“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
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In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
Isaiah 43:7 “. . . everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Glory to God in the highest . . .
“Why has God created us? What is the purpose? What do the scriptures have to say in regard to this matter?” God’s Word points out that all things are created for God’s glory.
We can see by the word of God that even nature itself glorifies God. Psalm 19:1 says “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork”, Psalm 8:1 says “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens.” In fact, God’s Word tells us all things are to praise God, as it says in Psalm 150:6 “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!”
So from this viewpoint, mankind is created to give “glory” to God. But what does the word “glory” mean in the first place? In order to apply this passage to our lives, we need to first understand the meaning of the word “glory”.
Depending on the context in which it is used, “glory” can be used in several different ways. Mostly it is associated with attributing splendor and majesty to God, but glory is also used as a verb, as in “to glory in something”.
When used as a verb, “glory” means to put confidence in and boast about or praise something. This may be used in the sense of glorifying in God or Jesus Christ, which God’s Word portrays as something that is good, and in the another sense of the word it can mean to glorify in ourselves or our own nature, which God’s Word portrays as sinful.
The original Hebrew word (Kabod) means “weight” or “heaviness”. This word is also used to express importance, honor and majesty. The word glory as related to God in the Old Testament bears with it the idea of greatness of splendor. In the New Testament, the word translated “glory” means dignity, honor, praise and worship.
With this understanding, let’s look at Isaiah 43:7 again, which says “everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory, whom I formed and made.” Now we that we have a clearer understanding of the word glory, let’s see how we can fulfill the purpose of giving all glory to God, which is the very reason we are made.
We are image-bearers of the Almighty God. We are created to bring glory to Him, to honor Him, to praise His glorious name, to thank Him for His abundance in our life and to praise Him for His abundant grace, the riches of His love, His splendor and majesty and a God who is righteous and just and having power in His name that we may come to Him in reverence and awe. This is the very purpose of man – to glorify God in every way.
Glorifying God means to acknowledge His greatness and give Him honor by praising and worshiping Him, primarily because He, and He alone deserves to be praised, honored and worshiped. 1 Chronicles 16:28-29 says “Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His Name; bring an offering and come before Him! Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness;”
He is also due all glory because He gives us our very being itself. Psalm 100:3 says “Know that the LORD, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His;” In a worldly sense we are quick to give gratitude and praise to someone we know, that has saved our very life from danger or even from death itself.
Sometimes we don’t even know how to thank that person for what he/she has done for us. We tend to hold that person in high regard and praise their actions. Sometimes we even use the phrase “I am forever indebted to you”. This shows a kind of gratitude towards that person because of the enormity of their actions toward us and we feel we owe them something in return but don’t know how. We sometimes even use the phrase, “I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you!”.
In the same way, what we need to realize is that not only has God saved our very lives from the wages of sin and death, and given us eternal life, but that He is the very author of life; it is the kindness of God to gift us our very life. When we look at this, isn’t it only reasonable that we should glorify Him? Shouldn’t we live to Him, seeing that we also “live by Him”. Romans 11:36 says: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.”
Another reason we should glorify God is because all our hopes hang on Him. Psalm 39:7 says “And now, O LORD, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.” Not only is our very hope and expectation in Him but He is the source of all things in our lives. Psalm 87:7 says “All my springs are in you.” The springs of grace, mercy, love, faith, provision, healing and everything that will lead us to give glory to His Holy Name.
Not only that but He gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ to come and die for our sins in our place and to take the sin of the world on His shoulders that we should be cleansed of all sin and made right before God. All of this was given as a free gift that cost us nothing, but cost Him everything. We would be totally and utterly ungrateful, unappreciative and thankless if we then questioned, why should I give God Glory, or isn’t is selfish for God to demand glory from His own creation. He is completely and totally worthy of all glory that is due to His Name, and His Name only. Praise God!
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!
*endofthematter.com
On this day and every day –
God is in Control . . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . . Keep Looking Up!
Just remember…we might replace the RINO candidates. (Or we might not. The record is mixed even though there is more MAGA than there used to be.) But that will make no difference in the long run if the party officials, basically the Rhonna McDaniels (or however that’s spelled–I suspect it’s RINO), don’t get replaced.
State party chairs, vice chairs, secretaries and so on, and the same at county levels, have huge influence on who ultimately gets nominated, and if these party wheelhorses are RINOs, they will work tirelessly to put their own pukey people on the ballot. In fact I’d not be surprised if some of our “MAGA” candidates are in fact, RINO plants, encouraged to run by the RINO party leadership when they realized that Lyn Cheney (and her ilk) were hopelessly compromised as effective candidates. The best way for them to deal with the opposition, of course, is to run it themselves.
Running good candidates is only HALF of the battle!
SPECIAL SECTION: Message For Our “Friends” In The Middle Kingdom
I normally save this for near the end, but…basically…up your shit-kicking barbarian asses. Yes, barbarian! It took a bunch of sailors in Western Asia to invent a real alphabet instead of badly drawn cartoons to write with. So much for your “civilization.”
Yeah, the WORLD noticed you had to borrow the Latin alphabet to make Pinyin. Like with every other idea you had to steal from us “Foreign Devils” since you rammed your heads up your asses five centuries ago, you sure managed to bastardize it badly in the process.
Have you stopped eating bats yet? Are you shit-kickers still sleeping with farm animals?
Or maybe even just had the slightest inkling of treating lives as something you don’t just casually dispose of?
中国是个混蛋 !!! Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!! China is asshoe !!!
And here’s my response to barbarian “asshoes” like you:
OK, with that rant out of my system…
Biden Gives Us Too Much Credit
…we can move on to the next one.
Apparently Biden (or his puppeteer) has decided we’re to blame for all of the fail in the United States today.
Sorry to disappoint you Joe (or whoever), but you managed to do that all on your own; not only that, you wouldn’t let us NOT give you the chance because you insisted on cheating your way into power.
Yep, you-all are incompetent, and so proud of it you expect our applause for your sincerity. Fuck that!!
It wouldn’t be so bad, but you insist that everyone else have to share in your misery. Nope, can’t have anyone get out from under it. Somehow your grand vision only works if every single other person on earth is forced to go along. So much as ONE PERSON not going along is enough to make it all fail, apparently.
In engineering school we’re taught that a design that has seven to eight billion single points of failure…sucks.
Actually, we weren’t taught that. Because it would never have occurred to the professors to use such a ridiculous example.
Justice Must Be Done.
The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.
Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.
Kamala Harris has a new nickname since she finally went west from DC to El Paso Texas: Westward Hoe.
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
All prices are Kitco Ask, 3PM MT Friday (at that time the markets close for the weekend).
Time for a wrenching change of subject…because JWST took a picture of a globular cluster.
I was pretty much done with orbits anyhow.
A globular cluster is a grouping of stars, tens of thousands or even millions of them, forming an approximate sphere. The stars are very closely packed in the center and as you move away from the center the density decreases markedly.
This is Messier 2, a globular cluster that (as seen from Earth) is in the constellation Aquarius. (Note this is not the JWST’s image–it’s from Hubble.)
