“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
Since I brought up the subject of Shays’ Rebellion in Part 8, we might as well dig into the subject briefly. Most of us were never educated in school about the truth that not all of our citizens got along after defeating the British. Everything did not just become hunky dory within our nation’s boundaries. At times, the independent and contrary nature of some could not be appeased or led into compromise easily. Shays’ Rebellion is one of those situations that was brought on by real injustice. It dealt with the unequal and unfair administration of the law within the citizenry. The law and economic system themselves were still in development. As a result ethical issues that had gone unresolved caused great tension. It was clear that there was still a lot of pent up anger and bitterness that carried over from British oppression due to the presence of the loyalists still living and controlling governments and businesses within the borders. It led to violence and angry confrontations at times.
In other words, people being people.
Shays’ Rebellion
Rather than repeat the words of others, I have provided two good links. I urge you to read them and the third link further down in the body.
As things generally work, we can now go back and see that without the rebellion, there may never have been the compromise and reconciliation that followed. Lessons learned in central national governance and the states paying back accrued war debts led to the termination of the Articles of Confederation instead of amending same within the same Convention that later produced the U. S. Constitution.
Whether this last point was a wise path to follow or not from my viewpoint will be addressed in a future part. But as a spoiler, quickly throwing the baby out with the bathwater may not have been the best of ideas. However, the Federalists were hellbent on getting it done the way it eventually did.
Many American citizens, primarily farmers, lost their property and assets unfairly in deference to those who had the upper hand – the merchants, bankers and wealthy who had the support of government leaders and many politicians. The truth is that few states had the capacity to pay wages that were past due to members of the Continental military during the war. The new federal government did not have the coin either. Yes, it is factually correct to state that the new federal and state governments of that day welched on their legal responsibilities to pay war participants what they were due. In Massachusetts (Taxachusetts) this led to many losing their farms and assets to debtors who were supported by the government and judiciary. To get a feel for how the fighters were to be compensated read the summary link below.
Note that Washington and Morris paid a lot of the wages during the war out of their own wealth at one critical point. Many of the wealthy founding fathers did likewise.
The situation in Massachusetts was the stuff that the Crown and Parliament would do that the same people in authority on the winning side of the war and this rebellion had fought against. That is the ugly truth that is glossed over frequently by historians and certainly our federal government in its records and archives.
It sucked big time.
Walk in the shoes of the common man for a time. You are a simple farmer in that patriot inspired era and region. You risk your life, family, property, community – everything – to a belief that the colonies should seek independence from their oppressors who taxed everything that moved and treated colonists as their lessers. You endure great hardship, lose friends and family, and have your home destroyed by the vengeful Brits. Adding to the misery you never receive the full wages the state and your colonial government promise to pay for your voluntary service to your country; while newer recruits later in the war receive a larger bounty than you did to sign up.
But you let it all go because you now live in a free country that is not taxed to death. You really have no way to take on the authorities to receive your back pay anyway.
You soon learn that you have been put on the clock to pay merchant debts as well as accrued colony/state taxes from the past war debts are still due. While working hard in your return to private life and trying to make a living on your farm, the politicians are busy passing laws to tax you at high rates to pay back state war related debts as well as other commercial debts to the wealthy merchants. This eventually causes the loss of your property because you have no funds to pay as well as dealing with the ensuing family hardships. Adding more injury to the insult, not only do you lose your farm to foreclosure, but you are sent to a filthy, dungeon like debtors prison for failure to pay.
You might become more than a little angry over it all as we would. Pizzed may be a better word.
The war debts and bills the merchants and governments owed to others were real. But so was the back pay that was owed to the military members who actually fought the war and enabled those merchants to stay alive and in business. Pensions for widows and disabled veterans were given by the new government and it was the right thing to do. Not paying all the other men who actually fought the war what they were due was a huge violation of trust.
You become aware that the state government had the ability all along to forge a compromise to provide relief to you and the people as well as assist the merchants by amending the terms of the debt repayment. All they had to do was print more money, pay you the wages from the war and reduce the onerous taxes. This would have temporarily increased inflation as we know, which the merchants fought against – caring only for themselves and not for the people that saved their bacon. I guess the mafia types the government borrowed the war expenditures from did not agree to this compromise. They created a situation that allowed the wealthy predators to bottom feed on the foreclosed properties of their lessers. Their former British oppressors would be proud (and were) of their exploits since many were Brit loyalists, still owing their allegiance to the Crown that had been defeated.
We would understand it this way today: Who needs a destructive wildfire when you can just use excessive war debt and taxes to accomplish the same evil results? It is a parallel path with what Clinton/Soetoro/Biden had America following before MAGA and America First saved the day. Create a debt quagmire through war and other means that cannot be repaid that causes misery and huge wealth transfers to the already wealthy and dictators. A tale as old as world history.
Never forget that truth, fellow patriots.
Back to the story. In response to the highly volatile conditions and unrest the state government did nothing of substance to assist and permitted the destruction of their own citizens and former war fighters. They revealed who they were. Most Democrats of today would be very proud of them.
However, back in those days it led to Shays’ Rebellion and other conflicts in the new nation. In these days it led to J6 and November 5, 2024. If there is anything we have learned as America First MAGA movement participants it is that things are not as they have been represented by those with nefarious agendas.
As we learn from the linked and other accounts, the vast majority of rebel participants received amnesty or were pardoned to restore order. Which was an obvious acknowledgement by those in authority that the participants had valid reasons to do what they did. The Governor (Bowdoin) and Lt. Governor (Lincoln) who failed the people were tossed out of office. The new legislature cut the taxes and placed a moratorium on debts. This led to better economic conditions and lessening of unrest.
Knowing this, does it help explain why the vote was so close to approve the Constitution after the Massachusetts Compromise was reached?
What should have happened immediately after the war ended, finally happened after the common man rose up once again against their new oppressors. Those actions brought an end to this unfortunate chapter in American history.
However, lemons were turned into lemonade when Shays’ Rebellion and other significant rebellious events happened throughout the former colonies who had become states. People with various interests and beliefs realized they needed to reunite together to help the young republic succeed. Resolving the conflicts and seeing the need to create more unity led to this revered leader coming out of retirement as the new U. S. Constitution was enacted.
Our thanks go to Daniel Shays and others who fought for what was right and good for the common man just as our appreciation does for the America First MAGA patriots of today. Time to discuss more signers.
Richard Stockton
This son of Quaker and wealthy landowner, John Stockton, was born in 1730 in the Princeton, NJ area. Richard Stockton attended Samuel Finley’s Nottingham Academy and went on to graduate from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton U) at the age of 18. He began the study of law under noted attorney, David Ogden, and was admitted to the bar in 1754. He was highly respected in the profession. He married his wife, Annis Boudinot, a noted poet and the sister of Elias Boudinot, a well known statesman of the colony. They had six children together. One of his daughters, Julia, later married Declaration signer Benjamin Rush. Through the years, Stockton became a close friend of George Washington. He was physically tall, considered handsome and very well spoken within society. When touring England, Scotland and Ireland in 1766, he was invited to attend events with the King and Queen, who were impressed with his high character and abilities.
He toured Scotland and was invited to visit with the noblemen and society. During those times he and his future son-in-law Rush, who was a medical student in Scotland at the time, met with Rev. John Witherspoon to try to convince him to become the President of the College of New Jersey, a position he had previously declined. He subsequently agreed and came to the colonies to lead the school. Ten years later, Witherspoon stood with Stockton and Rush as they all signed the Declaration of Independence.
Back in the colonies Stockton had little interest in politics and government for many years. Per Wiki he once wrote, “The public is generally unthankful, and I never will become a Servant of it, till I am convinced that by neglecting my own affairs I am doing more acceptable Service to God and Man.”
In 1768 he was appointed to the royal executive council of New Jersey and later to the Supreme Court. As the independence movement continued to gain momentum, in 1774 he drafted a plan for self rule of the colonies while still owing allegiance to the Crown. It was rejected and Stockton faced a choice he had to make. He chose the colonies and independence. He was deeply moved by the arguments of John Adams when it came time to approve the document and sign it. Rather than holding offices offered to him back in NJ, he chose to remain active and a member of Congress. He was sent along with fellow signer, George Clymer, to inspect the northern Continental Army for its needs. They reported back to John Hancock of the dire need for nearly everything. He went on to actively solicit basic clothing and shoes that were severely needed for the warfighters, some of whom were barelegged and barefoot.
He learned of the British invasion of NJ and quickly went home to move his family about thirty miles away. However, he was still captured and treated horribly. He stayed locked in leg irons without sufficient clothing and food in the dreaded New York City’s Provost Prison where 12,000 men died as well as on nearby prison ships. After George Washington became aware, he protested his treatment to British Gen. Howe. Stockton was given a parole as long as he did not participate in the war and was released. He was too sick to participate anyway. He was severely malnourished and near death from which he never fully recovered. When he arrived back at his home, he found it had been plundered and nearly destroyed by Gen. Cornwallis and his men who had stayed in the home during the war. He survived only through the personal assistance of family and friends. Over time he became strong enough to return to work some in his law practice and taught a couple of students. However, he died in 1781 before being able to experience the end of the war and our nation’s independence. Even his death was excruciatingly painful as he had developed a lip cancer that grew into his throat before he passed.
Stockton’s wife, Annis, continued in correspondence for the rest of her life with their friend, George Washington, including writing a poem about Cornwallis’ surrender to Washington. An excerpt of Washington’s letter of appreciation stated, “…This address, from a person of your refined taste and elegance of expression, affords a pleasure beyond my powers of utterance, and I have only to lament that the hero of your pastoral is not more deserving of your pen; but the circumstance shall be placed among the happiest events of my life. I have the honor to be, madam you’re most obedient and respectful servant, G. Washington.”
The respect for the greatness and commitment of Richard Stockton was exhibited by a statue of him being placed in Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. He was one of only six signers so honored. His home of Morven became the New Jersey Governor’s Mansion from 1954-1981. His eldest son went on to become a NJ senator and four generations of Stockton’s served in Congress.
Again, a man of wealth and high position in society who could have avoided the personal destruction that he lived through by simply staying uninvolved, gave his all for America and freedom for all of his countrymen and all of us who have followed. He deserved far better than he received. He was the definition of an American Patriot.
