“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
The Western intelligence apparatus won the information war in Ukraine before a shot was fired. Even new publications like the Kyiv Independent have received support from NGOs that do in public what the CIA used to do in private. My story in @HumanEvents +
The Independent is a good example. It’s got growing subscriber base now, but according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, it was created with an “emergency grant from the European Endowment for Democracy,” a spinoff of the National Endowment for Democracy. What is the NED? On the surface, it’s an NGO that promotes civil society worldwide by, among other things, sponsoring and providing training for journalists and activists directly or indirectly. The reality, however, is different.
Here’s ProPublica’s characterization: “The National Endowment for Democracy was established by Congress, in effect, to take over the CIA’s covert propaganda efforts. But, unlike the CIA, the NED promotes U.S. policy and interests openly.”
The NED’s co-founder, Allen Weinstein, admitted as much. “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post entitled, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups.” washingtonpost.com/archive/opinio…“The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential [i.e., embarrass or embroil the CIA in controversy] is close to zero,” Weinstein said. Recall that in 1967, Ramparts magazine humiliated the agency by exposing . . .
. . . that it had turned the National Student Association’s international activities into “an arm of United States foreign policy” through undercover financing and secret collaboration. Now, “Openness is its own protection,” as Weinstein put it.
In fall 2021, a profile of the Independent’s chief editor, Olga Rudenko, appeared in ProMarket, a publication of the Stigler Center at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Rudenko was visiting the school for a journalism development program.
According to ProMarket, she is also a board member at the Media Development Foundation, an NGO that has received at least $225,140 from the NED. You won’t find that without a digital archive because the NED’s records of funding projects in Ukraine was recently moved or deleted. The archived page shows that from 2014 to the present, the NED has granted $22,394,281 through 334 awards to Ukraine. However, since the change, the NED only allows users to search back to 2017.
Even the birds know. Apparently a bird just shit on Biden in Iowa. That bird speaks for anyone who’s filled their tank or gone shopping in the last 18 months. pic.twitter.com/fYeoWM9Nep
(I don’t remember who brought this to a daily in the comments, but thanks.)
And, of course, the obligatory George Carlin:
Per the Boss:
And now for the obligatory message from our sponsors:
Here at the Q tree we believe in the concept of CIVIL open free speech and the discussion that fleshes out ideas. When commenting and participating in the OPEN discussion on this thread all comments MUST NOT CONTAIN personal threats, baiting, name calling, or other anti-social words fomenting hate, violence or destruction. Our host Wolfm00n has strict rules about that.
Fellow tree dweller Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone
Please, stock up on blanks for celebratory gunfire, be ready to swing from the chandeliers…and no messing with the nuclear weapons.
Please remember to remain locked and loaded and ready for trouble should the insurrectionists try to invade your space.
Those who have things to say that do not fit the generally accepted limits of “civil” discussion, Wolf has provided a venue known as the UTree. You’re welcome to visit over there and say hi to anyone hanging out over there. The “Rescue Thread” is also over there. In the event a rendezvous of the tree is needed, please check it out, as well as the newest rescue venue.
Auntie DePat’s requests:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
Thank you so much for any and all attention to such details. It is GREATLY appreciated by more than one party here.
One other vital note:
Please, review these rules that our host Wolfm00n outlined toward the beginning of the growth of the tree itself. it won’t take long.
14Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. 16And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. 17Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?” 18He said, “Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, `The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.'” 19And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover. 20When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; 21and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” 22And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” 23He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. 24The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” 25Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”
When COVID hit, I was part of a group working on The Song of Mark by Marty Haugen. The music itself and the voices are not the greatest, but the text…like Monty Python, imagine what went on around the Passion that was out of eye and earshot of the Evangelists.
As always, prayers for the fight against that which seeks to enslave us are welcome.
Please include: President Donald Trump, the Q team, our soldiers in the field, special forces, tactical units, first responders and those working behind the scenes…and any and all people with family members in the hospital, COVID or not.
And…members of the QTree who no longer participate for one reason or another.
It is quite clear, as per Wolf’s message from July, that we are under spiritual attack. Building up a robust arsenal of prayer and discipline is a must in fighting the enemy and his minions.
In that spirit, the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel from Tuesday’s threads, and the Breastplate of St. Patrick, not to mention the Litany of Humility are favorites recommended by exorcists in spiritual warfare.
According to the Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Mikhail Popov on Sunday, the US increased its imports of Russian oil by 43% in the last week, totaling 100,000 barrels a day.
Popov told Komsomolskaya Pravda news that “the US forced Europeans to introduce anti-Russian sanctions, while not only continuing to import oil from Russia but increasing volume of [oil] deliveries for the past week by 43% up to 100,000 barrels per day!”
The Deputy Secretary also detailed that Washington imported fertilizers from Russia while listing them as essential goods.
The US last month announced a ban on Russian oil, natural gas, and coal imports as a response to the Russian operation in Ukraine.
Well, which is it?
Interesting coming out of France where the European Union found that the national identity was more strong than anywhere else in western Europe some years back.
Former French intelligence chief Pierre Brochand warns that unless Europe and France radically change their policies on mass immigration, civil war could break out, asserting, “all multicultural societies are doomed.”
Brochand, who served as director of the French DGSE from 2002 to 2008, made the comments during an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro.
The negative impact of mass immigration on France can no longer be dismissed because it is “increasingly difficult to prevent the French from seeing what they see,” and also because “a breakthrough personality has suddenly appeared in the formulaic world of politics that has encouraged them to open their eyes,” said Brochand.
The ex-intel chief predicts that if Emmanuel Macron wins the presidential election and fails to massively alter his approach to immigration, civil war could ensue.
“This gradual upheaval of the French population, if not the only challenge we face, is the only one that directly threatens civil peace on our territory,” said Brochand, warning that Muslim migrants and others from outside of Europe have developed a “spirit of post-colonial revenge.”
In Chapter 1, sub-section 1.4 of the 2022 Canadian budget, there is a rather remarkable new rule that bans foreign ownership and investment in housing for a period of two years. [LINK HERE]
“To make sure that housing is owned by Canadians instead of foreign investors, Budget 2022 announces the government’s intention to propose restrictions that would prohibit foreign commercial enterprises and people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents from acquiring non- recreational, residential property in Canada for a period of two years.”
Two points about this issue. First, can you imagine the media outcry if a conservative prime minister would ever make such a proposal? Quite a leftist change from the previous mantra “diversity is our strength”?
Second, considering the issue of foreign investment that creates housing, there is a likelihood this could backfire. The new position of Canada will certainly put more upward pressure on the U.S. housing market. Every action tends to have an equal and opposite reaction. It will be interesting to follow this and see where it leads.
And…not that we all didn’t suspect this…. (this one did make a daily, but it is worth a repeat)
Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), is the personification of The Great Reset — the ultimate goal of which is to do away with the democratic process and give all ownership and control to the deep state — and the technocratic elite who control it.
In the video above, comedian JP Sears outlines the primary reasons why this makes Schwab easily among the most dangerous people in the world — and arguably the most dangerous. One of The Great Reset’s “new normal” dictums is that you’ll own nothing and be happy. This is part of WEF’s 2030 agenda,1 and a plan is already in place to make it happen.