Charles Messier in the 1700s was interested in comets. In telescopes, before they get close to the sun and (possibly) become bright enough for people to see with the naked eye, they simply look like fuzzy blobs. Also, since they orbit the Sun, they move against the background stars (which are at least ten thousand times further away). So Messier would record a fuzzy blob in a certain location then check that location again a few days later. If the blob had moved, he likely had a comet. Otherwise, it was a permanent feature of the nighttime sky.
There were enough permanent blobs that Messier made a list of them, so when he stumbled across that blob again, he’d know he could ignore it. This is now the Messier catalog of about 110 objects. Many of the most famous nebulae in the night sky are Messier objects; many nearby galaxies are too. (Andromeda, for instance, is M-31, and the 800 bazillion ton gorilla of the Virgo cluster, M87 (the one with the really, really big black hole in its center), well, is a Messier object.
Many of Messier’s blobs were fuzzy spheres in his telescope (which was fairly primitive); as optics got better it became apparent they were clusters of tens of thousands or even millions of stars.
It also became apparent that there were quite a number of these in our galaxy…but they do not lie in the plane of the galaxy like the spiral arms do; they are in a swarm in what’s called the galactic halo, a spherical region centered on the bulge at the center of our galaxy. So if you imagine the Milky Way galaxy as, say a CD, some of the clusters are above it, and some below, most are just a few inches from the center of the cd. Other galaxies have them too, and they’re readily visible in powerful telescopes.
Another quirky feature about globular clusters is that the stars in them tend to be very old, over ten billion years old. For a while, astronomers would measure the age of a globular cluster, and come up with a number greater than the cosmologists’ number for the age of the universe. Of course this was absurd…how can an object in the universe be older than the universe. Over a number of decades as measurements were refined the discrepancy went away, but nevertheless, globular clusters are old.
Probably the most famous globular cluster (often just called “globulars”) is Omega Centauri. It’s so bright it was mistaken for a star by the ancients. It does not have a Messier number as it’s not readily visible from northern Europe where Messier worked–but folks living in Australia get to enjoy it. Another famous one is the Hercules cluster, M 13. It’s an easy one to find even with binoculars since it lies on a line between two stars in the Hercules “keystone” pattern (four stars that look like they outline a keystone).
JWST took the following picture of M 92, which is also in Hercules. It’s one of the brighter and more spectacular ones but is overshadowed by M 13. It’s particularly interesting because it’s one of the oldest globular clusters, somewhere between twelve and 13 billion years old. (The universe itself is presently believed to be 13.787 billion years old, give or take 0.02 billion years.) Scientists hope to learn something new about the universe as it was back then.
(We already know from spectrographic analysis the stars shown have almost no “metals” (astrophysicist terminology for elements other than hydrogen and helium) in them…they formed before the elements themselves were formed in more massive stars.)
The first thing you’ll notice is that the center of the cluster is missing. This was deliberate. The astronomers using JWST were interested in the outlying stars and the millions of stars clumped together in the center would have washed them out. They were able to use a gap that exists between two of the NIRCam long wavelength detectors. Talk about making lemonade from lemons!
M92 is about 27,600 light years away. It’s 16,000 light years outside of the plane of the Milky Way and 33,000 light years away from the galactic center. (We are about 27,000 light years from the center.)
This is of course a false-color image, because it’s JWST. None of what you see in this picture is actually visible to the human eye. Rather, this image was taken at four infrared wavelengths we can’t see, then the four each given their own color of visible light and the group combined together into one image. From the NASA website: “This image is composite of four exposures using four different filters: F090W (0.9 microns) is shown in blue; F150W (1.5 microns) in cyan; F277W (2.77 microns) in yellow; and F444W (4.44 microns) in red.” For reference, red light is about 0.7 microns and blue light is 0.4 microns. All of the things seen in the picture are therefore “redder than red.”
Obligatory PSAs and Reminders
China is Lower than Whale Shit
Remember Hong Kong!!!
中国是个混蛋 !!! Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!! China is asshoe !!!
China is in the White House
Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.
Joe Biden is Asshoe
China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.
But of course the much more important thing to realize:
Joe Biden Didn’t Win
乔*拜登没赢 !!! Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!! Joe Biden didn’t win !!!
When school districts have a cash shortage, music – a basic building block of brain development – is frequently the first to go. What about all the high priced administrators sitting in offices? Why are they needed. The kids need orchestra and band more than they need administrators.
'Such an Obvious Intervention': Promoting Sunshine and Vitamin D Could Have Saved Countless Lives
"The data actually shows that if your vitamin D level is above 50 ng/ml — that your chances of dying of COVID are close to zero," reported @DrPaulMarik1. pic.twitter.com/CsSTAAtW7f
Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many others are the past … they’re floppy disk, cassette players, 8-track tapes, phone booths, and pagers.
Sudden Death: More People Will Needlessly Die Because Doctors Aren't Screening for Vax Side Effects
Dr. @RWMaloneMD: "Patients will die unnecessarily because they have been prevented from getting adequate prophylactic medical care for what might eventually develop as chronic… pic.twitter.com/ITZ6uWVFkl
.@RandPaul Asks Samantha Power: 'Did USAID Fund Coronavirus Research In Wuhan China?'
"Should we be funding the Academy of Military Medical Research in China? …Some of the research proposals in 2018 were the Wuhan Insitute of Virology asking for money to create a virus with a… pic.twitter.com/LmflU3jklz
“We Have the Sickest Generation in American History"
Never heard a politician talk about this. Actually addressing real health. This conversation must always be at the forefront. pic.twitter.com/QxJdTLKcPc
— LaughLoveLive, identifies as Deplorable Patriot (@LaughLoveLive1) April 27, 2023
Trump was the 1st in U.S. History to acknowledge that children are being sold for sex in the U.S., and the 1st to open an office to form coalitions with LEO to save America's children. On his 2nd day in office, Biden rescinded Trump's EO that helped combat child sex trafficking.
Buh-bye to Buzzfeed! Farewell to Nate Silver! Happy Pink Slip Kwanzaa to Don Lemon! Layoffs at Facebook! Layoffs at NPR! Layoffs at CNN! Layoffs at Washington Post! Layoffs at Vox! Layoffs at USA Today!
G. Edward Griffin reading a directive issued by Communist Headquarters to American Communists 80 years ago on how to smear “obstructionists” is gonna make your skin crawl. pic.twitter.com/8uAnkKriqh
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) April 26, 2023
Tucker’s FOX audience was 5 million on a good night.
And that was the biggest show on cable.
The video he posted last night has already been viewed 50 million times.
— Charlotte Lozier Institute (@LozierInstitute) April 26, 2023
BRAVA! Madame, BRAVA!
1) Do you all see how RFK Jr. is operating?
He is red-pilling the shit out of the DNC base.
RFK Jr. isn’t saying anything we haven’t been saying for YEARS. It’s just significantly more effective coming from someone with a (D) next to their name.
Some women no longer have a uterus. Does that mean their opinion doesn’t count?
I know priests who go to the shooting range. This is not implausible.
True story. Nothing gets ball point pen ink out of oxford shirts like it. Also, it was the best for spraying on the soles of character shoes for the stage.
The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog it out. There is also a “rescue” thread there for members of the Tree to rendezvous if the main site goes kablooey. A third site has been added for site outages of longer duration.
