JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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No good at reversing a caravan or trailer? Here’s how to smash it
I like this solution at the end
Invest in a motorised jockey wheel
A motorised jockey wheel is like your normal jockey wheel but 100 times better. Basically, it makes reversing a trailer or caravan easy by allowing you to do it by hand with no effort. It’s not only amazing for those who are not confident at reversing but they are also super handy when you get home and need to store it in a tight corner of the yard or shed. Anyone with mobility issues or who has a van that is just too heavy to be ‘shoved’ that extra metre into place will find a motorised jockey wheel useful.
MYTCA Motorised Jockey Wheel
The MYCTA Motorised Jockey Wheel is powered by a 550W motor and is capable of moving loads of up to 2722 kg. Constructed from powder-coated aluminium, the unit features forward and reverse motion as well as an automatic braking function.
Product Specifications
Maximum incline: 5-degrees
Maximum vehicle load: 2722kg
Speed: 6-7 metres per minute
Motor: 12V – 550W
Weight: 17kg
Cost: $555 (on special at $445)
50
Be sure not to “test” if the maximum incline specification is correct.
50
Yes, I can see problems trying it in reverse down a 5 deg slope.
30
Get a towball socket fitted to the front of your towing vehicle.
60
Get a towball socket fitted to the front of your towing vehicle.
Got that as part of ARB Bull Bar
20
I just place my hand at the bottom of the steering wheel and the way I turn is the way ihe trailer turns.
60
That is the system I used to learn. I am now very good at backing trailers.
20
What a great tip!
10
That’s a neat idea. Basically a 12 volt version of the standard eBike/eScooter motor. They are very powerful motors.
60
Durham probe: FBI offered Christopher Steele $1 million to corroborate Trump allegations in dossier
Steele couldn’t corroborate allegations in dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC through law firm
The FBI offered ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele $1 million to corroborate salacious allegations made in his dossier against former President Donald Trump and members of his 2016 campaign, but he was unable to do so, an FBI official testified Tuesday.
FBI supervisory counterintelligence analyst Brian Auten was the first witness in the trial of Igor Danchenko, the Russian national who served as the primary sub-source for Steele’s anti-Trump dossier and has been charged with five counts of making false statements to the bureau.
Auten testified that he and a group of FBI agents went overseas in early October 2021 to speak with Steele about the dossier. During questioning by Special Counsel John Durham on Tuesday, Auten said that during those meetings the FBI offered Steele $1 million if he could corroborate allegations in the dossier. Auten testified that Steele could not do so.
Auten also said that the FBI had no corroboration of allegations in the dossier but nevertheless took that information and inserted it into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“On October 21, 2016 [the date of the Carter Page FISA application], did you have any information to corroborate that information?” Durham asked.
“No,” Auten said, confirming that the FBI began receiving Steele’s reports, later known as the dossier, on Sept. 19, 2016, and submitted its first FISA application on Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
220
TDS is a terrible thing. Sufferers still believe the Steele dossier is real and that the lap top isn’t.
230
FBI Officials Who Warned Facebook of ‘Russian Disinfo’ Before Hunter Laptop Bombshell Are Democrat Donors
Two FBI officials who had knowledge of the Hunter Biden laptop in 2020 and who alerted Facebook to potential Russian disinformation are Democrat donors, court filings and campaign finance records show.
The unit chief for the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, Laura Dehmlow, and the head of the FBI’s San Francisco cyber division, Elvis Chan, were likely engaged in suppressing Facebook’s distribution of the story on the platform, the Washington Free Beacon reported from court filings.
Dehmlow contributed $60 to the Democrat Neonatal Committee in 2020, while Chan gave $50 to Democrat Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) during their 2020 Senate races, campaign finance records show.
The donations raise questions as to whether the FBI officials were working in an official capacity with partisan intentions during the 2020 election cycle when Breitbart News’s Emma-Jo Morris first reported the authenticated, verified, and confirmed “Laptop from Hell” story in the New York Post.
The FBI was in possession of the laptop for over a year before the Post published the story.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in August that Facebook had reduced the distribution of the story on his platform. Zuckerberg admitted the FBI had told the company to be aware of potential Russian disinformation that would hurt President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
In 2017, FBI director Christopher Wray established the Foreign Influence Task Force “to identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States.” Dehmlow, a member of the task force, could have directly used her position to discredit the “Laptop from Hell” story while making a political contribution to the Democrat Party, which supported Biden’s candidacy.
The “Laptop from Hell” story has since raised questions as to Joe Biden’s involvement with the family business detailed on Hunter’s laptop. Though Hunter is reportedly under criminal investigation for tax and gun related misdeeds, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, believes any investigation into the potential evidence on the laptop has been shut down by the FBI.
90
The A$ will soon be the Apeso. Down to US 0.626.
I am unaware that the world has lost its appetite for our iron, coal and gas, in fact we are still the reliable supplier we have always been.
Does anyone know why it is so?
90
Perhaps our iron, coal and gas sales are in USD and used to retire USD denominated debt.
50
Yes, they are priced in USD, so we are getting 15% more for them now than a year ago. [approx]
70
A weak Aussie dollar is good for exporters.
40
…not so hot for buying a Ford Mustang or Chevvy Camaro.
I imagine its the war in Ukraine and the crashing stock market driving investment into the American dollar. They’re still living on the ‘reserve currency’ idea, we have to work.
Our $800billion Govt debt is about $32000 for each Aussie. The USA’s $31trillion is about $100,000 per American, yet the world thinks they are a safer bet.
90
The World forgets about Oz, they think all you folks do is drink Fosters and put shrimp on the barbie.
70
” they think all you folks do is drink Fosters and put shrimp on the barbie.”
and ???
Actually, I prefer a nice white with my shrimp…. upper class as I are.
70
No Aussie really drinks Fosters.
50
I dont even recall seeing it as a brand for years. Is it still a thing?
30
…..or any vehicle come to that ..
It seems that price increases happen several times a year on most makes ?
20
Also lousy for buying the tens of thousands of wind towers and multiple millions of solar panels + inverters + controllers + power line infrastructure + transformers + heat pumps + electric cars + batteries + just about everything needed for the green revolution except the water for your coffee, but make sure that this doesn’t impact on environmental flows.
130
Yes.
Australian purchases of solar and wind gear from China
are big, and are as China requires, to be paid for in US $
30
I wonder if we have learnt anything from Germany about a dominant single supplier of energy? Probably not.
20
The wealthy might be moving their money to a stronger currency and a lack of confidence in the ability of the Australian Government.
60
The US$ is best currency in a bad bank. It is up 15% against the index this year which explains most of our loss. We are up a little V the pound and euro but that is hardly high praise.
50
Part of the reason Hanrahan is because the RBA has gone soft on lifting rates. Its 0.25% last week stimulates a shift to $US and a sell-off of the Aussie. Ir also increases the inflationary pressure due to the decline in the Aussie leading to more expensive inports.
The RBA is not fit for purpose. All it’s doing at the moment is playing for time so that its big busieness mates can adjust their weightings (to cash) without taking too much of a haircut – think superfunds etc). That’s also part of the reason why Au is not tracking inflation yet. It’s being liquidated to load up with cash for the coming crunch – and the buying opprtunities that will present.
It (the RBA) will eventually have to get in front of the inflationary pressures. It can’t do that with miserable 0.25 nibbles.
Look out below.
90
Not to mention the banks refusal to pass on the rising interest rates to saver clients. The RBA have enabled the theft of interest from a whole host of savers over the past two years or so and it has not finished yet. So now do we see the crash of the stock markets and the crash of the property market like usual. The sad part is that bank deposits have already been short changed and still are by the banks. Where is the safe haven?
30
I think the Reserve Bank’s reluctance to increase interest rates is the major cause.
“The RBA on Tuesday raised its cash rate 25 basis points to 2.6%. The increase was half the amount most forecasters predicted, a result that sent the Australian dollar lower …..” – https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/04/interest-rates-to-rise-again-as-reserve-bank-lifts-cash-rate-to-26
40
Didn’t think of that.
American interest rate (Fed) 3.25 % 09-21-2022
Australian interest rate (RBA) 2.60 % 10-04-2022
British interest rate (BoE) 2.25 % 09-22-2022
Canadian interest rate (BOC) 3.25 % 09-07-2022
European interest rate (ECB) 1.25 % 09-08-2022
Japanese interest rate (BoJ) -0.10 % 02-01-2016
All central banks interest rates, click here
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When I was travelling on business to the U.S., the rate was $0.50. So could easily go back down to this figure.
20
I remember that and thought we were being sold short. Not long after [how long is “long”?] we were above parity.
In the slang for our old money a “dollar” was 5 shillings. That was the exchange during the war.
Just how well could we have done if the unions and pollies weren’t screwing us around?
70
Back in tghe heady days of Whitlam the best I got was $US1.49 for $A1
10
Was great travelling then 🙂
10
How easy it must have been when wool was a pound a pound, I assume in Menzies’s days.
Graziers owned Rollers then and converted them into utes so the sheep weren’t breathing down their backs, or so the story goes. 🙂
00
Greta Thunberg calls the possible shutdown of nuclear power plants in Germany a mistake
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/greta-thunberg-germany-making-mistake-by-ditching-nuclear-power-for-coal/ar-AA12QeCD
If we’ve got it and using it…
The loony left is consistently inconsistent…
100
Greta Thunberg gives Germany permission to keep nuke plants running
The climate activist has called for keeping reactors operating rather than using more coal-fired power amid Europe’s energy crisis
100
Very kind of her, although I wasn’t aware that she had any official position.
