EDIT: 22:54 MT. Well let’s just say the top item didn’t age well…except perhaps for the deserved insults to Speaker Dungsmear.
I can only hope McCarthy keeps his promises.
Giving Our “Love” To the RINOs and the Dipshits Going After O’Keefe
RINOs an Endangered Species?
If Only!
(Well this is the perfect time for this to come up in the rotation!)
According to Wikipoo, et. al., the Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) is a critically endangered species. Apparently two females live on a wildlife preserve in Sudan, and no males are known to be alive. So basically, this species is dead as soon as the females die of old age. Presently they are watched over by armed guards 24/7.
Biologists have been trying to cross them with the other subspecies, Southern White Rhinoceroses (Rhinoceri?) without success; and some genetic analyses suggest that perhaps they aren’t two subspecies at all, but two distinct species, which would make the whole project a lot more difficult.
I should hope if the American RINO (Parasitus rectum pseudoconservativum) is ever this endangered, there will be heroic efforts not to save the species, but rather to push the remainder off a cliff. Onto punji sticks. With feces smeared on them. Failing that a good bath in red fuming nitric acid will do.
But I’m not done ranting about RINOs.
The RINOs (if they are capable of any introspection whatsoever) probably wonder why they constantly have to deal with “populist” eruptions like the Trump-led MAGA movement. That would be because the so-called populists stand for absolutely nothing except for going along to get along. That allows the Left to drive the culture and politics.
Given the results of our most recent elections, the Left will now push harder, and the RINOs will now turn even squishier than they were before.
I well remember 1989-1990 in my state when the RINO establishment started preaching the message that a conservative simply couldn’t win in Colorado. Never mind the fact that Reagan had won the state TWICE (in 1984 bringing in a veto-proof state house and senate with him) and GHWB had won after (falsely!) assuring everyone that a vote for him was a vote for Reagan’s third term.
This is how the RINOs function. They push, push, push the line that only a “moderate” can get elected. Stomp them when they pull that shit. Tell everyone in ear shot that that’s exactly what the Left wants you to think, and oh-by-the-way-Mister-RINO if you’re in this party selling the same message as the Left…well, whythefuckexactly are you in this party, you lying piece of rancid weasel shit?
In Defense of Ranked Choice Voting
One of the biggest obstacles to direly-needed change is RINOs, and one of the weapons in their arsenal is the “Wasted Vote” argument.
Periodically a third party has arisen, trying to hold RINOs to account by putting pressure on them from outside of the party, since doing so from the inside has historically done very little good. But, even if you find a third party candidate who perfectly reflects your views, you’re likely to vote for the RINO anyway. Why? Because if you don’t, the Democrat might win, and that would be even worse. So if you vote for that third party (that few will vote for), you’re throwing your vote away and increasing the likelihood of the Democrat winning. (It’s half as much a gain for the Democrat, as actually voting for the Democrat would be. Not as much, but half as much. Because although you denied the R your vote, you did not flip your vote to the Democrat.)
The Republican Party Establishment knows you don’t love them. But they know you hate the Democrats worse, and they use that to continue to herd you into supporting them. With gritted teeth you cast your vote, but your vote counts the same whether you cast it enthusiastically. And the other alternative, pissing on the voting apparatus to express your actual feelings, is probably a felony.
But what if you could vote for that third party without increasing the chances of the Dem walking away with the prize?
This is what ranked choice voting, or instant runoff voting, can do provided it is properly implemented. (And this includes the votes, and only genuine votes, being counted honestly, of course. However, I’m going to compare it to what we have today, and pretend that is honestly done too. RCV can’t work if it’s not honestly administered, just like our current system isn’t working because it isn’t honestly administered.)
The idea behind RCV is to vote by expressing your order of preference. You could vote for the Patriot Party, then for the RINO Party as your second choice (and ignore the Democrat, the Green, the Overt Socialist Schmuckmonkey Party, etc).
What does this do? It nullifies the wasted vote argument. Your vote will be counted for the Patriot party, first, then instead of it being “wasted” when the Patriot Party loses, it ends up going to the RINO. Actually, it’s just barely possible that the Patriot Party would actually beat the RINO, if people weren’t all individually afraid to vote for it.
It’s just like the famous “Prisoner’s Dilemma” where your fear of other peoples’ actions prevents you from doing the optimal thing–and vice-versa. As long as Job Lowe is afraid to vote Patriot because he’s afraid you’ll vote RINO, you’ll have to vote RINO because you fear that Job Lowe will, because he fears you will.
So on the whole I like RCV. It gives you a no-risk way to vote against the RINO scum, and in favor of someone who deserves your vote.
The problem is, as done here in the US, it comes packaged with a “jungle primary.” A bunch of candidates get to put their name out there, and the top four (or so) candidates get onto the “main” ballot. This gives party establishments their way around the threat of a good third party bumping them off. Because they know that few people bother with primaries, and third parties don’t have the resources to run in a primary…so they throw two or three establishment hacks into the primary and they will probably beat the third party. The result is the RINOs end up with two of the four slots in the general election, and the Dems get the other two. Now there’s suddenly no third party candidate on the ballot at all.
If we were to combine RCV with the present system where each party could nominate exactly one candidate to appear on the November ballot, or at the very least, ensure minor parties could get onto the ballot with at least one candidate regardless of the primary, we would be getting somewhere, but the establishment is smarter than we like to give them credit for. They will support the jungle primary + RCV “solution” rather than the more appropriate one-candidate-per-party + RCV solution.
It’s not RCV that is the problem, it’s the primary structure grafted onto it.
Justice
It says “Justice” on the picture.
And I’m sure someone will post the standard joke about what the fish thinks about the situation.
But what is it?
Here’s a take, from a different context: It’s about how you do justice, not the justice that must be done to our massively corrupt government and media. You must properly identify the nature of a person, before you can do him justice.
Ayn Rand, On Justice (speaking through her character John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged):
Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification—that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero—that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions—that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement—that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit—and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.
Ayn Rand identified seven virtues, chief among them rationality. The other six, including justice, she considered subsidiary because they are essentially different aspects and applications of rationality.
—Ayn Rand Lexicon (aynrandlexicon.com)
Justice Must Be Done.
Trump, it is supposed, had some documents.
Biden and company stole the country.
I’m sure enough of this that I put my money where my mouth is.
The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system. (This doesn’t necessarily include deposing Joe and Hoe and putting Trump where he belongs, but it would certainly be a lot easier to fix our broken electoral system with the right people in charge.)
Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is pointless 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 in the system is not part of the plan, you have no plan.
This will necessarily be piecemeal, state by state, which is why I am encouraged by those states working to change their laws to alleviate the fraud both via computer and via bogus voters. If enough states do that we might end up with a working majority in Congress and that would be something Trump never really had.
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.)
Spot Prices
Last week:
Gold $1,865.30
Silver $22.41
Platinum $983.00
Palladium $1,703.00
Rhodium $12,500.00
This week, 3 PM MT on Friday, markets closed for the weekend
Gold $1,866.50
Silver $22.08
Platinum $956.00
Palladium $1,614.00
Rhodium $12,950.00
Little significant change…the biggest being palladium which is dropping. Since that gets used in catalytic converters this might be a sign car manufacturing is declining.
Escape
Thus far I’ve been monologuing almost entirely about the typical two body problem, a small satellite orbiting a massive primary, and below escape velocity. The orbits end up being ellipses (or possibly a perfect circle, if the satellite is traveling at the circular velocity, in a “horizontal” direction, at exactly the right distance from the primary.
Ellipses have eccentricities of 0 through 0.9999… (keep writing 9s forever), with zero being a circular orbit (considered a special case of the ellipse). That ellipse with an eccentricity of just below 1 is extremely narrow compared to its length.
I brought up the concept of escape velocity last time, too. That represents a spacecraft traveling in an orbit with an eccentricity of exactly 1.
Such an orbit is a parabola. And I’d better step back and talk just a little bit about conic sections.
Conic sections are the shapes you get when you slice a cone. And here is the paradigmatic diagram:
Slicing perpendicular to the centerline of the cone, you get a circle…you see the one in red, and because they cut the cone off at the bottom of the diagram (technically, it should extend to infinity), there’s another (unlabeled) circle there too.
Slicing at a shallow angle gives you some sort of an ellipse.
But notice the blue (purple) shape. You get that from slicing the cone at exactly the angle of the cone itself. The center line of that purple shape is parallel to the side of the cone to the left.
That is a parabola, and you can also get a parabola by graphing something like y=x2. You can multiply the x2 by some number, the y by some number, or add a constant to either side. You can even add x (or some multiple) to either side. It makes no difference, you get a parabola. Multiplying will change the size of the parabola, but it will not change the shape. (It’s always possible to rotate and zoom in/out on a parabola and make it identical to another parabola.)
If you cut at an even steeper angle, you get a hyperbola, just like shown in the diagram.
Ahem. No, that’s not quite true. I said the cone is supposed to extend to infinity earlier, and that’s true in both directions.
Here’s the correct diagram:
Notice the cone is now what we’d think of as a double cone (but technically, that’s what a cone is). Number 3 is the parabola. Because that plane is parallel to the top half of the cone, it never will cut through the top half of the cone. But in diagram 4 the cut is vertical, and the plane does cut through both halves of the cone. (It will also do so for any slant higher than the one shown in diagram 3.) That two-piece shape is called a hyperbola, and…well, we’ll get to it, I promise. (Evil laugh.)
If you imagine the cones and the plane extending to infinity, you’ll realize that neither the parabola or hyperbola are actually closed curves; they don’t loop back on themselves.
And if something is moving at escape velocity, it never comes back. So it makes sense that the parabola is the escape trajectory.
(Provided that the smaller body is moving precisely at escape velocity. If it’s moving faster, it’s in a hyperbolic orbit.)
OK, so where is the primary? In an ellipse it sits at one focus; where does it sit in a parabola?
Another way to define a parabola is shown below.
Draw a line like the one on the left, called the directrix. Pick a point not on the directrix, like the one near the c=a in the diagram, where the bottom of the red line is. This is the focus.
The parabola is the curve, such that every single point on the curve, is the same distance from the focus as it is from the directrix.
(This is similar, sort of, to the ellipse, where you can pick two foci, and every point on the ellipse is the same total distance to the two foci. It’s just that here one of the foci is replaced by the directrix.)
Notice that the distance from the focus to the “base” of the parabola is a, and the distance from the base to the directrix is also a.
It’s a just like the semi-major axis of the ellipse was a, and in orbital mechanics this a means exactly the same thing; it’s the size of the orbit. If a is big the parabola is big and therefore not as sharply curved; that represents the trajectory not being bent as much because the spacecraft never gets really close to the primary.
Does this actually correspond to anything in the real world?
Almost.