This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion. In that spirit, though, threats of violence real or hypothetical are out of bounds.
Fellow tree dweller the late Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
And Auntie DePat’s requests:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
1But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. 4And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; 6but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8Saul arose from the ground; and when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. 10Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Anani’as. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Anani’as.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus named Saul; for behold, he is praying, 12and he has seen a man named Anani’as come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13But Anani’as answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to thy saints at Jerusalem; 14and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call upon thy name.” 15But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” 17So Anani’as departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, 19and took food and was strengthened. For several days he was with the disciples at Damascus. 20And in the synagogues immediately he proclaimed Jesus, saying, “He is the Son of God.”
PSALMS 117:1-2
1Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! 2For great is his steadfast love toward us; and the faithfulness of the LORD endures for ever. Praise the LORD!
JOHN 6:52-59
52The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live for ever.” 59This he said in the synagogue, as he taught at Caper’na-um.
Steve Bannon joined the show for an EXPLOSIVE interview on Tucker Carlson's departure, Fox News, Trump's reaction to the RNC Primary debates, ballot harvesting, Marc Elias and more. pic.twitter.com/K5MUtBJBmT
MEP Christine Anderson Explains How She Knew COVID Measures Were NOT About Public Health
"The things they were doing did not add up," expressed @AndersonAfDMdEP. "Refugees still poured in … but me, as a German citizen, I was not even allowed to enter a restaurant, a shoe… pic.twitter.com/uQvBaw7Bd7
Eisenhower prophetically warned that public policy could become CAPTIVE "to a scientific, technological elite."
Conservatives rightly wonder why Biden, a man with so little organic fanfare, has been propped up by the Democrat machine. It's because he is the perfect empty vessel… pic.twitter.com/bVuyOCFX7a
BREAKING: The courts in Brazil have banned the use of the Telegram messaging app, mandating that all phone carriers and app stores remove it from their platforms after it refused to hand over user data to the Brazilian government.
Notice how the Right are vehemently anti-pedophilia, and the Left always evade the topic and minimize the reality of widespread pedophilia and child grooming.
We tried to tell y’all what the “+” in “LGBTQ+” stands for.
That look you get when you’re going to make double what Fox News paid you, have a bigger audience, and get to say what you want. pic.twitter.com/il8nUHUqgy
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The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Company manners are appreciated. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog out discussions best saved for a wrestling mat. If, for some reason, this site is not available, head over to the UTree and visit the post at the top of the list or the closest rescue thread.
This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.
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Fellow tree dweller, the late Wheatie, gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights
No running with scissors
If you bring snacks, be sure they are made with bacon
Auntie DePat’s requests as we are all supposedly adults and don’t just play them on TV like the body doubles pretending to be the squatter in chief:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
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26But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert road. 27And he rose and went. And behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of the Can’dace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship 28and was returning; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” 30So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31And he said, “How can I, unless some one guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32Now the passage of the scripture which he was reading was this: “As a sheep led to the slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. 33In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth.” 34And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, pray, does the prophet say this, about himself or about some one else?” 35Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus. 36And as they went along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What is to prevent my being baptized?” 38And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40But Philip was found at Azo’tus, and passing on he preached the gospel to all the towns till he came to Caesare’a.
PSALMS 66:8-9, 16-17, 20
7who rules by his might for ever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations — let not the rebellious exalt themselves. [Selah] 8Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, 15I will offer to thee burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. [Selah] 16Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. 19But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the voice of my prayer.
JOHN 6:44-51
44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, `And they shall all be taught by God.’ Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
. PRAY ……. Like Nehemiah OBEY ……. Like Daniel LEAD …….. Like Moses BUILD ……. Like Noah FIGHT ……. Like David SERVE ……. Like Martha BELIEVE ….. Like Mary EDUCATE … Like Paul PROTECT .… Like Peter LOVE ..……….Like JESUS
Leftists Worried Elon Musk Will Turn Twitter Into A Place Where Terrible People Post Bad Opinions And Fight With Each Other All The Time https://t.co/62R51QVLZC
On Monday morning, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott called Carlson and informed him he was being taken off the air, and his Fox News email account was shut off. According to a source briefed on the conversation, Carlson was stunned by his sudden ouster from his 8 p.m. show, the most watched program in cable news last month. Carlson was in the midst of negotiating the renewal of his Fox News contract through 2029, the source said. As of last week, Carlson had told people he expected the contract to be renewed.
Carlson has told people he doesn’t know why he was terminated. According to the source, Scott refused to tell him how the decision was made; she only said that it was made “from above.” Carlson has told people he believes his controversial show is being taken off the air because the Murdoch children intend to sell Fox News at some point.
The network provided few details in a Monday statement: “Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” it read. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”
DP: Until Tucker Carlson actually comments publicly on what happened, take all accounts as rumor and hearsay. It will be interesting to find out who comes the closest to the truth.
One year ago at this time I was on house arrest, with a tracking monitor on my ankle, literally unable to step foot outside my apartment. For the guy who was known for traveling the country and rallying people coast to coast, it was devastating to…
— Brandon Straka #WalkAway (@BrandonStraka) April 25, 2023
“it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair.
This is the Board of Fox. Does anybody find anything unusual about this list?
Don’t let the salacious removals of Tucker Carlson & Don Lemon distract you from the fact that Joe Biden quietly submitted a War Powers Resolution yesterday which puts American boots on the ground in Djibouti, Ethiopia, & Sudan for an indefinite amount of time.
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) April 24, 2023
I wasn’t going to say anything until the time was right…
Yours Truly was getting ready to go on TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT to talk about my lawsuit against the ADL.
I was supposed to go on April 19th, but because of the endless breaking news, I was set to be rescheduled for… pic.twitter.com/qha958Z3oX
— Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH® (@P_McCulloughMD) April 25, 2023
BTW, this is why @briankilmeade is such a cowardly scumbag. An honorable man would have declined to sit in for @TuckerCarlson the very first night of the firing, but no, the biggest Never-Trumper at @foxnews this side of @karlrove went for the carcass. https://t.co/0MoNY9yJd1
#Tucker aggressively declared war on the World #Economic Forum during a live TV segment, criticizing their "stunning cringe" and calling them "a bunch of freaks." pic.twitter.com/UMn8bAUWCA
Steve Bannon joined the show for an EXPLOSIVE interview on Tucker Carlson's departure, Fox News, Trump's reaction to the RNC Primary debates, ballot harvesting, Marc Elias and more. pic.twitter.com/K5MUtBJBmT
(I don’t remember who brought this to a daily in the comments, but thanks.)
And, of course, the obligatory George Carlin:
Per the Boss:
And now for the obligatory message from our sponsors:
Here at the Q tree we believe in the concept of CIVIL open free speech and the discussion that fleshes out ideas. When commenting and participating in the OPEN discussion on this thread all comments MUST NOT CONTAIN personal threats, baiting, name calling, or other anti-social words fomenting hate, violence or destruction. Our host Wolfm00n has strict rules about that.
Fellow tree dweller, the late Wheatie, gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone
Please, stock up on blanks for celebratory gunfire, be ready to swing from the chandeliers…and no messing with the nuclear weapons.
Please remember to remain locked and loaded and ready for trouble should the insurrectionists try to invade your space.
