to 14KPH at the centre. Tropical Cyclone warning from Cape York to Wilsons Promontory.

    Possible basketball sized hail, horizontal rain from those extreme 14KPH winds, gusting to 15KPH, and flooding expected as far inland as the West Australian border.

    The BOM also has its eyes on a follow up Low Pressure forming off the Kamchatka Peninsula which could closely follow Kimi and further impact the whole of the Eastern Australian mainland.

    Disaster Management are in readiness for this, and all members of the Australian military forces have been recalled from everywhere to assist with the recovery after this fifteen week prolonged disaster.

    Tony.

    172

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Goes along nicely with the extreme heatwave of 26c in Tassie a few years back , the ABC were all over it like a rash .

      120

    • #
      TedM

      And they missed the cock-eyed bob that tore through just north of Manjimup WA about two weeks ago. Fortunately missed the town but flattened trees and plenty of fencing in the farming areas. Only one house north of town badly damaged. I woke of during the night and had trouble distinguishing between the thunder and the sound of the wind.

      50

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Seems it disappeared overnight according to sky news this morning .

      00

  • #
    Hanrahan

    I am betwixt and between: Will Trump triumph in a mighty, daring gambit that has multiple arrests, or does he go out with a whimper? There really is no face saving middle ground for either party. This is gladiatorial combat, the only things missing are the blood and the lions.

    The only reason I don’t say it is all over red rover is because I refuse to believe he will cede without a fight, and he has not fought yet.

    140

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Many feel the same way .

      110

    • #
      RickWill

      I cannot comprehend any non-conspiratorial reason for the troop build up in DC. It is beyond ridiculous to have troops sleeping in the Capitol Building for Inauguration Day given it will be such a low key affair and still days away.

      Trump pulled off the impossible on his ascension. Hard to believe he will go meekly into the yonder; a beaten man when there appeared to be so much long term plans to drain the swamp.

      I have an Australian acquaintance who met Trump some years ago and that meeting seeded ideas that spurred him to start a successful new business that has even thrived during Covid. He had good words for Trump; being surprised Trump even permitted the meeting without prior notice.

      The unbiased interviews and personal accounts from people who regularly deal with Trump show him as a nice person; in contrast to his TV nasty guy image.

      His cunning in working the crowd and ability to draw a crowd and votes was plain to see. His massive election numbers. Balance that with the perceived lack of leadership on Covid; but I do not think he was alone there. The vast majority of US citizens resent being under house arrest even if their lives depend on it.

      I have a friend in the USA who suffered business losses due to trade war with China. He originally voted for Trump in 2016 but would need to wash out his mouth if he gave his honest opinion now. I do not know if there are other people who grew to dislike him. The woke people I know literally HATE Trump.

      If Biden becomes Potus this week then it is quite clear that anyone aiming for the Presidency does not need to waste time working crowds. Just get the printing presses wound up for the ballots in a few critical locations and slip them in as required.

      122

      • #
        Hanrahan

        In ’84 Reagan won 49 states with 59% of the vote.

        Sorry Ronald, that ain’t enough in the 21st century, even if you could crack good Russia jokes.

        91

      • #

        Republicans are
        Conservatives –
        Constitutionalists,
        Change via debate
        And honest votes.

        Not Portland riots
        Or Chicago violence,
        but Law and Order
        A la Ben Franklin
        And John Adams,

        And 1st US President,
        George Washington,
        Who could not tell
        A lie. M-A-G-A!

        90

    • #
      MP

      Saw a vid of them building the fence around the capital building, the fence is bolted (nuts) from the outside and the razor wire is on the inside. shifter and two minutes and your in, getting out would be a tad more difficult.

      Very weird

      80

      • #
        PeterS

        Now that the Republic is gone for good, they might as well build a fence around the capital building; to keep the new administration inside in a virtual prison state.

        111

    • #
      Tilba Tilba

      The only reason I don’t say it is all over red rover is because I refuse to believe he will cede without a fight, and he has not fought yet.

