Month: October 2024

2024·10·12 Joe Biden Didn’t Win Daily Thread

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

January 6 Tapes Reminder

After the first release, we were supposed to get more, every week.

As far as I know it hasn’t happened.

Speaker Johnson, please follow through!

A Caution

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!

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). (Note: most media quotes are for the bid…the price paid by the market makers, not the ask, which is what they will sell at. I figure the ask is more relevant to people like us who wish we could afford to buy these things. In the case of gold the difference is usually about a dollar, for the PGMs the spread is much wider.)

Last Week:

Gold $2,654.30
Silver $32.26
Platinum $999.00
Palladium $1,038.00
Rhodium $5,025.00
FRNSI* 127.402-
Gold:Silver 82.278+

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

Gold $2,657.70
Silver $31.60
Platinum $995.00
Palladium $1,088.00
Rhodium $5,075.00
FRNSI* 127.566+
Gold:Silver 84.104+

Gold see-sawed, getting closer to 2700, almost dipping below 2600 on Wednesday and Thursday but recovered nicely on Friday, even to the point of closing up for the week, barely. Silver, however, has definitely slipped, and you would need almost two more ounces of silver this week to buy an ounce of gold, than last week. Platinum a bit down, palladium might be starting another run.

*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) is a measure of how much the dollar has inflated. It’s the ratio of the current price of gold, to the number of dollars an ounce of fine gold made up when the dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of 0.900 gold. That worked out to an ounce being $20.67+71/387 of a cent. (Note gold wasn’t worth this much back then, thus much gold was $20.67 71/387ths. It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67 back then, it was $20.67.) Once this ratio is computed, 1 is subtracted from it so that the number is zero when the dollar is at its proper value, indicating zero suckage.

Moon Roundup

Before 1610, there was one Moon, and it wasn’t a class of objects. Actually at one time the Moon and Sun (!) were lumped in with Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn as planets. They were, after all, all objects that moved with respect to the background stars (that includes the Sun but it takes a little bit of extra work to show this since it’s rather difficult to see the stars and Sun at the same time). And planet derives from a Greek word for wanderer.

Note by the way that Earth was not considered a planet. Planets were things up there in the sky, not down here, and certainly not as “down here” as you can get, the dirt beneath your feet.

This was back in the old “Earth is the center of everything” days, but late in the 1500s some people started suggesting that perhaps it was the Sun at the center. (This was actually a revival of an ancient Greek idea.) Now this is difficult to settle with naked eye observations, but a telescope will show you that not everything goes around the Earth. Venus and Mercury exhibit phases that show they orbit the Sun. And Jupiter, of course, has those Galilean moons.

Galileo actually considered them planets at first, because, after all, they moved against the background stars, just like Jupiter did. He didn’t realize we needed a new category of thing, with the Moon being the first known member. And it took a while; for a couple of centuries the larger moons of the outer planets were called “satellite planets” instead of “moons” or just plain “satellites.”

So if you think Pluto being demoted from planet status was a kerfuffle, imagine what was going on then, when they still couldn’t figure out which buckets even existed that they could put things into (figuratively speaking of course).

Eventually anything that orbited the Sun was a planet, including Earth, and anything that orbited a planet was a satellite or moon, including “the” Moon. We know of no cases of a moon itself having a natural satellite of any significant size.

And yes, “satellite” used to be synonymous with “moon,” but then we started putting things in orbit, and we started talking about natural and artificial satellites. Some people still do so, but most people use “moon” (with a lower case M) for the natural case and just plain “satellite” for the artificial case.

[And yes, we’ve no idea how to classify Stacy Abram’s hindquarters. It’s a moon…sort of…and is of similar size to the major moons, but it’s not a heavenly body by any stretch of the imagination.]

Since those days, of course, we’ve found objects out there of all kinds of different sizes orbiting both planets and the Sun, so we had to sit down and reassess definitions again and Pluto got the boot from the “planet” clique. (And, IMHO, rightly so; the other alternative would have been to promote about half a dozen Kuiper belt objects.) There’s no minimum size, as yet, for moons, so technically any planet with a ring has countless moons: all the constituent rocks that make up the ring.

Anyhow, we’re not even halfway through the moons that are in our solar system. But I thought I’d do a quick roundup, to set up the Big Picture. Let’s start out with a picture from Wikipedia showing planets and large (or famous) moons, all to scale by size. Notably, Mercury and Mars look roughly the size of some of the bigger moons, and Pluto is outclassed by at least seven moons.

Let’s consider them in order of size. If you ignore the planets and Pluto, there seem to be seven “big ones,” and a bunch of medium sized ones.

The big ones are The Moon, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto (all orbiting Jupiter), Titan (Saturn), and Triton (Neptune). They are all 2500 km across or larger. There seems to be a big gap between Triton and any of the moons smaller than it, and when you look at masses, that is confirmed. Triton, the smallest of these seven, is more massive than all of the other moons put together. So you could actually make a list with eight entries, the eighth being “everything else that’s a moon, put together” and that would be the last item on the list.

That makes it seem like a nice, natural dividing line between “large” and “medium.”

The large moons verge on being planet sized, with Ganymede more voluminous than Mercury (though made of much lighter stuff). So much so that at least some astronomers call these seven the “satellite planets.” (I.e., things that would be planets, if only they weren’t orbiting a planet!) [As an aside I suspect we’ll be looking, again, at reclassifying things soon. And I would not be entirely unsympathetic.]

Now just eyeballing that diagram again, there are nine moons in the “medium” bracket (with S for Saturn, U for Uranus, and P for Pluto): Titania (U), Oberon (U), Rhea (S), Iapetus (S), Charon (P), Ariel (U), Umbriel (U), Dione (S), and Tethys (S). And again, it turns out that Tethys, the smallest of the nine, is bigger than all of the remaining “small” moons, put together. So, another natural dividing line, between medium and small. These medium moons are all 1000-2500 kilometers in diameter.

Up to here, moons seem to be named after mythical figures, however for some reason the moons of Uranus got named after Shakespearean characters.

So that’s sixteen medium and large size moons. Everything else is “small.”

But there’s another criterion we could use…and that’s “hydrostatic equilibrium” which when you dumb it down means “is it spherical”?

If you don’t dumb it down, there are nuances. For instance, if a moon is orbiting fairly close to a planet when it’s still largely molten, it’s going to take on an oblate shape, first because it’s rotating once per orbit, and second because the planet’s going to tend to make it egg shaped (tidal forces). If it then solidifies and its orbit gets larger, it’s technically not quite in hydrostatic equilibrium any more; because if it were liquid it would flow into a slightly different shape. Our own moon is actually an example. But in general, for classification purposes, this is a nuance that is ignored; the sucker is round or it isn’t.

[Edited to add:] A moon in hydrostatic equilibrium is considered to be a “major moon,” no matter how small it might be.

[Edited:] All of the large and medium moons are major moons. But as happens, three (maybe four) of the biggest “small” moons, those below 1000km across but greater than 250 km across, are round too and also qualify as major moons. There are two moons in the 500-1000 km range, and seven in the 250-500 km range. I’m going to call the 250-1000 km range the “medium small” range.

[Edited:] In the 500-1000 km range, we have Enceladus (S) barely making it at 504 km, and definitely a major moon. There is also Dysnomia, a satellite of the dwarf planet Eris, which is the “maybe” case. It’s 615 km across, apparently, but it’s very dark and we cannot get a read on its shape though its density appears to be low enough that we don’t expect its gravity will have crushed it into a sphere.

[Edited:] in the 250-500 km range we have Mimas (S), and Miranda (U), 400 and 470 km in diameter respectively, both major moons. And we also have five objects that are not major moons, and they are Hyperion (S), Proteus (N), Nereid (N), Vanth (satellite of dwarf planet Orcus) and Hi’iaka (satellite of dwarf planet Haumea). Proteus is actually bigger than Mimas, so there’s clearly not a hard line, above which a moon will be round (and therefore major). As I alluded to above, a low density can make a moon less massive, which can be enough that it does not “go round.”

[Edited:] So there’s your roundup. Expect to see talk of Large, Medium and Medium-small moons, as well as major moons and minor moons; “major” encompassing large and medium moons as well as three of the scores of small moons.

Saturn

History

Saturn, to the ancients, was a star-like object that took 29.5 years to make one trip around the ecliptic. Dimmer and slower than Jupiter, which was associated with the king of the gods, it got associated with the prior generation.

You see, in Greek and Roman mythology the Olympian gods were the third generation. The first was Uranus (Οὐρανός), the sky, and Gaia, the Earth. He was both her son and her husband. Their children were the titans, twelve of them: Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus, Theia, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and Cronus. (You will see some of those names again…in fact if you read the previous section, you already have.) Cronus (or Kronos) was the father of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter and Chiron. These are all the Greek names. The one called Kronos was known to the Romans as Saturn.

In 1610 Galileo turned that telescope towards Saturn, and saw…well, a couple of lumps one on each side of Saturn that each looked like it might be a moon a third the size of Saturn. (Let’s face it, it wasn’t a very good telescope, even if it was one of the best in the world at the time.)

A couple of years later, he looked again, and the moons were gone. He predicted that they would be back later, and indeed they showed up. And got bigger to the point where Saturn seemed oval-shaped. Christiaan Huygens finally saw this as rings in 1655, publishing his results in 1659. Huygens spotted one moon, which he named Titan. Shortly thereafter (1675) Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered a gap in the rings, and also four more moons, Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys and Dione–all named after titans. (Dione is either another daughter of Uranus and Gaia, or the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, depending on whose rendering of the mythology you’re reading.) In 1789 William Herschel (discoverer of Uranus) discovered two more moons, Mimas and Enceladus–these are two of the three “small” moons in our solar system that are nevertheless big enough to be round, from the previous section. Hyperion was discovered in 1848. It’s comparable to Mimas and Enceladus, but not round…far from it, as we’ll see.

Saturn ends up having seven major moons, one large, the other six medium. Add in Hyperion, and that’s eight. When I was a kid, the count was ten (with most books still saying nine). The missing two were Phoebe (1898) and..well..number ten, first spotted in 1966, was a bit confusing. It was first spotted on December 15, 1966. But then another astronomer spotted it again…but in a different place in the same orbit…on December 18, 1966. Here was a moon that appeared to be jumping around in its orbit, but it was there (well, maybe not) and it was number 10. Finally in 1978, a couple of astronomers realized what was really going on. There were two moons sharing the same orbit, Janus and Epimetheus, a situation which had been assumed to be unstable up until then. So elementary school Steve didn’t realize Saturn’s tenth moon was really the tenth and eleventh moons. Today’s count is (drumroll) one hundred and forty six, with the most recent discovery being in 2020. But I am going to save detailed discussion of the moons until next time.

Pioneer 11 flew by in 1979. Voyager 1 zipped by in 1980, and Voyager 2 followed it in 1981. What a nice little barrage, especially since the cameras on the Voyagers were so much better. After that nothing until 2004, when Cassini went into orbit around Saturn. It not only stayed there for 13 years (until we deliberately deorbited it into Saturn’s atmosphere, since it was about to die anyway), it even put a lander on Titan! The ONLY landing ever made beyond the asteroid belt.

The Planet Proper

Saturn itself orbits at an average distance of 1,434 million kilometers, nearly a billion and a half. That’s 9.58 AUs. It has an axial tilt of about 28 degrees, a bit more than Earth’s 23 degrees, so Saturn definitely has seasons, unlike Jupiter (whose axial tilt is about 2 degrees). This will turn out to be important when we finally quit fiddling around and talk about the rings.

Saturn has a magnetosphere, like Jupiter, Ganymede, and Earth. Unlike Jupiter and Earth, the Saturn “magnet” is aligned with the axis of rotation pretty well. This magnetosphere isn’t as strong as Jupiter’s, but still significant.

Measured across the equator, Saturn is as wide as 9 earths. Measured through the poles, on the other hand, it’s only 8 earths tall. That’s because it is spinning very rapidly, once in about 10 1/2 hours, and it’s fluid clear down to a solid core that’s about 16,000 km across. We were able to learn a LOT about Saturn’s interior just from monitoring its gravity’s effect on both the Cassini probe and the rings.

Saturn has a banded atmosphere much like Jupiter’s though not nearly as colorful. It doesn’t have a long-standing storm like the Great Red Spot, but from time to time white spots will appear. Great white spots tend to appear once every Saturnian year, during its northern hemisphere summer, the last one in 1990. Cassini got to see one form, stretch out along its band, and eventually dissipate, after the head of the thing caught up and passed its tail. And then in 2010, ten years early, we got another white spot.

Voyager 1 spotted something very peculiar around Saturn’s north pole. For some reason we don’t fully understand, the clouds there form a hexagon, which appears to rotate with the planet, in time with Saturn’s radio emissions.

The south pole, by contrast, shows something like a hurricane eyewall. (No word yet on whether this is where all the FEMA hurricane money goes.)

OK, with that out of the way…

The Rings

They have been called “Gravity’s Masterpiece.”

And that is an understatement.

Gravity created them, gravity maintains their structure, and gravity is slowly destroying them.