Those who have things to say that do not fit the generally accepted limits of “civil” discussion, Wolf has provided a venue known as the UTree. You’re welcome to visit over there and say hi to anyone hanging out over there. The “Rescue Thread” is also over there. In the event a rendezvous of the tree is needed, please check it out, as well as the newest rescue venue.
Auntie DePat’s requests:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
Thank you so much for any and all attention to such details. It is GREATLY appreciated by more than one party here.
One other vital note:
Please, review these rules that our host Wolfm00n outlined toward the beginning of the growth of the tree itself. it won’t take long.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Ahem.
For now, as all Branco cartoons are being shared in the comments, this section will be reworked.
35Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. 36But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; 39and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. 40For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
As always, prayers for the fight against that which seeks to enslave us are welcome.
Please include: President Donald Trump, the Q team, our soldiers in the field, special forces, tactical units, first responders and those working behind the scenes…and any and all people with family members in the hospital, COVID or not.
And…members of the QTree who no longer participate for one reason or another.
We are getting ready to experience a level of evil that will be hard to comprehend. Stay strong. Be prepared.
It is quite clear, as per Wolf’s message from July, that we are under spiritual attack. Building up a robust arsenal of prayer and discipline is a must in fighting the enemy and his minions.
In that spirit, the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel from Tuesday’s threads, and the Breastplate of St. Patrick, not to mention the Litany of Humility are favorites recommended by exorcists in spiritual warfare.
“You see people you know revealed as cowards, saying things you know they don’t believe because they want to keep their jobs, and you’re so disappointing in people you realize the herd instinct is maybe the strongest, to be like everybody else… pic.twitter.com/UtmKSBzJUY
While many of us do not agree that Salem Media is anywhere close to MAGA, Seb has a point. Tucker is now unfettered. Where he lands, no one quite knows, but the hopes are on Rumble on his own show, or with a group with Bannon and Dan Bongino and anyone else who gives FOX the finger on the way out the door.
Don Lemon need not apply.
As for some of Tucker’s greatest moments, one came over the weekend, and another exposed what we all know and keep trying to tell the normies.
In Tucker’s last monologue on Fox, he confirmed the US has “sensitive American nuclear technology” in Ukraine
Let me repeat – Biden put US nuclear weapon technology into Ukraine and potentially instigated the entire war
The US Pentagon released a statement on its official website acknowledging that it has funded 46 Ukrainian biological facilities over the past 20 years.https://t.co/ZoUw5tGNzy
Why do D’s want to control the black pop? Why do they intentionally keep poor and in need? Why do D’s project RACISM on a daily basis against R’s? Why do black elected officials do the crazy talk on behalf of D’s? pic.twitter.com/BfYhDcdiWS
From “interacting” all afternoon with DeSantis supporters, I’m convinced of 2 things:
1. DeSantis, when he finally announces, is running as the REAL Conservative and Trump is now the establishment. That’s been thrown in my face all afternoon.
This is the most Powerful speech Glenn Beck has ever given… If you don’t feel this, we are NOT the same.. You are NOT a real American… pic.twitter.com/ua4QLe0vWd
“Cherry-picked” — in sudden massive overuse by both parties — joins “misleading,” “needs context,” and “malinformation” as derogatory ways to describe true-but-inconvenient information. pic.twitter.com/WmxjkFgKMU
There is an ongoing gaslighting campaign to brainwash the American People to forget all the false things the Left said about covid and vaccine efficacy.
Deep State politicians, MSM, Big Pharma, Health Agencies, etc.; they were wrong about… everything.
BREAKING: Reuters now reporting that Ukrainian state energy officials are now holding secret talks with Exxon, Halliburton, and Chevron about opening up Ukrainian oil and gas fields to US companies
– Preach about women’s rights but replace women with men in dresses – Talk about racism and inclusivity but ostracized white Christians – Be against guns but have armed security – Be pro illegal immigration but not let immigrants to reside in your…
1) Alright, here’s my two cents on the Matt Taibbi and Elon breakup.@mtaibbi was far too concerned with negative feedback from the outrage machine, and spent all day fighting with irrelevant troll accounts calling him Elon and Putin’s bitch.
They can’t keep this up for much longer. I believed the dam would have burst a long time ago but fuck me they are getting desperate now. It’s as clear as an azure sky. pic.twitter.com/ZxGDoI40sQ
The FDA has just categorized pregnancy as an illness so that they can approve an abortion drug called Mythoprex. In order to get the approval, the FDA had to argue that pregnancy was a “life threatening illness”.
Feels like things are escalating quickly. So much of what we fret about is inconsequential. Focus on protecting your family and getting right with God. We’re all going to need spiritual armour to weather the storm. What comes after for those who persevere, will be beautiful.
Tucker Carlson once came on my show and outlined exactly what he predicted would happen to him and what was most important:
"You can't control all this stuff that's going on…The powers that be will win. At least in the short term…Are they going to crush me? Oh yeah." pic.twitter.com/MJzpwDiMGg
Here's Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on CNN explaining why he thinks Washington, D.C. can and should dictate to Fox News and Tucker Carlson what they can and cannot say:
"We not only have a right to tell Rupert Murdoch and Fox what to do, but an obligation." pic.twitter.com/FvipIN9Yib
I’d throw in a few Rockefellers and Rothschilds also.
Of course, this does not mean committing felonies, but standing up to the forces that want to tear this nation – and humanity apart. The very people XVII told us will be destroyed by the time this movie comes to an end are currently roaming the halls of power…supposedly. It’s a sickening sight.
The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog it out. There is also a “rescue” thread there for members of the Tree to rendezvous if the main site goes kablooey. A third site has been added for site outages of longer duration.
This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.
Fellow tree dweller, the late Wheatie, gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
And Auntie DePat’s requests:
If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.
The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.
Thank you so much for any and all attention to such details. It is GREATLY appreciated by more than one party here.
5Likewise you that are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 6Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. 7Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. 8Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. 9Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. 10And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. 11To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 12By Silva’nus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God; stand fast in it. 13She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark. 14Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you that are in Christ.
PSALMS 89:2-3, 6-7, 16-17
1I will sing of thy steadfast love, O LORD, for ever; with my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations. 2For thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is firm as the heavens. 5Let the heavens praise thy wonders, O LORD, thy faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! 6For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD, 15Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance, 16who exult in thy name all the day, and extol thy righteousness.
MARK 16:15-20
15And he said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. 16He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” 19So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. 20And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it. Amen.
“God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want.” – C.S. Lewis
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Hosts, by the power of God, cast down to Hell Satan and all his evil spirits, who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
>>148156518 Amen brother. Q
As always, prayers for the fight against that which seeks to enslave us are welcome. Via con Dios.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
And yes, it’s Monday…again.
But we WILL get through it!!!
In WHEATIE style!
With our dancing shoes on!
And possibly with a little excitement!