      He has been flighting very hard it seems to me – trying every legal and political strategy available to him. What are you expecting … some form of military coup?

      04

      • #
        Hanrahan

        trying every legal and political strategy available to him.

        Rolls easily off the tongue but Trump has done little. He has allowed things to run their course expecting that there would be legal redress for the obvious and massive fraud. Why should he cop it sweet? He is entitled to fight and he has done little so far.

        00

        • #
          Tilba Tilba

          He has allowed things to run their course expecting that there would be legal redress for the obvious and massive fraud. Why should he cop it sweet? He is entitled to fight and he has done little so far.

          Yes – he did expect the Supreme Court at least to give him a decent hearing, and maybe a result a bit like Bush v Gore in 2000.

          I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating – Donald Trump could hardly have had a less suitable legal team … trying to run it like some mob stoush in the South Bronx. He needed better brains.

          Also in the same vein, the demonstration / protest world was very quiet too, for the period 11 November to 5 January … I think MAGA supporters were “expecting” something legal or political to happen, and perhaps thought it better to not rock that boat.

          Donald Trump tried what he felt he could – I don’t think he was ever seriously considering the wilder options that the more feverish commentators were promoting (Flynn, Powell, Lin Wood, etc, etc).

          00

  • #
    Contemptible Blackguard

    This is off topic but look at the attached link from Blancolirio’s Juan Browne which shows another failed Solar farm at Tonopah in Nevada that cost $975 million and achieved 20% of design capacity, so it went the way of all flesh.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWzE9ALROgo

    And the evidence mounts

    80

  • #
    Contemptible Blackguard

    oops did not see comment no number 50 so apologies

    50

  • #
    Harves

    For days CNN spun the fiction that Trump’s speech incited the riot. Now, in an attempt to support the need for military lockdown they are reporting it was planned days in advance and people had driven 100s of miles with weapons and ammunition.
    Welcome to Orwell’s 1984, where the truth changes daily.

    120

  • #
  • #
    Tilba Tilba

    This is gladiatorial combat, the only things missing are the blood and the lions.

    I respectfully disagree … the main thing missing has always been two sides to a fight, and realistically there has only been one victor since Fox and CNN called the election for Joe Biden late on Saturday 7 November.

    Everything else has been wishful thinking and a string of major disappointments. The only things really left to consider would seem to be:

    1. Who will Trump pardon
    2. Will he try to pardon himself
    3. Will there be any mayhem at any capitols
    4. Will Trump go quietly into the night

    Whatever one thinks of Trump, it’s certainly been an “interesting” presidency.

    112

    • #
      Hanrahan

      4. Will Trump go quietly into the night

      You’re an [Snip]ADTrump will not be allowed to go quietly into the night. The left, and be honest you yourself, want Donald and his family DESTROYED.

      Is this futile impeachment an indication of anyone being magnaminous in victory?

      90

      • #
        Hanrahan

        Sorry mods. It ain’t easy to stay calm.

        60

      • #
        Henning Nielsen

        Yes? Trump is giant. Incarcerated, he will be huge. Dead, he will be insurmountable. They should be careful what they wish for.

        100

      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        The left, and be honest you yourself, want Donald and his family DESTROYED.

        It’s always pretty risky trying to foist on me what I want or think or believe. Most people are so dreadfully wrong. I am a mere objective observer who has a long-held strong interest in American history and politics.

        I don’t hold any passionate views about Trump or Biden at all – and in fact don’t like either of them very much. I find it staggering that a country of 330 million pretty dynamic punters can’t find better candidates.

        i also find it interesting that people see some huge – even earth-shattering – difference between a Republican victory versus a Democratic one. To me they are two mainstream political parties, basically more similar than different, both entrenched, fossilised, and both with leaders who are far too old.

        But fascism v communism it ain’t, despite breathless media hype.

        15

        • #
          el gordo

          The game changer has been Donald’s media savvy, neither side of politics wanted him, an outlier with bully boy tactics, but the people voted for him because he wasn’t part of the swamp.

