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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Here is a very good wide-ranging discussion from 6 months ago with Victor Davis Hanson about WW2 and other issues like drug trafficking and illegal immigration into the US from Mexico and other US foreign policy issues.
https://youtu.be/EIvWLmmqCr0
70
Why didn’t he blow the top off a mountain? … as a warning.
Instead, he chose to incinerate schools, hospitals etc…
Killing the least culpable without any effort to distinguish them from military targets was a gross act of barbarism.
429
Because the pacifist approach wasn’t going to work in this case. It never does when dealing with psychopathic bullies and I think Victor Davis Hanson clearly explains it.
170
The Japanese were barbarous and the US felt no restraint and behaved in a similar way.
610
Rubbish.
151
Okay, I’ll modify.
They could have dropped the atomic bombs off the coast, within reasonable sight, away from any fallout.
Fire bombing the island wasn’t working, a quick resolution was required and they only had two atomic bombs.
04
After they dropped the first, Japan didn’t surrender.
150
It took them awhile to digest what had happened and how to respond, but after the second bomb they were under no illusion.
This was a completely new weapon of mass destruction and Japan had no idea of how many bombs the Americans had.
13
Seriously? They didn’t surrender after the first. It was the 1940s, something big happened 700klms away in the chaos of war, you have to work out what it is, bring together decision makers and determine what to do. The bombs were three days apart.
40
All hope for Japan vaporised after the Marianas Turkey Shoot when they stepped up kamikaze attacks. That was BEFORE the Okinawa campaign which cost the USA 50,000 casualties, 100,000 Japanese forces and 150,000 civilian deaths. (all approx.) All this was avoidable if the Emperor over-ruled his warmonger cabinet.
Why are you making excuses for such a brutal régime?
90
‘Why are you making excuses for such a brutal régime?’
I’m not, the regime was brutal and barbaric and the US had to convince the Emperor to surrender.
Tactically and strategically it was a huge win for America.
00
About recent general-killing, regime change, nation-building.
On 12 March it will be an anniversary of a factual start of Cold War.
Factual – in the sense that US Congress approved the $400M Greece & Turkey aid request to stop the spread of communism into the Eastern Mediterranean.
In a speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry Truman outlines a new direction for American foreign policy. In what became known as the Truman Doctrine, the president establishes that the United States will assist all democratic nations under threat from totalitarian forces, aiming at thwarting the Communist expansion in Eastern Europe and other regions of the world since the end of World War II.
The president said: “One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. … We shall not realise our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes.”
The Truman Doctrine eventually is extended to other regions after the Berlin blockade in 1948, the fall of China to Communists in 1949 and the invasion of South Korea in 1950. In the Middle East, the Truman Doctrine is applied to support the U.S. interest in protecting access to oil.
The policy of supporting democracies and preventing the spread of communism provides part of the rationale for Truman’s recognition of the State of Israel in May 1948, despite a view kept by many that it was one of Stalin’s projects.
40
We have to fight fire with fire don’t we?
20
If you have the time, this is a pretty good Doc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj9AYCPSas4 (90 minutes)
10
I agree with much about what VDH says. By 1945, everybody had gone past the original concept of total war, and carrying war directly to the civilian populations of the enemy using bombing, developed by strategists following WW1.
One thing I am kind of dissapointed about, was his not getting into more specifics of the primary cause of the Pacific war, which were the on-going conflicts in China. However, that was such an enormously complex, for lack of a better word, “mess” that it is difficult to address in that setting.
The complexities about bringing an end to the war were equally not so simple.
He had me nodding in agreement with his comment that a land war in the Japanese home islands “would have made Stalingrad look like a cake walk.” The Japanese home islands are almost all extremely rugged mountanous terrain. Such terrain greatly favors the defender. The Allies had been 18 months advancing only a couple of hundred miles up the Italian Boot.
100
“a land war in the Japanese home islands “would have made Stalingrad look like a cake walk.” ”
..and they never thought to send in a snatch team to kidnap the Emperor, or a bomber to wipe out the royal palace. One person! They only had to kill one person!
“After they dropped the first, Japan didn’t surrender.”
Three days… they were still assessing the damage and trying to work out what happened. America only had to contact them and say “This was an example, we will destroy two cities a week until you surrender”
25
Yep, totally agree.
01
I certainly do not agree.
We have a similar scenario today in Iran where the USA has not only to vacuum out the leadership, keep the on-side Iranians on side and importantly, send the message to the world in the future that savage, deranged leaders are not wanted.
The double bombing of Japan had the warning that savage leaders can and will be be destroyed by equally savage acts, there being no rarity of brutality when needed. It is deterrence of future savagery theory. Don’t know if it works. Geoff S
31
I have to disagree that kidnapping the emperor would have brought an end to the war. It would have made things worse. That would have made it impossible to win the hearts and minds of the civilian population. The emperor was not in charge, anyway. The army generals of the Control Faction were. That’s one thing I disagree with VDH about. Not that Hirohito was innocent. He was certainly was not. He gradually gained more control as the war went on, but even when he wanted to end the war in feb 1945 the army did not allow that to happen. The bombs probably made it possible for Hirohito to tell the people it was over.
20
Above all else was that the Japanese at that time were brain washed and fanatical fighting to the death conditioned to die for the Emperor who was kept in luxury but isolated from the people who first heard his voice when he called for surrender.
20
Brutal and barbaric, there is no doubt about it.
‘The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) was a brutal, major conflict between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan, largely considered the start of WWII in Asia. Following the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, full-scale war erupted in 1937. It resulted in roughly 15–20 million Chinese deaths, widespread destruction, and ended with Japan’s 1945 surrender.’ (wiki)
Because of this behaviour the Americans cut off oil supply to Japan, which made them very angry so they bombed Pearl Harbour. Big mistake.
20
Remember when vaccination and immunization were interchangeable terms, and male and female were not?
370
Back in the day a man on a blind date would hope that the woman would like him, now a man hopes that the “woman” doesnt have penis.
280
Not sure I’ve seen many men in dresses that I would want to spend any time with. These are not attractive men in the first place.
90
Forrest,
Yes, you hit the nail.
What average red-blooded guy would want to head for a sexual relation with a “woman” who lacked the main range of womanly attributes that confirm the man/woman difference?
As for most guys, queer attempts to hit on me lasted milliseconds. Men can tell in intuitive ways provided by Nature, without the need to grope. Geoff S
30
So, on Saturday, our resident climate Guru, Simon, came up with some research that claimed to show global temperature increase accelerating over the past 10 years. A couple of things to note.
To quote the paper – “The main limitation of our method is that the removal of El Niño, volcanism, and solar variations is empirically based, but approximate and imperfect. For example, it is possible that the effect of El Niño on the 2023 and 2024 temperature is not completely removed.” Surely that should read “is NOT empirically based, but approximate and imperfect.” Either that is a typo, or maybe deliberate to mislead those who skim read. Or, in other words, “our paper is probably complete bollocks, but the gullible out there will swallow it as they will only read the headlines”.