Schwab is also author of the book, “COVID-19: The Great Reset,” which was published July 9, 2020. “Wonder how he got it written and published that fast?” Sears said. “It’s almost like he prewrote it before he started the pandemic. I mean, before the pandemic started.”2
WEF operates via fearmongering — about disease and environmental catastrophes, for starters. When the population is controlled by fear, it welcomes authoritarian “protections” like increased surveillance and digital identity systems, introduced under the guise of safety, but which ultimately remove personal autonomy and freedom.
In fact, Schwab wrote, “One of the greatest lessons of the past five centuries in Europe and America is this: Acute crisis contributes to boosting the power of the state. It’s always been the case, and there is no reason why it should be different with the COVID-19 pandemic.”3 Remember, nobody elected Schwab to any government position, but he’s behind the scenes pulling strings nonetheless.
And he was taught by Henry Kissinger at Harvard to boot.
Also, expect a lot more of this:
https://rumble.com/embed/vxtj1k/?pub=4
Okay…what’s in the tank for today.
There’s only one party in Canada and it’s called the WEF. Wake up ffs.
Elon switched his paperwork last week from passive to activist investor. He’s no longer bound by the agreement that caps the amount of Twitter he can own. He seems mad. Only getting more interesting from here.
I’d throw in a few Rockefellers and Rothschilds also.
Of course, this does not mean committing felonies, but standing up to the forces that want to tear this nation – and humanity apart. The very people XVII told us will be destroyed by the time this movie comes to an end are currently roaming the halls of power…supposedly. It’s a sickening sight.
Your weekly reminder to take the pledge:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog it out. There is also a “rescue” thread there for members of the Tree to rendezvous if the main site goes kablooey. A third site has been added for site outages of longer duration.
This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.
Fellow tree dweller Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
And Auntie DePat’s requests:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
By now, I have learned to keep my reactions pretty close to my chest. There is such a thing as reacting too soon before more information is released, and it’s easy to make assumptions if you don’t see the whole picture. There’s power in observation.
This is actually Monday’s Gospel, and is the bridge between Jesus entering Jerusalem, and the true Passion.
JOHN 12:1-11
1Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Laz’arus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Laz’arus was one of those at table with him. 3Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. 4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, 5“Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” 6This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. 7Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. 8The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” 9When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Laz’arus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10So the chief priests planned to put Laz’arus also to death, 11because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
This week, I kind of want to highlight some favorites. I was introduced to this piece during the Washington, D.C., Archdiocesan Music Festival (the performance was in the Eisenhower Theater in the Kennedy Center, my first big stage experience) when I was in sixth grade. I was in the grade school chorus, and this was sung by the high school chorus with the soloist being a senior in R.O.T.C. uniform who was a tenor from DeMatha High School. It has stuck with me ever since.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Hosts, by the power of God, cast down to Hell Satan and all his evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
>>148156518 Amen brother. Q
As always, prayers for the fight against that which seeks to enslave us are welcome. Via con Dios.
To get a blue check on Gab, one needs to merely prove that one is, in fact, the same Gab user, by publishing that fact (Gab identity) under the other “verified” identity.
This is the information I provided to Gab – my WordPress identity.
Here is that bio information in plain text:
Currently @wolfmoon1776 on WordPress.com sites and theqtree.com Formerly @WOLFM00N on Twitter, and still awaiting reinstatement of my account. Currently @WOLFM00N on Gab (YAY, GAB!), Gettr, Parler, Keybase, and others. Still @wolf_moon on Disqus. Still waiting for an account on Truth Social.
But hey – now that I’m a BIG SHOT, I’ll still remember where I came from. *ROLLS EYES*
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
And indeed, it’s Monday…again.
But we WILL get through it!
…and we will have fun doing it, too!
The Rules
Boilerplate, more or less, but worth reading again and again, if only for the minor changes, and to stay out of moderation.
The bottom line is Free Speech. Theories and ideas you don’t agree with must be WELCOME here, and you must be part of that welcoming. But you do NOT need to be part of any agreement.
Bottom line – respect other people’s FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.
Our only additional requirement is that you do so NICELY. Or at least try to make some effort in that direction.
SO….. [ENGAGE BOILERPLATE…..]
We must endeavor to persevere to love our frenemies – even here.
Those who cannot deal with this easy requirement will be forced to jump the hoops of moderation, so that specific comments impugning other posters and violating the minimal rules can be sorted out and tossed in the trash.
In Wheatie’s words, “We’re on the same side here so let’s not engage in friendly fire.”
That includes the life skill of just ignoring certain other posters.
We do have a site – The U Tree – where civility is not a requirement. Interestingly, people don’t really go there much. Nevertheless, if you find yourself in an “argument” that can’t really stay civil, please feel free to “take it to the U Tree”. The U Tree is also a good place to report any technical difficulties, if you’re unable to report them here. Please post your comment there on one of Wolf’s posts, or in reply to one of Wolf’s comments, to make sure he sees it (though it may take a few hours).
We also have a backup site, called The Q Tree as well, which is really The Q Tree 579486807. You might call it “Second Tree”. The URL for that site is https://theqtree579486807.wordpress.com/. If this site (theqtree.com) ever goes down, please reassemble at the Second Tree.
If the Second Tree goes down, please go to The U Tree, or to our Gab Group, which is located at https://gab.com/groups/4178.
We also have some “old rules” and important guidelines, outlined here, in a very early post, on our first New Year’s Day, in 2019. The main point is not to make violent threats against people, which then have to be taken seriously by law enforcement, and which can be used as a PRETEXT by enemies of this site.
In the words of Wheatie, “Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.”
A Moment of Prayer
Our policy on extreme religious freedom on this site is discussed HERE. Please feel free to pray and praise God anytime and anywhere.
Thus, please pray for our real President, the one who actually won the election.
You may also pray for our nation, our world, and even our enemies.
Call To Battle
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
One of the oldest Christograms is the Chi-Rho (☧). It consists of the superimposed Greek letters chi (Χ) and rho (Ρ), which are the first two letters of Greek χριστός “Christ”.
Used in a picture:
ENJOY THE SHOW
Have another great week!
W
“Those who would do anything to be President do not deserve to be President.”
If you ever graduated from any college or university in America, then you are familiar with how these institutions now make money – after they long-ago stumbled past the point of “Go Woke, Go Broke”.
SPORTS is the big moneymaker – but not every alumnus shells out for tickets – much less ponies up the big donation bucks for a locker room to be named after their family.
For the “humanities” types, and the “cultured corporate elite” types, and most of all the “seniors with too much time and money” types, a different approach is needed.
Enter the “alumni cruise” racket.
For several thousand dollars each – not counting your air fare to the correct continent or port city – you can visit a half-dozen famous cities and see their most famous historic sites. And don’t worry if those cities are land-locked – you can take a river cruise to see THOSE, too.
Surely, if you went to college, and the college has your address, you get those slick brochures for alumni cruises as a heavy component of your “almost junk” mail.
In the past, these cruises were always a bit of a temptation, even though we really couldn’t afford one. Nonetheless, we were always on the lookout for THE ONE VACATION CRUISE that would get two thumbs up, as well as the whole obstacle course of reality green lights.
However….. before we ever got around to taking an alumni cruise…..
ENTER COVID-19.
COVID-19 was actually PROPAGANDIZED using a cruise ship – the Diamond Princess – which was helpful to the plotters in the short term, but not in the long term, as the ship turned into a laboratory which – in the hands of independent science – ended up debunking 90% of Faucism.