Galileo noticed change when looking at Saturn, but could not resolve the rings; his telescope was simply too small. That change is caused by Saturn’s seasons. When it’s northern hemisphere summer, the north surface of the rings is tilted toward the Sun, at autumn they are edge on, at northern winter, the south surface is tipped toward the Sun, and finally at northern spring, they are edge on again. And since, comparatively speaking, we’re quite close to the Sun, we see the same thing. Here is a twenty nine year time lapse:

The rings are thin. At the time the earth crosses through the plane of the rings, we can’t see anything, not even a thin line. It has been likened to looking at a sheet of paper edge on, but relatively speaking the sheet of paper is much too thick! The next “disapperance” is next year, right now it looks something like this:

The rings are skinny but definitely there.

The rings are themselves subdivided into seven sections, imaginitively named A, B, C, D, E, F, and G.

What we see through our telescopes are basically A, B, and C. This is typically what you’ll see…only it’s much smaller in the telescope field of view than this:

This picture (from Cassini) shows the rings from well above the plane, with Saturn itself casting a shadow on them.

Going form the outside in, there’s a medium-bright ring (A), a wide gap–the one noted by Cassini, a brighter ring (B), and a much fainter ring (C). There are other, smaller gaps as well. Where do they come from? The Cassini gap happens to be at that spot where, if something were orbiting there, it’d do so in a 2:1 resonance with Mimas. That causes enough instability to force objects into smaller or larger orbits. In other cases, small moons within the rings help clear things out.

That’s just the beginning of the crazy stuff that happens in the rings. Ripples one to two kilometers high raised by embedded moons, spokes on the B ring we can’t figure out (yet)…some scientists are spending their entire careers on this stuff!

To see the D through G rings readily, we must look at Saturn backlit…something we couldn’t do until we sent spacecraft there.

By the way, if you right click and open in new tab, between the two “gray” fuzzy rings (a narrow one and a broad one) at about 4 oclock…that dot there is Earth.

The rings appear to be made of chunks of ice, averaging about a foot across. And they’re pretty bright; they haven’t been covered with dark space dust. That leads most scientists to think that they aren’t that old…150 million years at the most. It’s possible that they weren’t there when the non-avian dinosaurs were killed 66 million years ago.

The most common thought is that a medium-sized moon got too close to Saturn somehow, perhaps thanks to perturbations from the other moons, and tidal forces (yes tidal forces again) did the rest.

Picture this: a spherical body maybe 200 kilometers across in orbit. It will orbit as if the entire mass of the moon were concentrated at the center. But a rock at the far side of the moon is 100 kilometers further away, and one at the near side is 100 kilometers closer. An object 100 km further out, in order to stay in orbit, wants to move slower than this moon is orbiting, yet that rock is being forced to move faster than that, since it’s stuck to the moon. If the moon were to suddenly disappear and leave the rock behind, it would actually go into a new, elliptical orbit, with the closest part where the rock was, sitting on the moon, and the furthest part, oh, some distance away. And so, this is what the rock “wants” to do. It actually feels a slight tug pulling at it, off the surface of the moon. If the moon is close enough to the planet, and its gravity weak enough, the rock will actually feel no net attraction to the moon, and drift off. As will its neighboring rocks. And similar things happen on the side of the moon closest to the planet, they want to go into smaller orbits and feel a net tug toward the planet and off the moon.

That’s how loose rocks might peel off, but moons are generally solid, aren’t they? Sure. But, if you think about that orbit where things on the far side will just barely want to drift away, but put the moon closer, then something deep underground at the far side would (if it weren’t buried) drift away. Now bury it again. Everything above it wants to drift away too. Those miles of stuff are effectively “hanging” wanting to fall off the moon. Enough of that, and even a solid rock will fracture. Rocks don’t do too well under tension, a fact which has had a profound effect on architecture here on Earth.

So, basically, we think a mostly-icy moon got too close and shattered. And the tidal forces have kept it from reforming. However some suggest that instead, two moons collided and this is the debris from the collision.

The rings are dying, though. The ice is slowly sublimating with help from cosmic rays, and that ice ends up in Saturn’s magnetic field and eventually forms auroras in its atmosphere. There are also other forces causing ring material to rain down onto Saturn’s equator (this was discovered by the Cassini spacecraft). The rings have 10-100 million years to live at the rate they are losing mass.

I’ll close this with another picture:

..or two, just to see the aurora…

..or three (you can see the hexagon in this one).

Obviously I could go on. But some of the coolest stuff is on the moons. So…until next time!

Health Friday 10.11.2024: About The Bird Flu Summit This Month in Virginia

The above blurred image of persons attending a conference is courtesy of Google Images and Vecteezy.

Today’s Health Friday offering is one a of a series devoted to Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. The discussion is not limited to what is presented in today’s post: it is an Open Thread.

There are Important Wolf Moon Notifications; the Rules of our late, good Wheatie; and other items that readers should be familiar with. They are all linked here.

This post will be diving into some “interesting” rabbit-holes. Stay with Yours Truly — I believe they are all interconnected. There is a General Summary at the end of the post.

The trail, for today’s purposes, begins with the following links: www.theburningplatform.com/2024/10/04/exclusive-new-york-city-health-officials-to-hold-bird-flu-tabletop-exercise/, 4 October 2024, by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.; https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nyc-health-officials-bird-flu-summit-tabletop-simulated-plan/, 3 October 2024, by the same author (goes into more detail); and, www.theqtree.com/2024/08/02/the-hhs-gave-the-go-ahead-to-use-an-h5n1vaccine-but-the-ama-just-issued-new-cpt-codes-for-an-h5n8-vaccine/, 8 August 2024, by Yours Truly.

Note: the scientific paper referred to by Dr. Nevradakis is here: www.preprints.org/manuscript/202406.0060/v1, “Proximal Origin of Epidemic Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 Clade 2.3.4.4b and Spread by Migratory Waterfowl”, Nicolas Hulscher, John Leake, Peter McCullough, 3 June 2024; click on “Download PDF” to read or save the paper. The authors suspect Gain-of-Function to be in play. Below is the Abstract of the paper:

Since this paper is a preprint; and, that it may be a target for Retraction; Withdrawal; or, Reissue with “new conclusions” that would reflect pressure on the paper’s authors and/or the publisher, Yours Truly suggests that interested readers download or make a hard copy of the preprint version.

The International Bird Flu Summit was held in Fairfax, Virginia, on 2 – 4 October 2024. This is the website for the “summit”: https://birdflusummit.com/. Here is the Brochure for the “summit”: https://birdflusummit.com/Bird Flu Summit Brochure.pdf. Reading through these “summit” websites, one gets the distinct impression of a general tone that “a Bird Flu pandemic” is about to occur; and, that various “interventions”, “command and control” methods, and “monitoring and dismantling” of “misinformation” detected on social media platforms, etc., will be “necessary” as part of a “coordinated response.”

Taking a look at the Brochure for the “Bird Flu Summit”, here is a portion of one of the “overview” pages:

Seems innocuous enough. However, moving on in the Brochure, one finds this:

And, further along in the Brochure, there is this:

Military involvement? “Inter-agency Communication and Resource Allocation”? What is “Seamless Response”?

John Leake, who works with Dr. Peter McCullough, attended this “summit.” Here is his take: https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/at-the-bird-flu-summit, 2 October 2024. Yours Truly agrees with his impression that the speakers at the “summit” were “middle-of-the-road, rather than barn-burning experts” (my phrase.) One also agrees with the impression that the “summit” was all about “a Bird Flu pandemic being just around the corner.” However, this is NOT to minimize the potential for something like a “bird flu epidemic / pandemic” occurring — either from a “natural cause”: or, by another “lab leak.” Here is another view on the situation: www.theburningplatform.com/2024/09/22/could-bird-flu-be-the-october-surprise/, by Clayton J. Baker, MD.

FLASH! — The McCullough Foundation just got a demand from one of the speakers at the “Bird Flu Summit”, Syra Madad, PhD, to delete a video that John Leake and Nicolas Hulscher (another McCullough Foundation member) made of a Question-and-Answer session between Mr. Leake and herself at the “summit.” Dr. Madad is the coordinator of the upcoming New York City “Bird Flu Response Conference.” Please see here: https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/mccullough-foundation-receives-bird, “McCullough Foundation Receives Bird Flu Summit Censorship Demand”, 9 October 2024. Below is a portion of the article:

The transcript of the video follows in the article (the video was deleted.) Below is a portion of the transcript, followed by an assessment by Mr. Leake:

Turning to the entity that “presented” the event (Ginkgo Biosecurity), and the entity that “produced” the event (SyllabusX): this is where the “rabbit holes” emerge; and, something that Yours Truly will call the Big Pharma-Government-Medical Complex (BPGMCTM) comes into the situation. Yours Truly defines BPGMC as an “interwoven cooperation” among Big Pharma, Federal government agencies regarding development / funding / support (including the Department of Defense), institutional investors, private investors, and “Establishment Medicine” (CDC, FDA, AMA, etc.)

First, the “producer” of the “Bird Flu Summit”, SyllabusX. The company’s address and phone number: 1900 Campus Commons Dr., Suite 100, Reston, VA 20191; phone number: 703.466.0011. The company was founded in 2017. SyllabusX has its “fingers in many pies” regarding producing conferences and other events on student safety and security, on technology for educators, on health and biosecurity, and more (https://syllabusx.com/home-2; and, https://syllabusx.com/about-us.) (Note: it is not easy to find information online about this company, especially as regards financials. A couple of sources that Yours Truly found: https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/520513-39#overview; and, www.zoominfo.com/c/syllabusx-inc/480230653.) It appears that SyllabusX is a “privately-held company.”

The Chief Research Officer of SyllabusX is Ahmed Al Faraj (www.linkedin.com/in/ahmed-al-faraj; Note: this link may not work, unless the reader first joins LinkedIn.) And here’s where the issue gets, IMO, interesting. It appears that Mr. Faraj graduated with a B.S. in Economics from the University of Kansas School of Business in 2006. His languages are listed as, “Native or bilingual proficiency” in Arabic.

Before starting SyllabusX, Mr. Faraj previously worked for a company called New-Fields Exhibitions, headquartered in Dubai (https://inf.ae/.) While at New-Fields Exhibitions, Mr. Faraj held positions as Program Manager, Education & Public Health Group; and. as Program Manager, Defense Business Group. Below are two screenshots from the type of work he performed while at New-Fields Exhibitions:

Mr. Faraj also previously worked for a company called AdvanFort. He was the Chief Operating Officer of this company. AdvanFort is owned by a person called Samir Farajallah. His son, the then-Chief Operating Officer, was called Ahmed Farahjallah. AdvanFort is “a US private maritime security company”, per Wikipedia. The company was founded in 2007, and its headquarters office is in Herndon, VA (www.advanfort.com/.) A vessel owned by AdvanFort was involved in an international maritime incident in 2014. One of the stories that covers this incident is here: www,bbc.com/news/uk-england-34095843, 7 September 2015, “AdvanFort accused of abandoning British men facing India trial.” As a result of this incident, AdvanFort withdrew from membership in SAMI (the Security Association for the Maritime Industry): https://gcaptain.com/sami-responds-accusations-from-advanfort/, 2 April 2014. (Interested readers may want to compare the photo of Ahmed Faraj on the SyllabusX LinkedIn site, to the photo of Samir Farajallah and Ahmed Farajallah that is in the BBC article linked above. In one’s opinion, the “Ahmed” in these photos is the same person, with a perhaps 10-year gap between the photos. One has no objection to people wishing to change their names — this is simply an interesting item.)

Second, the “presenter” of the “Bird Flu Summit” event, Ginkgo Biosecurity (Ginkgo Bioworks www.ginkgobioworks.com/.) The company’s address and phone number: 27 Drydock Ave., 8th Floor, Boston MA 02210; phone number: 877-HACK-DNA. The company works in “cell programming and biosecurity.” Ginkgo Biosecurity was founded in 2008 by students and scientists at MIT. Two of the founders are Tom Knight (known as the “godfather” of “DNA hacking” and of “synthetic biology” (www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ginkgo-bioworks-to-become-a-public-company-and-expand-its-leading-platform-for-cell-programming-301288325.html, 11 May 2021; and, Austin Che https://startupexchange.mit.edu/watch/dinkgo-bioworks, 17 July 2017. Mr. Che is also a mentor for Creative Destruction Lab in Toronto, Canada (https://creativedestructionlab.com/mentors/austin-che/.) Below is a screenshot from the Ginkgo BioWorks website:

It appears that Ginkgo BioWorks has quite a bit of funding. Below are screenshots from https://tracxn.com/:

And, some institutional funders:

The United States government is also funding the biosecurity arm of Ginkgo BioWorks: www.dfc.gov/media/press-releases/dfc-approves-11-billion-loan-ginkgo-bioworks-expand-its-commercial-biosecurity, “DFC Approves $1.1 Billion Loan to Ginkgo BioWorks to Expand its Commercial Biosecurity Business to Combat COVID-19 on a Global Scale”, 25 November 2020. DFC is the U.S. International Finance Development Corporation. Below is a screenshot from the article:

For comparison, here is a list of some raw materials used in nucleic acid-based vaccines (mRNA-based vaccines), from www.promega.com/custom-solutions/custom-manufacturing/mrna-manufacturing/:

It would appear that Ginkgo BioWorks was involved in the “rapid deployment” of those PCR tests and antigen tests for COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic; and, also in the production of “two key raw materials for nucleic acid-based vaccines” (the modRNA COVID-19 “vaccines”.) Below is a blog post from April 2020 by Jason Kelly, another Ginkgo BioWorks co-founder, regarding the company’s partnership with Moderna in the production of the modRNA COVID-19 “vaccine”, mRNA-1273, along with other of that company’s mRNA “vaccines”:

Yours Truly has not, to date, found information as to the exact “raw materials” that Mr. Kelly is referring to.