130
How dare you!
130
That’s big of her, fancy that.
70
To be fair the young lady only expressed what appears to be an unusually common sense opinion on keeping nuc plants running. The “permission” angle comes from headline writers
10
This is the real transhumanism.
Years of sitting through zoom calls atrophying the human brain to the point that you can’t even conduct in-person conversations without the intercession of Microsoft Teams.
100
The guy has a cognitive disability
20
America Quietly Prepares for Nuclear War
I mentioned in a prior post that the US was purchasing anti-radiation medication. The media is urging the public not to fear as this is simply a precaution. Yet, the US would not have shelled out $290 million on a drug if the intelligence agencies did not fear the potential of a nuclear attack.
It is peculiar that the drug was approved for radiation a year prior to the war breaking out in Ukraine. The drug has never been tested on humans, and the results are not guaranteed. They certainly were not testing monkeys with a radiation dosage even close to that of a nuclear weapon. Of course, this was another NIAID-funded research project. They were testing mRNA drugs and COVID vaccines before the pandemic began too.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/war/america-quietly-prepares-for-nuclear-war/
Europe will be first.
More untested-on-humans drugs.
Why break with convention?😉
They’ve only allowed for a quarter million doses too, or 0.07% of the US population…
60
Do you think the wokester corporate elites controlling the US see an opportunity from a global nuclear winter- in selling approved-for-emergency-use proprietary meds to irradiated survivors?
10
Careful John:
Yet, the US would not have shelled out $290 million on a drug if the intelligence agencies did not fear the potential of a nuclear attack.
This reasoning proves nothing at all. The US has shelled out billions of dollars on things that are known to be useless, as long as someone who approves it is in the right cult, has a family member in the right business, or is set to get a nice job afterwards.
320
That’s pretty much a defining characteristic of tbe USSA.
Jo – the opinion is Marty’s and it would be an exceptionally well informed individual on global politics with exceptional contacts and intel that would be in a position to argue with him on it, and that person would not be you or I.
Granted, some of my sources are well on par with Marty and some better, but on this point I agree with him.
Don’t forget that we’re not dealing with people whose actions are defined by logic and rationality so “reasoning” is not something that should be applied to them. They will seek to protect themselves from their own stupidity and Nplate is just another example.
It would be incredibly naive for anyone to think nuclear strikes are not going to happen because that is what they want.
50
I agree with you John. Martin Armstrong has his finger on the pulse.
30
Some lucky children had Mothers who had figured out the basic intentions of these people by about March 2020. It was informed speculation back then. It’s not speculation now. These people express their intentions openly. They have think tanks who write papers expressing their intentions. Skeptics are intellectual cripples who lack all scientific skepticism . Why would anyone cater to their learning difficulties? Particularly when we have a duty to anticipate the next trick and try an warm people who were stooged by their last one?
30
Thats what they are calling it. But its actually drugs that are there to produce clots. They won’t help with radiation sickness. They will help produce clots. So they are wanting a treatment which will double down on the damage already created by their last wave of needle poisoning. When you have radiation sickness the last thing you want is to be dealing with clots.
40
Unfortunately, we and most of the democratic world keep on electing those clots.
120
I have noticed a lot of what used to be called “common colds” going around now. They seem to run for about 2 weeks or more.
It has been suggested that due to extensive covid lockups, especially in the more repressive states of the world like Vicdanistan with the world’s longest lockups and the most brutal enforcement outside China, people lost a lot of their immunity to once common diseases.
What do you think?
141
Something different is going on now for sure. I don’t think I have lost my immunity but any “bug” I have caught in the past year has resulted in lots of sneezing and a bit of a sniffle, but that’s all! There’s been no sore throat, runny nose or unusual chest reaction. It is much easier to cope with.
I have not caught Covid at all despite going about my normal business in shopping, sporting and family activities. I am not vaccinated against Covid. I only wear a mask into the chemist or medical centre.
My doctor wanted me to stop taking vitamin D and zinc tablets for three months after a blood test showed something unusual with calcium, but I’m sure it will amount to nothing after my next blood test in a few weeks.
90
Ian Hill. doc could be right.
Vit D3 may take calcium out of bones and put it into the blood stream. This can be checked.
To fix, take Vit K2 mk7 supplements, (the fix may work over a year, not days) and run down Vit D3 if in excess.
There is good info on this on this site if you search.
40
Thanks Lucky. I will wait until I see the doctor again. I wasn’t using these excessively as I’d often forget, but still enough to show up.
10
How would you know if you got Covid or not unless you test regularly? Symptoms can be mild to absent.
10
I have tested, not regularly but on an ad hoc basis six times now, particularly after a couple of family members caught it on separate occasions. Also associating with athletes who’d had it, one of them a dentist who was competing regardless. Then an interstate trip. Always negative.
00
I think too many shots of the experimental system is wrecking peoples natural immunity.
20
Joe Biden:”All my buddies either became a firefighter, a cop, or a priest. I wasn’t qualified for any of them, so here I am.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1579910369111203840
He starts socio-economic/political fires, breaks the law, and is a Satanist, so no wonder!
He has done nothing of value in his entire “career” that doesn’t involve lying, corruption and racist agendas.
151
What did all President Biden’s buddies become?
Tick a box:
☐ all became one firefighter; or
☐ all became one cop; or
☐ all became one priest
60
He only had three “buddies’.
And each of them eventually woke up to him.
80
Pfizer Director Admits Vaccine was Never Tested on Preventing Transmission During EU Hearing Contrary to Previous Claims
During the COVID-19 EU hearing, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, Janine Small, admitted that the vaccine had never been tested on its ability to prevent transmission, contrary to what was previously advertised.
Robert “Rob” Roos, a politician from the Netherlands who is also a member of the European Parliament, exposed the lie that people from all over the world had been led to believe.
“If you don’t get vaccinated, you’re antisocial. This is what the Dutch prime minister and health minister told us. You don’t get vaccinated just for yourself, but also for others. You do it for all of society, that’s what they said. Today, this turned out to be complete nonsense. ” Roos said in his viral bombshell video posted on Twitter.
“In a COVID hearing in the European Parliament, one of the Pfizer directors just admitted to me at the time of introduction, the vaccine had never been tested on stopping the transmission of the virus,” Roos said.
In one of the most atrocious crimes against humanity, all the governments worked together with big pharma and big tech to deceive the general public into taking the COVID shot.
http://www.stationgossip.com/2022/10/breaking-big-pfizer-director-admits.html
How long before the arrests and trials begin here?
250
This is huge. It totally undermines the mandate.
150
The MSM covered it, but now it appears its being buried as fast as they can…..too late though…..
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/human-body/pfizer-did-not-know-whether-covid-vaccine-stopped-transmission-before-rollout-executive-admits/news-story/f307f28f794e173ac017a62784fec414
Based on the comments on the article, it seems there are a lot of smart people who didnt take the job, and many who clearly regret it.
MY guess is the powers that be will may attempt to ramp up the ukraine war to drown it all out.
But yes, Nuremberg v2.0 is needed.
50
Pfizer’s Covid drug Paxlovid – which was used to treat Biden – can cause deadly blood clots, study warns
. Medicine to treat heart conditions can become unsafe when taken with Paxlovid
. Coronary heart disease drugs prescribed with it mean a higher risk of blood clots
. And alongside immunosuppressants it can cause plasma to rise to toxic levels
00
Ian Pilmer At His Best Again At CPAC
Read about all of the Facts in the weblink below – A very Good Read –
https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/10/my-cpac-turpitudes/
150
Amazon Accused Of Selling ‘Suicide Kits’ To Teenagers In New Lawsuit
Online retail giant Amazon is being accused of selling “suicide kits” to teenagers in a new lawsuit.
The lawsuit was brought on by the families of two teenagers, 16-year-old Kristine Jónsson of Ohio and 17-year-old Ethan McCarthy of West Virginia, who used the items to take their own lives.
According to the lawsuit, when users went to purchase sodium nitrite, a food preservative that in high doses can end someone’s life, Amazon would recommend they buy a scale to measure the dose, an anti-vomiting drug, and Amazon’s edition of a handbook on assisted suicide.
“The rare exception exists in eleven states where physicians are allowed, under exceedingly narrow, legislated medical circumstances, to carefully facilitate the death of a proven terminally ill patient. Contrary to what Amazon and Loudwolf may think, there is no exception that allows for corporate-assisted suicide,” the lawsuit asserts.
http://www.womensystems.com/2022/10/amazon-accused-of-selling-suicide-kits.html
To anyone thinking of it, don’t do it!!!
Like most internet FB style advice this is seriously BAD.
Death isn’t assured but severe pain, unconsciousness, vomiting, brain damage and more will be.
A definite NO!
30
This very short video is stunning you have to watch it in the article. About two minutes long.
Makes Covid passports useless
Regards
Climate Heretic
90
One of the main reasons I did not get the jab was because I did not want the Covid passport.
However all of my friends got the jab because they desperately wanted the passport.
To this day they puzzle about why I refused to join their herd.
90
What happened to commercial colour document laser printing for small quantities? Officeworks wants 75c per side… I couldn’t believe it, I told the cashier there must be a mistake but apparently not. Fortunately I didn’t proceed with the job.
40
Yep David.
I went down to my local Officejerks recently and was informed a 300 page document in two colours (black and red) would cost me $320 plus GST. The $20 was for the plastic cover and heavier front and back covers.
I meandered down the road to SNAP and got it all done for less than $100. Still expensive – but it had to be done.