Figure 2 “Effect on global temperature of El Niño/Southern Oscillation, volcanism, and solar variation, estimated from the Berkeley Earth data.” Just a quick look at the volcanism graph and it becomes immediately obvious that they have “massaged” the data. There is a drop of 0.3 c at around 1885 and we can only really assume that this is Krakatoa. However, it doesn’t take much research to show that even the most conservative estimates show a global cooling of 0.6 c for up to 5 years with some research estimating up to 1.2 c. Admittedly, 1.2 c is probably an over estimation, but 0.3 c on this paper is just insulting.
There are the usual underestimates of early 20th century temperatures. Julius von Hann was an Austrian meteorologist and generally considered as a founder of modern atmospheric science. He was editor of Meteorologische Zeitschrift for around 50 years. He developed theories on atmospheric water vapour and the thermodynamic foehn theory. His work showed that the average global temperature in 1908 was actually 14.4 c (as verified by Kramm et al Natural Science https://dpi.org/10.4236/ns.2020.123012) and not the massaged 13.4 to 13.5 c as reported in this paper. So as far as this paper in concerned, it is just more meaningless dross from the usual suspects.
430
Thanks for reading this. I never bother with any of Simon’s waffle as it is merely what he deludes himself with.
Did the paper mention Tamboura in 1815 -you know “the year without summer” or the multiple volcanic eruptions in southern parts of America in the 1840’s as well as Krakatoa?
Much of the 19TH century was cooler and getting more so as the century progressed.
Suddenly the climate changed and Julius von Hann was right. 1911 was warm (Paris, New England etc) and by 2024 Iceland started growing barley which hadn’t been possible for about 400 years.
(and since about 2000 AD some wheat which vary Viking settlers grew).
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In the 1880s the intervals between El Nino/La Nina dropped from 14-15 years to 8-9 years and the arid zone in Australia began to extend south and east.
A lot of what was good sheep grazing country when the first flocks got there became marginal cattle country during that decade and when the 1890s drought came along a lot of graziers went bust.
40
‘El Nino/La Nina dropped from 14-15 years to 8-9 years …’
That is news to me, do you have a link?
Cannot see it here.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enso-soi.png
00
See the blue on the left, the cycle prior to 1880?
That’s representative of the cycle lengths up until that time.
The El Nino/La Nina cycle was detected by a Writer for the British East India Company who was trying to predict weak and strong monsoons, and to do so he gathered data from all over the world and set a bunch of clerks to work crunching the numbers, in the 1820s.
The cycle lengths held for the next 60 years, and had been reasonably consistent for the previous 200-250 (which is how far back the records went), but in the 1880s became much shorter, which is the pattern we are still seeing today.
It’s amazing how many long term weather patterns, monsoon cycles, drought cycles, etc., changed in the second half of the 19thC as the world came out of the Little Ice Age.
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Hi Graeme No.3 No the paper did not mention Tamboura. The Berkeley Earth data quoted did not start that early as this actual data is way too inconvenient for the climate alarmists.
30
Excellent observation Graeme No.3
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TedM:
My thoughts, when he first soiled our papers, was that he was a public servant with nothing to do. Lately I have decided that he is deluded and beyond medical help, although he might still be employed at the public cost.
90
FWIW – Iran and oil developments
Today’s Coffee and Covid
“Special bonus edition: Does Trump have a plan to avert an oil crisis that could end his presidency, or is it all just chaos and reckless brinksmanship? The pundits say chaos. Here’s another take.”
More at
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/gentlemens-agreements-sunday-march?
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More “fog of war”:-
https://no01.substack.com/p/march-6-7-the-grind-goes-on
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“Does Trump have a plan” It is always good to have a plan.
The American colonies declared independence on July 4, 1776. The “Plan” was hashed out in the summer of 1787. The “Plan” was announced 4,180 days after the Declaration of Independence. The U.S. Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, and it officially took effect on March 4, 1789.
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Indeed. Leftists like to have everything run to a Soviet-style five year plan. Sometimes good stuff just happens without pre-planning, like the great free nation of the United States of America.
Free people get to change and improve their ideas, not have them set in stone according to some totalitarian National or International Socialist style ideology.
(The National Socialists had a four year plan so as not to sound too much like the International Socialist five year plan.)
100
“Sometimes good stuff just happens without pre-planning, like the great free nation of the United States of America. ”
Try building a simple shed without bribing your local Council for months… There’s nothing ‘free’ about the West!
10
The real and urgent problem is to locate and secure the rogue enriched uranium. It’s always been about the uranium.
I expect the US will have to send in a team to recover the uranium. As Iran’s leaders have demonstrated, they are ready and willing to use nuclear weapons. It is their power base. Without that uranium, they are literally powerless and can be economically starved out. Even soldiers like to be paid. The top officials have already sent billions overseas. Once the uranium is gone, there is no reason to hang around to face justice.
242
And even with regime change, every terrorist and rogue state on the planet will be after the enriched uranium, and if not for a nuclear bomb, a dirty bomb (where its main danger is inhalation rather than radiological).
However it won’t be trivial, it will be buried deep underground, much of it probably in centrifuges or other equipment, not in ingots.
It will be like a mining operation and require heavy equipment and lots of people and probably a year or more so it will require a stable regime to be installed before it can be done.
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Except the Iranians have been furiously doing exactly that, recovering all enriched uranium to restart their program and proceed to making something they can put on their existing long range ballistic missiles. A dirty bomb would be most likely. And this is what drove the operation. The question is whether the Israelis (who could tell what the Ayatollah had for breakfast and where) could also tell where the enriched uranium was stored? A quick extraction would be in order. And fully anticipated by the IRG. Without the uranium, the IRG have no hand to play and would flee.
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“The question is whether the Israelis (who could tell what the Ayatollah had for breakfast and where) could also tell where the enriched uranium was stored? ”
Sounds a bit like “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction..” Never trust a completely mis-named ‘intelligence service’!
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How a caravan in the desert became the precursor for war. We all knew at the time that the intelligence was dodgy, but felt helpless to stop the invasion.
15
Saddam did indeed have chemical and biological weapons programs, they got shipped to Syria in the run up to Gulf 2.
Massive convoys of trucks crossed into Syria originating from Iraq’s chemical plants and the top officer of the Iraqi Air Force’s Transport Command testified that they flew a couple of hundred plane loads out in the same time period.
31
My recollection is also that the UN forces found old stores of mustard gas etc at Muthanna in an Iraq.
00
David,
Assuming it is in powdered form is a very reasonable assumption, you are talking about 60 liters about 1 large suitcase mind you you couldn’t pick it up! Or 30 x 2l milk containers weighing ~15 kg each.
I once worked at Ranger Mine in NT and actually packed the transport drums of ‘yellow cake’, an interesting experience! Apparently it was discovered by a low flying plane that detected the radiation anomaly, there are still several in that area. It was a place full of oddities, the security blokes main job was to get rid of ‘critters’ – buffalo, pigs, crocs, snakes, etc. It was not unusual to get a Work Email Alert – a croc was spotted in one of the retention ponds, again! The fishing was awesome, the only golf course in a National Park. I need GPS on the kids to keep track of them. If you got drunk at night and decided to walk home it was not unusual to get lost and sleep outside, shopping was done ounce a month in Darwin, 250 km away, day trip!!