Let me drop some of the SWEET graphs out of this thing, as a way of TEMPTING you to click the links.
But let us not digress into YET ANOTHER worthy critique of the “clot shot” itself.
Instead, let us note the following:
cruise lines were one of the biggest victims of COVID-19 fear-mongering, and the universe of stupid policies it spawned, ceasing all travel for over a year.
when travel on cruise ships was once again allowed, cruise lines were encouraged to be draconian in their policies for travelers, requiring vaccinations, masks, etc.
the wicked media HOUNDED the cruise lines for months, jumping on every COVID case at sea, trying not only to prevent the cruise lines from opening back up, but insuring that the lines would thereafter adopt and cling to draconian measures.
NOW – here is the problem.
I have watched these stupid brochures, to see exactly how “COVID-woke” these cruises would be, because there is no way in hell that I’m going to get a COVID vaccination to travel – particularly with a vaccine that is very likely to aggravate my various post-COVID ailments and conditions.
Initially, the brochures attempted to use COVID fears as a selling point, BRAGGING incessantly about just how safe their cruise ships were, due to vaccine and masking requirements, which were in place for all travelers and crew.
Indeed, I was afraid for a while that this kind of thinking might spread, but my worries were unfounded, as just the opposite happened. I suspect that cruise lines initially got SOME takers for these “safety cruises”, but then quickly learned that the MASKY FEAR DEMS WHO WERE WILLING TO TRAVEL were in fact a small and hardly profitable minority.
Most of my “masky” and “vaxxy” Dem friends and neighbors are unwilling to go out to eat at a restaurant, much less take a cruise. There simply CAN’T be many takers for a cruise in that crowd.
Thus, it wasn’t too long, before “mask pride” and “vaxx pride” disappeared from alumni cruise brochures, only to be replaced by the back-fold section of “oh, by the way, you must be vaccinated” requirements.
That went on for a while, and it was fairly easy for me to quickly determine that – YES – there was still a vaccine requirement for all passengers and crew.
Now I thought THAT state of affairs would go on forever, but – surprise, surprise, surprise – I was wrong. It sure looks like there are NOT enough people willing to get vaccinated, for these alumni cruises to make the money they need. Because the next thing they did was to make the COVID vaccination requirement extremely tiny, hard to find, or both.
REALLY! You don’t say. Ashamed of your COVID vaccination requirement? Gettin’ in the way of the CASH? You have to DUPE old people with FINE PRINT that’s impossible to find, or to read without a magnifier?
THAT was when I started having a good laugh.
GO WOKE – GO BROKE. YET AGAIN!
Hardy-har-har. The SCHADENFREUDE was most excellent.
But that’s not the end of it! Oh, no!
Oh, those silly old people with their PATIENCE, their TIME AT HOME, and their MAGNIFYING GLASSES. Apparently, microscopic print and bizarre, changing locations on the brochures were not enough to deter foolish old seniors from REJECTING cruises with vaccine requirements.
So what did the VACCINE CRUISE sellers do NEXT?
I am now seeing MYRIAD “artful dodges” of the COVID vaccination questions – almost ALL of which end up as follows:
reader must go online and dig through numerous links to confirm that – YES, STUPID BARBARIAN – vaccines are required
question is not answered, in such a way that….
passengers must sign up, accepting moneymaker cancellation requirements
requirements will be announced prior to the trip, too late to get all your money back, but with plenty of time to get the vaccine ahead of the “we don’t want them to drop dead on our boat” vaccination window of two weeks prior to embarkation
Here is an example of the FIRST case, where you get a link, go online, and get repeatedly redirected. Eventually, you get to HERE:
This is a long page with lots of nice, happy, and less than helpful information, and at the end you are told to go check with the individual cruise lines, thankfully provided as links.
Here is where one link goes – for Oceania Cruises.
At least THEY are direct, and don’t send you to a gazillion more pages.
Scroll down, click around, and eventually you get this:
Let’s include that as TEXT for our low-vision friends.
ALL INDIVIDUALS (GUESTS & CREW) MUST BE VACCINATED
All guests sailing are required to be fully vaccinated, at least 2 weeks prior to departure, in order to board. For embarkation from European ports, the EU definition of fully vaccinated is as follows:
A passenger or crew member who carries a proof of vaccination, and at least 14 days and no more than 270 days have passed since the last dose of the primary vaccination series or if the person has received a third dose.
Any guest whose primary COVID-19 vaccination will be beyond 270 days at the time of disembarkation from their voyage must have a COVID-19 “booster” at least 14 days prior to embarkation.
To visit our FAQ for the latest vaccine protocol information and accepted vaccines, click here.
So that’s it. You must be vaccinated.
Now, the SECOND type of DODGE doesn’t even resolve the ambiguity. This technique is absolute FOOT IN THE DOOR.
On the brochure, you find THIS, in fine print on the back page.
COVID-19 Health and Safety Protocols: The well-being of our guests and staff members on tour will continue to be our highest priorities. To maintain a healthy environment for travel, we will be establishing and adhering to a detailed set of health and safety protocols for all facets of your tour. We are committed to following the guidelines of the State Department, CDC, WHO, and authorities of respective countries regarding travel to a particular destination. Detailed protocols for this tour, based on conditions at the time, will be provided approximately 115 days prior to departure.
There is no way to make a SOLID assessment from this level of information. In fact, the only way to get a HINT is to search the brochure for information as to the identity of the cruise line itself, and to research that company’s current and likely future policies on vaccination.
SO – does it seem to you that “THEY” have now switched from LURING you into vaccination, to actually CORNERING you into vaccination?
That’s what it seems like to me.
Here is a simple message for these cruise lines, universities, and alumni associations.
We are NOT signing up for a cruise that does not PROMISE us that we don’t have to be vaccinated. We don’t care about testing – that’s a great idea on a cruise. You should be testing the VACCINATED people most of all. I’ll even explain the SCIENCE of that fact to the captain and chief medical officer at dinner.
But we won’t be getting vaccinated.
And if that means NO CRUISES EVER, well, then, TOO DAMN BAD.
This Sanctuary Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure you’re addressing the issue only, and not trying to confront the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
Peace is something everyone wants, yet few seem to find. Peace is “tranquility, harmony, or security.” Depending on the situation, it could mean “prosperity” or “well-being.” Various forms of the word peace are found 429 times in the King James Version of the Bible. There are different types of peace, including false peace, inner peace, peace with God, and peace with man.
In the Old Testament, the primary Hebrew word for “peace” is shalom, and it refers to relationships between people (Genesis 34:21), nations (1 Kings 5:12), and God with men (Psalm 85:8). Peace is a desired status in each of these arenas, and shalom is often tied to a covenant or a promise kept. A familiar friend (literally, “friend of my peace” in Psalm 41:9) is one with whom you would be at ease, a trusted companion. “Peace” was the standard greeting (1 Samuel 25:6), still used in many cultures today.
Peace is directly related to the actions and attitudes of individuals; but it is ultimately a gift from God (Isaiah 45:7; Leviticus 26:6; John 14:27). The presence of peace indicates God’s blessing on man’s obedience (Isaiah 32:17; Malachi 2:5) and faith (Isaiah 26:3). There is no peace for the wicked (Isaiah 48:22).
