Friday Open Thread

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167 comments to Friday Open Thread

  • #

    Last week I posted the latest information on the ozone hole believing it had reached its peak. However it seems to have grown again partly due to cold conditions and s very nearly at a record

    https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/

    I have asked NASA to comment and have had a reply and have asked for further clarification as to why the hole doesn’t appear to be shrinking.

    However my main interest is in finding out whether the ozone hole has always been there waxing and waning

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    • #
      el+gordo

      My hypothesis is that its always waxed and waned, leaving CFC with no part to play.

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      • #
        Graeme#4

        An interesting side-comment is that Maurice Strong, who setup IPCC, was also involved in setting-up the Montreal Protocol.

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    • #
      RickWill

      ozone hole has always been there waxing and waning

      It waxes and wanes each year in response to the solar EMR. The peak follows sunspot activity and inverse of cosmic rays.

      Cosmic rays are near their minimum now so the trend in the peak of the ozone should be downward:
      https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi

      The influence of cosmic rays lag sunspot by about 7 months on average since 1980 in the Nino34 region and may be just starting to head upward. However the last cosmic ray minimum was in 2015, some four years after the solar minimum.

      Sunspot activity has been in upswing for more than a year:
      https://solen.info/solar/images/cycle24.png

      So need a few months yet to see if the current bounce in cosmic rays is the start of an upswing or a bump in the decline.

      Cosmic rays have an inverse correlation with temperature in the Nino34 with a regression coefficient of 8% and a lag of 24 months. Sunspots lead the Nino34 temperature by 31 months with a regression coefficient of 6%. So Cosmic rays are more significant in the response. I figure the same relationship will hold for the peak area of the ozone hole. I would follow the cosmic ray data in order to predict when the ozone hole maximum starts to decline.

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        Rick

        In your opinion when was the last time we would historically have seen a similar size ozone hole to the current one?

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        • #
          RickWill

          I expect the maximum area of the hole to align with low cosmic ray. These rays are high energy like UV and are able to create ozone.

          https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi

          Previous minimums around:
          1970
          1981,
          1991,
          2002,
          2013,
          Lets say there could be still larger peak area than now in 2024 in the present cycle.

          Based on the previous cycles, the cosmic ray may be still stepping down. Could be still 2 years off the minimum.

          There is a long term downward trend in peak solar intensity at the South Pole. That is likely reducing the amount of ozone over the SP during peak sunlight.

          This the past and future 1kyr for the South Pole December sunlight. As you can se it is declining quite fast. So this will reduce the density of ozone over the South Pole when it has sunlight to produce it. There will likely be an increasing correlation with cosmic rays as the peak solar intensity shifts northward.

          -1.000 533.113511
          -0.900 532.514602
          -0.800 531.906810
          -0.700 531.290810
          -0.600 530.667268
          -0.500 530.036837
          -0.400 529.400150
          -0.300 528.757825
          -0.200 528.110456
          -0.100 527.458620
          0.000 526.802878
          0.100 526.142841
          0.200 525.479937
          0.300 524.814801
          0.400 524.148072
          0.500 523.480390
          0.600 522.812389
          0.700 522.144687
          0.800 521.477879
          0.900 520.812532
          1.000 520.149173

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Did CFCs really cause the ozone “hole” or substantially contribute to it?

      And BTW, not a physical hole at all.

      As with anything from the Left, the “science” is either suspect or fake.

      And who’s profiting from the ban on CFC’s? I don’t know, but I suspect the same billionaires who harvest wind and solar subsidies from poor people.

      SEE COMMENTS AND DISCUSSION AT:

      https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7450/was-the-hole-in-the-ozone-caused-by-cfcs

      EXCERPT:

      As far as I can tell the original source is from a Nature news story in 2007 which points out that some recent reevaluations of the reaction kinetics of some of the key reactions involved in ozone depletion had given radically different results to those used in the original models of ozone depletion. As one of the scientists reviewing the results said:

      If the measurements are correct we can basically no longer say we understand how ozone holes come into being.

      This view had widespread coverage in the press and blogs. But perhaps the most significant comment on a related topic was by James Lovelock and reported on this blog. Lovelock (intimately involved in the science as he invented the key method for detecting small amounts of things like CFCs) is commenting on the recently revealed Climategate emails and their implication of disreputable behaviour by some climate scientists:

      We should have been warned by the CFC/ozone affair because the corruption of science in that was so bad that something like 80% of the measurements being made during that time were either faked, or incompetently done.

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      • #
        Ted1.

        Who is profiting?

        I do know.

        Anybody who holds a patent on the chemicals which must be used to replace the hundred years old banned ones.

        Did the Montreal Protocol give somebody a monopoly on the supply of refrigerant chemicals? I have read that it did.

        But the story doesn’t end there. They told us at the time that those replacement chemicals were still CFCs, but not as bad as the banned ones.

        Now, 30+ years on, they tell us that those CFCs must now be banned and replaced by another type of chemical.

        I would expect a little research would show that they have reached the end of their patent evergreening road, and have a new one to commence.

        It is well worth our while to pursue this racket, because it was the pilot run for the AGW scam and the COVID19 fiasco.

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        • #
          el+gordo

          Who profited?

          Du Pont Chemicals.

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          • #
            Graeme#4

            And Maurice Strong. He became a favoured one after his work on the Montreal Protocol for the UN, and went on to promote and setup IPCC together with Bert Bolin.

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            • #
              tonyb

              Here is a bio of Strong

              https://www.nature.com/articles/460454a/

              Interesting that he was involved in Montreal and the IPCC. Cold plays a large part in the size of the ‘hole’ as Nasa confirms. AS regards natural variability that is the supplementary question I have posed to them

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              • #
                Graeme#4

                A eBook I have has a far stronger negative opinion of his “achievements “. He deliberately stacked the first IPCC conference in Rio with his chosen activists, blind-siding genuine scientists who thought that it was going to be a scientific forum, not a political setup.

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      • #
        Scissor

        Good comment.

        I had the fortune to be an author on one publication that included Dr. Lovelock and I was able to meet him in person twice. He passed away in July on his 103rd birthday.

        He always had a good sense of humor and regularly took long walks.

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    • #
      KP

      Too bad NASA doesn’t publish CFC concentrations too. Are they down? Are they up? Where’s their correlation?

      “Each year for the past few decades during the Southern Hemisphere spring, chemical reactions involving chlorine and bromine cause ozone in the southern polar region to be destroyed rapidly and severely. ”

      Global warming… AIDS… mRNA vaccines…

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    • #
      Terraforming Earth

      How much is it to do with there simply being 3 months of darkness there? You could say that this is refuted by the North Pole not having a similar hole. But then again you have that circumpolar current, and the way that the wind systems there are somewhat cut off from the rest of the world. Whereas the North Pole doesn’t have that same phenomenon. Perhaps no new ozone is created in the dark, but then if the air is well-mixed up north then nothing would come of that? I’ve seen other comments and it looks like there is a lot more too it then just these two matters. But they could be at the core of the issue.

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      • #
        el+gordo

        Antartica is the coldest place on earth, a very windy desert.

        Every SH spring the ozone hole opens, which suggests it might be a natural variable. But of course the other side of the argument is that CFC become unfrozen in the spring and cause havoc.

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  • #
    WendyB

    Biden is apparently going to release another 10 million barrels of crude from the SPR. This isn’t how it was envisioned to be used. I believe this won’t be the last release either. It leaves us in a very vulnerable position with him actively trying to destroy the oil and gas industry.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      The objective is too starve the USA of energy, destroy the strategic fuel reserve and weaken that great country.

      It is a continuation of the “work” started by Obama, reversed by Trump and reinstated by Biden acting as Obama’s puppet.

      Obama describes his Third Term in this 31 sec video.

      https://youtu.be/JI2Xtqd4Mts

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        TdeF

        I have wondered about Obama. Elected because he was black, he faced the rule that you can only have two terms as President.

        Putting former first lady and Secretary of State under Obama into his job seemed logical. Then his ex vice president, utterly useless old Joe, a man who was never more than a $140K a year senator with no other job. Are we seeing a White House run by Obama and continuing Obama policies like appeasement with Iran? And perhaps Susan Rice. Old Joe has spent half his Presidency hidden at his beach house. Why?

        While it is obvious grumpy and feeble old Joe Biden cannot follow a script and his crooked family are not in charge even of his own mind, who is running foreign policy? Susan Rice or Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton? And why was the entire US army pulled out of Afghanistan in under 24 hours without notifying anyone at all. Not even the Afghan government, certainly not their allies or suppliers and left $10Billion of arms for the Taliban. Then soldiers had to be flown back to Kabul to cover the escape of others after a twenty year war against terror which cost so many lives including 41 Australians. Who made this decision?