Dedication
WHEATIE – OUR WARRIOR ANGEL
by Duchess01
Please forgive us, Wheatie, we did not know That you had left us with armor in tow We had no idea with what you dealt We did not know the pain you felt And now we can only imagine With you what really did happen Cause rarely did you complain And/or share your personal pain Of one thing we are most certain You are flying high behind the curtain Watching over us above the crowds Our Warrior Angel above the clouds Thank You, Wheatie, for caring for us While you were here among the fuss We miss you dear you have no idea Since time began in the pangaea With you there was no time In your wisdom you would chime To clarify and magnify The what where how and why We did not question when you left We were not slightly bereft But over time we wondered why You did not at least stop by Now we know where you have gone With the break of this new dawn We could be angry but are not Tho with an arrow we’ve been shot Rest peacefully Warrior Angel dear Send us a sign that you are near A butterfly a flower a kiss of rain From your love do not refrain God sends Angels to watch over us And now we have an Angel Plus A Warrior Angel of Magnificence From today and forward hence
Boilerplate, more or less, but worth reading again and again, if only for the minor changes, and to stay out of moderation.
MINOR CHANGE NUMBER 1
Now shortened.
Give them nothing.
Play smart. Every minute, the COUPISTS who stole the election – who lied – who deserve to be at the business end of the very same laws they are using so wrongly against the January Sixth defendants – are trying to set you up. Don’t be a chump. Turn everything back against THEM. Every day, every hour, every minute, every second.
YOU are responsible for your own comments, if they come knocking. YOUR choice. Just remember this…..
OTHER THAN THAT…….
The bottom line is Free Speech. Theories and ideas you don’t agree with must be WELCOME here, and you must be part of that welcoming. But you do NOT need to be part of any agreement.
Bottom line – respect other people’s FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS.
Our only additional requirement is that you do so NICELY. Or at least try to make some effort in that direction.
SO….. [ENGAGE BOILERPLATE…..]
We must endeavor to persevere to love our frenemies – even here.
Those who cannot deal with this easy requirement will be forced to jump the hoops of moderation, so that specific comments impugning other posters and violating the minimal rules can be sorted out and tossed in the trash.
In Wheatie’s words, “We’re on the same side here so let’s not engage in friendly fire.”
That includes the life skill of just ignoring certain other posters.
We do have a site – The U Tree – where civility is not a requirement. Interestingly, people don’t really go there much. Nevertheless, if you find yourself in an “argument” that can’t really stay civil, please feel free to “take it to the U Tree”. The U Tree is also a good place to report any technical difficulties, if you’re unable to report them here. Please post your comment there on one of Wolf’s posts, or in reply to one of Wolf’s comments, to make sure he sees it (though it may take a few hours).
We also have a backup site, called The Q Tree as well, which is really The Q Tree 579486807. You might call it “Second Tree”. The URL for that site is https://theqtree579486807.wordpress.com/. If this site (theqtree.com) ever goes down, please reassemble at the Second Tree.
If the Second Tree goes down, please go to The U Tree, or to our Gab Group, which is located at https://gab.com/groups/4178.
We also have some “old rules” and important guidelines, outlined here, in a very early post, on our first New Year’s Day, in 2019. The main point is not to make violent threats against people, which then have to be taken seriously by law enforcement, and which can be used as a PRETEXT by enemies of this site.
In the words of Wheatie, “Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.”
A Moment of Prayer
Our policy on extreme religious freedom on this site is discussed HERE. Please feel free to pray and praise God anytime and anywhere.
Thus, please pray for our real President, the one who actually won the election.
You may also pray for our nation, our world, and even our enemies.
Musical Interlude
In honor of dear Wheatie, we now present some music to soothe, inspire, invigorate, or relax.
Here is the Country Music top 40, selected by the Fibonacci sequence.
Let’s see what this gives us.
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34
So what in the heck is “zero” on the country music top 40?
I’m going with an old favorite of mine from almost 30 years ago, which now gets approximately ZERO plays on the radio. Last I heard this one was probably 10 or 15 years ago.
On dialysis and potentially facing death, a 41-year-old homeschooling mother of 7 young children has been rejected as a candidate for a life-saving kidney transplant.
NOTE – this “fake news” is from a satire site, and the replies to Larry Elder are filled with correcting leftists trying to comfort themselves by the parody having fooled the stupid, gullible right.
However, Bud Light’s fall on this drama has been so epic that the story is damn near “Not The Bee”, if not half-way true. Industry embarrassment is quite real, and satire is a fig leaf on this LOSER of a cause. The sheer truth of industry embarrassment makes this parody a glorious backfire, IMO, and evidence of the left’s nakedness on the issue.
Sometimes the left simply shouldn’t go there. But they do, and we’re there to greet them.
This cited article is satire, but it's so close to the truth of industry embarrassment, that the left's comfort of having fooled some "taters" seems like chump change, next to validating the overwhelming social verdict on Bud Light's cultural and political misalignment. https://t.co/4lBWISmb4O
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the DayYear Week:
disabuse
transitive verb
To free from a falsehood or misconception.
To set free from mistakes; to undeceive; to disengage from fallacy or deception; to set right; — often used with “of”.
To cause someone no longer to have a wrong idea.
To set free from a mistake; to disentangle from a fallacy; to set right; to undeceive.
Used in a Sentence:
If you think that Eric Holder has given up on Obama’s dream of turning this country into a communist hell-hole, please let me disabuse you of that notion.
This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
God is in Control . . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . . Keep Looking Up
Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.
“This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep.” . . . “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Give God ALL the Glory
To give God the glory is to honor Him with praise or worship. God is glorious; that is, He is great and magnificent—He is exceptionally grand in His nature and deeds. “Full of splendor and majesty is his work” (Psalm 111:3). When we give God the glory, we acknowledge His greatness and splendor and praise Him for it. When we give God the glory, as all the world is told to do in Revelation 14:7, we direct our praise, adoration, thanksgiving, and worship to Him who alone is worthy.
Scripture makes our responsibility to give God the glory evident from cover to cover. First Chronicles 16:17–36 presents a model for giving glory to God. As Asaph is installed as the chief minister before the ark of God, David instructs him in the method of worship:
• give praise to the Lord (verse 8) • proclaim the greatness of God’s name (verse 8) • tell the whole world what God has done (verses 8–9, 24) • sing to the Lord (verses 9, 23) • glory, or exult, in His name (verse 10) • rejoice in Him (verse 10) • seek out the Lord and trust in His power (verse 11) • remember all the Lord’s mighty deeds (verse 12) • ascribe glory and strength to Him because it is His due (verses 28–29). To ascribe is to think of as belonging, as a quality or characteristic; thus, we regard the Lord as possessing glory and strength. • bring an offering to God (verse 29). In Asaph’s time, the offerings were in accordance with the Law of Moses; today, we are “to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is our true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1). • worship the Lord (verse 29) • give thanks to God for His goodness and love (verse 34) • cry out to God for deliverance (verse 35)
El Elyon, the Most High God, is the possessor of all true majesty and resplendence. Glory is His by virtue of His nature, and He rightfully refuses to share it with others: “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). By virtue of who God is, we have an obligation to give God the glory at all times (1 Corinthians 10:31). Those who refuse to give God the glory face severe judgment, as witnessed by the example of Herod usurping God’s glory in Acts 12:21–23.
We can, of course, give God the glory with our words of praise and thanksgiving. We can also give God the glory through our works of service for Him. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Bearing fruit for the kingdom of God also brings glory to Him (John 15:8). Even in our manner of death, we can give God the glory (see John 21:19).
