Fact Checker Lies – Disproving Phony (and Possibly Planted) Evidence to Discredit The Whole

I have made it a minor hobby to study the Soviet methodology of “fact checkers”, who have raised political lying to a fine art. I even now use the word “snopesing” for one such technique, which I discussed long ago on my old personal blog.

Anatomy of a False Snopes Debunking

Today I was happy to discover a textbook Google/Snopes false debunking, yet also with some interesting new elaborations that made it…
https://wolfmoon1776.wordpress.com/2017/02/18/anatomy-of-a-false-snopes-debunking/

That post was actually a fun re-read right now. I encourage you to check it out. Snopes basically took a huge victory for our side, and reframed it as “untrue” by using a misleading strawman.

REALLY. Y’all are so obvious, Snopes. “Nopes, Snopes.”

Basically the “Snopes” technique amounts to “disproof of an adjacent strawman”. In that technique, a FALSE COPY of what is to be disproved, is either found or constructed and then disproved. The disproof is headlined OVER-BROADLY, so as to appear to show that the truth was “debunked”. It leaves the liars’ enemy – truth-tellers – babbling “Bu-bu-bu-but that’s not the actual case – THIS OTHER THING is the real story.” Maybe so, but the truth didn’t get out ahead of the LIARS – nor did it come back FAST and EFFECTIVELY, making the liars “bleed from their eyes like furies”. The technique puts the truth on DEFENSE, even in the case of a WIN, like the example I gave.

Today we look at something similar in principle but different in what is lied about, which involves disproving not a similar strawman scenario, but instead a conveniently accusatory piece of fake evidence, in such a way that it looks like the larger thing which was supported is what is disproved.

In the same way that we condensed the Snopes example to “disproof of an adjacent strawman”, we can call this one “disproof of false shilled evidence”.

One could likewise call today’s technique “disproof of Judas facts”.

Getting the “Judas facts” picked up by a MARK for the other side is KEY. I’ve watched this in action before, so I know what to look for.

Here is today’s example.

LINK: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/aug/08/viral-image/photo-claiming-massive-crowd-trumps-aug-5-wisconsi/

ARCHIVE: https://archive.ph/Y3l8s

This technique is actually a GREAT WAY of not just taking something down, but of negating something on its strongest point.

Allow me to explain how this works, from the Donkey Com perspective.

you are confronted with a Trump rally which was arranged fairly quickly, and was extremely well-attended. People are noticing. How do you get the Dem base not to notice that their peers are turning out for Trump, and to make sure they sneer at the NEXT Trump rally? How do you keep MAGA voters thinking THEY are a minority? How do you actually turn the facts around?
using different mechanisms and compartmentalization, you do the following
you have somebody tweet an even larger photo of a DIFFERENT rally, and have them claim it’s this rally. This is most likely a “fake MAGA” shill on Twitter. The best technique is to feed the fake photo to somebody like – OH – maybe a conservative commentator who is known to “borrow” and re-post photos without checking too closely. (This is a bit like “entrapment”, which we know the left never does.)
you request, call out, or perform a “fact check” on the photo, perhaps using a reliable “blue-check” on Twitter, or you feed it to your own “fact checkers” on Facebook
you “debunk the photo” in a misleading way, that makes it look like the Trump rally was actually small – not that one photo of it was too large and from a different rally
you make sure that the “mark” is sufficiently embarrassed and chooses to “go silent”, rather than to admit to the con job (which would enable crowdsource forensics) – then you go forward with the “fact check”

See how that works? It’s like a “debunking gun”.

Go back to the title above. What does it say?

Photo shows a “massive” crowd at a Trump rally in Wisconsin on Aug. 5, 2022.

What is next to the title?

So what EXACTLY is “false” here?

Now, the important MISTAKE that you are SUPPOSED to make here, when you don’t click the link, is to think that the Wisconsin Trump rally was not well-attended, and that “MAGA” had to resort to “fake pictures” to pretend that it was well-attended.

You’re supposed to put THAT fear-based or schadenfreude-gifting story into your brain, and just move on – don’t click on it. It’s PSYCHOLOGY.

The TRUTH is simply that the picture is of a DIFFERENT Trump rally, in Pensacola, Florida.

Here is the complete crux of the issue, which is admitted deep in the core of the “fact check”.