        While Putin ran into the same limit and had a proxy in Medvedev and then came back. Are we seeing exactly the same thing in America, a hidden cabal run by ex President Obama and friends?

        But as Afghanistan showed, the President can act unilaterally and initiate WWIII on his own. So we have an uncontrollable, angry, frustrated geriatric sock puppet in charge of the fate of the world. And likely Obama and Rice behind the curtain sometimes losing control. This is High Treason if an incompetent President is being sidelined, kept at his beach house while US policy is really being run by unelected former officials.

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          TdeF

          And I am really worried that Biden is actually talking Cuban Missile Crisis. Sure geriatric Pelosi has been trying to start the invasion of Taiwan, but Biden is trying to start WWIII with the firm belief that he is Irish Catholic John Kennedy reincarnated. And to forestall the Red Wave in 4 weeks. As he said, no one f*cks with a Biden. These are not the words of a moderate person, but an angry old man with nothing to lose.

          And it would all be over in 20 minutes before Obama, Clinton and Rice knew. And there would not be time for General Miley to call President Xi. It’s sounding like a rerun of the Bunker with Adolph. At least we would be saved from man made Global Warming.

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      • #
        DOC

        Deliberate destruction of one’s own country? Doesn’t come any worse than that! This Australian government is deliberately and unwaveringly on the same course. It listens to nobody. It has the ridiculous Bowen – a failed past Minister – unable to logically defend what he is doing, either in the name of the climate or in destroying the livelihoods of middle Australia. He persists on the same destruction of our energy system regardless of what everyone sees happening in Europe. Albanese and the Labor Party are all in behind him. As for business, investors sought and got assurances from the government there was to be no change in direction. Now there is so much investment current and planned in renewables that the wealth destruction of turning the ship now, or persisting as is, will be immeasurable either way and similarly for when the system ultimately fails.

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    • #
      Terraforming Earth

      See how confident the depletion of the strategic reserve must make the Russians. Its like they couldn’t have a care in the world. Russia and Saudi Arabia will retaliate against the Nord Stream outrage by taking 2 million barrels a day off the international markets come November. Saudi Arabia should be slowing its exploitation since its wells lack pressure and its wasteful to try and pull all oil out as quickly as they have been doing it. But its beautiful timing to cut back as retaliation. So the oil price should stay high this time, even as most of the world goes into a depression. Russians must be about the most confident people around right now. Imagine the Americans trying to build their reserve back up under these circumstances? Makes you wonder what desperate tricks the neocons will come up with next.

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      • #
        Leo G

        Makes you wonder what desperate tricks the neocons will come up with next.

        I expect President Biden’s teleprompter will announce a further drawdown of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 2+ million barrels a day, just enough for the SPR to last until the November election season ends.

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    • #
      Stevem

      The US federal government is sending out flyers on how to survive a nuclear attack, indicating it believes there is an increased likelihood of a worldwide nuclear war. Why then would they run down the strategic petroleum reserves intended to fuel thebUS during just such a crisis?
      They clearly put their own political interests above everything else. Trump was a buffoon who engendered hatred despite impeccable policies – Biden is a doddering puppet of the far left that would like to see the destruction of the US and all it stands for.

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  • #
    Peter C

    The War in Ukraine
    Ukraine forces keep having success after success yet somehow the red part of the map creeps steadily westward!

    It was speculated from the start that the USA was the culprit for the Nordstrom pipeline sabotage. They had the means, the opportunity and the motive.
    The motive was too keep Germany in the war. Ordinary Germans have had enough of the war. They want the Russian gas to heat their homes and run their businesses. They have been protesting in the streets in increasing numbers.

    They no longer have that option.

    Now it seems that the deed was done by the US Navy, using a P8 Poseidon aircraft and HAAWC air launched torpedoes. The P8 flew from the US, did an air to air refuel over northern Poland in the dead of night, flew over the pipelines just before the explosions and returned to the US without landing.
    Monkey Werx broke the story
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XPUwgaAScp8

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      el+gordo

      If proven correct then it will surely provoke the masses to revolt.

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        Terraforming Earth

        Really? We take one insult after another and then police each other about speaking out. Few people are in any kind of position to stick their neck out any more. This outrage is just one more in a long list.

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        • #
          el+gordo

          We are still waiting for the forensics to reach the MSM.

          If proven that the US was involved then surely that would put NATO under great strain?

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          • #
            Terraforming Earth

            The MSM are at one with the culprits. You can’t separate the media from terrorism, from banking, from the deep state. They will act to soften the problem. Not stir it up. The usual techniques will be applied. Bogus debunking. Shaming anyone who points to the obvious. What does it mean to prove something these days? Science and logic don’t matter. Its been a long time since the JFK hit and the MSM are still running cover for that one. Still running cover for 9/11. Still running cover for team Einstein. Think of a persistent lie and they are still running cover for it.

            Sure Nato and the EU will be under great strain. But will this override all the societal control locked in place and vigorously maintained? The idea is you promote, bribe and blackmail traitors. The patriot is on his own when trying to progress to the top of politics. The traitor always has sponsors. So who knows when their system of control will finally break down. I can’t see how the EU can survive, but as to any one outrage leading to a revolt? If killing hundreds of thousands of people with needles doesn’t create a revolt then it looks like the revolt will take its own sweet time.

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    • #
      Ted1.

      Might it have been Iran or some other middle eastern interest?

      It’s not a particularly sophisticated exercise. A small fishing trawler could do it using readily available gear.

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      • #
        Terraforming Earth

        No it would have to be someone who could slip inside the observation of Nato navies in that area. And someone who doesn’t worry about Germans and Russians being angry at them. So Iran, which stands to be enriched in the Caspian Sea, and worked alongside Russia to bog down Nato in Syria, is completely out of the running. The survival of Iran depends greatly on maintaining friendship with Russia. If not the American neocons it would have to be a British-Polish project. These two have a deal going outside Nato. So there is where you would look for a secondary suspect. The middle east does not want to have the precedent of people blithely attacking energy infrastructure. Think what juicy targets these LNG ports would make or oil pipelines, oil tankers. This kind of thing. If this destructive behaviour becomes precedent they are in big trouble.

        You want to be looking at people who hate Russia and hate Germany. People who hold insane grudges.

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    • #
      Terraforming Earth

      “Ukraine forces keep having success after success yet somehow the red part of the map creeps steadily westward!”

      Its only success on the television. In real life Nato is getting slaughtered. But Russia doesn’t have the manpower there yet, to hold ground already captured. So when they abandon that ground, Nato rushes in, gets slaughtered, and calls it this fantastic success. They call failure success. Russia could have gone on like this indefinitely, but the public were becoming outraged. So the leadership decided on this partial mobilisation. Which means when the Winter comes they will capture and hold. Not capture and abandon. “General Winter has will have their flank” so to speak. They won’t be worried about their vast territory being attacked except for those islands north of Japan which Japan also claims and with much justification.

      The other motive to mobilising now is to do with these plebiscites. Once a region votes to become part of Russia, the Russians are obligated to protect their new citizens. But really the Russians could have had as few as 50 000 in the field and kept hammering away, on any technical level. Their artillery supremacy is that good.

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      • #
        el+gordo

        ‘Not capture and abandon.’

        You haven’t considered the low morale among the Russian troops, poorly fed and housed in a bitter winter they will go AWOL.

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          Terraforming Earth

          It is hard to know these things. I think what you are saying here was valid early on. Because the Russians were being asked to kill their cousins. Must be a horrible thing. Plus early on they didn’t have their supply lines perfected, they seem to have been offloading their older materiel. They may well have been running out of food and fuel in March and April. To me those stories ring true. But not now. Now the morale problems will be of the sort where you feel bad about killing people on the other side who are no longer in a position to fight back properly.

          If the winter is harmful to the Russian war effort it will be the first time since before Napoleon. In reality the Russians will be toasty warm and everyone else will freeze. And thats just the civilians. The disparity between the soldiers will be even more extreme.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Biden promised to destroy the pipelines. “I promise you we will be able to do that”

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      • #
        TdeF

        And it is incredible that the White House is claiming the Russians blew up their own pipeline! That is past ridiculous but if all the media copy it, why would Joe Biden lie to the world? I only hope Putin holds on past the mid terms when some sense may return to a White House determined to blame the Russians for everything and never the Chinese. For Democrats the Cold War never ended.

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      • #
        MrGrimNasty

        Once again, it is not destroyed, merely out of action for a short time.