To give God the glory is to extol His attributes, praise His works, trust His name, and obey His Word. He is holy, faithful, merciful, gracious, loving, majestic, sovereign, powerful, and omniscient—and that’s just for starters. His works are wonderful, wise, marvelous, and fearfully complex. His Word is “perfect . . . trustworthy . . . right . . . radiant . . . pure . . . firm . . . precious” (Psalm 19:7–10). His salvation is astonishing, timely, and near. No matter how loudly or widely we proclaim the glory of God, He is worthy of more.
In the refrain of her 1875 hymn, “To God Be the Glory,” Fanny Crosby exhorts us to do what is right by extolling the Lord for all His work:
“O come to the Father through Jesus the Son and give him the glory, great things he has done!”
https://www.gotquestions.org/glorify-God.html
So . . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your Name give glory, for the sake of Your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
McCarthy 2.0 seems a vast improvement over Speaker Dungsmear. So here’s the question. Was he once a conservative with a little fire in the belly that got captured by the system and now is finding the bellyfire again? Or is this all completely under duress?
For the moment, it doesn’t matter which one. But some day it will matter, and we will have our answer.
Lenin’s Birthday
By the old Julian Calendar in effect when and where he was born, Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov was born on 22 April (Old Style), 1879 in the town of Simbirsk in Russia. Alexander II (the LIberator, for he freed the serfs) was tsar of Russia. Before Ulyanov was done, his name had become Lenin, Russia was becoming a charnel house, terrorized into submission to Marxism, and the stage was set for Stalin (formerly Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili).
And that town of Simbirsk is still named Ulyanovsk in Lenin’s honor. The constant hagiography under the Bolsheviks has resulted in many Russians continuing to regard Ulyanov as a hero.
The 20th was Hitler’s birthday; it’s rather amusing that Queen Elizabeth II and Catherine the Great both are wedged in between and have their birthday on the 21st (in Catherine’s case, again Old Style).
RINOs an Endangered Species? If Only!
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.
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.
Gold was above 2000 still as of Friday morning, and got pushed down 21 dollars worth on Friday. Silver lost 21 cents on Friday. What I find interesting is the platinum group metals are starting to climb again.
Rocket Science
I’ve been exposed to rocket science in a formal setting. And I’ve been exposed to quantum mechanics. And many aspects of electrical engineering.
And I am here to tell you, rocket science ain’t rocket science, at least not by comparison.
A lot of what people call “rocket science” is really engineering, building devices that will work in a hostile environment. Hard vacuum (more of a vacuum than we can create here on Earth), radiation (both cosmic and solar-based), and temperature extremes. The simplest-seeming things can fail under those circumstances. And many materials we think of as “inert” will turn into bearded dragon poo up there. (No, not literally but you get my meaning.) Add people into the mix and then zero g –ahem, microgravity–becomes an issue, and the radiation protection becomes even more critical. And with people you have to build a pressurized environment, an enclosure strong enough to withstand an an enormous amount of outward force. 15 pounds per square inch doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s a ton per square foot. Every square foot. Yes, they can breathe a richer atmosphere at lower pressure, but the issue remains.
And all this has to be done as lightweight as possible. Which means, basically, that the Apollo astronauts landed on the moon in an aluminum “tin” can.
Why is weight an issue?
That goes back to actual rocket science.
By now I hope it’s abundantly clear that out in space, Newton’s first and second laws (objects in motion will remain in motion (and objects at rest will remain at rest) until acted on by an external force; and the force is proportional to the mass times the acceleration) are not just approximations. They hold. (And even here they do, but friction and a solid surface to stop our response to gravity and thus provide the sensation of weight introduce complications.)
Which means if you want to quit going endlessly around the same orbit, and want to go somewhere, you must apply a force in order to accelerate and change your speed.
By far the most common way to do this is with a rocket. There are solar sails and ion propulsion units, and they can be much more efficient than a rocket, but they must necessarily operate much, much more slowly. They can’t be used to go into orbit from the surface of the earth, because they don’t work fast enough to overcome the effects of the 1g pull near the surface. To go up, you need more than 1 g acceleration upwards; one g of it cancels gravity, the rest goes into increasing your speed. Solar sails and ion propulsion won’t do that.
The force usually ends up being supplied by a rocket; a rocket will change your velocity nearly instantaneously, which is how you change which orbit you’re in (if you’re in orbit) or accelerate to a speed high enough to be in orbit (if you’re not). It’s essentially a deliberate perturbation of an orbit.
People often wonder how a rocket can work out in the vacuum of space when there’s “nothing to push against,” in fact this is a common (and specious) argument in the quiver of those who deny the moon landings ever happened. The objection actually gets partial credit, because it acknowledges (even if it mis-applies) Newton’s third law of motion, which is that every action has an equal but opposite reaction. If you push against something, both you and it feel a push, in opposite directions; if you happen to be on roller skates you move away from what you pushed.
The fact is that the rocket moves forward simply because it flings its own exhaust out its tail end. The act of pushing the exhaust out, pushes the rocket forward; it changes speed in that forward direction.
It doesn’t have to be “exhaust” by the way; pushing any mass out the back will do the job. However, it happens that exhaust of burning fuel is by far the easiest thing to arrange for. When they want to be generic, they talk of “reaction mass” being the mass you push against to change your speed.
So let’s say you are sitting in a space capsule in orbit, and you want to change to a different orbit…and after doing all of the calculations, you find you must change your velocity by exactly one kilometer per second.
You and your capsule put together mass one metric ton, 1,000 kilograms or about 2200 pounds (mass). And let’s say this mass does not include the mass of the rocket fuel you happen to be carrying. So what if you have a metric ton of rocket fuel with you? If you can shove it away at 1 km/sec, you will also move at 1 km/second away from where you shoved it. On the other hand, if you only have half a metric ton of reaction mass…you gotta push it away at 2 km/sec.
This is from conservation of momentum. The mass of the fuel, times its velocity after the maneuver, must equal the mass of your craft, times its velocity. The two velocities will be in opposite directions, so they cancel each other. Zero total momentum before (0x0+0x0=0), zero momentum afterwards (1×1000+ -1×1000=0 or 2×500 + -1×1000=0).
But there’s a gigantic gaping hole in this analysis. And that is the fact that we can’t accelerate all of the fuel at once. We have to do it a kilogram at a time. So, returning to our metric ton of fuel at one kilometer a second, we’d expect each kilogram to speed us up by 1 meter per second; all 1000 kilograms would therefore give us one thousand meters, or one kilometer, per second.
Right?
WRONG.
The first kilogram of fuel, pushed out the back of the rocket at 1 km/sec, is having to push a spacecraft with a mass of 1,999 kg…the actual spacecraft plus the fuel that hasn’t been burned yet. NOT 1,000 kg. So it will barely accelerate the spacecraft half a meter per second! The second kilogram will have to accelerate a 1,998 kg spacecraft, and will do a little better as a consequence.
Only the last kilogram will produce the full 1 meter/second of change in velocity.
So we need more than a metric ton of fuel to do this, even if the exhaust velocity is 1 km/second.