“But recent social media posts used an outdated photo to tout the size of the crowd.”

That’s it. It’s ALMOST the same “nothingburger” of BAD JOURNALISM that the left does all the time, and forgives itself for, routinely.

But don’t think I’m defending bad journalism – as you will see.

Thankfully, we can still see the DELETED TWEET where conservative talk show host Benny Johnson EXCITEDLY shared the image on Twitter.

BAD MOVE, BENNY. But good that somebody saved it.

LINK: https://www.truthorfiction.com/benny-johnsons-trumps-enthusiasm-is-bigger-than-in-2016-deleted-tweet/

ARCHIVE: https://archive.ph/ldRqq

This analysis is from “Truth or Fiction” – a MUCH better “fact checker” site. As you can see, they are “showing their work”, so we can do some forensics.

Ask yourself – do you really think this Benny Johnson would tweet an easily confirmed “wrong picture” of the event if he KNEW it was a bogus picture? No. He’s not that stupid. But he WAS as stupid as I have been, sometimes, and forwarded a picture from a “surely reliable source” that turned out not to have been reliable.

If you remember TEN-GOP, then you know how easily people can be fooled on sources.

In my opinion, after looking over Benny Johnson’s Twitter, and reading this tweet, I think he really believed he was forwarding a picture of the rally. THEN, he was embarrassed by his own lazy image “borrowing”, and lack of fact-checking. In my opinion, it is likely that he was the victim of a rather smart discreditation operation, and is NOT simply a bald-faced and stupid liar. Loath to admit that he grabbed somebody’s photo off the internet and assumed it was real without checking or doing BASIC JOURNALISM, he just deleted the tweet and moved on, cutting his losses.

Could have even been an intern, for all we know. If so, TRAINING is needed (ask Wray!!!).

SO – bad journalist or both a bald-faced liar and stupid as hell? I’m going with bad journalist. At least for now. This seems confirmed by the opinion that Benny Johnson rarely deletes stuff that offends leftist sensibilities.

The only surprising thing here is he actually deleted this after getting called out for posting an obviously fake pic. pic.twitter.com/M05PwLYStJ
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 6, 2022

Normally, things would end there. Dude made a mistake. But that’s not what the left wants.

They want an ISSUE that they can exploit for MILLIONS of impressions.

So what they do is take the error and REFRAME IT exactly as you see.

They likewise use this for clickbait elsewhere, as a “FEATURED FACT-CHECK”, on OTHER “fact checks”. That is, in fact (cough), how I found this one – while looking at a NASA conspiracy theory debunking (which STILL does not work for me, but that’s A DIFFERENT STORY with far more troubling implications).

FALSE. That’s it. FALSE.

But let’s call the left on this a little bit.

Why didn’t the “fact checkers” call this MOSTLY TRUE? Why didn’t they call it “PARTIALLY TRUE”? Why did they not, at the least, call it “SOMEWHAT TRUE”?

They would CERTAINLY do that for a Biden rally or an Obama rally – AM I RIGHT?

A picture from a DIFFERENT Biden rally with 24 people instead of 12? Would that not get a pass? Maybe 120 instead of 12?

Let me speak for them. They would have been more honest.

“So while the photo is NOT a photo of the Biden rally in question, it is in fact a photo of a different Biden rally, taken during the 2020 election campaign.”

MOSTLY TRUE.

Here is how “PolitiFact” takes their carefully misleading question and goes from there to calling a well-attended Trump rally “false”, while pretending to just be honing in on an evidence problem.

PolitiFact conducted a reverse image search of the photo and found Trump’s son, Eric Trump, shared it on Twitter in November 2020. At the time, he used the image of a large, apparently pro-Trump crowd to push the false claim that the presidential election was rigged.
Molly Beck, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, quote-tweeted Johnson’s now-deleted tweet and said the photo in question was not from the Aug. 5 rally. She also pointed to Eric Trump’s tweet as the source of the photo.
The scene depicted in this older photo does not match photos shared by reporters who were on site at the Aug. 5 Wisconsin rally. Media photos show a smaller crowd and a different event layout.
In the older photo, two large screens that read, “The best is yet to come!” can be seen. This was a slogan often used by Donald Trump during his 2020 campaign.
Meanwhile, media photos from the recent rally show two screens displaying the event’s speakers, including Trump, as well as a large, blue sign that said, “Save America!”
Additionally, photos from reporters show there were three bleachers of roughly the same size behind the stage at the event. But in the 2020 campaign photo, there is one large set of bleachers in the center and two smaller sets to the left and right.
Our ruling
Social media posts shared a photo from Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign and claimed it was of an Aug. 5, 2022, rally in Wisconsin.
The photo in question does not show the Aug. 5 rally and can be traced back to a November 2020 tweet from Eric Trump. It also conflicts with several photos taken by reporters on site at the Aug. 5 Wisconsin rally.
We rate this claim False.