          This time around the Democrats encouraged people to vote and Donald was out manoeuvred. He couldn’t organise enough support and lost both houses. The fascist/communist thing is a ridiculous beat up.

          00

    • #
      GD

      Will he try to pardon himself

      Pardon himself for what?

      160

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Good one.

        90

      • #
        TedM

        Excellent reply GD.

        50

      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        Pardon himself for what?

        There are a lot of powerful forces in the other paddock who are totally convinced that Donald Trump has committed federal cries over the last 4-5 years, and there is a considerable risk that those forces would seek to investigate and prosecute.

        Joe Biden has been ambivalent | lukewarm about chasing Trump as soon as he loses the protection of the office, but Biden might not have the final or the only say.

        Trump faces reasonably serious state issues in New York – you would think he wouldn’t want the threat of indictment in DC as well. But you ight be right – he might not seek a pardon for himself, on the grounds that it is an admission of guilt.

        05

        • #
          Chris

          Trump and his family have had every inch of their lives investigated. If the left had found so much as an unpaid parking fine they would have made merry hell. Time and time again you see this mantra that Trump is a crook and has been up to nefarious deeds and yet not one person makes any proven claim. Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Shiff, etc continually stated to the media that they had seen the evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. However, when in front of the congressional hearing where lying is a jailing offence they each and every one said they personally had not seen the evidence. This isn’t the pot calling the kettle black, but rather a seething cauldron commenting on the teapot. Trump has proven himself to be an ethical person.

          61

          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            Trump has proven himself to be an ethical person.

            Yeah well … a lot of people with power and influence in DC disagree with you, and they are going to go after Trump – unless perhaps he does a deal and fades away quietly in return for dropped investigations.

            He might negotiate that – but you’d think a pardon for himself and the kids would be a bit of insurance.

            04

            • #
              GD

              a pardon for himself and the kids would be a bit of insurance

              A pardon for what?

              00

              • #
                GD

                Tilba, rather than continuing to insinuate that Trump has committed crimes, why not list them, or even list one, just one?

                Obviously, you can’t use collusion with Russia, as the Congressional hearing put that one to bed, with all called before the hearing admitting they had seen no evidence.

                Yet, on the other hand, there is hard evidence of collusion with Russia and China by Biden and his son.

                Strange you are not concerned about that.

                10

              • #
                Tilba Tilba

                Tilba, rather than continuing to insinuate that Trump has committed crimes, why not list them, or even list one, just one?

                As I have said, it doesn’t matter a lot what you or I might think – it’s whether there is an appetite for investigation and pursuit of Trump in the administration and the DOJ.

                As a prosecutor once said (I paraphrase), “Given enough resources and the will, I could indict a ham sandwich.”

                There was a list of possible obstruction indictments coming out of the Mueller Report – the Democrats may not have forgotten. And there might be investigations of Trump’s “incitement of sedition / insurrection” for his speeches up to and including 6 January.

                I don’t know where this going … I expect no-one does yet. So it will be interesting to see who is in the list of “a hundred pardons” being claimed, for Tuesday or Wednesday morning, US time.

                But I would not be surprised if Trump does not pardon himself, his children, or their spouses. Rudy Giuliani maybe?

                00

        • #
          chrism

          c’mon man
          I’ve got hairy legs

          Trudeshadnadenprasshar

          (Biden’s comments re DJT)

          00

  • #
    Hanrahan

    For fellow insomniacs and those with a sense of humour and an hour and a half to spare, may I present:

    The 4th Annual Fake News Awards!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EkWhDDoips

    90

  • #
    Hypersonic

    https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/756815912372895791/

    This video was made two years ago and if you think the Biden win was a bit fishy then this vid will explain a lot

    60

  • #
    • #
      Hypersonic

      The fat lady is about to sing

      60

      • #
        Henning Nielsen

        Don’t have to be fat,
        that’s not what it’s at.
        A canary, by any other girth
        still sings as sweet,
        for what it’s worth.
        If Gina will bleat
        on penitence feet,
        her chirp may unravel
        a truth that can travel
        through barriers of sound
        and foes, ere renowned,
        will bite dust and gravel.