50
EV attract cyber attack potentially ….
https://au.yahoo.com/news/cyber-risk-adding-electric-cars-041814653.html
20
A wise man once said…
Bees don’t waste their time explaining to flies that flowers taste better than sh/t.
110
Britain needs to climb out from under neo-con domination. They could wind up a Russian colony. They have been caught organising the bridge terrorist attack.
https://joannenova.com.au/2022/10/wednesday-open-thread-12/
57
No they haven’t.
51
Yes they have. I know you celebrate these terrorist attacks. But the reality is that the people of the Ukraine are not running this fiasco. We ought not be trying to blame them. They were taken over by people who are not Ukrainian in 2014.
93
I celebrate exposing Russian stooges like you.
33
Latest: FSB security service said five of those [8] held were Russians, while the others were Ukrainian and Armenian.
20
For sure. Little people are meant to be caught. That’s part of what organising the truck is about.
11
Here is the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKaq_gNr0uE
05
What utter garbage, a bloke who can hardly talk coherently relaying a he says she says story all based on a Russian intelligence source.
40
No they have been caught redhanded. Do you imagine that the Ukraine is acting alone?
12
You seem to fail to understand that hearsay propaganda is not caught red handed. Meanwhile in the real world FSB says the help was mostly Russian and Armenian!
30
Its not propaganda, its not hearsay, they were caught. Now lets have some analysis here. That bridge didn’t blow itself up. Is it your contention that this is a Ukrainian grass roots war? Well get out of that delusion since this is a proxy war, there was a coup in 2014 and ethnic Ukrainians haven’t had a say in how the place has been run since then. So when you see a terrorist attack you have to think is it Mossad, MI6 or the CIA? And it doesn’t really matter that much which one it turns out to be, because its the same network.
In this case it was MI6. Maybe it will be CIA in another situation. Also the fascist thing. Thats standard practice. If you are in the middle east you start an extremist front group and you use them to funnel your terrorist attacks through. In the 60’s they were socialist groups and now they are Muslim extremist groups. But its still third party terrorism. So these alleged Nazis are merely the ISIS technique transported to Ukraine. We must not give the Ukrainian people this taint.
20
Terraforming, we’re skeptics. Please get with the game. Perhaps there were confessions with evidence in the video link (I rarely watch them) but it doesn’t sound like it. So unless you work at MI6 (and how would you prove that?) please stick to claims that are knowable and do have an evidence chain. Otherwise you are free to ask “what if blah blah blah” and speculate and convince us is possible, with your implacable deductive reasoning. But even when you get motive means and opportunity — that’s still circumstantial without evidence.
The statement “In this case it was MI6” gives me exactly nothing except the sneaking suspicion you don’t read this blog much.
60
It’s only the beginning of the process. But the first step is to recognise that major terrorist attacks are always conspiracies, always attempted false flags. If you can’t lock that in you would have to be handicapped in some way or a Karl Popper devotee.
With that locked in we can accept that this British leak could be contrived by another party. To fill the room with smoke like this is in fact standard tradecraft. But would Mossad really try to indict their MI6 colleagues? Sure but it would be a pretty reckless move.
22
Production of dramatic photos for the Western media:
— Taka a photo of me, Andrej Andreevich. I’ll take a selfie and will send it to my sister in Russia.
How that Production appears in the Western Media as “Evidence” of Russian Atrocities
Thank you, Maria, for exposing the fakes in the making. And below are them already published by Western media. Beware of Ukrainian and Western propaganda!
More of these “shoking images” on the front pages of Western media
20
Catturd ™
@catturd2
I’ve told everyone on our podcast for months Zelenskyy was using green screens – believe me now?
Picture 1 and then picture 2
Make Peace Now
@DoctorGerhard
This is an example of this active president who may physically be in Hollywood.
10
Behind the Scenes of World War Reddit
October 12, 2022 – Sundance
On February 24, 2022, Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Daleep Singh, told the world what to expect about the U.S. and allied response to the war in Ukraine. We called the white house strategy “World War Reddit.” Here’s what Deputy NSA Singh said:
“…Strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory; that’s what Putin has done. In this century, strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength, by technological sophistication and your story – who you are, what your values are; can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill? And on each of those measures, this will be a failure for Russia.” ~ Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh
Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh boiled down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability. Realize that what he said is the White House strategy leading our foreign policy.
That strategy is why the White House enlisted TikTok influencers for their Ukraine effort [link].
Remember, the State Dept is also leading this effort. That is the context for this video. WATCH:
10
Behind the Scenes: President Zelenskyy’s Holographic & AR Address to Europe’s Tech Community 2 mis 34 secs
Founders Forum
With the help of our friends at Talesmith, Garden Studios, Evercoast and ARHT Media, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Europe’s tech leaders via 3D hologram, live from Founders Forum London 2022. He urged our community to donate to United24’s Rebuild Ukraine fund and invest in the digital transformation that will define the country’s long-term rebuild, highlighting Ukraine’s resilient development, despite the ongoing war.
By broadcasting President Zelenskyy’s address via hologram and 3D avatar, our aim was to exemplify the world-changing innovation our community is capable of delivering and inspire our network to develop new technologies that can help rebuild Ukraine and promote truth dissemination.
We worked with ARHT Media to bring their holographic capsule to three other European cities, enabling the President to appear on stage simultaneously at the UK’s Founders Forum, Stockholm’s Brilliant Minds, Amsterdam’s The Next Web and Paris’ VivaTech. We also live-streamed his telepresence to Dublin Tech Summit, London Tech Week’s AI Summit and SuperReturn Berlin, to bring the President’s message to nearly 200,000 leaders across every vertical of the tech industry. You can view President Zelenskyy’s address via Evercoast’s mobile augmented reality experience at ff.evercoast.com.
Talesmith’s founder, Martin Williams and Evercoast’s founding CEO, Ben Nunez travelled to Kyiv to record the President volumetrically and ensure we delivered his message in 3D, showcasing the potential for Ukraine to leapfrog into a better, tech-enabled world, post-war.
The volumetric capture hardware used for the project has been donated to the Ukrainian government, to enable continued communications in extended reality formats, and ARHT Media is donating the equipment used for the hologram capture to the Junior Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, located in Kyiv.
Our mission at Founders Forum is empowering entrepreneurs at every stage of their journeys to drive positive change through technology. We are continually inspired by the creative technologies our community develops to solve problems and overcome challenges both big and small, and we believe wholeheartedly in tech as a force for good in the world. We believe in tech as a means of empowering democracies to prevail over autocracies.
We are proud to have hosted several Ukrainian thought leaders at FF London 2022 including Dima Shvets, Viktoriya Tigipko, Igor Zhadanov, and Irra Ariella Khi. Thank you to The Kyiv Independent’s Olga Rudenko and Daryna Shevchenko who travelled from Ukraine to join us in person.
Thank you also to Amanda Holden, Bernard Henri-Lévy, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Gayle King, Nile Rodgers, Oleksandr Balabanov, Ozwald Boateng and Peter Gabriel, who helped us amplify the President’s message and shared powerful words of support from the FF stage.
Thank you to our generous community who contributed significant funds to United24’s Rebuild Ukraine Fund in addition to well over $1 million USD to Sunflower Relief’s humanitarian aid fund, in immediate response to President Zelenskyy’s address at FF London.
Thank you to The New York Times, The Times and The Guardian, BBC and Rolling Stone for helping shed light on this project and expanding the reach of President Zelenskyy’s message.
Thank you as well, to Thomas Hoegh, who created and produced the project alongside Talesmith’s Martin Williams, Mark Wright and Ruth Roberts.
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The White House is briefing TikTok stars about the war in Ukraine
On Thursday afternoon, 30 top TikTok stars gathered on a Zoom call to receive key information about the war unfolding in Ukraine. National Security Council staffers and White House press secretary Jen Psaki briefed the influencers about the United States’ strategic goals in the region and answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.
As the crisis in Ukraine has escalated, millions have turned to TikTok for information on what is happening there in real time. TikTok videos offered some of the first glimpses of the Russian invasion and since then the platform has been a primary outlet for spreading news to the masses abroad. Ukrainian citizens hiding in bomb shelters or fleeing their homes have shared their stories to the platform, while dangerous misinformation and Russian propaganda have also spread. And TikTok stars, many with millions of followers, have increasingly sought to make sense of the crisis for their audiences.
The White House has been closely watching TikTok’s rise as a dominant news source, leading to its decision to approach a select group of the platform’s most influential names.
This week, the administration began working with Gen Z For Change, a nonprofit advocacy group, to help identify top content creators on the platform to orchestrate a briefing aimed at answering questions about the conflict and the United States’ role in it. Victoria Hammett, deputy executive director of Gen Z For Change, contacted dozens with invitations via email and gathered potential questions for the Biden administration.
The invitations to the event were distributed Tuesday and Wednesday. Kahlil Greene, 21, a creator with more than 534,000 followers on TikTok, said he wasn’t surprised when an invitation arrived in his email inbox. “People in my generation get all our information from TikTok,” he said. “It’s the first place we’re searching up new topics and learning about things.” So, he figured, it made sense that the Biden administration would engage people like him on the platform.
The briefing was led by Matt Miller, a special adviser for communications at the White House National Security Council, and Psaki. The Washington Post obtained a recording of the call, and in it, Biden officials stressed the power these creators had in communicating with their followers. “We recognize this is a critically important avenue in the way the American public is finding out about the latest,” said the White House director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty, “so we wanted to make sure you had the latest information from an authoritative source.”
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‘Do you imagine that the Ukraine is acting alone?’
No, it was a professional job done by partisans with US technical input. The FSB is making stuff up.