Whatever.

Conclusion

Now you know why it is IMPERATIVE to confirm materials from our sources. The left will ABUSE any error on our part.

AND – if it turns out that the source is suddenly dubious, you really need to DIG INTO the error, rather than running away.

BURN THE SOURCE TO GET TO THE TRUTH.

For me, the classic example of digging into a bogus meme and finding shocking truth was the ZIM shipping meme that Valerie brought here. I will not lie – Val brings an enormous amount of disinformation and CRAP here – but it was all worth it, to reset my thinking on how many of the elite skated on 9/11. She found some of the best circumstantial evidence, outside of convenient stock moves in the days preceding 9/11, that many top people knew the operation was coming. Whether these people were conspirators or just high-level would-be victims who got tipped, people knew the op was coming and did a GTFO.

Technically, the meme (which I cannot find now – it’s on Gab) was wrong on the length of ZIM’s lease at WTC, using waffly language to make 30 years of separate leases ending in a 10 year lease, into what was easily misconstrued as a 30-year lease. Likewise, it personified ZIM as the Rothschild family, who may or may not have been the controlling financial interest in the Israeli firm at the time. WHATEVER. Other than that, the meme was shockingly accurate in throwing 4 Suspicious Cats at ZIM’s ridiculously convenient and hasty move – despite a world of fact-checkers and “crusaders against antisemitism” waving their hands and saying “don’t look here”.

HA. The CHUTZPAH. It BURNS.

Closer to the current example, I watched a Breitbart journalist get set up with bogus information on Loretta Lynch – basically identifying the WRONG Loretta Lynch (a Clinton associate) as being Obama’s corrupt nomination to replace Eric Holder. This resulted in a defamatory article and a STEALTH RETRACTION BY BREITBART (“what article?”) – which was then (apparently) used to silence Breitbart completely on one of the most corrupt nominations in this nation’s history, since Loretta Lynch was a SORORITY SISTER of Eric Holder’s wife. Not a WORD followed on the REAL SCANDAL, after Breitbart was misled by SOMEBODY into publishing an ERROR.

Face the facts. CORRUPTION IS RAMPANT.

And they will say and do almost ANYTHING to cover it up.

We have ALWAYS got to be prepared for DISCREDITATION – but in my opinion, if you PUSH BACK on the discreditation and ADMIT YOUR ERROR – whatever it was – you automatically level up as a TRUTH WARRIOR. You will OFTEN find that the other side did something to entrap you.

Why?

Because WE value the truth and THEY do not.

PUT ON YOUR BELT, to hold up the PANTS OF CREDIBILITY.

Stick with the truth. No matter how unexpected, embarrassing, or unbelievable. At the same time, be BOLD in pointing out likely malfeasance, and MAKE THEM ANSWER OR RUN AWAY.

W

RALLY THREAD: Save America – Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, PA, Saturday, September 3, 2022

https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1565852982599729152

A very smart little girl, “Biden is messing up the economy” pic.twitter.com/3x8YvomWmx
— Sebastian Gorka DrG (@SebGorka) September 3, 2022

WOW – can't wait. https://t.co/oztoILmLKW
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) September 3, 2022

pic.twitter.com/WY0tTJKCKT
— Robert Davi (@RobertJohnDavi) September 3, 2022

https://twitter.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1565856245692698624

About Scranton:

History

Pre-industrial (1776–1845)

Present-day Scranton and its surrounding area had been long inhabited by the native Lenape tribe, from whose language “Lackawanna” (or lac-a-wa-na, meaning “stream that forks”) is derived. In 1778, Isaac Tripp, the area’s first known white settler, built his home here; it still stands in North Scranton, formerly a separate town known as Providence. More settlers from Connecticut came to the area in the late 18th and early 19th centuries after the American Revolutionary War, as their state claimed this area as part of their colonial charter.