Recall that the NIH/NIAID and Moderna co-developed mRNA-1273, co-own the patents of this modRNA COVID-19 “vaccine”, and share in the “royalty payments” for the sales and administration of this “vaccine” (and its “descendant clone” modRNA COVID-19 “vaccines.”)

Ginkgo BioWorks also “has its fingers in many pies”, including the bio-engineering of elements for gene therapy: www.ginkgobioworks.com/offerings/gene-therapy-services/. One such “service” is the bio-engineering of bacteria for treatment of diseases, such as cancer: www.ginkgobioworks.com/2023/01/09/engineering-bacteria-for-cancer-patient-treatment-with-prokarium/ (Prokarium is another “partner” with Ginkgo BioWorks.) The bacteria to be bio-engineered is a type of Salmonella bacteria, which will be used for “delivery of RNA payloads to treat cancer patients.” (Salmonella is “the most common form of food poisoning the in the U.S.”, according to the Cleveland Clinic. This brings up two questions: One, “Why is a bacteria related to food poisoning going to be used to treat cancer patients?”; and, Two, “How is this Salmonella bacteria going to be bio-engineered — is it going to be “sanitized” to be a beneficial element?”)

In Yours Truly’s opinion, Ginkgo BioWorks is a company to keep “on the radar.” It is acquiring other “partner companies” at a rapid rate. It is expanding its “services” into the gene-therapy sector. It is a “partner” with Moderna (and, therefore, by extension the NIH / NIAID.) In general, one has no objection to a company wishing to increase its profit margin and/or the number of its partner companies; at issue here are the following factors: the bio-engineering of DNA; the use of “automated tools” for engineering / manufacturing “raw materials” for gene-therapy treatments and/or “vaccines”; and the tie-in with the federal government.

General Summary: One: The International Bird Flu Summit was held in Fairfax, Virginia, earlier this month. The general tone of the “summit” was that a “bird flu epidemic / pandemic outbreak” is likely to occur, and soon. Two: The “summit” covered many topics related to epidemic / pandemic response, “command and control” methods, and how “seamlessly” federal, state and local governments and the military can “work together” in the response. Three: the “producer” of the “summit” was SyllabusX, a company that manages events ranging from student security to biosecurity to health education. SyllabusX is based in Virginia. Its Chief Research Officer is Ahmed Al-Faraj, who had previously (apparently) worked for his father’s company, AdvanFort, and (actually) for several other companies. Four: The “presenter” of the “summit” was Ginkgo Biosecurity (Ginkgo BioWorks), a company that offers “services” ranging from commercial biosecurity to bio-engineering to gene therapy research. This company, based in Massachusetts, has “deep funding” from many sources, including from the U.S. government. It has multiple “partners” in R&D, including Moderna. Ginko BioWorks was founded by students and scientists from MIT, including Tom Knight, the “godfather” of “DNA hacking” and of “synthetic biology.” Five: It appears that Ginkgo BioWorks, and, possibly, SyllabusX, are part of what may be called the Big Pharma-Government-Medical Complex (BPGMCTM), the “reach” of which runs far and wide.

Yours Truly will again emphasize the importance of having, and maintaining, the highest degree of health possible of the body’s natural immune system.

Peace, Good Energy, Respect: PAVACA

DEAR MAGA: Open Thread 20241010

Cover image: Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia

So, one August, my parents took off in the van by themselves. Where are you going, I asked. They responded, We don’t know, but we’ll call when we get there. They called from Blackwater Falls, West Virginia.

EVs Still So Unpopular that Car Thieves Won’t Even Steal Them

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien eviscerates the Democratic Party: ‘They have f**** us over for the last 40 years’

Oil Moguls Emerge as Key Cash Source for Trump as Race Nears End

Five Half-Truths About the Longshoremen’s Strike

Canada’s Transition to Collectivist Green Dystopia

Badlands News Brief – October 9, 2024

The Best Is Still Yet To Come

The 2020 Theft Saved This Country

FEMA sets up a ‘rumor response’ webpage to set the record straight after all the scrutiny of its response to Helene

Utah State 4th women’s volleyball team to cancel vs. SJSU

TWEETS!

“A storm descends on a small town, and the downpour soon turns into a flood. As the waters rise, the local preacher kneels in prayer on the church porch, surrounded by water. By and by, one of the townsfolk comes up the street in a canoe. “Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast.” “No,” says the preacher. “I have faith in the Lord. He will save me.” Still the waters rise. Now the preacher is up on the balcony, wringing his hands in supplication, when another guy zips up in a motorboat. “Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee’s gonna break any minute.” Once again, the preacher is unmoved. “I shall remain. The Lord will see me through.” After a while the levee breaks, and the flood rushes over the church until only the steeple remains above water. The preacher is up there, clinging to the cross, when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and a state trooper calls down to him through a megaphone. “Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance.” Once again, the preacher insists the Lord will deliver him. And, predictably, he drowns. A pious man, the preacher goes to heaven. After a while he gets an interview with God, and he asks the Almighty, “Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. Why didn’t you deliver me from that flood?” God shakes his head. “What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter.””

At this point, it’s anyone’s guess until we see the gadgets actually doing the dirty work.

Anyone close to the north west have sauce on this?

Dry ice, apparently.

Really, is there sauce on this?

Best marketing campaign ever before a woman was in charge. Too bad I hear the beer is crap.

https://twitter.com/StopHatingMe88/status/1844074373923098987

My source in the chicken industry wondered the same thing.

MEMES and FUN STUFF

https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1843715486246416838

____________________________________

And now for the business portion.

Please review our HOST and site owner’s Guidelines for posting and discussion for this site. Wolf is kind enough to put up with *most* of us and our antics after thorough vetting. Violators of the baiting and deliberately attempting to divide the group rules WILL face consequences.

The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Company manners are appreciated. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog out discussions best saved for a wrestling mat. If, for some reason, this site is not available, head over to the UTree and visit the post at the top of the list or the closest rescue thread.

This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.

THAT MEANS THAT ALL OF US HERE ARE ENTITLED TO OUR OPINIONS AND PREJUDICES, ETC., SO LONG AS THEY CAUSE NO PHYSICAL HARM TO OTHERS OR DOXX OUR FELLOW TREE DWELLERS.

All opinions here are valued for the diversity they bring to the issues, and the shaping of understanding regarding topics for which many of us do not have all information. Correcting the record on any one topic is appreciated.

Be careful in expressing thoughts as we would all like to think well of the rest of the group, and ill-thought out comments have a way of wrecking that for everyone.

Fellow tree dweller, the late Wheatie, gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:

  1. No food fights
  2. No running with scissors
  3. If you bring snacks, be sure they are made with bacon

Auntie DePat’s requests as we are all supposedly adults and don’t just play them on TV like the body doubles pretending to be the squatter in chief:

If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.

The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.

Thank you so much for any and all attention to such details. It is GREATLY appreciated by more than one party here.

____________________________________________________

Luke 11:5-13

5And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, `Friend, lend me three loaves; 6for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7and he will answer from within, `Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

_____________________________________________________

SATIRE

I have a leftist, Jesuit educated friend….

WEEKEND STARTER

Black Russian

Ingredients

  • 2 ounces vodka
  • 1 ounce Kahlúa

Steps

  1. Add vodka and Kahlúa into a mixing glass with ice and stir until well-chilled.
  2. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice.

Have a good one y’all.

Dear KAG: 20241009 Open Thread — FEMA & Anti-Hoarding Laws

I am still dealing with farm issues but wanted to get out this quick article.

First, all the rain this last month or so has meant my hay guy has no hay to sell. So I went to buy Abrussi Rye for winter grazing only to find the place I buy from could not get any help so no 50 lb bags for sale. We ended up with a TON (2000 lbs) in a large industrial sized bag. 😱 Thank goodness for great neighbors. My dually and that bag of seed is in a neighbor’s barn at night for the last week.

I mention this because of the larger ramifications. You need dry weather to cure and bale hay and this fall so far has been very wet. Now a large swath of hay producers has been wiped out for this season so expect meat prices to go down and then surge as farmers sell off the animals they can not feed this winter.

Then there is the mess in Western North Carolina and other states. FEMA is being the usual pain in the rump from what I understand. I had seen a comment saying that FEMA was confiscating food and water from the victims. Unfortunately this is NOT at all unlikely.

A washed out road on Sept. 27, 2024, in Boone, North Carolina.

From my old notes. 🤓


It is very very simple a bureaucrat’s main goal in life is covering his butt. The more bureaucrats and the more area covered the worse the muck-up. During Katrina, the goal of FEMA was not to rescue people, but to control them. Their directive was to relocate families and businesses, confiscate property, commandeer goods, direct labor and services, and establish martial law. This is what they did. The goal was never to carry out an effective rescue operation it was to protect the government from chaos and establish martial law. THAT is what governments (and bureaucracies) always do, they protect themselves first last and always.

As can be seen the help was there during Katrina but FEMA PREVENTED the help and helpers from reaching those in need because their priority was CONTROL not RESCUE.

KATRINA EXAMPLES:

I am listing these because I am worried the MSM will ‘neglect’ to report stories like these given it is a Democrat government and an election year.

BERLIN — “A German military plane carrying 15 tons of military rations for survivors of Hurricane Katrina was sent back by U.S. authorities, officials said Saturday…” LINK

Doctor Says FEMA Ordered Him To Stop Treating Hurricane Victims

In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn’t registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

“I begged him to let me continue,” said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims. “People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me. 

“I showed him (the U.S. Coast Guard official in charge) my medical credentials. I had tried to get through to FEMA for 12 hours the day before and finally gave up. I asked him to let me stay until I was replaced by another doctor, but he refused. He said he was afraid of being sued. I informed him about the Good Samaritan laws and asked him if he was willing to let people die so the government wouldn’t be sued, but he would not back down. I had to leave.” 

FEMA issued a formal response to Perlmutter’s story, acknowledging that the agency does not use voluntary physicians….


“…crews for three U.S. Customs Blackhawk helicopters stationed at Crestview Airport in Florida are “livid” because they have not been directed to provide full-time support for the ongoing hurricane-relief…Conrad says instead of helping people left desperate in the wake of Katrina’s wrath, the Blackhawk’s actually were slated to transport a CNN news crew to take video shots of those people.” LINK

Emergency crews turned back by FEMA: They lacked “the required paperwork”

Homeland Security won’t let Red Cross deliver food

Navy Pilots Who Rescued Victims Are Reprimanded


FEMA orders Firefighters assembled from all over the USA to hand out propaganda instead of deploying them as emergency workers.

Firefighters endure a day of FEMA training, which included a course on sexual harassment. Some firefighters say their skills are being wasted. (Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)


And the list goes on and on.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways. EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period. EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any
undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA’s Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA’s role as a “new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis.” National Security Act of 1947 allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities. 1950 Defense Production Act gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy. Act of August 29, 1916 authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency. International Emergency Economic Powers Act enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979. ^^They also list FEMA Camp locations too. LINK

May 06, 2009 — Census GPS-tagging your home’s front door Coordinates being taken for every residence in nation

“According to an online Yahoo program, the Global Position System coordinates for the White House, probably one of the best-known publicly owned buildings in the world, are 38.898590 Latitude and -77.035971 Longitude. And since you know that, it’s no big deal for the White House to know the coordinates for your front door, is it?


Some people think it is, and are upset over an army of some 140,000 workers hired in part with a $700 million taxpayer-funded contract to collect GPS readings for every front door in the nation.

The data collection, presented as preparation for the 2010 Census, is pinpointing with computer accuracy the locations and has raised considerable concern from privacy advocates who have questioned why the information is needed. The privacy advocates also are more than a little worried over what could be done with that information.


Enhancing the concerns is the Obama administration’s recent decision to put White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in an oversight role over the census, which will be used to determine a reapportionment of congressional seats and could be used to solidify a single political party’s control over the nation, its budget, military and future…

HOW would they know who is hoarding?

Well there are your credit card records and those handy ‘Rewards Cards’ that let you buy featured produces at a discounted price. Many grocery stores have them.

That they are doing this type of snooping is established.

Hospitals to begin monitoring your credit card purchases to flag ‘unhealthy’ habits

What you buy at the grocery store, where you live, and even your membership status at the local gym are all subject to a new data collection scheme by the American medical system. Reports indicate that hospitals and doctors’ offices all across the country are now collecting this and other personal information in order to target individuals deemed to have “unhealthy” lifestyle habits that put them at high risk of disease.

Bloomberg reports that hospital systems in both North and South Carolina as well as Pennsylvania have already begun tracking people’s food-purchasing habits by spying on them through public records and credit card transactions. Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS), which operates some 900 care centers throughout the Carolinas, has teamed up with a data-mining company to compile and track this information for the later purpose of calling “high-risk” folks and urging them to make a change.