“All the activities of the FSB and [Russia’s] Investigative Committee are nonsense,” he told Ukrainian media. “They are fake structures which serve the Putin regime, so we’re definitely not going to comment on their latest announcements.” (BBC)
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“Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday that it had arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia, Interfax reported.
Explosives were stored in plastic film rolls that left the Ukrainian port of Odesa in August and transited through Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia before entering Russia, the service said.
The FSB accused Ukraine’s military intelligence service and its director Kyrylo Budanov of organising the attack. Twelve people were also identified as accomplices, TASS reported.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/12/russia-detains-eight-suspects-over-crimea-bridge-blasts
———————
“The explosives were hidden in 22 plastic film rolls weighing 22,770 kilograms. The rolls left on a boat in August from the Ukrainian port of Odesa to Bulgaria. They then transited through the port of Poti in Georgia, then sent overland to Armenia before arriving by road in Russia, according to the FSB.”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/12/russia-says-arrested-8-suspects-in-crimean-bridge-blast-a79062
————-
That sounds odd, a roll of plastic weighing a ton? The truck didn’t look like it could carry 23tons, that’s not a payload for an ordinary medium-rigid. The truck story hasn’t stuck in some media either-
“But close examination of the footage seems to show that the truck had nothing to do with the explosion. The footage shows a huge fireball erupting just behind – and to one side – of the truck as it begins to climb an elevated section of the bridge.
The speed with which the truck bomb theory started to spread in Russian circles was suspicious. It suggested the Kremlin preferred an act of terrorism to a more alarming possibility: that this was an audacious act of sabotage carried out by Ukraine.
“I’ve seen plenty of large vehicle-borne IEDs [improvised explosive devices] in my time,” a former British army explosives expert told me. “This does not look like one.”
A more plausible explanation, he said, is a massive explosion below the bridge – probably delivered using some kind of clandestine maritime drone.
“Bridges are generally designed to resist downwards loads on the deck and a certain amount of side loading from the wind,” he said. “They are not generally engineered to resist upward loads. I think this fact was exploited in the Ukrainian attack.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63192757
The video is in this link above, it clearly shows the explosion over one side of the bridge after the truck has started climbing the main incline quite a long way ahead of where the sections collapsed.
All in all, a fascinating story- Not only do the Yanks get to have a crack at destroying the bridge, but it sows disruption within Russia as everyone becomes a suspect.
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Truck bombs allegedly with conventional explosives are always a decoy. Either for explosives not in the truck or for micronukes. The reason being is that truck bombs are so ineffective. So much of the blast force gets directed upward that they can’t do much damage. Fertiliser is always a big distraction.
I think you are right. I think the video at least implies that they weren’t relying solely on the truck which would have lead to failure.. A truck bomb also creates patsies who can be rounded up. Like in Bali or Oklahoma. Or they can be blamed after they have been vaporised like in Beirut in 1983.
That lady who moved into the young Dugina’s building for a month…. Such people are meant to be identified.
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Do you think the Revolution of Dignity was NATO’s idea?
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Someone who can control NATO must have approved the idea. The State Department said they put 7 billion into it. Snipers thought to be Israelis at the time; the Ukrainian leadership, not Ukrainian themselves now blame Ukrainians. It would be very unfair to blame Ukrainians for anything just to stay politically correct. Victoria Nuland, no Ukrainian herself, was supervising and we have her doing so over the phone.
There has been a lot of talk about “ a new Israel” and all these Deep State loyalists ripping off the Ukrainian public like Hunter. Hunter is just one tick with a lot of other parasites gorging themselves.
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Obama was meddling.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy
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Misses the point. Pfizer and the US regulators are being untruthful.
Of course the mRNA vaccine was tested for effectiveness in preventing transmission of the virus. The tests must have shown that the vaccine was ineffective. The results were suppressed to allow emergency use authorisation.
The intent was never to stop the pandemic, but was to enable a lucrative treatment in an unrestrained pandemic while preventing effective alternative treatments.
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The intent was to kill, damage and sterilise.
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Sadly, is mainly us old pharts shooting blanks who were able to thumb our noses at ’em.
Injecting children and pregnant women was a crime against humanity.
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Deviant intolerant liberals destroying our society.
What’s a good abbreviation? 😁
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Surely there will be no cock ups working out a suitable abbreviation. You would have to be a plastic tool with rubbery logic to miss that one. Love ya work.
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I am a first responder.
This is what they never tell you, re EV fires.
Just one EV car fire reduces the available response of emergency services across all sectors for up to 24hrs.
In these times, I advise that we don’t give any elected or bureaucratic fool an opportunity to make more red tape. Or promote their ideological fallacies.
You the public are being short served and played for fools.
The public and the emergency services shouldn’t have to deal with their ineptitude.
Instead of being held for hours and hours at a green dream, toxic, nightmare incident, we could actually be on the road, actively responding to save property and lives.
The duration of these fires means that we are offline to respond to other incidents for hours and hours, up to 24 hrs or more.
At an EV alight incident, the resouces will be at the very least 4 police vehicles (8 officers) to remove occupants threatened to a safe zone and block pubic access to the area (hot zone).
(Business, homes and schools will be evacuated. (We don’t do that with a ICE fire).)
1 or 2 Ambulances taken offline to standby at the incident.
2-3 Fire Rescue applances including 12 crew. The Fire Rescue Hazmat Unit (2 crew).
PLEASE NOTE. This is the absolute minimum response.
Understand that none of the resources tasked, are available for response to other incidents for up to 24 hrs.
OK lets talk about the fossil fueled vehicle.
(Note, this is not heavy vehicles. No EV B double has been produced to viable or commercial standards)
An incident involving an ICE car fire is totally different.
1 or No ambulance.
1 Police car
1 fire rescue appliance.
Fire extinguished typically within 2 mins to 15 mins.
What does that mean?
Ok…. in a 24 hr shift, one Fire Rescue appliance could extinguish (re our response times), 38 ICE car fires whilst the single EV is still burning.
The public are not being told the truth.
Please understand. I reiterate. Just one EV car fire reduces the available response of emergency services across all sectors for up to 24hrs.
Ok so lets get down to taxpayer cost of a vehicle fire. EV vs ICE.
An EV fire:
Minimum 24 personnel for 24 hrs = 576 hrs
That is a cost to the taxpayer of approx $25,920 for a single EV fire in wages for an emergency response.
Also the cost to the community is incalculable. Why?… In delayed response time to those in need, from the remaining responders, on call covering our area.
Let us compare the above with an ICE vehicle.
A ICE car fire costs the taxpayer approx $675 in wages for emergency response.
After a ICE car fire lasting at max 20 mins, we are back on line ready to respond within 10 minutes from conclusion of said incident.
I have a simple solution to EV fires.
We can just put the burning EV on a flat bed recovery vehicle and task Fire Rescue to escort it to the nearest politicians home and dump it there.
If they have a pool, that is nice, but it won’t help. The batteries burn under water and there is still the possibilty of an explosive event.
Water can accelerate the thermal runaway.
We the professionals can’t extinguish an EV battery fire. We protect exposures till It burns out itself.
I propose that we let our elected officials cope with it for the next 6 to 24 hrs, whilst it is alight.
So lets see if our all knowing, enlightened elites and experts can deal with it. They can standby with their garden hose to protect their homes.
We can then get back to protecting our community, not wasting our time futilely watching something burn.
So to all, I am sorry for the long post.
I am also sorry for being so passionate.
I have to deal with this EV garbage. I am a first responder and I am on record that I hate EV fires.
…And that is for a very good reason.
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When an all consuming religious/scientism ideology infects and degrades the synapses of the wealthy elite of any society, the costs and consideration of potential catastrophic harm, are sacrificed to the single great virtue signal impulse.
(Vincent Price starred in many movies about this very phenomenon.)
A culture of anorexics is just one famine away from its’ ideal weight.
The Western Elite are just one self imposed political/economic/public health catastrophe away from stopping ‘Climate Change’.
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Heard a radio report that some leafy up market Melbourne suburb’s wealthy EV owners, want power rationed in their suburb, because there’s not enough power of an evening to charge the EV batteries.
So the peasant owners of ICE vehicles must sacrifice power to suit the wants of the poor, woke, suckers who have fallen for the EV BS & propaganda. Go buy yourselves a diesel generator you morons.
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The fire is caused by the energy stored. It is NOT a fire. It can become a fire as the car catches fire, but it does not need oxygen so it is not a fire. So stop treating it as a fire.
I would suggest the way to extinguish the fire is NOT to try to put it out, which is useless as you point out.
As you point out, even dumping the car in a swimming pool is useless and dangerous.
So do something you could not safely do in a petrol car, drain the energy. Discharge the battery.
Consider every electric car could have emergency fire/dump sockets/terminals to which cables which could be quickly connected and the energy dumped say as an electric arc. It would be a simple thing which would solve the problem.
So first you would expose the emergency terminal cover with force, or under the hood or in the trunk. Maybe multiple places for access to different points in a damaged battery. Then plug or snap or clamp the cables like jump start cables and dump a plasma arc, releasing the lot of heat harmlessly at a distance with a light shield as it is a very bright but not dangerous welding arc.
The only dangerous part is what to do with all the energy. If an arc, ozone and enormous light but safe, say ten or more metres away. Beware that such an arc could be at an extraordinary temperatures, around 10,000C. But it is common enough in industry, a common way to cut steel. Such a cable system could be as cheap as jumper leads which do the reverse and carry up to 200 amps. There may be safer ways to dump this power, but that is the only question not whether it can be done and quickly. It is the reverse of charging, discharging.