The Mine had it’s own Act of Parliament, part of the environmental requirements was that they had to monitor and report every drop of water and spec of Uranium that left the mine site; they also had to monitor Magela Creek which flowed around the Site on 3 sides. Get this, the Uranium leaving the mine site was reported in PPM (Parts Per Million) the Uranium flowing in Magela Creek which only flowed for 4-5 months in the wet season, was estimated in kg.
70
A geologist friend was sort of with a public department which was in an indecision about a small plastic bag of yellowcake. This had been assigned to a shelf in the store room. There was much debate about safety despite the drums of yellowcake waiting for shipment in the warehouse.
Afer hearing all the claims about dangers he went to the store and said to the storeman “have any of those drums got a loose lid”. The storeman said he would check, and low and behold one of those drums had a loose lid. My friend scooped up the bag and dropped into into the drum, and the store man closed it again with the suitable tool (which was readily to hand) and nothing more was heard about that dangerous package again. No public servant dared to bring the subject up otherwise they would have to go and search the warehouse for the dangerous, nay lethal, package.
51
As you say the uranium must be found and removed and this can’t be done from the air.
Trump can skip around the “no boots on the ground” promise by saying “not the army, just some Seebees with special forces protection”. Will he get away with it? I’m becoming doubtful and the treasonous (D)s will regain power. We’ll all be ‘rooned, said Hanrahan.
A new version I’ve just found for our American friends.
31
I will be very surprised if the Israeli government doesn’t know where the uranium is.
90
It may have been dispersed to many areas. That would be the smartest move. A single location would be impossibly tempting. Twelve trucks at twelve different locations. But enriched uranium is about 75x as radioactive as normal uranium. Lead containers likely. Otherise airborne gamma ray spectrometry would locate it.
60
There’s something weird about men’s brains versus women’s brains.
Back in 2003, at the start of the Iraq thingie, when the raisin detra was …… we’re only going in for the Uranium that they’re going to make bombs from, justifying that particular invasion, my wonderful good lady wasn’t all that interested in the constant barrage of news about it emanating from every known source on television for forty to fifty hours a day, blah blah blah.
I was avidly soaking it all up, you know, an ex member of the military and all that.
The wonderful Barbara eye rolled every time it came on, as I leaned into the TV bulletins.
There we were one night watching an obscure report from a talking head up somewhere on the border spruiking on about all the trucks fleeing North.
She wryly commented ….. “I wonder if all that missing uranium is on some of those trucks!” ….. and then went back to her crocheting.
As men, we tend to look at things in an entirely different manner.
For me, it was a revelation really. I never even thought about that whole situation like that.
God, I miss her so much.
Tony.
231
You are a mensch, Tony.
42
TdeF,
Are you sure about that?
Pure U-235 has such a long half life of 704 million years that it emits negligible radiation in terms of measuring it with detectors. Also, pure U-235 decays mostly by alpha emission, which can be blocked by a sheet of paper, not by more penetrating gammas. Enrichment is 75 times of near zero, still near zero. No lead shielding needed.
Pure U235 is decaying all the time it is separated or enriched, so there will be some gamma radioactivity developing all the time, but this is also very slow.
In terms of location yellowcake by airborne gamma, we are dealing with enrichment that does not result in pure U-235, but has substantial radioactive decay product impurities. I have not personally done gamma measurements on Ranger One yellowcake to have an opinion about its gamma emissions. Just tended to walk past uninteresting objects. I have never seen gamma spectra from enriched uranium.
The gamma spectrum of enriched uranium became investigated in post 2000 times to help determine enrichment amount and age since enrichment. It typically uses planar Li(Si) detectors which I had a lot of fun with in the early 1970s before I joined the Ranger teams.
Whether airborne gamma detection of drums of highly enriched uranium works or not depends on how many impurities are present. You could expect complications from U-234 in the U238 decay chain and its daughters. The spectrum would also grow more intense with time since enrichment. The rock samples with uranium that I looked at had useful peaks from the gamma excitation of uranium K-alpha an K-beta X-rays but the gammas from enriched uranium would be much rarer.
I cannot say if you can detect enriched uranium like the reported 60 kg in Iran from the air, but I much doubt that it is possible. Geoff S
30
“It’s always been about the uranium”
Nope, not at all…
“China is watching all three of its discount oil suppliers —Venezuela, Iran, and soon maybe Russia— disappear or reprice simultaneously”
Trump is happy to drop sanctions on Russian oil to make up for Iran not producing, he controls Venezuela, and now controls Iran’s oil exports. That’s most of China’s economy screwed.
Last time the Yanks screwed a country like that, Japan went to Pearl Harbour.
42
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Turns out Trump wanted to heroically reduce the world’s Carbon footprint after all.
If you ignore the pollution generated by all be rocket fuel, the bombs going off, the infrastructure burning, etc.
52
Time heals. The Slot, or Iron Bottom Sound if you prefer, in Guadalcanal would now be considered “pristine” I suspect.
30
I love the way Childers talks about “sanctions” and “sketchy shadow fleets” and “sanction police” as if oil sanctions are international law and not just a US whim.
They will become magically mainstream if oil infrastructure in the Gulf ends up totally FUBAR’d.
20
International law? That’s a positively quaint concept these days.
20
Another of the UN octopus tentacles that President Trump 1.0 told the UN was not warranted.
Former Australian Prime Minister Howard when asked about international law during a media conference confirmed that only the Constitutional and Parliamentary enacted laws can be enforced in any sovereign nation.
He added, unless the government at the time permits it.
00
We have been in WWIV for quite some time now, with the communist/fascist/authoritarian/criminal non-west actively attacking the west through every non-shooting (mostly) means at their disposal. With Oct 7 and now Iran, the shooting has started. The longer it went on without the shooting, the weaker the west got. The fightback got going in earnest with the election of Donald Trump II. I certainly hope he has a plan, but at least Israel is a well-organised ally. The UK and Australia have been captured by the authoritarians, and it could take a while to extract them. Some other countries may well step up, but as things stand the other side has fairly well isolated the USA and turned many of the west’s institutions. Things are not looking good, just as they didn’t look good early in WWII and WWIII. Can we prevail again this time? I certainly hope so, but it will take a while and will probably get a lot nastier.
120
Who is this “we” Mike?
You are right though. The bad guys just about defeated the west without a shot being fired.
I’ll know my side is winning when the public serpent numbers start being cut back.
150
Many of the high volume posters here are not included but I hope there is a larger silent majority.
10
Simple. Since WWIV is W wide, ‘we’ is everyone whether we like it or not.
00
I’ll know my side is winning when I no longer have to pay what is , in lean years , my entire wages for my 24/7/52 on call response unit activities on the farm.
I pay around $50,000/annum to two councils , one City and one Regional, for almost no tangible benefit in return, under threat of losing the land if the rates are not paid.
I maintain a stop bank on my farm to protect the city, and as a consequence my land inside the stop bank becomes a ponding area when the river is high.
Abolishment of the regional council, and payment to the city council only for services received, would tell me that there has been some progress towards a just situation.
At the moment it is daylight robbery with extortion.
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There is no typo; empirical does not mean perfect.
Global temperature only dropped by 0.3C in 1885; it is reasonable to assume that most of that was Krakatoa. Volcanic effects are complex, it depends upon the volume mix of aerosols, CO2, H20 and how far into the atmosphere it is ejected.