As valuable as peace is, it’s not surprising to find that it’s sometimes counterfeited. Empty promises of peace can be used to manipulate others. Deceitful men speak words of peace while secretly planning evil (Obadiah 1:7). The Antichrist will confirm a treaty, producing a temporary peace which he will then abruptly shatter as he reveals his true colors (Daniel 9:27). False teachers proclaim peace when God is actually proclaiming judgment (Ezekiel 13:10-16). In Jeremiah’s day, the religious leaders dealt only with the symptoms of the national problems, without addressing the sinful root of the crisis. These false prophets declared everything was well between God and Israel: “Peace, peace,” they said, when there was no real peace (Jeremiah 6:14).
In the New Testament, the primary Greek word for “peace” is eirene, and it refers to rest and tranquility. A key focus of peace in the New Testament is the advent of Jesus Christ, as announced by the angels in Luke 2:14 (“Peace on earth . . .”). Isaiah had predicted the Messiah would be the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and He is called the Lord of peace in 2 Thessalonians 3:16. It’s through Christ’s work of justification that we can have peace with God (Romans 5:1), and that peace will keep our hearts and minds secure (Philippians 4:7).
God commands us to seek peace (Psalm 34:14; Matthew 5:9). We should “make every effort to do what leads to peace” (Romans 14:19). Of course, there will be some people who do not desire peace, but we are still to do our utmost to be at peace with them (Romans 12:18).
Believers have an obligation to “let the peace of God rule” in their hearts (Colossians 3:15). This means we have the choice either to trust God’s promises (letting His peace rule) or to rely on ourselves and reject the peace He offers. Jesus gave His disciples peace based on the truth that He has overcome the world (John 14:27; 16:33). Peace is a fruit of the Spirit, so, if we are allowing the Spirit of God to rule in our lives, we will experience His peace (Galatians 5:22-23). To be spiritually minded brings life and peace, according to Romans 8:6.
The world will continue to have wars and interpersonal conflicts until Jesus comes to establish true, lasting peace (see Isaiah 11:1-10), but God will give His peace to those who trust Him. Jesus took the chastisement of our peace (Isaiah 53:5) and has made it possible for us to have peace with God. Once His peace rules in our hearts, we’re able to share that peace with others; we become publishers of peace (Isaiah 52:7) and ministers of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18).
Philippians 4:7 refers to “the peace of God which transcends all understanding.” Most of Paul’s letters began with the words “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Peace is a state of tranquility or quietness of spirit that transcends circumstances. The term peace is described in Scripture as a gift from God and congruent with His character (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Galatians 6:16; 1 Peter 1:2; Hebrews 13:20).
If God is peace, then to know God is to bask in His peace. The closer we draw to Him, the more of His peace we can enjoy (James 4:8). God gives us clear instructions about how to draw near to Him. Psalm 24:3–4 says, “Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god.” But Scripture is also clear that we cannot make ourselves clean enough or pure enough to earn the presence of the Lord (Romans 3:10, 23).
So how do we draw near enough to experience His peace? Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). We come into the presence of the Lord through His Son (John 14:6). When we allow Jesus’ death and resurrection to purchase our forgiveness from God, we are counted as righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our sins are forgiven because Jesus already paid the price for them. Only then can we have peace with God (Romans 4:5; 5:1; 1 John 4:10).
The initial peace that comes from having our consciences wiped clean grows as we get to know God better (Hebrews 10:22). Second Peter 1:2 says, “May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord” (NLT). When we grow in understanding of the depths and riches of God’s love toward us (Ephesians 3:18–19; Romans 8:38–39), our minds and spirits begin to rest in His power and wisdom. We begin to understand that He really will make all things work together for our good (Romans 8:28). We learn that His purposes will be accomplished (Psalm 33:11; Proverbs 19:21; Isaiah 45:9; 46:9–11).
Certain attitudes can destroy the peace of God. When we equate trust with the assumption that God will give us whatever we want, we set ourselves up for disappointment. The Bible is filled with examples of the opposite happening to God’s people (2 Corinthians 12:7–9; Hebrews 11:13; Psalm 10:1). Trust means we have set our hearts to believe God, whatever may happen. When we insist on being in control, we sabotage God’s desire to let us live in peace. When we choose worry rather than faith, we cannot live in peace. Jesus warned us often about fear and worry (Matthew 6:34; Luke 12:29; Philippians 4:6). Worry is the enemy of peace. God invites us to cast our cares upon Him and then let go of them (1 Peter 5:7).
Living in peace can be compared to the petals of a flower unfolding in the morning sunlight. The petals of peace in our lives unfold as we learn more about God. We discover that His character is always faithful. We experience His continual goodness. We read more of His promises (Psalm 100:5; 115:11; Isaiah 26:4). We learn to bask in His overwhelming love for us (Romans 8:38–39). We refuse to allow ever-changing circumstances to determine our level of contentment, relying instead upon the character of God that never changes (James 1:17; Malachi 3:6).
When we develop a lifestyle of making the Lord our refuge, we begin to live in the peace of God (Psalm 46:1; 62:8). Psalm 91:1 holds the secret to living in the peace of God: “He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.” That secret place in our hearts is where we go to meet with God. When we choose to live there and hide away under His shadow, staying in constant communion with Him, we can remain peaceful, even when circumstances may not be. When we learn to cry out to Him in times of trouble, we find that His peace really does pass all human understanding (Philippians 4:7).
ANYONE THAT APPRECIATES TRUMP AND WHAT HE IS TRYING TO DO FOR "OUR" COUNTRY!! THEN YOU NEED TO GO SUPPORT HIM. IN SELMA, NC. APRIL 9TH AT 7P.M. SATURDAY NIGHT…HE NEEDS THE PEOPLE. ONE MAN CAN'T DO IT BY HIS SELF…
We had a hard time getting a hotel a few days in advance in NC. I looked up and down 95 and all the nice ones had sold out, we ended up staying 20 min off 95, come to find out there’s a TRUMP rally in Selma NC today!! Imagine people traveling And staying for Biden #trump2024
Selma was officially chartered as a Town on February 11, 1873, but the Town’s true birth took place on May 1, 1867, when there was a public sale of lots around a newly established station on the North Carolina Railroad. Selma was born as a “Railroad Town,” and our rail heritage is still evident today, with our recently renovated 1924Union Depot (Selma Union Depot) supporting Amtrak service.
The Town is also home to the Mitchener Station, which was built in 1855 and it is thought to be the oldest surviving train station in North Carolina. When Interstate 95 was built in the late 1950s, the Town experienced growth due to its proximity to the Interstate. Today, there are many hotels and restaurants located in the area for visitors traveling on Interstate 95.
And one of Selma’s most famous residents was Lunsford Richardson, who was born in 1854 on a farm near Selma. He rose to fame as the inventor of Vick’s Vapo-Rub. After graduating from Davidson College at the top of his class, he became a teacher and then a pharmacist, working out of Dr. Joshua Vick’s drugstore in Selma. While in Johnston County, he invented Richardson’s Croup and Pneumonia Cure Salve and later changed the name to Vick’s Salve in honor of Dr. Vick. The name was then changed to Vick’s Vapo-Rub and a nationwide advertising campaign made the name a household word. In 1905, Richardson convinced the Postal Service to allow him to mass-mail his advertising circulars simply to “boxholder” instead of individuals. Because this marked the first such mailing, Richardson gained the dubious distinction of also being known as “the father of junk mail.”