Consider a fully charged Tesla battery at 80kwhr. Tap at 450 volts and drain 200 amps so 450x200x60/1000 kw/minute or 5400 kw/minute so 15 minutes to safe and flat. Car dead. Fire prevented. And you can go home.
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While I think fully electric cars are virtue signalling nonsense, there is no reason to have zero way of controlling an internal collapse of the battery and to just watch it self destruct over a few days.
Even if the procedure above does not drain the entire battery, it reduces the problem fast. There might even be multiple connections points to access different parts of the battery which has suffered some internal problems, breaking circuits. But drain any of the energy and the problem is rapidly reduced.
In fact an uncontrolled electrical discharge in an electric car is much simpler to deal with than a petrol leak because petrol is explosive and electricity is not. And pouring water/foam/sand on it is almost nuts.
There may even be ways to drain the battery faster and even save the energy, but its only $100 of energy. So dump it. You could even save the car and what is around it especially if you act fast.
Also it may be that the designer of the charge socket could make a provision for a rapid dump of 15 – 60 minutes with a standard fitting.
There are plenty of potential solutions, more than one. But draining the electricity is the fastest and safest way to end the problem and allow everyone to go home safely.
What is amazing is that no one in the electric car industry has considered what to do about a very predictable and obvious and even likely problem. I am sure there are a lot of cheap solutions but otherwise all a fire brigade can do is stop other fires, not the cause of the fire.
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Consider the solution at present. It’s rare and unexpected, but your car starts smoking. So you call the firebrigade. And what can they do? Drag the car into the street.
And everyone watches helplessly over a day while the car and perhaps the garage, the house are destroyed. There has to be a better way.
So empty the car, even plug in a dump device and run. Surely this will work much faster than charging. And you may need a new battery, but that’s it.
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My V12 BMW has two big batteries in the rear, but the terminals are up front, so the 200 amps for starting the car are taken all the way from the back of the car. I am sure rapid discharge terminals could be installed. It’s all up to the car designers.
And I suppose people could then steal electricity from your car? Like petrol theft. And the solutions are the same.
But it is gobsmacking ridiculous that there is no firebrigade solution to rapidly drain an electric car battery. It should be part of the design of the electric car. Just because no one does it with a petrol car, no one thinks of it with an electric car.
And the same applies to the draining of the power, something you cannot do with a petrol car surrounded by fire. What is impossible for a petrol car is potentially simple and fast and safe for a battery car. Waiting for it to burn to the ground is not a solution but a failure.
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There might be other solutions like making the battery in at least four sections so they can be mechanically disconnected, even dropped to the ground and dragged away. I just don’t think anyone is addressing the problem. They spend more time on trying to develop driver less cars and trucks.
And on that subject, what would be great is for all freeways to have embedded guide wires so you could latch on and drive on freeways without steering. It’s those long boring freeway trips where there is a need, not local shopping. And a radar system would keep car distances. Disconnect and drive off at exits.
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Yep we will hand you the plug and you can approach tge vehicle to plug it in, no probs.
Semantics aside, the just let burn, protect the surroundings, stay out of the smoke approach seems to be all we have at the moment.
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Electric car fires seem to start very slowly because there is nothing combustible except some generated hydrogen. In the reports on Hurricane Ian, there were a lot of stranded charged and flooded Teslas which the fire department called ticking time bombs. They should be all discharged and towed. But they are just waiting to see if the cars catch fire, as they do not blow up. Discharged they are perfectly safe. But no one does it as if it’s impossible. A simple charging cable with a load would discharge the car in a few hours. It should be in the trunk.
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Also consider your car starts smoking while you are charging it? What do you do? What does anyone do? Nothing. Wait to see if it explodes?
Generally it won’t explode unless a lot of hydrogen is generated in a confined space. However it will get hotter and hotter in a chemical fire powered by electricity. Remove the electricity and it’s a flat battery. Harmless.
Perhaps every home charging system could have a discharge setting, dumping into a load if there is a problem.
While removing petrol from a burning car is absurd, discharging a smoldering electric car would make electric cars safer than petrol cars which do explode.
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Yarpos,
TdeF made a suggestion with excellent potential for a smart engineering development.
1. Ensure the car is stationary via existing speed sensors.
2. Have several thermometers measuring battery temperatures.
3. Above a set temperature, automatically drain the batteries fast through a special resistor system. (Need to check that this is possible in the containment of the car, so that hot resistors do not cause damage themselves.)
It must be better than taking all those responders and gear out of other action. Don’t be negative, try to make it happen.
Geoff S
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Good ideas. You are now talking of an automatic fire prevention system! Another great idea.
There may be a way to have the car detect an overheating battery (they would have this) self drain through the motors without generating motion, just using them as a passive load. Four big motors. Or there could be additional passive loads, but the motors are built to take it.
Also instead of waiting for detection of high temperature, as with the case of the ‘time bombs’ in Florida, waiting to explode. Have and hit the empty/drain button and discharge the batteries! It may take an hour or two but the ‘time bombs’ would be defused and could be towed.
There are so many solutions, external and internal. What is special is that in an electric car you do not have to deal with 80 litres of highly flammable liquid (petrol), just energy to dissipate. Like having a UXB with a defuse button which eliminated the charge.
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This started with a serious Fire Brigade problem wasting time and risking lives and damaging property.
I am actually suggesting that the Fire Brigades get/make passive loads for connection to common electric cars. Using a charging cable and a load.
And defuse these ‘time bombs’ instead of waiting for a days work trying to contain a totally avoidable fire with total destruction of vehicles. It shouldn’t be hard. Standing by a burning car for 24 hours has to be a loss for everyone.
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Once the battery catches fire for whatever reason, what makes you think discharging it will stop the fire. I thought the fire was caused by the lithium and the oxidizer in the elctrolyte. Do you have any citation that explains whether or not a dicharged battery can’t combust. Curious minds would like to know.
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You do not need citations. If the situation was highly flammable, even explosively flammable, the whole process would not take a day.
It does not take a day to burn down a house or a pile of wood. The fire brigade have to spend a whole 24 hours at the scene pouring water and foam on the continuing fire, so most of the battery is basically not flammable. This can only be progressive damage caused by extreme heat which in turns causes more short circuits and then more heat. It’s a predictable and slow process. And you also know exactly how much heat is going to be released, about equal to 80 litres of petrol. Why not stop it?
But it is clearly NOT a runaway positive feedback process or you would have a much faster fire and even explosion. Explosion is very rare.
It looks more like a lot of non flammable material being destroyed by the steady (and avoidable) release of stored energy and consequent melting. Nothing like a match in a can of petrol.
So what you have is a fire caused by the continuous output of heat from the collapse of individual battery cells and they are all quite separate. Discharge the cells and you remove the cause, the heat stops, the untouched cells are fine and the fire just stops. The fire would stop because the intact batteries are clearly not very flammable, even under extreme heat.
I am suggesting only that discharging the remaining healthy batteries is just sensible, simple, fast and free. And a lot cheaper and saner than having fire trucks and firemen in the street for a day and night pouring water on a burning car.
And that the many cars in Florida which are ‘ticking time bombs’ could be defused by a garage or owner with a plug in cable and dead load.
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Considering the temperature based detection system, my memory is that batteries have a lot of this already. For maximum battery life batteries have integrated cooling systems to stop them overheating and heating systems to stop them freezing. These systems would likely alert a driver anyway.
But one of the problems surely with a temperature system is that the ‘battery’ is actually thousands of cell phone size batteries. A breakdown in just of them could slowly affect its neighbours, melting circuits and causing more shorting. The problem would grow.
But before a temperature sensor or two could detect an increase, the earliest sign of a problem would be smoke. A smoke detector would be very useful. But even before that, the driver might smell something and humans are incredibly sensitive, like all animals, to smoke. It’s a life saver.
So stop the car. Hit discharge. Call for help. Prevent a disaster. And incidentally save the car as well as other property and life.
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Tdef.
You quote:
“What is special is that in an electric car you do not have to deal with 80 litres of highly flammable liquid (petrol), just energy to dissipate. Like having a UXB with a defuse button which eliminated the charge.”
End quote.
Do you really believe that?
Tdef you are better than this. I won’t bother replying in debate to your comment above.
As plain as day, your comment shows that you have absolutely no experience in firefighting.
I note that you have replied 11 times to my single post. That is passionate, especially for someone with limited or no firefighting experience.
Tdef, please understand that I supply technical and/or Incident reports to the NSW coroner on request.
Those reports can be used by prosecution or defence in future proceedings.
Now why would the NSW court ask william x for a report to provide evidence?
Isn’t william x just a dumb blogger?
What would he know about fires?
Why is the coroner interested? I don’t know, I am just a dumb blogger.
Know that my life is not made easier by the spurious claims made by some that post.
Tdef please be an expert in what you are qualified for. Don’t hijack my profession.
I am an Engineer. 1 Mining and 1 Fire. I report to the NSW coroner. I have close to 3 decades of service
I have personally saved 40 lives. As part of the crews I have worked with, we have saved 1263 lives (recorded).
Tdef, I have rated your comments before. I follow your posts. Yet now you have given me doubt.
As a forensic fire investigator. I see anomalies in your 11 replies above…
If you want truth I can respond. Just ask.
Please Tdef, I humbly ask if you can get back to what you do best. Give me more info on the covid and climate lunacy.
I do love those posts. I have very limited expertise in those fields. enlighten me.
take care my friend.
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On Bolt Report tonight a suburb in Melbourne with a number of EV owners having power supply problems and now asking the neighbourhood to accept time sharing of electricity usage to avoid power outages, stop using washing machines, dishwashers, etc and all to save the planet.