About a light year away from the Sun, we believe there are vast numbers of small, icy “snowballs” in orbit about the Sun; that grouping is called the Oort cloud. That’s far, far away (260,000 AU, or 260,000 or so times as far from the sun as Earth is), so things aren’t moving too fast out there.
That’s far enough away that every once in a while another star will pass close enough to perturb these bodies, and some of them might be brought to a dead halt in its orbit. It starts to drop toward the sun.
It is so far away, that the orbit is almost exactly a parabola. If it’s dropping almost directly into the sun, it will be a nice tight parabola with the nearest point inside the orbit of Mercury (so a which is the minimum distance to the sun could equal 0.3 AUs or less); if it still has some “sideways” motion the snowball won’t get too close to the sun; it will be a very open parabola, very large in size, a might be about 5 if it gets only as close as Jupiter; it might be much higher than that.
If it is that far away it’s extremely hard to detect. But if it gets close to the sun, the ices in the snowball will heat up, and boil off, and the snowball will grow a tail. It will be a comet.
Most comets come from the Oort cloud, and effectively, we’ll only see the comet once, because it’s just under escape velocity. Sure, it will be back…millions of years from now! The recent “green” comet has a smaller (but still not small) elliptical orbit; it’s expected to come back in 50,000 years. Most famously, though Halley’s comet has an eccentricity of 0.96658; a is 17.737 AUs, and its closest distance to the sun is 0.59278 AUs, so it gets closer to the sun than Venus (roughly 0.7 AUs), but not closer than Mercury (roughly 0.4 AU).
Halley’s comet probably started out as a visitor from the Oort cloud, but it passed too close to one of the outer planets and its orbit was bent into a (still fairly large) ellipse.
How fast does an Oort cloud comet travel? Well, that’s simple: Figure out how far it is from the Sun and then calculate escape velocity at that distance.
Circular orbital velocity at some distance r, (i.e., how fast an object in a circular orbit must be traveling) is:
while escape velocity at that same distance is:
Notice that the difference is a 2 under the radical so the escape velocity is sqrt(2) times the circular velocity. sqrt(2) is roughly 1.414. Speed the earth up in its orbit 41.5 percent and we’re going away and never coming back. (It’s cold out there!)
So let’s see what happens if an Oort cloud comet hits Earth. Earth moves around the sun at 29.78 kilometers every second (yowza!); the comet must be moving at 1.414 times this speed or roughly 42 kilometers per second.
Now this could be a head on collision, if the comet’s a is 1 AU just like ours is, and it happens to be closest to the sun where Earth is and is traveling the other direction. Which makes a 72 kilometer per second head-on collision. Or it could be traveling in the same direction as earth, in which case the difference is “only” 12 kilometers per second.
Either way that impact would hurt. But far more likely is the comet heading almost directly into the sun, and therefore cutting across Earth’s orbit at almost a right angle. By the time you get done playing with vectors, that works out to very roughly 51 kilometers per second collision speed.
That’s damned fast. We don’t want to be hit by a comet; asteroids are bad enough.
But I would like to send a lot of Uniparty hacks on an escape trajectory out of here, someday. I might even be generous and seal the spacecraft so it holds air…for a while.
Obligatory PSAs and Reminders
China is Lower than Whale Shit
To conclude: My standard Public Service Announcement. We don’t want to forget this!!!
Remember Hong Kong!!!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3tnH4FGbd0
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 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 !!!
A very interesting explanation about comets and trajectories and the Oort cloud. I was expecting the snowball to melt entirely if it got too close to the sun, but that is probably too simplistic.
If it’s small enough, or gets pulled into a shorter orbit and passes the sun frequently enough, the whole thing sublimates away eventually, leaving behind only a few rocks (they’re not pure snow; they’re often described as dirty snowballs).
(It won’t melt because it’s in a vacuum, it will directly from ice to gas.)
Those left-behind rocks, if their orbits cross the earth’s orbit, eventually become meteors; those annual “meteor showers” are generally former comets.
So Oort cloud ➡️ “snowballs” in a parabolic orbit around the sun ➡️ proximity to the sun ➡️ comets ➡️ rocks left behind that cross Earth’s orbit become meteors.
Close…and it’s partially my fault for being unclear. And also, I didn’t do all of my homework on this one because as it turns out I was talking about one particular type of comet without realizing there were others. (I looked “comet” up in Wikipedia just now.)
It turns out that some comets originate a lot closer to the sun, basically from the Kuiper belt…which is where Pluto lives. Since I was trying to highlight the parabolic orbit, I basically ignored/forgot about these.
However a comet ends up in a periodic orbit, though, it’s considered a “comet” even when it’s outside the solar system’s “snow line” and doesn’t have a tail.
Not all periodic comets’ orbits intersect the earth’s orbit so not all of them eventually become meteor showers…simply because that requires the leftover rocks’ orbits to actually intersect ours. In fact just from geometry I’d expect that the vast majority of them don’t. The ellipse of the comet’s orbit would have to cross the circle of the earth’s orbit; given the wide variety of sizes of ellipses and orientations–the odds are pretty slim. So your last bit would best be phrased “rocks left behind that if they intersect Earth’s orbit will eventually become meteors”
I prefer “intersect” to “cross” because cross is sometimes used to simply mean, “is sometimes the same distance from the sun as is the Earth” but not necessarily at a point that’s also on Earth’s orbit. Intersect means the two curves share a point in common and thus there’s a potential collision. (Which, when it’s a piece of gravel or even a speck of dust, results in a meteor.)
Thanks for the clarification!
OK – let me see if I understand this correctly.
For something to have a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit, it has to have and maintain sufficiently high velocity and mass that it never falls into an elliptical orbit, and therefore would only pass the sun ONCE. But anything that enters the solar system and has or loses sufficient velocity or mass that it falls below that needed for a parabolic orbit of the sun, will be captured by the sun in an elliptical or (rarely) round orbit.
The thing that I’m struggling with but am almost seeing, is that objects which are “essentially not in orbit” (parabolic or hyperbolic) have to lose kinetic energy of motion to become elliptically orbiting, and that this seems to constitute a kind of braking.
But the whole thing seems like a rickety combination of a truly conservative system (like atomic orbits) that don’t lose net energy (or rather only lose it in chunks), and a non-conservative macroscopic system (like vehicles with brakes) that do (or rather lose it in lots of the same little chunks), thus making space flight with return to Earth a very perilous venture, fraught with bad outcomes if one miscalculates trajectories. Too fast or too slow lead to problems easily.
And yet, lots of opportunities to actually see physics in action!
Well, the key is that this sort of thing happens when there is a third body involved, and I’ve been talking, up til now, about two body systems. Without that third body, it *is* conservative, as much so as atomic orbits.
OK – yes – good – that helps!!!
Don’t forget that three body solutions are very difficult to solve. Supposedly impossible.
For the vast majority of them, there’s no “closed form” solution.
But there are ways to brute force them.
Stay tuned.
Great!!!
This sounds extremely interesting! I won’t speak for others, but for me, certainly!
I once had two girlfriends simultaneously. It was a 3 body impossible problem to solve. 😆
That is ambition that is challenging not to admire.
The comet would have happily stayed out in the Oort Cloud (along with the other trillion (!) comets, had not some third body come along and perturbed it. Usually a passing star (the cloud can extend even as far as two light years), but conceivably, it could even be another object in the Oort cloud.
Gotcha! Ah – this makes sense!
Well if nothing else you’re forcing me to realize the shortcomings in my presentation!
Not really seeing any deficiencies, personally. I think I was just focusing on certain pieces, and am finally seeing the big picture now!
Oh, and some hypothesize that there’s a large body orbiting out there, occasionally sending us a present. It could even be a red dwarf or brown dwarf star…there are literally billions of them and we haven’t measured the distance to them all by any means! What if one is only a light year away? Some have even named it Nemesis, and think it might be in a 26 million year eccentric orbit–supposedly that mates up with mass extinction timing though I don’t see it.
Fascinating! Almost seems like such a body could be the idea behind the scary MacGuffin in The Fifth Element!
Well the end of the heavens & the earth, as described in scripture, with everything burning up, including the elements, could come about with a major heavenly bodies colliding intersection it would seem!
Is the Oort cloud in line (in the general region of being in a plane with) loosely with the majority of the orbits of planets w/in our solar system or more like a spherical cloud around the entirety of our solar system?
That’s a great question. It’d probably get more of the attention it deserves if it were in the current thread instead of way back here.
I’m still reading through “today’s” daily…hope to catch a few ZZZ’s & then go to hubby’s church’s later service to see him play bass 🙂
Spherical cloud. A good question in that it’s an important detail I forgot to mention.
As such a comet from the Oort cloud can come into the “main” part of the solar system at any inclination.
Wow. Does that spherical cloud obscure our views of things beyond our solar system then? Do they do some type of adjustment on Hubble &/or JWST to account for potential visual interference?
I would have guessed the cloud was loosely in the plane, so my instincts were off here too!
Well, no it doesn’t. It has a trillion things in it but they’re small, and the volume is huge. It probably amounts to less than one snowball in a volume of the spheroid enclosed by Neptune’s orbit. We haven’t actually *detected* the Oort cloud, in fact; we just infer that it’s there.
We’ve spotted large objects–some larger than Pluto–much closer to us–but still far out there, such as Sedna, Make Make, Eris, and so on. The fact that it was starting to look like there’d be dozens if not hundreds or even thousands of Pluto-like objects out there with some of them larger than Pluto, led astronomers to decide this was a new “category” of thing and that Pluto was a member of that, not a planet.
I wonder if in a future Saturday post you might elucidate how the Oort Cloud might be inferred without actually detecting it.
I’m one of those dinosaur’s who still considers Pluto to be a planet, never having personally assented to its downgrade, despite the reasons you just shared 🙂
I’m not familiar with Sedna, Make Make, nor Eris so would enjoy your expounding on that stuff too, perhaps if you do another post addressing some of the JWST findings, if applicable.
Frankly I enjoy the change of pace that your Saturday posts provide, even if the math & science is often over my graying head! 🙂
And I just realized, too one other thing you might have assumed because I wasn’t specific enough…I called them “snowballs” but they’re big, several hundred meters or even a mile wide or so…that’s a lot of snow to boil off in just one pass by the sun.
Yes, I had a feeling we were not talking about this:
I really liked the music he wrote.
Fascinating that one of the biggest musical influences in his life was the composer Darius Milhaud.
May Mr. Bacharach rest in eternal Peace.
The Chinese balloon, classified docs, 10% for the big guy, and the usual “gang of four” (TOTUS, sippy, fly and bubble)!!!
Here I was, just swimming along, contemplating Objectivism…..when, for no rational reason, this eagle swoops down and catches me up in its talons…..
–little randian fish
On the contrary, there’s a perfectly rational reason. The bird is hungry.