James Smith
James Smith was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1719. He and his Presbyterian faith based family immigrated from there when he was ten years old and lived in the Cheshire County, PA. His father became a successful farmer. He was informally educated by local clergy, then educated more at Philadelphia Academy (Penn), and later apprenticed in law under his brother, George. He was admitted to the PA bar at the age of 26. He moved with his brother to the more frontier area of Cumberland County and spent his time surveying. After about five years he moved back to the more populated city of York to practice law full time.
At the age of 41 he married Eleanor Armor and they had five children. With his surveying experience, he was highly recognized in the area for his work with property transfers in his law practice. He invested into a local iron foundry that failed and cost him greatly financially.
As the independence movement expanded, Smith became an advocate. He attended the 1774 provincial assembly and offered a paper on the considerations of the relationship between the Colonies and Great Britain. He recommended boycotting British goods, which he believed would force British merchants to pressure their government to reduce taxes and oppression in the colonies. Later that year he organized a local militia and was chosen its Captain. With the British continuing their oppressive activities, the unit quickly grew to battalion size. The men wanted him to be the Commander, but he declined due to his age (55), preferring a younger man take the role. Even so, most accounts had him serving in action during the war.
He was elected as a delegate to the state convention in 1775 and said the following, “…if the British administration should determine by force to effect a submission to the late arbitrary acts of the British parliament, in such a situation, we hold it our indispensable duty to resist such force, and at every hazard to defend the rights and liberties of America.”
Bold. Very bold.
Smith was considered to have similar beliefs concerning independence as both Adams, Sherman, both Morris, Rush, Floyd, Lee and Patrick Henry. After agreeing to the Declaration’s contents and signing, he returned to York with a copy to read to citizens in the town square. He continued to serve in the Congress and state until 1778. He was elected Brigadier General of the state militia in 1781 and resumed his law practice as the war ended. He worked in the practice until retiring at age 81. He passed away in 1806 at the age of 86. His wife passed away in 1818.
James Smith was another in a long list of devoted American patriot Declaration signers that gave his full commitment, voice and actions to the cause of liberty and freedom.
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Born in Yorktown, VA in 1738, Thomas Nelson, Jr. was born into Virginia aristocracy and privately educated in England. He graduated from Christ’s College at Cambridge. His parents were William Nelson, a former governor of the state and Elizabeth Carter Burwell, daughter of former acting governor of the state, Robert “King” Carter and the widow of Nathaniel Burwell. He was the grandson of Thomas “Scotch Tom” Nelson who immigrated from England and became a successful businessman and politician.
He returned from England and assisted his father in operating their plantations, which utilized slave labor. He married Lucy Grymes Burwell and helped manage the estates left to her sons with the death of her first husband.
It was soon after his return that he was elected as a representative to the House of Burgesses in 1761 at age 23. He served 6 terms, learning the political ropes. As the state moved more toward independence he was elected to a number of their state conventions preceding the war. He played a role in the development of the state’s Constitution as well as serving in the Continental Congress and signing the Declaration of Independence. He was later forced to take time away to recover from an illness in 1778-1779, only to be elected to return there and in state roles in the years that followed. He was one of the thirteen committee members who drafted the Articles of Confederation. He was known to spend large sums of money as well as make loans for the military to have sufficient ammunition and supplies. He gave so much he had very little when he passed away a decade later.
Nelson was a brigadier general of the lower VA militia and later followed Thomas Jefferson as governor of the state. He was in action in the final siege ofYorktown led by General Washington and his troops in combination with General Lafayette and the French army combatants. It is in this battle that Nelson’s legend was solidified.
Neither the American or French army would fire upon Nelson’s home, the Nelson House, where General Cornwallis had his headquarters. This angered Nelson. He publicly offered five guineas (each had a quarter ounce of gold) to the first war fighter to fire a cannon and hit his home. That was enough to get it done. The NPS has placed two cannonballs in the walls where the home was hit. I assume Nelson paid as he stated he would.
That story is all sorts of patriot awesome! He was a real American badazz!
Unfortunately, in 1781 Nelson’s health took a negative turn that forced him to resign as Governor and was succeeded by fellow signer Benjamin Harrison. His health continued to deteriorate over the next four years. He never recovered from the effects of being in the field and fighting the war. He passed away at age 50 in 1789. Nelson County in VA and in KY were named in his honor. His wife, Lucy, passed away at age 87 in 1830. The couple had eleven children together in addition to the son from Lucy’s first marriage.
Thomas Nelson, Jr. died too soon to receive the full benefits of his work in helping to deliver America its independence. However, he will never be forgotten for his leadership and commitment as a great American patriot.
Conclusion
This has been a story of three extraordinary Declaration signers with three very different experiences and conclusions to their lives. They did it for God, country and family. That was the reward. Their wealth and standing in society were cast aside.
Yet, for every Declaration signer there were thousands of common citizens doing their parts against all odds as well. You will not find their busts, statutes, paintings or honors in places of prominence in American institutions and museums. They just did what they needed to do and returned to their lives and families as unsung American patriot heroes.
There is also the truth that not everything went well or fairly for the participants and early citizens of America.
As they say, freedom isn’t free. However, it is well worth the cost to pursue.
This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
God is in Control . . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . . Keep Looking Up
Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.
“This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep.” . . . “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Elect Angels
When God created the angels, they were all good just like the rest of creation (Genesis 1:31). Angels were holy and faithfully devoted to the Lord, but this changed when Satan rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12–15; Ezekiel 28:16). Many angels followed Satan’s rebellion and thus became “fallen” angels, or demons (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 12:3–4). In contrast, the angels who remained faithful to the Lord are known as “holy angels” or “elect angels” (Mark 8:38; 1 Timothy 5:21).
The Greek word for “elect” found in 1 Timothy 5:21 refers to being chosen or picked. This would indicate that God chose some angels not to fall with Satan. The same word in the verse, eklekton, is used elsewhere for Christians who are elected and chosen by God in salvation (Romans 8:33; Titus 1:1). The word suggests that the elect angels, like elect people, were chosen by God and cannot lose their elect position. None of the elect angels will rebel against God or lose their chosen status, just as Christians cannot lose their salvation as God’s elect children (John 10:28; Romans 8:38–39). Secure in their standing before the Lord, elect angels cannot sin or go against the commands of God but will remain faithful to the Lord forever.
Of course, the fact that the holy angels are “elect” does not imply they are “saved” in the same way that Christians are. Both angels and Christians are chosen and elected by the Lord, but only humans can experience the new birth, forgiveness, and other aspects of salvation. The elect angels cannot experience forgiveness, since they have never sinned. Furthermore, Jesus died for humanity, not for angels. He took on human flesh and came to save mankind from their sins; His sacrifice was not to save the fallen angels (Hebrews 2:16). Angels “long to look into these things,” and are fascinated by the fact that the Son of God laid down His life to save humans (1 Peter 1:12). In this way, the election of angels is different from the election of Christians.
In addition to calling them “chosen” or “elect” angels, Scripture also designates them as good and “holy angels” (Mark 8:38). Worshipping and serving God are the main purposes of the elect angels (Revelation 7:11). Like Christians, elect angels are servants of God who seek to bring Him glory (Revelation 22:9). God uses the elect angels to carry out His will and to provide ministry to believers (Hebrews 1:14). Throughout history, elect angels have been a part of God’s plan in delivering messages (Daniel 8:16; 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26), carrying out judgment (Genesis 19:13; Psalm 78:49; Revelation 14:17–20), and providing encouragement to God’s people (Acts 27:23).
The elect angels have the special purpose of serving God and doing as He commands. The elect angels minister to believers today, and they will also play a major part in the events of the end times. The power and position of the elect angels are awe-inspiring, but the Bible teaches that Jesus’ followers are more blessed than even they, since believers “have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority” (Colossians 2:10, BSB). xhttps://www.gotquestions.org/elect-angels.html
Yep, Kurt has noticed that lots of people are getting twanging schadenböners.
And you do not have to be male to get this kind of böner.
Hat tip to Scott (I think–if it wasn’t Scott it was 4GodAndCountry) for this video, which implies a LOT of schadenböners in our future.
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.
Palladium is below platinum again…but look at rhodium, which has gone up nine hundred bucks!
The people who bloviate on this sort of thing for a living (if this is all I did I’d starve to death) claim the precious metals are “consolidating” with gold in the 2910-2920 range while the stock indices go down. At least silver is up relative to gold!
*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) is a measure of how much the dollar has inflated. It’s the ratio of the current price of gold, to the number of dollars an ounce of fine gold made up when the dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of 0.900 gold. That worked out to an ounce being $20.67+71/387 of a cent. (Note gold wasn’t worth this much back then, thus much gold was $20.67 71/387ths. It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67 back then, it was $20.67.) Once this ratio is computed, 1 is subtracted from it so that the number is zero when the dollar is at its proper value, indicating zero suckage.
Latest Flerfer Goofiness
OK unlike last week I’m going to try to supply some actual content. (Last week was nonstop busy.)
Our friend Fkatzoid is back. Watch him duck and weave when he’s asked where the south pole is (at 16:45).
Will Duffy is trying to make the point that whether you head south from Africa, South America, or New Zealand, you end up at the same place when you get to the south pole. According to the Gleasons’s Map, however, the South Pole isn’t a point, it’s a circle approximately 60,000 miles in circumference, so that shouldn’t happen. Either Fkatzoid is an even bigger idiot than he showed himself to be last time, or he’s trying very hard to evade having this pointed out to his audience.
Later on at about 2:31:45…apparently Lisbeth (who went to Antarctica) is on the verge of joining Mark Sargent’s channel; MC Toon begs her not to ruin her life doing so.
Just a few minutes later, you see someone named JK trying to find a video proving that people who try to go to Antarctica will be intercepted by any of a number of different navies and turned back as soon as they sail across 60 S latitude. He claims there are many of these videos; he eventually finds the one Will Duffy expected–taken in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia, nowhere near Antarctica. Listen to McToon’s rant at 2:45:22.
Here’s another debate with Duffy destroying someone I’ve never heard of named Nathan Thompson. (Not to be confused with Nathan “where are the guns” Oakley.)
Two Birds…One Stone
OK this one is going to seem like geology…then physics…then back to geology. It’s a good illustration of how all of human knowledge about the natural world is interconnected. Sometimes great progress is made when people in two different fields get together; sometimes a new discipline even is formed–recent work has done much to highlight the effects of living organisms on the geology of the Earth…yes, our rocks would be different if there were no life on earth (and there’d be no geologists to notice, of course).