They gradually established mills and other small businesses in a village that became known as Slocum Hollow. People in the village during this time carried the traits and accent of their New England settlers, which were somewhat different from most of Pennsylvania. Some area settlers from Connecticut participated in what was known as the Pennamite Wars, where settlers competed for control of the territory which had been included in royal colonial land grants to both states. (This claim between Connecticut and Pennsylvania was settled by negotiation with the federal government after independence.)

Though anthracite coal was being mined in Carbondale to the north and Wilkes-Barre to the south, the industries that precipitated the city’s early rapid growth were iron and steel. In the 1840s, brothers Selden T. and George W. Scranton, who had worked at Oxford Furnace in Oxford, New Jersey, founded what became Lackawanna Iron & Coal, later developing as the Lackawanna Steel Company. It initially started producing iron nails, but that venture failed due to low-quality iron. The Erie Railroad‘s construction in New York State was delayed by its having to acquire iron rails as imports from England. The Scrantons’ firm decided to switch its focus to producing T-rails for the Erie; the company soon became a major producer of rails for the rapidly expanding railroads.
In 1851, the Scrantons built the Lackawanna and Western Railroad (L&W) northward, with recent Irish immigrants supplying most of the labor, to meet the Erie Railroad in Great Bend, Pennsylvania. Thus they could transport manufactured rails from the Lackawanna Valley to New York and the Midwest. They also invested in coal mining operations in the city to fuel their steel operations, and to market it to businesses. In 1856, they expanded the railroad eastward as the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (DL&W), in order to tap into the New York City metropolitan market. This railroad, with its hub in Scranton, was Scranton’s largest employer for almost one hundred years.
The Pennsylvania Coal Company built a gravity railroad in the 1850s through the city for the purpose of transporting coal. The gravity railroad was replaced by a steam railroad built in 1886 by the Erie and Wyoming Valley Railroad (later absorbed by the Erie Railroad). The Delaware and Hudson (D&H) Canal Company, which had its own gravity railroad from Carbondale to Honesdale, built a steam railroad that entered Scranton in 1863.

There’s a lot more on Wiki.

About Wilkes-Barre:

By the 18th century, the Wyoming Valley was inhabited by the Shawnee and Delaware Indian (Lenape) tribes. In 1753, the Susquehanna Company was founded in Connecticut for settling the Wyoming Valley (in modern-day Pennsylvania). Connecticut succeeded in purchasing the land from the Native Americans; however, Pennsylvania already claimed the very same territory through a purchase they made in 1736. In 1762, roughly two hundred Connecticut settlers (Yankees) established a settlement near Mill Creek. They planted wheat and constructed log cabins. The Yankees returned to New England for the winter.^[6]
The Connecticut settlers returned in the spring of 1763 with their families and additional supplies. A party of Iroquois also visited the area with the dual purpose of turning the Delaware (Lenape) against the colonists and killing Teedyuscung, a local Delaware chief. On April 19, 1763, the residence of the chief, along with several others, was set ablaze. Chief Teedyuscung perished in the inferno. The Iroquois let the Delaware believe that this atrocity was committed by the settlers. As a result, the Delaware attacked the colonists on October 15, 1763. Thirty settlers were killed, and several others were taken prisoner. Those who managed to escape fled back to New England. The Delaware then burned what was left of the Yankee settlement.^[6]
In 1769, the Yankees returned to the Wyoming Valley. Five townships were established by Connecticut. Each one was five square miles and divided amongst forty settlers. Wilkes-Barre Township was one of the original townships; it was named in honor of John Wilkes and Isaac Barré—two British members of Parliament who supported colonial America. Pennsylvanians (Pennamites) also arrived in the valley that same year.^[6]
The Connecticut settlers established Fort Durkee, which was named in honor of their leader (Colonel Durkee). This was immediately followed by a series of skirmishes between the Pennsylvanians and Connecticut settlers. The land changed hands several times between the two groups. The Congress of the Confederation was asked to resolve the matter. With the Decree of Trenton, on December 30, 1782, the confederation government officially decided that the region belonged to Pennsylvania; the Wyoming Valley became part of Northumberland County.^[6]
Pennsylvania ruled that the Connecticut settlers (Yankees) were not citizens of the Commonwealth. Therefore, they could not vote and were ordered to give up their property claims. In May 1784, armed men from Pennsylvania force-marched the Connecticut settlers away from the valley. By November, the Yankees returned with a greater force. They captured and destroyed Fort Dickinson in Wilkes-Barre. With that victory, a new state (which was separate from both Connecticut and Pennsylvania) was proposed. The new state was to be named Westmoreland. To ensure that they didn’t lose the land, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania worked out a compromise with the Connecticut (Yankee) settlers. The Yankee settlers would become citizens of Pennsylvania and their property claims would be restored (prior to the Decree of Trenton). As part of the compromise, Pennsylvania would establish a new county in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The Yankees agreed to the terms.^[6]
On September 25, 1786, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a resolution which created Luzerne County. It was formed from a section of Northumberland County and named after Chevalier de la Luzerne, a French soldier and diplomat during the 18th century. Wilkes-Barre became the seat of government for the new territory. This resolution ended the idea of creating a new state.^[6][7][8]
In 1797, several decades after the community’s founding, Louis Philippe, later the King of France from 1830 to 1840, stayed in Wilkes-Barre while traveling to the French Asylum settlement.^[9]