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    • #
      OldOzzie

      Big Serge Thoughts

      Politics By Other Means – Putin and Clausewitz

      With the sole possible exception of the great Sun Tzu and his “Art of War”, no military theorist has had such an enduring philosophical impact as the Prussian General Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz. A participant in the Napoleonic Wars, Clausewitz in his later years dedicated himself to the work that would become his iconic achievement – a dense tome titled simply “Vom Kriege” – On War. The book is a meditation on both military strategy and the socio-political phenomenon of war, which is heavily laced with philosophical rumination.

      Among all his eminently quotable passages, however, one is perhaps the most famous: his claim that “War is a mere continuation of politics by other means.”

      It is on this claim that I wish to fixate for the moment, but first, it may be worthwhile to read the entirety of Clausewitz’s passage on the subject:

      “War is the mere continuation of politics by other means. We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.”

      On War, Volume 1, Chapter 1, Section 24

      Once we cut through Clausewitz’s dense and verbose style, the claim here is relatively simple: war-making always exists in reference to some greater political goal, and it exists on the political spectrum. Politics lies at every point along the axis: war is begun in response to some political need, it is maintained and continued as an act of political will, and it ultimately hopes to achieve political aims. War cannot be separated from politics – indeed, it is the political aspect that makes it war. We may even go further and state that war in the absence of the political superstructure ceases to be war, and instead becomes raw, animalistic violence. It is the political dimension that makes war recognizably distinct from other forms of violence.

      Let us contemplate Russia’s war-making in Ukraine in these terms.

      – Putin the Bureaucrat
      – Expeditionary War
      – Creating Consensus
      – A Brief History of Military Force Generation
      – Time and Space

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    • #
      DOC

      No expert on war, but a couple of things come to mind. Trump stated, it was stupid and shortsighted for the EU to take Russian ff, pay huge funds and become a Russian dependency. Trump also stated the EU was shirking its defence requirements under the NATO agreement. He stated the USA would require payments if it was to have to defend EU States.
      The time gap was short between those statements. It was a good time for Putin to do his thing as the EU was relatively defenceless. The reaction to Putin was left in the hands, almost entirely of the USA, backed by the Poles, Hungarians and the Baltics. The US had to cajole the Germans to desist in their purchases.

      Everyone could see the coming Winter problems. The primary sources of material to Ukraine, strongly fighting above its weight to protect its own land, made it a proxy to fight also on the behalf of the old ex USSR nations and for the USA to deplete Putin’s war machine which Putin was boasting about having rehabilitated, of having supersonic missiles, was making aggressive speeches and formed an aggressive alliance with China. That scared the EU States enough to get on board and assist Ukraine where possible.

      The last thing the US et al needed was for the Germans to weaken, capitulate, seek Russian ff and so boost Russia’s funding. The USA may have been the one to take the action to prevent this, but the ex USSR States and Ukraine all would have the same interests.

      The real balance in the matter now re the Winter is whether the USA, will be forced to crank up its ff production to supply itself and send ff to Europe while the Europeans have gone out to revive their own supplies. And where’s Norway in all this apart from acting like the ME and securing the massive profits to be had by limiting supplies.

      It’s amazing the rigid hold the climate change brigades still have over the US and Australia as the complete and dismal failure of their favourite renewables based energy system is seen to vaporise in practice in Europe. It is apparent, the climate is not the driving force behind the governments of the West. With Biden destroying the US fuel reserve system to save his political career, it is apparent left extremist ideology is the force behind all this, as was said in a previous thread. It began with Obama and the aim is to weaken the US and the West in general. Will this winter bring down the final curtain on these matters?

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  • #
    David Maddison

    In the video linked below Ezra Levant from Rebel News talks about what I call the “smiling face of fascism”, Jacinda Ardern, who mission is to make governments “the single source of truth”.

    As you know, and Jo reported recently, this is the agenda the Elites are getting her to push at the UN as well.

    The implications of what she has been chosen to do are terrifying.

    This is also possibly pushback from the Left because they are about to lose Twitter as their main propaganda outlet and Facebook is failing with its stock price and usage in freefall.

    https://youtu.be/REeJmc9BIp4

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Peta Credlin from Sky News Australia interviews Tucker Carlson.

    13 mins

    https://youtu.be/kl45uVAAUxM

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  • #
    RickWill

    I am uncertain if this has been posted before now. It is Malcolm Roberts speech at the CPAC conference:
    https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/malcolm-roberts-addresses-cpac-on-why-the-liberals-are-losing/

    I particularly like this quote he included in his speech:

    Thomas Sowell said it best, “Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children. In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.”

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Thomas Sowell is great.

      Here is a collection of just a few of his other quotes.

      https://contemporarythinkers.org/thomas-sowell/quotes/quotes/

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    • #
      b.nice

      “they are creating artificial stupidity.” “

      There is nothing “artificial” about the rampant stupidity we are seeing around the world.

      It is REAL, wide-spread, and deliberate..

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      • #
        RickWill

        The point to the comment is that the kids would be far smarter if left to their own devices. They are being taught to think stupid. That means accepting whatever they are told by authority figures without any question. Historically that is a Germanic trait. It happened with Hitler and Merkel exploited that trait. It is why Germans will be cold this winter.

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        mareeS

        Rampant stupidity is “REAL, widespread and deliberate,” I agree, but fortunately not universal. Our offspring, ages in their mid-30s, constantly surprise us with their forthright opinions and common sense about many of today’s issues. Every now and again I smile and pat myself on the back that we have managed to raise a pair of clear thinkers capable of engaged conversation in this cancellation world. It helps that they live and work outside the bubble in real-world sectors like mining, in jobs that require a level of independent thinking for problem solving.

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  • #

    The equivalent of Five Eiffel towers a day. That is the amount of steel Germany needs to build the number of windmills it needs to achieve its climate aims.

    https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/10/the-belated-implementation-of-the-morgenthau-plan/

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    • #
      RickWill

      That is the amount of steel Germany needs to build the number of windmills it needs to achieve its climate aims.

      I can guarantee that is an estimate that understates the requirement by a factor more than 2. The high cost of storage means the minimum cost system requires a massive overbuild in the intermittent generation. The minimum system cost capacity factor will be about 10%. They will be estimating based on the unbridled CF.

      My solar panels on the off-grid system operate at a capacity factor of 3.4%. That is a function of low surface sunlight through May at 37S.

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      • #
        Graeme#4

        That’s a low CF for house solar! I’m currently seeing 24%, or 30 kWh daily from a 5.2 kW system.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      And good luck with “green steel”.

      Leftists propose the direct reduction of iron ore with “green hydrogen” made by electrolysing water with “the world’s cheapest electricity (sic)” from windmills, rather than the traditional coke “carbon”.

      “Green” steel would be prohibitively expensive and slow to produce, and handling all that hydrogen would also be dangerous, especially as people designing these processes seem scientifically and engineeringly (yes, it is a word) illiterate.

      The lack of understanding of the science or the huge amounts of energy required to make traditional steel by the basic oxygen process presently used is simply staggering. Not only that, what about electricity for electric arc furnaces used to recycle scrsp steel, Good luck running those on windmills, LoL.

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        Eng_Ian

        Don’t forget the hydrogen embrittlement. After doing your best to soak the iron oxide in hydrogen, trying to reduce it, you are left with iron, soaked with hydrogen gas. It’s a very energy intensive process to get it out, lots of heat cycles and a long duration. Makes you wonder who thought this up, was it an energy retailer?

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        TdeF

        What Dr. Andrew Forrest is proposing is not electrolysis, which is expensive but the reduction of Ethane to Hydrogen by removing the carbon and its energy and sequestering the CO2 with a technology not yet invented. So we generate the CO2 prematurely to avoid doing so in smelting and we waste the associated energy. Which not only wastes energy needlessly, generates just as much CO2 anyway but earlier. It’s so nutty that nuts would be embarrassed to be associated with it.

        It’s the same with electric cars where oil/coal/gas will be burned to generate electricity with 60-70% losses of which only 70% makes it to the cars so they can claim 100%. Hybrid cars generate less CO2 from the same oil/coal/gas. Or we can use the oil/coal/gas/smelted metals all generating CO2 to make short lived windmills to save CO2 after ten years before they need complete replacement at 20 years.
        None of it makes sense and renewables are erratic uncommandable replaceables.

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        • #
          Graeme#4

          FFI has just lost a couple more senior execs.

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            David Maddison

            Do you know why?

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              Graeme#4

              No., The Oz article didn’t say. Previously the U.S. chief has quit, now the head of projects plus one other senior staff. The taxpayers are going to “contribute” $38m to a study for his hydrogen plant, plus another $13.8m from the Federal Govt, I.e., the taxpayers again.