Which leads to a further question — is the bird’s hunger necessarily rational to the fish?
The fish (and I’m pretending the bird and fish are cartoon characters, animals with a human faculty of reason) would likely recognize that the eagle is hungry and acting rationally for an eagle, but that wouldn’t stop the fish from wishing he could fight back.
In the real world, the bird is just being a bird and the fish is just being a fish. If they truly were both rational beings, the fish would have rights and the eagle would be violating them. If only the fish were rational, the eagle would be a dangerous predator, like a lion would be to us, and the fish would be enittled to kill the bird if he could. If only the bird were rational, well, he’s fishing just like any guy who goes fishing.
I’ll believe this when I see it.
EXCLUSIVE: Naming the names. Final batch of documents containing ‘salacious’ allegations related to Jeffrey Epstein associates – including Prince Andrew – will finally be made PUBLIC after dozens of John and Jane Does agree to unsealing
I bet there is other material that will never be released.
The simple fact that any of it remains unreleased is a total indictment of the entire corrupt system.
The only reason anything is unreleased is because bad people in high places have been bought off to protect criminals.
Period.
The government protecting criminals is a mockery of the rule of Law, and our Republic will remain the Banana variety until or unless that changes.
Totally agree, released with redacted name’s. Just adds to the speculation of who, more watered down distraction.
“….after dozens of John and Jane Does agree to unsealing…”
SINCE WHEN DO CRIMINALS HAVE ANY SAY???
I think the John’s and Jane’s are victims ….
Or people who might have been present but not directly involved.
“I think the John’s and Jane’s are victims ….”
_____________
If so, then this is their big chance for ultimate revenge.
Expose them all, and once it’s public and they can’t cover it up any more, then sue them all.
For many, it could be a chance at a payday that will set them up for the rest of their lives.
And not yet anything but allegations. No evidence.
So the point in releasing anything without also releasing evidence is only to slander and/or defame people who cannot prove innocence.
Side note – Ghislane Maxwell is convicted without any corroborating evidence AFAIK. Merely on the say-so of people who received benefits by knowing the deceased person.
This entire matter is a disgusting travesty. Lady Justice was told to go play with herself somewhere else because she was not needed here.
Nah, they’ve got thousands of docs and tapes. That’s evidence. Somebody’s viewed all that crap for us, so we don’t have to. I’m gonna pass on the ‘pics or it didn’t happen defense’ this time and go with the list is accurate, release it.
I’m not sure I understand. The testimony of victims is evidence, isn’t it? And I don’t understand who “received benefits by knowing the deceased person.” Surely not the victims?
Yes, but he said *corroborating* evidence; that is additional evidence above and beyond the eyewitness testimony.
In other words, their word against hers.
Troves of boxes of pics, tapes, and docs confiscated from all his residences including the island. THAT’S EVIDENCE!!! Submitted to court under penalty of perjury.
Pic of Andrew, Virginia, and Ghislaine NOT FAKE. Walgreens film develop stamps on back of original.
C’mon Pgroup!!!
OK, then he’s factually wrong.
Who has seen any of it? Certainly not the public.
Contrast this situation with the OJ Simpson trial, where everything was seen in open court.
There’s a reason why we don’t do secret trials in America. Or we aren’t supposed to.
Until we have somebody we want to screw over without anybody seeing. Like Ghislane because nobody got to Epstein soon enough.
And what is this pic? Does it show any sex? Or anything illegal?
No it doesn’t. I guess I don’t understand why people who are shocked at the ease with which millions believed what they were told are now equally willing to believe what they are told about Epstein and associated persons.
Show me ANYTHING that can prove a crime (or crimes) were committed and I will alter my position.
{any criminal trial first establishes that a crime was committed BEFORE showing who done it – that did not happen here. if it did, the public has not been shown which is critical to prevent annoying twerps like me challenging it}
“In other words, their word against hers.”
____________
Thus has it always been.
“One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.” (Deuteronomy 19:15, KJV)
‘serious wrongdoing’? Really?
My ass…
Jack Posobiec tweets about Project Veritas:
A six-hour “struggle session” and he’s forbidden to talk about any of it….
Yeah, that sounds like the way things are done in sane organizations — NOT!
“A six-hour “struggle session” and he’s forbidden to talk about any of it….”
____________
From whence doth this power to forbid come?
Seems rather extraordinary.
Is he a hostage?
Has he been kidnapped?
Did he voluntarily sign over control of his own company?
And if he did, then whose fault is that?
And if he didn’t, then how is this not all BS?
DS + Pfizer
No, but it is great to see the donors speak up publicly for a man who does the right thing. And it’s entertaining to see the moles and plants squirm.
No doubt this gives the PV scummies time to rifle through all the PV materials internally that the FBI left behind and accidentally delete anything having to do with Pfizer that might actually matter.
….and a ghostly voice replies….
And a ghostly voice whispers back: “It was very stupid to give up control of your own company… that’s not war… that’s just dumb…”
“The Veritas board’s action details include that James O’Keefe will be on leave for at least 2 weeks, and that he cannot speak publicly about the situation”
_____________
So James O’Keefe creates a company, and somehow, between then and now:
A) the company he created somehow has more authority than he does
B) the company he created somehow has the power to suspend or fire him
C) the company has magical control over James O’Keefe’s voice, and presumably, his fingers
D) however those things came to be, however James O’Keefe managed to give up control of his own company, somehow, he managed to not be able to see this day coming from a thousand miles away
If we aren’t all being hoaxed, why in the world would O’Keefe ever put himself in a position where anything like this could happen?
Let’s start with the basics.
Assume that you wanted to do something of potentially great public good, that entailed significant risks — something like the manufacture of explosives, fireworks, or muckraking journalism. It’s not like you’re starting this activity with the intent of doing people harm — but it’s going to have a degree of risk. And when things go wrong, they may spectacularly go wrong.
So, you and some friends form a Limited Liability Corporation to perform this activity. We’ll call it BigBang, LLC. And five of you kick in $5K apiece to get this rolling. It goes on a few years and makes some money. Then, the inevitable happens and one of the fireworks goes off prematurely. It manages to take out the VIP viewing area and wipes out all of a town’s millionaires. You have insurance (which is quickly exhausted) and lawyers come after BigBang and seize it.
If you’ve structured it right, that’s the end of it. The lawyers would have to prove that you, personally, filled the container labelled “red sparkles” with TNT when making that particular firework, and that’s what caused the mayhem. Without a personal act, the lawyers can only go after the owners if they “pierce the corporate veil”.
What sorts of things are involved in “structuring it right”? Having an independent Board of Directors that meets regularly and keeps minutes. Doing all corporate legal filings properly and on time. Having an involved Corporate Counsel that reviews management policies and activities. That sort of thing.
I should note, BTW, that one risky endeavor that is generally a public good but can spectacularly go awry is issuing audit reports. Ask Arthur Andersen.
Okay, that’s all well and good, and forming an LLC or a C-Corp. makes sense from a liability standpoint.
He only needs to retain a 50.1% interest to remain in control of the company, in order to prevent what appears to be happening right now.
Why would he give up a controlling interest in his own company, such that the people he brought on to support his vision could potentially toss his keister to the curb, as they appear to be doing now?
I am upset about a “struggle session” and 16 squealing ninnies — if this is supposed to be a “circuit breaker” to avoid liability for O’Keefe, there is no reason I can think of for that sort of BS. But the underlying “make a separate corporation and have an independent Board” isn’t that unusual.
The problem with that analogy is that PV is a non-profit. The mistake, IMO, was not having a wider more diverse board. He would have stood a better chance.
What we don’t know is did a donor request any of the people fired and now rehired, or board members be there to keep an eye on their money. That happens a lot in non-profits. Did a donor do that with intent to infiltrate, and shut down the operation.
There’s any number of things on the table.
Great points.
All of which should have been considered when setting up the business structure.
Because if your aim is to expose and take down rich, powerful and corrupt people, you have to know that those people are naturally vindictive and merciless.
And it’s not as if ‘hostile corporate takeover’ is a foreign concept to TPTB.
IIRC, that was Pierre Delecto’s (Bain Capital’s) whole business model.
If you’re going to expose such people, you have to set up basic firewalls of protection.
O’Keefe isn’t new to this, he’s a smart guy, and PV has been around since 2010.
Everyone is assuming James is innocent of whatever the Board put him on leave for. Too early to tell. James may need to keep quiet because that is what his lawyers said to him.
Too little info. All PR spin pretty much.
The entire focus of PV is the truth, getting the truth in the public domain however it can be done.
Now….a situation that we would really like to understand and it’s kept hidden ????
IIRC O’Keefe has a 501c3 and a 501c4. That’s a typical structure.
I’m willing to put it out there that O’Keefe screwed up – in the formation of the company structure.
It’s a rookie mistake – but when O’Keefe started all this fifteen years ago he was a kid out of college.
(Heck, O’Keefe still looks like a kid to me – which is a good thing and not an insult. It’s just annoying that I’m getting older!)
O’Keefe was not an expert in corporate legal structures and governance models. He didn’t have the life experience to anticipate the kinds of internal politics and backstabbing that are going on now.
THAT’S OK. There’s a problem now and we have to work through it. It’s messy and time consuming.
And none of that means the board is in the right on this.
Frankly, this REEKS of a wild abuse of power by the board.
It’s REALLY HARD to give the PV board the benefit of the doubt on this one – when what they’ve done seems very wrong.
PV board knows better than anyone about OPTICS. That’s what PV is in the business of.
Sabotaging PV like this from the board perspective – putting a GAG ORDER on O’Keefe for two weeks, putting him through a 6 months struggle session . . .
There is NO INDICATION that they did the Right Thing in making a plan to address problems.
This REEKS of a wild abuse of power by the board.
So why would the board do it and why are the not sensitive to the OPTICS of damage to the PV brand?
Maybe because they WANT the BAD OPTICS.
The boards WANTS to put the PV brand through the mud to discredit the org and O’Keefe.
That requires a DEEPLY POLITICALLY CORRUPTED board . . .
(something a few BIG DONOR$ could accomplish)
And a board that isn’t sincerely interested in the mission of the org
And a board that doesn’t care about doing things The Right Way, due process, or OPTICS
Abuse of power is not accidental but the intended effect
Psychologically punish O’Keefe
Drag the PV brand through the mud with bad OPTICS of a board fight
Make PV look like an outfit filled with THUGS and DIRTY PLAYERS
Break PV org from O’Keefe – to NEUTER both
No doubt there was a conversation that said James we’re in charge now, and you can keep doing this, but from now on you have to accept that you are on a leash, and we’re going to yank your leash when you get out of line
James would have politely declined
(cf. Neo and Agent Smith in the Matrix – “That sounds like a good offer, but I have a better one”)
From there they would’ve gotten all their thugs and bullies in one room for an epic struggle session.