An Extremely Inadequate Intro to Mineralogy
Let’s take a very brief and incomplete (and likely incompetent, as I am out over my skis here) look at mineralogy.
I’ve talked about rocks a lot but not so much about what they’re made of. If you look closely–perhaps it will take a microscope–at an igneous rock (one that cooled from the molten state) you’ll see it’s made up of a bunch of different kinds of crystals. Crystals form when a chemical compound comes out of solution and the individual molecules line up in a regular array.
Some rocks are just one big crystal. Others are multiple crystals of the same thing.
The compounds that make the crystals are minerals (and one of their characteristics is how the crystals are shaped).
What are those compounds? Let’s set the stage a bit. If you take the outer layer of the Earth, the Earth’s crust, and analyze a completely average piece of it…it’s 46.1 percent oxygen by weight. Oxygen! There is much, much, much more oxygen beneath your feet than above your head in the air. Oxygen is also the third most abundant element in the universe as a whole–after hydrogen and helium.
Coming in second at 28.2 percent is silicon. Then aluminum at 8.23%, iron at 5.63%, calcium at 4.15%, sodium at 2.36%, magnesium at 2.33% potassium at 2.09%, titanium at 0.565%…and everything else is at 1/7th of a percent or less. At the bottom end you have rhenium at 7/10ths of one part per billion. (However two gases, krypton and xenon, also show up at even lower percentages, and a bunch of transient radioactive elements are lower still than that.)
The ones at the top of the list don’t ever show up in pure elemental or “native” form; they’re pretty reactive. Minerals will be largely (but very luckily for us, not completely) formed of these elements.
The elements in general are divided into groups according to the “Goldschmidt Classification.” The groups are “lithophile” (rock loving), “Siderophile” (iron loving), “chalcophile” (bronze loving), and “atmophile” (atmosphere loving). The group an element is in is a huge determiner of its fate. Lithophile and chalcophile elements both appear predominantly near the Earth’s surface, in the crust; with the chalcophile elements often combining with sulfur. Siderophile elements largely sank, with almost all of the iron, towards the Earth’s core.
(There is a very slick wikipedia graphic for this, a periodic table colored by Goldschmidt classification…but it’s actually a table rather than an image and I was unsuccessful in getting it copied over here. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification )
There are officially 6,118 mineral species known to man today. Minerals must be naturally occurring and forming by natural or geological processes, must be a solid substance (with the exception of native mercury). Water and carbon dioxide are not minerals even when they show up embedded in rocks, but water ice in glaciers is a mineral. A mineral must have a well defined crystal structure. (This ends up excluding things like obsidian which don’t have a crystal structure.) And the chemical composition must be well defined. However, that could include mixtures of similar compounds; sometimes one element will substitute for another of similar size and chemistry to one extent or another.
There are a number of different ways minerals can be classified, based on hardness, color, crystalline structure, cleavage (i.e. which planes it will split on most cleanly), specific gravity (galena, a lead ore, is very dense, for instance–over seven times that of water whereas the typical rock is in the 2.5-3.5 range)…and by chemistry. But this is far from straightforward, since nothing is pure. For instance a mineral whose structure is largely silicon will often have an aluminum atom substituted for the silicon; sometimes this is a regular substitution, making a distinct chemical series.
Minerals fall into a number of different groups; the most common by far is silicates; these are minerals formed by different arrangements of the [SiO4]4- tetrahedron, one silicon atom surrounded by four oxygen atoms.
This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, after all oxygen and silicon make up most of rocks. There are a simply staggering number of ways to combine these tetrahedra at the corners (where an oxygen atom will end being shared by two tetrahedra); chains, rings, lattices…just for instance:
The most basic of these is quartz, consisting of nothing but silicon and oxygen. Since each oxygen atom is shared by two silicon atoms, the formula ends up being SiO2.
Quartz, when absolutely pure, is clear as glass. Different impurities will give it colors, smoky quartz and amethyst being examples, but there are many more.
And in some cases other elements are interspersed with the tetrahedra, or sometimes the silicon is partially replaced by other elements. This can alter the structure as well as the composition.
The most common of the silicates are a grouping called the feldspars, where Al3+ substitutes for the Si4+, but this creates a charge imbalance that requires other elements added in as cations. You end up with [AlSi3O8]– or [Al2Si2O8]2-. In other cases silicates can form in sheets, like mica.
In other groups we have native elements. For example gold, silver, and copper appear in native form as nuggets. There are also platinum nuggets. But also there are diamonds and graphite, both forms of native carbon. Sulfur also appears near volcanic vents. And in many cases the nuggets aren’t pure but are alloys, but still a lump of metal, rather than a “rock.”
Next we have sulfides, compounds of metals and sulfur, famously iron pyrite (fools gold), red cinnabar (a mercury ore). Sometimes tellurium, arsenic, or selenium will substitute for some or even all of the sulfur.
Oxides are metals combined with oxygen, such as hematite (iron), bauxites (aluminum), magnetite (iron again).
Halides are those where a halogen (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine) is the main anion; table salt is the most common example, with chlorine combined with sodium.
Carbonate minerals have a carbonate [CO3]2- group in them. They will react with acids; so field geologists will often have a small vial of acid to test for them. The most common is calcium carbonate…also known as calcite, the main component of limestone. This is weakly soluble in water, leading to the formation of cave systems.
There are sulfates (distinct from sulfides mentioned above) with the sulfate anion, [SO4]2-, combined with something else.
The last common group is the phosphates, with a [PO4]3- unit, combined with something else. These minerals are what our bones and teeth are made out of.
It’s a gigantic mess, honestly; and it gets more and more complicated when it turns out that a mineral can be a mixture of, say, two different sulfates mixed together; the formula ends up including a bracket with two or three different atoms specified because they are intermixed in some proportion.
I have not even scratched the surface of this topic (and those familiar with hardness testing will see the pun). I may not have said anything wrong in this section, but even if we’re that fortunate, I’m sure a real mineralogist would find much to complain about, important things left out, inconsistent “depth” of the dives I took, and so on. I know I said next to nothing about crystal structure and I may try to rectify that some day.
Back to the Historical Narrative
OK so back to the story: By the mid 1800s geology had made huge strides to systematize the variety of rocks and landscapes we see here on Earth. Geologists had even developed the ability to describe what had happened in the past in some arbitrarily picked location. Glaciers, lakes, oceans, desert…all had left telltale signs in the rock. They saw a world of mostly slow change…but with the occasional disasters, local in scope not worldwide.
They had even realized the Earth must be far older than previously thought; the events they could read in the rocks simply could not have happened fast enough to fit within a few thousand years of time.
Impressive work. There were obviously a lot of unsolved problems (like how it could be possible that former sea floor bottom ended up high in the Alps), but still a lot learned.
Physics and astronomy (closely associated with each other) were pretty much the most successful and advanced branches of scientific knowledge. Were astronomers and physicists at least somewhat impressed with what geologists had come up with?
Perhaps but in one key respect the answer was probably more like, “You gotta be shitting me.”
You see the physicists and astronomers of the mid 1800s couldn’t possibly see how the Sun could be old; if the Sun weren’t old neither could the Earth be old. There was simply no way to power the sun for those lengths of time. However the geologic evidence was simply overwhelming.
Beyond suspecting that geologists were smoking something that was distinctly not a mineral (and vice versa from the geologists’ point of view), there was little that could be done. Tons of hard evidence (i.e., rocks) vs. quite well established kinetics and thermal physics. Neither of them could be shaken.
So what was the cause of this disconnect?
In 1862, William Thomson (1st Baron Kelvin…after whom the Kelvin scale is named), published calculations that assumed the Earth had started out completely molten, then computed how long it would take to cool to what we see today. His answer was 20 – 400 million years. OK, that seems a bit low to geologists, but not horrifically so. (He did not account for convection inside the Earth, which would increase the number…nor for other factors he simply couldn’t have imagined, which I’ll get to.)
The big problem was that he also computed how long the sun could have been shining at its present brightness, if it derived all of its energy from gravitational contraction. And that answer was 20 million years. It agreed with his Earth calculation at the low end so that made sense–Thomson probably reasoned that the Earth therefore had to be 20 million years old, but geologists (and biologists) simply couldn’t believe the Earth was that young. Other physicists (Hermann von Helmholz and Simon Newcomb) got similar values of 22 and 18 million years, respectively.
Other possible sources of solar energy were combustion and impacting comets and asteroids. The first was ridiculous. If the entire Sun, huge as it is, were a burning pile of coal, it would be gone within a couple of thousand years at the rate it would have to be burning to be as luminous as it is. This is not even long enough to carry us from the Great Pyramid to Julius Caesar, much less to today. Asteroid impacts sounds more promising, until one realizes there’d have to be so many of them that surely Earth would be catching a lot more of them than we actually are getting. And it was only good enough for a few hundred thousand years. The other flaw was that the sun would be increasing with size as more matter accumulated in it, and that imposed a strict time limit too…after a certain amount of time the Sun would simply be bigger than we see it.
Another tack taken by physicists and astronomers was to use the moon. George H. Darwin (son of Charles “the” Darwin) was an astronomer, figured out that if the Earth and Moon had split apart while still molten, tidal forces would have created our current situation with a 24 hour day after 56 million years. This may not look like it to you, but given the sorts of approximations that both Darwin’s and Kelvin’s calculations enailed, that’s actually close enough to Kelvin’s number that it appeared that both of them were likely on the right track. (When two totally different methods of computation give similar answers, that’s a powerful argument that the actual answer is pretty close to the ones we computed.) Yet another tack, computing how long it took for the oceans to accumulate the salt they contain, based on erosion of rocks, gave an answer of 80-100 million years for the age of the oceans.
When you see an apparent contradiction like this, something is missing from your mental picture. Or perhaps you have a wrong premise. Because an actual contradiction cannot exist.
And, as it turned out, one mineral, when it was discovered, turned out to be the beginning of the path not just to resolving this, but fulfilling another thing that was on the geologists’ wish list–one they never thought they’d get. Like the kid who doesn’t bother asking Santa for the really expensive toy for Christmas…but Santa read his mind and he gets it.
The mineral is an oxide, one called pitchblende. This was first described in 1772 by F. E. Brueckmann. In 1789 M. Klaproth worked with this stuff and discovered the element uranium.
[Uranium oxide has been in mosaic glass from Roman times; clearly they’d found some of the ore and experimented to see what it would do to color glass. However, we don’t have written records of the Romans recognizing it as a distinct material.]