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          Terraforming Earth

          Its very hard to reconcile such a crazy proposal with the Andrew Forrest everyone has known for many years. Any carbon sequestration not involving ruminant animals and soil-building is basically insane. So there must be more to this story. Its not just “Twiggy” who has fallen off the branch here. There has been a string of Indian billionaires wanting to invest in hydrogen energy. An Indian friend was telling me about it. I said it was the wrong decade. I thought the only time you could use it is if you had all this off-peak saturation thorium energy that you needed to sink somewhere. And you would make a small amount and use the hydrogen not long after, with very little compression and very little transport. Probably you would want to use the hydrogen with heat and carbon sources to create synthetic diesel and more natural gas.

          We can’t let the support of these people (with proven economic track records) make us forget what we already know. These ideas are crazy, no matter how intelligent the people pushing them are. We just have to keep that as a question mark for a later day. Stupid ideas still stay stupid when smart people push them.

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    David Maddison

    It’s not only transgender which is “a thing” now, a lot of people are identifying as “trans-age”. I.e. adults “identifying” as children. In fact there is a case of a man in his 50’s identifying as a six year old girl.

    Mark Dice discusses:

    https://youtu.be/IPZce56VrsI

    8 mins.

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      Graham Richards

      That’s not to serious!
      What about the moron identifying as an energy minister in our government???

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      At one time here in the UK women got pensions at 60 and men at 65 . That has now equalised which is a shame as I would have liked to see the reaction if I had self identied as a 60 year old woman and demanded my pension five years earlier

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      John+in+NZ

      How long before we see 14 year olds identifying as 21 year olds so they can get into the bars and nightclubs?

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        Ted1.

        Within my view, about minus sixty years.

        Not long before that 14 year olds were identifying as 21 year olds to get involved in a war.

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      R.B.

      I’m putting DOB as 1992 from now on…
      Until next year, perhaps.

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      TdeF

      I really don’t mind if people identify as chipmunks, as long as it is not compulsory. At least that explains why they are nuts.

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    another ian

    “I Hate Paper Straws”

    “Fraser Institute- Science exposes Ottawa’s ill-founded war on plastics”

    https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/science-exposes-ottawas-ill-founded-war-on-plastics

    Via SDA

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      OldOzzie

      Sucking through Paper Straw on Maccas Chocolate Thick Shake on Obligatory stop at Raymond Terrace Maccas, on way to holiday in Tuncurry this week with Grandkids, it imparts a not nice slight paper taste to drink – much prefer plastic straws which did not.

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        Ted1.

        Tell Maccas.

        They might be getting sick of the woke business. They have been in the gun from the start. Remember those nice foam burger boxes?

        More importantly, the public might soon be getting sick of the woke business.

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        PeterPetrum

        Not only that, but the slightly rough sensation on lips and tongue takes some of the nefarious pleasure out of the high calorie drink.

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      David Maddison

      The whole global war on drinking straws is based on dodgy “statistic” of a nine year old school boy, Milo Cress.

      Even the far Left NPR admits that.

      The statistic is bizarre. The claim was that the US used 500 million straws per day.

      And like so many other interferences of the Left, its about removing conveniences of Western Civilisation based on “feeling” not facts.

      E.g. such as cars, cheap and reliable electricity, plastic shopping bags and drinking straws.

      Paper drinking straws are useless.

      Woke Green types might use “washable” stainless steel straws I have seen in shops. Good luck cleaning those. And they are an extreme safety hazard. Imagine a kid or even adult using one of those and they are pushed or knocked and the straw goes down their throats or through their eye etc.. a severe and likely deadly penetration injury.

      It is well known by people who bother to investigate facts that a vast majority of plastic waste in the oceans comes from Third World countries and China where rubbish is routinely dumped in rivers.

      https://www.npr.org/transcripts/631254978

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    el+gordo

    Picked this up in comments at Climate Etc., by Ron Graf.

    ‘Britain plans to have a working fusion power plant on the grid by 2040. But they admit they do not know how to do it yet — very admirable. JFK would be nodding with approval.

    “We choose to go to the Moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…”

    John F. Kennedy speech at Rice Univ., Sept. 12, 1962.

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    A bit of my science of complex issues, in this case the dynamics.

    Introduction to “issue storms”

    By David Wojick
    https://www.cfact.org/2022/10/04/introduction-to-issue-storms/

    The beginning: “This is about a highly nonlinear information flow that I call an issue storm, which I discovered about 40 years ago but never wrote about because I was making lots of money knowing about it.

    To begin with we need what I call looping. If A communicates to B and B replies to A that is a single loop. When a major issue arises in an organization, or community, or country, or globally, there can be a tremendous amount of looping. Moreover, this body of looping will have a specific pattern, which will vary from case to case. Imagine if you could just look down in the dark and see all the email traffic as an issue breaks, grows and spreads, with each email as a streak of light. You could see the pattern, including how it changes over time.

    I call such a body of looping an issue storm. These storms can be very disruptive because they consume a lot of cognitive resources. In fact they can be paralyzing. Managing them is a major challenge, which most of our management tools do not do well. We need new tools. On the other hand, in the policy world issue storms are very important. This is how major policy issues get thrashed out and final policies get articulated. CFACT is a storm center for important energy and environmental issues. We even start a few storms, like whales versus offshore wind.

    In addition to different patterns, issue storms can have vastly different sizes and durations. A quick argument might be a two person, ten minute storm with a few dozen simple exchanges. A major issue might involve thousands of exchanges, many involving large groups, and last for several years. The climate debate has been going on for over 40 years, with millions of exchanges. It likely is the biggest issue storm in history.”

    Lots more in the article. Please share it.

    The issue storm is about the dynamics of complex issues, but it builds on the structure I discovered in 1973 and named the issue tree. See (if you have time):
    https://www.cfact.org/2020/11/17/the-structure-of-complex-issues/
    The tree structure causes the need for attention and thought to grow exponentially as an issue develops, driving the storm. Like Galileo I have two new sciences, the structure and dynamics of complex issues.

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      David Maddison

      I look forward to reading the article, David.

      Is their any relationship to game theory?

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        Good question, David, and I have no idea. The basic concept is just that there are complex patterns of message traffic (including face to face conversations) when an issue is worked, and different issues have importantly different patterns. But there is a lot of strategic decision making in many cases, so game theory might be descriptive.

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      Old Goat

      David,
      Issue storms are often fiendishly complicated because often the data that is involved is contested . This increases the loops exponentially as disputes arise and this creates false branches on the “tree” . In the case of business decisions compliance has become a nightmare because of a excessively complex regulatory systems . If you add in ideological regulation insanity rules . I suspect that issue storms often hide logical solutions in a pile of irrelevant obfuscation. I also suspect issue storms are some operators way of gaming the system.

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        Indeed, regulatory confusion has been my field these many years. A never ending pandemic!

        Huge numbers of people are paid to do nothing but make new rules. Even greater numbers are paid to influence them.

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    OldOzzie

    People Braver than I

    Ketamine and depression: A mechanism of the antidepressant revealed

    Researchers from Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne University and clinicians from the AP-HP and at Paris Brain Institute identified one of the mechanisms explaining the ketamine effect as an antidepressant. Ketamine, usually used as an anesthetic, was administered to patients with severe resistant depression.

    Preparing Pre Op with Anaesthetist at RNSH last December, for Major Op (9 1/2 Hrs) in February this year, mentioned that I came out of Major Op in 2018 at RNSH (13 1/2 Hours) with the most horrific nightmares for 6 hours post op – I thought the Anesthetic had been Morphine, but she said no, it would have been Ketamine given those nightmares (later confirmed), and to say to Anaesthetist before Op that I did not want Ketamine – same was mentioned in 2nd Pre Op meeting late January

    When finally on the table outside the Op Theatre, the female Anaesthetist who came out to speak to me said my concerns had been noted re Ketamine, and I was receiving different intravenous anesthetic

    After 9 1/2 hr Op. came out to Post Op feeling Fine Zero Pain – my wife who saw me thought I was high on drugs as I was so cheerful, and that night in ICU did not use Morphine available to me for pain, as no need.

    Given the Horrendous 6 hour nightmares I had with Ketamine, again brave people using it.

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    another ian

    From a comment at

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/07/etam-where-the-wild-things-are-exposure-to-the-doing-class-will-solve-the-global-energy-crisis%ef%bf%bc/

    “H.R.
    October 7, 2022 4:50 am

    The essay I will link to down below (“I, Pencil; My Family Tree”) is a classic illustration of how far we have come technologically and how complex our world is. It illustrates how no one person knows how to make something as simple as a pencil, let alone understand all of what it takes to run our modern society. It explains how it all works despite no one knowing it all or even directing things to be made or to happen.

    Top-down command economies have never worked at a national level. Those GEBs (Globalist Evil Bastards) who are intent on forming a One World Government with a cadre of elites (themselves) at the top directing the rest of us to maintain their luxurious lifestyles are in for a rude surprise.