“What we are looking to find are people before they end up in trouble,” stated Michael Dulin, chief clinical officer for analytics and outcomes at CHS, to Bloomberg. “The idea is to use big data and predictive models to think about population health and drill down to the individual levels to find someone running into trouble that we can reach out to and try to help out.”


I copied this comment back around 2008 during the ‘Farm Wars’ It may have been from a Yahoo group or from NoNais, I am not sure but it is a very telling comment.

I have been involved in a discussion about a USDA employee who visited an individual’s home in the Pacific NW and began asking a lot of questions about the person’s food storage practices & their raising of small livestock (chickens).…


I agree completely with the “do it quietly” mind set…. But in this case the Dept. of Ag was visiting all the homes in a neigborhood.

“A person from the US Dept of Agriculture came to my door and asked me a bunch of questions which boiled down to whether or not I store food. My daughter has ONE pet chicken, and this woman was looking at the chicken and asking if I have any others, etc. Do I garden? Any other animals? Also, she had a list in her hand of all my neighbors, and was planning to see all of them, too.”

Actually, I did see a congresscritter once who stated that the government really needed to either stop or put some guidelines out about people raising their own food. He said that most people did not know how to do it safely.

Gardening is the same way. Technically it is illegal….I couldn’t find the garden thing specifically. This was something a professor pointed out to me, though I did find it odd as well. It was somehow tied into “affecting interstate commerce” This clause however, seems to provide a loophole for anything the govt wishes to do.


“…Gardening is the same way. Technically it is illegal….” And she is correct.


Trojan Horse Law: The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009

…. Lori Robertson of FactCheck.org, who is not a lawyer (she has a B.A. in advertising), claims the bill doesn’t apply to “that tomato plant in your backyard.” 

As a lawyer, I am skeptical of this claim  (I co-represented the prevailing defendant in the last successful constitutional challenge to federal regulation under the interstate commerce clause, United States v. Morrison (2000), one of only two cases in 70 years in which a challenge was successful).  Congress’s power under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause is almost unlimited in the eyes of the courts, and thus can reach the “tomato plant in your backyard.”

…..Ignorance about the law’s broad reach (and how it will be construed by the courts) has thwarted opposition to the bill, which will likely pass Congress. For example, a newspaper claims the bill “doesn’t regulate home gardens.” The newspaper probably assumed that was true because the bill, like most federal laws, only purports to reach activities that affect “interstate commerce.” To an uninformed layperson or journalist, that “sounds as if it might not reach local and mom-and-pop operators at all.” (The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, has sought to forestall opposition to her bill by falsely claiming that that “the Constitution’s commerce clause prevents the federal government from regulating commerce that doesn’t cross state lines.”)…


But lawyers familiar with our capricious legal system know better. The Supreme Court ruled in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) that even home gardens (in that case, a farmer’s growing wheat for his own consumption) are subject to federal laws that regulate interstate commerce. Economists and scholars have criticized this decision, but it continues to be cited and followed in Supreme Court rulings, such as those applying federal anti-drug laws to consumption of even home-grown medical marijuana. Indeed, many court decisions allow Congress to define as “interstate commerce” even non-commercial conduct that doesn’t cross state lines — something directly at odds with Rep. DeLauro’s claims.

And that brings us to THE GOVERNMENT AND ANTI-HOARDING

I am using a 2005 article as my jumping off point:

Can Our Government Really Tell Us How Much Food and Supplies We Can Keep?


The short answer is YES, in a roundabout way. Due to numerous discussions questioning the existence of federal anti-hoarding legislation, I wanted to see if such Executive Orders had been written….


And then she provides a list of E.O.s now superseded by Obama’s Executive Order 13603

(I do not know if POTUS Trump changed this E.O.)

Sec. 201. Priorities and Allocations Authorities. (a) The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads:

(1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer;

(2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;

(3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;

(4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation; (5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and

(6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials….


She then goes on to say:


These EOs are not aimed at anti-hoarding but rather at seizure or confiscation of items and facilities “to provide a state of readiness in these resource areas with respect to all conditions of national emergency, including attack upon the United States.” You’ll find most ‘seizure’ legislation ends with this phrase. These Executive Orders don’t define what specifically constitutes a national emergency and maybe this is as it should be. The specifics on hoarding are left up to the individual states.


However she did not actually look at the 1950 DEFENSE PRODUCTION.

SUBCHAPTER I—PRIORITIES AND ALLOCATIONS Section 4512. Hoarding of designated scare materials.

§4512. Hoarding of designated scarce materials

In order to prevent hoarding, no person shall accumulate

(1) in excess of the reasonable demands of business, personal, or home consumption, or

(2) for the purpose of resale at prices in excess of prevailing market prices,

materials which have been designated by the President as scarce materials or materials the supply of which would be threatened by such accumulation. The President shall order published in the Federal Register, and in such other manner as he may deem appropriate, every designation of materials the accumulation of which is unlawful and any withdrawal of such designation. In making such designations the President may prescribe such conditions with respect to the accumulation of materials in excess of the reasonable demands of business, personal, or home consumption as he deems necessary to carry out the objectives of this chapter. This section shall not be construed to limit the authority contained in .

(Sept. 8, 1950, ch. 932, title I, §102, ; July 31, 1951, ch. 275, title I, §101(b), .)


She then goes on to FEMA:

What Is FEMA’s Role?

EO #11051 is interesting; it authorizes FEMA near-total power in times of crisis….

FEMA was created by President Carter under Executive Order #12148. Its legal authorization is Title 42, United States Code 5121 (42 USC Sec. 5121) called the “Stafford Act.” During activation of Executive Orders, FEMA answers only to the National Security Council which answers only to the President. Once these powers are invoked, not even Congress can intervene or countermand them for six months….

Who will determine how much food we can have in our house? FEMA.

And the amount depends on the needs of all…not your needs or my needs…but the “welfare” of the needy.

Again, she gets it incorrect. FEMA’s job is the orderly distribution of supplies. The 1950 law confiscates and the 1988 law distributes.

FEMA:


According to FEMA:

Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, PL 100-707, signed into law November 23, 1988; amended the Disaster Relief Act of 1974, PL 93-288.

This Act constitutes the statutory authority for most Federal disaster response activities especially as they pertain to FEMA and FEMA programs.

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/stafford-act

Stafford Act, as Amended

Sec. 413. Food Commodities (42 U.S.C. 5180)

(a) Emergency Mass Feeding – The President is authorized and directed to assure that adequate stocks of food will be ready and conveniently available for emergency mass feeding or distribution in any area of the United States which suffers a major disaster or emergency.

(b) Funds for Purchase of Food Commodities – The Secretary of Agriculture shall utilize funds appropriated under section 612c of title 7, to purchase food commodities necessary to provide adequate supplies for use in any area of the United States in the event of a major disaster or emergency in such area.


However she is correct about state laws.

…..To locate information for your state, look for laws about:

Blood Typing

Disaster Preparedness

Emergencies

Hoarding

Injections

Martial Law

Militia

National Guard

Public Safety or Public Welfare

State Militia

State Police Force

Hawaii As A Specific Example of Anti-Hoarding

For Hawaii, this information will be found in Title 10 under “Public Safety”. It is located after legislation on militias, state guard troops, etc. Then you find the jewel… In Hawaii you are considered a “hoarder” if you have more than one week’s provisions on hand BUT you have to dig to uncover this information. Here is a specific example:

“HAWAII REVISED STATUTES REVISED 1997, Title 10:

(1) Prevention of *hoarding, waste, etc. To the extent necessary to prevent hoarding, waste, or destruction of materials, supplies, commodities, accommodations, facilities, and services, to effectuate equitable distribution thereof, or to establish priorities therein as the public welfare may require, to investigate, and any other law to the contrary notwithstanding, to regulate or prohibit, by means of licensing, rationing, or otherwise, the storage, transportation, use, possession, maintenance, furnishing, sale, or distribution thereof, and any business or any transaction related thereto.”

Committee Notes? Huh?…..

And to bring us up to the present.

IG report says FEMA is sitting on billions while Mayorkas says no more funds, agency is broke

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces a new firestorm of criticism for claiming FEMA is out of disaster funds right as the DHS’ Inspector General released a report saying FEMA is sitting on at least $8.3 billion in untapped, unspent funds.

On Oct 2, Mayorkas said, “We are expecting another hurricane hitting. We do not have the funds. FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the season and what is imminent.”

This new controversy is surfacing as Hurricane Milton has become a Category 5 storm, and massive evacuations are now underway in Florida, which is still struggling from Hurricane Helene, as is much of the Southeast….

Dear KAG: 20241008 Open Thread

Cover image: The Hurricane by Michael Rucker

Please pray for all those in the path of destruction. That includes my youngest brother, two nephews, a number of cousins and many others.

License Plate Readers Are Creating a US-Wide Database of More Than Just Cars

Badlands News Brief – October 7, 2024

I Worked for Democrats for Years. Billionaires Have Unfettered Influence

Whistleblower Warns FBI Will Deploy Plainclothes Agents to Maricopa County Polling Stations to Monitor Trump Voters

82nd, 101st Airborne send troops to help in Helene recovery efforts

A week late, but, hey.

Georgia prosecutors urge Supreme Court to keep Mark Meadows’ election subversion case in state court

Untapped Relief: FEMA Is Sitting on Billions of Unused Disaster Funds

Of Irregular Wars & Irregular Minds

Joe Scarborough Is Losing His Mind. Why?

Elon and Tucker Accuse Pro-Kamala Billionaires of Being on Epstein’s Client List!

Silicon Valley tech bros are getting red-pilled and voting for Trump…

Tweets…X-Files, uh, posts, whatever

Meme Zone

https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1842318803860099242
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1842628333449904409

Per the boss’s instruction:

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.

Guidelines for posting and discussion on this site were outlined by our host, WolfM00n. Please, review them from time to time.

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:

  1. No food fights.
  2. No running with scissors.
  3. 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.

__________________________________________________

Luke 10:38-42

38Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. 39And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. 40But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; 42one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.”

109

Anonymous ID: hHkrVD7x No.148156632 
Nov 5 2017 20:06:36 (EST)

Anonymous ID: pqW40Wgk No.148156518 
Nov 5 2017 20:05:48 (EST)

>>148154137

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.

Satire

Dear KMAG: 20241007 Joe Biden Didn’t Win ❀ Open Topic

Joe Biden didn’t win. This is our Real President:

AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.

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!

We will always remember Wheatie,

Pray for Trump,

Yet have fun,

and HOLD ON when things get crazy!

We will follow the RULES of civility that Wheatie left for us:

Wheatie’s Rules:

  1. No food fights.
  2. No running with scissors.
  3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.

And while we engage in vigorous free speech, we will remember Wheatie’s advice on civility, non-violence, and site unity:

“We’re on the same side here so let’s not engage in friendly fire.”

“Let’s not give the odious Internet Censors a reason to shut down this precious haven that Wolf has created for us.”

If this site gets shut down, please remember various ways to get back in touch with the rest of the gang:

Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.

Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.

We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.

Joe Biden didn’t win.

And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.

Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:

ultramontane

adjective

  • south of the Alps
  • supporting the Pope
  • of or relating to peoples or regions lying beyond the mountains, especially the Alps
  • supporting the authority of the papal court over national or diocesan authority
  • relating to or supporting the doctrine of papal supremacy
  • literally – “beyond the mountains”

Shown in a picture – sort of

All hail the Cthulhu plushie!

MUSIC!

Some interesting period music for a role-playing game related to the Lovecraft story…..

But if that’s not your bag, try this mountain music – supposedly the first ever film of Appalachian music – which was recorded on October 7, 1928 – and posted to the internet on October 7, 2021.

Here for your enjoyment on October 7, 2024.

Good stuff! And speaking of stuff…..

THE STUFF

Did you know that – in addition to the speed of light – there is a “55 mph truck speed” that protons have to deal with?

Steve prepared you for this video. Enjoy!

Hmmmmm…….

Just sayin’!

And remember…….

Until victory, have faith!

And trust the big plan, too!

And as always….

ENJOY THE SHOW

W

PS – Wishing the people of Israel peace and safety on this day of infamy.

Dear MAGA: 20241006 Open Topic

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.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here: 
https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

On this day and every day –

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.”

The True Light

The apostle John opens his Gospel with a systematic, 18-verse introduction to the Lord Jesus Christ. A key aspect of Christ’s nature that John highlights is that He is the bearer of light. Jesus brings the revelation of God’s life and light into a dark world (verses 4–5). In John 1:6–9, the apostle explains that John the Baptist was merely a witness to the light, but Jesus is the true light: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John [the Baptist]. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

John the Baptist’s message was illuminating, but he was not the true light. Jesus is the true light, the real thing, the genuine article—God in the flesh. He alone reveals God’s glory in the world because He is God incarnate who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14; see also 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 John 1:1–2; 4:2).

By stating that Jesus is the true light coming into the world, John directly connects Him to Israel’s Messiah as the prophets foretold: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2; see also Isaiah 49:6; 60:1–2; Malachi 4:2).

Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). He beams forth the light, truth, and life of God to the world and into the hearts of men and women. Jesus Himself declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12; see also John 9:5). At Christ’s transfiguration, Peter, James, and John caught a glimpse of the true light as Jesus’ “face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Matthew 17:2). In the book of Revelation, John describes Jesus’ face “like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (Revelation 1:16). He is the “bright Morning Star” (Revelation 22:16).

