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 2022 or 2024 is pointless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud in the system is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,718.10
Silver $18.93
Platinum $888.00
Palladium $2,257.00
Rhodium $16,200.00

This week, 3 PM MT on Friday, markets closed for the weekend

Gold $1,676.90
Silver $19.69
Platinum $916.00
Palladium $2,217.00
Rhodium $14,950.00

What the heck happened to gold?

Big Bang In Trouble?

Well, I’m still not seeing anything about JWST imperiling the Big Bang theory, other than from the people who say that all the time.

I’ve seen reports that it’s seeing well-formed galaxies from earlier in the universe’s “life” than previously expected…but that does not imperil the Big Bang hypothesis as such. It does mean our current theories of how galaxies form might need some tweaking.

I am expecting the results will be modifications of the details (some of which I tried to explain back when I was doing physics posts) of what’s going on.

The most recent earthquake in cosmology was the discovery that the universe’s rate of expansion is increasing…not decreasing as previously expected. This was around the turn of the century. We still haven’t figured out precisely what this means or what it’s causing it or what the distant future of the universe will look like. In other words, a lot of details need to be fleshed out. So too with the observations from JWST.

Is it possible that by the time we fix the theory of galactic evolution, we’ll have to change other things too for consistency? Sure. But it’s very, very, very unlikely that the basic concept of the Big Bang is going to go away. We might end up changing time scales (e.g., adjust the elapsed time since the Big Bang), for instance or things like that that essentially describe the Big Bang “story,” but junk the whole thing? Pretty unlikely. (I won’t say “never” but geez, I’m tempted to.)

Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked about this on a YouTube channel called Star Talk. Yes, I know he’s a climate change douchebag…but he is an astrophysicist and this is an astrophysics question. So I’m prepared to respect him on this one.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t go into details about the current claims! However this video is worth watching for other reasons; he describes the whole thing with Einsteinian general relativity replacing Newtonian gravitation pretty well, and why it doesn’t actually invalidate Newton.

More to the point, are these two articles.

The first, No, James Webb did not disprove the Big Bang – Big Think, basically says what I just said; it’s likeliest the Big Bang will still be around, albeit with some changes to details.

The other one asks deeper questions, wondering if the failure to find out what dark matter is, is really an indication of deeper problems. Are we in 1904 all over again? (To be sure I’d consider the dividing line to be a bit earlier than 1904.) Is the Big Bang in crisis? | Astronomy.com. I know I have wondered this in the past–it seemed to me like postulating inflation and dark matter and dark energy might be too much patching up of a wrong paradigm. I wonder about it less often now that I better understand some of the lines of argumentation, particularly for dark matter, but I do keep it in the back of my mind. It’d sure be reassuring to figure out what dark matter is. Or interesting (and dramatic) to show there is no such thing.

More JWST Pictures

The Tarantula Nebula is in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. That’s actually a small galaxy in orbit around our own Milky Way galaxy. It’s relatively close to where Supernova 1987A was. Sadly, it’s well below the southern horizon for most people in the United States.

Here it is in “near” infrared (i.e., the higher frequencies, closest to being visible)

And here, with the Mid Infrared camera (that’s the one that has to be cooled to nearly absolute zero)

And the Orion Nebula. This one is easy, it’s the fuzzy “star” in Orion’s sword. What we are seeing here is very young stars (Orion, like Tarantua, is a stellar “nursery”), and even some protoplanetary disks. Planets are being formed!

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

To conclude: My standard Public Service Announcement. We don’t want to forget this!!!

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

News Flash

Today, it is still the case that Joe Biden didn’t Win.

I realize that to some readers, this might be a shock; surely at some point things must change and Biden will have actually won.

But the past cannot actually be changed.

It will always and forever be the case that Joe Biden didn’t win.

And if you, Leftist Lurker, want to dismiss it as dead white cis-male logic…well, you can call it what you want, but then please just go fuck off. No one here buys that bullshit–logic is logic and facts are facts regardless of skin color–and if you gave it a moment’s rational thought, you wouldn’t either. Of course your worthless education never included being able to actually reason–or detect problems with false reasoning–so I don’t imagine you’ll actually wake up as opposed to being woke.

As Ayn Rand would sometimes point out: Yes, you are free to evade reality. What you cannot do is evade the consequences of evading reality. Or to put it concretely: You can ignore the Mack truck bearing down on you as you play in the middle of the street, you won’t be able to ignore the consequences of ignoring the Mack truck.

And Ayn Rand also pointed out that existence (i.e., the sum total of everything that exists) precedes consciousness–our consciousnesses are a part of existence, not outside of it–therefore reality cannot be a “social construct” as so many of you fucked-up-in-the-head people seem to think.

So much for Leftist douchebag lurkers. For the rest of you, the regular readers and those lurkers who understand such things: I continue to carry the banner once also carried by Wheatie. His Fraudulency didn’t win.

Let’s Go, Brandon!!

Hey China!

Or rather, “Hey Chinese Communist Party and your entire array of servitors, ass-wipers, and fellators!”