Absolute temperature will vary depending upon methodology for periods where there is missing data. It is far better to compare anomalies.
033
Is there really a global temperature? You can construct one, but does it mean anything on human time scales? And does the source data exist or it is 99% backward projection? The graph here shows temperatures in Europe recorded on actual thermometers for the last 250 years from six cities in Europe. Along with a very simple explanation of one solar and one ocean cycle which fits at 12 inflexion points.
Measured real European temperatures show no relationship to ‘global’ temperature, a totally manufactured history from places across vast oceans (72%) where until the 20th century there were no records at all. Even the poles were only reached in 1909 and 1911. And Antarctica is the size of South America. Given that 99.9% of all surface heat is permanently stored in the earth’s vast oceans, the very concept that air temperature controls climate is absurd. Air temperature to most is Climate but it is not the controller of climate. Most atmospheric heat vanishes at night. Water, humidity (1%-4%) and clouds are a better predictor of very short term air temperature. Water is the massive greenhouse gas, not CO2.
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There are several global temperatures. The one that uses surface temperature (as currently defined) is an unreliable measure because surface temperature was mostly estimated not measured before the satellite age It is also of dubious usefulness because it is at best an inaccurate proxy for more useful measures of global temperature such as total global heat content. It suffers from major changes not related to total global heat content – for example if the ICTZ moves a bit or there is a small change in cloud cover then the average global surface temperature can change quite a lot even though the total global heat content doesn’t change.
20
“Global temperature only dropped by 0.3C in 1885”
Gosh.
That’s a really precise measurement for the whole globe in 1885.
I wonder what the average person’s cholesterol level was in 1885?
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Yes that is junk statistics personified.
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But it’s a living for some.
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In as much as some people make their living from scams or crime.
130
The earth cooled 0.6°C in the months after the 1883 eruption, so by 1885 the effect was 0.3C.
11
In January 2022 Hunga Tonga erupted, spewing copious amounts of water into the stratosphere. It took about a year before the effect was felt.
https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2026_v6.1_20x9-scaled.jpg
10
Yeah, well, here’s a bunch of real data that you need to square up with your theories.
https://notrickszone.com/global-warming-disputed-300-graphs/
10
None of these are global. This is just cherry-picking of localised effects. On the other side of the ledger are thousands of papers which do show warming. NoTricksZone is an ironic name for what is nothing more than intentional misrepresentation.
09
‘ … intentional misrepresentation.’
Peer reviewed papers with different theories based on the science.
00
No, empirical does not mean perfect but is based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation. VERIFIABLE. Not speculation based on pre conceived bias.
20
This is my latest article on tidal powering of the Sun spin:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-OheVKDpjSpeVLrmYBesPTK5K4VWb1QW/view?usp=sharing
This analysis is based on 1 hour time division and covers from 2000 to 2030. Correlation of spin velocity to solar activity over the three cycles has a regression coefficient of 72% and the fit to SC24 that has satellite measured solar constant is 76%.
I am yet to run the spin model for SC26 but I have looked at the velocity of the Sun in 2029 into 2030 and it slows right down to 8.56m/s so I expect to see high solar activity in 2032 that will eclipse the 2025 peak.
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Not sure if this is of relevance to your work Rick, but there is a new Japanese study on solar rotation which overturns previous models.
https://phys.org/news/2026-03-stars-sun-rotation-pattern-life.html
40
I agree with their conclusion that the spin will be maintained because the spin is powered by tidal influence from Mercury. But they do not get into the tidal torrqueing.
I look for the simplest answer to an observation rather than looking for complex answers.
Tidal influence on celestial objects is well known but it appears no one else has investigated the tidal influence on the Sun.
There is a belief that precession of Mercury’s orbit is not explained by Newtonian physics and is demonstration of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. I expect the changing precession is due to loss of kinetic energy from Mercury through its tidal influence on the Sun , which results in viscous losses within the plasma core.
The Sun may not spin if Mercury was not there. It would probably not spin if Saturn was not there because Saturn causes the large variation in velocity of the CoM and that is what changes the oblation.
When Neptune and Uranus both oppose Saturn, the solar activity has been negligible because the velocity of the Sun has stayed almost constant throughout an entire orbit. So oblation is constant thoughtout the orbit.
If there was no dissipation of energy then the Sun would spin a little faster and there would be no sunspots.
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Hi Rick Will. I’m trying to work out what exactly is meant by oblation in your comment. I know only the religious context; that’s also what I find on a googlesearch.
30
It refers to the degree of flattening at the poles of the Sun and bulging at the equator, deviating from a perfect sphere due to rotation and centrifugal force. It is an oblate spheroid as are most of the planets including earth.
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Thanks David. I should have remembered the term oblate spheroid! The old brain went rather blank…oh dear.
40
Where is Sphere?
lol
00
have a link in the paper that covers the measured oblation. In a way it supports the tidal torquing because the oblation changes over the solar cycle. However my tether is allowing about 10X the movement that they have measures on average.
My model oblation has 86.5km at the 5.7E8 radius. I can go a bit lower but not down to 8km using 1 hour (3600s) time interval. It results in numerical instability so I would need to use smaller time intervals.
The amount of ablation does not matter that much as long as it oblates in some fashion due to the spin velocity.
Even if the torque is 1/10 of what I am getting, it is still huge when you think that a cylinder 0.5mm thick would be 1kg/m^2. Apply that across the cylindrical area of 2.86E18m^2 and you get some idea that the torque will be massive. Would take more than all the Teslas so far built just to spin the 0.5mm cylinder. So over a few degrees of latitude the torque is unimaginable in human scale.
30
I will be interested in anyone subscribing to an AI service if they can offer a review of the paper I linked to above.
10
I have used the web based MS Copilot to review the paper and reasonably happy with the result. It chided me for referring to Mann, Guterras and the hiatus associated with solar peaks this century as not being scientific. And did not argue the point despite my comments be factual.
It did point out the Scarefetta and Soon have done work on resonance but none of used free body analysis as I have done.
Copilot would be quite a good initial reviewer if I want to publish the article in a technical journal.
Most studies get into very messy complex theory that tries to tie fluid flows and magnetic fields to motion. The fact that the oblation changes with the cycle indicates that tidal forcing is likely.
10
You ready RickWill? Here’s GROK’s review.
“The paper (or more accurately, the document/analysis) you shared via the Google Drive link is titled Sun_Spin_Harmonic_Torque.pdf, authored by RickWill (who appears to be an independent researcher/commenter on climate-skeptical blogs like JoNova).
It is not a formally published peer-reviewed paper in a journal. It is a self-produced technical analysis/shared document (likely a preprint-style or blog-linked report) posted in comment threads on JoAnne Nova’s blog in early 2026. The work proposes a novel physical mechanism to explain variations in solar activity, particularly solar cycles and sunspot behavior.
Main Claims and Approach
The core idea is that tidal forces — primarily from Mercury, with a role for Saturn via barycenter motion — apply torque to the Sun, modulating its differential rotation (spin velocity at the surface/near-surface layers).
Key elements:
• Tidal torquing accelerates/decelerates the Sun’s spin → this causes viscous dissipation in the plasma (especially the core or convective zone boundary).