        30

      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        The fat lady is about to sing

        The declaration authorises DHS/FEMA to take all necessary measures to provide security for the inauguration of President Biden and Vice President Harris, and to protect life and property if there is any violence or destructive action.

        It is not there to prevent the Inauguration, or the transition to a new administration. It will be interesting when Donald Trump will leave the White House / DC, and where he’ll be at noon. Florida maybe?

        It’s customary for the outgoing President and First Lady to welcome the incoming President and First Lady6 into the White House on the morning of Inauguration.

        04

        • #
          GD

          It’s customary for the outgoing President and First Lady to welcome the incoming President and First Lady into the White House on the morning of Inauguration.

          It’s also customary to hold elections free and clear of fraud and corruption. Unfortunately, in 2020, that wasn’t the case.

          Trump needs to be shot of the place long before the sham inauguration takes place.

          20

    • #
      PeterS

      One of two things will happen very shortly. Either Biden becomes POTUS or Trump ordered the National Guard to occupy Washington DC as an part of his plan to defend the Constitutional Republic against the foreign interference in the 2020 election by stopping the inauguration from going ahead. By gut feeling is it’s the former and Trump ordered the NG there to avoid any civil unrest from upsetting the inauguration of Biden going ahead, although I so wish it’s the latter.

      60

      • #
        Stuart

        In case you hadn’t noticed, the guard already occupy DC.

        10

        • #
          MP

          I seriously doubt the claim of 25,000 troops, that’s a packed football stadium in QLD, where are they all, a couple of staged for the camera photo’s in the Capital building of a hundred if that. That is not how the army does things.
          Where is the messing facilities, latrines, showers.

          Nah its part of the game, we are being played.

          10

          • #
            hypersonic

            As of yesterday the NG buildup of troops included (but not all):

            1, 56th stryker brigade combat team
            2, 229th brigade engineer battalion
            3, 160th engineer company
            4, 261st theater tactical signal brigade
            5, 198th expeditionary signal brigade
            6, 262nd component repair company
            7, 177th fighter wing (F16 jets air to air combat)
            8, 105th airlift wing
            9, 174th attack wing (drones)
            10, 166th security forces sqn

            In addition there are 2.5 million NATO 5.56MM rounds and 500,000 0.50 caliber rounds on site, one has to ask what size force are they expecting in DC or more to the point from where?

            20

            • #
              Tilba Tilba

              As of yesterday the NG buildup of troops included (but not all)

              What is the source for all this – as asked upthread, where is the back-up support required to service such large numbers of personnel for several days?

              I expect DC to be properly secured for the outdoor inauguration of President Biden, and I wouldn’t expect too much trouble with the firepower in place.

              00

  • #
    Harry Passfield

    A curious thing happened this (Sunday) lunchtime to BBC news on R4. They actually had an interview – quite a long one – with a Trump supporter who openly claimed the ‘election was stolen’ and was given tome to expand on it. They backed this up with other pro-Trump sound-bites and only put up against them a pompous guy called Neil Ferguson (I don’t think he was the Covid modelling guy). This chap went on to insinuate that as Trump’s people were ‘populists’, and as populists tend to be extreme there was no need to take too much notice of them. The Biden voters were a much better lot. Talk about arrogance.
    But it was odd hearing this coming from the BBC.
    Should be here on BBC player: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rbpc

    80

    • #
      TomR

      Populism is supposed to be about setting up of ordinary people vs elites. With time elites shrunk to sub 1%, via the elimination of middle class, so they don’t have the voting power anymore. With the outsourcing of industry to China the interests of the elites became opposite to the ordinary people of the democratic countries (which China is not), who would want the industry to stay locally, and not be outsourced to China.

      So by a very simple logic the populism should be a winning force in the democracy right now. Not necessarily always – if the interests of the elites are aligned with normal people (eg. they build industry locally), and the elites have reasonable voting power (eg. 10% of population rather than 1%) then populism can loose.