And actually even this isn’t quite right becuase you can subdivide the kilograms into grams, each with a very slightly different effect; you can subdivide the grams into milligrams…you’ll get more accurate results, the lower you go, but honestly the only perfectly accurate answer is some sort of continuous calculation.
That sounds really, really hard. It’s like that numerical integration I was talking about a few weeks ago, with smaller and smaller step sizes. And indeed you could solve this that way, but you don’t have to. There’s a closed form solution.
But to see how that is, let’s work the problem in reverse.
Let’s start with the empty (or “dry”) spacecraft, 1000 kg. We know that at one km/second exhaust speed, it will take ever so slightly more than one kilogram of fuel to change our speed by 1 meter/second. To compute what it will take to do two meters per second, you can work it backwards: Assume your rocket is already doing one meter per second when you burn that kilogram+ of fuel to add on the second meter per second. But realize at the start of that your mass is 1,001+ kilograms, so in order to have done that first meter per second, you need enough fuel to accelerate 1001 kilograms; that will be 1.001+ kilograms of fuel.
You can imagine doing this a thousand times, adding a tenth of a percent of the mass of what you’ve already got to figure out what that particular meter per second of change in velocity is going to cost.
Now that I’ve phrased it that way…doesn’t that sound like compound interest?
We know how to handle that. In fact, we know how to handle continuously compounded interest (rather than periodic, step by step) so we can solve the issue of having to think about what each microgram of fuel does.
And it turns out, therefore, that to accelerate your spacecraft 1 km/second with fuel that has an exhaust velocity of 1km/second…you need not just 1,500 kg of fuel, no, you need 1,718.281828 kilograms of fuel.
YIKES! Almost two times as much fuel as actual spacecraft!
And it’s worse than that. You’re going to need a BIG tank to hold all that fuel, and the tank itself adds to the weight–or alternately, reduces the weight you can use for the astronaut, his life support, his food…and so on.
Well, I’ve talked around it a bit…but here it is. The equation at the heart of all of this is known, quite simply, as “the rocket equation.” There are several equivalent forms, which are solved for different things, but we’re interested in the mass of the fuel in this scenario, so let’s use this one:
This is usually credited to Константи́н Эдуа́рдович Циолко́вский…er, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskiy (usually spelled Tsiolkovsky but the Russian ends with their “iy” so I’ll stick with that…see my rant about Chaikovskiy a few weeks ago). [And yes, that’s a TS at the front so you will probably have this insane urge to make the T silent.] He derived the formula in 1903.
OK, let me unpack this a bit. Δv is the desired change in the rocket’s velocity (1 km/sec). [the triangle is the Greek letter delta and is commonly used in mathematics and science to indicate “change.” So the change in the rocket’s velocity is often called “delta-vee.”] That’s divided by ve, the exhaust velocity (also 1 km/sec). The result of that division is 1, so you are now raising the mathematical constant e to the first power…which is just e. That is 2.718281828…it’s a transcendental number like pi (π) is, never falling into an endlessly repeating sequence and never ending. It’s a little bit easier to memorize the first few digits of, though, because the 1828 repeats itself (once) .
Now mf can either be a reference to a RINO politician (I may not have made myself clear on how much I despise them), or it could be the “final” mass, i.e., the mass of the spacecraft after all the fuel is burned. And m0 is the “starting” mass. The mass of the fuel is the difference between the two m numbers. So our final mass is 1,000 kg, and that must be multiplied by e to get the initial mass, which is 2,718.281828 kilograms. Subtract 1000 from that number to get 1,718.281828 kilograms fuel mass.
Now picture what happens with a mission where there are two 1 km/second burns. For the later of the two burns, you must start with 2,718+ kilograms total weight…so that is mffor the first burn. Which means the total mass before the first burn must be e times that. Well, that’s e2 times the original thousand kilogram dry weight of the spacecraft…which is 7,389+ kilograms, subtract a thousand for the dry spacecraft weight and you now need 6.398 tons of fuel. You get the same result, by the way, for a single 2 km/second “burn”; just put 2 in for Δv keeping ve as 1, and you see you have an e2 in the formula. That’s important: Many small burns (delta-vees) are the same as one big delta-V equal to the sum of all the small delta-vees. (If you think about it, that makes sense. Why does it matter to the rocket whether it fires continuously or intermittently to do the same job?)
You can see this is going in a really, really bad direction. The more delta-vee you need the more fuel you need…and it mounts up quickly! This is where compounding works against you, and believe me it sucks to be on the brown smelly end of that stick.
(If you’re thinking that (in spite of what I said about rocket science not really being rocket science) this sounds like pretty complex math, it is nothing compared to general relativity. Or quantum mechanics. Or electrical engineering. Where, OBTW it’s possible to raise e to a complex power involving the square root of minus 1…and some reaaaaally interesting stuff happens when you do that.)
There are some ways to mitigate this. Obviously…anything you can do to reduce the weight pays big dividends in reducing fuel mass. And if you can figure out a way to do your mission with a smaller delta-vee, that’s great too…this is why NASA loves gravity assists. Every bit of speed they can get out of a gravity assist allows them to make the spacecraft bigger–read, pack more scientific instruments on the spacecraft, OR use less fuel (a smaller rocket). Or some combination of the two. And this is why NASA sends returning astronauts through a fireball re-entry too: No fuel is used to slow down. Apollo would not have been possible if they had needed a 25,000 mile per hour delta-vee in fuel to land on Earth at the end…think about how that would affect the rocket equation!
But the most potent method is to increase the exhaust velocity. If you can make your exhaust velocity 2 kilometers/second, then going back to the first problem where you want to change your spacecraft’s velocity by 1 km/sec, you now have Δv/ve = 1.0 km/sec divided by 2.0 km/sec and you’re now raising e to the 1/2th power (e1/2)…which is to say you take the square root of e, and multiply your 1000 kg dry mass by that. The square root of e is 1.64872+. The initial mass of your spacecraft is now 1,648+ kilograms, not 2,718+ kilograms, and your fuel mass is 648+ kg, not 1,718+kg. Wow, you’ve saved over 62 percent of your fuel mass (almost exactly 5/8ths in fact), and you can have a smaller fuel tank or more other things in that spacecraft.
Of course when you decide to do a 2 km/sec delta vee, you’re back to needing 1,718 kg of fuel…but that’s much better than 6,398 kg!
Basically if you increase the exhaust velocity by some amount…you’ve increased the amount of delta vee from the same amount of fuel by the same percentage.
This is why rocket scientists…er, engineers, will sell their left testicle or ovary for a faster exhaust velocity.
OK so how do you do that? Your taking a mass (the mass of your rocket exhaust) and speeding it up. That’s kinetic energy, and thanks to conservation of energy, that energy must come from somewhere.
In a rocket, that comes from simple chemical energy. You burn the fuel. If your fuel is kerosene, and you burn it (with oxygen) your exhaust has a lot of energy in it, it will want to expand, the pressure builds…and you give it a nozzle to squirt out of. Voila! Exhaust velocity.
Robert Goddard used kerosene and liquid oxygen. (And, note: You have to carry the oxygen with you into space [which rather conspicuously has very little oxygen ready for use] not just the stuff you’re lighting on fire. Fortunately the oxygen counts towards the mass of the exhaust so it doesn’t really matter how much is oxidizer and how much is “fuel.”)