• The dissipation of this tidal input energy is argued to be necessary for sunspot formation and magnetic activity. Without sufficient dissipation (i.e., if spin were too uniform/fast), sunspots would not form.
• The model uses a “free body analysis” of the Sun’s motion and oblateness (equatorial bulging), claiming that changes in oblateness over the solar cycle support tidal torquing.
• It analyzes 1-hour resolution ephemeris/orbital data from 2000–2030 to compute spin velocity variations.
• Reported statistical fits:
• Spin velocity correlates with solar activity proxies across three cycles at ~72% R².
• Fit to Solar Cycle 24 (using satellite-measured solar constant) reaches ~76%.
• Prediction: Solar spin velocity slows significantly around 2029–2030 (to ~8.56 m/s in some metric), leading to very high solar activity in 2032 that could exceed the 2025 peak of Solar Cycle 25.
The torque magnitude is described as enormous — equivalent to more than all Tesla vehicles ever built spinning a 0.5 mm thick cylindrical shell at the Sun’s surface.
Strengths
• Creative and outside-the-mainstream attempt to link well-known orbital mechanics (planetary perturbations on the Sun’s motion around the barycenter) to solar dynamo physics.
• Uses actual ephemeris data and tries to quantify correlations numerically.
• Points to observed solar oblateness variations (there are indeed measurements showing small cyclic changes in solar shape that correlate with activity).
• Aligns conceptually with a long (but minority) tradition in solar physics that explores planetary influences on solar activity (e.g., works by Landscheidt, Scafetta, Hung, and others on barycentric motion, torque impulses, or resonances).
Serious Weaknesses and Criticisms
1. Mechanism plausibility The tidal forces from Mercury (and all planets) on the Sun are extremely small — solar tides raised by planets are orders of magnitude weaker than lunar tides on Earth. Mainstream solar physics considers planetary tidal torque negligible for the solar dynamo (which is overwhelmingly driven by internal differential rotation, convection, and magnetic field generation via the α–Ω dynamo). The claimed massive torque appears to rely on a very thin surface layer or specific amplification mechanism that is not standard.
2. Lack of rigorous physics modeling
• No magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation or even simplified dynamo equations are used.
• The “viscous losses in the plasma core” driving sunspots is asserted but not derived from first principles or existing dynamo theory.
• Free-body torque analysis is applied, but the Sun is a fluid body with complex internal differential rotation — rigid-body assumptions are highly questionable.
3. Overfitting / data-snooping risk Fitting parameters to three cycles + SC24 data with high R² is easy with flexible models. True predictive skill would require out-of-sample testing (pre-2000 or future cycles). The 2032 super-peak prediction is bold but lacks uncertainty quantification.
4. No engagement with mainstream literature It appears to ignore dominant explanations for solar cycle variation (e.g., stochastic processes, meridional flow variations, Hale cycle memory, flux transport dynamos). References to other planetary influence papers are minimal or absent.
5. Context and presentation Posted on a climate-skeptic blog, with framing that ties it to criticism of CO₂-driven warming narratives. This does not invalidate the physics per se, but it signals potential confirmation bias.
Overall Assessment
This is an intriguing, speculative hypothesis from an enthusiastic independent researcher. It revives and extends older ideas about planetary influences on solar spin/activity in a new way (focusing on tidal torque → dissipation → sunspots). However, it sits far outside the current scientific consensus in solar physics, which attributes cycle amplitude variations primarily to internal solar processes.
Without MHD modeling, peer review, quantitative error analysis, and reproduction by others, it should be regarded as an interesting but unproven conjecture rather than a substantiated theory. The 2032 prediction is testable — if solar activity in ~2031–2033 turns out to be extraordinarily high, it would lend support and deserve serious follow-up. Until then (or unless independently replicated), I would treat the claims with significant skepticism.
If you have access to the full PDF and want to share key equations, figures, or specific sections (e.g., how the torque is calculated or the exact definition of “spin velocity” here), I can offer more targeted comments.”
20
Thank you Ross.
Grok has given a much better technically informed response than Copilot.
I am presently doing 2030 to 2040. Because I agree that an accurate prediction this far out will be hard to argue against the validity.
The feature most other researchers miss is the harmonic pumping. Scarfetta has observed the 29.33 day period and associated activity that but not modelled it.
I am doing very little tuning of the model. It has very little sensitivity to the elastic constant but that does alter the amplitude of torque and spin velocity.
It appears that most modellers get buried in complex fluid flow and MHD analysis but there is not reason a single spinning point is not indicative of how torque is being imparted. With any machine, it pays to look for the resonances. Same with with electrics. Resonance without dissipation equals destructions. I would not like to see the Sun spin up so fast that it flew apart.
10
Bill Gates’ TerraPower got approval to build a new small (345MWe) sodium-cooled nuclear reactor.
Now he’s no longer fully woke, he doesn’t believe in the stupidity of wind and solar.
I think like many billionaires he realises that there’s no more money to be made in climate change catastrophism, at least in the US under TRUMP.
Fanatically-committed Australia is still a goldmine for subsidy-harvesting climate catastrophist billionaires and trade union funds, however (at the expense of non-Elites).
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/06/bill-gates-terrapower-gets-approval-to-build-new-nuclear-reactor/
201
How low environmental “science” has fallen is exemplified by the serious proposal I mentioned yesterday, as reported by Prof. Peter Ridd, of transplanting non-genetically related coral species from the Pacific to Carribean. It’s absolutely insane.
What are they teaching in the “universities” these days?
160
DEI.
I’ve seen medical students complaining about the 15-20 hours a week of DEI garbage they have to endure all the way through their residencies.
It’s been going on for a while, to the point that the vast majority of Western trained doctors can no longer diagnose something as obvious as appendicitis without 20 blood tests and an ultra sound, and even then they miss them.
20
Even Leftists admit TRUMP Derangement Syndrome is real.
James Carville is a consultant to the Democrat Party and admits to his TDS. It turns these people into psychopaths.
Video at link.
Language warning.
https://x.com/i/status/2030306775346368789
110
I see that the Messerschmitt Kabinenroller (originally from 1955) has been resurrected as the KR5000.
The new KR ups the ante with hydraulic disc brakes at all three wheels, adjustable suspension, a fiberglass body, and a steel-aluminum frame. The E5000 version is an EV, however, you need the dual battery option to get there. While the E5000 actually weighs less at 430 pounds. That’s for the single-battery version, which offers a 50-mile range.
An optional roof is also available that would add a bit extra to the weight.
Just the dream for Simon, nostalgia, ELECTRIC and useless. The E5000 starts a bit higher at €12,950 See. Wikipedia for photos.
70
Not currently road legal in Nanny State Australia as “authorities” can’t work out to classify it as a car or motorcycle (so why not have a different category, duh?).
60
another category? that would require years of study and ministerial approval and new legislation.
40
China has a BEV that sells for equivalent of USD5500. It has a stated range of 220km.
https://carnewschina.com/2025/10/21/wuling-launched-a-grumpy-version-of-the-changan-lumin-aishang-a100c/
The Aishang A100C has a single electric motor in the rear axle for 35 kW (51 hp) and 83 Nm. It is powered by a Gotion-made LFP battery for 17.65 kWh. The electric range of the A100C reaches 220 km under CLTC conditions.