Jesus is the true light of God for those who partake of His salvation. When we receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He makes God’s “light shine in our hearts” so we can “know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Those who trust in Jesus and “believe in the light” become “children of light” (John 12:35–36, 46). As children of the light, we are called to bring His “salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47). Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

Several elements are necessary to sustain human life: light, air, water, and food are among the most critical. Jesus is the true light means He is our essential source of life. Without light, it is impossible to sustain life of any kind on earth. If the sun ceases to shine, everything will die. Not only is Jesus our light, but He is also the spiritual air we breathe. By His Holy Spirit, He breathes on us the “breath of life” (John 3:8; 20:22). Jesus is also the “living water” who, by His Holy Spirit, becomes in us “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:10–14; 7:37–39).

Jesus declared Himself to be “the true bread from heaven” (John 6:32). He is the genuine “bread of life” (John 6:35). He is our life-giving, life-sustaining source. He fully meets all our needs and perfectly satisfies our souls. In John 15:1–17, Jesus revealed that He is “the true vine,” and His Father owns the garden. Christ’s followers are described as fruit-bearing branches. They are the true believers who “abide in the vine.” Jesus is everything we need for life because He is God, “the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9).

Jesus is the true light is John’s unequivocal way of stating that Jesus Christ is the ultimate, one and only, genuine self-disclosure of God to man. The Word of God became flesh and blood, and Jesus Christ is “the light of the world.” In Him, there is “no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). His light is our “light and our salvation” (Psalm 27:1). Jesus Christ is the true light of God sent into the world to pierce through the darkness. Through His life, ministry, and message, Jesus brought the light and life of God to bear on everyone He encountered. That light continues to shine on earth through His Church (Ephesians 5:8; Philippians 2:15).
x https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-is-the-true-light.html

2024·10·05 Joe Biden Didn’t Win Daily Thread

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 $2,658.90
Silver $31.72
Platinum $1,010.00
Palladium $1,038.00
Rhodium $5,100.00
FRNSI* 127.624+
Gold:Silver 83.824+

This week, at Friday close:

Gold $2,654.30
Silver $32.26
Platinum $999.00
Palladium $1,038.00
Rhodium $5,025.00
FRNSI* 127.402-
Gold:Silver 82.278+

Interestingly silver did fairly well this week (it’s now worth more than 1/83rd of an ounce of gold now), gold, on the other hand, is slightly down, Platinum seems to be the biggest loser this week.

*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) is a measure of how much the dollar has inflated. It’s the ratio of the current price of gold, to the number of dollars an ounce of fine gold made up when the dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of 0.900 gold. That worked out to an ounce being $20.67+71/387 of a cent. (Note gold wasn’t worth this much back then, thus much gold was $20.67 71/387ths. It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67 back then, it was $20.67.) Once this ratio is computed, 1 is subtracted from it so that the number is zero when the dollar is at its proper value, indicating zero suckage.

How QR Codes Work

A Common Phenomenon

Regardless of what you think about Flat Earth, this video should serve to illustrate a common mistake that I see many “conspiracy theorists” (the stupid kind I mean) make.

Basically the man in question went to the NBC website and saw a distorted version of this very famous, even iconic photograph, which even has a nickname, the Blue Marble, because when it came out in the early 1970s there was all sorts of buzz about how the Earth was a Big Blue Marble (great way to propagandize the kiddies!):

…and then proceeded on the implicit assumption that the distortion was the original. In the distortion, it appears as though the Red Sea (between Egypt and Saudi Arabia) was cut in half. Since it isn’t in fact cut in half, he assumed this was proof that the Blue Marble photo was originally faked. (BTW this photo should be 3000 pixels across if you want to fullscreen it, etc. As a bonus, it shows Antarctica so that’s doubly annoying to flerfers.)

When he did a bit more searching for the image, including on the NASA website, he started finding the actual original (with properly rendered Red Sea) a lot and assumed that NASA or someone had been going all over the web and cleaning up their mistakes…except, apparently, on NBC’s website, which somehow got overlooked.

I can assure anyone here who might actually think this guy is onto something and the distortion is the real version, that I have print books from the 1970s that show the photo with an uninterrupted Red Sea. Unless you want to claim that NASA broke into my house and swapped out the books with equally-worn copies…

This is a classic example of a phenomenon I see sometimes…a person with a nutty conspiracy theory latches onto the first thing they see, and if it happens to contain a bona fide error in it, there’s no convincing them of it; they will spin a huge unlikely story as to how “their” version of whatever it was is the correct one, and that the correct one is actually the fake used for a cover up.

Another example of this was a report early on in the Sandy Hook saga that described the wrong gun as being in someone’s trunk. Attempts to correct it were treated as part of the cover up. Interesting that people who would normally have no trouble believing a YSM jurinalist would fuck up especially when the subject was eeevil gunz, believed that this particular jurinalist at this particular time was infallible–because they wanted to believe Sandy Hook was a fake.

What’s going on in both cases is seizing on (apparent) evidence that one’s pet mistaken theory is true, and resisting any attempt to show that this particular piece of evidence, at least, is flawed–sometimes to the point of having to posit another incredibly elaborate or expensive effort to hide the “real” evidence. A mistake, a distorted jpeg, or something similar. This is actually a form of confirmation bias.

The Moons of Jupiter

Jupiter has 95 (yes, ninety five) known moons (as of 5 February 2024). When I was a kid, the number was twelve, though older books in the elementary school library would show eleven. Then a 13th moon was discovered when I was ten (1974), another one the following year, and then the Voyager spacecraft found three more…and at that point they decided they really ought to get on with naming them. The first five or so had been named for quite some time, it was the remaining six seven eight nine (dammit) twelve that hadn’t been officially named though there were several suggested lists. (The next discovery wasn’t until 2000; the remaining 78 moons have all been discovered since then). Today, of course the list has outstripped our ability to think of names and the newly discovered ones are given temporary designators like S2022 J 3, for 3rd Satellite of Jupiter discovered in 2022.

Astronomers love to categorize things. And the moons of Jupiter are no exception. There are nine categories and I will cover them almost in order of distance from the planet.

The Main Moons, or Galilean Moons, are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, in order outwards from Jupiter. These are BIG. They are bigger than any dwarf planet (and that includes Pluto). Ganymede is bigger than Mercury and Callisto almost beats Mercury as well. All are spherical, as one would expect from bodies that size. The innermost orbits at 422 thousand kilometers (from the center of gravity of the Jovian system, essentially the same as the center of Jupiter), the outermost at 1,883 thousand kilometers. (For comparison, our Moon orbits at 384 thousand kilometers, so these are all further from Jupiter than our Moon is from us.) These were all discovered about 30 milliseconds after Galileo first pointed a telescope at Jupiter in 1610; you can see them in binoculars. They all orbit in nearly circular orbits (the key word, as we will see, is nearly), in planes within half a degree of Jupiter’s equatorial plane, all in a prograde (forward) direction. Forward, here, means counterclockwise as seen from way out in space, over the Sun’s north pole. Almost every large body in the solar system both orbits (either the sun or a planet) and rotates prograde, including Earth and the Moon.

Another group of four moons are called the “Inner Moons,” they all orbit within the orbit of Io. The first of these is the first moon to be discovered since Galileo, in 1892, and got named Amalthea. Amalthea is an irregular lump about 167 km across. Much smaller than the Galilean satellites and too small to force itself into a spherical shape. The other three are the ones discovered by the Voyager spacecraft in 1979/80, and are considerably smaller still. There’s also a lot of debris in that region, forming Jupiter’s rather tenuous ring system. Again, these are in nice and tidy, nearly circular orbits in Jupiter’s equatorial plane, all prograde.

Together these groups are called the “Regular Satellites” of Jupiter, which means the other 87 moons are all “Irregular Satellites.”

The Irregular Satellites all orbit much further away from Jupiter than Callisto (the outermost regular satellite). These in turn are divided into prograde and retrograde (orbiting backwards) groupings, each of those is divided again into actual groups. There is a naming convention, too. A prograde irregular moon will have a name ending in -a. A retrograde irregular moon will have a name ending in -e. Not withstanding this, a moon with a very high inclination will have a name ending in -o, whether or not it’s retrograde or prograde.

Prograde groups include Themisto…which is a group all unto itself. It’s the innermost of the irregular satellites averaging roughly 7.4 million km from Jupiter. It’s in a very elliptical orbit (0.340 on a scale from 0 [circular] to 0.9999… [skinniest ellipse possible]) at a 43.8 degree inclination, not at all tidy. It takes about 130 days to complete one orbit about Jupiter.

The next group is the Himalia group of nine satellites, named after its largest member, which is roughly 140 km across. They all orbit at about a 28 degree inclination with eccentricities ranging from 0.1 to 0.24. Average distance from Jupiter is 11.1 to 12.3 million kilometers, most of them being 11.4 or 11.7. They take about 260 days to orbit Jupiter. Four of these are big enough to be in the “classic” 14 satellites from before Voyager I and 2. These orbits are all quite similar to each other, hence the grouping together. It’s likely these were all part of a larger body at some time in the past.

The Carpo group, 2 satellites, are 16-17 million kilometers from Jupiter and are inclined at 50 degrees, which subjects them to all sorts of wacky perturbations resulting in cyclical changes to their orbits. Their eccentricities are very different from each other.

And then there is Valetudo, a group unto itself, in an eccentric orbit 17 million kilometers from Jupiter, at a lesser inclination than the Carpo group. It actually crosses the orbits of other groups’ satellites.

Now we get to the retrograde groups, three of them. The Ananke group ranges from 19-22 million kilometers from Jupiter and there are 26 of them. A quick eyeball scan of the list on Wikipedia shows inclinations from 145-152 degrees. (A retrograde orbit can also be thought of as going forward, but with an inclination of over 90 degrees so it’s “flipped over”, and this is how they get listed in tables of orbital elements.) Inclinations are mostly 0.20 to 0.23. It’s thought that these have a common origin, their orbits are just too similar for it to be pure chance.

The other two groups are the Carme and Pasiphae groups, with 30 and 18 members respectively. They overlap in terms of average distance from Jupiter, 22.6-24.2 million kilometers from Jupiter, taking as long as two Earth years to make one orbit. The Carme group inclinations are all about 164 degrees (i.e., 74 degrees but going around backwards), the Pasiphae groups are in a broader range centering on 150 degrees or so. In each case the satellites in each group are thought to have a common origin.

“Common origin” or “were once part of a larger body”, by the way, imply that there are more undiscovered fragments of what they used to be. The smallest size I see in the table is ~1 km, but conceivably there could be a lot of smaller and smaller pieces. 100 meters, boulder size, gravel size, sand grain size…at what point do you stop and say “this isn’t a moon any more”? It’s a serious question from me, actually. I’m sure that “real” astronomers have given it thought, but I don’t know if they ever actually came to a decision. It did, after all, take hundreds of years for them to define “planet” and they were only forced to do that when they found too many edge cases…a story for another time. (And here, they haven’t started finding really small items in Jovian orbit…when that happens they’ll have to decide where to draw the line if they haven’t already.)

So…broad patterns? Note that the retrograde satellites (by count, most of the satellites are in these groups) are all further out than any of the prograde ones. The retrogrades are almost always 2 km or less in size, though each group has one fairly large body in it, 35-60 km across, probably the “main” piece of whatever broke up to form the group. It’s thought that the retrograde groups resulted from captured asteroids.

There also seems to be a hard 24 million kilometer limit. I haven’t cranked numbers but I suspect that beyond this range the Sun’s gravitational pull is stronger than Jupiter’s, so it would tend to grab any satellite of Jupiter’s that happened to be in a larger orbit than this.

In any case, the retrogrades are basically debris, and even the irregular progrades are basically junk too. Except for the fact that they make good studies in orbital mechanics, they’re pretty uninteresting.

The interesting moons are the Galilean moons. And with that I submit my entry to the understatement of the year contest.

The Galilean Moons
(because who gives a rat’s ass about the other 91 moons?)

The Galilean moons are, in order outward from Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Jupiter plus these moons actually looks like a miniature solar system, and you’ll hear the term “Jovian system” used to refer to the ensemble as a whole.

Although Galileo is given credit for discovering these moons, they were also seen by Simon Marius, and he gave them their names; Galileo simply called them Jupiter I, Jupiter II, and so on, a system which continues to this day; now Roman numerals are given out to newly discovered moons in the order they are named.

“Io” is pronounced “EYO-oh.” Don’t be like the clueless science jurinalist who pronounced it “ten” when the Voyagers flew by. (In his defense, that was the era when Bo Derek was the Queen Hot Woman of All Time thanks to the movie 10…for a whole two months.)

Here is a picture showing relative sizes, Jupiter and the four Galileans, in order top to bottom. This is actually a composite, just to show relative sizes; you’d never see this exact thing all at once.

