What is it that feeds our battle, yet starves our victory?

January 6 Tapes?

Paging Speaker Johnson…this is your conscience calling you out on broken promises.

For all your high talk about your Christian moral background…you’re looking less and less like you have any kind of moral background.

If You are a Patriot and Don’t Loathe RINOs…

Let’s talk about RINOs, and why they are the lowest form of life in politics.

Many patriots have been involved with politics, often at the grassroots, for decades. We’ve fought, and fought, and fought and won the occasional illusory small victory.

Yet we can’t seem to win the war, even when we have BIG electoral wins.

I am reminded of something. The original Star Trek had an episode titled Day of the Dove. It was one of the better episodes from the third season, but any fan of the original series will tell you that’s a very low bar. Still, it seems to get some respect; at a time when there were about 700 episodes of Star Trek in its various incarnations out there, it was voted 99th best out of the top 100.

In sum, the plot is that an alien entity has arranged for 39 Enterprise crew, and 39 Klingons, to fight each other endlessly with swords and other muscle-powered weapons. The entity lives off of hostile emotions, you see and it wants a captive food source. (The other 400 or so Enterprise crew are trapped below decks and unable to help.) Each side has its emotions played and amplified by the alien entity; one Enterprise junior officer has false memories implanted of a brother who was killed by Klingons. The brother didn’t even exist.

Even people killed in a sword fight miraculously heal so they can go do it again.

The second best line of the episode is when Kang, the Klingon captain, notes that though they have won quite a number of small victories including capturing Engineering, can’t seem to actually finally defeat the Enterprise crew. He growls, “What power is it that feeds our battle yet starves our victory?*”

Indeed. He may have been the bad guy, but his situation should sound familiar.

We are a majority in this country. We have a powerful political party in our corner. There is endless wrangling.

And yet,

What power is it that feeds our battle yet starves our victory?

In our case, that power is the RINOs in our midst. They specialize in caving when on the verge of victory. Think of Obamacare’s repeal failing…by one Republican vote. Think of the way we can never seem to get spending under control (and now our entire tax revenue goes to pay interest on the debt; anything the government actually does now is with borrowed money).

We have a party…that refuses to do what we want it to do, and that refusal is institutionalized. If you’ve been involved with GOP politics, but haven’t seen this, it’s because you refuse to see it. Or because you are part of the problem yourself. (If so, kindly gargle some red fuming nitric acid to clear the taste of shit out of your mouth, and let those not part of the problem alone so they can read this.)

We fight to elect people, who then take a dive when in office. But it’s not just the politicians in office, it’s the people behind the scenes, the leaders of the national, state and county branches of the party. Their job is to ensure that real patriots never get onto the general election ballot. They’re allowed a few failures…who can then become token conservatives who will somehow never manage to win (Jordan), or can be compromised outright (Lauren Boebert?).

That way it doesn’t actually matter who has a congressional majority. I remember my excitement when the GOP took the Senate in 1980. But all that did was empower a bunch of “moderate” puddles of dog vomit like…well for whatever reason forty years later the most memorable name is Pete Domenici. And a couple of dozen other “moderates” who simply had no interest in doing what grassroots people in their party–those same grassroots people who had worked so hard to elect them–wanted them to do.

Oh, they’ll put up a semblance of a fight…but never win. And they love it when we fight the Dems instead of fighting them. Just like that alien entity, whose motto surely was “Let’s you and him fight. It’ll be delicious!”

If you think about it, your entire political involvement has come to nothing because of these walking malignant tumors.

That should make you good and mad.

The twenty five who blocked Jordan, and the hundred people who took that opportunity to stab Jordan in the back in the secret ballot should make you good and mad.

I’ll close this with another example of RINO backstabbing, an infuriating one close to home.

In my county, the GOP chair is not a RINO. She got elected when the grassroots had had enough of the RINOs. Unfortunately the state organization is full of RINOs, and the ousted county RINOs have been trying to form a new “Republican Party” and get the state GOP to recognize them as the affiliate. I’m honestly amazed it hasn’t happened yet.

In other words those shitstains won’t just leave when they get booted out; they’ll try to destroy what they left behind. It’s an indication that they know we know how important that behind-the-scenes party power is.

So they must be destroyed. That’s the only way they’ll ever stop.

We cannot win until the leeches “on our side” get destroyed.

What power is it that feeds our battle yet starves our victory?*

We know it. What is going to be done about it?

*NOTE: The original line was actually “What power is it that supports our battle yet starves our victory.” I had mis-remembered it as feeds. When I checked it, it sure enough was “supports” and that’s what I originally quoted. On further reflection, though, I realized my memory was actually an improvement over the reality, because feeds is a perfect contrast with starves. I changed it partway through the day this originally posted, but now (since this is a re-run) it gets rendered this way from the start.

If one must do things wrong, one should do them wrong…right.

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?

Justice

It says “Justice” on the picture.

And I’m sure someone will post the standard joke about what the fish thinks about the situation.

But what is it?