      Maybe that’s the reasons that elites introduced vote switching systems – they realized that in current situation populism is a winner when a democracy is possible. So they needed to stop democracy to stop populism.

      60

  • #
    TomR

    Since all levels of US elections tend to use machines and servers with closed source software, then it is possible that up to all the levels of government are compromised and illegitimate: including state congresses, state governments, federal congress and even local or city governments.

    It’s not like they couldn’t be properly counting closed source software, perhaps some states even use it – but the secrecy of it means we don’t know what it really does. Election is not transparent and cannot be certain with a secret code, that is some corporate secret of a corporation.

    This kind of breaks US Constitution mechanisms designed to repair stuff, that probably assumed that various level of government will be quite independent at least in a sense of not having the same problem at once. Eg. if the federal government were to be compromised the states could summon a Constitutional Convention and take over power.

    But right now problems are common at both the state, local and federal level, including the closed source (possibly vote switching) equipment is used at vote counting at all levels, all levels of governments are under the influence of lobbyists from the same group of large global corporations, all level of governments are dependent on centralized political parties, with strong central command and centralized ideologies… So if government gets compromised it is likely to be at the same time at all levels of all governments.

    100

    • #
      PeterS

      The problem that was facing Trump all along is not that there is a swamp but in fact there is an ocean of people who hate him. He really has a next to impossible task of remaining POTUS. The only way for him to remain POTUS now is to stop the inauguration of Biden going ahead but I doubt he will. See my #65.2 just above.

      80

      • #
        Tilba Tilba

        The only way for him to remain POTUS now is to stop the inauguration of Biden going ahead but I doubt he will.

        Even if he wished to do it (not a given) how would he? The Insurrection Act wouldn’t help, nor would EO13848. And the military in any case would not obey unlawful orders (ie, those aimed at keeping a defeated president in power in contravention of the Constitution).

        And if Biden were not inaugurated at noon on 20 January – because he was detained or something – Nancy Pelosi becomes Acting president, and she would order the arrest of Trump at 12:05.

        01

        • #
          TomR

          Some kind of “what happened was not an election” from the Supreme Court with a requirement to get the election – without the agents of non-transparency like closed source software or mail-in voting, and with working voter identification (= introducing reasonable election standards) could solve the issue of compromised election.
          This would mean a new election, using new, robust standards would need to be held.

          20

          • #
            Tilba Tilba

            … a requirement to get the election – without the agents of non-transparency like closed source software or mail-in voting, and with working voter identification (= introducing reasonable election standards) could solve the issue of compromised election.

            I agree entirely that election reform is urgently needed – it is a dog’s breakfast (with a lot of fault on both sides).

            A root-and-branch review is required, in consultation with all the states, with the aim of achieving national uniform standards for all federal elections.

            But this is a goal for the 2022 mid-terms, or the 2024 presidential elections … there is no possibility of the 2020 elections being re-run, and the Supreme Court would agree with that.

            00

  • #
    TedM

    The director of US intelligence, John Ratcliffe has sent a letter to congress with his assessment that China attempted to influence the US election. He did this in spite of the management of the CIA trying to suppress it. Really took some guts I would think. One of the white hats. Just have to respect this guy. This would give POTUS the right to act on his executive order of 2018.

    EPOCH TIMES: https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-sought-to-influence-2020-us-election-director-of-national-intelligence-assesses_3659981.html?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-01-17-3

    80

    • #
      PeterS

      Too little too late. The forces of evil are too much for one person, even for a person like Trump. The more I think about all this the more clear it is to see what’s happening. Although many of us have discussed how clever Trump is and how he might have set things up to trap them, in actual fact it’s the other way around. The evil ones set a much bigger trap that Trump could not possibly avoid,and now we see he fell for it. There is now only one way for him to protect the Constitutional Federal Republic, as I outlined above. I doubt he will do it for a couple of reasons, mainly because he most likely feels it would backfire on him as the left will go nuts and spark off a civil war and many people will be convinced he is to blame, something he would not like to see. So, he would be better off to let the evil ones take over completely and let the people learn the hard way, as is the typical way.