    The GEBs who are in the process of crashing the economies that have brought us to this amazing world of abundant food, comfortable shelter, global communications, travel to anywhere, and leisure time as has never been experienced by so many, have no clue what it takes to make things happen.

    The GEB’s plan is to burn it all down to an ash heap and build a utopia from the ashes according to their brilliant plans.

    I have news for them. About the only thing they will get from the ashes is lye soap.

    I have maintained ever since I became aware of the purpose behind the distraction of the “War on CO2” and the current seemingly madly insane social and monetary policies being enacted, that the GEBs don’t know what they are doing, and they will screw up everything… everything.

    This essay is not a long read, and many here have already read it, but it goes well with the post above.

    “I, Pencil: My Family Tree” as told to Leonard E. Read, Dec. 1958 | Online Library of Liberty (libertyfund.org)

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  • #

    We need another Fred as it is Saturday already………………………………

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      RickWill

      Look under the hood and there will rabbits in a cage wheel with carrots behind a shutter that opens when the accelerator is pushed. That avoids the need to recharge as well. Just let the rabbits out to graze on the throughly fenced lawn overnight. Reversing achieved by have two sets of carrots and shutters.

      The great feature of owning a BEV in the UK is that it will never wear out. May not even catch on fire if kept under cover and only partially charged when the wind is strong enough.

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      Annie

      I saw that earlier in The Telegraph (UK). Matt being brilliant as usual.

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    another ian

    “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Mirrors”

    “Solar panels are not economically recyclable”

    More at

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2022/10/07/we-dont-need-no-stinking-giant-mirrors-23/

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      another ian

      And

      “HotScot
      Reply to
      BobM
      October 7, 2022 9:59 am
      Meet my wife. From a Staff Nurse in the busiest Casualty department in Europe (in Glasgow), to a Sister, to a university lecturer, then on to heading up a department of 50 lecturers including Doctors, and she can still help cutting open a flail chest of a road crash victim.

      Teachers, like cops (which I was), and many other human centric professions should, in my opinion, all have held down a job (which I did) until they are 21 before joining their respective organisations.

      University is not a job. If candidates want a higher qualification a three year period of working in a hands on job like building, or in a warehouse humping boxes of beans, should be a prerequisite.

      I can’t possibly describe how incompetent degree qualified cops who went through accelerated promotion were. I can also barely describe how socially dysfunctional 18 year old recruits who joined the police straight from school could be, which is dangerous to them and anyone with them (me).

      There is more to a rounded human than a spreadsheet. The ability to interact with others and understand humility is essential. You’ll get that on a construction site, in a warehouse or digging the roads.”

      Run that ruler over our crop of local politicians for instance!

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        RickWill

        There is more to a rounded human than a spreadsheet. The ability to interact with others and understand humility is essential. You’ll get that on a construction site, in a warehouse or digging the roads.”

        It is difficult to have life experience at a young age. Many experiences only come in middle or late age. I was orphaned at 52yo. Lost my first school chum when I was only 13yo and it remains the most present death in my mind – he was killed as pedestrian while crossing a road.

        Sleep deprivation with a baby and and a teething toddler while advancing in a high responsibility career is very stressful.

        I think humility and true confidence in your own ability rather than bravado can only come with experience and sound education. I am always staggered by the willingness of people to accept what is written in a text book without having ever tested the theory themselves.

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          Steve of Cornubia

          “Sleep deprivation with a baby and and a teething toddler while advancing in a high responsibility career is very stressful.”

          Add in while doing part time study at university and you have all the ingredients for a heart attack.

          Ask me how I know.

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    OldOzzie

    Exactly When Do President Biden’s Unhinged and Unauthorized Comments Become a Problem?!

    Once again President Biden says things that are head-turning, and once again the Biden administration disputes his words.

    Last night, as Nick Arama detailed this morning, Joe Biden spoke at a fundraiser and he intoned some grave words about Putin and the prospect of global annihilation.

    Speaking at a fundraiser for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “a guy I know fairly well” and the Russian leader was “not joking when he talks about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons. We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

    But as many awoke today with the uplifting words of the president admitting that he might be ushering in the era of Armageddon, we now learn that maybe Joe’s comments were not fully sanctioned. Kelly O’Donnell, White House correspondent for NBC News, gives us an update from on board the President’s pleasurecraft.

    On Air Force One, @PressSec says there is no new intelligence that shaped the president’s use of the term Armageddon discussing Putin and nuclear weapons at a fundraiser last night.

    It is jarring enough to see the communications team at the White House actively moving to explain that the President’s words are not the White House Policy. They are literally saying that Joe Biden’s comments are not the position of the Joe Biden administration.

    But this has become a regular feature with this man, and things only become more surreal with each example.

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      OldOzzie

      Armageddon? No thank you!

      In this post I will argue the obvious, though: every single one of us should be focused on avoiding Armageddon, because I am afraid that we are waltzing our way to the end of civilization.

      Let’s set the stage: Joe Biden casually dropped a bomb at a fundraiser. Not a nuclear bomb…yet…but quite a bombshell:

      The world is facing a nuclear Armageddon. We are at the deadliest point in human history since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This warning comes from the President of the United States at a fundraiser. Great place to drop the news, Joe.

      Personally I am not pleased with this. How about you? I am not pleased with the prospect of a nuclear war, and I am also not pleased that the first people to hear this are a bunch of high rollers at a rubber chicken dinner. Expect some private planes to be headed to New Zealand about now.

      My first thought, after “oh cr@p,” was that all those folks who were convinced that voting for Joe Biden against Donald Trump because Trump was a threat to the stability of the world are probably regretting their vote. But on further reflection, probably not.

      After being the first president in modern times not to start a war, believing that Trump was the danger was so foolish that people believing it are probably immune to reason.

      Unfortunately nobody in the Biden Administration is remotely intelligent, so the best we can hope for is some kind of solution where we come out alive. And Joe Biden is blowing it, even with such a low bar to clear.

      Biden is not wrong about the danger we face. The more successful Ukraine is in pushing the Russians back, the more backed into a corner the Putin regime is, and hence the more likely they are to reach for their nuclear trump card. And many of our allies seem just fine with that. In fact, our ally President Zelensky is so fine with it that he is suggesting we strike first–something that would be tantamount to starting WWIII.

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        OldOzzie

        Summed up by Ben Garrison CartoonZelensky – “I Choose this One!”

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        OldOzzie

        Video of reporter shouting ‘DO YOU THINK ARMAGEDDON IS COMING’ while Biden runs to the chopper is something else

        Last night at a DSCC event President Biden said something that today the White House had to walk back (which is becoming an almost daily occurrence):

        After that we got another reminder that what President Biden says does not necessarily represent the official positions and opinions of the Biden White House.

        Today when Biden left the White House and headed to Delaware for the weekend a reporter shouted “DO YOU THINK ARMAGEDDON IS COMING?” That and other related questions seemed to put some pep in Biden’s step and he couldn’t get to the helicopter fast enough:

        This week Biden’s gone from backing away from questions to running away from them.

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        RickWill

        What has Biden got to live for? An old man near then end of his cognitive life.

        My son has been assigned to various dementia wards in a few hospitals and his stories about these people are incredibly sad but there are some really funny moments. The one thing I would not want a dementia patient to hold is the bottom that starts armageddon.

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        Old Goat

        Ozzie,
        Don’t believe nearly all the western media serves up regarding Ukraine . Russia will not give up and go home – the referendum has ensured this . As far as nuclear weapons being used in Ukraine – complete fiction as the fallout would land on Russia . Its the USA (and NATO) that is cornered and its destruction of the Nordstream pipeline is a desperate measure . The USA is being destroyed from within (as is most of the western world) by illogical and destructive government policies and propaganda . The biggest danger by far is that Biden has the “football” .

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    OldOzzie

    Mouthwashes inhibit the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2 variants

    SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is an airborne disease transmitted via aerosols, which are spread from the oral and nasal cavities-;the mouth and the nose. In addition to the well-known division and spread of the virus in the cells of the respiratory tract, SARS-CoV-2 is also known to infect the cells of the lining of the mouth and the salivary glands.

    A team of researchers led by Professor Kyoko Hida at Hokkaido University have shown that low concentrations of the chemical cetylpyridinium chloride, a component of some mouthwashes, has an antiviral effect on SARS-CoV-2. Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.

    Commercially available mouthwashes contain a number of antibiotic and antiviral components that act against microorganisms in the mouth. One of these, cetylpyridinium chloride (CPC), has been shown to reduce the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in the mouth, primarily by disrupting the lipid membrane surrounding the virus. While there are other chemicals with similar effects, CPC has the advantage of being tasteless and odorless.