You’re not even worth my time this week. When you decide to act like civilized people, maybe I’ll give you a lesson or two in how non-barbarians behave.

Hey BiteMe!
(Or, Whoever Has Their Hand Rammed Up That Putrefying Meat Puppet’s Ass)

[Language warning]

You and yours have caused a lot of injury. Literal injury with your war on people who don’t want to take an untested vaccine. When people die in an emergency room because a hospital won’t admit them because they haven’t had their clot shot, that’s a crime.

I’m going to address here the insult on top of the injury, because I am among the insulted. I still have my health but apparently you want me to live under the 8th Street Bridge (which actually isn’t on 8th Street, but whatever, that’s what the I-25 overpass over Cimarron is called), so maybe if you have your way that won’t be true for long. Dreadful time of year to become homeless.

No, you’re just trying to make me unemployed, because I won’t take your fucking shots.

Well, that threat is NOT going to work. I. Won’t. Take. Your. Fucking. Shots.

And it looks like enough people agree, that you’re having to back down, you worthless asswipe.

You’re LOSING.

You LOSER.

You Chinese-bought ratfucking traitor.

I would love to see you die an agonizing, humiliating death. (This isn’t a threat, because I am not threatening to cause that death. I am just announcing my intention to party if it happens.) It would be just recompense for the way you’re killing America…and millions of Americans.

His Fraudulency

Joe Biteme, properly styled His Fraudulency, continues to infest the White House, we haven’t heard much from the person who should have been declared the victor, and hopium is still being dispensed even as our military appears to have joined the political establishment in knuckling under to the fraud.

One can hope that all is not as it seems.

I’d love to feast on that crow.

(I’d like to add, I find it entirely plausible, even likely, that His Fraudulency is also His Figureheadedness. (Apparently that wasn’t a word; it got a red underline. Well it is now.) Where I differ with the hopium addicts is on the subject of who is really in charge. It ain’t anyone we like.)

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.

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.

Kitco Ask. Last week:

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

This week, markets closed as of 3PM MT.

Gold $1,718.10
Silver $18.93
Platinum $888.00
Palladium $2,257.00
Rhodium $16,200.00

Things are up…a bit. The industrial (PGM) metals are doing better than the traditional precious metals.

Artemis I

Apparently they’re trying to patch up the sieve known as the hydrogen fuel system before late September. If they can’t do that, they have to take the whole thing back to the VAB in order to recharge a battery on it (unless they can get a waiver) before they can make any of the October launch windows, which will cause weeks more delay.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

The Real Fascist is His Fraudulency Joe Biden*

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

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

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

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

Come and get us, asswipes!

Justice Must Be Done.

The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.

Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

Small Government?

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

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

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

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

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

Political Science In Summation

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

A Few Things We Cannot Blame on His Fraudulency

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

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

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

James Webb Space Telescope Photographs A Planet

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

Now JWST has photographed another planet.

Big deal?

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

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

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

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

Here are the pictures:

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

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

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

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

Just think about that.

Artemis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now for the controversy.

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

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

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

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

(Paper) Spot Prices

Last week:

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

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

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

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

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

And Pat Benatar Thought I Had Forgotten…

Well, in truth, I’ve had a couple of major distractions. But fortunately I’m on a 5 week regurgitation cycle so it doesn’t last long.

Another performance of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, from the department of Keep Rubbing Silly Leftists’ Noses In How Silly They Are, c/o The Q Tree.

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.

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 (i.e., paper) Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,748.60
Silver $19.16
Platinum $906.00
Palladium $2,210.00
Rhodium $14,900.00

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

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

Things actually seem to be fairly stable, not much movement in a week. Platinum probably moved the most, percentage wise. And down, too.

On Recent Controversy

Claims that the Big Bang theory was in deep trouble erupted earlier this week, and people were wondering what I’d have to say about it.

Unfortunately, I can’t find anything out about this, beyond what was posted. So I have to answer “I don’t know.”

(Now before someone accuses me of copping out…the real cop out would be for me to make something up, like some charlatan would. The real character weakness is refusing to acknowledge you just don’t know, fearing that people will think less of you for not knowing the answer.)

One key claim was that there wasn’t enough helium in the universe, but I continue to find the numbers that fit the model.

I am not myself a cosmologist. That means I have to rely on actual cosmologists and physicists, and ones I know of that wouldn’t shy away from controversy are silent on the issue.

Which means either, that there’s nothing there, or they’re trying to figure something out. I can’t tell which.

But lets assume there’s Something There…and the Big Bang Model is actually in trouble. It will likely take years for this to play out. And if anyone reading this is rooting for it to be wrong, because you somehow imagine it will show that Genesis 1 was right all along, you’re probably in for a nasty surprise. The “opposition” model is that the universe had no beginning at all, which would be even more in contradiction to Genesis. (Of course there’s no guarantee that that model is the one that would prevail when the dust clears; it could be something no one has even thought of yet, as unexpected as…well, as unexpected as the Big Bang was, originally.)