      111

      • #
        TedM

        No learning from this one unfortunately Peter. I think this will be a one way ticket to globalism and agenda 21. I am fairly sure that you know where that leads, as I believe that I do.

        90

        • #
          PeterS

          I believe we are on exactly the same page. It was inevitable for things to happen the way they are. If not now then later. That’s why I never placed much hope on Trump “fixing” things permanently. He never could. He’s just one person against multiple armies of enemies. He could and did delay things somewhat but could never be some sort of “messiah” that so many hoped he would be but are now so angry and sad. The long run is crash and burn for the West to allow the vultures to come and fight over what’s left. I can see Russia taking parts of it and China the rest. That’s one possibility but too early to tell and not too fussed whether it’s true or not as the real big picture is the coming full implementation of the NWO dictatorship by stealth, which has already started to be rolled out, first by way of the Great Reset then by something even more draconian once everything falls apart.

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            Roger Knights

            I wouldn’t be too hopeless. I suspect the Dems will overplay their hand and lose congress in the 2022 midterms, and lose the presidency to Tucker Carlson in 2024.

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      China attempted to influence the US election

      but didn’t

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        TedM

        All my comments are going into moderation.

        [Yes apologies Ted the filter is having a hissy fit.]AD

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        PeterS

        Well if all true, and I have no doubt any of it is not true, then Trump should now use the Insurrection Act and the various EOs he authorised to stop Biden being inaugurated a POTUS in the coming few days. As I outlined before he might but I doubt it for the reasons I stated. It call comes down this. There is more than enough evidence already to show the election was stolen from Trump. Trump is convinced of that too. The question is what will he do about it? Risk a civil war now and use the Insurrection Act or let things go and allow the people to find out the truth the hard way? We shall see in a few days. By guess is he will let things go and Americans will have to deal with it themselves.

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          PeterS

          Bad English (again). I meant to say I have no doubt all of it is true.

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          Nothing is going to happen President Trump will walk out of the White House and the Democrats will get away with cheating and stealing the election. Too many people on the CCP pay roll will stop anyone who wants any other result. Sad but true.

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        Tilba Tilba

        PDF from “Director of Intelligence”

        Well … I read the three-page memo from John Ratcliffe, and it was semi-formal, and containing lots of government jargon.

        However it does not give any detail of what China did to “interfere” in the election, it gives no indication whether the attempt was successful, and if so, to what extent, and of course, which candidate(s) they favoured – if any.

        Anyway – I doubt that it’s going to foment revolution.

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      Tel

      Out of curiosity … who is managing the CIA right now?

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    TedM

    Algorithm gone crazy.

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    OldOzzie

    Sunday Talks, Lindsey Graham Attempts to Explain Why He Did Not Subpoena FBI/DOJ Spygate Operatives
    Posted on January 17, 2021 by Sundance

    Maria Bartiromo questions Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham about why he never subpoenaed James Comey, Andrew McCabe and various ‘spygate’ operatives [SEE 05:15 Point of Video]. Graham punts the question using the DC two-step to put the responsibility in the lap of John Durham… complete nonsense.

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    another ian

    Ain’t modern technology wonderful?

    “attle grid confuses modern car sensors and sends UK drivers into a spin”

    https://www.beefcentral.com/news/cattle-grid-confuses-modern-car-sensors-and-sends-uk-drivers-into-a-spin/

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    Chad

    The BOM and usual MSM news etc are reporting how 2020 was the “Hottest Ever “..
    …yet the same sources are also reporting that Bush Fires are approx 10% of the amount seen at this time (mid season) last year ??
    Conclusion ??..the claimed association between bush fire severity and climatic temperature , is at best ,…not substantiated !
    ..but we all knew that anyway…..
    Unfortunately, the “Scientists” and MSM do not seem to make that association ?