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    OldOzzie

    rosie says:
    October 8, 2022 at 7:02 am

    Fin review, paywalled.
    ‘Headed for failure’: Alinta CEO on energy transition

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      OldOzzie

      “I’m sure I’m not the only one just observing the gap that’s really opening up between the certainty of what’s coming out and the uncertainty of what’s replacing it and going in,” Mr Dimery said ahead of his participation in The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit on Monday in Sydney.

      “I personally don’t believe we can achieve the transition based on what we’re seeing to date that is going to be delivered; I think we’re headed for failure unless things change significantly.”

      Mr Dimery’s concerns will be largely echoed by EnergyAustralia CEO Mark Collette and Origin Energy boss Frank Calabria who will also speak at the summit.

      “I am more concerned about a smooth energy transition than a year ago,” Mr Collette told The Australian Financial Review on Friday, describing the challenge as “enormous”.

      “In eight years, we need to build roughly three times the renewable capacity we built in the last 20 years, plus grid to connect the renewables and flexible capacity and storage to make sure the system works in all weather conditions.

      “And all this needs to happen at a time there is limited capacity for new infrastructure delivery amid record-low unemployment and an international landscape of rising energy prices.”

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        OldOzzie

        Alinta Energy chief executive Jeff Dimery said announcements last month of earlier coal power station closures by AGL Energy and the Queensland government and higher but sometimes “hollow” targets for renewables and storage have him worried, with consumers to pay the price.

        ‘Red lights flashing’

        “I’ve got red lights flashing, and that’s against the backdrop of consumer energy prices escalating rapidly,” Mr Dimery said.

        “And if we look ahead, based on the regulatory tests that have been done to determine tariffs, the increases next year are going to be much larger than the increases [this] year. It’s a massive issue.”

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    robert rosicka

    Climate change causing floods in QLD since the 1800’s , also some good pics for those train lovers .

    https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/railways-queensland-history-pictures?fbclid=IwAR2K0HEp4D7dlyuqH_Q_NeBrXeIuVBWtY5OoZRq8vJbv_a4qZP7Mfv34nDs

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    David Maddison

    In Australia, have you noticed how, if someone coughs or blows their nose, others often look around in terror wondering if that person has ‘Rona?

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      Grogery

      if someone coughs or blows their nose

      Yes, it’s almost worth faking a cough just to see the reaction.

      And WOW, there’s still some petrified people out there:-

      When I was crossing the road on my way to the bowls club for a beer yesterday arvo, a girl rode past on a push-bike with a face mask and a face-shield!

      I just laughed at her while shaking my head in disbelief.

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      John Connor II

      Good, good. Let the fear flow through you.
      The plan is working well.
      Next up – climate lockdowns.
      Let’s start demonising and shunning people who own fuel guzzlers.
      Karens and climate activists plastering “planet killer” stickers on Prados, Landcruisers and anything with more than 4 cylinders in Woolies carparks…

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    el+gordo

    The Biden Administration is in the process of securing crude oil from Venezuela, good business acumen and politically correct.

    I was unaware that the US has such large reserves of energy.

    ‘According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the United States holds over 373 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, over 50 years’ supply, and almost 3,000 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas, a 100-year supply. The Institute for Energy Research estimates that America’s conventional and unconventional reserves add up to nearly 300 years of energy supply.’ (Forbes)

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    DLK

    someone was asking for a link the other day about the mRNA being given to cows and the cows dropping dead.

    this looks to be the source of that claim:

    A friend informed me today that her neighbor, a dairy farmer, is now forced to vaccinate her herd with an mRNA vaccine! (NSW) She complied and of the 200 head of cattle, 35 died instantly! I would sue the DPI The farmer said it is mandatory for all dairy farms to have their herd jabbed with this mRNA vaccine. Am not yet sure if that’s for NSW or across Australia, but will investigate immediately Implications? Dairy herd DNA is altered. Milk is altered and you CONSUME IT! Butter constitution, yoghurt, cheese is altered MEAT is altered Will chicken and other meats be next? Time to grow your own folks, and maybe develop herds that are private, none tagged, and never vaccinated. Time to set up a community farm association with member – farmers who are not part of the system, have herds – animals that are not jabbed or tagged so a community of private people can be consumers of organic produced livestock. It’s time to fend for ourselves as an organised community. Watch this space You might want to on send this message to warn your data base too.

    from truth11 and before it’s news

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      Vicki

      During my research in early 2021 re the history of the development of mRNA vaccines for corona viruses, I read that genetic based vaccines had been trialled on research animals for some two decades with discouraging results. Many of the animals died. So I am not surprised if this source is accurate. If it can kill humans, it can kill animals.

      But given the very strict bio control of the government in rural industries, it is predictable that it will be mandated.

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    US National Debt Reaches Historic High

    From Armstrong Economics –

    “The US national debt has reached a historic high under Biden after surpassing $31 trillion. The national debt has always been chaotic as politicians push spending agendas with no plans to pay their debts. The only time the national debt was paid in full was in January 1835 under President Andrew Jackson. The US fell into debt just one year later and the austerity contributed to the subsequent Civil War and Jackson’s war on the banks.

    The last time the US experienced a surplus was in 2001, although the debt still increased. COVID spending pushed the nation’s debt to new levels, and the US government spent $3.1 trillion more than it earned. In 2021, the federal government spent $2.8 trillion more than it earned. Now in 2022, the Biden Administration is announcing a new spending plan each week.

    Biden spent $1.9 trillion on the American Rescue plan last year, which many blame for fueling inflation as $400 billion was earmarked for Americans to stay home and not work. Biden attempted to pass the $5 trillion Build Back Better bill, the largest proposed bill in US history. When that bill failed, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act for $740 billion. Numerous independent studies have stated that the act will only worsen inflation.

    Biden plans to spend around $400 billion to cancel student loan debt for families earning as much as $250,000 annually. To add insult to injury, Washington has sent Ukraine nearly $17 billion this year alone. This administration is not worried about taxpaying citizens, and eventually, the citizens will be the ones footing the bill for Biden’s excessive spending.”

    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/govt-incompetence/us-national-debt-reaches-historic-high/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS

    This money will never be paid back………………………….

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    OldOzzie

    Guardian View on – Opinion Climate crisis

    Energy crisis? It isn’t that we have too little oil and gas. It’s that we have too much

    Caroline Lucas

    We have green, cheap alternatives ready and waiting – but first we have to commit to keeping fossil fuels in the ground

    We know that fossil fuels are the root cause, and we know that breaking our dependence and keeping them in the ground is our only way out. Yet for some reason, we haven’t stopped digging.

    Why? Because major fossil fuel giants, and the nations propping them up, are acting like tobacco companies, stonewalling any efforts to reduce – let alone end – global fossil fuel production. Global climate diplomacy has now become an anti-smoking campaign which is too afraid to mention the word “cigarettes”.

    We need a global solution to end this stitch-up, with fairness and security at its heart to ensure no country is left behind in the energy transition – and this is why the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty is so significant. Modelled on the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which has been signed by 191 countries worldwide, it complements existing UN frameworks with three new specific goals: to end to all new fossil fuel exploration and production; to phase out existing fossil fuel production in line with 1.5C; and to adopt a just transition for every worker, community and country.

    But no matter how many new renewables we bring online, our security will continue to be undermined unless they are a replacement for, rather than simply an additionto, the fossil fuels in the global registry.

    When the storm is rapidly gathering, and the window of a safe and liveble future is rapidly closing, we must unite to keep fossil fuels in the ground for good.

    Caroline Lucas is the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion

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      Leo G

      The need to keep fossil fuels in the ground is undeniable.

      Indeed- renewable energy profiteers have an undeniable need.

      But in this energy crisis, a clean, green, cheap and long-term alternative is needed in their place – and fortunately, it’s ready and waiting.

      In the long term, the genuine life-cycle costs of renewables will be unequivocally demonstrated.
      Renewables are not clean except in a very limited sense to the end user;
      They are not “green” in their overall environmental impacts;
      They are only “cheap” when embedded costs and subsidies are not considered;
      Ready only to demonstrate their limitations; but definitely
      Waiting to catastrophically transform civilisation.

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      Honk R Smith

      “we must unite to keep fossil fuels in the ground for good”

      We must realize that virtue signaling has no ceiling.
      We went from reduce carbon to zero carbon.
      From equality to equity.

      Leaving it the ground will not be enough.

      Next they will be demanding it be removed from the ground and shot into space.
      After we’ve purified the population of hate and gender.
      Lust is ok, that will be required as proof you don’t hate.