Wilkes-Barre’s population skyrocketed due to the discovery of anthracite coal in the 19th century. In 1808, Judge Jesse Fell of Wilkes-Barre discovered a solution to ignite anthracite with the usage of an iron grate; it allowed for the coal to light and burn easier. This invention increased the popularity of anthracite as a fuel source. This led to the expansion of the coal industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania; Wilkes-Barre was nicknamed “The Diamond City” due to its high productivity of mining coal. The growing demand for coal as a domestic heat source resulted in changes to patterns of immigration to Wilkes-Barre in the 19th century. The Pennsylvania guide, compiled by the Writers’ Program of the Works Progress Administration in 1940, noted that:^[10]

More at wiki.

Venue:

Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza

255 Highland Park Blvd.

Wilkes-Barre, PA 18702

Special Guest Speakers:

State Senator Doug Mastriano, Republican Nominee for Governor of Pennsylvania

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Republican Nominee for U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania

Mr. Jim Bognet, Republican Nominee for U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District

Timeline of Events:

8:00AM – Parking and Line Opens

2:00PM – Doors Open and Entertainment Begins

4:00PM – Special Guest Speakers Deliver Remarks

7:00PM – 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump Delivers Remarks

https://twitter.com/VassilionLinda/status/1562833808923037696

About Save America

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.

2022·09·03 Joe Biden Didn’t Win Daily Thread

The Real Fascist is His Fraudulency Joe Biden*

*Or whoever has his hand rammed up that meat puppet’s ass.

Brandon (which I will use as a term for whoever is the power behind the Porcelain Throne) has thrown down the gauntlet…but in a way where most of America will never see it. The networks didn’t carry his tirade. CNN air brushed it (or whatever you call editing the red background) for its five viewers (who aren’t trapped in airports).

Luckily for me I live in Colorado, and therefore, despite my best efforts, I probably didn’t vote for Donald Trump.

Of course, for this purpose who I actually did try to vote for will be essential, and they undoubtedly know.

Come and get us, asswipes!

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.

Small Government?

Many times conservatives (real and fake) speak of “small government” being the goal.

This sounds good, and mostly is good, but it misses the essential point. The important thing here isn’t the size, but rather the purpose, of government. We could have a cheap, small tyranny. After all our government spends most of its revenue on payments to individuals and foreign aid, neither of which is part of the tyrannical apparatus trying to keep us locked down and censored. What parts of the government would be necessary for a tyranny? It’d be a lot smaller than what we have now. We could shrink the government and nevertheless find it more tyrannical than it is today.

No, what we want is a limited government, limited not in size, but rather in scope. Limited, that is, in what it’s allowed to do. Under current circumstances, such a government would also be much smaller, but that’s a side effect. If we were in a World War II sort of war, an existential fight against nasty dictatorships on the brink of world conquest, that would be very expensive and would require a gargantuan government, but that would be what the government should be doing. That would be a large, but still limited government, since it’d be working to protect our rights.