Science is a body of knowledge…and it’s also a process. As I wrote those physics posts, all thirty of them, I tried to not just outline what is currently believed to be the case, but also why. I had to simplify it a lot, not just for your benefit but for my own. The bits I know best are all classical (pre 1894) physics, and my deepest delve was into “classical” electromagnetism…as you might have suspected given how deeply I tried to go into the math.

None of that would be affected by the current controversy.

It’s true that science is full of humans who have their own psychological failings, hanging onto a a pet theory long after it’s dead, for instance; and sometimes those people simply have to die and get out of the way before further progress is made.

But progress is made, and quite a lot of it.

I maintain that science is by far the most effective method for learning about the world around us. The process is such that the truth will eventually come out. And indeed since the scientific method was founded, largely by Galileo…well, look at all of the technology we have compared to 1600–where most people’s lives were essentially the same as they were under the Roman Empire. That technology depends on the body of knowledge science has assembled. And if that body of knowledge weren’t largely correct…the tech wouldn’t work.

I love getting online and reading a denunciation of quantum mechanics from someone who clearly doesn’t realize that the semiconductors in their computer could not function if quantum mechanics were as wrong as they claim.

Is there a lot we don’t understand yet? Certainly! Absolutely!!! But I can think of no other way to gain that understanding.

It’s basically in areas that haven’t found practical applications yet, where there is still some fuzziness to the picture, and I will include cosmology, including such things as dark matter and dark energy, and inflation. That stuff is bleeding edge science, which involves a lot of speculation which many YouTube channels and the like will report without bothering to explain how speculative it is. Inflation is generally treated as proven fact, when in reality it’s simply a speculation that matches what we see today better than anything else. I doubt any cosmologist would claim it’s proved, just that it’s very likely to be true because nothing else fits. I talked about it some for that reason…but left more speculative stuff out. (I didn’t cover string theory, I didn’t cover supersymmetry, I didn’t cover…)

I have to admit I often wondered if inflation were just a kludged-on “thing” to make the theory work when the theory was in trouble. They certainly have no idea what could have caused it, they just figure it “must have” happened. Likewise dark matter. I was reassured, though, when I realized there were two distinct trails of evidence that it must exist. On the other hand, we still haven’t detected it in the laboratory. Dark energy is even more enigmatic.

I am strongly reminded of the situation from 1894…where we thought we had the broad picture and there were just a few little loose ends to tie up. And then those loose ends ended up showing us a whole ‘nother layer to the puzzle–in fact two of them, quantum mechanics and relativity.

Are we about to go through something like those tumultuous years again?

That would be really cool, and I mean that.

Maybe someday I’ll tackle earth history. But there was a revolution in that field in the 1960s. Everything was upended. Now, nothing makes sense in geology and geophysics without plate tectonics…but in 1960 no one believed it. Alfred Wegener, who said it must have happened but couldn’t explain how, was considered, let’s just say, a minority viewpoint, if not a crank. I’ve seen talks by geologists who were in college at that time, and it was truly exciting. Their whole specialty was being remade before their eyes…and what came out at the end made sense. They talk about that whole process with joy. They’re glad they were alive to see it!

As a kid in the early 1970s, I had an out-of-date book originally published around 1960 that talked about how we don’t know why volcanoes appear where they do. Geology didn’t make sense; it was just a bunch of unconnected facts with some weird details that made no sense at all (e.g., fossils of some species appearing in South America and Africa, but nowhere else…how did it spread to just those two areas?) Now, of course, we know. Geology makes sense because of the revolution of the 1960s, because of plate tectonics. Just like biology only makes sense because of evolution, and chemistry only makes sense because of the periodic table, and electromagnetism only makes sense because of Maxwell’s equations.

Right now the Big Bang still makes sense…but there are nagging issues, apparently. I’ve found videos from over a year ago that allude to some (in other words, stuff that came up before JWST). I need to watch them still. Will the issues be resolved consistent with the Big Bang, will their resolution modify it in subtle ways, or will they kick it over like an applecart? And if the latter, what replaces it? Who knows?

[Just remember that the replacement theory must 1) explain everything the current theory explains, preferably better and more simply, plus 2) things we know about that it does not (in other words it must tie up what I’ve been calling loose ends), and 3) it must also be able to predict things the old theory couldn’t, and those predictions must come true. Remember General Relativity: It was basically 1) like Newtonian gravity most of the time (so it explained the things Newtonian gravity did), 2) it explained that extra precession of Mercury’s line of apsides, and 3) it predicted the bending of light as shown during the 1919 solar eclipse by Eddington. It’s not enough to just throw cherry-picked rocks at the current theory and say your new idea explains the stuff the rocks hit.]

The answer, one way or another, will be interesting. We’ll learn a lot!

Fuck Joe B*d*n

Due to complaints about foul language, I’ve censored the most objectionable word in the title of this section.

B*d*n, you don’t even get ONE scoop of ice cream today.

(Please post this somewhere permanent, as it will continue to be true; the SOB will never deserve a scoop.)