Instead of doing things the right way, they chose the maximum optics to destroy O’Keefe, including harming the PV brand in the process.
This did NOT happen overnight
This has been planned and calculated for some time
Someone organized this cabal.
PV Board is the primary problem.
Sixteen cry babies need to be fired.
PV Board AND employees, need to be as tough as O’Keefe is.
Buh ByeGFO.Only way JoK stays is if ALL the azzhats go! Else they control him and will try it again. No thanks!
Now do Steve Jobs.
Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about Steve Jobs’ situation, except that the scale was orders of magnitude larger than Project Veritas.
This happen to Greenfield also. Those things happen and sometimes people have trust in people who do not share your ethical values. Shared ethical values are more important than where they went to school or any other sheep skin.
There’s this, I came across it yesterday. I was looking for something else, so the site is unknown and Latypova seems a vaguely familiar name, but there’s so many can’t remember them all.
https://sensereceptornews.com/?p=18868
“Pharma Insider Says the Department of Defense Planted Jordon Walker at Pfizer And Instigated the Project Veritas Story to Ramp Up Fear of Viruses and Lab Leaks”
Not buying it.
I was going, “someone needs to explain how that was supposed to work….”
But I’m pretty skeptical with just the information given.
Too much earlier independent information to buy it.
I file it under click bait for Normies to fool them into thinking the Clot Shot is A-OK.
Came across that whilst looking for that book by Wells mentioned in the opium trade article, I always get hopelessly sidetracked. Found the book eventually plus another very similar, he would have fit in very well with the present day globo’s.
Given that the story was written Feb 1, I’d file this one away as “possible.” This is an information war, but that didn’t feel quite right to me.
Well, I don’t think Jordon Walker is that good of an actor. 🙂
Well, nothing like having a MAO CULTURAL REVOLUTION-TYPE “struggle session”, is there?
And what about this “he cannot speak publicly about the situation”? — did the PV board put Mr. O’Keefe in some type of “detention” and he’s getting “re-educated”?
What happens after “at least 2 weeks”? — does the PV board then “parade” Mr. O’Keefe in public with some “public confession” of his “crimes”?
IMO, this whole situation was planned well in advance by KSWEFFEN / DeepState / Pfizer-BioNTech.
Meanwhile, the planning for the 2024 election fix is more than well underway.
“…. a MAO CULTURAL REVOLUTION-TYPE “struggle session”….”
Yeah, STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN!!
Has the FBI put a muzzle on James?
Was he due to give TESTIMONY IN CONGRESS?
They had a twitter spaces last night, where lots of his co-workers and peers were on defending, supporting, cheering him on. He was on, but mum, now it makes sense, he’s gagged.
If he talks, I suppose they could remove him from the company?
That was well done.
Verse of the Day for Saturday, February 11, 2023
✟
“I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.”
Isaiah 44:22 (KJV)
Thank You, Jesus, for blessings received and prayers answered!!!
BE MY VOICE
BABY LIVES MATTER
JESUS LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN
PRAYING ON THE ARMOR OF GOD
Father God, I now follow your command to put on the full armor of God, because my battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers, authorities, the powers of this dark world and against spiritual forces of evil in the unseen world.
I first pray on the Belt of Truth that it may be buckled around my waist, may I be centered and encircled by your truth dear Lord. Hem me inside all that is true and right, and may I be protected and held up by the truth of your living word, in my Lord Jesus name.
I pray on the Breastplate of righteousness, please protect my vital organs and my inner man, cover my integrity, my spirit, and my soul. Guard my heart for it is the wellspring of life, please strengthen and guard the most vulnerable places in my life with that which is right, good, and noble that I might not receive a fatal blow from the enemy, in my Lord Jesus name.
I pray on the Gospel Shoes of Peace. I choose to stand in the shoes of your good news, and on the firm foundation of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the solid eternal rock. All other ground is sinking sand, I pray that I will not slip or fall, but that my feet would be firmly fitted on your lordship, my Lord Jesus. I choose to stand on you, so that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus, the eternal Rock of Ages. I receive your holy peace now my Lord, from the sole of my feet to the crown of my head, in my Lord Jesus name.
I pray the Shield of Faith into my hand now. As I take up the shield of faith, I ask that you might extinguish every dart and arrow, that is launched from the enemy to take me down spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, and every attempt of the enemy to destroy my joy. I ask that my faith in you would make it flame out. Extinguish every flaming arrow that would come against me, my life, my family, my home, or my ministry. May my faith always be out in front of me like a shield. Give me the courage to “faith my fears” by choosing to walk by faith and not by sight, in my Lord Jesus name.
I pray on the Helmet of Salvation, that you might protect my mind from the thoughts that can lead me astray. I choose to take every thought captive, and arrest all intentioned ideas and motives that would harm others, or distract me from your holy will for me. I submit every captured thought to the Lordship of my Lord Jesus Christ, and ask that you would imprison those thoughts that are not of you my Lord. Transform my mind and renew my thinking that I may think God thoughts, and have a sober mind that is focused on your glory. Please protect me from being double minded that I may allow my mind, I reject to live an earthly life, because I choose to live a holy one, governed by you My Lord Jesus, the prince of peace, please have my mind to be saturated with the holy mind of Christ, in my Lord Jesus name.
Finally, I take up the Sword of the Spirit which is the holy word of God, I pray this powerful offensive weapon into my hand, and ask that your holy word would be fitting for every encounter I face. As the enemy gets close to me, please give me the insight, wisdom, and skill to wield the word of God to drive away the enemy, in my Lord Jesus name.
May the enemy and his team flee from me, upon hearing the word of God spoken by the power and direction of the Holy Spirit. Give me the sword of the spirit to cut through the wiles of the devil, so that I may discern the schemes of the enemy when he is near.
With all kinds of prayers, supplication, and intercession I pray to you my Lord God as the one who fights my battles. Now that I’m in your holy powerful armor, I walk away covered and ready to face my day as you go before me, and please protect me in the midst of the spiritual warfare in this unseen world, in my Lord Jesus name.
Thank you my Lord, for the spiritual weapons of armor and prayer that you have given me. It is written no weapon formed against me shall prosper, and you will refute every tongue that accuses me.
Thank you Father God, my Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that I am more than a conqueror in my Lord Jesus. I pray all of this in the mighty name of my Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
PLEASE PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER
Steve had Chris Miller the last Sec. of Defense under Trump on in yesterdays WarRoom:
WarRoom on Gettr : WarRoom — Home of ultraMAGA Livestream
Interesting that he’s resurfaced.
Very…
New book.
LOL, he took on 8 at MSDNC and kicked their azzez.👍👏🤸♀️🤸♀️
It’s the easiest way to stay relevant. 😥
I put this answer up to Elize on my thread from yesterday. However, I think that it is a very important point we all have to take to heart.
Elize said:
I do understand her point. And I think if it was a person to person situation, a gentle nudge is certainly in order. I certainly get it from my friend when i slip up! However on line we do not always have that option. Also these podcasts are NOT EDITED so slips can not be corrected.
My Reply:
𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗔𝗕𝗔𝗟’𝗦 𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗪𝗘𝗔𝗣𝗢𝗡 𝗜𝗦 𝗗𝗜𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗥!
We are seeing it used again and again. There was the Lin Wood vs General Flynn mess and now we have the James O’Keefe mess. Let’s not aid our enemies in dividing us.
I really do not care if we are Christian, Jewish, Hindi, Buddist, Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist or anything else. The real dividing line is GOOD vs EVIL!
I really do not care if we are Christian, Jewish, Hindi, Buddist, Muslim, Agnostic, Atheist or anything else. The real dividing line is GOOD vs EVIL!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ThankQ for understanding that.
I certainly do not want to insult Elize or any other Christians. But at this time in history we really must look at the wider picture and not allow the Cabal to insert strife.
Larry Johnson’s latest:
PERSISTENT DELUSION AMONG THE AMERICAN AND NATO DEFENSE ESTABLISHMENT
https://sonar21.com/persistent-delusion-among-the-american-and-nato-defense-establishment/
Uh-oh.
Pretty sure this video is NOT new.
I’m seeing January in the comments.
Thanks. Pretty sure I’ve seen that video, here QTree. With comments under the post.
January works.
Bannon just said James now has lawyers on the case. Glad to see the Big Donors stepping up, they sent a demand letter to PV, re-enstate JoK or else. Hopefully it gets sorted out soon.
Yes, O’Keefe must be reinstated, AND Tyrmand resign, along with the other turncoat(s) Board members. Then escort the sixteen babies out the door, with NO severance pay. Finally, O’Keefe must have total operational and financial control to match PV Goal.
AND re-fire the 2 that were fired to begin with!! Especially the butthurt CFO!!!!
Yup. Them two shit birds gotta go. Likely the catalyst driving the current PV problem.
From reading discussions here, I bet that would take some legal restructuring. But if O’Keefe has enough support, it seems enough pressure could be brought to bear to get it done. And the donors retaining a lawyer is a big step in the right direction.
DW presently working up some eggs, hash browns and BACON. 
“and did you know that Ukraine and the US are the only two countries in the world who year after year vote against a UN General Assembly resolution on combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance?”
Comments taken from a Kenyan article dated April 13 2022
https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/russia-to-kenya-blame-us-and-eu-for-high-food-fuel-prices-3781160
Clearly the woman lied. What’s it take to lock these people up? Lock ’em up J6 style, no bail, charges pending, no family visits, limited lawyer visits. If nothing else they can be used in a prisoner swap. Trespass vs mass murder.
From an MOA commentor:
We are transferring 10 aircraft to Ukraine: we don’t have them, but it doesn’t matter
These are the words of Estonian Prime Minister Kaija Kallas:
“I am very pleased to announce that today Estonia has handed over 10 F-16 fighter jets to Kiev . While other countries are in doubt, we are providing assistance. Unfortunately, we do not have the planes themselves, but the very fact of the transfer will be a colossal moral support for the people of Ukraine.
If this number is not enough, then we are ready to discuss the transfer of another 30 fighters .”
Commentor wrote:
I tried to understand the deep meaning of this phrase and could not. Maybe you can make it. 😂 😂 😂
And yet, yes, it really “provided tremendous support” to Kyiv))).
P.S. And the only thing I can add is that the Prime Minister of Estonia is a very greedy woman (or whatever she defines herself). In such a situation, she could transfer 100 fighters to Ukraine, and 200, and 1000. Yes, and for the future she could promise 3,000 fighters. She still doesn’t have them, who will ask later. But she pouted.
The new ‘reality’ ? So it’s not just about identifying as a man who can get pregnant, or one of 256 genders… it’s about what you say (oops, what THEY say… as George said so often, ‘YOU ain’t in that club’ (and I say thank the Lord!) …
I’ll stick with the old reality … “what you see is what you get!”