Well, we all have to be known for something, right?
Over the past four years, President Donald Trump’s administration delivered for Americans of all backgrounds like never before. Save America is about building on those accomplishments, supporting the brave conservatives who will define the future of the America First Movement, the future of our party, and the future of our beloved country. Save America is also about ensuring that we always keep America First, in our foreign and domestic policy. We take pride in our country, we teach the truth about our history, we celebrate our rich heritage and national traditions, and of course, we respect our great American Flag.
We are committed to defending innocent life and to upholding the Judeo-Christian values of our founding.
We believe in the promise of the Declaration of Independence, that we are all made EQUAL by our Creator, and that must all be TREATED equal under the law.
We know that our rights do not come from government, they come from God, and no earthly force can ever take those rights away. That includes the right to religious liberty and the right to Keep and Bear Arms.
We believe in rebuilding our previously depleted military and ending the endless wars our failed politicians of the past got us into for decades.
We embrace free thought, we welcome robust debate, and we are not afraid to stand up to the oppressive dictates of political correctness.
We know that the rule of law is the ultimate safeguard of our freedoms, and we affirm that the Constitution means exactly what it says AS WRITTEN.
We support fair trade, low taxes, and fewer job-killing regulations, and we know that America must always have the most powerful military on the face of the Earth.
We believe in Law and Order, and we believe that the men and women of law enforcement are HEROES who deserve our absolute support.
We believe in FREE SPEECH and Fair Elections. We must ensure fair, honest, transparent, and secure elections going forward – where every LEGAL VOTE counts.
SPECIAL SECTION: Message For Our “Friends” In The Middle Kingdom
You knuckle-dragging barbarians are still trying to muck with this site, so I’ll just repeat what I said last time.
Up your shit-kicking barbarian asses. Yes, barbarian! It took a bunch of sailors in Western Asia to invent a real alphabet instead of badly drawn cartoons to write with. So much for your “civilization.”
Yeah, the WORLD noticed you had to borrow the Latin alphabet to make Pinyin. Like with every other idea you had to steal from us “Foreign Devils” since you rammed your heads up your asses five centuries ago, you sure managed to bastardize it badly in the process.
Have you stopped eating bats yet? Are you shit-kickers still sleeping with farm animals?
Or maybe even just had the slightest inkling of treating lives as something you don’t just casually dispose of?
中国是个混蛋 !!! Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!! China is asshoe !!!
And here’s my response to barbarian “asshoes” like you:
OK, with that rant out of my system…
Loop it if you like; I will wait.
Richly deserved.
Justice Must Be Done
The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.
Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.
Lawyer Appeasement Section
OK now for the fine print.
This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines, here, with an addendum on 20191110.
We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.
And remember Wheatie’s Rules:
1. No food fights 2. No running with scissors. 3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone. 4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns. 5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded. 5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty. 6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. 7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire. 8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.
Gold is moving around within a fairly tight range lately.
James Webb Space Telescope Update
A lot of material has been written by the JWST team. The mirrors are lined up and focused, but they need to be focused for all five of the sensors behind the mirror before they can do the next iteration of fine-tuning. But that has only been done for four of them. What’s the issue? The issue is that the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) has been blind until very recently.
The other four instruments have gotten down to their desired operating temperatures of 34 to 39 kelvins. (And I discussed kelvins last week. Very convenient timing!) But they all work in either long wavelength visible light (oranges and reds) or “near infrared.” “Near” because it’s right next to visible wavelengths, just a bit longer than our eyes can see. But objects at room temperature actually glow at some of these frequencies, so in order to keep the sensor itself from glowing in the very light it’s trying to see, we keep them cooled off.
But the longer the wavelength (and lower the frequency) we want to see, the colder we have to make the instrument. Mid Infrared is longer than near infrared, so we have to cool MIRI down to about 7 kelvins or less. From MIRIs point of view the rest of the spacecraft, at -390 to -399 F, is scorching hot!
This is done with cryogenic cooling, using helium. Apparently at least some of the power on board the spacecraft runs what is essentially a refrigerator, and we’ve been running that and allowing MIRI to slowly, slowly cool down to -450 F. We don’t want to cool it off too fast lest frost form on the sensor (which would FUBAR it).
From what I can see MIRI is actually at this temperature now, so the mirror adjusting fun can resume.
What use is MIRI? It’s expected to be able to look at stars–and their accompanying planets–as they form. For instance, we’ve all seen “the Pillars of Creation” as imaged by Hubble, which is actually a part of the Eagle nebula.
The Pillars of Creation. This isn’t the original picture; they had Hubble go back and take another picture after they upgraded its cameras.
As presented the pillars run vertically, but the “Eagle Nebula” name was given to it based on the appearance of that area seen rotated 90 degrees clockwise. Or, here is a picture of the entire nebula, rotated only about 45 degrees. The dark area in the center is shaped a bit like an eagle, you can see the wings to the left, the body in the center, and the talons to the right…and of course, blown up, it’s “The Pillars of Creation.”
The Eagle Nebula
The Pillars of Creation picture is actually in false color, with green used to show hydrogen, etc., the picture of the eagle nebula is more like what it would look to us if we were close enough to it for it to be bright enough for us to see color.
But here’s what the Pillars look like in infrared:
The Pillars of Creation in infrared
Of course the colors here are ALL false; an infrared image in true color would look black.
But notice you can see a lot more stars.
Infrared can cut through dust clouds, including the dust clouds that condense to form stars and planets. So MIRI is expected to help us greatly in our quest to study “solar systems” that are forming Out There. This is all described in this blog post, from which I ripped off these pictures.
Fuck Joe Biden
Biden, you don’t even get ONE scoop of ice cream today.
(Please post this somewhere permanent, as it will continue to be true; the SOB will never deserve a scoop.)
Incidentally, I’m writing this on Friday. This morning I saw a full-sized pickup truck in the oncoming left turn lane with a forest of flags in the bed. Once he turned and drove left-to-right in front of me, I could see two American flags near the cab, and SIX “Let’s Go Brandon” flags near the tailgate. That was unusual; usually there’s a mix of FJB (only not abbreviated) and “Trump Won” and “Trump 2024” flags when someone does this.
I haven’t seen such a display in a few weeks, by the way. Even the guy at the office complex where I work with the FJB flag on his pickup seems to have removed it (or doesn’t work there any more–trucks all look alike to me from the back, and all crossovers look like cockroaches).
T3 Heat Engines
In the early 1800s, steam engines were the cutting edge tech. We didn’t talk of them changing the world, because before that time, really the world didn’t change much over a person’s lifetime. People in the late 1700s pretty much lived as they had hundreds of years earlier. In fact, living conditions in Europe at the time (for everyone except the nobility and a very small wealthy merchant class) were described as “Third World Europe.” Except that unlike the third world today, we had no concept of sanitation, vaccination (real vaccination, not this current crap), the germ theory of disease, etc., so we had high infant mortality rates and all the rest of the stuff that today’s Third World is getting away from.
The steam engine, and the prosperity it would bring to Europe, would ultimately change that, and usher in an era where we are actually used to seeing rapid technological change generating wealth that even the not-so-rich and not-so-connected could accumulate.