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

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 Tuesday’s 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 2022 or 2024 is pointless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud in the system is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,767.50
Silver $20.44
Platinum $906.00
Palladium $2,204.00
Rhodium $15,300.00

This week, 3 PM MT on Friday, markets closed for the weekend

Gold $1,805.00
Silver $20.97
Platinum $972.00
Palladium $2,296.00
Rhodium $15,600.00

Things moving up again. For now.

The American Crisis

Quoted here in full, part I from late 1776. Written by Thomas Paine, whose nom de plume was “Common Sense.”

Thomas Paine had already written the all-time per-capita best selling American book, Common Sense, which had done more than anything else to make the case for Independence. Before it came out most Americans blamed the difficulties on the British parliament, or the King’s ministers. Afterwards, they blamed them on the institution of the monarcy, itself, and laid the blame at the feet of King George III.

But now we had declared Independence, and our fortunes seemed to be at a low ebb (this was before the Battle of Trenton).

Right now things seem at low ebb. Sure, the left has had a gigantic attack of diarrhea and then gleefully jumped up and down in it with the Raid on Trump. (Raid, raid, raid, raid, raid…assholes!) And now they’re getting desperate.

But that is when the danger is greatest.

Stay vigilant.

Be prepared.

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.
Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own*; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a
ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.
I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupported to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretense as he.
‘Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc. Would that heaven
might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.
As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the edge of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances, which those who live at a distance know but little or nothing of. Our situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place being a narrow neck of land between the North River and the Hackensack. Our force was inconsiderable, being not one-fourth so great as Howe could bring against us. We had no army at hand to have relieved the garrison, had we shut ourselves up and stood on our defense. Our ammunition, light artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been removed, on the apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in which case Fort Lee could be of no use to us; for it must occur to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these kind of field forts are only for temporary purposes, and last in use no longer than the enemy directs his force against the particular object which such forts are raised to defend. Such was our situation and condition at Fort Lee on the morning of the 20th of November, when an officer arrived with information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles above; Major General [Nathaniel] Green, who commanded the garrison, immediately ordered them under arms, and sent express to General Washington at the town of Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry = six miles. Our first object was to secure the bridge over the Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy and us, about six miles from us, and three from them. General Washington arrived in about three-quarters of an hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards the bridge, which place I expected we should have a brush for; however, they did not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest part of our troops went over the bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some which passed at a mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the ferry, and made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hackensack, and there passed the river. We brought off as much baggage as the wagons could contain, the rest was lost. The simple object was to bring off the garrison, and march them on till they could be strengthened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled to make a stand. We staid four days at Newark, collected our out-posts with some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly inferior to theirs. Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some providential control.
I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit. All their wishes centered in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same remark may be made on General Washington, for the character fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and
given him a mind that can even flourish upon care.
I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question, Why is it that the enemy have left the New England provinces, and made these middle ones the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not infested with Tories, and we are. I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a Tory? Good God! What is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, selfinterested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.
But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us, let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation to the enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him. Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is injured by you. He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless you support him personally, for ’tis soldiers, and not Tories, that he wants.
I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, “Well! Give me peace in my day.” Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;” and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.
America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off. From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defense of a well-meaning militia. A summer’s experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God! They are again assembling. I always considered militia as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an attempt on this city [Philadelphia]; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he is ruined. If he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his side against a part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will be, that armies from both ends of the continent will march to assist their suffering friends in the middle states; for he cannot go everywhere, it is impossible. I consider Howe as the greatest enemy the Tories have; he is bringing a war into their country, which, had it not been for him and partly for themselves, they had been clear of. Should he now be expelled, I wish with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of Whig and Tory may never more be mentioned; but should the Tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I as sincerely wish that our next year’s arms may expel them from the continent, and the Congress appropriate their possessions to the relief of those who have suffered in well-doing. A single successful battle next year will settle the whole. America could carry on a two years’ war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.
Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at
one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but “show your faith by your works,” that God may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to “bind me in all cases whatsoever” to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a Scottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both. Howe’s first object is, partly by threats and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage, and this is what the Tories call making their peace, “a peace which passeth all understanding” indeed! A peace which would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things! Were the back counties to give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for. Were the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of the back counties who would then have it in their power to chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up its arms, that state must be garrisoned by all Howe’s army of Britons and Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.
I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to him that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to ravage the defenseless Jerseys; but it is great credit to us, that, with a handful of men, we sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our retreat was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in performing it, that the country might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well-armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils—a ravaged country—a depopulated city—habitations without safety, and slavery without hope—our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! And if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

To conclude: My standard Public Service Announcement. We don’t want to forget this!!!

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

News Flash

Today, it is still the case that Joe Biden didn’t Win.

I realize that to some readers, this might be a shock; surely at some point things must change and Biden will have actually won.

But the past cannot actually be changed.

It will always and forever be the case that Joe Biden didn’t win.