And another, a real-time shot of Jupiter and all four Galileans. Since some are closer than others, it’s not quite to scale; it is however a “real” snapshot of all five bodies at the same time. If you were to somehow have been able to stand there, this is what you’d have seen. Two of the moons are probably invisible; if so, right click and select “open image in new tab” and even there they will be just single-pixel dots, and one is barely more than a dot)

And now for some raw numbers, with our own Moon tossed in for comparison:

NameDiameter (km)Distance from Primary (km)Orbital Period
(days)		Orbital Period (compared to Io)Density (water = 1)
Io3660421,8001.76913.528
Europa3121.6671,1003.55123.014
Ganymede5268.21,070,4007.15541.942
Callisto4820.61,882,70016.6899.41.834
Moon3474.8384,39927.3irrelevant3.344

Note that Ganymede is by far the largest; it’s even larger than the planet Mercury.

But also note something else: In the time it takes Ganymede to orbit Jupiter once, Europa will orbit exactly twice, and Io will orbit exactly four times. This is known as an orbital resonance. However, they won’t line up all at once. Io will lap Europa on one side of Jupiter, and then on the other side of Jupiter, Europa will lap Ganymede. See the animation below, where the inner moons will lap “above” Jupiter, and Europa and Ganumede will lap “below” Jupiter.

That’s a simulation, what’s below is based on actual data (notice the time stamp):

This turns out to be important.

Another thing to note is the average densities. Io and Europa (and our Moon) all have densities a bit above 3.0 that of water. We know our own moon is a big ball of rock with very little nickel-iron in its core. And your average generic rock has about that density (though there are plenty of kinds of minerals that come in far higher, such as for instance native gold, a/k/a gold nuggets). So this isn’t unreasonable for moons of Jupiter. However Ganymede and Callisto are considerably less dense, an indication that they are largely ice.

Jupiter I: Io

Io has a very unusual appearance, it almost looks like a pizza. As it happens, it is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. If you don’t like its looks, come back an a few centuries; the entire surface will have been replaced. That’s how volcanic it is. it even has mountains taller than Everest!

This is a pair of pictures of Tvashtar Paterae, taken in November 1999 and February 2000, and yes, that’s lava in the right hand frame.

Volcanism requires heat. And if you’ll recall, Mars…a considerably larger body…does not have volcanism any more (in spite of the largest known volcano being there). Mars has cooled off too much. Why hasn’t Io cooled off?

The answer is (wait for it) tidal forces. (I warned you before I started the tour of the solar system that tidal forces would show up when you least expect them…I did warn you.) Io is in a slightly elliptical orbit (very slightly but still, not quite perfectly circular) and that means it slows down and speeds up in different parts of its orbit, while its rotation (tidally locked to Jupiter) is at a constant rate. This causes Io to stretch and compress, which generates the heat, which causes the insane amounts of volcanism. The surface coloration is largely sulfur. Io’s eruptions have been captured on camera by Voyager, the Galileo orbiter, and Juno.

Some of the stuff that gets erupted ends up in orbit around Io, as very small particles perhaps even single atoms, and some of that gets heated and escapes into orbit around Jupiter. At some point much of this stuff gets ionized. As a result there’s a “neutral cloud” near Io, and a donut or torus of ionized matter roughly where Io orbits. Since this stuff is charged and moving, it actually contributes to Jupiter’s magnetic field…perhaps as much as 50 percent of the total.

This picture not only shows the torus of ionized Io-stuff in red and the neutral cloud in yellow, it shows a third feature in green, the flux tube, which connects Io to Jupiter’s polar regions and can cause aurora-like displays in Jupiter’s atmosphere. But Io itself can have interesting displays, visible when it is in Jupiter’s shadow:

(From the caption on Wikipoo: Auroral glows in Io’s upper atmosphere. Different colors represent emission from different components of the atmosphere (green comes from emitting sodium, red from emitting oxygen, and blue from emitting volcanic gases like sulfur dioxide). Image taken while Io was in eclipse.)

Another source of tidal forces is the pull of Europa and Callisto, with the resonances enhancing the effect.

This was a total surprise when it was discovered back around 1980. And since then it has become clear to planetary scientists that in many cases the moons of the outer planets can be more interesting than the planets themselves.

Jupiter II: Europa

Most especially the second Galilean moon, Europa. What we see when we look at Europa is a solid sheet of ice; it’s the smoothest body in the solar system, and appears to have a 100km thick layer of water above the typical rocky interior. What makes it interesting, though, is that that 100km layer is almost certainly not frozen solid. It’s probably tens of kilometers of ice, sure, but above a world-wide ocean of liquid water, a lot of it, probably more than we have on Earth. (So aliens coming here to steal our water [which is ridiculous because water is almost certainly the most common compound in the universe] would be better off going to Europa.)

(From Wikipoo caption: Closeup views of Europa obtained on 26 September 1998; images clockwise from upper left show locations from north to south as indicated at lower left.)

That water is likely heated by volcanic activity too, for the same reason as Io…but less so. Tidal forces are much lower here. However, the forces will often crack the ice layer, and liquid water will rise under the pressure, with the breaks freezing over, which results in the darker lines. These areas might offer better access to the water, which we want because…

Water is the one thing all life (that we know of!) needs. Not oxygen, but water! This makes Europa a prime candidate for extraterrestrial life, especially since we know that on Earth, “smokers” on the ocean floor host entire ecosystems, and such “smokers” are almost certainly present on Io.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, staying in his lane academically, has said he wants to go ice fishing on Io. He’s not alone in this.

On the 10th of this month, we will launch the Europa Clipper, a spacecraft that will orbit Jupiter, but do so in a way that maximizes the time it will spend on Europa flybys. It’s the largest interplanetary spacecraft developed by NASA. Since it is so big, the booster needs help; it will do gravity boosts off Earth and Mars before arriving at Jupiter in April 2030. This is just a preliminary for a Europa Lander, still on the drawing board.

We’re going after Europa with gusto!

Jupiter III: Ganymede

Ganymede is also covered in ice, with a likely liquid ocean 200km down. It’s colder and harder to get to, so it’s not as tantalizing as Europa. It’s not completely geologically dead: it apparently has at least some liquid iron in its core since it actually possesses a magnetosphere (so far the only moon known to do so). It’s the largest moon in the solar system. As I’ve noted before, it’s actually larger than the planet Mercury, but only 45 percent as massive since so much of it is ice, and because Mercury has a very large iron core for its size. The surface area is in fact over half as much as all of the land on Earth. Unfortunately, it’s mostly ice–and not just a covering, but a full crustal layer of it–and blasted by radiation from Jupiter’s magnetosphere, so it turns out not to be a good place for a realtor to hang a “for sale” sign.

This is Tros crater. In mythology, Tros was Ganymede’s father, and Ganymede himself was Jupiter’s cupbearer (and likely homosexual lover)

Ganymede also has the distinction of being the largest body in the solar system with no significant atmosphere.

Jupiter IV: Callisto

Callisto is a bit smaller than Ganymede, and is the third largest moon in the solar system. (#2 is Titan, a moon of Saturn. And our moon is at #5, just ahead of Europa.) Callisto is remarkable for being very heavily cratered, an indication that its surface has not eroded much or been “worked over” by processes on Callisto itself. It’s far enough out from Jupiter to have very little effect from tidal forces, and it’s not in any sort of resonance with the other moons. Callisto, in fact, has an impact basin named Valhalla, which is 3800 kilometers across!

Callisto may, in fact, be an even mixture of rock and ice, not even having differentiated much with the heavy stuff going down to the core when it formed.

Of the four, Callisto is of least interest for finding life, but it is of great interest for perhaps preserving it. It’s far enough away from Jupiter’s magnetic field and radiation belts that it could perhaps be useful for a manned base from which we could explore the rest of the Jovian system.

(From Wikipoo: Voyager 1 image of Valhalla, a multi-ring impact structure 3,800 km in diameter)

So that is a summary of the Moons of Jupiter, all of which rank among the most interesting bodies in our solar system. Were they not in orbit about Jupiter, they’d all be planets in their own right.

As a bonus I will conclude with this diagram, which shows many of the moons in the Solar System, with Pluto and Earth thrown in for good measure. Any moon large enough to force itself into a spherical shape is shown here.

(Oh, and note the Red Sea glitch doesn’t appear on this copy of the Blue Marble photo.)

Health Friday Open Thread 10.04.2024: Self-Amplifying RNA (saRNA) — A Primer on How to Amplify a Disaster

The above image of lab equipment is courtesy of Google Images and Public Domain Pictures.

Today’s offering for Health Friday concerns what is called self-amplifying RNA (saRNA.) As the presentation includes discussion of saRNA COVID-19 “vaccines”, this post is dedicated to the memory of Yours Truly’s cousin Bill, who “died suddenly and unexpectedly” in September 2023.

Readers already know about the Important Wolf Moon Notifications, the importance of Civil Discussion, the Rules of our late, good Wheatie, and the caveats regarding Health Friday posts by Yours Truly. Links to these items can be found here. NOTE: Since this post is detailed and there are multiple areas to cover, Yours Truly has added Summaries of certain sections, and a General Summary at the end.

Before one begins: It is well known that the modRNA and the viral vector COVID-19 “vaccines” currently in use have been, and are, a disaster on multiple fronts. Not only do they induce literally thousands of negative medical and psychological effects in the bodies of those who took them and who take them now; these “vaccines” also cause death. The numbers of COVID-19 “vaccinated” persons presenting with COVID-19 “vaccine”-induced illnesses, injuries, disabilities, or “died suddenly and unexpectedly” are increasing by the month. Nobody knows exactly how long, or in what amount, the elements and mechanisms of the COVID-19 “vaccines” work in the “vaccinated” person’s body: what IS known, is that whatever “protection” is conferred by these “vaccines” is short-lived, while, at the same time, the “vaccine” mechanisms linger on in the body for an indeterminate period of time. Yours Truly has written extensively for this board regarding this situation. For further information, please see websites such as these: https://kirschsubstack.com/ (Steve Kirsch); https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/ (Peter McCullough, MD); and, https://phinancetechnologies.com/HumanityProjects/Projects.htm#Nav_ExcessDeaths (Ed Dowd, statistician.)

At the same time, the development of new types of COVID-19 “vaccines”, as well as new types of “vaccine delivery” (intranasal, oral, and aerosol, for examples) goes on apace. One of the “newest” types of COVID-19 “vaccines” uses what is called self-amplifying RNA, or saRNA.

The concept of saRNA is the use of a small amount of RNA (or mRNA) in an injectable. Once introduced into the body of the patient, the saRNA theoretically goes to work, “re-creating itself.” (Think RNA or mRNA being turned into a “Xerox copier” inside the “vaccinated” person’s body.) The “goal” of saRNA is for the agent to “re-create itself” inside the “vaccinated” person’s body for a certain amount of time and in some amount. The patient’s body is “instructed” by the saRNA to “recognize” and produce antibodies against certain “enemies”, such as viruses. The theory is that a smaller amount of saRNA initially introduced into the body, followed by the “Xerox copier effect”, then followed by “instructing” the body to “recognize” and fight off certain “enemies”, will make saRNA a “more effective use” of mRNA in injectables.

Basically, saRNA COVID-19 “vaccines” turn the “vaccinated” person’s body into a “Xerox copier” (which, apparently, the “vaccinated” person’s body CANNOT stop, slow down, or mitigate) for the ingredients (and, by extension, the mechanisms) of the saRNA “vaccine.” Today’s post is a primer about saRNA COVID-19 “vaccines.”

The trail begins here, with these: www.science.org/content/blog-post/first-self-amplifying-mrna-vaccine, “The First Self-Amplifying mRNA Vaccine”, 25 January 2024, by Derek Lowe; https://jessicar.substack.com/p/why-we-cant-move-forward-with-self. “Why we can’t move forward with self-amplifying RNA technology”, by Jessica Rose, PhD, 7 September 2024; www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/japans-plan-to-destroy-the-world, by Daniel Nagase, MD, 10 September 2024; and, www.freethink.com/health/sarna-vaccines, “World’s first “self-amplifying” vaccine approved in Japan”, by Kristin Houser, 16 December 2023. Please look at any or all of these to gain information about saRNA “vaccines.”

In addition, there is Dr. Robert Malone’s take: please see: https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1840796021166600635. Below are screenshots of his remarks:

There are “pros and cons” regarding the use of saRNA in injectables. Below, from an article that discusses these, via www.promegaconnections.com/how-do-self-amplifying-vaccines-work/, by Jordan Nutting, 6 February 2024:

****** Summary: In other words, saRNA injectables **may**, at some point down the road, have **some** benefits. In the meantime — NONE of these types of injectables (GEMCOVAC, Kostaive) have been SUFFICIENTLY AND THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED AND TESTED FOR USE ON HUMANS. But they are being approved ANYWAY, and are being injected into the bodies of unsuspecting persons who buy into the “Look, this shot has less mRNA than the ones you took before, and it’ll work better!” hype.

Here is a graphic depicting how saRNA works in the body of the person who is “vaccinated” with an saRNA injectable, via this “cheerleader” article: www.genscript.com/the-future-of-vaccination-unleashing-the-power-of-self-amplifying-rna-technology.html, by Dr. Zhen Sun, Editor, 9 May 2024.

****** Look closely at the above graphic. It appears that the basic schema of saRNA is a “double-layer” of saRNA “replicons” that create a “subgenomic RNA.” This, in turn, creates the “Xerox copier” response which forces the body of the saRNA “vaccinated” person to endlessly produce immune system response — and for “at least” as long as 28 days after such “vaccination.”