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      Dennis

      It’s all about computer models, garbage in, garbage out, creative accounting of data.

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      el gordo

      It maybe the hottest year, but the coming decade should be cooler because of a negative PDO.

      Putting temperatures aside, what is happening with the hydrology.

      ‘Climate change is also influencing the Australian climate. Rainfall across northern Australia during its wet season (October–April) has increased since the late 1990s with a greater proportion of high intensity short duration rainfall events.’ BoM

      Its only 20 years of data, so the cooler decade ahead should bring conditions back to normal.

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      el gordo

      The severe bushfire season last year was exacerbated by a blocking high pressure out of place, driving hot north westerlies along the Great Dividing Range. This was not reported at the inquiry, obviously surplus to requirement.

      There are times when ENSO misbehaves and they think it might have something to do with the ‘cranky uncle’.

      https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-015-2746-3

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    Steve of Cornubia

    At the US border: “Over time, the official said, the Biden administration plans to set up a way to safely process migrants at the border and allow asylum seekers to make their claims.”

    So the new America under Biden and the globalist Democrats tells thousands of ILLEGAL HONDURAN IMMIGRANTS to take a ticket and form and get in line at the border, while at the same time placing 25,000 armed national guardsmen between himself and AMERICAN CITIZENS at his inauguration.

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    OldOzzie

    WHY DOES AMERICA STILL ALLOW THE FBI AND THE CIA?

    By Howell Woltz -January 17, 2021

    There are not just two unaccountable, unconstitutional ‘agencies’—but 17 of them. Not one of these crooked agencies was authorised by congress

    Do you see it now? 17 illegal spy agencies, never authorised by Congress, plus an illegal national police?

    That’s right. I will pay $10,000 to anyone who can show me the Congressional authorisation of the FBI back in 1908; the CIA or NSA back in 1948 – and I’ll post the capital as soon as any challenger posts theirs.

    If I had more, I’d bet more, but that’s my savings, and I’ll bet it all.

    So how did the three most corrupt agencies in the world’s leading nations come about?

    Through fraud. That’s how.

    But the FBI no longer ‘takes down’ the bad guys. Instead, they aid and abet them. Today, they’re nothing more than a protection racket for the Democrat party.

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      Hanrahan

      Today, they’re nothing more than a protection racket for the Democrat party.

      Or are the democrats the “clients” of the CIA the way bar owners were “clients” of the mobs? I think so.

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      Tilba Tilba

      But the FBI no longer ‘takes down’ the bad guys. Instead, they aid and abet them. Today, they’re nothing more than a protection racket for the Democrat party.

      Things change over time, as you would expect. For many decades (at least since J Edgar Hoover and other reptiles in the CIA) the Cold War, the spread of communism in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and elsewhere – these were the enemies and the focus.

      As part of that the left inside the US were the targets of surveillance and even more than that. So for a very long time the FBI-CIA (and the 17 sisters) were seen as the political police wing of the Republican Party and the powers that be.

      I don’t believe they have “switched sides” at all … but it’s certainly interesting that many pro-Trump groups seem to think so. I think there’s very little evidence that the “Deep State” favours the Democrats.

      But I do believe a lot of deep state operatives were very concerned about the unruly Trump as president – which isn’t the same thing as being pro-Democrat, in my view.

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    Hanrahan

    According to Bill Still the caravans are reforming. Thousands of Hondurans stormed the border crossing into Guatemala shouting Biden! Biden!

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    OldOzzie

    China’s, Not Sweden’s Or Denmark’s, Is The Government Democrats Want

    I & I Editorial Board

    When Democrats propose “progressive” policies, they say their objective is to make the U.S. more like Europe’s welfare states, not socialist nations such as Venezuela and Cuba. Maybe at one time that was true. But not now. In recent years, China has become the nation they want to emulate.

    Let’s clear up one possible misunderstanding right away. We’re not calling the Democrats communists. There are hard socialist leanings within the party, and far too much just-below-the-surface authoritarianism. But we’re not saying they’re communists, though they have no reservations about calling conservatives and Republicans fascists and Nazis, even when they know the charges are untrue.