Here’s some nice big crystals of pitchblende:
Uranium was nothing special, just another of a bunch of metals being discovered around this time. Along with such other favorites as cobalt, nickel, manganese, tungsten, niobium, tantalum, and chromium. Curiously, pitchblende also includes some lead, without fail. No such thing as “pure” uranium oxide pitchblende. That seems kind of weird because lead and uranium are chemically quite different.
Flawed analyses led to uranium’s atomic weight being calculated at 156 or so; later on the mistake was realized and the atomic weight was corrected to 238, far above anything else known at the time. Kind of interesting to geeks; no one else cared.
In 1895 this changed. And so did the world.
Henri Becquerel was trying to see if uranium salts, known to fluoresce in visible light, also fluoresced in X ray frequences. (X Rays had been discovered the year before by Röntgen.) [As a reminder, fluorescent things will glow in bright colors for a while after being exposed to ultraviolet light. This can actually be used to identify some minerals. Becquerel wanted to see if they also emitted X-rays alongside the visible light.] He’d expose the compounds to sunlight, then set them next to wrapped photographic plates. If the plates fogged, he would conclude the uranium compounds were giving off X-rays after being “charged” by the sun. Then he had days of cloudy weather, so he put the uranium salts and wrapped plates in a drawer while he awaited sunny days. Ultimately he decided, what the Hell, and developed the plates without exposing the uranium salts to sunlight, and found that they had fogged anyway. Well this was new!! Further experimentation established that uranium emitted strong radiation, all the time, no matter what.
Even more experimentation established that the uranium was turning into lead as it did this. Which is why pitchblende always has some lead in it, even though lead is very different from uranium, chemically.
This led to our current picture of the structure of an atom–which up to then had not been proven to exist. (The final piece of proof was supplied by Albert Einstein in 1905, the Annus Mirabilis)
That is a very long story. Detailed here (9 – End of Classical Physics (Rays & Radiation)):
One key thing to note is that this new “radioactivity” was extremely energy intense, far more so than burning coal, and now we had a hints of a power source that would allow the sun to shine for hundreds of millions–even BILLIONS–of years.
And this is indeed the case, as described here (22 – Powering Stars):
And the world was never the same, because this ultimately led to nuclear weapons.
But for our purposes here, the main effect is that now there was no more contradiction about how old the Earth might be. The Sun could indeed be old enough for an old Earth.
And Now We Can Measure It
Surprise! We also now had a way to measure the age of some rocks, to put actual numbers on things.
To explain this adequately (given the fact that there are charlatans out there who try to fling mud on this, and some of you believe them), I’m going to try to do a Science For Senators review of radioactivity and nuclei. It’s a bit densely packed since I’m not telling a story here. (The story was in all those posts above.)
Matter is made up of atoms, very roughly a hundred picometers (a picometer is a trillionth of a meter) across. Most of this volume is taken up by electrons (which have a negative electrical charge) that are bound to a positively charged nucleus (plural, nuclei). The nucleus contains almost all of the mass of the atom yet occupies a space only a few femtometers (a femtometer is a quadrillionth of a meter across); roughly 1/10,000th the diameter of the atom as a whole.
The nucleus, in turn consists of protons–positively charged particles–and neutrons–neutrally charged particles. Other than the charge, these two particles are very similar to each other–the neutron is just a bit more massive–and they’re collectively referred to as nucleons. (Neutrons are blue, protons red in the diagram below…but they don’t actually have color and they’re not actually shaped like little hard spheres, so the diagram is notional.)
As it turns out the number of protons in a nucleus (the “atomic number”) determines what chemical element it is. One proton: hydrogen. Six: carbon. Eight: oxygen. Twenty-six: iron. Forty-seven: silver. Seventy-nine: gold. Eighty-two: lead. Ninety-two: uranium. (Plus all of the other numbers in between of course.) In order to balance out, an atom will have the same number of electrons as protons, at least until it starts sharing or even giving or taking electrons with, to, or from other atoms–which is what chemistry is all about.
The number of neutrons, on the other hand can vary, even within an element. Just for instance, most uranium nuclei have 146 neutrons in them, but some have only 143. This has very little effect on the chemistry, but it is possible to very painstakingly sort these out. The two different types of uranium are described by their mass numbers, the total number of nucleons. 92+146=238, and 92+143=235; uranium-238 and uranium-235, respectively. These different-weight forms of the same element are called isotopes.
As it turns out radioactivity, when it happens, happens to nuclei. There are two main kinds of radioactivity that matter for our purposes here, alpha decay and beta decay.
Alpha decay is when a large nucleus basically pukes up a helium nucleus (containing two protons and two neutrons–mass number of 4). Since the nucleus gives up two protons in doing this, it changes to another element; this should therefore happen five times as uranium turns to lead, changing the atomic number from 92 to 82. Except that that’s not actually right; it turns out to be eight times. That’s because uranium-238 is becoming lead-206; that’s a difference of 32 mass units and eight alpha decays does that.
The reason the atomic number changes by ten rather than 16 (two per alpha decay) is that there is also beta decay. In this kind of radioactive decay, a neutron turns into a proton, ejecting an electron (which flies off into the distance, so you can basically forget about it) and a neutrino (which flies off away forever, so you can really forget about it). The effect is to leave the mass number unchanged…but it increases the atomic number by one (we have one more proton than we used to). To make up the discrepancy noted above, uranium, in turning to lead, must undergo six beta decays.
Technically speaking what I just described is negative beta decay, because it spits out a negatively charged particle. The reason why one might to be anal about this is that there’s actually a different kind of beta decay that may come into play, though…and that’s positive beta decay, where a proton spits out an anti-electron (“positron”–yes, this is antimatter) and turns into a neutron (the exact opposite change from the first kind of beta decay). This causes the nucleus to go down one in atomic number, again without changing the mass number.
Uranium and thorium (atomic number 90) undergo alpha decay, as do a lot of the things they turn into on the way to becoming lead (as do many of the intermediate elements in between and on the way). A lot of the intermediate products undergo beta decay. That’s all stuff at the high end of the periodic table, though.
It turns out that a lot of much lighter elements…ones we thing of as stable…are at least partially made up of isotopes that do one or the other form of beta decay (there are dozens of examples). Even potassium has a long-lived isotope (potassium-40 or 40K) that decays, in fact it can decay two different ways: negative beta decay or “electron capture” where a proton absorbs an electron. The first turns it into calcium-40, the second turns it into argon-40.
Our atmosphere is about one percent argon, and that argon is almost all argon-40. The sun’s argon–which presumably came from the nebula that condensed to form the solar system–is almost all argon-36, which leads to the conclusion that none of the Earth’s original argon is still around, and all of the argon in the atmosphere is actually from the decay of potassium-40.
There is just one thing I haven’t mentioned yet. Alpha and beta decay occur at constant rates. The rate is different for each nucleus, but constant for that nucleus. (All sorts of attempts have been made in laboratories to change the rate…with one oddball exception, absolutely nothing happened.) It’s a proportional thing; over some period of time, half of the atoms of some radioactive isotope will decay. You’re then left with a sample half the size of your original sample…and half of that will be gone after you wait the same period of time again. And so on. This period of time is known as the half life, because half of the atoms are gone after that period of time.
Of the things I’ve touched on, here are their half lives: Uranium-235: 703.8 million years. Potassium-40: 1251 million years. Uranium-238: 4458 million years. And Thorium-232: 14,050 million years.
And now maybe you can see how this might be useful to geologists. Find a rock with some uranium, thorium, or potassium in it. (Potassium most likely; it’s common compared to the others.) Then determine how much “daughter” product is in the rock. It helps if the daughter product is such it wouldn’t have been in the rock when it solidified. E.g., a zircon crystal, which might pick up uranium impurities as it crystalizes, but will positively reject lead atoms. Any lead in the zircon crystal can only have come from uranium decay. Count atoms (yes, you might have to literally count atoms) to determine how much daughter product there is, versus parent isotope. Figure out how much decay has taken place and compare to the half life.
You now know the age of the crystal. Not the relative age, the absolute age, of the crystal.
But there are a lot of details with this (including the fact that dating sedimentary rock is dicey), and I will cover some of them next time. These details, when fully considered only serve to make these methods rock solid.
Notice
I have a complex project coming up IRL, and I absolutely have to reallocate my “spare” time. This will mean less laughing at online flerfs, but it also means science posts will be infrequent and/or unpredictable.
The above image of a vintage Rolodex is courtesy of CSA Images via Google Images.
Health Friday is a series devoted to information about Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. As today’s post speaks to the disaster of COVID-19 (the COVID-19 virus itself, and the COVID-19 “vaccines”), Yours Truly dedicates it to the memory of all persons, of whatever age or location, who have passed away from the negative effects of these lab-created bioweapons.
There are Important Wolf Moon Notifications; the Rules of our late, good Wheatie; and, certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here.
And now, Part Two of the COVID-19 Information File:
BOOKS: One: Cancer Care, Second Edition. By Dr. Paul E. Marik, MD, FCCM, FCCP (Dr. Marik is a co-founder of the FLCCC Alliance). This book is found on https://www.amazon.com/.
Two: The Doctors Book of Home Remedies, by the editors of Prevention Health Magazine Books, 1990 edition. This book is available online as used copies.
WEBSITE NAME CHANGES:
The FLCCC Alliance (formerly https://covid19criticalcare.com, also called FLCCC Alliance) is now Independent Medical Alliance: https://imahealth.org/.
COVID-19 VIRUS and COVID-19 “VACCINES” DETOX / MITIGATION PROTOCOLS:
https://imahealth.org/ (Independent Medical Alliance, formerly FLCCC); https://americasfrontlinedoctors.org/ (AFLDS); https://www.mercola.com/ (Dr. Joseph Mercola, MD; must sign up to access); https://www.americaoutloud.com/ (Dr. Peter McCullough, MD’s, Wellness Company site.) Note: this is not an exhaustive list, and does not include herbal medicine, naturopathic medicine, homeopathic medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, or other allopathic / osteopathic websites.