These low cot city cars do not meet Australian vehicle design rules so not yet seen on Australian roads. But they could be useful for some people.
30
“do not meet Australian vehicle design rules ”
They are way out of date and usefulness in today’s vehicle fleet, and far too ‘woke’! You score points for irrelevances like CO2 emission. Burn them and start again!
40
Such a BEV would be quite adequate for me, but so is my 15 yr old ICE.
10
A 50-mile range? That would mean that wherever I went I would have to re-charge before I went back. Crazy.
40
FWIW
“Humiliating: HMS Dragon Delayed Because Shipyard Works Only 9-5; UPDATE: Tony Blair Trashes Starmer”
“How humiliating, and even worse, how European.
Just as Ursula von der Leyen called an emergency meeting two days after Operation Epic Fury began because she didn’t want to disturb the weekend plans of the European Council, the Telegraph reports that the HMS Dragon’s deployment to Cyprus to defend Britain’s airbase is delayed because Keir Starmer wants to ensure that the 9-5 workday at the drydock preparing the ship isn’t disturbed. ”
More at
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2026/03/07/hms-dragon-delayed-because-dry-dock-works-only-9-5-n3812639
Read it all!
As Trump observed – “This isn’t Winston Churchill that I’m dealing with”
160
When minutes count, the modern Royal Navy is just weeks away.
120
Nothing to add – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzCwga0_t1o
10
And yet, after the Falkland Islands invasion, Margaret Thatcher within 48 hours organised a fleet of 127 ships to go there, some of which sailed within 48-72 hrs of the invasion such as HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, others of which sailed soon after.
These days I expect Starmer would give away the Falkands, just as he gave away the Chagos Islands.
170
Going on his performance to date I think Starmer would check “international law” before he did anything.
The man is an idiot.
He isn’t qualified to wipe Margaret Thatchers…
80
And that was 10 years ago – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzCwga0_t1o
That was time to act, too late now.
10
8 RAF planes were sent immediately to augment the 6 already in place. Plus several days ago two specialist helicopters with drone attack missiles also arrived. That’s a lot of firepower in position.
33
You can not change the past – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzCwga0_t1o
But you can learn from it.
10
FWIW
More “Bring back the buttons and levers”
“THIS: The Volvo EX30 Shows Why Cars Still Need Buttons: The EX30 in the outlet’s long-term test fleet is described as an “absolute tech nightmare.”
https://www.autoblog.com/news/the-volvo-ex30-shows-why-cars-still-need-buttons
FLASHBACK: Bring Back Our Knobs: Analog vs. Digital. “Not so long ago, if I wanted to adjust the heat in my car, or the volume on my car radio, I could grab a nice, simple knob. Turn it to the right, and the car got warmer, or the radio got louder. Turn it the other way, and the opposite occurred. I could always sense how far I was adjusting things—without ever taking my eyes off the road—because millions of years of evolution have produced a neurological feedback mechanism that lets me know just how much I’m turning my wrist. Easy, effective, intuitive. That’s simply good design, right? You’d think. But in most late-model cars, making those kinds of adjustments requires pushing buttons multiple times, or navigating menus within menus, and—almost always—taking your eyes off the road.” ”
And for extras
“This is a column I wrote for Popular Mechanics in 2009. But if you follow the original URL, instead of the archived one above, you get a new column on the same theme by someone else, from 2025. Why?”
Via https://instapundit.com/781129/#disqus_thread
80
FWIW
In an article on WW2 air warfare a US pilot describes being selected for an RAF course on verry low level flying in fighters.
First requirement was to know every cockpit control by feel
40
A younger friend of my family is a very experienced commercial crop dusting aircraft pilot who has worked in many areas of Australia, he told us about one of several incidents that resulted in his final decision to quit while he is ahead. About to return to base airstrip the clouds set in quickly and he was flying blind needing instruments however a critical one had been removed as faulty awaiting an urgent replacement delivery and he was unable to sense position above the hidden ground or angle of aircraft. He removed a boot and sock and placed his keys inside the sock and attached it above the windscreen and was able to work out what he needed. Having used most of the reserve fuel circling to try and escape from the clouds he was forced to land and did that safely, and then phoned the office for help. Fuel was delivered but he refused to fly again that day and the vehicle driver boss pilot flew the aircraft back to base.
20
No, we are way ahead now with voice control. Instead of using a turn of the wrist we can just say “Hey, turn up the heat a bit” (and hope that the CCP AI listening doesn’t misinterpret).
10
Imagine, if voice control PilotAssist mistakes evacuate for eject !
00
Computer says no.
20
The computer didn’t say “No” to the US pilot who banged out of a serviceable F-35 a few years ago.
I guess today it’s “BANG – Whoosh” with the rocket seat.
00
“Hey Siri, can you tell me how many miles I ran today?”
“Yes Mr President, missiles launched to Iran now”
30
The commercial airlines joke when computer controlled takeoff and landing system was first installed, I remember a flight Sydney to Melbourne and after landing at Tullamarine Airport the first officer announced that our flight crew had not flown the aircraft and handed over at the takeoff point and took control again after landing.
Apparently the joke was about passengers on board an international flight as the aircraft levelled out at cruise level, a computer “voice” advised that they were in a computer controlled aircraft and that there is nothing to worry about, worry about, worry about …….
10
There was one about a crew logging a glitch, saying ‘Autoland a bit rough’ , maintenance came back replying, ‘Autoland not fitted to this model’.
20
Yeah, I’ve even got buttons on my ‘phone. (reply to #12.)
10
Every reasonable grandparent must encourage grandchildren to watch Prof. Ian Plimer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kNvSu93P9Q
I am afraid our next generation is nearly lost but after them can still be saved.
71
Don’t lose hope.
Kids still have effective BS detectors and know when they are pretending. Unlike many adults.
For example, I’d be pretty confident that word will get around about the reality of the surgery required for a boy to fully pretend to be a girl.
Look for a new version of the expression “totally gay”. Maybe something about “wearing dresses is enough for me”.
31
FWIW
“FILE THIS UNDER “NO SH*T, SHERLOCK”: The shift towards socialism similarly mirrors the Democratic party’s leftward shift, but a deeper look reveals that those favoring “socialism” have no understanding of what it actually means. Just The News reported that:
“The shifting sentiment towards socialism may not necessarily reflect fuzzy feelings for its ideals, but rather a lack of understanding of what those ideals are, according to professor of political science, Nicholas Giordano. “Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best explanation. People are gravitating toward socialism because they’ve never really been taught what socialism is,” Giordano told Just The News.”
https://instapundit.com/781241/#disqus_thread
60
FWIW
“WHAT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE:”
“Winston Churchill
“Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.”
Keir Starmer
“Muslims are the face of modern Britain.” ”
https://x.com/HJB_News__/status/2030030319810662522
“They can both be right, you know.”
Via https://instapundit.com/781015/#disqus_thread
70
I guess this is a pointer to the recycling of wind turbine blades into other things, but in isolation converting old blades into surf board fins reads like spin.
World-first surfboard fins made from old wind turbine blades
It would look less NQR if the article was about blades being recycled into roofing material with the beneficial byproduct that you can use the off cuts for fins. And even then it’s pretty niche.