World War II would have been the wrong time to squawk about “small government,” but it wasn’t (and never is) a bad time to demand limited government. Today would be a better time to ask for a small government–at least the job it should be doing is small today–but it misses the essential point; we want government to not do certain things. Many of those things we don’t want it doing are expensive but many of them are quite eminently doable by a smaller government than the one we have today. Small, but still exceeding proper limits.

So be careful what you ask for. You might get it and find you asked for the wrong thing.

Political Science In Summation

It’s really just a matter of people who can’t be happy unless they control others…versus those who want to be left alone. The oldest conflict within mankind. Government is necessary, but government attracts the assholes (a highly technical term for the control freaks).

A Few Things We Cannot Blame on His Fraudulency

I am pretty sure Joe Biden had nothing whatsoever to do with the 30 Years War that ran from 1618-1648 and probably killed about a third of the people then living in what is now Germany.

Nor did he cause the collapse of either Roman empire (Western, 476 CE, Eastern 1453 CE). Nor the ignominious failure of most of the Crusades. Nor the collapse of Bronze Age civilization around 1200 BCE (including the collapse of the Minoans and the blowup of Santorini).

However, my utter lack of ability to imagine how he could possibly be responsible for these things is not a valid argument against them, so I await correction if appropriate.

James Webb Space Telescope Photographs A Planet

Five weeks ago I showed you JWST photographs of Jupiter. The pictures weren’t eye candy by any means, but they serve to show what a difference working in infrared light makes, as opposed to the visual-light spectaculars we’ve gotten from the Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, and Juno probes (to say nothing of New Horizons and Cassini as they swiped a little mechanical energy from Jupiter on the way to their destinations).

Now JWST has photographed another planet.

Big deal?

Yes. Because this planet is 400 light years from Earth. Which is to say, 4 quadrillion kilometers away. (Quadrillion? It comes after trillion, 15 zeros instead of 12. Metric prefix “peta” as opposed to “tera.” Better get used to that word, our national debt might very well hit a petabuck before you know it…)

By contrast Jupiter is about a billion kilometers from Earth, so basically this planet JWST just photographed is four million times further away.

From earth based telescopes, we have managed to photograph about 20 exoplanets, usually very special cases. I know Palomar, the 200 inch engineering marvel from the 1930s-1950s, came up with a clever trick to be able to photograph some exoplanets (basically, a coronagraph which leaves diffraction rings, but by varying the frequency of light detected, the rings will shift position…whatever doesn’t move is a planet).

It was hoped JWST would be able to directly image a lot more exoplanets than that. Well, it’s certainly going to be able to manage that.

Here are the pictures:

To take these pictures, JWST had to cover the star (which would otherwise be a billion times brighter than the planet) with a “coronagraph” (so named because we use them on our sun to be able to see the corona, or outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere–which normally is only visible during total eclipses). Also, this planet is newly formed and rather hot.

Even so, JWST is expected to be able to take pictures of planets smaller than Jupiter; cold planets the size of Saturn.

I’ve mentioned before that JWST was performing better than they expected. The article I pulled this from put a number to it.

JWST is doing ten times better than expected. TEN TIMES.

Just think about that.

Artemis

The launch of Artemis I that was planned for Monday got scrubbed. Last I heard the plan was to launch it today, September 3, sometime between 12:15 and 14:15 Mountain Time. There are two more windows after this one, before they have to take the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to await more launch windows in October.

The Artemis program is intended to get us back to the Moon in a big way, at the very least. There’s talk of using the hardware to go to Mars, too, eventually.

There are five to eight launches planned, at least to start with.

Artemis I is the upcoming unmanned launch, the SLS (rocket) putting the Orion space capsule (which looks like a much larger Apollo capsule, with solar panels attached) into a lunar trajectory. It’s going to go to the moon, orbit for a while in a polar orbit (a polar orbit would give astronauts wanting to land access to any place on the moon, including the poles which we know have water ice), and return. There are test dummies on board. (Note: These are not to be confused with the jokers that test software.) We didn’t do this during the Apollo years because the computers on board could not control the spacecraft that well.