And if you, Leftist Lurker, want to dismiss it as dead white cis-male logic…well, you can call it what you want, but then please just go fuck off. No one here buys that bullshit–logic is logic and facts are facts regardless of skin color–and if you gave it a moment’s rational thought, you wouldn’t either. Of course your worthless education never included being able to actually reason–or detect problems with false reasoning–so I don’t imagine you’ll actually wake up as opposed to being woke.

As Ayn Rand would sometimes point out: Yes, you are free to evade reality. What you cannot do is evade the consequences of evading reality. Or to put it concretely: You can ignore the Mack truck bearing down on you as you play in the middle of the street, you won’t be able to ignore the consequences of ignoring the Mack truck.

Anyhow, for the rest of you, the regular readers and those lurkers who understand such things: I continue to carry the banner once also carried by Wheatie. His Fraudulency didn’t win.

Hey China!

Or rather, “Hey Chinese Communist Party and your entire array of servitors, ass-wipers, and fellators!”

You’re not even worth my time this week. When you decide to act like civilized people, maybe I’ll give you a lesson or two in how non-barbarians behave.

Meanwhile, enjoy being a laughing stock after that rancid syphilitic c*nt Pelosi called your bluff. I think she finally did something right, by mistake.

Hey BiteMe!
(Or, Whoever Has Their Hand Rammed Up That Putrefying Meat Puppet’s Ass)

[Language warning]

You and yours have caused a lot of injury. Literal injury with your war on people who don’t want to take an untested vaccine. When people die in an emergency room because a hospital won’t admit them because they haven’t had their clot shot, that’s a crime.

I’m going to address here the insult on top of the injury, because I am among the insulted. I still have my health but apparently you want me to live under the 8th Street Bridge (which actually isn’t on 8th Street, but whatever, that’s what the I-25 overpass over Cimarron is called), so maybe if you have your way that won’t be true for long. Dreadful time of year to become homeless.

No, you’re just trying to make me unemployed, because I won’t take your fucking shots.

Well, that threat is NOT going to work. I. Won’t. Take. Your. Fucking. Shots.

And it looks like enough people agree, that you’re having to back down, you worthless asswipe.

You’re LOSING.

You LOSER.

You Chinese-bought ratfucking traitor.

I would love to see you die an agonizing, humiliating death. (This isn’t a threat, because I am not threatening to cause that death. I am just announcing my intention to party if it happens.) It would be just recompense for the way you’re killing America…and millions of Americans.

His Fraudulency

Joe Biteme, properly styled His Fraudulency, continues to infest the White House, we haven’t heard much from the person who should have been declared the victor, and hopium is still being dispensed even as our military appears to have joined the political establishment in knuckling under to the fraud.

One can hope that all is not as it seems.

I’d love to feast on that crow.

(I’d like to add, I find it entirely plausible, even likely, that His Fraudulency is also His Figureheadedness. (Apparently that wasn’t a word; it got a red underline. Well it is now.) Where I differ with the hopium addicts is on the subject of who is really in charge. It ain’t anyone we like.)

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.

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.

Kitco Ask. Last week:

Gold $1,767.50
Silver $20.44
Platinum $906.00
Palladium $2,204.00
Rhodium $15,300.00

This week, markets closed as of 3PM MT.

Gold $1,775.60
Silver $19.99
Platinum $944.00
Palladium $2,214.00
Rhodium $15,600.00

James Webb Space Telescope

It has settled down into normal observations.

They’re putting out weekly schedules here https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/observing-schedules and there’s an overall list for the first year “cycle 1” here: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go

From the weekly schedule, it looks like today for part of the day:

1373:15:1      MOVING      PRIME TARGETED MOVING          2022-08-06T21:33:24Z  00/00:25:56  MIRI Medium Resolution Spectroscopy                 IO                               Solar System                    Satellite


1373:22:1      MOVING      PRIME TARGETED MOVING          2022-08-06T22:03:45Z  00/00:46:26  MIRI Medium Resolution Spectroscopy                 BG-GANYMEDE+20N                  Solar System                    Offset


1373:19:1      MOVING      PRIME TARGETED MOVING          2022-08-06T22:56:45Z  00/00:53:45  NIRSpec IFU Spectroscopy                            GANYMEDE                         Solar System                    Satellite


1373:18:1      MOVING      PRIME TARGETED MOVING          2022-08-06T23:57:16Z  00/03:06:27  MIRI Medium Resolution Spectroscopy                 GANYMEDE                         Solar System                    Satellite

Note that start times and durations of observations are specified down to the second; the first item in the list starts at 21:33:24 Zulu, runs for 25 minutes, 56 seconds, then at 22:03:45 it starts on the next item.

This thing is a priceless scientific resource; it won’t be allowed any down time not absolutely necessary for maintenance (mirror alignment must periodically be checked, for instance). And of course it takes time to rotate the thing from one target to the next, so no doubt they spend a lot of time figuring out which sequence spends the least time on just moving JWST; a sort of “traveling salesman” problem. (And note that Jupiter’s moons are considered “moving.” They’re in orbit about Jupiter, Jupiter is in orbit about the sun, we are too–Jupiter and the moons move across the sky and the telescope must track that motion perfectly. Which it could not do if we were as clueless about physics as some pseudoscientists like to bray.)