THE YALE “LISTEN” STUDY PAPER:
Yours Truly has written on the main discussion thread several times regarding this groundbreaking paper (the “Iwasaki et al. paper”) about COVID-19 “vaccine”-induced injuries presenting as long as 709 days after “vaccination.” Here is Steve Kirsch’s take on the paper: https://kirschsubstack.com/p/covid-vaccine-injury-study-published, “COVID vaccine injury study published on preprint server because the mainstream medical journals refused to publish it”, 19 February 2025. HOWEVER, Yours Truly has found that the original preprint paper has already been reissued in a “new” preprint version. The original version is found here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.18.25322379v1, “Immunological and Antigenic Signatures Associated with Chronic Illnesses after COVID-19 Vaccination”, Akiko Iwasaki, et al., dated 18 February 2025. The “new” preprint version is found here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.18.25322379v2.full, same title, Akiko Iwasaki, et al., dated 25 February 2025. Meanwhile, Dr. Pierre Kory, MD, has written a blog post regarding how the LISTEN study may be used as legal support for persons with COVID-19 “vaccine”-induced issues in lawsuits: https://pierrekorymedicalmusings.com/p/new-study-provides-legal-support, “New Study Provides Legal Support For The Vaccine Injured”, 21 February 2025. Dr. Kory has coined the term, “Post Covid Vaccination Syndrome”, or PVS, to describe the conditions and issues that COVID-19 “vaccinated” patients in his practice present.
MORE INFORMATION ON HOW THE COVID-19 “VACCINES” INCREASE THE IgG4 “TOLERATE BUT NEVER CLEAR” IMMUNE SYSTEM CELLS IN THE “VACCINATED” PERSON’S BODY:
The following screenshot is from the 2015 FDA guidance document on gene therapies:
The following screenshots are via FOIA information that Judicial Watch sued the FDA for and won regarding the Pfizer-BioNTech “flagship” modRNA COVID-19 “vaccine”, BNT162b2:
COVID-19 BTI (Bioweapon Toxin Injections, aka the “vaccines”) AND ORAL COVID-19 “VACCINE” NEWS:
One: The European Commission has just approved the use of the self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) COVID-19 “vaccine”, KOSTAIVE, for use in the European Union / Scandinavia. Please see: https://defender.substack.com/p/europe-approval-self-amplifying-covid-mrna-vaccine-no-long-term-safety-data, “Inhumane, Reckless: Critics Weigh in on Europe’s Approval of Self-Amplifying COVID mRNA Vaccines”, by Suzanne Burdick, PhD, 23 February 2025. KOSTAIVE is the brand name of the injectable called ARCT-154, by Arcturus Therapeutics. This product was approved in Japan in November 2024 and is in use there. Below are two screenshots from the Defender article:
Please re-read the sentence above from Dr. Jablonowski regarding how an saRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” is “like being vaccinated every day for the rest of your life.” (Italics mine)
One of the blogs that Yours Truly reads regularly is that of Walter M Chesnut: https://wmcresearch.substack.com/. Mr. Chesnut has been performing solid research into the mechanisms of the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus itself for over 3 years. While it is not known for absolute certainty the actual ingredients of the lab-created bioweapon called the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Mr. Chesnut continues to find possible pieces of this puzzle. Here are two recent such blog articles of his. The first: https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/turbocancers-a-secondary-manifestation, “Turbocancers: A Secondary Manifestation of the Extracellular Matrix (ECM)?” The second: https://wmcresearch.substack.com/p/the-spike-protein-and-iib3-understanding, “The Spike Protein and [alpha]IIb[beta]3: Understanding the Fibrous Clots from an Integrin-Mediated Perspective”, 24 February 2025. A screenshot from this article is below:
The point here is that the COVID-19 virus itself it NOT “just another virus.” It is a lab-created bioweapon that, in and of itself, can damage the infected person’s body. Combined with the “enhanced” ingredients found in the COVID-19 “vaccines” (lipid nanoparticles and N1-methylpseudouridine), this “foundational” bioweapon virus becomes extremely dangerous or even deadly. (NOTE: Yours Truly apologizes for the [alpha] and the [beta] in the title of the Chesnut article cited above. She is still in the WP “learning curve.”)
FLASH! UPDATE 6 MARCH: REGARDING THE “DISCOVERY” OF THE “NEW” BAT CORONAVIRUS, HKU5-CoV-2:
This “new” bat coronavirus was supposedly “discovered” by the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The first question this raises is: How many OTHER bat (or other) coronaviruses are in the “storage vaults” of the WIV to be “discovered” at some point? There is speculation all over the internet regarding HKU5-CoV-2 and if / when, it could infect humans. This “new” coronavirus apparently can use the same types of entry methods into the human body that SARS-CoV-2 and MERS do.
Two: But wait, there’s more! Another question is raised: What did / does, Pfizer-BioNTech know about HKU5-CoV-2? Because this company has been Phase 1 testing an “experimental” modRNA “Pandemic Influenza vaccine” since December 2023. The study is NCT06179446 (https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06179446), begun on 13 December 2023 and scheduled to finish the Phase 1 clinical trial on 26 August 2025. This “experimental” modRNA prophylactic “Pandemic Influenza vaccine” is called pdmFlu. The Pfizer-BioNTech product identifier number is PF-07985819, and the Study Identifier number is C5561001. According to the “Researcher View” of the Clinical Trials entry, as many as eight different formulas and/or dosage amounts will be given to the study participants (there are 160 registered study participants.) NCT06179446 has two separate “control groups”: One “control group” will receive injections of a “licensed influenza vaccine”; the other “control group” will receive a placebo.
WHAT DID / DOES, PFIZER-BIONTECH KNOW ABOUT HKU5-CoV-2?
Three: And, by the way — RALPH BARIC has been experimenting with HKU5-CoV-2 SINCE AT LEAST 2014, funded by the NIH. One of his papers is here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.articles/PMC7022341/, “Trypsin Treatment Unlocks Barrier for Zoonotic Bat Coronavirus Infection”, Ralph S. Baric, et al., 14 February 2020.
WHAT DOES / DID RALPH BARIC KNOW ABOUT HKU5-CoV-2?
Stories about the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War period would not be complete without a discussion about one of greatest speeches ever made in a public setting by an American colonist. Yet, it was made by a leader who refused to sign the Declaration as he was fearful that signing it or the Constitution would lead to a central government that overrode the rights of the states.
His fears were eventually realized.
Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!
Patrick Henry will be forever known as a major influencer and leader for independence. He was born in 1736 and raised in Hanover County, VA. His father was a farmer who was college educated in Scotland. Patrick was educated primarily by his father at home. He tried and failed to be a store keeper and a planter. He finally found employment as a tavern keeper for his father-in-law and began to study law. He progressed to being able to open his own law practice in 1760.
His first major legal case was called Parson’s Cause in 1763. It became a major issue that helped fuel the patriot cause. We might consider it trivial today, but back then it was a big deal. The ministers of the Church of England in VA were paid their annual salaries with tobacco. There had been a drought in the 1750’s that had reduced the crop yields and caused a shortage that drove up prices. So the VA legislature passed a bill that set the salary at two pennies per pound of tobacco rather than at the drought affected current price of six pennies per pound. The clergy appealed to King George III who overturned the law and encouraged the clergy to sue for damages.
Patrick Henry was a somewhat unknown attorney representing Virginia. He delivered a passionate speech and answer to the King’s actions claiming Crown overreach. He left little doubt about his and the state’s position with, “that a King by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, from being Father of his people degenerated into a Tyrant, and forfeits all rights to his subjects’ obedience.”
It was clear at this point that Patrick Henry had found his voice and his calling as a patriot. His contemporaries said he spoke with the authority of the Great Awakening pastors from previous decades.
When the Stamp Act was passed on to the colonies that forced them to pay a tax on every piece of paper they used, the colonists reacted bitterly. Henry led the VA legislature into a series of “resolves” that rejected taxation without representation. This led to one of the most famous speeches in American history in March 1775 at St. John’s Church in Richmond in the Second Virginia Convention. The Virginia House was undecided on whether to organize for military action against the encroaching British army. Henry argued in favor of mobilizing for war.
Henry rarely, if ever, utilized notes for his speeches. His first biographer, William Wirt, worked from oral histories to reconstruct a text of Henry’s most memorable and perhaps most influential speech. Below is a link to Wirt’s work and the speech.
Consider some of the excerpts from the speech below;
“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?
“Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
“Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
“Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
“Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Score one for truth, again. The liars and deceivers would have Americans today to believe there was no love of the Christian God or of country, that the founders were deists and atheists. They would have you believe our founders and their fellow citizens were the real oppressors, just looking out for their own gain. Your only valid response as a patriot to these lies and attacks are to confront and conquer with truth and facts like those provided here.
Henry was a follower of Christ and a man of faith. A variety of sources confirm the following incidents from his life.
He once said to a neighbor:
“This book [the Bible] is worth all the books that ever were printed, and it has been my misfortune that I never found time to read it with the proper attention and feeling till lately. I trust in the mercy of heaven that it is not too late.”
In a letter to his daughter dated August 20, 1796, he wrote:
“Amongst other strange things said of me, I hear it is said by the deists that I am one of their number; and indeed, that some good people think I am no Christian. This thought gives me much more pain than the appellation of Tory; because I think religion of infinitely higher importance than politics; and I find much cause to reproach myself that I have lived so long, and have given no decided and public proofs of my being a Christian. But, indeed, my dear child, this is a character which I prize far above all this world has, or can boast.”
On his deathbed, Patrick Henry was reported to have said:
“Doctor, I wish you to observe how real and beneficial the religion of Christ is to a man about to die…. I am … much consoled by reflecting that the religion of Christ has, from its first appearance in the world, been attacked in vain by all the wits, philosophers, and wise ones, aided by every power of man, and its triumphs have been complete.”
On November 20, 1798, in his Last Will and Testament, Patrick Henry wrote:
“This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
He died from stomach cancer at the age of 63.
We should always remember that our founders were men who believed that liberty was a precious right that flowed from God. In Patrick Henry’s life God was preeminent, personal and the provider of salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Time to discuss more signers.
Stephen Hopkins
Born in the Providence, RI area in 1707, Hopkins was from a wealthy, prestigious Quaker family. His great grandfather was among the first settlers in the Providence area and his grandfather was an influential politician in the state. His parents were William and Ruth Hopkins with his mother having descended from the famous Whipple family.
He was educated at home into the sciences, mathematics, and literature. He became a surveyor and astronomer. He married Sarah Scott in 1726 and the couple had seven children together, five of whom survived to adulthood. She passed away at age 46 in 1753. He became a justice of the peace at 23 years old and not long after, a justice in the Court of Common Pleas. He was also part owner of a local iron foundry as well as a successful merchant. He was named to the state Supreme Court in 1747 and was Chief Justice for a handful of years before being elected Governor in 1755. He served in that role for 9 of the next 15 years.