If you recall my first Thermo post, I talked about turning work (energy doing something macroscopic like moving objects around) into heat, and how heat and work were both forms of energy.
A steam engine is one of a large class of devices called heat engines, that turn heat back into work.
A common misconception is that James Watt “invented” the steam engine. No, he didn’t. Actually the first known thing that was something sort of like a steam engine was put together by Hero of Alexandria (10-70 CE), and it’s either called Hero’s Engine or the Aeolipile (from Greek αιολουπυλη). It looks something like this:
The Aeolipile
A cauldron of boiling water is kept under pressure, steam can only get out by going into an object free to move around a pivot (like a bird on a spit over a fire). The steam can only escape by going through the bent arms; it generates a thrust that causes the doohickey to spin.
So Hero was actually able to get heat to do work–some fifteen or so centuries before we had our scientific concept of “work.”
The next step was to actually put something like this to work. It took a while. In 1698 Thomas Savery invented a pump for water that worked by steam power. Steam was allowed to cool and condense , which created a near vacuum which could be used to suck water upwards against gravity. Then more steam could be used to push that water.
So the first commercial application for steam power was to pump water.
Small copies of this device were reasonably efficient, larger ones were not. And lift height was severely limited (since it was a vacuum pump). And the power wasn’t continuous.
In 1712 Thomas Newcomen came up with a steam engine that could deliver continuous power and it used a cylinder, but was still very inefficient because parts of the engine itself (not just the steam) ended up being heated and cooled, heated and cooled, over and over again…which took time. These things could pump water out of mines…slowly. Still, it was better than paying some grunt to do it.
What Watt did was vastly improve the Newcomen engine. And now it could be used not just to pump water, but to pull trains, and power steamships, and even (very primitive) automobiles. And also to power factory equipment, which up until then had been almost entirely reliant on water power or (worse) animal power.
A good steam engine could supply LOADS of power.
And of course this was something scientists investigated. And what they learned could be used to make steam engines even more efficient, delivering more work for the same amount of fuel, which could be either wood, or coal that was pulled out of some of the mines the steam engine had been invented to pump water out of.
One “model” of an engine that could turn heat into work was the Carnot Engine, basically an idealized model, a thought experiment.
What’s needed is a piston with gas in it, a huge mass at high temperature (called the hot reservoir) that we can attach to the piston, and another huge mass at cold temperature (the cold reservoir) which we can attach to the piston as well. It runs through four phases, then from the fourth phase, it returns to the first phase.
Phase one starts with the piston pushed in all the way. There’s a tiny space inside filled with hot gas, under pressure. The gas is at exactly the same temperature as the hot reservoir.
Now you could let the gas under pressure expand, and push on the piston and use that to do work. But as the gas expands, it will lose pressure and the temperature will drop. Instead, what we want to do is let the gas absorb heat from the hot reservoir, so that it stays at the same temperature as it expands. Ideally the temperature is exactly the same but in practical terms this is unachievable (unless you are willing to take literally forever for it to happen).
Phase 2 is to allow the gas to continue to expand and push the piston, but now you let the gas cool off…until it reaches the temperature of the cold reservoir.
Phase 3 is to compress the gas, and keep it at the same temperature as the cold reservoir. Compressing the gas would normally raise its pressure and temperature, but we let the increased heat bleed into the cold reservoir. Do this infinitely slowly, and the gas in the cylinder stays at the cold reservoir temperature.
Phase 4, finally, is to continue compressing the gas, but let it heat up…all the way up to the temperature of the hot reservoir. We’re now back to having compressed gas at the temperature of the hot reservoir.
So what has happened here? We’ve extracted a net amount of work from the system…more came out letting the gas expand and cool than we had to put into it recompressing the gas. Also, some heat energy has been taken from the hot reservoir and put into the cold reservoir.
In reality, this would result in the hot reservoir cooling off just a tiny bit, and the cool reservoir heating up just a tiny bit, but this ideal model assumes these reservoirs are of infinite size.
So what’s going on here? Heat has moved, and some (notice: some, not all) of that heat got turned into work. The rest simply moved from hot to cold and did no work for us at all. And since heat moves from hot to cold naturally, not the other way, that heat energy we didn’t use is gone for good.
As it turns out this “Carnot Cycle” is the most efficient possible way, even in principle, to turn the heat differential between a hot and cold body into work. And it gets more efficient the greater the difference between the two. (And this is true even for engines that are steam turbines with no piston at all, or where the working fluid changes from a gas to a liquid…they can’t beat the Carnot engine.)
The maximum theoretical efficiency is 1-TC/TH. Note that those temperatures need to be measured against absolute zero (so kelvins and Rankines work). You’ll note that if TC and TH are far apart, that fraction gets smaller, and the efficiency climbs, if you can make that fraction 0, your efficiency is 1 (i.e., 100 percent). As a practical matter, though, we don’t have a cold reservoir at 0 K, so we can’t reach 100 percent efficiency even in principle. And whatever this number is…our current power plants don’t even achieve that.
But this is why power plants (coal, nuclear, natural gas, even geothermal) run so hot; it’s to raise the temperature of the working gas as high as possible. And this is why geothermal usually sucks as a power source. You have to drill way, way, way down to get to rocks hot enough to be worth the effort. Of course in some places, like Iceland the hot stuff is closer to the surface. Yellowstone has, if anything, even more potential than Iceland does for geothermal power.
And of course with nuclear and fossil fuels, we control the temperature difference and you can bet we run them as hot as we can.
Since a Carnot engine is as efficient as you can get, a lot of engine design since the mid 1820s has been to try to get as close to a Carnot engine as possible. (That was, for example, the initial idea behind the Diesel engine; eventually Diesel had to start making design compromises.)
In every power plant we build (other than geothermal) the heat reservoir is not only not infinite in size, but it’s actually rather small. It would cool off rapidly as the engine cycles, and the heat is transferred out. To keep it hot, we have to burn fuel. So we’re basically burning fuel to create heat to maintain the temperature of the hot reservoir so we can then turn the heat into work.
With geothermal, the reservoir is huge, perhaps even yuge, but still finite; using geothermal does suck heat energy out of the earth and dump it somewhere colder. It’s just that there’s so much of it we’ll never notice.
A typical coal fired plant uses the work extracted from burning the coal (and keeping the hot reservoir hot) to turn a generator. And the efficiency is roughly 30 percent. 30 percent of the energy in the coal becomes electricity. In fact the engineers and designers are overjoyed when they get that number.
But that does mean the other 70 percent is wasted as waste heat…and it can’t be any other way.
Waste heat is inevitable, and it can’t be recovered. Not without reversing the process. We can push heat energy from the cold to hot reservoir by supplying work. If it’s a Carnot engine, we can run the process in reverse, put the work we got out back in, and move all the heat back where it came from. For any real engine, it will take more work to move less heat than we lost creating the work in the first place. In other words, a Carnot engine is a reversible process. But no real heat engine is reversible this way. But if you try, you will move some heat from cold, back to hot.
This is the idea behind a heat pump.