Here’s a take, from a different context: It’s about how you do justice, not the justice that must be done to our massively corrupt government and media. You must properly identify the nature of a person, before you can do him justice.

Ayn Rand, On Justice (speaking through her character John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged):

Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification—that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero—that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions—that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement—that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit—and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.

Ayn Rand identified seven virtues, chief among them rationality. The other six, including justice, she considered subsidiary because they are essentially different aspects and applications of rationality.

—Ayn Rand Lexicon (aynrandlexicon.com)

Justice Must Be Done.

Trump, it is supposed, had some documents.

Biden and company stole the country.

I’m sure enough of this that I put my money where my mouth is.

The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system. (This doesn’t necessarily include deposing Joe and Hoe and putting Trump where he belongs, but it would certainly be a lot easier to fix our broken electoral system with the right people in charge.)

Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2024 or 2026 is pointless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud in the system is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

This will necessarily be piecemeal, state by state, which is why I am encouraged by those states working to change their laws to alleviate the fraud both via computer and via bogus voters. If enough states do that we might end up with a working majority in Congress and that would be something Trump never really had.

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines,  here, with an addendum on 20191110.

We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns.
5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded.
5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty.
6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.
8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.

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

Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $2,513.10
Silver $29.88
Platinum $973.00
Palladium $988.00
Rhodium $5,050.00

This week, at Friday close:

Gold $2,504.30
Silver $28.92
Platinum $936.00
Palladium $993.00
Rhodium $4,975.00
FRNSI* 120.146-

Note: Five weeks ago gold closed at 2,387.10.

Gold seemed to move around a fair amount between $2500 and $2530 or so. I don’t believe it ever dipped below $2500 this week but I wasn’t watching it continuously and was very preoccupied at work today and never looked. Notice that palladium has pulled further ahead from platinum; it’s the only thing that went up this last week. Silver dropped nearly a dollar, which is over three percent.

*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) stands at 114.486+. (This index is the ratio between the price of gold today, versus the value of the dollar defined as dollars per ounce when we had the gold standard, minus 1 (so that an index of 0 means the dollar is at its original value and doesn’t suck at all). I use that clumsy phrasing because the dollar was defined as a certain amount of gold. 25.8 grains of .900 fine gold was a dollar. This works out to 23.22 grains of pure gold. With 480 grains in a troy ounce, you can do the arithmetic as fractions (rather than decimals to get a precise value) to find one troy ounce of gold was 20 260/387ths dollars (precisely) or 20.671834625323 dollars (approximately–I suspect the decimal won’t repeat until 386 digits have gone by). It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67+ back then, it was twenty dollars and 67 71/387 cents)

PS: I was able to do the arithmetic in double precision and got 0.1834625322997416041470586378636653535068035125732421875 followed by zeros. How much of that might be roundoff error, I do not know. Note that there is an 8637 followed by an 8636…darn, almost started repeating.

(OK it’s 22:04 MT, time to hit “Publish.”)

Flat Earth?

My opinion on this is well known.

But let’s play devil’s advocate for a bit.

Usually I see something like this presented as the way the Earth looks. (Although some say this has been changing recently.) In essence, north is towards the center of the disk, and south is towards the rim. Antarctica, rather than being a (very) roughly circular continent straddling the south pole on the globe, is a raised rim near the edge. East and west would depend on where you’re standing, but wherever you are, “east” is counterclockwise on the disk, and “west” is clockwise.

Things seem a bit vaguer when it comes to discussing the sun and moon, but what I usually see is something like this (my apologies for the extra white space…it’s actually part of the image):

The Sun and Moon are depicted as considerably smaller than the Earth, and relatively close by; here they are less than one earth radius (i.e., the radius of the disk). And they are below a dome of some sort, which many associate with the Biblical firmament. The stars (and presumably the planets) are either on or beyond that dome.

There appears to be an immediate problem here. The entire surface of the Earth is lit by the Sun, at all times. Thus it would seem that the very existence of nighttime is proof that this can’t be right. However, the claim is that the sun does not shine in all directions, but is more like a directed spotlight, lighting only part of the Earth at any given time.

The sun travels in a circular path over the Earth’s surface, one circuit per day, and that circle is centered around the north pole, though the circle varies in size from season to season, as shown on the left side of the following diagram (with the left side being the “conventional” picture). The red path is the one the Sun follows in winter, the orange path around the equinoxes (March and September), with the yellow being the beginning of summer.

So for us people living in North America, we see the sun fairly high in the southern sky in June when it’s on the yellow track, but lower in the sky in December when it’s on the red track, and farther away. (NB: It should be possible to measure changes to the apparent size of the Sun, where it appears larger in summer and smaller in winter, if this is a true description of things.)

Someone in Australia, on the other hand, should see the Sun closest to them at noon, their time…and it will pass to their north.

This is indeed what we see, but broadly speaking the same prediction is made by the globe earth model, so you can’t use this to show which one is right.