To return to the current instance, the JWST will be examining Jupiter’s moons Io and Ganymede from about 5:30 PM to 8PM ET, using spectroscopy in both near and mid infrared…someone wants to know what they’re made of, methinks. The second entry is actually to look away from Ganymede a bit (I don’t know how to interpret how much, but it says “OFFSET” and “+20N” so I figure it’s an offset, and if I really want to know I need to figure out how much an N is and multiply by 20. Or maybe N means north and the unit is implicit…)

Note that it’s all spectroscopy. Most of the instrument modes are spectroscopy of some type or another.

That’s because spectroscopy is the astrophysicist’s power tool. It is impossible to overstate how important spectroscopy is to astronomy and astrophysics.

After you spread the light out into a spectrum of its component frequencies:

Where is the peak intensity? BOOM. Now you know the temperature.

Are there any dark bands, or is it bright stripes? Either way, BOOM. Now you know what it’s made of, because every substance absorbs or emits certain characteristic wave lengths.

Are those dark bands or bright stripes a bit off from where we would normally expect them? BOOM! Now you now know how fast the object is approaching or receding, because of Doppler shift.

Are the bands or bright stripes a bit fatter than you would expect? BOOM! Now you know the object is rotating. One side is moving away, shifting its part of the band to a lower frequency; the other side is moving towards you, shifting its part of the band to a higher frequency, making the band or stripe fatter than it would otherwise be.

(If you can look for a while, or come back later) Do the dark bands move, from one time to a future time? BOOM! Now you know the object is being orbited by something else (or it is orbiting something–technically they are the same thing!); that puts a wobble in its motion; speeding it up and slowing it down as seen from here.

If you’ve ever wondered how we can possibly know what some other star is made of, when we can’t possibly collect a sample, that’s how. If you wonder how we can tell things are moving towards or away from us and how fast, even when it’s billions of trillions of miles away, that’s how. And how we know a star–which looks like a point of light in even this telescope–is rotating when there’s no detail to see moving left to right (or whichever way), that’s how.

Or for that matter how fast a galaxy spins even though it’s so big it takes a quarter of a billion years to do so. (We can’t see the motion, and trying would be a quadrillion times duller than watching paint dry or Joe Biden try to think.) That’s how we know.

And it seems like people keep coming up with clever ways to use spectroscopy for other things, surprising things.

We wouldn’t know jack schiff about the universe, compared to what we do know, without spectroscopy.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

The Chinese Should Think Before Wiping Us Out As Sometimes They Need Us To Solve Their Problems For Them

Okay you knuckledragging ChiComs trying to take us down…here’s a history lesson for you.

For millennia, you had to suffer from this:

Yep. Steppe Nomads. They laid waste to your country, burned, raped and pillaged (but not in that order–they’re smarter than you are) for century after century.

You know who figured out how to take them on and win? The Russians.

Not you, the Russians. And it took them less than two centuries. And Oh By The Way they were among the most backward cultures in Europe at the time.

You couldn’t invent an alphabet, you couldn’t take care of barbarians on horseback, and you think you can take this board down?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! We’re laughing at you, you knuckledragging dehumanized communists…worshipers of a mass-murderer who killed sixty million people!

I mean, you still think Communism is a good idea even after having lived through it!

By my reckoning that makes you orders of magnitude more stupid than AOC, and that takes serious effort.

His Fraudulency

Joe Biteme, properly styled His Fraudulency, continues to infest the White House, and hopium is still being dispensed even as our military appears to have joined the political establishment in knuckling under to the fraud.

One can hope that all is not as it seems.

I’d love to feast on that crow.

“No Chemicals”

A detailed analysis of the contents of His Fraudulency’s skull was performed.

Absolutely no chemicals found!

Justice Must Be Done.

The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.

Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

Small Government?

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

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

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

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

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

Political Science In Summation

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

A few Things We Cannot Blame on His Fraudulency

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

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

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

James Webb Space Telescope Looks at Jupiter

Jupiter is, by far, the largest of the planets in the Solar System. An alien visitor, in fact, would be justified in stating that this system consists of one G2-class star, a gas giant planet with a big red spot on it, and assorted debris.

Except that any spacefaring alien would likely be very interested in planets like Home, and those would likely be small, rocky planets, so he’d take a closer look at that “debris.”

Jupiter probably prevented the formation of a planet in the asteroid belt, and has intercepted a lot of space junk that might otherwise have smacked into Earth. We know, in fact, that it collides with comets now and again…recall Shoemaker Levy 9 in 1994, which would have been a catastrophic series of hits on Earth. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9)

(Unfortunately, we didn’t see the actual impacts. They happened just barely on the far side of Jupiter. Though Hubble did catch one fireball poking up over the limb. And of course we could see the smoking holes bored through Jupiter’s atmosphere by the impact.

Note that this image records red, blue, violet and ultraviolet.