Please see this paper regarding a discussion of saRNA “vaccine” design: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2023.05.007, “Rise of the RNA machines — self-amplification in RNA vaccine design”, Jerome D.G. Comes, et al., 14 June 2023. Below is the Abstract of this paper:

Another “cheerleader” article about saRNA “vaccines” is here: www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/1087536/the-next-generation-of-mrna-vaccines-is-on-its-way/, by Cassandra Willyard, February 2024. Below is a portion of the article:

Note the language about “,…at least in theory” advantage of saRNA “vaccines.” Also note the last sentence — saRNA can “persist for a month.” In fact, nobody really knows how long saRNA elements will “persist” in the body of the person who takes this type of “vaccine” — NO long-term clinical trial or study has been performed using this technology.

On 28 November 2023, the Japanese Government approved the use of the saRNA COVID-19 “vaccine”, ARCT-154 (also called LUNAR-COVID-19 and Kostaive) for “active immunization” (translation: “prevention”) against COVID-19 for persons age 18 and older. Kostaive was developed by CSL / Arcturus (remember this company? Yours Truly took the lid off it here: www.theqtree.com/2024/08/02/the-hhs-gave-the-go-ahead-to-use-an-h5n1-vaccine-but-the-ama-just-issued-new-cpt-codes-for-an-h5n8-vaccine/.) This “vaccine” was to have supplies ready for administration by physicians or hospitals by mid-December 2023.

CSL / Arcturus, the Japanese government, and media outlets were quick to herald this “first-ever saRNA COVID-19 “vaccine.” Except — there already was an saRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” approved and in use, since 2022, in India: GEMCOVAC. Perhaps what CSL / Arcturus, the Japanese government, and media outlets should have mentioned the fact that Kostaive is modRNA-based from the J.1. Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant (along with other “familiar” manufacturing methods, see below in today’s post); whereas GEMCOVAC based on an “ancestral variant” (in other words, the Beta variant) of the original Wuhan Hu1 SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Before Yours Truly presents information on Kostaive, she will first discuss GEMOCOVAC. This is in order to present further background information on saRNA technology as applied in COVID-19 “vaccines.” Stay with me — this is all germane to the situation:

Looking at GEMCOVAC, one can get the beginning of a picture of how saRNA COVID-19 “vaccines” work. The “latest version” of this “vaccine” is called GEMCOVAC-OM. Below is a portion of the SmPC pdf for this product (https://gemcovac.com; scroll down the page to GEMCOVAC-OM SmPC (pdf) and click “Download”):

The BA.1. Omicron variant of SARS-Co-V-2 is the basis for this “vaccine.” It is not strictly modRNA (however, recall that ALL of the “descendant variants” of the original Wuhan Hu1 SARS-CoV-2 virus contain elements of that original lab-created virus).

Of the excipients (in other words, the adjuvants): per Wikipedia, DOTAP (1,2-Dioleoyl-3-trimethylammonium propane) is a chemical used in fabric softeners, but also is used as a lipid nanoparticle in vaccines. Squalene: below is Page 1 of the FisherScientific MSDS Safety Data Sheet for this chemical (www.fishersci.com/):

Continuing: for polysorbate 80, again from Fisher Scientific, Page 1 of the MSDS Safety Data Sheet:

And, here is the Mechanism of Action for GEMCOVAC-OM, from the Package Insert (see the link above):

Note the language, “…which is reported to interact with host cells receptors (ACE-2.)” (Italics mine.) The developer and manufacturer (GENNOVA) of this “vaccine” can’t exactly quantify how the product works.

Yours Truly now turns to Kostaive, (ARCT-154) the saRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” that was approved by the Japanese government in November 2023.

The announcement regarding the Japanese government’s approval of Kostaive is here: www.meiji-seika-pharma.com/pressrelease/2023/detail/pdf/231128_01.pdf, of 28 November 2023. Below is a screenshot from the press release:

Note the language in the above regarding “…the potential for extended duration of protection while using lower doses of mRNA compared to existing mRNA vaccines.” (Italics mine) Again, nobody knows exactly how long this “extended duration” period is; nobody knows exactly how much “Xerox copying” of the altered mRNA in Kostaive occurs during this period in the “vaccinated” person’s body; and, nobody knows exactly what effects this “Xerox copying” of the altered mRNA in Kostaive will have in the “vaccinated” person’s body. In other words, anyone who takes Kostaive, or any saRNA “vaccine”, in Yours Truly’s opinion, is being used a “human lab rat” — just as people were used / are still being used, as “human lab rats” for the modRNA COVID-19 “vaccines.”

And, here is the Report of the Deliberation Results (which contains the information about Kostaive that led to its approval) from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare: www.pmda.go.jp/files/000269813.pdf. This report is an interesting read. There are numerous “blacked-out” areas, reminding one of the blacked-out areas in certain publicly-released Pfizer-BioNTech reports that the company gave to the FDA regarding that company’s modRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” BNT162b2. HOWEVER, section 2.1 Active Substance for Kostaive states that this saRNA “vaccine” contains elements from the original Wuhan Hu1 SARS-CoV-2 virus, plus elements from the Omicron variant strain. More information on this is found on Page 4 of the document. Below is a portion of this page:

Looking at the above, starting with the D614G mutation, the Abstract from the Zhang, et al. paper on this (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19808-4, “SARS-CoV-2 spike-protein D614G mutation increases virion spike density and infectivity”, Lizhou Zhang, et al., 26 November 2020. The paper was researched and published before any COVID-19 “vaccine” was authorized for use):

In other words, the D614G element causes the SARS-CoV-2 virus to be more infective.

Looking at V987P, part of the section Full-Length S Glycoprotein Vaccines from this paper: https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2021/701501, “SARs-CoV-2 Vaccines Based on the Spike Glycoprotein and Implications of New Viral Variants”, Daniel Martinez-Flores, et al., 11 July 2021):

In other words, if V987P was “good enough” for Pfizer-BioNTech and for Moderna to use in their modRNA COVID-19 “vaccines”, it apparently was “good enough” to be used in Kostaive.

The K986P protein used in Kostaive: please see here: www.rcsb.org/structure/6zp1. This viral protein, along with V987P above, are BOTH on the Arg S1/S2 cleavage site on the SARS-CoV-2 virus genome. (FURIN CLEAVAGE SITE, anyone?)

The R682G, R683S, and R685S proteins used in Kostaive: please see here: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32665-7, “Omicron SARS-CoV-2 mutations stabilize spike-up RBD conformation and lead to a non-RBM-binding monoclonal antibody escape”, Zhennan Zhao, et al., 24 August 2022. If appears that these proteins help to create a “one-RBD-up conformation.” Below is a portion of the Abstract of this paper:

In other words, these proteins increase the immune system attack from the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants by making Omicron “stick better” to the ACE2 receptor cells in the human body.

****** Summary: It appears, then, that Kostaive contains one protein from the original Wuhan Hu1 SARS-CoV-2 virus genome (D614G); two proteins from the “ancestral line” of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (K986P and V987P); and three proteins of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant (R682G, R683S, and R685S.) See below in the post for more information on these items.

One more ingredient of Kostaive, mRNA-2105: This ingredient is derived from the Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis virus (VEEV.) Below is section 4.R.1. of the Deliberations Results document discussing this:

The question that immediately occurs regarding the above: How can Arcturus (the manufacturer of Kostaive) state that mRNA-2105 cannot be “incorporated into host cell DNA”? How is Arcturus absolutely sure that there is zero reverse transcription potential or ability in Kostaive? This is similar to the same statements from Pfizer-BioNTech about BNT162b2 “cannot change the DNA of the vaccinated individual” — which has been proven to be false (please see: here, Slide 14.)

****** Summary of the above: What Yours Truly is getting at here is that Kostaive appears to be the end-product of: ONE: a lab-created mixture of the dangerous D614G element from the original Wuhan Hu1 SARS-CoV-2 virus, plus, various elements of earlier SARS-CoV-2 mutations; TWO: NO long-term clinical trials, NO safety studies for Toxicity, use on pregnant women, etc.; THREE: the “Process 2”-type manufacturing method (“culturing” the lab-enhanced mRNA for the “vaccine” in a “bath” of E. coli); FOUR: using lipid nanoparticles, one of which (ATX-126) has never been used before in an injectable); FIVE: what appears to be a “pro-forma” Deliberation Results document on Kostaive that raises more questions than it answers; and, SIX: approval by the Japanese government for use on humans without a thorough investigation of the above. Related to point SIX: below is the list of Approval Conditions that were imposed along the approval of Kostaive for use in Japan, from the Deliberations Results document:

By the way, these Approval Conditions read very much like the ones that the FDA imposed on Pfizer-BioNTech along with that agency’s EUA for BNT162b2.

Regarding Kostaive itself, more particulars:

The ingredients of Kostaive are listed in section 2.2 Vaccine Product of the report. A screenshot of this section is below:

Kostaive contains at least three separate types of LNPs (lipid nanoparticles): ATX-126; DSPC; and, PEG2000-DMG. Below is a portion of the MSDS Safety Data Sheet for ATX-126:

Section 2.2.3 of the Deliberation Results document for Kostaive discusses the manufacturing process for Kostaive. It appears that Kostaive ALSO “switched” from a “Process A” manufacturing method over to a “Process B” manufacturing method. (Recall that the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 was “switched” from its “Process 1” manufacturing method over to a “Process 2” manufacturing method):

One more item from the Deliberation Results document for Kostaive, again on the ATX-126 lipid nanoparticle used in this “vaccine.” It confirms that this “novel excipient” (adjuvant) has not been used before in a “vaccine.”

Yours Truly will again emphasize that other sections of the Deliberation Results document on Kostaive make it clear that NO studies were performed for numerous items, such as Toxicity, potential for impairment of reproduction, and so on. By the way, buried in the document is a “passing reference mention” that the “Process B” manufacturing method for this “vaccine” uses E. coli as the “culturing medium” for the “enhanced” mRNA in the product. (The “Process 2” manufacturing method for BNT162b2 and its “descendant” COVID-19 “vaccines” also uses E. coli.) It also appears that the use of Kostaive on pregnant women in clinical trials was “inconclusive”; this “vaccine” should be taken by pregnant women only if the situation so warrants.

Also: Kostaive is to be taken as a “primary series” of two separate injections, 28 days apart; with a “booster” taken about three months later. The question that arises is: If it is true that the saRNA in Kostaive is active, including installing numberless “Xerox copiers” of itself in the “vaccinated” person’s body for AT LEAST 28 days AFTER the initial injection, WHY is there a need for ANOTHER injection around Day 28? And a “booster” after that?

****** BUT — AND THIS IS A HUGE BUT — TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT SECTION 2.2.1 OF THE DELIBERATION RESULTS DOCUMENT FOR KOSTAIVE:

Look at the “active ingredient” item, “zapomeran.” What is zapomeran? It is a “drug” that contains the RNA of the Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEEV or VEE) in an saRNA form. It is ALSO manufactured by ARCTURUS (CSL.) It is unclear if it is being used in other types of COVID-19 “vaccines” other than Kostaive. Please see: https://synapse.patsnap.com/drug/510bcf7ef75649278b284a94663c69f6. Scroll down the page to R&D Status to see that zapomeran has already been approved in the EU; Norway; Iceland; and Liechtenstein; but in what final form it is used, is also unclear. NOTE 1: It has been impossible to find a complete list of ingredients for zapomeran. One would not be surprised to learn that the names Kostaive and zapomeran may, in some respects, be “interchangeable.” NOTE 2: It is not easy to find information on zapomeran. Yours Truly has encountered “504 Bad Gateway” error messages when going back to recheck a couple of the links to zapomeran in this post.

Looking further into VEEV (or VEE), there is this article: https://ceh.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/health-topics/venezuelan-equine-encephalitis-vee, by Amy Young, 28 August 2020. This virus can affect horses, donkeys, or zebras. VEEV is transmitted to these animals by infected mosquitos that bite them. It can cause severe disease or death by infecting the brain and the central nervous system. Humans who contract VEEV can also become severely ill and can also die from it. Another paper, discussing the RNA of VEEV (VEE),by Sarah E. Hickson and Jennifer L. Hyde, is here.

As an aside: zapomeran (under the name “ARCT-154-06”) was granted a “deferral” for use on children from birth to 18 years of age in the European Union for the “prevention” of COVID-19 infection in JUNE 2023: www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/pip-decision/p-0204-2023-ema-decision-5-june-2023-agreement-paediatric-investigation-plan-granting-deferral-zapomeran-emea-003349-pip01-22_en.pdf. This means that the use of zapomeran (in whatever form) is restricted to persons age 18 and older.

AND HERE IS THE JAPANESE NIHS LISTING FOR ZAPOMERAN: https://jpdb.nihs.go.jp/jan/DetailList_en?submit-all_alpSearch&keyword=Zapomeran. Below is a screenshot of the listing (scroll down past the genome sequences listings):

****** VERY IMPORTANT: The SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins in zapomeran are the same ones that are in Kostaive. These were discussed above in the post. Turning to the nsP proteins (non-structural proteins) in zapomeran (hyperlinks to papers are embedded), as these elements are also apparently contained in Kostaive:

nsP1: this non-structural protein suppresses the immune system; Katharina Schubert, et al.

nsP2: this non-structural protein is a “delivery vehicle” for SARS-CoV-2 proteins; Ninge Zheng, et al.

nsP3: this non-structural protein is a “vital component in the replication of SARS-CoV-2”; Sofia Lemark, et al.

nsP4: this non-structural protein is the largest one. It is a Rotavirus enterotoxin that causes diarrhea, can cause severe diarrhea, and particularly affects young children; Judith M. Hall, et al.