Brighton not so bright.
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I Have been reading a sci-fi short story called the “2022-integrated-system-plan“, authored by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). They have put forward a fantastical scenario based on Australia becoming a “Hydrogen Superpower” by 2050. An extract from the piece as follows:
So let’s do some maths:
278 GW of nameplate solar using 400 Watt panels would need about a miserable 70 million solar panels by year 2050.
269 GW of nameplate wind using 4 MW towers would need about a miserable 67,500 towers by 2050.
All the panels, towers and control/distribution infrastructure have to be imported. Our A$ is falling in value. Certain verdant groups want to shut down our exports that keep us afloat.
What could go wrong?
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It’s not just 70 million Solar Panels because there is no sunshine at night time, so you have to have another 70 million panels to charge the batteries that will supply the power at night time.
But its ALSO not just 140 million panels, because when there is between 25% – 75% cloud cover the power from a panel drops by 50%, so it’s actually 280 million panels.
But wait, its not just 280 million panels because when it is “fully overcast” (>75% cloud cover) the power from a panel is negligible, and according to the BOM it is “fully overcast” about 30% of the year … so you have to be able to store at least 2 days of power on the good day before the “fully overcast” days, which means you need 840 (280 + 280*2) million panels.
But wait, every panel is not 100% perfectly efficient, due to the laws of physics, they are actually (at most) 90% efficient, so it’s really 925 million panels.
So all up its really 925 million panels.
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If history can survive WikiAmaGoogleTwitterzon …
what will this era be known for?
Perhaps the the ‘Great Mass Formation Trisection’ … Climate Change/Trump/Pandemic.
Climate concern was a pre-existing non-fatal psychological condition.
Trump appeared and created hysteria among the power elite, completely based on their revulsion to his style.
Cold War Russian Boogey Bear resurrected.
And ‘Climate Crisis’ because Orange Man Bad.
A convenience in the form a ‘public health’ crisis materialized … or didn’t.
Of course the power elite cash in.
What’s not to like?
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Paul is right on this, give AUKUS the flick.
‘Keating trashes Quad ‘nonsense’ and pleads: get us out of AUKUS.
‘Paul Keating says the US is ‘exceptionally ungrateful’ to allies like Australia who have long been loyal, urging Canberra to ‘walk away’ from the AUKUS security agreement.’ (Oz)
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I don’t know. What is the other realistic option? Keating’s unity with Indonesia grand plan has its merits but I’m not sure it is practically feasible.
10
Well, we better start looking.. The US and the UK are on the other side of the world, they are certainly not going to do more than make a token gesture to save us in a war. Neither have the money nor the will these days.
We could form close bonds with close neighbours, which would be Indonesia & Malaysia mainly.
We could form close bonds with our main trading partners, so we’re talking China there.
We could form close bonds with the emerging world powers, so the BRICS.
We could make our own way in the world like most of the countries, but its something we have been blinded to by our leaders so we don’t realise that. We have been conditioned to think a piece of paper that is labelled ‘Treaty’ is some sort of defence, while in reality if the events don’t suit our treaty partners they will ignore us.
Ask us again in 5 years and see how far down the other members of AUKUS have collapsed.
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Premier Xi desires peace and commercial power in the Pacific.
We already have close bonds with BRICS nations, so joining that body might be beneficial. Beijing’s belt and road appears to be going off the rails, but should recover eventually.
00
Beijing wants to woo us again, after Covid (AC), and its looking promising.
‘China frustrated by slow progress in repairing links.
‘Beijing has set out hopes for high-level talks with no preconditions to narrow differences with Australia on regional security, human rights and trade ties worth $245 billion.’ (SMH)
00
The US quickly bailed out of Afghanistan and manoeuvred back to the Pacific theatre. This kind of geopolitical strategy has passed its used by date.
Beijing does not want a hot war but the US is always having wars of adventure and drag their deputy into it.
I propose we join the non-aligned movement and take our chances.
20
This is a positive move because its intended to assist in times of natural disaster.
‘ANZAC spirit to stretch across Pacific.
‘The Albanese government will offer Pacific Island countries unprecedented defence support and the potential to integrate their military forces for security and natural disaster missions. (Oz)
00
Monkey pox on the decline.
Someone will get sacked/fired in the Bioweapons Dept..
https://youtu.be/ovc91S1cLM4
61
Someone got a promotion here:
Seven new community spread cases in Auckland and two in Wellington. Glad I don’t hang out in those circles.
10
Germany hoping for “warming” this winter
https://notrickszone.com/2022/10/12/irony-greens-now-praying-a-warmer-winter-to-help-germany-survive-energy-crisis/
Suddenly, it seems that being cold is not a pleasant proposition. ! 😉
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If the NAO continues along its present trajectory, then their prays will be answered.
https://weather.plus/nao-index.php
00
We got, what to much people voted for, a gouvernement praying for the best weather during winter, why don’t we have some shamanes in our “gouvernement” ? The one or the other Green may be qualified 😀
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“Why Farmers make the Best Intellectuals”
“If only the work of intellectuals had such tight feedback loops, we could save ourselves so much pain and misery. Unfortunately, the work of the intellectual allows him to entertain ideas which are manifest nonsense, but which sound good and appeal to a great many people for one reason or another. And the more wealthy and decadent a society becomes, where the educated classes are further and further insulated from the harsh realities of the created order — and its humbling lack of flexibility on many points — the more they have the illusion that everything is malleable and plastic. Yes, everything can be re-imagined! And then our perfect utopian vision can be brought to pass!
But God will not be mocked, and the particular shape he gave to the world we inhabit will only be thwarted for so long.
For this reason, I prefer my intellectuals and thought-leaders to also be farmers.”
https://philcotnoir.com/2022/10/03/why-farmers-make-the-best-intellectuals/
Via SDA
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French MP Jean Lassalle who had 4 heart operations after his💉almost killed him says Mad Macron and most MPs aren’t vaxxed. (What a surprise!)
Watch! 2 mins 19 secs with subtitles
40
the evolution of the bourla virus
the pfizer CEO in his own words
there seem to be a number of people who are of the opinion that “the drug companies never said the covid vaccines would stop transmission.”
but ah how wonderful it is to live in the age of instant-on video receipts. we do not have to guess, we can ask the pfizer CEO himself.
this montage is a startling evolution of talking points. it shows a pharma kingpin who is simply making stuff up on the fly and adapting tactically to whatever works best as marketing right now.
i have seen porsche adjustable seats with fewer positions than this.
perhaps this is why he was unwilling to appear (when asked) before the euro parliament.
some of the MEP’s appear upset.
30
The names & faces of the 150 Bilderbergers who have influenced & controlled the response to COVID-19
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Gaining More Prominence in West –Pfizer Executive Admits They and the White House Lied About Vaccine Efficacy
Well, today (October 12th, 2022) offers just a bit of vindication for those who didn’t take our beatings lying down. An executive for Pfizer has admitted in an open hearing that they never even tested their vaccine to see whether it helped prevent transmission.
That admission runs counter to the claims coming from Pfizer and the Biden administration during and after the initial rollout of the vaccines. For well over a year, both entities alluded to data and studies showing that the transmission was significantly reduced after receiving the shots. It wasn’t until that lie became completely indefensible during the Omnicron wave that the goalposts began to move, with the CDC finally admitting in mid-2021 that the vaccinated were still spreading the virus at a high rate.
Now, we know that there never was any data to back up those claims. Pfizer, citing time constraints, never even tested the topic of transmission, instead focusing on whether it reduced the risk of severe illness.
In a vacuum, that would have been fine. Clearly, time was an issue, and you’d expect whether the vaccines help prevent death to be a priority. But we don’t live in a vacuum. Instead, we live in a world where these massive, government-leeching pharmaceutical companies made billions of dollars pushing their vaccines as a way to “protect others” knowing they had no data to back that up. Some might even call that fraud.
Meanwhile, the White House, desperate to push its own narrative regarding the vaccines, largely for political reasons, used those same false claims to justify mandates that never had any scientific backing. To this day, the Biden administration won’t admit that things like vaccine passports, for example, are completely worthless and unnecessarily discriminatory.
Of course, no one will pay a price for misleading the American public to bilk taxpayers out of billions of dollars. Accountability when it comes to COVID-19 would put the cult at risk, and we can’t have that.
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For the covid file
“Forty-Two Volunteers Snort AstraZeneca Intramuscular Vector Vaccine, Fail to Develop Mucosal Immunity”
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/forty-two-volunteers-snort-astrazeneca?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=268621&post_id=77806201&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Via SDA
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And
“This Is Why You DO NOT Use EUA’d Things….”
“The review paper says that interactions between Paxlovid and certain blood thinners can cause an increased risk of bleeding. Interactions between Paxlovid and some cholesterol medications such as statins can be toxic to the liver, and interactions between Paxlovid and certain blood pressure medications could cause low blood pressure, flushing and swelling.”
More at
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=247159
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Germans pray for a warm winter,.
https://notrickszone.com/2022/10/12/irony-greens-now-praying-a-warmer-winter-to-help-germany-survive-energy-crisis/
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FWIW
“EU nation temporarily waives anti-Russia sanctions
Bulgaria will exempt fuel supplies from the embargo, in view of the country’s economic plight”
https://www.rt.com/business/564125-eu-nation-waives-russia-sanctions/
Via https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2022/10/07/blame-america-for-all-your-troubles/#comment-55312
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How about this picture of Nature in action?
This shows 128 km Melbourne radar centered on Laverton Airport.
There is an orange circle of 200 km radius faintly visible.