In reality, there are always losses, and (again) there’s no such thing as a Carnot engine. So if, say, you ran your (real) heat engine and got 100 joules of work out of it, and 200 joules of heat ended up in the cold reservoir, you’d probably need to put 150 joules into it to move those 200 joules back to the hot reservoir. Where would you get the extra 50 joules from? Maybe from another engine, which has its own losses and its own inefficiencies, and even more energy flows from its hot reservoir to its cold reservoir.
In fact, there’s no way to completely reverse heat flow from hot to cold. Any attempt actually moves even more heat from hot to cold in the process. Which might be worth it, if you want to cool the inside of your refrigerator. You suck some heat energy out…at the cost of more heat energy being permanently lost somewhere else.
But on net, heat flows one way, one way only: From hot to cold. Even a theoretically perfectly reversible process like a Carnot engine just holds the total flow to zero. Never negative.
This is what was originally behind the concept of entropy. It denotes that fact that as processes go forward, temperatures even out, they get more and more evened out as time goes on, never the other way around.
(If you think you know of a case, like the inside of your refrigerator, recognize that that’s at the cost of more heat flow in the other direction somewhere else. This is why you can’t cool your house by opening the refrigerator door and leaving it open–it dumps the heat through the coils in back…more heat than it sucks out of the inside. Your air conditioner, on the other hand, does work…by dumping the heat (again, more than it removed from your living space) outside your house and making the outside warmer than it was before.)
Entropy is, conceptually, a measure of how much heat energy is irretrievably lost, and it increases. (It can even be quantified and measured…but that’s WAY beyond the scope of this post.) Entropy never shows a net decrease.
(Entropy is also second only to quantum mechanics as a source of pop philosophizing with a scientific/geeky bent to it. More on this in future posts, because the concept of entropy would eventually be greatly extended beyond mere “waste heat” type considerations.)
So what happens at some distant day when all of the energy in the universe has become waste heat and is irretrievably lost? Well, it’s game over.
Thinking in the long term, the big picture is the entire universe is running down. It will ultimately be one big thing of uniform temperature…and though there will be a lot of heat energy out there, none of it will be usable, not just for industry, but for life itself.
The concept of entropy, and the accompanying realization that the universe as a whole must run down, was the dawn of the science of thermodynamics. The true “dismal science.” Economics is sometimes called the dismal science, but it doesn’t hold a candle to thermodynamics when it comes to “dismal.”
Obligatory PSAs and Reminders
China is Lower than Whale Shit
Remember Hong Kong!!!
Whoever ends up in the cell next to his, tell him I said “Hi.”
中国是个混蛋 !!! Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!! China is asshoe !!!
China is in the White House
Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.
Joe Biden is Asshoe
China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.
But of course the much more important thing to realize:
Joe Biden Didn’t Win
乔*拜登没赢 !!! Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!! Joe Biden didn’t win !!!
½ fluid ounce triple sec (orange-flavored liqueur)
1 fluid ounce sweet and sour mix
1 fluid ounce cola, or to taste
1 lemon slice
Directions
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Pour vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, and sour mix over ice; cover and shake. Pour cocktail into a Collins or hurricane glass; top with splash of cola for color. Garnish with a lemon slice.
True confession: I had one of these for my first legal drink…and haven’t had one since.
Alright, shall we kick things off with Sundance noticing something that the rest of us have seen for a while?
The word ‘autocracy‘, with all its variants, has been used a lot frequently by western government politicians as they attack the ideology of Russia, China and essentially every national leader who does not join their “rules-based order” club. There is so much linguistic repetition from the same western leadership, it’s impossible not to see this autocracy narrative as some form of talking point that stemmed from some G7 or NATO collaboration meeting.
It does not seem coincidental the new catch phrases of “autocracy” vs “rules-based order” surfaced at the tail end of the COVID crisis, when Build Back Better shifted from a talking point into an actual set of western legislative constructs perhaps intended to codify the emergency powers those same officials deployed.
What kind of democracy, or rules-based order mindset, was the European Commission carrying when they decried the overwhelming national election in Hungary? Surely if the EU wanted to celebrate democracy, they would cheer for the high voter turnout that reelected Prime Minister Viktor Orban, yet they did exactly the opposite. Apparently, some democracies are more valued than others.
At the same time the EU is clutching pearls over the results in Hungary, another western ally, Canada, is codifying the government’s emergency act power to seize property without due process. As we are directed to be distracted by everything Zelenskyy, it might be worth noting that Ontario Bill 100 is about to permanently change the rules of permitted political protest. You can read about Bill 100 here and watch the economic debate here.
Essentially, Bill 100 gives the Canadian government the power to seize your home, finances, bank accounts and assets if you take part in any form of protest that would create economic harm to any loosely defined entity. Protest at the border, lose your house; at least that’s the threat they are about to make into a law.
It seems rather incredulous to me that securing a corporate financial interest would override the concerning possibility of forever losing liberty and freedom for the individual citizen. However, in this new post-COVID ‘rules-based order’, that’s the official justification from the Canadian government. Slippery slope and all that accepted, this Ontario Bill 100 is a few slides beyond the slippery.
Similar actions are taking place in New Zealand and Australia, where codifying the emergency powers of public health officials post-COVID rules, is at the forefront of their legislative and constitutional reform efforts.
Creating new era ‘rules-based democracy’ stuff is filling up the business end of western government attention in Europe, North American and the land down under.
Remember what i posted yesterday about select members of the Cabal all of a sudden testing positive for Covid, even though they have all made it through 2 years without it, in the HEIGHT of the “outbreak”. NOW, cases are at the lowest since the beginning?
I am telling you this is too much of a “coincidence, and as Q said, there are NO coincidences.
Schiff then Pelosi? within 24 hours. SOMETHING is up TOO many of the HIGHER profile Cabal are just suddenly “testing positive” and then out of the spotlight for a bit. With all that is going on with election fraud and Durham this cannot be a mere happenstance.
Word on the Telegram channels is “testing positive” is code for being taken in for questioning. On what? We don’t know what we don’t know.
In the meantime, the normies are starting to wake up on some of the truths we’ve known about the beer bug and the clot shots for quite a while, and good information is finding its way into the big name blog sites like The Blaze.
It’s no longer January 2021, when we all thought we lived in a world of normal vaccines. It’s no longer OK for elected officials to mindlessly repeat the bromide “safe and effective” without any reflection about the mass injury we’ve witnessed, along with the waning and the negative efficacy, in itself, engendering calls for endless boosters. We have so much information that raises serious questions, not the least of which is from Pfizer’s own documents, now ordered released by a federal judge, thanks to Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, and FOIA requests from groups like the Informed Consent Action Network.
Here are just three of the most recent revelations from these documents that expose the government/pharma narrative to be a lie at its core:
1) Pfizer needed massive staff to process adverse event reports…
2) Rate of myocarditis…
So, all of these stories suggesting that young males were more at risk for myocarditis from the virus than from the shots were bogus, and Pfizer knew it. And again, if this is the degree the company is willing to concede, imagine what the true incidence rate is.
Also, what is the degree of subclinical myocarditis? If we know about this many cases shortly after the injection, who’s to say there isn’t another cohort of people with heart damage that has remained subclinical so far but could come to fruition several months later? Remember, with many fewer vaccines administered in 2022, the rate of myocarditis reports to VAERS is averaging 245% higher than last year.