Meaningless, IMO. Worse that crypto.
Quick look at Internet. Estonia has ZERO fighters. Jet or prop.
Perhaps, the publicly stated transfer of jets is for effect. The fact they don’t exist and likely never will, is NOT relevant, for the engineered narrative.
NOW, BiteMe and his goons in NATO, can brow beat another country into sending F-16s.
—-
BTW. Of all the military hardware and ordnance Ukraine gets, aircraft would be the easiest to destroy or neutralize.
🤦♀️ 🤷♀️ 🤦♀️ 🤡 😂
I hereby pledge 25 Million fighter jets to Vlad. 😜
atta Girl!
25 minute long video. Very interesting theory on food and health and why so many are sick .
A Caturday Concerto!
….. 😎👍❤️‼️❤️‼️❤️‼️ … so totally cool and awesome …. ❤️❤️❤️ …ty GA/FL
Be careful not to spell it catturday, lest it be a reference to a certain favorite individual on Twitter.
Another SAD death…….
article says he may have relapsed into alcoholism, hmmmm never heard of relapse in alcoholism as a cause of death…..
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/34-year-old-singer-actor-cody-longo-found-dead-home/
Well – Fred Trump, Jr.?
Usually termed ‘cirrhosis of the liver’
At a minimum, JAB, contributing.
A WORLD-WIDE CALL TO TAKE IMMEDIATE AND MASSIVE ACTION (substack.com)
Jacob Collins
Gratitude Lyric Video (Radio Version)
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. — Isaiah 41:10
I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. — Ephesians 1:16
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:6-7
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. — Matthew 5:16
The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God! — Pslam 50:20
The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. — Psalm 28:7
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. — Matthew 13:16
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. — Hebrews 13:15
More ‘Balloonacy’ *
Bernhard at Moon of Alabama ;
Airforce Spent Millions To Shot Down A Failed U.S. Weather Balloon – Biden Is Happy It Did So
Yesterday the U.S. airforce shot down another weather balloon:
FTA
“So it looks like the airforce sent up an AWACS surveillance plane, a tanker and an F-22, the most expensive fighter plane ever, to fire a $400,000 Sidewinder missile to take down a failed weather balloon.
Had the balloon continued to fly it would have turned towards the north pole. So a few millions were spent to shot down a U.S. launched failed weather ballon on the tiny, tiny chance that some passenger plane would have crossed its path at its unusual 40,000 feet flight level.
I think that was a waste of money.
But it brought Biden some better press than the Chinese weather balloon disaster did. So there is the real reason for doing it.”
*Balloonacy – term coined by folks at MoA
forget to post link to Bernhard’s article
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/why-the-airforce-shot-down-a-us-weather-balloon.html#more
Not a risk any passenger on a plane would want to take, though. But maybe there were other ways to keep planes out of the path of the balloon.
do passenger planes fly at 40,000 ft.?
I don’t know. I took the wording from the piece you posted.
All the news reports in US say the object was 40,000 ft in the air …
I just asked the question in response to your comment about passenger safety.
I recall altitudes in the high 30s from my last few flights, so quite possibly.
Yes. Have been at 41K, maybe 42K a few times. IIRC, transiting from Asia to US. Prolly onboard 777, coulda been 747.
It might have been cheaper to use a guns approach. I believe the F-22 has a 20mm Gatling gun.
Uh. My estimate is the Feds NEVER consider cost when wasting tax dollars.
Besides, the Feds will just
print more moneyborrow more from Chinee.It’s also quite possible they thought (for some reason) that it was a good exercise.
They do spend lots of money on exercises, and (provided they’re done properly) that is a good thing.
Unless something has changed in the last few years, China owns a surprisingly small fraction of our national debt.
A lot of our national debt is owed by one branch of government to another (i.e., borrowing from the social security and medicare trust funds). If we were to do “something” to guarantee full funding of these in the future without relying on that money being paid back, we could simply wipe that debt off the books. (It’d be like you deciding you’re not going to put that money back into your savings account, that you took out two years ago to make the down payment on a car.)
I personally think you had it right the first time–print more money. But realize that the cost of this incident is less than a rounding error in the Federal budget.
Do modern fighters not have machine guns fitted anymore.
F22 has 20MM capability. F35 25MM capability.
There primary ability is stealth. Guns just seems a waste, if they are close enough for guns, they have lost stealth.
Agree. Only answering the query.
Thanks Steve … LIKE .. very much ..
JUSTICE MUST BE DONE …
.. 😉👍🇺🇸‼️🇺🇸 ..
House Republicans Just Blocked A Law That Would Have Allowed Illegal Immigrants To Vote In Washington, DC
From The Federalist:
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
·
14h
Will Trump Hating Prosecutor Jack Smith be investigating the FACT that they SPIED on my campaign, even as I was in the Oval Office, they Stuffed the Ballot Boxes (per 2000 Mules), used Covid to cheat, that the FBI pushed Twitter & Facebook around, causing massive voter disruption, and so much more? That’s really what he should be looking at, not asking a very decent Mike Pence why he didn’t send the votes back to State Legislatures for scrutinization, which he could have done. Get the RIGGERS!
So Ratings Challenged, FAKE NEWS CNN, which just had their lowest & worst numbers in History, wants to give wacky liddle’ Bill Maher a shot at bringing them back to just normal “bad” when Bill Maher suffers from the same affliction as CNN — BAD RATINGS! How’s that for television “programming?” Actually, there’s only one person that can save CNN — he’s done it for 6 years — “TRUMP,” but he’s not available, he’s going to WIN the Presidency for the THIRD time, & save our Country from going to HELL!
New BIMD just posted.
Think Hebrew, my friends.
https://www.theqtree.com/2023/02/11/back-in-my-day-civilized-war-think-hebrew/
Hatay, Turkey – Small Dead Animals
That’s incredible (in a devastating way ),can’t imagine the death toll.
Catturd
@catturd2
·
3h
There’s a name for people who demand what you’re allowed to say, what to think, what to believe, what to wear, what to post, what car you can drive, what to eat, how to worship, what stove to use, what medicine you take, what doctor you choose, and on and on …
– a Democrat.
This post added to the sidebar as “Escape Trajectories & Conic Sections (Orbital IV)”, so that people can find the math whenever needed.
Thanks.
By no means my best piece (even in this series). I tried (this morning) to find a good animation and tripped over a *very* meaty youtube channel…one where he assumes a lot of math knowledge. He brought up several things I had forgotten about…but even so no good animation for this…though perhaps for next time.
This is not simple stuff, but I think I’m starting to get it, and it’s very helpful (see comment I just made). I’ll check out the video in a bit. Wife has me scheduled for a bit here…..
Talking about maneuvers in space: Nice pictorial. Wish I had used it last week.
Thanks – will check out in a minute (wife has mo’ cho’s!)
Come summa the work gets kinda hot
And this place ain’t no place ta be, if you planned on bein’ a star
Lemme tell you, it’s always cool
And the boss don’t mind sometimes if ya, act the fool
AT THE CAR WASH
Talkin’ about the CAR WASH, grl 😎
LOVE this one!!!
😍
Thanks for that – really good explanation I’m going to save the link
It had a link to this one on Starlink which is very helpful for me right now
I’m writing a paper involving cislunar space, communications, and cryptography, so anything on those topics + Lunar mechanics is of interest
Very interesting stuff.
Pretty cool stuff!
Tucker: The climate cult has grown stronger
Listen to Biden. LIES! Climate LIES! Evil old pedophile. He LIES!
“BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH!”
Take the rocks out of your mouth, Resident Evil!
It’s better with the rocks …..
ChatGPT Can Almost Pass The US Medical Licensing Exam
TECH
11 February 2023
ByDAVID NIELD
https://www.sciencealert.com/chatgpt-can-almost-pass-the-us-medical-licensing-exam
Bwhawhawha . . . I’m sure all it has to do is parrot “Fauci is correct” and we’re all good.
This is artificial stupidity.
At the risk of posting something not new and already discussed – I did not see where the Project Veritas cease and desist letter had been posted . . .
BREAKING: Project Veritas Donors Hire Law Firm To Prevent Board Members From Removing Founder James O’Keefe
Feb 10, 2023
https://100percentfedup.com/breaking-project-veritas-donors-hire-law-firm-to-prevent-board-from-removing-founder-james-okeefe/
. . . The Attorney’s letter state that the “firm represents a large group of significant donors to Project Veritas who have grave concerns about the Board of Directors’ reported action to remove Founder and CEO Jame O’Keefe from his leadership position, change the structure of the Project Veritas entities and their Boards (raising risks for the entities’ charitable status), and operate Project Veritas for purposes other than those for which the organization was established.“
“By taking or threatening these actions, the Board is straying from its roots and the express purpose for which it raised considerable funds from the public, including our clients. We are concerned that the Board may already be acting in violation of Virginia charitable solicitation and trust law and ask that the Board refrain from taking further actions to fundamentally undermine the purposes for which Project Veritas be established. We also ask that funds donated to Project Veritas be preserved and not spent for purposes not contrary to those for which they were solicited.”
The letter then gives the background of O’Keefe’s hard work that has resulted in contributions and grants doubling and that Project Veritas “has solicited funds for the purpose of supporting Mr. O’Keefe in his mission.”
An explanation of the Virginia Charitable Solicitation and Trust Law was cited, which “makes clear that funds solicited for a specific purpose must be used for the ‘solicited purpose’ and funds raised by ‘general appeals’ must be used for the general purposes of the charitable…organization.” It went on to express a concern that the “Board’s actions to restrict or remove Mr. O’Keefe from his position, take control of the Project Veritas entities and operate them in a manner inconsistent with the purpose for which the entities were established would violate Virginia law.”
The conclusion of the letter states that when the board meets to decide on “further steps towards reducing Mr. Okeefe’s leadership role and authority resulting in a redirection of the mission of Project Veritas. We ask that the board immediately cease and desist from taking such steps.” The letter closes with a request to preserve all evidence.
Swig Tweeted, “Looks like they have hired a big-name law firm that sent a letter which seems to suggest the board is running afoul of Virginia law and exposing themselves to substantial liability!”
GOOD. Looks like people are on the problem!
Yeah I think I sent them some cash at some point, need to find out how to jump on that
This is actually a GREAT talk by MacGregor.
He really puts the Chinese balloon in perspective.
His lead is truthful history.
He’s even more right than all the politicians about the economic issues.
Which is a very sad thing (about the economic issues). That there is a parasitic class dependent upon war for their riches and power – such a shame for humanity.