And here is a Hubble ultraviolet picture of Jupiter with holes burned through the atmosphere by the pieces of Shoemaker Levy 9.

Well, with the possible exception of the red frequency above, JWST cannot see any of these frequencies. It can see infrared.

And it took some pictures of Jupiter the other day. No trace remains of the Shoemaker Levy impacts, of course, but you can be assured that if something like this happens again before JWST kicks the bucket due to running out of propellant, JWST will be on it like His Fraudulency on 10 year old girls. (Only in this case, the results will be useful.) We would love to see such a thing happen in infrared! A certain amount of time on JWST is reserved for unexpected events. We had only a few months’ warning on Shoemaker Levy 9. Rest assured if Betelgeuse (or any other star within 200,000 light years) goes supernova, same story.

JWST has already taken pictures of Jupiter. These were done at two wavelengths, as two separate images, so there’s no “false color” going on. Where the picture is white, infrared of that wavelength hit the sensor, if dark, then not. Pretty basic.

Europa is to the left..and it’s brighter than Jupiter at this wavelength; the sensor pixels “blew out” and this is denoted by black. Jupiter itself is quite recognizable; you can even see the Red Spot, but it turns out to be pretty bright at this wavelength (2,120 nanometers [billionths of a meter]…for reference we can see 400-700nm with 700 being the red end.)

This is a pretty detailed image…for having taken from over half a billion miles away!

Here’s this picture in raw unprocessed form…plus another one taken at 3,230 nm.

Well, well well, what do we have here…right under Thebe?

That’s Jupiter’s ring! Not nearly as famous as the rings around Saturn, they’re hard to see; we only discovered them during a flyby during the last century, backlit by the Sun.

That image, processed and enhanced a bit:

Jupiter is blindingly bright at this wavelength; in fact it even appears bulged at the poles. The ring is plainly visible, even a bit to the right of the big bright thing. It may not look particularly spectacular to you, but planetary scientists are learning a LOT from these pictures.

The verdict is in: JWST kicks ass.

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

(Paper) Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,727.10
Silver $18.67
Platinum $883.00
Palladium $2,106.00
Rhodium $16,700.00

This week, 3PM Mountain Time, markets have closed for the weekend. [Note: If you are reading this…I had no chance between 3-10 PM Friday to put the prices in. My apologies for this, but it’s hectic here.]

[Edit: Prices added 3:10 AM MT.]

Gold $1,767.50
Silver $20.44
Platinum $906.00
Palladium $2,204.00
Rhodium $15,300.00

———-

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!

Wow, I don’t even need to muck with this first part. Guess who’s in the news again, even if only slightly.

Message for Bill Barr

You’re dirt.

Your job was to pursue justice impartially. Instead, you decided it was worth being partial just to get rid of the Orange Man with the Mean Tweets.

I imagine you sleep easy at night, though, because in your alleged mind, you saved America. The America you saved was the America that’s ruled by an elite and has to tolerate a dumptruck load of “deplorables”–you know the sort of people who just want to be left alone and not be forced to participate in some grand plan.

That just proves you’re a bloated bag of rancid, maggot-infested lard.

Since that has been true for quite some time, a large percentage of you must be maggot turds.

Your day will come, Traitor.

And For Pat Benatar

Unfortunately I get exposed to the Yellow Stream Media in small doses nearly daily, so I ran across a story about how Pat Benatar will no longer be performing “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” on account of guns bad or something like that.

I was aware she’s no friend of the Right. Not just figuring “probably not because she’s entertainment industry” but I knew; she released some song bemoaning Trump back in 2017.

Well, Pat, your many, many thousands of fans are surely disappointed, I’m sure. Hit Me With Your Best Shot is one of your most famous works, it’s even, dare I say it, iconic. [Note: you do have more fans than I do, even 40 years after your halcyon days, so that puts you ahead of Brian Stelter, who apparently has fewer.]

Fortunately, I am here to fill the gap, so your fans won’t pine away.

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.

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 (i.e., paper) Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,709.60
Silver $18.83
Platinum $861.00
Palladium $1,901.00
Rhodium $15,300.00

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

Gold $1,727.10
Silver $18.67
Platinum $883.00
Palladium $2,106.00
Rhodium $16,700.00

Mixed week, with silver down and everything else up. I recall hearing that gold had actually dipped below $1,700 at least once this week.

Bitcoin, meanwhile…aw, who gives a fetid pile of dingos’ kidneys?

If the stories about new reserve currencies are true, expect a lot of dollars that have been sitting overseas, not chasing goods in the marketplace, to come home. At which point we’ll see more dollars chasing (if we’re lucky) the same amount of, or (if we’re less lucky) fewer, goods. Which is exactly what sends prices through the roof.

Meanwhile now might be a buying opportunity. Or it could be that I am a practitioner of craniorectalinsertiononomics (an accurate name for most fashionable schools of economics) and I’m totally wrong.

Oligula’s Biggest Blunder

With JWST starting its science mission, I have to find something else to talk about now.

Well, a quick one.