3) Pfizer knew about natural immunity…
Pfizer claims efficacy against severe illness among those who took the shot vs. the placebo group among those without prior infection. Researchers report one case in the trial group and 21 in the placebo group. Then they mix together results of those with and without prior infection, and yet the numbers remain the same at 1 and 21 respectively! That means that among those with prior infection, there were zero cases of serious reinfection in both the trial and placebo groups.
Waking up is happening whether the Davos crowd wants it to or not.
Amazing what news of grooming at the Mouse’s House will manifest.
BREAKING: Protesters gather in front of the Disney HQ in Burbank CA chanting “BOYCOTT DISNEY!” pic.twitter.com/hKVp2ufGBQ
Have you ever decorated a bed with six or more pillows?
Can you tell the difference between cream white and rustic farmhouse white?
Have you run into a curb in the past 24 hours? Be honest, CAROL.
DO YOU BLEED? Like, for an extended period of time at regular intervals?
Does it take you over three hours to decide what you want to eat?
Are you currently a member of at least three pyramid schemes?
Do you find simple movie plots hard to follow?
Do you frequently describe your emotional state as “fine” when you are not in fact fine?
Is your Starbucks drink order anything other than black coffee?
Do you have two X chromosomes?
Tally up your number of “Yes” answers and consult this chart:
0-2: There’s a small chance you’re a dude, bro.
3-5: We’re getting some real feminine vibes here.
6-8: Starting to look kinda likely that you’re probably a woman.
9-11: Definitely a woman.
12: You are the final boss of women. Congrats!
Not revealing my score, but I could tell the Couch Commando the difference between cream white and rustic farmhouse white. My brother being a true guy, just laughed. I also haven’t hit a curb this week, and am not participating in any pyramid schemes to my knowledge.
Rocky III. Eye of the Tiger. Survivor. Take your pick. We went to see that in the theater, and half the swim team was there. That was not organized, but it was fun.
The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog it out. There is also a “rescue” thread there for members of the Tree to rendezvous if the main site goes kablooey. A third site has been added for site outages of longer duration.
This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.
Fellow tree dweller Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
And Auntie DePat’s requests:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
10For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my familiar friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived, then we can overcome him, and take our revenge on him.” 11But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. 12O LORD of hosts, who triest the righteous, who seest the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance upon them, for to thee have I committed my cause. 13Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.
Russel Brand is just so on it with this one, it’s not even funny.
Chow down, folks. For this one, we’re going to need sustenance.
Are you ready?
TheStormHasArrived17Forwarded from We The Media (AwakenedOutlaw & OutlawJW on Gab) After reading a number of similar comments in chat tonight I feel compelled to say something.
Yes, all of this is taking longer than we’d like. Duh! But do you honestly think our Patriots would choose to have this go on a day longer than it needs to? Of course not. To even assert as much is ludicrous.
So, if for some reason you oddly feel it necessary to proclaim publicly that you alone know how best to manage the larger military operation in play – trust me this one – you don’t. And it’s not even close.
The fact is that you, Mr. or Mrs. Combat Karen, don’t know more about how things need proceed than the people currently running point on effort to save humanity. You know, the people who have been at this for years/decades before you were even aware that there was a problem to begin with. Those guys. Let ’em do their damn job.
The solution obviously involves 1) educating us as to the magnitude of the pickle we’re in (so it never happens again), and 2) safely managing the completion of a resounding and historic victory for all of mankind that forever changes the course of humanity. Oh, and did I mention doing so without destroying the world economy and having things deteriorate to the point where door-to-door type conventional war breaks out in the process thereby putting MILLIONS of lives at risk.
So here’s a thought. If you feel the need to play ‘Chicken Little’ and/or make asinine assertions as to the superiority of your vast experience managing some of the largest and most complex military operations in the history of man – don’t.
Think of it this way. Kids complaining from the back of the car doesn’t do a damn thing to get to the destination sooner. But what it does do is makes the rest of the trip more miserable for everyone else in the vehicle having to suffer through it.
Food for thought.
And then from Anonymous Conservative:
Prices at supermarkets in Germany are skyrocketing. I cannot over emphasize how fascinating it is to live through a K-shift, and discover the linkage between shortage, violence/chaos, disease, and economic failure in this one has been entirely artificial, with all of them being engineered/fake. I never saw anything like that coming. I had always assumed they were linked mechanistically, naturally. How many other K-shifts in the past have been like that, with every facet artificially engineered? How long have these elites been ruling the world, and using this exact same playbook? How long have they had this level of control over everything?
Thanks to Phoenix and P-Rex for highlighting this:
Is the entire world helping? From an angle that doesn’t just look at the surface, it certainly could look that way. There is no reason for other countries not to be able to look out for their own interests, and energy is the way Russia is doing that…although, not exactly always on the side of daylight.
Russia, it turns out, has reportedly been promoting, often through “dark money” via Bermuda – which does not require donor countries to be named — “green” campaigns against nuclear power to ensure dependence by the West on imports of Russia’s fossil fuels. According to an article in The Hill:
“In 2014 – the same year Russia annexed Crimea – then-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned that Russia was covertly working to undermine European and U.S. fossil fuel production…
“According to The Guardian, Rasmussen… claimed in a presentation to a think tank in London, ‘I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – environmental organizations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.'”
No matter how much "deep diving" we do to see what's *really* going on, there will always be lots going on, that we can't even BEGIN to understand about all of this.
That's why I stay pretty near the surface. There's more than enough to sort out, right in front of us.
One of the obstacles to full understanding of just what the enemy is all about revolves around the concept of symbolism.
____________________________________
And now for the business portion.
Please review our HOST and site owner’s Guidelines for posting and discussion for this site. Wolf is kind enough to put up with *most* of us and our antics after thorough vetting. Violators of the baiting and deliberately attempting to divide the group rules WILL face consequences.
The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Company manners are appreciated. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog out discussions best saved for a wrestling mat. If, for some reason, this site is not available, head over to the UTree and visit the post at the top of the list or the closest rescue thread.
This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.
THAT MEANS THAT ALL OF US HERE ARE ENTITLED TO OUR OPINIONS AND PREJUDICES, ETC., SO LONG AS THEY CAUSE NO PHYSICAL HARM TO OTHERS OR DOXX OUR FELLOW TREE DWELLERS.
All opinions here are valued for the diversity they bring to the issues, and the shaping of understanding regarding topics for which many of us do not have all information. Correcting the record on any one topic is appreciated.
Be careful in expressing thoughts as we would all like to think well of the rest of the group, and ill-thought out comments have a way of wrecking that for everyone.
Fellow tree dweller Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights
No running with scissors
If you bring snacks, be sure they are made with bacon
Auntie DePat’s requests as we are all supposedly adults and don’t just play them on TV like the body doubles pretending to be the squatter in chief:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
Thank you so much for any and all attention to such details. It is GREATLY appreciated by more than one party here.
4Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his presence continually! 5Remember the wonderful works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered, 6O offspring of Abraham his servant, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones! 7He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. 8He is mindful of his covenant for ever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, 9the covenant which he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac,
What LGT…whatever…has to do with Cinderella, Snow White, and the Little Mermaid is just not clear. I mean, the guy gets the girl by the end of all of those.
pic.twitter.com/F6l12sOYaB
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(@huntersmomma7) April 12, 2022
with the Democrat party trying to shove their woke perversions down everyone's throats 24/7. 
(@judithrose91) 
(@Scott_7791) 