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    OldOzzie

    OldOzziesays:
    October 8, 2022 at 12:01 pm
    The AFR View

    Tax populism won’t wash away broken promise

    The first question goes to the basic integrity of the two senior figures of the Labor Party to so brazenly break the promise they made to voters less than six months ago. The second question is whether Australia will go further down the road of big government financed by punitive taxes on the aspirational class that Bob Hawke and Paul Keating helped create, just when what is needed is a sharpening of incentives to drive growth and productivity.

    The “tough choices” that Jim Chalmers talked about on Friday are really about whether to allow Labor’s social spending monuments to continue with little restraint.

    The Treasurer proposes to narrow that gap by slugging Australia’s wage earners even harder than they are being hit now, drawing more from an income well that former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman and former Hawke adviser Rod Sims describes as “maxed out” already.

    The stage three tax cuts due to start in mid-2024 would mostly just hand back the stealthy tax increases imposed on these wage earners through bracket creep. Reversing this now won’t even help until another two budgets have passed. But Dr Chalmers is being backed by Labor pragmatists who say just take the political pain now: regardless of the merits, voters will have forgotten by the election.

    Pushed into top tax scale

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    John Connor II

    Electric ferry runs out of battery – Rescued by fossil fuel police boat


    The Ika Rere, a brand new vessel and the first electric powered ferry in the southern hemisphere in NZ just had to be rescued after running out of battery in the harbor, leaving the vessel stranded without any power!

    Luckily help was on the way, with a fossil fuel powered police boat coming to rescue the stranded passengers.

    After successfully rescuing the passengers, the police boat went back out to tug the electric ferry back to port.

    Here in Norway, they recently swapped out perfectly fine 10 year old diesel ferries with brand new electric ferries, for the environment of course. Never mind that it cost millions and millions of tax payers money, which of course meant they had to INCREASE the ferry prices (but now they have subsidized the prices with tax payer money, so it is cheaper again…).

    The whole thing is ridiculous. While they are quieter when running on battery, they do have a backup diesel engine and often when I take the ferry I can hear the diesel engine going, meaning they ran out of battery power. And this despite the fact that they purpose built special chargers for the ferries that draw so much power they had to get their own power lines, otherwise they would cause blackouts in the village.

    https://petersweden.substack.com/p/electric-ferry

    I’ve wondered if this push for green energy was ever intended to work or is just a trick to shutdown oil & coal and then bye-bye to all energy and transport for the masses who won’t need to go anywhere in the Great Reset anyway.
    ie deliberately introduce a worthless energy solution with the intent of killing it all later.
    Cost is irrelevant as the Great Reset makes it so.

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      Ross

      It’s all so ridiculous when you consider Diesel engine technology at the moment. The latest generation diesels are things of engineering beauty. Super efficient and incredibly quiet.

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        Dennis

        And when the injectors are maintained, I use an additive to clean the fuel system in my 4WD, and the particulate filter operated in accordance with instruction, I also use an additive to help keep it clean, even with 125,000 kilometres driven and much towing of a caravan, boat or large box trailer, there is no noticeable sooty emissions under load, exhaust pipe quite clean.

        If there was a liquid petroleum gas injection system installed, recommended for a lighter vehicle 20 per cent LPG to 80 per cent Diesel mix, combustion of the Diesel results in more power and torque from less wastage of fuel and therefore lower emissions.

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        another ian

        And amazingly long lasting – TBO (Time Before Overhaul) out to 96,000 hours

        https://www.dieselgasturbine.com/news/rolls-extends-tbo-intervals-for-marine-engines/8016675.article

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    Ted1.

    Some welcome sanity at Our ABC. I used to get censored for saying these things.

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-08/australia-scraps-mandatory-covid-isolation-book-red-flags/101513372

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      David Maddison

      I am not sure what they mean by the cars “imploding”.

      Plus, why put the fires out? If there is no risk to life or property, let them burn. They are likely write-offs anyway once they start burning.

      Just keep bystanders away.

      It consumes firefighting and rescue resources.

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        Leo G

        I am not sure what they mean by the cars “imploding”

        It means the cars are destroyed by something within.

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          David Maddison

          That’s not the general understanding of the word.

          implode
          /ɪmˈpləʊd/

          verb

          gerund or present participle: imploding

          collapse or cause to collapse violently inwards.
          “both the windows had imploded”

          end or fail suddenly or dramatically.
          “can any amount of aid save the republic from imploding?”

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            Leo G

            That’s not the general understanding of the word.
            Consider the third of your cited definitions and an example where an internal explosive is described as imploding a building. The implosion is figurative, though the dramatic building failure is a real event.

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    TdeF

    I find it hard to believe that people think CO2 is not sucked into the oceans immediately. CO2 is highly soluble, 30x more soluble than oxygen and all life breathes, even in the ocean. Oxygen and CO2 go into and out of the water in unbelievably vast quantities all the time, CO2 much faster. Ask the fish.

    No one has a problem with this fact except the IPCC who say CO2 is insoluble and so the standard ‘half life’ is 80 years and it is their standard on which all ‘greenhouse’gases are ranked. Except it is cr*p, fake, nonsense. And no scientist notices? CO2 being insoluble would not pass the pub test. Look at a beer/champagne/lemonade/soda.

    And once you accept how soluble it is, why do tiny human CO2 emissions matter? Whatever we humans do, the graph of CO2 vs time over 60 years is a almost a dead straight line. No bushfires, no shutdowns, no volcanoes, no windmills, no power stations in China, no wars, no tripling of human population. CO2 and human activity are obviously not connected in any way, so they talk ’emissions’. And the l*es continue.

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      Terraforming Earth

      In your estimation would you anticipate a large drop in CO2 levels if the 2030’s proves to be a very cold decade? Or might our CO2 output allow us to maintain robust levels with only a small drop? It sure is a disaster if CO2 actually drops when we are already having to deal with the expected frigid weather.

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    TdeF

    And the energy which drives your brain, your body, your fingers comes from sunlight, captured by photosynthesis as carbohydrates. And all living things are made from CO2 and H2O and dead, burn like wood. And every carbon dioxide creature generates about 1000x as much CO2 as they weigh, even without fossil fuels. But does CO2 increase when the world population of humans increases x10? No.

    If we humans cannot control CO2 levels, what does it matter if CO2 causes any other effect like warming? We can do nothing. So why legislate ‘zero emissions’. It is a denial of life. Idi*cy. All life must generate CO2. That is the definition of life. If you are not breathing you are dead. So Greenpeace want to ban life. Greenpeace see humanity as their enemy. Eliminate humans and the world will be saved? Why? For whom? From what?

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    TdeF

    Who put politicians, the UN/EU/Democrats/Greens in charge of science? Why don’t more scientists speak out?

    I can only hope the coming disastrous energy shortage/prices and food shortages bring sense as people around the world revolt against the state religion of Climate Change. Or is this the ‘Great Reset’ the WEF want? Another Russian revolution? And all the would be Lenins like Australia’s famous communist and Lenin admirer Adam Bandt are just waiting in the wings pretending to care about the planet.

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      Honk R Smith

      I think they were put in charge by the new owners.
      Silly us, we keep acting like there is still free range science.
      Science is safely enclosed behind barb wire fences now.
      The weakest of the herd no longer endangered by uncontrolled, uneducated, science pilfering vermin.
      Like us.
      Science is now commercially slaughtered, sanitized, neatly packaged, and delivered to your doorstep by Googlzon.
      Just download the app.
      It’s easy.

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    MM from Canada

    “Today, State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo has announced new guidance regarding mRNA vaccines. The Florida Department of Health (Department) conducted an analysis through a self-controlled case series, which is a technique originally developed to evaluate vaccine safety.

    This analysis found that there is an 84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination. With a high level of global immunity to COVID-19, the benefit of vaccination is likely outweighed by this abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death among men in this age group. Non-mRNA vaccines were not found to have these increased risks.

    As such, the State Surgeon General recommends against males aged 18 to 39 from receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Those with preexisting cardiac conditions, such as myocarditis and pericarditis, should take particular caution when making this decision.”

    https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2022/10/20220512-guidance-mrna-covid19-vaccine.pr.html

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    David Maddison

    It looks like decades of the apathy of Australians has paid off. The takeover by the Left is almost complete.

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      Dennis

      I discussed this yesterday with friends, that younger people are now indoctrinated with the fear of climate change and reaching so called tipping point of warming and no return.

      They have been got at during school hours by woke teachers, heads of schools ignoring the not approved activities b based on climate and gender etc. State Departments of Education not enforcing the curriculum. Teachers obtaining high quality propaganda videos complete with teaching aids from international sources like WWF, WEF, others.

      Students end up with poor knowledge or no knowledge of basic subjects and accordingly Australia’s standard of education has slipped down the list from the once near to the top position. Labor’s 2013/14 Budget expenditure item known as Gonski state education grants has not improved the standard, obviously.