    Nor are we going to try to make the case that Democrats are in bed with China. We simply want to point out that Democrats want to reign over this country the way the communist party rules China.

    The Democrats’ appetite for following the China model goes back more than a decade. One of its early manifestations is found in the fever dreams of New York Timesman Thomas Friedman. In 2008, he openly yearned for America to be “China for a day.” He called it a “fantasy, basically,” yet he wondered:

    We further said – and we believe this to be irrefutable – that “Democrats are also certain to pass legislation that will make it easier for them to win future elections, whether legitimately or not.” The evidence? “The first bill the Democratic-controlled House introduced in 2019 was the ‘For the People Act,’ which was designed to make election fraud easier on a national scale.”

    The Democrats crave a system wherein they are the elite, the ruling class whose members flaunt their too-expensive-for-you twin Sub-Zero refrigerators; shut down speech they don’t agree with and speech that threatens their power; and, ultimately, have their own Soviet-style Zil lanes so they can avoid the traffic that the deplorables have to endure in busy big cities.

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      Tilba Tilba

      The Democrats’ appetite for following the China model goes back more than a decade. One of its early manifestations is found in the fever dreams of New York Timesman Thomas Friedman. In 2008, he openly yearned for America to be “China for a day.” He called it a “fantasy, basically,” yet he wondered

      Why is a column by Thomas Friedman a manifestation of Democrat goals and policies? Is there a single Democrat policy paper, or platform proposal that says the party wants to be anything like China. It’s a serious strawman in my view.

      Friedman was (I think) expressing his deep frustration – shared by many – that the partisan politics inside the beltway are a roadblock to any action.

      If different parties control the two chambers, or Congress differs from the president, then everything stalls … because they have fixed terms, secure majorities in their home states, and no Constitutional mechanisms to resolve things.

      At least in Australia, the executive derives its power from a House of Reps majority, elections can be called any time, and the Senate can only block so much (and in extremes, can face a double dissolution) … a far superior and more flexible system of governance, in my view.

      It’s pretty easy to hold the view that the US Constitution was designed in the 18th Century with so many veto points and roadblocks precisely in order for it to be ineffectual. It worked.

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    hypersonic

    If there really is a battle between good and evil currently underway in the USA, its probably just an extension of this:

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/allwarsarebankerwars.php

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    CHRIS

    I place the BOM and MSM on a par with commercial TV ie: the ‘best ever’. Every year, we hear from the BOM that the previous year was the “hottest ever”, and every year we hear that the new TV shows will be the “best ever”. I recently emailed my local federal MP (Morrison) that, until the BOM is brought under control and is subject to a Royal Commission (relating to its lying for the past 20 years), his party has lost my vote.

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      el gordo

      Give them a break, they have been seriously brainwashed.

      It would have been best if you asked for an audit of BoM, the Royal Commission can be called later when the weather turns cooler.

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    CHRIS

    With regards to the USA, the whole system (left and right) is completely corrupt. The “New Capitalism” of Soros et al are at least partly responsible why this country is in global decline. Add this to Wall Street Greed, and it serves America right, no matter who is POTUS

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    Hanrahan

    You may remember Tiffany Dover, the nurse who had her COVID shot on national TV and promptly fainted. There is now good evidence that she is dead, but you need to go to newtube to find it, MSM is in denial.

    https://newtube.app/user/DrunkardCow/MqzUpWi

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    tom0mason

    A FREE publication of real climate analysis (no modeled crud), and shows why it ain’t CO2 what did it!
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347150306_The_Rational_Climate_e-Book

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    CHRIS

    Well El Gordo…what a Quinella! “The US political system is not corrupt” LOL. What planet have you been living on recently?? And the New Capitalism is the Beijing Model? Again…LOL. You equate the New Capitalism to the Orient. The Öld” and “New” Capitalism is directly equated to the Occident (just ask Soros). Chinese “Capitalism” is simply Socialism wanting world domination.

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