The rain pattern is neatly circular and fits just within the circle.
We live 15 km east of the City, so we are clear of rain, sun is shining, just now.
The picture was even more neat a half hour ago when I first noticed it.
Takes me a while to capture anything so early in the morning. It is 9.40 am now, snore, snore.
Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/roundrain.jpg
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Oh darn.
Nobody commented on my little tease.
The circular shape comes from the range of the radar, not from nature making patterns.
It is not common to see rain covering all of the area seen by the radar and more.
So we do not often see the circular shape of the radar range.
Geoff S
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A Case For Nuclear As The Most Efficient Form Of Clean Energy
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Australia is not America and we say no to nuclear power.
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Thinking, experienced people qualified to speak say NO to ignorant beliefs. Geoff S
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The cost and build timeline is prohibitive, gas and coal are better.
Mustn’t take our eye off the ball and don’t pander to green thinking on emissions, CO2 is a harmless trace gas.
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Any sensible government with the safety and security of its citizens at heart, and faced with the energy and geopolitical problems being experienced today, would commence building new fossil-fueled AND nuclear power generation.
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ElG,
Nothing to do with CO2 except that coal gas and oil have been pilloried and set back because of CO2.
You need to understand that the cost of nuclear has risen because of excessive regulation. Otherwise, a nuclear plant is much like a coal plant but with much cheaper fuel. Nuclear wins hands down on fundamental costs. Geoff S
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Head of the WMO says Ukraine war is a blessing in disguise.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/12/wmo-head-from-climate-perspective-the-war-in-ukraine-may-be-seen-as-a-blessing/
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Psays:
October 13, 2022 at 9:38 am
‘ISIS brides’ will return to Sydney
The Catholic Weekly – October 12, 2022
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Tulsi Gabbard Quits Democrat Party and Slams Dems as “Elitist Cabal of Warmongers.”
Tulsi Gabhard, a former 2020 Democrat presidential candidate hauled off and punched the Democrat Party right in the mouth on Tuesday, then quit and started a podcast, “The Tulsi Gabbard Show.”
The quitting wasn’t much of a surprise, not after Democrats and their media allies rolled in political filth and portrayed Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, as a traitor and Russian agent for daring to challenge the bi-partisan establishment War Party that seems determined to walk the U.S. ever closer to nuclear war.
And quisling Combine Republicans like the vengeful U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, the milquetoast of Utah also known as “Reek,” and Jacobin sports media flamethrower Keith Olbermann branding her as a traitor and Putin stooge.
“When powerful, influential people make baseless accusations of treason,” she said in April, “they are sending a message to all Americans: if you dare to criticize the establishment’s narrative, you will be smeared and discredited. If this is allowed to continue, our democracy will be no more.”
But it does continue, aided and supported by media in displays of Orwellian hate directed at those who question the regime.
Yet on Tuesday, just four weeks until the midterm elections, Gabbard landed a whopping roundhouse punch. You might say that she witch-slapped the Democrats, but she hit them with a closed fist.
I’m sure America’s most well-known political troll, Hillary Clinton, has them gathering up dry firewood for a bonfire to her Clintonian vanity. And in the things you learn while looking up other things department, the word “bonfire” comes from old English, literally “fire of the bones.”
So, Clinton was willing enough to torch and destabilize the U.S. by attributing her 2016 election loss to that Russia collusion fantasy she paid for. And she was protected by corporate legacy media. What’s another witch-burning to her now?
But there is no ignoring it now, is there? Gabbard just said it clearly on Tuesday so all Americans could hear.
She didn’t leave the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party left her.
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During Trial Senior FBI Analyst Admits Agency Offered Dossier Author Chris Steele Up to One Million Dollars to Prove Authenticity of Claims
– The FBI knew the dossier was junk, the FBI didn’t care – they needed it to create a fraudulent search warrant.
– The FBI knew Carter Page was not a Russian asset, the FBI didn’t care – they needed him to get to Trump.
– The FBI goal was always to conduct political surveillance against Donald Trump.
Offering $1 million to a source to provide evidence is not a decision made by a supervisory special agent.
The authorization to spend up to $1 million for evidence is a decision made by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI.
Follow the timeline:
Put it all together and you see the continuum.
(1) Donald Trump was being targeted by a corrupt DOJ and FBI. (2) Robert Mueller was installed in May 2017 to cover up the targeting. (3) When Mueller is nearing his completion, Bill Barr steps in to mitigate institutional damage from 1 and 2. (4) Barr maintains damage control and installs Durham. (5) Durham takes over the coverup operation from October 2020 (Danchenko safe to exit) through today.
Main Justice kept a bag over Danchenko until they needed a scapegoat, created by Durham, to sell a narrative that Main Justice was duped. John Durham is charging Danchenko (working outside govt) with lying to the FBI while simultaneously avoiding drawing attention to the FBI/DOJ officials (inside govt) who knew Danchenko was lying and were willfully blind to it in order to continue attacking and investigating President Donald Trump.
James Comey, Robert Mueller, Bill Barr, John Durham, the Mar-a-Lago raid… it’s all one long continuum of the same targeting and coverup operation.
Bill Barr was the Bondo application and John Durham is the spray paint.
The entire system is corrupt.
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Day 1 of the Igor Danchenko Trial
Transcripts show the Million Dollar FBI offer to Christopher Steele
Techno Fog
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FBI OFFERED BRIBE TO BRING DOWN TRUMP
Scott wrote earlier today about the first day’s testimony in the trial of Igor Danchenko. I want to elaborate on the most significant point that emerged from the testimony of FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten: the FBI offered Christopher Steele $1 million if he could come up with evidence to support the wild allegations in his “dossier” on Donald Trump. This at a time when the FBI knew that, to date, Steele had nothing.
TechnoFog has a summary and partial transcript of Auten’s testimony, which is worth quoting at length:
We already knew that the Russia collusion hoax was the worst political scandal in American history, by far. But this meddling in a presidential election by federal law enforcement is utterly unacceptable. A number of FBI employees must have known of the offer to Steele, and someone at a senior level must have authorized the $1 million bribe. Auten’s testimony confirms, as we knew, that interest in the FBI’s plot against Trump, which went by the name Crossfire Hurricane, went to the very top of the agency. And we know that mid-level FBI employees like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page schemed to deny Trump the 2016 election or, failing that, to disable his nascent presidency.
Until now, I have thought that the FBI could be reformed. But this is too much. The rot goes too deep, and the FBI’s violation of the public trust is too comprehensive. The bureau should be shut down, the J. Edgar Hoover building should be razed to the ground, every FBI employee should be retired, and a brand new federal law enforcement agency, with new personnel and with far stronger controls to prevent meddling in domestic politics, should be established.
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BUREAUCRATS GETTING RICH ON INSIDER TRADING
The richest counties in America are the ones that surround Washington, D.C. The high-income people who live in those suburbs are mostly lobbyists, lawyers, consultants, and others who profit from trillions in government spending. But an investigation by the Wall Street Journal suggests that plenty of high-level bureaucrats are also profiting improperly from their government jobs.
Thousands of officials across the government’s executive branch reported owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
More than 2,600 officials at agencies from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, during both Republican and Democratic administrations…
Sure, but the overwhelming majority of senior career bureaucrats are Democrats.
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Leading Edge of Field to Fork Inflation Starts to Arrive in September Producer Price Index
October 12, 2022 – Sundance
The “Producer Price Index” (PPI) is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages: Origination (commodity), Intermediate (processing), and then Final (to wholesale). Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released September price data [Available Here] showing another 8.5% increase year-over-year in Final Demand products at the wholesale level. However, that’s not the bad news in this data.
While the overall September PPI was higher than expected at 0.4%, the Final Demand Producer Price for food products in September was a whopping 1.2% (14.4% annualized).
The BLS notes the driver by saying, “a major factor in the September increase in prices for final demand goods was a 15.7-percent advance in the index for fresh and dry vegetables. Prices for diesel fuel, residential natural gas, chicken eggs, home heating oil, and pork also moved higher.”
That’s a 15.7% increase in price, in one month, for fresh and dry vegetables. Annualized that’s a rate of price increase of 188.4% for vegetables. Remember the warning about farm costs (energy, fertilizer, fuel) driving field to fork inflation at harvest? This is the leading edge of that third wave of food price increases.
I have modified BLS Table-2 to focus specifically on food costs. The data is to the right.
You will note that ‘row crops’ are the big drivers along with grain and seed products. This is exactly as we predicted it would be because those specific farming costs are the ones with greatest increase from energy, fuel, fertilizer, weed and insect control, and diesel costs.
All of those higher costs have been growing in the fields and will now surface at harvest. The higher farm costs transfer from the field to the fork via the food supply chain. This is only the leading edge of the price increase.
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You know Nina and SAM. Now meet Julian, another culprit for our soggy spring
But La Nina is not the only climate pattern affecting our rainfall at the moment. Meet the lesser-known Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO, which is also currently active. This eastern-moving zone of wind and cloud circles the tropical areas of the globe, and when active, increases our chances of above-average rainfall.
Imagine the MJO as a “pulse” of storms – a collection of stormy weather that moves together – which travels around the equator, explains Melbourne University climate scientist Dr Andrew King. This pulse appears in the west Indian Ocean and moves over the “Maritime Continent”, the meteorological term for the area over Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and the Philippines.
“It has a greater effect across northern Australia, but it can affect southern Australia too,” King said.
“It sets off atmospheric waves that can influence our weather, even as far south as Victoria. When it’s active over Indonesia it tends to mean wetter weather in Australia.”