He and fellow Declaration signer Samuel Ward were at political odds with one another for years in Rhode Island. Ward was a backer of hard currency while Hopkins supported paper. Hopkins became a major leader of the independence movement in the state when his pamphlet The Rights of Colonies Examined was published and distributed. It addressed taxation and Parliament actions. A link to this is below.
To summarize the essence of its content in one sentence from this publication, Hopkins said, “Liberty is the greatest blessing that men enjoy, and slavery the heaviest curse that human nature is capable of;”. Historian Thomas Bicknell called it “the most remarkable document that was issued during the period preceding the War of the Revolution.” It established Hopkins as one of the leaders of public opinion throughout the colonies.
He and his political adversary, Samuel Ward, were selected to represent RI at the Continental Congress. At age 68 he was the oldest there. Only he and Benjamin Franklin had attended the Albany Congress twenty years before. When it came time to sign the Declaration, he had to hold his right writing hand steady with his left hand as he suffered from palsy. He stated, “My hand trembles, but my heart does not.”
John Adams had this to say about Hopkins,
Governor Hopkins of Rhode Island, above seventy Years of Age kept us all alive. Upon Business his Experience and judgment were very Useful. But when the Business of the Evening was over, he kept Us in Conversation till Eleven and sometimes twelve O Clock. His Custom was to drink nothing all day nor till Eight O Clock, in the Evening, and then his Beveredge was Jamaica Spirit and Water. It gave him Wit, Humour, Anecdotes, Science and Learning. He had read Greek, Roman and British History: and was familiar with English Poetry particularly Pope, Tompson and Milton. And the flow of his Soul made all his reading our own, and seemed to bring to recollection in all of Us all We had ever read. I could neither eat nor drink in those days. The other Gentlemen were very temperate. Hopkins never drank to excess, but all he drank was immediately not only converted into Wit, Sense, Knowledge and good humour, but inspired Us all with similar qualities.
His knowledge and experience in shipping made him invaluable to the naval committee during the war. He was instrumental in drafting naval legislation including rules and regulations for the Continental Navy. His younger brother, Esek, became the commander in chief of the first continental naval squadron in the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, things did not go well for him in the role due to a series of missteps and misperceptions about his leadership that led to polarization within the Congress and military over his leadership. Despite having the support of John Adams he was forced to resign in January 1778. John Paul Jones who reported to him assumed the role. However, Jones continued to successfully utilize a defensive method Esek Hopkins had used against the overwhelming force of the British Navy.
Poor health led Stephen Hopkins to resign from the Continental Congress later in 1776 to return home where he continued to serve in the state legislature until retiring in 1779. During the years that followed he released a few slaves and provided for others to the point of listing in his will. In some cases he felt it unwise to fully release as he determined they were ill prepared for what would be entailed in doing so.
He passed away at age 78 in 1785. Prior to his death he had helped establish the predecessor school to Brown University having served as the school’s first chancellor from 1764 until the year of his death. He survived his second wife, Anne Smith Hopkins, who had passed away in 1782.
As is the case with many of the Declaration signers, I have only briefly touched on the accomplishments, involvements and personal interconnections of this great Patriot. We all owe him a debt of gratitude even today. The following is inscribed on the west side of the memorial at his burial site,
“Sacred to the memory of the illustrious Stephen Hopkins, of revolutionary fame, attested by his signature to the Declaration of our National Independence, Great in Council from sagacity of mind; Magnanimous in sentiment, firm in purpose, and good, as great, from benevolence of heart; He stood in the front rank of statesmen and patriots. Self-educated, yet among the most learned of men; His vast treasury of useful knowledge, his great retentive and reflective powers, combined with his social nature, made him the most interesting of companions in private life.”
Button Gwinnett
We go from a polished and dignified uniter with great knowledge and wisdom to a man who was a lightning rod for controversy. Button Gwinnett was born in Down Hatherley, England in the 1732-35 range. He was the third of seven children of the Welsh minister, Rev. Samuel Gwinnett and wife, Anne. He was raised and educated there, being baptized at St. Catherine’s Church. He later married Ann Bourne in 1757, the daughter of a greengrocer (seller of vegetables and fruits), an occupation he had apprenticed in previously. They had three daughters together before deciding to leave for America in 1762. They arrived in Newfoundland and soon chose to go to Jamaica. He was not successful as a merchant there so they left for Savannah, GA where he also failed. So he purchased St. Catherine’s Island and a large group of slaves on credit to try to be a planter, an occupation he never really succeeded at as well. However, the associations led him into local politics and the Provincial Assembly.
It was not until 1775 that he became active in the independence movement in the area. St. John’s Parish where his plantation was located threatened to secede from the colony as they valued independence from the Crown versus so many other loyalists in the state. His political rival in the Assembly was Lachlan McIntosh and his biggest supporter was future Declaration signer Lyman Hall. Gwinnett was later appointed to be a delegate to the Continental Congress and subsequently voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence and signed it. He became a candidate to become a brigadier general to lead the First Regiment of the Continental Army, but lost out to his rival Lachlan McIntosh. The decision left him bitter and angry.
He return to the GA Assembly and helped write the state’s Constitution. He soon became Speaker of the Assembly. This led to further tensions between McIntosh as he sought to undermine his rival. When Gwinnett succeeded in having the Assembly approve a measure to attack the British in eastern FL to protect the state’s southern border, it all came to a head. From georgiaencyclopedia.org;
Disappointed in his military ambitions, Gwinnett continued to lead the opposition to the Christ Church Parish coalition, and when his followers gained control of Georgia’s Provincial Congress, they succeeded in electing him Speaker. He played a key role in the passage of the Constitution of 1777 and began to purge the military of officers whom he and his followers deemed less than zealous in their enthusiasm for the Whig cause. This brought him into conflict with Lachlan McIntosh. After the death of Georgia’s president and commander-in-chief, Archibald Bulloch, in February 1777, the Council of Safety appointed Gwinnett to succeed him.
Gwinnett proposed a military foray into British East Florida, a defensive measure that he argued would secure Georgia’s southern border. McIntosh and his brother George (who had opposed Gwinnett’s election as president and subsequently had been arrested for treason) condemned the scheme as politically motivated. The expedition failed, and though he was not elected governor when the new legislature met in the spring of 1777, Gwinnett was exonerated of any misconduct in carrying out the campaign.
McIntosh was furious. He publicly denounced Gwinnett in the harshest terms, and Gwinnett challenged him to a duel. Though each man shot the other, only Gwinnett’s wound proved fatal. He died on May 19, 1777, and was buried in Savannah’s Colonial Park Cemetery, though the exact location of his grave is unknown. Gwinnett County was named for him when it was established in 1818.
Gwinnett left behind a wife and several young children with his death. Gwinnett’s long held hatred of a fellow patriot had led his demise. McIntosh recovered from his wounds from the duel and went on to serve with distinction under George Washington including leading units at Valley Forge. He was later captured in the British siege of Charleston and was a prisoner for two years before an exchange one year before the end of the war. He returned home to his destroyed plantation and lived in relative poverty the rest of his life although he remained active in the affairs of the state until his death in 1806.
Still yet, we remember Gwinnett as a charismatic leader of the Independence movement and his place in history as a backer and signer of our Declaration of Independence. It is notable that both Gwinnett and McIntosh have counties named after them and their families within the state of GA.
Robert Treat Paine
Robert Treat Paine was born in 1731 in Boston, MA. His father was a minister, Rev. Thomas Paine in the Congregational church in Weymouth and mother, Eunice Treat Paine, was daughter of Rev. Samuel Treat. Both fathers of the couple were educated at Harvard College. Robert was the fourth of five children and expected by the family to also become a minister. Both families had storied histories going back to England. In 1730 Robert’s father left full time ministry to also become a merchant. He was educated at Boston Latin School and went on to graduate from Harvard College at the age of 18. For a couple of years he taught school before going to law school in 1755. He briefly served as a chaplain during the French and Indian War.
After completing law school he eventually opened a practice in Taunton, MA in 1761. He went on to be chosen as a delegate to the provincial convention in Boston 1767. He and Samuel Quincy, who was the MA Solicitor General prosecuted the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. John Adams represented the soldiers and was credited with winning the overall cases in their favor. Up to this point Paine believed that the colonists and the British could work out their differences and compromise on the contentious issues. These events removed that consideration from his mind and he became a sold out patriot seeking independence.
Paine was a devout Christian and Congregationalist, although he later followed his church, First Church in Boston, into Unitarianism when they changed. He married Sally Cobb in 1770 and they had eight children together, a number of which went on to graduate from Harvard College.
Paine served two years in the MA General Court, two years in the Provincial Congress and from 1774-76 in the Continental Congress representing the state. He signed the final appeal to the King in the Olive Branch Petition in 1775. He then framed the rules of debate and helped secure gunpowder the following year after signing the Declaration. Leading up to the signing, he was noted for his objections during debates and proceedings. Per revolutionary-war.net, fellow delegate Benjamin Rush called him “The Objection Maker” in reference to his objections to the proposals of others; “He seldom proposed anything, but opposed nearly every measure that was proposed by other people…”
Sounds like he could be a pain in the azz to me. 😂
After the signing and follow up work in the Congress he returned to MA and served in the state legislature before becoming its Attorney General after helping draft the state’s Constitution. At one point he prosecuted participants for treason in Shay’s Rebellion. This subject will be briefly discussed in a future part.
Paine finished his career as a justice on the state’s Supreme Court, serving 14 years. He passed away in 1814 with his wife passing away two years later. We are thankful for the contributions of this devoted Patriot who contributed greatly to the law and fabric of America.
Conclusion
A uniter, a divider and an objector walk into a bar…
And so it was within the congressional hall with three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Three very different men with the common purpose of giving freedom and liberty to all Americans.
This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
God is in Control . . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . . Keep Looking Up
Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.
“This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep.” . . . “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Angels
Angels fall into two categories: the “unfallen” angels and the fallen angels. Unfallen angels are those who have remained holy throughout their existence and accordingly are called “holy angels.” In Scripture, generally when angels are mentioned, it is the class of holy angels in view. By contrast, the fallen angels are those who have not maintained their holiness.