I wrote this last week: So I don’t expect to see news reports about what “JWST has found” for at least a little while.

It aged poorly.

Apparently JWST has already spotted a galaxy older (and hence far more redshifted) than anything previously seen. The article I read talked about how it had formed within a couple of hundred million years of the Big Bang, and compared that to “when light began” a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Which is wrong on two counts. The event they’re referring to is when the universe cooled below plasma temperatures, and hence became transparent. Light existed before then but couldn’t get anywhere without being reabsorbed by electrons flying around in that plasma. Once that stopped, the light could travel freely: outer space became transparent. That initial glow is still seen today as the Cosmic Microwave Background (explained, possibly more coherently, here: https://www.theqtree.com/2021/11/27/2021%c2%b711%c2%b727-joe-biden-didnt-win-daily-thread/). So that’s one of two problems, and it’s conceivable one could claim I’m drawing a meaningless distinction here. But the bigger problem is, this happened 380 thousand years after the Big Bang. Not million.

But JWST finding such a thing is exactly what we were hoping for.

And, I’ll note that this week marked the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

OK, now on to Oligula, whom I usually refer to as Obola, and his biggest blunder ever.

That would, of course be failing to either replace or extend the Space Transportation System, which is the name that only NASA uses for that which everyone else calls the Space Shuttle.

The Space Shuttle was intended to make travel to orbit cheaper. The price to put a kilogram in orbit had plummeted to $10,000 during the 60s (but note, that’s still a lot of money, especially in 1970 dollars), and had remained there since.

It takes a lot of fuel to get to orbit, and that ain’t cheap, but the bigger issue is we were throwing 90 percent or more of the spacecraft away, every time. Imagine what air fare would be if they had to scrap the airliner as soon as the passengers deplaned. The Shuttle was an attempt to come up with a reusable system, and it was indeed partially reusable. The orbiter could be reused, but only after weeks of refurbishing. The big hydrogen tank (which was white for the first few missions, then they decided to save the weight of the white paint, so it was tan-orange from that point forward) was thrown away, the solid rocket boosters were salvaged and reused as much as possible (but that involved rebuilding them).

So the price to orbit for a kilogram remained at $10,000, though to be fair that’s still a decrease because of inflation. But it almost seemed like it was a physical constant, $10,000/kg.

Oligula left US manned spaceflight for dead by doing nothing as the Shuttle was retired. We now had to hitch a ride with the Russians just to go to the International Space Station, even though ISS had largely been built by us.

But that is not the blunder I am thinking about. The blunder I am thinking about is that Obola allowed private companies to step in.

Space X, for instance, has begun providing rides to orbit, and since they aren’t smothered in government bureaucracy, they’re able to incrementally improve their boosters and orbiters in less than a decade. They’ve gotten better and better at recovering their boosters by landing them on ships at sea. Very little if anything is thrown away now. The things are almost totally reusable, with less refurbishing than the Shuttle ever dreamed of.

The price to get a kilogram to orbit has dropped to $2,000 now.

And it may get as low as $400 with their planned Starship system. (I am not accounting for possible future hyperinflation as the petrodollars come home to roost; see above.)

This is very important. After all, when the Left gets done dorking up the Earth, we need somewhere else to go. Yes, the Left will mess that up too, but that won’t be until the Deplorables who pioneer it have gotten it to the point where puffy toilet seats are available. Meanwhile we’ll have breathing space.

Being able to get to space cheaply is very important in the long term. No, it won’t help us drain the swamp, but a couple of hundred years from now they’ll look back and not care about what Bloated Pusbag Barr did to President Trump, but they will care about the founding of space industry and colonies.

OK, but this is good, right? So why did I call this Oligula’s Biggest Blunder?

Because intent matters. Obola rarely made a mistake. He caused a lot of damage, but that was his intent, so the damage he caused was not by mistake.

So the one thing he did that was good (even if it is taking a while to become evident), actually was a mistake on his part. He didn’t mean to do that good deed; he was trying to shove yet another rusty steel twelve gauge bore brush up America’s ass, then chock it in a power drill for added effect.

But he got this one wrong.

So, Oligula, I take my hat off to you, and say “Fuck you very much.”

Fuck Joe B*d*n

Due to complaints about foul language, I’ve censored the most objectionable word in the title of this section.

B*d*n, you don’t even get ONE scoop of ice cream today.

(Please post this somewhere permanent, as it will continue to be true; the SOB will never deserve a scoop.)

…And the Cancer He Rode In On

Does the Meat Puppet have cancer?

I don’t think we can say, based on his slip the other day. After all “cancer” and “Covid” both start with a “C” and he may have just said “cancer” when he meant “Covid.” Even someone who is not compost-mentis (Latin for “peat head”) could make that mistake; but it’s more likely to happen when the brain turns to sludge.

(All kidding about no chemicals in FJB’s skull aside, clearly something is in there, because he continues to breathe and poop out both ends, figuratively in one case, literally in the other. The brain does manage that stuff, though our consciousness doesn’t notice it doing so.)

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!