Trump was a real threat to that group. THAT is why he was not allowed to stay in the White House. When the WAR PARTY realized that Trump was serious about PEACE, they turned against him.
via https://t.me/s/VA_Nikonov/
“Trump’s ex-adviser, US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor: Ukraine is falling apart before our eyes, Ukrainians are suffering monstrous losses. They drag 16-year-old teenagers into the army by force at gunpoint. And 75% of their losses are from artillery fire, and they cannot defend themselves. And we feed them, we give them just enough equipment so that they can last more and more, until we realize that soon they will all perish. Secretary of Defense Austin said: “We need to send weapons quickly, because the window for our opportunities is closing. Soon we won’t be able to do anything at all.”
Anyone can see that the way of warfare has changed dramatically. Armored vehicles will no longer have a dominant role. Today, intelligence, satellite surveillance, reconnaissance in a duet with strike systems predominate. That’s what dominates! The Russians were the first to realize this, and now we see it. So if you send tanks anywhere, they won’t last long. Your 88 tanks can burn out in a few minutes.
Attacks from above on reconnoitered targets, that’s what rules the battlefield. And look at the Russians, they are doing it, they are moving under this umbrella. They do not need to make crazy throws at Kyiv. They created a steel skating rink protected by blows from above. And it all works.
Nobody tells the Americans the truth that we are not in a position to go to war with anyone now. We do not have such a production of shells and weapons. But the Russians have. Their factories are humming like a beehive, they have no shortage of anything. They can afford to spend 60 thousand shells a day.
And the general offensive will begin soon. This skating rink will set in motion and destroy everything. And it doesn’t matter what you send to the Ukrainians. They don’t have time, there are very few of them left. And all this was for nothing. We did all this against the Ukrainians, the country is almost destroyed. We are destroying the Ukrainian people. And none of this could have happened, but we did not want to consider options for a neutral Ukraine.”
The MacGregor video, a couple up, is very informative.
He’s talking about the same video …
I think Macgregor is getting angry …
Understand. Some time ago, I felt MacGregor getting angry.
Lots to be angry about, for those of us paying attention. politicians, deep state and Wall Street are selling America out.
^^^ AND, their greed, blinds them to the dangers THEY ARE CREATING for America.
But I think he’s angry with Americans too … they hear about a war, go Rah, Rah boom…. and because their children aren’t going, they forget about it… no attention to geopolitics at all.
It’s a bit shocking. Biden goes straight from total failure in Afghanistan and then Ukraine pops up and everyone is Russia, Russia, Russia Bad and totally skip over the reasons Russia did what they did. Of course the total black out on Russia’s reasoning has occurred but still, you’d think more people would see through it.
You had guys like Mark Levin leading the Russia is bad thing from the very get go. Despite a large section of his Parler feed (he was still off Twitter then) jumping down his throat for it, he just ignored us.
I’m willing to say that the media was likely already read in prior to the invasion, that the Russia is bad thing was to be their new clarion call and pounced immediately setting the tone for the American people.
Sad that so many have been so easily misled, but we’ve managed to sway quite a few since. MTG wasn’t misled, neither was Tulsi Gabbard, but both had to retreat quickly from their early statements and only recently they have carefully picking their way forward.
Right … I’m tired of the bias held by the uninformed about so much… been watching it all my life …. getting really tired. It was the same before the right up to Iraq.. I think I’ll take up fishing and just give upbringing info… (end of rant)
I think that Levin is a neocon, or to say it another way, a warmonger. I hesitate because Limbaugh thought highly of him and I thought highly of Limbaugh. That leaves me in a quandary.
Perhaps too many ‘pundits’ are swayed by what their audience thinks … whereas pols are concerned wrt what their donors/owners think? Levin like all of them worries about being cancelled… I am sure.
If Levin is worried about being canceled then truth and principle must necessarily be a secondary consideration. I don’t discount the importance of economic interests but a person who puts forth his opinion as a worthy consideration must value truth, and stand on principle as a default position.
I agree … just not sure he is a NeoCon…
Russia, Russia, Russia Bad has been the going in line for ~seven years.
The near total ignorance of USG (politicians and deep state) AND Pravda News is bizarre as hell.
Not so different from Covidiocy AND Covidiot Injections lies. Not to mention HCQ and IVM B A D for ya. NO DISCUSSION.
The glaring ignorance is numbing.
I don’t believe it ignorance but rather an agenda in search of power.
Part of what seems to drive this perceived anger is likely due to frustration with the caliber of people he has to talk too. The interviewer in the vid just shown has the right instincts knowing something is wrong with the Ukraine War, but clearly lacks the ability to do a back and forth at the level the Col would like. Napaltino has worked to get there and now has more understanding under the Col’ s tutelage. Only that one interview at that DC Military library (I think it was Navy) we saw last month, did I ever see someone of equal footing as the Col. doing an interview with him.
Probably just realizing the country he served in the military for started this. And probably most of the other conflicts in the past 50 years.
And watching the country blissfully stumble to WW III.
WW III, only avoided, if Putin can navigate away from traps.
Special Interview: Lt Gen (Ret.) Steven L. Kwast
They talk of the Balloon, China’s capabilities and GOALS, space, energy and the stuck in the mud attitude of the DOD and Congress that may give China a major advantage.
This guy is really really good and Jon lets him talk
https://rumble.com/v292u9c-badlands-media-special-interview-lt-gen-ret.-steven-l.-kwast.html
Good talk.
Never knew this movie existed. Saw it on twitter response last week and then didn’t know how to find it again. Got lucky. Seems relevant here and with other recent events?
Trailers are slightly different to provide wider view.
Fascinating. ~25 minutes in.
Citizen Free Press has a Nikki Haley pre-announcement ad. It’s total cringe, with fake crowd noise. She says she wears heels, not for a fashion statement, but because “if we see something wrong we’re gonna kick ’em every single time.” Oh good. I don’t know of anyone else who is tough on wrongdoers. And when I think of “tough on the Deep State,” I think of Nikki Haley. 🙄 /sarc
That was pathetic. At the end it has the date 2/15/23, so I guess that’s the big day and we’re supposed to be excited about it. 😂 There’s also a John Sununu video that I won’t even attempt to watch. It’s more fun to ridicule Haley because she’s delusional enough to think she could be more effective than Trump and to think people would want her over him (or at all). 🤣 The RINOs must be desperate. I wonder what perks she’s getting out of this.
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/nikki-haley-teaser-video-for-2024/
Methinks that unless this is a head-fake, the RNC is preparing a Pence – Haley ticket for 2024?
Oh, barf. You’re probably right. 🤮 😂
Well they’ll have to manufacture a ground swell. MAGA doesn’t like either one. Never has. Only tolerated them because Trump needed team players at the time. Now which team they really play for is pretty much out of the bag.
“She says she wears heels, not for a fashion statement, but because “if we see something wrong we’re gonna kick ’em every single time.”
_____________
Does she mean she intends to use her heels as… as a… a weapon?
How does that work, exactly?
How does she kick, so that the heel of the high-heel shoe impacts the target?
Is it a straight-ahead kick, or a side-kick?
Has she been practicing this move?
Is the Nasty Nikki Haley campaign theme song… Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting?
“She says she wears heels, not for a fashion statement, but because “if we see something wrong we’re gonna kick ’em every single time.”
__________
Maybe Nasty Nikki Sh!t-kicker and Castratin’ Joni Ernst can be a dynamic badass duo?
25-Year-Old Goalkeeper Dies Suddenly Right After Stopping a Penalty Kick
West Flanders, Belgium.
No cause known; autopsy pending.
His younger brother was on the bench and witnessed it all.
May he RIP and his family be comforted.
Unless otherwise proven — JAB-related cardiovascular failure / blood clots / stroke. Awful. His death will be blamed on something else, like “overexertion.” Eternal Peace be unto him.
Not easy to overexert… when you’re a goalie…
Well, if your teammates suck, maybe you’ll be very very busy.
My son Brandon’s senior HS year in net was like that!
“25-Year-Old Goalkeeper Dies Suddenly Right After Stopping a Penalty Kick”
_____________
I hate when that happens.
One moment you’re a healthy goalie, the next minute, you suddenly died.
At least, the jab didn’t get him.
“The players all showered together after the incident and then we sat down in the canteen,” says Dewerchin. “When the message came that our goalkeeper had died, what an unusually hard blow. I think some players do not yet realize what exactly happened.”
_____________
Wonder if it occurred to anyone to think, just maybe, it was the vaxx?
You know, the one thing that nearly everyone has in common, who is perfectly healthy one minute, and then dies suddenly, without any obvious cause?
Y’all gotta be kidding me! Another one!?
“The Department of Defense (DOD) imposed a flight restriction over Montana to investigate a possible fourth object flying over Montana but could not make a positive identification, according to a statement.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) briefly closed airspace over Montana for DOD related activities at oo:20 UTC, or 7:20 Eastern Standard time, according to an FAA NOTAM, before reopening the space later Saturday evening, the statement emailed to the Daily caller News Foundation said. Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale, Republican Sen. Steve Daines and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, all representing Montana, said the DOD had communicated to them a new airborne object — the third identified in U.S. airspace since Thursday — could be crossing the state.”
https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/11/pentagon-montioring-airborne-object-montana/
What the heck is actually going on?
Looks like Montana is going to need a Maginot line on its northern border. I suppose the only question is whether the Pentagon brass is serious about defending flyover country? Trump gave us the Space Force. It may be time for the Biden Balloon Force.
Lol, maybe!
The Chinese keep hoping to get a photograph of you nude sunbathing.
LOL
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!
In February in Montana!?
I’m wearing a parka and mukluks everyday!
Thanks for the laugh. That was a good one.
Yeah, well they probably figure “there’s a chance and it’s just a cheap balloon.”
Lol!
I think I may have an answer…. will think about posting it in tomorrow’s daily. Back from my walk. Doubt anyone’s about right now, but it would have to do with the three levels of war, Strategic, Operational and Tactical. The Balloons being a tool more akin to what the Tactical guys would get or want access too. Perhaps just wetting their appetites or actually getting a green light to plan?
I would love to read your thoughts.
The General has some excellent advice.
Posted something like that^^^ late yesterday or early today.
Yep, saw that one coming:
The ENTIRE balloon thing is embarrassing.
The world is laughing at us …
They should be laughing, until we start delivering justice.
Which is the nicest euphemism I could muster.
On average, red states are experiencing twice the number of vaccine deaths and injuries than blue states. “Some states, in particular Kentucky, Montana, Alaska, Tennessee, North Dakota, and South Dakota, are experiencing 4x, 5x, 6x, even 11x the number of deaths per 100,000 vaccinated compared to other states,” Paardekooper found.
h/t Anonymous Conservative
(Natural News) Mike Yeadon, the former head of respiratory research at Pfizer, and independent researcher Craig Paardekooper have sourced Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data on vaccine deaths and injuries in the United States showing that “red,” or conservative-leaning, states are seeing, on average, twice the number of covid “vaccine”-related deaths compared to “blue,” or liberal-leaning, states.