Holy angels fall into special classes, and certain individuals are named and mentioned. Michael the archangel is likely the head of all the holy angels, and his name means “who is like unto God?” (Daniel 10:21; 12:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Jude 1:9; Revelation 12:7-10). Gabriel is one of the principal messengers of God, his name meaning “hero of God,” and was entrusted with important messages such as those delivered to Daniel (Daniel 8:16; 9:21), to Zechariah (Luke 1:18-19), and to Mary (Luke 1:26-38).
Most holy angels are not named in the Bible but are described only as “elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21). The expressions “principalities” and “powers” seem to be used of all angels whether fallen or holy (Luke 21:26; Romans 8:38; Ephesians 1:21; 3:10; Colossians 1:16; 2:10, 15; 1 Peter 3:22). Some angels are designated as “cherubim,” which are living creatures who defend God’s holiness from any defilement of sin (Genesis 3:24; Exodus 25:18, 20). “Seraphim” are another class of angels, mentioned only once in Scripture in Isaiah 6:2-7, and are described as having three pairs of wings. They apparently have the function of praising God, being God’s messengers to earth, and are especially concerned with the holiness of God. Most of the references to holy angels in Scripture refer to their ministries, which are broad. Holy angels were present at creation, the giving of the Law, the birth of Christ and His resurrection, the Ascension, and they will be present at the rapture of the Church and the second coming of Christ.
In stark contrast to the company of holy angels, the fallen angels are also innumerable, though considerably less than the holy angels, and are described as fallen from their first estate. Led by Satan, who was originally a cherub, the fallen angels defected, rebelled against God, and became sinful in their nature and work. Fallen angels have been divided into two classes: those who are free and those who are bound. Of the fallen angels, Satan alone is given particular mention in the Bible. When Satan fell (John 8:44; Luke 10:18), he drew after him one third of the angels. Of those, some are reserved in chains awaiting judgment (1 Corinthians 6:3; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6), and the remainder are free and are the demons, or devils, to whom reference is made throughout the New Testament (Mark 5:9, 15; Luke 8:30; 1 Timothy 4:1). They are Satan’s servants in all his undertakings and share his doom (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10). xhttps://www.gotquestions.org/types-of-angels.html
The above graphic is courtesy of the Farooq, et al., 2022 paper on the functions of the p53 protein in the human body. The paper is found here: https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105029, “p53 Tumor Suppressor: Functional Regulation and Role in Gene Therapy”, Zeenat Farooq, et al., 1 August 2022.
Health Friday is a series devoted to Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. Since today’s offering is related to the disaster of COVID-19, Yours Truly dedicates it to all persons, of whatever age or location, who have suffered COVID-19 “vaccine”-induced injuries, illnesses, disabilities, or have passed away from, the negative effects of these injectables that they had put into their bodies. However, the discussion is not limited to what is presented today; It is an Open Thread.
There are Important Wolf Moon Notifications; the Rules of our late, good Wheatie; and certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here.
Readers may recall that Yours Truly posted regarding her discovery of the death of a former opera singer with whom she worked, who will be called “D.M.” D.M., as a professional operatic bass-baritone, had an international career, in which one of his “signature roles” was that of Horace Tabor in the Douglas Moore opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe. He had an enormous voice with an unusual “upward extension” that could cover dramatic tenor repertoire. In fact, D.M. was commuting to New York City to study with a voice instructor at the Mannes School of Music to become a Heldentenor (Wagnerian tenor.) However, D.M. eventually left opera performing and taught voice for some years; he then worked as an insurance sales professional. He had had successful MOHS surgery to remove a basal cell carcinoma over a decade ago. There is no doubt in Yours Truly’s mind that D.M. took the COVID-19 “vaccines” in order to keep his job in insurance. In early 2022, he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He passed away in January 2024. I do know that D.M. had at least one potential co-morbidity: he was tall and very big, built almost like a Sumo wrestler, with an extra-large ribcage (this type of body build is important for being a Heldentenor.) May he rest in eternal Peace.
And this is where the p53 protein of the human body comes in.
And, yes, this paper was ordered to be Retracted. It is still available to be read, but the word “RETRACTED” is on every page: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/10/2056.
Yours Truly turns to another blog post by Dr. Rose: https://jessicar.substack.com/p/s2-of-spike-protein-buggers-up-p53, 16 April 2024. Dr. Rose discusses the “El-Deiry” paper regarding what the S2 protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the COVID-19 virus; this protein is also in the COVID-19 “vaccines”) does to interfere with the p53 protein in the “vaccinated” person’s body. The paper is found here: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.589252, “SARS-CoV-2 spike S2 subunit inhibits p53 activation of p21(WAF1), TRAIL Death Receptor DR5 and MDM2 proteins in cancer cells”, Wafik El-Deiry, et al., 15 April 2024. Below is a screenshot from this paper:
Yours Truly will again reference the “Angues and Bustos” paper regarding cancer genesis from both the COVID-19 virus itself, and from the COVID-19 “vaccines” (which contain the virus’ spike protein and other “enhancements”): https://doi.org/10/7759/cureus.50703, “SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination and the Multi-Hit Hypothesis of Oncogenesis”, R.V. Angues, Y.P. Bustos, 17 December 2023. Below is the salient Figure 1 from the paper:
Another discussion of how the spike protein from the COVID-19 virus itself, and the COVID-19 “vaccines”, induce negative effects in the body of the “vaccinated” person: https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/spikeopathy-covid-19-spike-protein, “Spikeopathy: COVID-19 Spike Protein Is Pathogenic from Both Virus and Vaccine mRNA”, Peter A. McCullough, MD, 25 October 2023. Below is a screenshot of some of the topics discussed in the paper:
Back to the situation regarding D.M.: There is evidence that skin cancer treatment can actually reduce the risk of colon cancer. Please see: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bjc.6604842, “Second primary cancers in patients with skin cancer: a population-based study in Northern Ireland”, MM Cantwell, et al., 6 January 2009. The Cantwell, et al., paper has a reference to a 2008 scientific article on the reduction of colon cancer risk in patients who were treated for basal cell cancer. Please see: https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwn077, “Are patients with skin cancer at lower risk of developing colorectal or breast cancer?”, E. de Vries, et al., 15 June 2008. The Abstract from this paper is below:
Note the importance of Vitamin D from sun exposure in the lowering of risk. In Yours Truly’s opinion, as it is not always possible to have sun exposure on a daily basis to obtain Vitamin D, judicious supplementation of Vitamin D may help to “fill in the gap.” (NOTE: the link to the de Vries paper may, or may not, work: however, interested readers can access this paper via the in-line hyperlink reference to the same in the Cantwell paper.)
Yours Truly is not an “armchair Coroner”, nor does she “play one on TV.” On the other hand, I got to know D.M. fairly well in working with him as accompanist/coach; I very strongly suspect that he was “mandated” to take the COVID-19 “vaccines” in order to keep his insurance job; and I know a fair amount about the negative effects of these Bioweapon Toxin Injections. My personal opinion is that the successfully-treated basal cell cancer that D.M. had years ago was “re-established” as colon cancer after he took the COVID-19 “vaccines.”
Regarding support for the p53 protein, the most potent food source is from Cruciferous vegetables. Please see: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.951935, “Cruciferous vegetables as a treasure of functional foods bioactive compounds: Targeting p53 family in gastrointestinal tract and associated cancers”, Saikat Mitra, et al., 3 August 2022. A partial list from this paper of Cruciferous vegetables: cabbages; broccoli; Brussels sprouts; kale; cauliflower; and, turnips.
How many other successfully-treated and/or in remission cancers among COVID-19 “vaccinated” people have been “re-established” as new cancers, or brought out of remission as “aggravated” forms of the original cancers?
This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
God is in Control . . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . . Keep Looking Up
Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.
“This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn nor weep.” . . . “Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
EGO
Egotism is an excessive focus or occupation with oneself driven by an inflated sense of self-importance. The human tendency toward being an egotist is no surprise from a biblical perspective. It is also something the Bible speaks against, and God soundly dealt with egotists such as King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4).
At the root of egotism is self. Egotism is ultimately driven by pride and thinking oneself worthy of the utmost attention or capable of complete self-sufficiency.
Philippians 2:1–11 is one passage that speaks to egotism. Verses 3–4 say, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” We are to look to the interests of others based on the example of Jesus Christ, who, though He is God, humbled Himself to live a human life and die a humiliating death in our stead. In both the Old and New Testaments, followers of God are called to humility; we are not to have an over-inflated sense of self-importance. Humility is not self-debasement or a lack of confidence. Being humble does not mean that we neglect our own needs or uphold no boundaries. Rather, humility is having an accurate estimation of oneself wherein we think of ourselves less often. We are not preoccupied with ourselves; rather, we see and care about the needs of others. We are willing to sacrifice our own preferences for the benefit of others.
Christians understand that serving self is not the highest goal. To those who are egotistical due primarily to pride, the Bible reminds us that all have fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). We are each sinners, enslaved to sin, dead in guilt, and in need of a Savior (John 8:34; Romans 6:15–23; Ephesians 2:1–5). On our own, we are nothing and only deserving of hell (John 3:16–18). In truth, there is no justification for pride. But, in Christ, we are made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). We become children of God (John 1:12; 1 Peter 2:9–10). God is the one who validates our existence and gives meaning to our lives. Egotism ultimately leaves people empty. As with all sin, egotism promises a reward it is incapable of delivering (James 1:14–17; Galatians 6:8). It is only in God that we find true life (John 10:10).
The truth of who God is and His gift of salvation resolve the motivation for egotism. First Peter 5:5–7 says, “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” In Matthew 6:25–34 Jesus says not to worry but to instead seek God’s kingdom first and trust Him for our needs. We can see how God cares for sparrows and the grass of the field, and we trust that we are of much more worth to Him. We don’t need to look out for ourselves as number one because God is looking out for us. He alone is fully capable to meet all of our needs, and we can trust that He will.
God alone is to be worshiped. He is of utmost importance. We can never take His place—either by thinking of ourselves so highly that we believe we deserve to be the center of all attention, or by remaining in a wounded condition that causes us to distrust everyone. Egotism is a natural human tendency. But it is one born of sin that only results in disappointment. Rejecting egotism, Christians are called to entrust themselves to God. Out of the love He lavishes on us, we are to love others (John 13:34–35). We are called to put others above ourselves, care for other people, and attend to their needs. Ultimately, we are to surrender our lives completely to God, worshiping Him alone, loving Him with all of our being, and loving others with His love (Matthew 22:37–40; Galatians 6:2–10). It is in giving of ourselves, not in putting ourselves first, that we actually find life (Matthew 16:24–25).