20
Good grief.
20
And even better if a shark bites one and decided to go elsewhere.
10
It seems to me that it will require a drastic rise in sea level and in surfer populations to recycle the blades all ready abandoned?
10
How many Paris Climate Summits are rendered pointless by one medium-sized volcanic eruption?
100
Why that would be all of them. Except of course that climate summits of any kind are already pointless.
Q: Ok boys and girls, what are we going to talk about today?
A: How about the climate.
Q: Good idea. The weather has been crap lately. What can we do to make it a bit warmer?
A: No. We need to figure out how to make the weather colder and crappier.
Q: Why would anybody want to do that?
A: To save the planet.
Q: Anybody else got something to talk about?
80
A medium size eruption would cool the planet for a year or two, but for a longer lasting effect we need an Icelandic saga.
01
Fuel rationing and food shortages looming
Aussie farmers claim they could run out of petrol in DAYS amid Middle East fuel blockade – and it will hit families hard at the supermarket checkout.
Major petrol wholesalers including BP, Ampol, Mobil and Viva are restricting their sales to contracted buyers as the price per barrel for oil surges.
Many Australian farmers rely on ad hoc deliveries rather than long-term contracts, leaving some struggling to secure fuel at predictable prices. Wholesalers such as United Petroleum are also rationing their supply.
Some farmers claimed the disruptions could severely impact production and transport, driving up prices for consumers.
Others reported fuel deliveries are becoming harder to secure, while prices surged, and said the fuel is not only needed for running tractors and harvesters from dawn to dusk, but also to transport the produce from their farms.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15626029/Aussie-farmers-claim-run-petrol-days-amid-Middle-East.html
As always, it pays to have a stocked pantry before the masses panic buy.
The UK is down to 1.4 days LNG, NZ around 30 days petrol, diesel, jet fuel.
50
Too bad Australia shut down much of its refinery capacity, has limited storage capacity and prohibits drilling or fracking for oil and gas in many locations, and even if allowed the red tape, lawfare and land rights claims makes it just about non-viable.
A smart Government would at least buy a few disused oil tankers cheap and use those for storage. It’s a common practice in properly run countries, but just imagine the wars from Australia’s communist maritime trade unions who would want a cut of any operations. It would probably make it not worthwhile or too expensive.
I wonder if the failure to allow oil exploration, storage or appropriate refinery capacity is because some lunatics in Government and senior public serpents “think” you can run a (formerly) industrial society on wind, solar and Unicorn flatulence?
120
Not all of it… they are still screaming for Govt cash to make the shareholders rich!
“Australia’s final two oil refineries are locked in negotiations with the Albanese government over an increase in taxpayer subsidies they say is critical for their survival, just as the war in the Middle East renews focus on the state of the nation’s fuel security…Sources close to the talks said the refiners were asking for adjustments to their subsidies to reflect the significantly higher costs they were now facing as a result of years of rising inflation.”
Of course they would be one of the major polluters in Aussie, but somehow that isn’t visible to the Socialists-
“Energy Minister Chris Bowen signalled the government’s intent to support the continued operation of Australia’s remaining oil refineries: “We back our refineries ”
A great time to threaten the Govt with closing them if the subsidies don’t go up!
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/local-refiners-seek-federal-lifeline-as-fuel-supply-fears-grow-20260308-p5o8gr.html
60
KP,
Yes, subsidies are bad, but so are steps 1 and 2 of Reagan’s socialism formula:
The oil refineries strike me as having the same underpinnings as the “load-balancing” aluminium smelters: commercial insanity caused by government idiocy.
This is hardly shareholder-driven. They would do a lot better if the federal government butted out.
100
There only two kinds of older people in Australia. The ratio is about 2 to 1.
First – on government (ie – tax payer) pension.
Second – SMSF participants, that is – rich shareholders.
10
Always unsurprising that fuel prices rise well before current stock is sold.
It’s almost as though somebody is testing to see what the market will bear.
Time for another government enquiry to assure everybody that all is on the level. Just a higher level than before.
Wonder how the toilet paper and tim tams are going today.
80
If you had 50,000 lts of fuel in your tanks why would you sell it for less than it would cost to replace it?
20
Retail traditionally works by marking up what you’ve already bought wholesale. Come to think of it, wholesaling traditionally works that way too except the wholesale has bought from the producer.
That is of course unless you are buying and selling financial derivatives.
Marking up the retail price on what you’ve already bought because your next wholesale batch might be more expensive is known colloquially as price gouging.
30
So you are going to increase your overdraft $10,000 so your customers will say you are a good guy. Hint – They won’t.
00
Which takes me back to my original point.
00
A fair bit of the increase is the cessation of discounting.
10
Yeah. That’s what they do. They discount all the time.
As I said it is though somebody is testing what the market will bear.
Just like woolworths discounts tim tams from $6 a packet to $3.
00
So even when they sell at a discount they are still scoundrels. I get it.
00
H, my proposition is that refiners, wholesalers and retailers are constantly testing what the market will bear.
And to address your point directly, people with big market power who are constantly testing what the market will bear can reasonably be called scoundrels.
Agree or disagree?
00
For no reason just had a look at a couple of pantry items and apparently Australia can’t make even the simplest necessities of life anymore. Three brands of dehydrated yeast all “packed in Aust from imported ingredient” or “product of China” Bicarbonate of soda and baking powder same deal both imported.
Oh well sourdough is an easy alternative.
40
Cotton harvesting starts in April in NSW, lucky we don’t eat cotton.
00
FWIW
“How springing forward to daylight saving time could affect your health
LAURAN NEERGAARD”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/springing-forward-daylight-saving-time-155154835.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9pbnN0YXB1bmRpdC5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJrZ4T7-71g0Fq6RDhXFVk6MBODz2i6RugM2htkfExQmiCk5vx9laUYTAELunRD9DSiiEyetbc8kPtL1tJcwj4ghnD5oDKtm4DwWsArm4tv7oElh8jFw6E0u8M-Vk99riGFE5Z4WTLxwRY0sUGMJLafnwuMrQlCTohPNh_1N567f
So! Not only curtains and cows but us too!
10
FWIW
“There used to be this myth that leftwing people were somehow smarter than rightwing people but then social media happened and blew it all away.”
https://x.com/TheAliceSmith/status/2030046206945063385
Via https://instapundit.com/781013/#disqus_thread
50
But remember it takes somebody who is really smart to believe something that is really stupid.
30
20
FWIW
“Keir Starmer’s Britain”
“We had a good thing, Britain.
A really good thing.
You taught us this game. Mahan studied you. We just wrote bigger checks.
The deal was simple. We spend the trillions. Fight the hard wars. We even let you sit out Vietnam. And you? You hold the chokepoints you already own. You run Lloyd’s. Ships in the narrows, insurance on the hulls.
That’s all you had to do and we would back your interests with the strongest military and financial markets in the world.
That was the deal.”
More at
https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/2030662765988257831
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/03/08/keir-starmers-britain-38/
20
Scientists just uploaded a brain to the cloud and it works
They scanned and copied a fruit fly brain, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse, from electron microscopy data.
– Then dropped that brain into a simulated body in a video game like environment.