****** SUMMARY: IT APPEARS, THEN, THAT KOSTAIVE CONTAINS ZAPOMERAN, WHICH INCLUDES THE VENEZUELAN EQUINE ENCEPHALITIS RNA; PLUS, SIX LAB-ENHANCED/LAB-ISOLATED GENOME CODES OF SARS-CoV-2; AND, FOUR NON-STRUCTURAL PROTEINS, ONE OF WHICH IS A ROTAVIRUS TOXIN. KOSTAIVE ALSO CONTAINS DANGEROUS LIPID NANOPARTICLES (SUCH AS ATX-126.) THESE ARE ALL PRESENT IN THIS saRNA COVID-19 “VACCINE” PRODUCT. RECALL THAT LIPID NANOPARTICLES WILL HELP TO SPREAD A “VACCINE” THROUGHOUT THE ‘VACCINATED” PERSON’S BODY, INCLUDING CROSSING THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER.

Why on Earth is a COVID-19 “vaccine” that contains the RNA of an equine brain inflammation virus (a virus that comes from infected mosquitos that bite equine animals) being used on humans? A “vaccine” that is engineered to create an unknown number of “Xerox copiers” of the “vaccine” elements into the body of the “vaccinated” person? A “vaccine” that contains six apparently lab-enhanced/lab-isolated genome codes from the SARS-CoV-2 virus or its variants? What does an equine brain inflammation virus have in common with SARS-CoV-2? What if a person who has already taken, say, five or six injections of a modRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” decides to take Kostaive? Could an saRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” somehow “interact” with the modRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” elements already in that person’s body?

****** GENERAL SUMMARY: saRNA “vaccines” for COVID-19 are already being used (GEMCOVAC in India); and are being approved for use (Kostaive in Japan.) The technology for saRNA is not fully developed and not fully tested; the COVID-19 “vaccines” that use saRNA contain “lab-enhanced”/”lab-isolated” genome codes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus or its variants; saRNA COVID-19 “vaccines” contain lipid nanoparticles — and, in the case of Kostaive, an LNP (ATX-126) that has never been used before in an injectable; that no studies have been performed on saRNA COVID-19 “vaccines” regarding Toxicity, the effects on reproductive potential, and so on; and, that Kostaive contains the RNA of the Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus. And yet, these products are being hailed as “the vaccines of the future.” And, the people taking them are again being used as “human lab rats.”

Peace, Good Energy, Respect: PAVACA

DEAR MAGA: Open Thread 20241003

Cover image is somewhere in North Carolina.

Making room for microschooling

The Great Purge of the Cabal Has Begun

Badlands News Brief – October 2, 2024

Eye of the Storm 169 & Bonus Video

Are Jay-Z and Beyonce the next to fall?

Trump just gave a masterclass on tariffs on Dave Ramsey…

Internet fascinated by JD Vance’s ‘pretty eyes’ during VP debate against Tim Walz

As if it was the Nixon-Kennedy debate all over again.

1,000 active-duty soldiers to deploy to western North Carolina to help with Helene response

That’s all? Fort Bragg is not that far away.

Adam Schiff Called Out for Trying to Bully Tech Companies Into Censoring Americans Ahead of Election

TWEETS!

Don’t shoot the messenger. Just passing on information.

I’m sure it’s happening, but at this point all information on this is hearsay.

No. That’s really *NOT* the battle. If Chinese ports are automated in China, they are operated by Chinese owners.  If American ports are automated in the USA, they are operated by Chinese owners.  It doesn’t take a genius to see the problem. Fast forward to 2035, all of our critical ILA members have given up and gone to work for Wal Mart in the face of overwhelming opposition against them by a short-sighted American electorate.  The children of the dockworkers are now addicted to prescription narcotics, and the docks are automated by German industrial machinery, facilitated by Chinese technology that was purchased by Chinese owners. The machinery is operated remotely by Chinese, Indian and Pakistani workers getting $5/hr. After seamless integration, China decides to take the geography of New Zealand as the latest strategic notch in their Belt and Road initiative.  Wait, wha… the American politicians shout, “this cannot stand.”  But it does, because if the USA tries to make a move against it, the docks in the USA are brought to a halt by China. Sound crazy? ‘Crazy’ was 9-years ago when CTH was warning about a weaponized FBI operating like the Russian FSB.  ‘Crazy’ was our warning that a DC-based intelligence apparatus was conducting surveillance of a presidential nominee.  ‘Crazy’ was our alarms ten years ago that various interests of the DoS and DHS were deep inside the mechanisms of social media, controlling the content of private conversations.  THAT was then considered “crazy.” What we are talking about now against the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and remote automation, is not crazy; it’s predictable reality if the efforts of the ILA fail.

THIS ONE IS IMPORTANT!

If you are wondering why citizens are being turned away that are coming to help NC and TN – you’ll want to hear my experience as someone who has been doing this as a private citizen for almost a decade. I was able to get into, and out of Asheville. We brought food, water, fuel and other supplies as well as helped people affected by the floods, but there are reasons why they are not allowing outside help. I cannot confirm the reasons why in NC, but i can tell you the reasons in other storms i have worked – i’ll explain below. Let me share with you the first disaster area that i finally realized that this was all about money. In the FL Keys with Hurricane Irma, after Texas got hit with Harvey, we finished our efforts in Texas and were the first citizen team to make it to Key Largo. The federal agencies had US1 shut down just South of Key Largo and wouldn’t let anyone in or out, even though the road was okay to pass. We explained to them that we had boats, Jet skis, food, water, chainsaws and fuel to bring these people. They didn’t care and wouldn’t let us in. It was night by that point and you rarely saw the lights of vehicles in the distance on the individual keys, meaning the emergency response teams from FEMA weren’t even working, it was all quiet. We decided that we would go in anyways. We filled up the boats and jet skis with all that we could reasonably carry and went by water, around all their BS blockades and around their law enforcement presence on the water. It was 87 miles by water to get to our first stop, Cudjoe Key and Sugarloaf Key. When we arrived there we were greeted by a homeowner (for privacy, I won’t name him, though we have video) who was elated to see us and all the supplies we brought, his house was in shambles. We started offloading supplies on the shoreline and helping to get them into what was left of his house. During that process, he explained to us that FEMA had set up a command center at a local high school on the island, but that they weren’t doing anything to help the residents, not even bringing them WATER! Instead, he explained that they were driving around using a loudspeaker, telling people to stay in their homes. They weren’t even helping the home owners with supplies. I was skeptical at first while he was telling me all of this, but then he said something that broke my heart…. He told us that the people of the keys were all in despair, because they had just seen, weeks before, the overwhelming support for Texas with Hurricane Harvey, by the citizens of this country. He, and his neighbors on all of the keys, felt like Americans had forgotten about them completely, because at this point, FIVE DAYS after landfall, all they had seen was FEMA, and they were of NO HELP. The residents were cut off from the outside world, no cellular, no internet, no way to contact anyone or hear of any efforts to try to help them. The ONLY communication they had was from a local radio station on Sugarloaf Key, that was broadcasting on AM to the surrounding keys. The man, after hearing that there were citizens trying to bring them help, but being refused entry by federal law enforcement was visibly upset. He, and his neighbors, really thought the country had abandoned them. He insisted that we get into his waterlogged truck and that he would take us to that radio station so that we could go live on air, to tell the citizens trapped in the Keys that we, the American people, were there to help and that the government was trying to stop our efforts. And that is exactly what we did. After that, we were determined to help as many people as we could, but we were met with red tape throughout the whole process and time we were in the keys. We finally we able to talk some authorities to let us down to the Faro Blanco Resort in Marathon towards the end of Boot Key. This was the same hotel where state and local authorities were staging their personnel and they were happy to see us. I was able to coordinate several trucks full of supplies to be brought down to the EOC in Marathon. I was privy to the EOC meeting, BUT was informed in that meeting, that all of the semi trucks full of food, water and hygiene supplies were to be turned around and not allowed to be offloaded for distribution by the EOC. THE REASON they gave us, was that these donations were not from companies on their “preferred vendors list” and that they would not accept them or give them to the residents of the keys impacted by the storm. It was at that point that I realized, this is ALL ABOUT MONEY. These ‘preferred vendors” are getting part of the money being released by the state and federal govt for each disaster. In turn, some of the “vendors” make it on the list because a friend gets them on the list, and in return for getting ridiculously outlandish amounts of compensation for the services they render, they give kickbacks. So accepting outside donations, even though they are on location and can help people NOW, they would rather let people suffer so they can get their kickbacks. This meeting solidified my resolve to help these people, regardless of what the greedy officials wanted, we were going to feed the lower keys that were being neglected. I diverted ALL SEMI TRUCKS to the Faro Blanco Resort in Marathon and filled the entire first floor with pallets upon pallets of food, water and essential supplies and created a food pantry for residents to come and get anything, and however much they needed. From local state troopers to the homeless, all were given wheel barrels and free reign to get anything they needed. We also delivered supplies down to Big Pine Key. We helped establish the tent city on Big Pine Key. Big companies like Titos Vodka and Whelen just kept bringing trucks full of everything that was needed. When FEMA FINALLY started handing out boxes of canned goods (limited to one per household), we were filing cars full of food and supplies for people and pets. There is so much more to the story in the Keys and further from there in other storms we worked- the common theme though, is that the federal government always tries to keep citizens from helping and the local authorities, the ones that live and work in the area are always happy to have outside help. I call out to Elon Musk and anyone else who can monetarily help people like myself and those that work with me, who have the knowledge and the will to help those devastated by these disasters. Help us side step the red tape and get the people the relief they need. We are willing, and we are many, and we are ready.

Fortunately, my cousin who lives in Ashville, is fine, according to my aunt.

MEMES and FUN STUFF

I cleaned ours out a few years ago. It hasn’t resurfaced.

Getting a degree gave me research skills.

Or a plaque.

Some people have no sense of humor.

No. Although, a couple of main roads I travel have been resurfaced recently.

https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1841216538998948346
https://twitter.com/Yoda4ever/status/1841503915063279870

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And now for the business portion.

Please review our HOST and site owner’s Guidelines for posting and discussion for this site. Wolf is kind enough to put up with *most* of us and our antics after thorough vetting. Violators of the baiting and deliberately attempting to divide the group rules WILL face consequences.

The discourse on this site is to be CIVIL – no name calling, baiting, or threatening others here is allowed. Company manners are appreciated. Those who are so inclined may visit Wolf’s other sanctuary, the U-Tree, to slog out discussions best saved for a wrestling mat. If, for some reason, this site is not available, head over to the UTree and visit the post at the top of the list or the closest rescue thread.

This site is a celebration of the natural rights endowed to humans by our Creator as well as those enshrined in the Bill of Rights adopted in the founding documents of the United States of America. Within the limits of law, how we exercise these rights is part of the freedom of our discussion.

THAT MEANS THAT ALL OF US HERE ARE ENTITLED TO OUR OPINIONS AND PREJUDICES, ETC., SO LONG AS THEY CAUSE NO PHYSICAL HARM TO OTHERS OR DOXX OUR FELLOW TREE DWELLERS.

All opinions here are valued for the diversity they bring to the issues, and the shaping of understanding regarding topics for which many of us do not have all information. Correcting the record on any one topic is appreciated.

Be careful in expressing thoughts as we would all like to think well of the rest of the group, and ill-thought out comments have a way of wrecking that for everyone.

Fellow tree dweller, the late Wheatie, gave us some good reminders on the basics of civility in political discourse:

  1. No food fights
  2. No running with scissors
  3. If you bring snacks, be sure they are made with bacon

Auntie DePat’s requests as we are all supposedly adults and don’t just play them on TV like the body doubles pretending to be the squatter in chief:

If you see something has not been posted, do us all a favor, and post it. Please, do not complain that it has not been done yet.

The scroll wheel on your mouse can be your friend. As mature adults, please use it here in the same manner you would in avoiding online porn.

Thank you so much for any and all attention to such details. It is GREATLY appreciated by more than one party here.

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Job 19:21-27

21Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me! 22Why do you, like God, pursue me? Why are you not satisfied with my flesh? 23“Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! 24Oh that with an iron pen and lead they were graven in the rock for ever! 25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; 26and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, 27whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

Luke 10:1-12

1After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to come. 2And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and salute no one on the road. 5Whatever house you enter, first say, `Peace be to this house!’ 6And if a son of peace is there, your peace shall rest upon him; but if not, it shall return to you. 7And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages; do not go from house to house. 8Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you; 9heal the sick in it and say to them, `The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 11`Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you; nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ 12I tell you, it shall be more tolerable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

This is entirely passe, but it holds a soft spot in my heart.

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SATIRE

WEEKEND STARTER

For a cocktail…in honor of the North Carolina way of life…try to find some moonshine. In the 1920s a moonshiner lived on the next block from me. That’s the largest house in the subdivision.

Have a good one y’all.