It turns out that what the fuel is makes a great big difference. You can calculate how much total momentum change (“impulse”) a certain weight of fuel (and oxidizer) will produce, and that becomes the “specific impulse” which is symbolized Isp (not to be confused with an internet service provider). By the time you fiddle around with unit analysis, it ends up being measured in seconds. Yes, just plain seconds. But you can also look at it as the amount of time a certain weight of fuel can provide a thrust equal to that weight, which is seconds, also. The longer it does that, the more delta-vee it can impart to whatever it’s pushing.
You can in fact take the rocket equation, and work the opposite problem: If I have a certain amount of fuel, how much delta vee will it give me? You can rearrange and solve the above and get the other commonly seen form of the rocket equation.
The first two terms (to the left of the second equals sign) are the rearrangement (ln is the “natural log,” the reverse operation to raising e to a power). The second expresses ve in terms of the Isp of the fuel, instead of the exhaust velocity. g0 is standard gravity (9.8 meters/second/second, or 32 feet/second/second) since the thrust is in pounds weight instead of pounds mass.
So Isp makes a big difference, because exhaust velocity makes a big difference. What has the best Isp out there?
There is often a theoretical maximum, but just simple inefficiencies sap it…so that’s something else rocket engineers can work on. But the best rocket fuel out there is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, with a specific impulse of 450 seconds. This is what NASA used in the Saturn V, and in the Space Shuttle main engines (and is using in Artemis). It can be expensive to liquefy hydrogen–then you have to engineer systems that can take that cold as well as the heat from the burning fuel, but when you absolutely, positively have to wring everything out of a BIG rocket, it’s the way to go.
Other fuels do less. The solid rocket boosters on the shuttle had specific impulses of 250 seconds. Solid rocket boosters generally have low ISPs but they are dead simple, have a long shelf life (unlike liquid hydrogen, where if you scrub the mission you must de-fuel the rocket because you cannot refrigerate it in the tank…because refrigeration is heavy).
I’ve now explained why NASA aerobrakes, and does gravity assists. It’s not a virtuosic stunt, it’s absolutely necessary to maximize the amount of “stuff” you can send to Jupiter or Mercury or the Parker solar probe or…Apollo 11, where you can’t exactly reduce the weight of the astronauts to save fuel. [I’m sure they were encouraged to hit the restroom right before launch though.] The more you can do that sort of thing the better; which is why the advent of cheap computing has been a huge bonus…those seven-gravity-assist missions couldn’t have been planned with a slide rule.
One last thing…and hopefully by now it’s obvious. Why do rockets have stages?
Remember what I said about the (literally) exponentially increasing amount of fuel requiring bigger and bigger tanks? Well, there’s one way to mitigate that. And that’s to put the fuel in several tanks, and throw them away as you empty them since once they’re empty they’re just dead weight you do not want to have to push.
This works, and works well. We could not get to orbit, much less the moon, without doing this. The problem is, it’s expensive. You either throw away the rocket (old school) or recover the parts and rebuild it (new school, complicated work). It’d sure be nice if the rocket stayed intact going up and back down again, and just needed to be inspected and refueled…like an airliner. And it seems like we can almost do this.
But alas, we need more specific impulse. But 450 is as good as we’re going to get by chemical means. It turns out that specific impulse is higher the lighter the molecule of exhaust is, and you’re just not going to get anything lighter than water out of liquid propellants. So liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for the win!
But I said, by chemical means.
Experiments have been done in using a nuclear reactor to heat hydrogen (by itself) and of course hydrogen (by itself) will have a much higher specific impulse. Testing in the 1960s gave a specific impulse of 850 seconds! BUT…the reactor is heavy and it would really suck if one of those blew up in flight, say shortly after launch or shortly before landing. So we’ve been reluctant to pursue that further. There are other more pie-in-the-sky technologies with much higher specific impulses, but in general they tend to be very low thrust. (The fuel can change the delta v a lot…but it will take a long time…and we can’t use that to boost from the surface to Earth orbit. These would be great, though for use in spacecraft once they are out in space and have the luxury of time.)
OK, so there’s an introduction to rocket science and engineering.
Obligatory PSAs and Reminders
China is Lower than Whale Shit
To conclude: My standard Public Service Announcement. We don’t want to forget this!!!
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 !!!
Tucker: “ Now we have learned that actually it is far worse than just bio labs. Not only has Biden administration been maintaining these labs in Ukraine in the middle of the war, it also has ‘sensitive nuclear technology’ in Ukraine as well. pic.twitter.com/Fkt5aOHZcB
Everything that is happening right now has been planned and set in motion with the goal of destroying the dollar, the Euro and eventually all fiat currencies and replacing them with CBDCs: Centralized Bankster Digital Currencies for SLAVES. pic.twitter.com/MFalDPZlbL
#TuckerCarlson shares the "911 call" he received from the NYPD on the day Jeff Epstein was found dead. He also stated that it has been deleted, just like the videotape. pic.twitter.com/VMDpgFFPAl
I thought this was from @TheBabylonBee but it's real. A Congress member praises Mayor Pete for bringing "gender equity" by creating female crash dummies. But wait, couldn't they have just used the male dummies they had & said they "identified" as women? https://t.co/GxnVSjiUjj
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) April 20, 2023
BOMBSHELL: After sworn testimony from former acting CIA Director Mike Morell, we now know that the Biden Campaign SOLICITED the letter from 50+ intel officials that labeled Hunter Biden's laptop from Hell as RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION, a debunked claim that was used to censor the…
I had never heard of Egard Watch. It is a luxury brand dedicated to the bond between fathers and sons, and they are sticking up for women. It’s beautiful to see.
1) Joe Rogan and Jim Breuer talking about the accusations of US biological weapons production in Ukraine and the censorship about the story!@joerogan whenever you want to do a deep dive on this subject with the guy who wrote the infamous viral story, shoot me a DM. pic.twitter.com/1wO4NX7v3m
Madeline Brame explains why she left the Democrat Party:
“I’ve voted Democrat since I was 18 years old. Because that’s what black people do is vote Democrat. Getting nothing in return for our votes — dilapidated housing, failing schools, poverty, crime.” pic.twitter.com/Cchvl68CW3
Important! Guys in women’s sports are injuring women, not just defeating them.
Watch the clip of Payton McNabb getting spiked in the face by a male competing with the women. Then watch her testimony she gave today for the first time publicly. I was honored to stand alongside her in NC to continue the fight to protect women's sports. pic.twitter.com/mvJmwprkaX
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Fellow tree dweller the late Wheatie gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:
No food fights.
No running with scissors.
If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
And Auntie DePat’s requests:
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34But a Pharisee in the council named Gama’li-el, a teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a while. 35And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you do with these men. 36For before these days Theu’das arose, giving himself out to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was slain and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37After him Judas the Galilean arose in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this undertaking is of men, it will fail; 39but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” 40So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.
PSALMS 27:1, 4, 13-14
1The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 4One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. 13I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! 14Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yea, wait for the LORD!
JOHN 6:1-15
1After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiber’i-as. 2And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. 3Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9“There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?” 10Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. 11Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.” 13So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. 14When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!” 15Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.