The fly walked. It groomed. It fed. Nobody taught it anything.
https://x.com/alexwg/status/2030217301929132323
First fruit flies, next politicians, a minor difference.
Didn’t someone here say cyborgs (fusion of biology and technology) were the future of AI?
30
What happens if politicians turn out to be easier than fruit flies?
20
Time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like bananas.
30
My Bananarang won’t come back
20
A nice bit of work, but tricky… copying the neuron structure into a program, yes, but deciding which signals mean ‘walk’ or ‘groom’ would be much harder. It could turn out to be one of those models that seems fine until really strange things happen if you have to rely on it- like global warming models…
00
One Nation have just selected their candidate for Farrer, and what a turn out. With brilliant preemptive strategy the MC called for everyone to sing the National Anthem, the one where the line says “We are YOUNG and free” sung by the crowd with gusto. Talk about starting off scratch and leading the field at the first turn. Suddenly Albo cannot do this because diversity is our strength, the Libs could try, but how can they do it without offending some groups, the Greens can’t do it cause they don’t know the words, the Teals and Independents can try but no one will be convinced. Have to say as the fight has just started but One Nation have opened by flooring all the oppositions. Hope they can maintain the advantage over the full fight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwM_UNbwyes
90
Did you know that reinforcing for concrete bars are now available in Kevlar? Flexible but far stronger than steel reinforcement bars and won’t corrode and cause concrete cancer to develop.
And porous matting to install under, example, a concrete driveway so that water runoff is reduced in volume, not so good in heavy rainfall of course?
Many years ago I became involved in the then new to Australia, developed in Germany for post-war reconstruction in Europe, concrete pumps and gradually some Ausralian entrepreneurs copied the piston action type (as compared to peristaltic rubber hose in a cylinder squeezed like toothpaste from the USA) that had inferior valve design modifying off the shelf hydraulic cylinders (bullet head shape) as compared to narrow cast blades of highly wear resistant material under concrete feed-in hopper and pump outlet blocking alternatively pumping cylinder and piston from delivering or sucking concrete into the pumping cylinder. To compensate operators often illegally added water via secret tap system onboard the concrete pump unit, trailer or truck mounted.
Concrete cancer in weakened structural concrete and corroded reo bars resulting over time.
50
In those years and Building Workers Union dominance of Building & Construction Industry a sabotage method was used a few times when contractors did not deliver to union demands. Add some sugar secretly to the concrete delivery trucks and then concrete will not cure and hardens like mud and flaky and crumbles. This was allegedly carried out on a public swimming pool site on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, a council contract, and the day after the pour the still soft concrete had everybody baffled.
I used sugar years later at a Field Day display and recycled one batch of concrete from pump to pipeline and back via a concrete custom-made conveyor belt unit and each closing time just shut the equipment down and left, next morning restarted no problem. After a few days the concrete was very sloppy
20
Rambling now, I did design a valve that was a curved blade that pivoted from hopper to cylinder outlet for a single cylinder concrete pump that worked well first time, and that pump was sold to a construction firm, and a few years later I purchased it privately, reconditioned it, and made a nice profit.
We also were a pioneer of concrete spraying with a special hose delivery outlet and compressed air system.
10
AI can be useful.
I was going through some old family photos.
There were two pictures of a passenger ship in Sydney Harbour. In one picture I could see first two letters of the ship’s name and in the other the last four.
I asked Gulag AI “what is the name of a boat registered in London but was in Sydney Harbour 1971 or 1972 whose name ended in tral and started with ch?”
It responded:
I then asked it:
“What dates was SS Chitral in Sydney harbour in 1971 or 1972?”.
And it supplied other information as well.
Of course, I don’t automatically believe AI so I checked some of the information elsewhere to confirm the AI wasn’t hallucinating on me.
10
David, there’s a good chance AI could be Ancestry.com out of business. People pay lots of money to track down some ancestors. I tried AI ( GROK) and it was superb. Cost nothing apart from monthly subscription and was done in minutes. 🙂
10
…could put Ancestry.com out of business.
10
Trump just announced that he ‘knows’ Iran bombed their own school.
Evidence optional.
10
Do you have evidence that it WASN”T an errant missile?
10
No
My point being that no one knows, certainly jumping to conclusions is not what a leader should do.
10
So it’s OK for YOU to make baseless claims that someone else is making baseless claims.
21
“Trump just announced that he ‘knows’ Iran bombed their own school.”
There is a video online of an American Thaad missile heading into that area, although the impact point is not shown..
But remember.. Russia blew up their own North Sea gas line too..
20
Seemingly a change of direction for Doonesbury, but actually lampooning Fox News apparently:-
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury
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No sign of reduced traffic or panic buying this morning on our regular cross country shopping trip. Its a long weekend here in VIC so the roads were busy with Monday returners to town, heavily accented with caravans and kids in jacked up 4wds.
Fuel $2.00 to $2.20 depending on flavour. LPG for the truck hasn’t moved yet , still $0.96.
Calm before the storm perhaps.
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This town could save a tanker of oil by making the kids ride bikes to school. Traffic is worse after school than after work in the ‘burbs.
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Very common H, apparently society is now too dangerous to let kids walk to school and back. They wouldn’t ride bikes anyway, it would be more electric scooters on the pavements.
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Fuel panic buying grips Australia as Sydney clings to last petrol under $2
https://www.news.com.au/national/fuel-panic-buying-grips-australia-as-sydney-clings-to-last-petrol-under-2/news-story/f7c3775f32d0977fc44384e9699d7632
https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/some-regional-servos-run-dry-as-petrol-set-for-yet-another-price-spike-20260309-p5o8s6.html
https://thenightly.com.au/politics/nab-warns-inflation-could-hit-5-per-cent-as-australian-drivers-panic-buy-petrol-amid-middle-east-turmoil-c-21880962
https://7news.com.au/news/australians-scramble-for-jerry-cans-as-middle-east-conflict-stirs-fuel-panic-buying-c-21882690
Spain:
https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/2030823014523195844
Food:
https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/australians-not-to-panic-buy-food-as-iran-war-enters-10th-day/news-story/793c798a9c5097be3d37c542b6b9a6a3
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Qatar has declared force majuere on oil deliveries.
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Watching Tousi TV …very interesting
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Any ideas on what sort of a game India was playing with Israel?
https://sonar21.com/russia-serves-a-cold-dish-to-the-gcc-and-india/
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Confusing.
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/india-us-we-dont-need-permission-buy-russian-oil
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Plenty of conjecture out there; who are you going to believe?
Perfidy rules; has done so for quite a while in these parts.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/martyrdom-maps-munitions-jim-rickards-most-surprising-iran-takes
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Flying a Union Jack flag is branded a ‘tool of hate’ in Government’s leaked ‘social cohesion’ strategy
Flying English, Scottish and Union Jack flags has been branded ‘tools of hate’ in a leaked draft of the Government’s new social cohesion strategy.
A leaked draft of the proposals suggests national symbols were sometimes used last summer to ‘exclude or intimidate’.
It warned that the ‘extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate’.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15622931/Flying-Union-Jack-flag-branded-tool-hate-Governments-leaked-social-cohesion-strategy.html
You can never hate your own country enough can you.
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