The Space Launch system…five rockets largely based on shuttle technology.

Artemis II (2024) will have four astronauts on board, and they will run a lot of tests in earth orbit. It will then be sent on a free trajectory to the moon, but will not land, very similar to Apollo 8.

Artemis III (2025) will have four astronauts on board, and transfer two astronauts to a pre-positioned lunar lander (the Human Landing System or HLS) in orbit about the moon, the lander will then, of course, land. There will be brief EVAs. This crew will have…one person of color and one woman. (Yes, affirmative action quotas have made it to space. On the plus side, I am sure with only two slots to fill and lots of volunteers, the people will have earned their spots and won’t be “affirmative action hires” with all the crap that entails.)

Note from the picture that the HLS is gigantic. Astronauts are being lowered down the side in this artist’s impression.

Artemis IV (2027) will deliver a crew to the “Lunar Gateway” space station. Parts of it will have been pre-positioned by other unmanned launches (“support missions”), with a remaining piece brought by this mission…which will use a bigger rocket, the SLS 1B. Lunar Gateway is supposed to orbit the moon and serve…well, as a gateway and a place to transfer to landers. It doesn’t look like Artemis IV will involve a moon landing.

Artemis V and beyond will land astronauts on the moon…and this time, there will be pre-positioned infrastructure put on the moon by support missions. So they’ll be able to exploit pre-positioned rovers, habitats, scientific equipment, and stuff to mine the moon with. In other words, the makings of a moon base!

The support missions will generally be handled by private companies like SpaceX.

This program is open ended. As more support missions are performed, more Artemis launches can exploit them. There’s no definite last mission in mind; they’ll keep going until we get bored (which is essentially what axed Apollo 18-20).

A word about SLS (the rocket that carries people). It’s capable of putting 95 metric tons (also called “tonnes”) in orbit (a metric ton is 1000 kg or about 2200 lbs), or sending 27 tonnes to the moon and back. The 1B that will be used for Artemis IV and onwards can lift 105 tonnes to orbit or send 42 tonnes to the moon and back. Block 2 (which is expected to be available after 2029) will be able to lift 130 tonnes to earth orbit. Beasts, all.

Now if we can just keep Joe Biden from fucking with this…

Here’s hoping Artemis I launches today and the mission goes well.

Now for the controversy.

The lunar gateway station has attracted negative attention from many “space guys” and I am inclined to agree with them. (I have some formal education in this area but zero experience…so their opinion is worth 1000 times as much as mine. I know just enough to know people like Robert Zubrin are worth listening to.) It’s pointless.

Anyone permanently stationed on the Lunar Gateway has no protection against cosmic rays and solar flares. The ISS orbits below the Van Allen belts and inside our magnetosphere, so it’s much less hazardous. This thing…will be a tin can with no shielding. (The moon base can burrow, or minimize the solar hazard by being at the south pole inside a crater.) It’s touted as a way to transfer to the HLS (lander), but there’s no reason that couldn’t be done directly; landers can simply be parked in orbit without being docked to the station.

I mentioned Robert Zubrin before; this is what Wikipoo says about his reaction to the Gateway.

Mars advocacy and Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin called the Gateway “NASA’s worst plan yet” in an article in the National Review. He said, “We do not need a lunar-orbiting station to go to the Moon. We do not need such a station to go to Mars. We do not need it to go to near-Earth asteroids. We do not need it to go anywhere. Nor can we accomplish anything in such a station that we cannot do in the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, except to expose human subjects to irradiation – a form of medical research for which a number of Nazi doctors were hanged“. Zubrin also stated, “If the goal is to build a Moon base, it should be built on the surface of the Moon. That is where the science is, that is where the shielding material is, and that is where the resources to make propellant and other useful things are to be found”.^[90]

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.

(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)

(Paper) Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,740.10
Silver $19.01
Platinum $871.00 [on sale]
Palladium $2,194.00
Rhodium $14,600.00

This week, 3PM Mountain Time, markets have closed for the weekend.

Gold $1,713.50
Silver $18.15
Platinum $846.00
Palladium $2,097.00
Rhodium $14,600.00

Everything is down for the week, everything went up Friday (except rhodium), so losses were being partially recovered. Gold went up 14.30 today…which means it was below 1700 Thursday at close.

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 !!!