VAERS, a government-run database, currently logs more than 700,000 adverse reactions caused by covid injections from Moderna, Pfizer, and Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) – these are the only three covid jabs that were emergency authorized and / or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the U.S.
Yeadon and Paardekooper’s research led them to conclude that not all batches, or lots, of covid jabs are the same. Some lots are highly lethal while others are mostly harmless or even entirely placebo. More information about their methods and findings can be found at HowBadIsMyBatch.com and at HowBad.info.
. . .
Private documents from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) further show expiration dates that include only certain lots – these being the very same lots that were found in Paardekooper’s database to be highly toxic – there is no need to list expiration dates for harmless placebos, after all.
From this, the team discovered that the overwhelming majority of vaccine deaths are happening in red states.
“Some states, in particular Kentucky, Montana, Alaska, Tennessee, North Dakota, and South Dakota, are experiencing 4x, 5x, 6x, even 11x the number of deaths per 100,000 vaccinated compared to other states,” Paardekooper found.
On average, red states are experiencing twice the number of vaccine deaths and injuries than blue states. This can only be due, the experts say, to red states receiving at least twice the amount of highly lethal covid jab batches compared to blue states.
“They are killing people who voted against the Build Back Better agenda while flooding the borders with unvaccinated foreigners,” Reese warns.
In the comments, someone else asked:
“Didn’t we go to war against Iraq and Syria because they were supposed to be killing their own people with chemical and biological weapons? Now the U.S. government is doing exactly the same thing.”
If that’s true, then these monsters are really, really dead.
Not only did they commit premeditated mass-murder — genocide — but they targeted and singled out the most patriotic Americans to be murdered more than any others.
They’re dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
Not that I needed another reason to NOT watch NFL, including Super bowl.
GWP
NFL to Play Divisive ‘Black National Anthem’ at Super Bowl LVII
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/nfl-play-divisive-black-national-anthem-super-bowl-lvii/
“NFL to Play Divisive ‘Black National Anthem’ at Super Bowl LVII”
_____________
Which nation is that for?
I didn’t know there was a Black Nation.
Is it a visiting delegation, with ambassadors and homies?
What is the name of this black nation?
Is it homies, or homeys?
I don’t want to be disrespectful.
Not that I want to be disrespectful. Good with it for this horseshit.
Sorta like I don’t give a rats about offending LGXYZ goofballs…
I believe it’s called Wakanda
Is that a fake country made up by the FBI?
Maybe I’m thinking of Kwanza.
Fake country in the movie Black Panther, I think 🙂
Interesting lesson Steve. Why did anyone Start slicing up theoretical cones in the first place? It seems a strange exercise in & of itself…
I enjoyed your challenge about the 2 different scriptural descriptions of Judas’ death in yesterday’s thread 🙂 It’s possible that both are true, he hanged himself & his rope or branch (or whatever) broke & he fell onto the field & his bowels burst out. Thanks for calling out the potential contradiction & keeping it real 🙂
Acts says “falling headlong” which doesn’t sound like falling from a (broken) noose or branch–he’d hit feet first.
It’s a contradiction, period.
I’d have to dig into the original languages to get a sense of what the different passages are Actually saying. I’d go along with it Appears to be a contradiction…
I checked, both KJV and NRSV say “falling headlong” while NIV says “fell headlong.”
If this were anywhere but the Bible, say, two witnesses in court, or one witness telling two different versions on two different occasions, people would say the tales are contradictory.
Instead, some people will jump through hoops and come up with “reaches” to explain it away.
The Fate of Judas, Rashomon Version….
Rashomon?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon
TY I’d never heard of this movie or it’s effect. Ironically it is listed in a book I’ve currently checked out of the library “1001 Movies to See Before You Die”.
In the Wikipoo write up they give multiple adaptations & remakes, including this one which caught my eye 😉
I’ve never actually seen the movie — but this low-budget flick did a great job of illustrating a great truth about personal witness and testimony that didn’t just influence cinema, but also common-sense controversies and court cases.
As an aside, I believe that this is why VSGPOTUSDJT called people to Washington to witness on J6 — he knew there would be some who would see the government excess, the provocations, the political persecutions of participants, the Buffalo Jump. If only 1/10 of the people who were there had been there, all the abuses might have been buried.
That’s a great insight about many witnesses!
Here’s the Acts 1 passage from the NIV
18 (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)
That sounds like it was a well known tale given verse 19.
Here’s the other passage
Matthew 27
New International Version
Judas Hangs Himself27 Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. 2 So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.
3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. 4 “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”
“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”
5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. 9 Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, 10 and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”[a]
One says Judas bought the field w/ the silver & the other says the priests bought it with the blood money. So that appears to be another contradiction in the story. It’s the same blood money & a field was bought with that money.
Zechariah 11
12 I told them, “If you think it best, give me my pay; but if not, keep it.” So they paid me thirty pieces of silver.
13 And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they valued me! So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter at the house of the Lord.
Jeremiah 19
19 This is what the Lord says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests 2 and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, 3 and say, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. 4 For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5 They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal—something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. 6 So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter.
7 “‘In this place I will ruin[a] the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who want to kill them, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds and the wild animals. 8 I will devastate this city and make it an object of horror and scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. 9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.’
10 “Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, 11 and say to them, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. 12 This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the Lord. I will make this city like Topheth. 13 The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth—all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.’”
Jeremiah 32
6 Jeremiah said, “The word of the Lord came to me: 7 Hanamel son of Shallum your uncle is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth, because as nearest relative it is your right and duty to buy it.’
8 “Then, just as the Lord had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, ‘Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.’
“I knew that this was the word of the Lord; 9 so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels[b] of silver.
I bolded some of the relevant words in these passages…
Clearly, the gospels that said “hanged himself” watched in IRL, while the author of Acts watched it on CNN and got Fake News….
LOL Isn’t Luke the author of Luke AND Acts?
I’m not sure. It would be odd, indeed, if one character narrated two different fates for Judas. At least Rashomon has each character saying something different.
I thought the hanging version of the tale was in John, not Luke?
I thought the hanging version was in two or more of the Gospels, but I’m hardly the most reliable scholar.
Actually, it was Matthew 27:5. You actually cited it yourself in the original conversation.
That’s one, but I vaguely recall another….
In reading the things Valerie has said in this branch of the thread, the things she’s pointing only cite Matthew and Acts. So if there’s a third, that would be interesting.
I glanced at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot to try and clarify my thoughts, and instead further addled them.
I probably was thinking how the account in Matthew seems to be correlated with various parts of the Old Testament — and how various non-canonical texts may have cited his suicide.
OK, so now you’ve made me pull out my actual bible (an NIV) to see if there are references to Judas’ death in the other gospels…
With a cursory visual search I only saw the description of his hanging death in Matthew, & this was before Jesus’ death even.
If you go back to wikipoo, you note how they reference the Matthew version as potentially “midrashic”, designed to fulfill OT prophecy. Thirty pieces of silver and hanging from a tree would fit this.
OTOH, the Acts version of Judas’ demise would seem to echo that of Herod.
When I was thinking that there were multiple gospels relating to hanging, I believe I was thinking of the Matthew version and its OT precursors.
It’s interesting how the different tellings from different perspectives of this essential, world pivoting life/death/resurrection have so many insights: spiritual, personal, political, national, regional, economic, familial, historical & likely more!
It’s in Matthew, based on searching BibleGateway.com for “Judas” in the NIV. I didn’t look at the end of the other gospels to see if his ending is discussed without using his name for further viewpoints. However each gospel refers to Judas as the one who would betray Jesus in multiple locations, I believe…
Whoever it is who wrote them, is the same person. (He never names himself; ascribing it to “Luke” is a tradition from at least a century later.)
And the writer does not claim to be an eyewitness to anything in the Gospel; he states in Luke 1:1 that he’s gathering a bunch of sources together to produce the account.
From Acts 1 NIV
Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.
Luke 1
Introduction1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled[a] among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.
It is possible that since both of these books address Theophilus (a name that appears to mean “lover of God” so it could be addressing all peoples who love God) they appear to have been written by the same person.
Also here’s a quick “explanation” for the seeming contradiction in describing Judas’ death.
https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/how-did-judas-die/
This link also attempts to resolve the purchase of the field issues as well as the death…
https://www.gotquestions.org/Judas-die.html
I don’t think there’s any controversy about Luke and Acts being written by the same person. The writing style, diction, etc. all match. Any controversy would be over who that one individual was.
OK, I didn’t look deeper into that. I guess, at a minimum, “tradition” has named Luke the doctor as author of both books, but what evidence that is based on I don’t know.
I believe the author of Hebrews is also uncertain.
Hebrews…yes, the author never names himself yet many assume it’s Paul. Who named himself everywhere else.
I think most historians don’t think Hebrews was written by Paul.
More controversially, however, many claim that as many as six of the Pauline epistles are in fact forgeries written by someone pretending to be Paul. The strongest case for that being the pastorals (Titus and 1/2 Timothy) because apparently they’re full of anacronisms; describing the church as it was after Paul had died. The other three (possible) fakes are 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians. Arguments there are based on style, diction, etc.; they basically “don’t sound like Paul” when read in the original Greek. And apparently 1 and 2 Thessalonians have a subtly different Christology too; 2 Thessalonians’ Christology is inconsistent with what Paul says in several other places.
There are extant copies of an epistle titled 3 Corinthians, definitely a fake Pauline epistle. The irony is that the writer of this epistle complains about all the dang forgeries out there (while writing one himself–that’s chutzpah)!
You’ve got a wealth of info there “brother” & it is quite interesting.
Do you dig deeply into the potential inconsistencies of scripture as an atheist with a need to prove the “falsity” of the Bible? I think it is an important pursuit that shouldn’t be disregarded because such issues & concerns can really trip people up in their (lack of) faith search.
I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of Steve’s engagement on this matter.
C.S. Lewis had problems with this discrepancy. Might it be better to just seek truth than infer motivations?
I was curious is all. Seeking Truth is Always appropriate, including “inconvenient” truth!
Truth did not drive you to say, “as an atheist with a need to prove….”
You might want to reflect on why you chose those words.
OK, here are my words “Do you dig deeply into the potential inconsistencies of scripture as an atheist with a need to prove the “falsity” of the Bible? “
Though it could be read as me calling Steve “an atheist with a need to prove the “falsity” of the Bible” that is Not what I was attempting to say.
Steve clearly acknowledges that he is an atheist. I was wondering if in his being an atheist he may thus have a tendency to “dig deeply into the potential inconsistencies of scripture…to prove the “falsity” of the Bible?”.
Obviously it’s none of my business either way, it just surprised me that he had some of those potential controversies seemingly close at hand to so readily articulate (I should NOT be surprised at the volume of info easily at Steve’s hands!)…There was no offence meant nor intended in anything I said.