Narrowly speaking. on the other hand, the two differ somewhat in terms of what path the sun will appear moving across the sky. Globe earth predicts the sun will follow a certain arc across the sky then drop below the horizon, following the continuation of the arc. Flat Earth predicts a different path across the sky, particularly in the Southern hemisphere, and also does not predict the sun will drop below the horizon. Globe prediction: On the first day of southern summer, the sun will rise in the south east, and climb into the sky on a northward slope, eventually crossing directly north of the viewer halfway across, then set in the southwest. Flat earth prediction: On the first day of southern summer the sun comes into view in the northeast, arcs across to the north, and disappears from view in the northwest.

I’ve been to the Southern hemisphere–though not outside the red circle–and can attest the midday sun was indeed to the north of me. But again that’s expected by both flat and globe earth models. Unfortunately I didn’t think to take note of where it rose and set.

Note though that the truly dramatic differences are in Antarctica. Which makes sense because the two different versions of what Antarctica must be are quite different, more so than, say, Greenland which is near the center of the disk in one model, or near the north pole in the other. It’s either this:

…or that white ring around the rim of flat earth.

And it should be easy to tell, if you’re there. For instance, going from Wilkes Land to Ellsworth Land should be about 4000km if globe earth is correct, but on Flat Earth the shortest way to do it is to cut across the disk, which is to say, cross over the north pole; distance unknown (since no flat earth map ever includes a scale) but certainly a lot more than 4000km.

But I’ve been talking about the Sun a lot, so I’m going to focus on that. On flat earth, a person standing in Antarctica should see an even more exaggerated version of the sun motion I talked about before…becoming visible to the northeast or even, perhaps the north-northeast, coming closer and being highest in the sky when directly north of the view, then receding off to the northwest or maybe even the north-northwest.

Globe Earth predicts something else entirely. During southern summer, provided you are inside the Antarctic circle as shown on the globe earth map above, there should be at least one day every year where the Sun doesn’t set at all. The further south, the more days that are like this; at the south pole the sun wouldn’t set for six months. In fact over the course of a 24 hour day, it circles completely around you, getting lower in the sky to your south (unless you’re at the south pole, where its height above the horizon will be constant) but not setting.

So all we have to do is go to Antarctica during southern summer, and look.

Well, this is supposedly impossible, according to proponents of Flat Earth. You won’t be able to hitch a ride there (none available), and if you were to buy a boat or an airplane and try to sail or fly there…you’ll be killed by those desperate to keep you from being able to prove the globe wrong.

This turns out to be incorrect; over 30,000 people a year visit Antarctica as tourists. People have cross country skied to the south pole. This company will even arrange a trip to the south pole itself (though who knows how much it costs): https://www.antarcticacruises.com/

But it is difficult and expensive, making it not an option for most flat earthers…or for that matter, most globe earthers.

Fortunately, Pastor Will Duffy is offering to pay trip expenses for 12 each, flat earthers and globe earthers (we are talking influencers, not just adherents–Or I’d sign up and cross Antarctica off my bucket list for cheap). The purpose is to go to Antarctica during its summer and see whether there is a 24 hour sun or not. Thus far he has three flat earthers and eight globe earthers signed up. https://www.the-final-experiment.com/participants

OK now I revert to globe earther, trying not to laugh at the inanity of this.

We’re already seeing a couple of things happen in the flat earther camp. One, the three going on the Final Experiment are being condemned by many of the others. Also, many are trying to rework their model to account for a 24 hour sun in Antarctica, after years of denying any such thing could be true…almost as if, in fact, they do expect it will turn out to be true.

And, as is pointed out here: https://youtu.be/7xoW49mkLyw?t=178 if the flat earthers actually went back and reported that by golly they saw a 24 hours sun, they’d simply be accused of having been bought off. Or never having really been a flat earther to begin with (in exactly the way some Christians will accuse those who lose their faith of never having really been a Christian to begin with).

So what I see is Flat Earthers running scared when someone offers to pay the expense for this–change the theory, start condemning the participants…but not one single globe earther is running scared, being ostracized, or anything like that.

So who’s trying to run a cover-up here? Who’s acting as if they’re scared to find out the truth?

On a closing note, Antarctica proves to be a problem for flat earth anyway:

PS: I was about to write this, and saw that Rayzorback has posted a newer version of the 200 Proofs video by Eric Dubay. Well, fortunately someone has done a debunk (though it may be of the older video). [looking at points 55 (25:01) through 59 (ending at 27:22) will address 24 hour sun claims and other similar ones.]

Unfortunately, in order to get through it in any reasonable amount of time he has to skip over a lot of background and just say “This person doesn’t understand physics,” which although true is unhelpful. So, Rayzorback…pick your ten favorite (with your absolute favorite first) points from the video you posted…give their numbers…and I will put two hours worth of effort into countering those ten points, a bit more thoroughly than “Professor Dave” did. At my option I may divide that time amongst all ten or really concentrate on a subset of them. I make this offer in spite of the fact that I believe you will simply dismiss anything I have to say, just as you dismiss people when they debunk the points you have raised in the past (such as Wolf finding air flights you insist don’t exist).