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    David Maddison

    One of the weirdest products ever is odourless WD-40.

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      MrGrimNasty

      Low odour white spirit is well worth the extra money. No more headaches and vomiting after cleaning the paint brushes!

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    David Maddison

    I find it remarkable but not surprising that those who falsely profess to “care for environment” such as green types don’t have a word to say about the appalling visual pollution of wind subsidy farms. In some places like Europe it’s almost impossible to get beyond visual range of these civilisation-destroying monstrosities.

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      Philip

      That’s easy to answer. Most greens don’t leave cities often. If they do, they find the novel experience of physically seeing windmills – passing by – as futuristic.

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    David Maddison

    Victoriastan is a classic example of what happens when the Labor Party is allowed to go “free range”. It should be a lesson.

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    David Maddison

    The following is a copy of a message posted to Farcebook by Dr Sam McMahon last Thursday at 1159am.

    This is an example of how the media can propagate so called “fake news”. Sky News Australia ran a story yesterday, claiming Dave Sweeney is a “nuclear expert”. The truth is he doesn’t have any qualifications in nuclear energy at all, he is actually an anti-nuclear campaigner.

    By calling him an expert, they have given him a credibility he shouldn’t have, he is no more an expert than I am, in fact he is probably less, at least I have studied nuclear physics.

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      Dennis

      Another example of journalists who have not been taught the art of reporting facts and researching to present the facts before handing in to their editor.

      A not widely known situation of political media influence began in NSW with the Wran Labor Government from 2012, until then cabinet ministers had a press secretary each, Premier Wran arranged for a media unit to be created employing those journalists and many other qualifications to manipulate the news and spread political propaganda, spin doctoring. The Federal Hawke Labor Government from 1983 adopted the media unit model from NSW.

      One of the journalist manipulation tools was media releases in a format that was ready to be copied without changes to hand in to editors, very attractive for lazy journalists and very useful for political management of news cycles.

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    David Maddison

    Genetics of difference between human and Neanderthal brain.

    Interesting! Maybe just one amino acid!

    https://youtu.be/rnqT0K5Ls2I

    Based on paper.

    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl6422

    Human TKTL1 implies greater neurogenesis in frontal neocortex of modern humans than Neanderthals

    Neanderthal brain development

    Neanderthal brains were similar in size to those of modern humans but differed in shape. What we cannot tell from fossils is how Neanderthal brains might have differed in function or organization of brain layers such as the neocortex. Pinson et al. have now analyzed the effect of a single amino acid change in the transketolase-like 1 (TKTL1) protein on production of basal radial glia, the workhorses that generate much of the neocortex (see the Perspective by Malgrange and Nguyen). Modern humans differ from apes and Neanderthals by this single amino acid change. When placed in organoids or overexpressed in nonhuman brains, the human variant of TKTL1 drove more generation of neuroprogenitors than did the archaic variant. The authors suggest that the modern human has more neocortex to work with than the ancient Neanderthal did. —PJH

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    TdeF

    And I keep writing that the total fossil fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is under 3% of CO2 over all time. Not yearly, over 150 years.

    And nearly half of that 3% is less than 5 years old. The rest of all CO2, 98% is in the ocean in a gigantic endless exchange of CO2, N2, O2 between the ocean and the thin air above. It’s called equilibrium and it’s massive, dwarfing our tiny human output of CO2. Fish in a fish tank die quickly without air but in the ocean the air stirs the water surface and does on a massive scale what we do with bubblers.

    And the biggest forest in the world is the ocean surface with phytoplankton eating CO2, photosynthesizing and outputting O2 and at the bottom of the food chain for all sea life. Almost all fish are carnivores from prawns up. There are no herbivores in the open ocean which covers 70% of the planet. We saw this in the Pacific after the huge bushfires, massive blooms of phytoplankton in the Pacific. Scientists said it was ‘nutrients’ but the only nutrient life needs is CO2. More CO2, more life.

    Any increase in atmospheric CO2 is a result of slight ocean surface warming, not air warming. And that warming comes from only two places, direct sunlight and the massive 3D ocean currents which contain 99.9% of of all the world’s surface heat. Consider that the air in a desert can go from +40C to -20C in a single day but the temperature in the ocean does not change.

    Now the proponents of Climate Change tell us we are somehow heating the oceans with CO2, without even heating the air? How could anyone believe that? NASA even suggested the oceans ‘stole’ the warming, breaking all laws of thermodynamics, transfer from a cold body to a hotter one.

    So why are Climate Change ‘Scientists’ so besotted with air temperature? We have climate change every day except it used to be called night and day. And no sane person thought we controlled any of it after Rational Science. Prior to that people believed anything they liked, fiery chariots for example.

    Now it’s the internal combustion engine reviled as the evil destroyer. And you can tell it’s a scam because everyone involved wants cash.

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      Leo G

      Any increase in atmospheric CO2 is a result of slight ocean surface warming, not air warming.

      It could also result from increased net annual oceanic cloud cover, which reduces the depth of the oceanic well-mixed layer and thereby reduces the transfer of CO2 to the deeper ocean, in turn reducing atmosphere to ocean net transfer.

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    John Connor II

    Groundbreaking research exposes immune system’s “Off button”

    Scientists have discovered what turns off the molecular alarm system that plays a critical role in our immune response.

    The antibacterial superhero MR1 (MHC class I-related molecule) is a protein found in every cell of the human body that functions as a molecular alarm system, alerting powerful cells of our immune system, our white blood cells, when cancer or bacterial infection is present.

    While prior groundbreaking research revealed the cellular machinery that MR1 depends on to activate, nothing was understood about how the MR1 alarm is “turned off” until now.

    The research, co-led by Dr. Hamish McWilliam of the University of Melbourne and Professor Jose Villadangos of the Doherty Institute and the Bio21 Institute, was published in the Journal of Cell Biology and shows the essential molecular mechanism that controls MR1 expression.

    https://rupress.org/jcb/article-abstract/221/12/e202110125/213489/A-specialized-tyrosine-based-endocytosis-signal-in

    Reminds me of the discovery that human consciousness can be turned on and off like a switch.

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      John Connor II

      Shhh! Viruses could be listening – and watching!

      The newly-found, widespread ability of some viruses to monitor their environment could have implications for antiviral drug development.

      New research indicates that viruses are using information from their environment to “decide” when to sit tight inside their hosts and when to multiply and burst out, killing the host cell. The work has important implications for antiviral drug development. Led by the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), the study was recently published in Frontiers in Microbiology.

      “[I]f phages are listening in on their hosts, the viruses that affect humans are bound to be doing the same.” — Ivan Erill

      The key takeaway from this research is that “the virus is using cellular intel to make decisions,” Erill says, “and if it’s happening in bacteria, it’s almost certainly happening in plants and animals, because if it’s an evolutionary strategy that makes sense, evolution will discover it and exploit it.”

      For example, an animal virus might want to know what kind of tissue it is in, or how robust the host’s immune response is to its infection in order to optimize its strategy for survival and replication. While it might be disturbing to think about all the information viruses could gather and possibly use to make us sicker, these discoveries also open up opportunities for new therapies.

      https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.918015/full

      I was going to post this in Saturday’s O/t but didn’t want to wait til Sunday 😁

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    John Connor II

    Solution to Optus data breach is Digital ID….apparently

    Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has called together all the digital ministers to kick-start the rollout of a national identity system, amid calls for the government to build a new technology infrastructure that would reduce the risk of identity theft, following the Optus data breach.

    It comes as NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello called for a decentralised identity system and the end of paper-based ID.

    https://xyz.net.au/2022/10/solution-to-optus-data-breach-is-digital-id-apparently/

    Did the Optus hacker attack a paper based system? Nope.

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      Joe

      Yes because once you hack the digital ID you get access to ALL the information that the ID is linked to.

      Better would be to decentralise ID and passwords/keys/biometrics and make each entity responsible for it’s own security. Also make it a LAW that information obtained from a person MUST NOT BE STORED beyond its immediate use unless it is for the use of the entity. I have no idea why OPTUS needed to keep passport and licence information. If needed for verification, it should be used to verify the user and then the entity should supply its own credentials for the person to use. Then the passport/licence information should be deleted.

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        Graeme#4

        Surely Optus could have sent an encrypted message to the passport office, have them verify the person, then return an encrypted verification, without actually storing the passport details?
        And do the same for drivers licence verification?

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        Leo G

        I have no idea why OPTUS needed to keep passport and licence information

        Indeed, why did OPTUS breach data security for passport and licence information?

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    another ian

    Latest Pointman

    “BLAME AMERICA FOR ALL YOUR TROUBLES.”

    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2022/10/07/blame-america-for-all-your-troubles/

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