The Madden-Julian Oscillation
As well as La Nina and the MJO, there are other climate patterns also affecting Australia’s weather.
Indian Ocean Dipole:
For most of Australia, El Nino brings dry weather, while La Nina brings wet weather.
There is a similar climate driver in the Indian Ocean – the Indian Ocean Dipole – which has the same impact through its “positive” and “negative” phases, respectively.
Southern Annular Mode:
In the region between Tasmania and Antarctica, strong westerly winds blow almost continuously and are associated with storms and cold fronts that move from west to east, bringing rainfall to southern Australia.
The Southern Annular Mode, or SAM, refers to how far north and south these westerly winds move. It has three phases: neutral, positive and negative.
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”
Joining Battle Over The “Science” Of Global Warming”
“But don’t get the idea that everybody has just given up on exposing the fake “science” behind the global warming scare. In fact, the Manhattan Contrarian is on the job — along with a hardy band of intrepid warriors with which I am associated. On Friday of this week, my co-counsel and I, on behalf of a small group of plaintiffs, will be filing an opening appeal brief in the DC Circuit challenging the 2009 “finding” made by the EPA that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases constitute a “danger” to human health and safety. I’ll use this post to give a brief preview, with more detail to follow after the brief becomes public.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/12/joining-battle-over-the-science-of-global-warming/
And more coming
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Finnish pharmacies run out of iodine pills as Russian nuclear fears increase
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The AFR View
Nuclear-powered Australia should not be off the table
Nuclear energy may never end up helping power the nation through the massive transition to a less carbon-intensive world. But Australia’s blanket ban on the nuclear option should be revisited to allow this technology to compete on its merits with other technologies to produce cleaner, affordable and reliable electricity.
Going nuclear as part of Australia’s net-zero future should not be ruled out based on the political, cultural and environmental objections of earlier and different times. In the 1950s and into the 1960s, uranium-rich Australia was expected to join the atomic revolution alongside other countries that harnessed the awesome power source unleashed by the scientific discoveries that split the atom.
Gough Whitlam won office in 1972 on a Labor platform to develop a uranium enrichment industry and nuclear power. But it never happened because complex and costly nuclear power simply could not compete with Australia’s huge supply of cheap and abundant coal. That was before the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s – with its Cold War fears of armageddon and “nuclear-free zone” local council signs – became a tribal marker of Australia’s left.
Now the exit of coal-fired power stations from the national electricity grid is accelerating as Australia commits to decarbonising its fossil-fuel-intensive economy by 2050 to prevent catastrophic global warming.
Yet, unlike most other comparable economies, Australia has zero nuclear capacity to generate the zero-emissions back-up baseload power that could help make sure the lights stay on through the transition to renewables.
With 70 per cent of its electricity supply nuclear-generated, France plans to build as many as 14 new reactors by 2050. As part of reaching net zero, the UK has a 25 per cent nuclear by 2050 target. In the US, there is bipartisan congressional support for nuclear energy to help the country realise its climate targets.
The International Panel on Climate Change describes nuclear energy as a “mitigating technology.”
The law forbidding building or operating nuclear power stations, enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel rods that makes Australia an international outlier only dates to the Howard government’s 1999 Conservation Act.
The protection from the nuclear “threat” was a concession made to the Greens and Australian Democrats in return for their support in the Senate for the replacement of the Lucas Heights research reactor. Citing safety fears, opponents say that nobody has built a nuclear power plant anywhere in the world for the past 40 years.
But nuclear technologies have evolved beyond the giant Soviet-era reactors infamously associated with the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979, Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011.
At The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit, Coalition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien called for small, modular nuclear reactors (SMR) to be considered as part of the nation’s future energy mix. The legendary British engineering company Rolls-Royce plans to turn on its first factory-built SMR in the UK in 2029. Canada, meanwhile, plans to have the world’s first commercial SMR online in 2028.
Lacking a nuclear industry, Australia would struggle to bring nuclear power online within a decade.
But that is about the same timeline for the development of the “green” hydrogen that is yet to be shown to be commercially viable. Advances in battery storage and pump-hydro technologies could make nuclear a redundant option. Yet the uncertainty around the technological path to cleaner and secure electricity underlines why all possible solutions must be on the table, especially in a country that holds a quarter of the world’s uranium deposits.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, in charge of promoting the responsible use of nuclear energy, has reportedly decided that Australia’s AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal will not encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
AUKUS means Australia is now going to start to build domestic expertise in nuclear energy for the purposes of national defence. Wind, solar, batteries and pumped hydro may end up being enough to keep the lights on without 24/7 coal.
Yet the option of dispatchable nuclear power for civilian purposes should not be ruled out because it is inconvenient for the quasi-religious faith for the Greens and the Midnight Oil wing of the Labor Left.
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NATO allies struggle to secure Ukraine enough weapons
Brussels | Amid concerns that spiralling energy costs and Ukraine’s slowing down on the battlefield in winter could undermine Western resolve, the United States and its NATO allies on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) reaffirmed their support for bolstering Ukraine’s defences in the face of intensifying Russian aggression.
A day after the Biden administration said it was working to speed up the delivery of two advanced missile systems, known as NASAMs, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin signalled that the United States’ provision of arms to Ukraine would be open-ended, saying the country would need military assistance for years to come.
“I expect that Ukraine will continue to do everything it can throughout the winter to regain its territory and to be effective on the battlefield, and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that they have what’s required to be effective,” he said on Wednesday after a meeting at NATO headquarters of the Pentagon-led coalition of about 50 nations supporting Ukraine.
‘Need to scale up’
“Allies have provided air defence, but we need even more. We need different types of air defence, short-range, long-range air defence systems to take [out] ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, different systems for different tasks,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said before the NATO meeting.
“Ukraine is a big country, many cities. So we need to scale up to be able to help Ukraine defend even more cities and more territory against horrific Russian attacks.”
At the same time, national military stocks are being depleted. Some countries are growing reluctant to provide Ukraine with more when they are no longer sure they can protect their own territories and airspace.
The conundrum for the allies is to find a way to arm Ukraine without disarming themselves.
For the defence industry, companies need long-term orders and certainty before they commit to extending production lines. But no one is sure how long the war in Ukraine will last, making it difficult to know how much equipment is needed.
So, the United States and its partners want to boost weapons production by sending clear signals to industry, as they pool resources and send Ukraine the hardware that it needs, all while ensuring that no major gaps appear in national stockpiles.
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Suppression Campaign
The American Medical Association asks the federal government to prosecute critics of radical gender medicine.
Last week, the American Medical Association, the Children’s Hospital Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics sent a letter to U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland requesting that the Department of Justice “take swift action to investigate and prosecute” “high-profile users on social media” who have allegedly created a “campaign of disinformation” against children’s hospitals that offer “gender-affirming health care,” leading to threats and harassment, including a bomb-threat hoax at Boston Children’s Hospital.
The letter poses three significant problems.
First, the medical associations obscure the radical nature of so-called “gender-affirming care.” The basic facts, which have caused justifiable public outrage, are well-established: according to the medical literature, American doctors have been administering puberty blockers, hormone therapies, and experimental gender surgeries on minors—including double-mastectomies for girls, which involves surgically removing the breasts, and vaginoplasties for boys, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning the tissue into an artificial vagina. Despite what trans activists have insisted, the medical evidence to support these procedures for minors is thin, weak, and contested. Medical authorities in Europe have recently turned against many of these practices.
Second, the AMA, CHA, and AAP provide no evidence, or even a working definition, of “disinformation.” The “high-profile users on social media” would undoubtedly include those of us who have published investigative reporting on radical gender medicine at children’s hospitals, often using original source materials published by the hospitals themselves. Rather than grapple with the facts, however, left-wing activists and medical providers have dismissed them with accusations of “disinformation”—even when journalists have directly quoted their own words. This unsubstantiated accusation of “disinformation” is even more troubling because, in addition to asking the Justice Department for investigations on these vague and undefined grounds, the medical associations also asked technology companies to silence critics of “gender-affirming care” on social media platforms, an essential public forum.
Third, the call to “investigate and prosecute” journalists, activists, and citizens critical of radical gender medicine is wholly contrary to the principles of free speech; if the attorney general were to carry out this request, it would be a violation of the First Amendment and a blatant attempt to criminalize political opposition and intellectual debate. At their founding, these three medical associations embraced the idea that they should be nonpartisan, neutral, and driven by scientific evidence. But by issuing this reckless call to prosecute critics, they have revealed themselves to be hostile to open debate and free scientific inquiry. They are behaving like dangerous ideologues rather than custodians of the public trust.
Is Garland following the same playbook with the AMA? To answer that question, I am preparing a public-records request to discover whether the Department of Justice had prior knowledge of the AMA’s campaign to silence journalists, as it did with the National School Boards Association’s campaign to silence parents. Either way, the intention of this gambit is clear: the most powerful medical and political authorities in the nation would like to make experimental gender surgeries a forbidden topic of debate.
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Ag Weather Forecast for Australia with Eric Snodgrass | Nutrien Ag Solutions | Oct 12, 2022
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Brought to you by Nutrien Ag Solutions
**This video is from a talk I gave to a group in Australia. It’s an in-depth look at the big climate drivers impacting the next 3-6 months. **
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FWIW
Pointman has a number of RT links up here to things Europe
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2022/10/07/blame-america-for-all-your-troubles/#comment-55317
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“The Penetration Problem. Part II: Will the Inflation Reduction Act Cause a Blackout?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/10/13/the-penetration-problem-part-ii-will-the-inflation-reduction-act-cause-a-blackout/
Beware the heat pump
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