I’ve stepped on toes in real life today so perhaps I’m somewhat out of sorts in my communications with others, unintentionally.
I’ve never personally dug Deeply into the Seeming inconsistencies in scripture but believe they are worth examining, for believers & unbelievers alike. Obviously we may draw differing conclusions about the significance of such seeming discrepancies. Pretending they don’t exist or refusing to engage the controversy sounds like some of the treatment by Christians that Steve may have previously encountered (my imperfect recollection of comments here & elsewhere). I hope to be a Christian that can imperfectly engage the conversation in pursuit of truth AND friendship 🙂
Sorry for Any Offence I’ve given in the discussion…
Just don’t be like Al Gore and make up inconvenient truths. 😀
No doubt! I did “cringe” even using that terminology given AlGore’s (said in Rush’s Igor, not Young Frankenstein’s Eye-gore, style) waste of good oxygen pronouncements 😉
I don’t believe I was making an “assessment” of Steve’s engagement, I was asking a question which I guess could come across as impertinent, but wasn’t meant as such…
I don’t dig deeply and make a hobby out of looking for them, but if someone brings one to my attention, I’ll likely remember it.
In this case, I saw a YT video about someone’s losing their faith and this one made an impression on him hwen he decided in college that he really ought to read the Bible cover to cover. He described how the OT’s entire focus just seemed off to him, then he got to Matthew’s account (which he had never read before) and was surprised it bore no resemblance to the account in Acts, which he was familiar with; his pastor had used it in sermons.
That stuck in my mind, because he even found the reconciliations not quite convincing but close enough that he was eventually able to sweep the issue aside.
That’s very interesting. I remember this kind of topic being discussed in some grad school class I had, don’t recall which one. I was pursuing a Master’s in Christian Counseling (was in the first graduating class for that major at my university) within the seminary aka School of Theology, surrounded by many people, mostly men, in pursuit of MDiv degrees.
It Might have been my OT professor, who was on the committee for translating the NIV & used to sell us small cloth bound copies of that Bible for $4 each, that mentioned such inconsistencies as “the rabbit chewing it’s cud” since the rabbit doesn’t technically chew the cud. There were several such minor “discrepancies” that were discussed. Such discussions seemed to make the more legalistic type of people pretty uncomfortable it seemed, iirc 🙂
Yes. Some people have the infallibility of the Bible read in the most literal, straightforward way as one of the pillars of faith…in other words they take the “fact” that it’s a perfect book as one of their reasons to be faithful. When that gets shaken, THEY really get shaken. The guy I mentioned who had the difficulty with Judas’s death was one of those. (He ultimately ended up losing his faith for several different reasons.)
I’m sorry to hear that about your friend. God is perfect & His Word is faithful. Digging into the details of the handful of seeming discrepancies can help us strengthen our faith, or our resistance to faith it would seem. The totality of the message from scripture is profoundly life-changing & has amazing consistency given the numerous human authors & hundreds of years over which these writings materialized. Those areas of seeming inconsistency can drive us to dig deeper into God & His Word to learn more deeply from & of Him.
One seeming contradiction I was contemplating just today. “Those who are not for us are against us” & elsewhere “Those who are not against us are for us.”
Such challenging statements don’t threaten my faith. They do reinforce my certainty that God is way higher than I am & that I cannot fully understand either His mind or His heart.
It’s like reading some of Your science articles. Your mind is Way Higher than my mind is & I can make an effort to understand what you share but I’ll never fully grasp all of it! 😉 LOL
I was thinking that you might enjoy aspects of the Hebrew vs Greek thinking article that TB linked in his latest BIMD post. It was illuminating to me…& actually encouraging 🙂
https://abetterfuturenow.com/hebrew-thinking-vs-greek-thinking
The first ignores “headlong” and seems to be assuming that’s after he died. Why would Acts leave that part out?
It looks to me like someone is assuming a priori that the tales cannot contradict because Bible, so he’s inventing a specious reconciliation.
The cold case guy above/later, here:
https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/how-and-where-did-judas-really-die/
explains how he addresses such seeming discrepancies in a rationally believable manner, at least to me…
Here is another “reconciliation” of the seeming contradictions in Judas’ death description
https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/how-and-where-did-judas-really-die/
This author may be of interest since he approaches his investigations of scripture through the lens of cold case investigations. I found it interesting & a bit different 🙂
The thing that strikes me about Answers In Genesis is they say that “Luke” was a doctor so he described what he saw (burst bloated body). But by that rationale, the doctor would name the cause of death (hanging) OR, if he was reluctant to attest to something he didn’t see in person, he wouldn’t describe something he wasn’t around to witness (falling headlong).
I guess that the passage that “Luke” was describing included the Judas info as an aside as to why the disciples/apostles were seeking to fill his place. The Judas info wasn’t the focus there so much as the actions going forward & the need to fill Judas’ vacant place of leadership.
If “Luke” as a doctor was to provide his considered medical opinion on the matter he likely would have gone into greater detail, loosely like a coroner’s report, but that’s not the focus of Acts which was more about the recounting of the early days of the Christian Church.
“Luke’s” removal from eyewitness status allows him to gather a factual, multi-faceted, linear telling of the gospel stories, such a treat for us Westerners to read 🙂
The Acts of the Apostles According To Fake News.
Has a zippy ring to it, but no…
According to Wikipedia:
We have a common phenomenon with ancient history: A writer who is known to us only secondhand. There are cases in early Christian apologetics where the writer quoted someone else at length and we only know that second person because of the quote.
Thank you that was quite interesting. I wonder if any of the lost/destroyed works were from the Library in/of Alexandria, which I believe may have been destroyed by muslim barbarians?
It’s very possible.
I have heard the destruction was before Islam. I’ve heard it blamed on a Christian mob not being very appreciative of pagan writings, too.
So turning to Wikipoo:
Wikipedia claims Julius Caesar accidentally burned part of it about the time he was banging Cleopatra; and that it may have burned in the late 3rd Century when Rome was trying to dislodge Palmyran rebels.
And apparently if the Christians destroyed anything it was the Serapeum that replaced the Library.
Very interesting. I really don’t know that ancient history well at all.
Btw I found one of the volumes of Josephus at the resale store & gifted it to my husband. It was published in the 1800’s I believe. Neither of us have attempted to read it yet however 😉
An interesting person, he was! Jews considered him a traitor for becoming Trajan’s buddy.
I’m just thankful he recorded the many things he did write about. One (skewed potentially) account is surely better than None!
For Roman history in general, we generally have two maybe three sources that tell a narrative of any sort, for any particular time; e.g., Suetonius for the twelve Caesars, Josephus for Judean history.. Sometimes less, and sometimes we have one source from centuries later. We can often corroborate from other sources (names in inscriptions on buildings or stelae for instance, or my personal favorite, coins. Thanks to those we’d know about Gaius Julius Caesar even if we didn’t have Suetonius or GJC’s own Conquest of Gaul. The third century, on the other hand, we have ONE source for part of it, and since it was one civil war after another, that source often doesn’t identify rebel emperors we actually have coins for.
It’s amazing how thin a thread we have for much of history.
I believe that such a “thin thread” of history is to be contrasted with the miraculous preservation of scripture including numerous ancient copies that are largely, if not entirely, in agreement with each other.
One book that dove into that topic was cited in a movie, God’s Not Dead, or GND2, in a court case basically “proving” the existence AND accuracy of scripture, I believe.
So if one is willing to believe such thin thread history one could theoretically much more comfortably believe the historicity of scripture. The fact that “holy land” archeological discoveries often tie into scripture, like finding the name of a minor official who just “happens” to be mentioned in scripture, kind of seems to provide corroborating “proof” of the “truth” of the Bible 🙂
I know nothing of Trajan. It sounds like it might be a Roman name. A Ben Hur and Messala friendship perhaps?
Oh, WOW. Trajan is an important part of Josephus’s story. Or he would be if I hadn’t f*cked this up spectacularly, because the Roman I was thinking of was Vespasian, not Trajan (who was still a kid at the time). (So that WOW belongs to my mistake.)
*Vespasian* was an important part of Josephus’ story.
Josephus was in a group of Judeans definding to the death against some Roman attack. When they found they were losing they went through a suicide pact; a small group would kill the others, then each other and the last one standing would then commit suicide.
Josephus was the last one and did NOT commit suicide, he let himself be captured and ended up in service to the Roman general in charge of the attack, Vespasian. He prophesied to Vespasian that Vespasian would become emperor someday…which happened.
Josephus eventually attained full Roman citizenship.
Trajan was famous for Trajan’s column in Rome, if nothing else…but that commemorated his victories in Dacia (present day Romania), decades later than the Judean revolt of the 70s.
Fascinating tale. That wasn’t the Masada event was it? If not how horrifying to have more than one such mass self-extinction event in one’s history!!!
If you ever decide to dig into history for a post I would love to see how you’d present encapsulated history (for ANY era), for I really like how you express yourself & how your mind works. If you ever do so please include multiple maps. It’s so hard to understand the histories of peoples, regions, beliefs, & politics without also considering the geography as well as personages in play!
Maps are VITAL unless the audience already knows the area thoroughly.
Even though the bulk of Q-Tree readers know many topics quite thoroughly none of us know All the topics that well. The way you present info, & answer ensuing questions, seems about right for this target audience. Some will ignore things & scroll by (I don’t like to do that but don’t always understand all topics discussed yet appreciate the exposure to different info outside of my personal experience & even areas of interest & the perspectives revealed within this community are most enlightening) & others will return to these important reference points to refresh their understanding.
One of my grad school classes had a book of maps that we were to use to locate various ancient sites referenced in scripture. It was fascinating to me & I’ve always appreciated the reference maps that were included in many Bibles I’ve used over the years. Those ancient “holy land” maps were not always precise for the small sites that are discussed in scripture so it was such an interesting pastime to try to get deeper understanding of places, peoples, & events so far in the past.
I recall hearing a man who’d written a book about his journeys in the “holy land” on a Christian radio program some years ago. IIRC, he had travelled to a site in Saudi Arabia, I believe, that was the Actual site of Mount Sinai (not the place called Sinai that was supposedly put on the map by Constantine’s wife or something). This place was forbidden to Westerners/foreigners to visit & he had many adventures to have this eye-witness experience. He said that the hitching posts for animals were still at the base of this mountain & that the top of the mountain was burned, like some of it was turned to glass, I believe. This was powerful evidence of the validity of Moses’ encounters with God in the Hebrew’s desert wanderings. Apparently muslim/arabic leaders didn’t want anyone to see this tangible evidence of scriptural truth so kept this site under heavy restrictions or something. I don’t recall the author’s nor book’s name but consider it to be an interesting & seemingly plausible tale…