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
What is it that feeds our battle, yet starves our victory?
Our Turn
[Yes, I did this one fifteen weeks ago, just after the election. But it was too cathartic to just throw away.]
We’ve often seen that quote from David Plouffe: “It is not enough to simply beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again.”
This was of course a declaration of intent to annihilate not just Trump, but rather “his kind.”
You know what? I think we should flip it around. David Plouffe’s kind should be destroyed thoroughly and their kind must not rise again.
What is Plouffe’s kind? I suppose it depends on who’s talking and what they are thinking of in particular. Well, at the moment it’s me talking and I am thinking of the sort of maggot who is attracted to politics not to better his world but rather so that he can wield power over others, or line their pockets with “free” money. Often these people end up as what Ayn Rand called “pull peddlers,” receiving money in exchange for using their connections to do favors.
This type is parasitic. Utterly parasitic. And they should be destroyed thoroughly and not allowed to rise again.
The bad news is we will never eradicate them. Useless turds who can’t do anything productive will always be with us. As will the outright sociopaths.
Of course they find Trump to be their enemy. And of course they find us to be their enemy. If we won’t simply lie down and let our “betters” have their way with us, we’re a problem, we’re something to be got rid of. And of late, we haven’t lain down without a protest, as we are “supposed” to do. Dang uppity Garbage Deplorables! We don’t know our place!!!
The good news is we can provide far fewer niches for these parasites. The niches come into being when something that people formerly did of their own free will is taken over by the government; then every aspect of that activity becomes a political football.
Take for instance education. Since the government runs it, if you don’t like what’s being done, you have to form a political movement and try to work your way around the maggots embedded in the bureaucracy. If education were private, then if you didn’t like what they were doing to your child, you’d take your money and your child elsewhere. And people who didn’t even have school-age children presently would have no voice–and not have to pay money. Making it a government “thing” turned it into a political thing, and the maggots began to swarm.
So we wreck them by seriously cutting government and giving them fewer places to exist. Among all of the other benefits, the body politic would have fewer sociopaths and parasites in it.
People like Plouffe are the same type, but they are the full-on political hacks who set policy, rather than implement it. They’re just as bad if not worse; they help government grow, and steer it into serving its own ends, rather than those of the people it is supposed to be serving.
The Deep State is nothing more than a government that serves its own ends.
And we have had enough of this.
They must be destroyed thoroughly, and their kind must not rise again.
This election wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. There are millions of these malignancies in this country and we’ve just defeated two of them. Keep pushing. Now we can go after them wholesale.
It’s our turn.
Our turn.
Our turn.
OUR TURN!
You stole the 2020 election. You’ve mocked and ridiculed and put people in prison and broken people’s lives because you said this thing was stolen. This entire phony thing is getting swept out. Biden’s getting swept out. Kamala Harris is getting swept out. MSNBC is getting swept out. The Justice Department is getting swept out. The FBI is getting swept out. You people suck, okay?! And now you’re going to pay the price for trying to destroy this country.
And I’m going to tell you, we’re going to get to the bottom of where the 600,000 votes [are]. You manufactured them to steal this election from President Trump in 2020. And think what this country would be if we hadn’t gone through the last four years of your madness, okay? You don’t deserve any respect, you don’t deserve any empathy, and you don’t deserve any pity.
And if anybody gives it to you, it’s Donald J. Trump, because he’s got a big heart and he’s a good man. A good man that you’re still gonna try to put in prison on the 26th of this month. This is how much you people suck. Okay? You’ve destroyed his business thing. And he came back.
He came back in the greatest show of political courage, I think, in world history. Like, [Roman statesman] Cincinnatus coming back from the plough [returning to politics to rescue the Roman Republic]. He’s the American Cincinnatus. And what he has done is a profile in courage. We’ve had his back. But I got to tell you, he may be empathetic. He may have a kind heart. He may be a good man. But we’re not. Okay? And you deserve, as Natalie Winters says, not retribution, justice. But you deserve what we call rough Roman justice, and we’re prepared to give it to you.
Steve Bannon, on election night
OUR TURN!!
OUR TURN!!!
OUR TURN!!!
OUR TURN!!!
January 6 Tapes?
Paging Speaker Johnson…this is your conscience calling you out on broken promises.
For all your high talk about your Christian moral background…you’re looking less and less like you have any kind of moral background.
If You are a Patriot and Don’t Loathe RINOs…
Let’s talk about RINOs, and why they are the lowest form of life in politics.
Many patriots have been involved with politics, often at the grassroots, for decades. We’ve fought, and fought, and fought and won the occasional illusory small victory.
Yet we can’t seem to win the war, even when we have BIG electoral wins.
I am reminded of something. The original Star Trek had an episode titled Day of the Dove. It was one of the better episodes from the third season, but any fan of the original series will tell you that’s a very low bar. Still, it seems to get some respect; at a time when there were about 700 episodes of Star Trek in its various incarnations out there, it was voted 99th best out of the top 100.
In sum, the plot is that an alien entity has arranged for 39 Enterprise crew, and 39 Klingons, to fight each other endlessly with swords and other muscle-powered weapons. The entity lives off of hostile emotions, you see and it wants a captive food source. (The other 400 or so Enterprise crew are trapped below decks and unable to help.) Each side has its emotions played and amplified by the alien entity; one Enterprise junior officer has false memories implanted of a brother who was killed by Klingons. The brother didn’t even exist.
Even people killed in a sword fight miraculously heal so they can go do it again.
The second best line of the episode is when Kang, the Klingon captain, notes that though they have won quite a number of small victories including capturing Engineering, can’t seem to actually finally defeat the Enterprise crew. He growls, “What power is it that feeds our battle yet starves our victory?*”
Indeed. He may have been the bad guy, but his situation should sound familiar.
We are a majority in this country. We have a powerful political party in our corner. There is endless wrangling.
And yet,
What power is it that feeds our battle yet starves our victory?
In our case, that power is the RINOs in our midst. They specialize in caving when on the verge of victory. Think of Obamacare’s repeal failing…by one Republican vote. Think of the way we can never seem to get spending under control (and now our entire tax revenue goes to pay interest on the debt; anything the government actually does now is with borrowed money).
We have a party…that refuses to do what we want it to do, and that refusal is institutionalized. If you’ve been involved with GOP politics, but haven’t seen this, it’s because you refuse to see it. Or because you are part of the problem yourself. (If so, kindly gargle some red fuming nitric acid to clear the taste of shit out of your mouth, and let those not part of the problem alone so they can read this.)
We fight to elect people, who then take a dive when in office. But it’s not just the politicians in office, it’s the people behind the scenes, the leaders of the national, state and county branches of the party. Their job is to ensure that real patriots never get onto the general election ballot. They’re allowed a few failures…who can then become token conservatives who will somehow never manage to win (Jordan), or can be compromised outright (Lauren Boebert?).
That way it doesn’t actually matter who has a congressional majority. I remember my excitement when the GOP took the Senate in 1980. But all that did was empower a bunch of “moderate” puddles of dog vomit like…well for whatever reason forty years later the most memorable name is Pete Domenici. And a couple of dozen other “moderates” who simply had no interest in doing what grassroots people in their party–those same grassroots people who had worked so hard to elect them–wanted them to do.
Oh, they’ll put up a semblance of a fight…but never win. And they love it when we fight the Dems instead of fighting them. Just like that alien entity, whose motto surely was “Let’s you and him fight. It’ll be delicious!”
If you think about it, your entire political involvement has come to nothing because of these walking malignant tumors.
That should make you good and mad.
The twenty five who blocked Jordan, and the hundred people who took that opportunity to stab Jordan in the back in the secret ballot should make you good and mad.
I’ll close this with another example of RINO backstabbing, an infuriating one close to home.
In my county, the GOP chair is not a RINO. She got elected when the grassroots had had enough of the RINOs. Unfortunately the state organization is full of RINOs, and the ousted county RINOs have been trying to form a new “Republican Party” and get the state GOP to recognize them as the affiliate. I’m honestly amazed it hasn’t happened yet.
In other words those shitstains won’t just leave when they get booted out; they’ll try to destroy what they left behind. It’s an indication that they know we know how important that behind-the-scenes party power is.
So they must be destroyed. That’s the only way they’ll ever stop.
We cannot win until the leeches “on our side” get destroyed.
What power is it that feeds our battle yet starves our victory?*
We know it. What is going to be done about it?
*NOTE: The original line was actually “What power is it that supports our battle yet starves our victory.” I had mis-remembered it as feeds. When I checked it, it sure enough was “supports” and that’s what I originally quoted. On further reflection, though, I realized my memory was actually an improvement over the reality, because feeds is a perfect contrast with starves. I changed it partway through the day this originally posted, but now (since this is a re-run) it gets rendered this way from the start.
If one must do things wrong, one should do them wrong…right.
RINOs an Endangered Species? If Only!
According to Wikipoo, et. al., the Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) is a critically endangered species. Apparently two females live on a wildlife preserve in Sudan, and no males are known to be alive. So basically, this species is dead as soon as the females die of old age. Presently they are watched over by armed guards 24/7.
Biologists have been trying to cross them with the other subspecies, Southern White Rhinoceroses (Rhinoceri?) without success; and some genetic analyses suggest that perhaps they aren’t two subspecies at all, but two distinct species, which would make the whole project a lot more difficult.
I should hope if the American RINO (Parasitus rectum pseudoconservativum) is ever this endangered, there will be heroic efforts not to save the species, but rather to push the remainder off a cliff. Onto punji sticks. With feces smeared on them. Failing that a good bath in red fuming nitric acid will do.
But I’m not done ranting about RINOs.
The RINOs (if they are capable of any introspection whatsoever) probably wonder why they constantly have to deal with “populist” eruptions like the Trump-led MAGA movement. That would be because the so-called populists stand for absolutely nothing except for going along to get along. That allows the Left to drive the culture and politics.
Given the results of our most recent elections, the Left will now push harder, and the RINOs will now turn even squishier than they were before.
I well remember 1989-1990 in my state when the RINO establishment started preaching the message that a conservative simply couldn’t win in Colorado. Never mind the fact that Reagan had won the state TWICE (in 1984 bringing in a veto-proof state house and senate with him) and GHWB had won after (falsely!) assuring everyone that a vote for him was a vote for Reagan’s third term.
This is how the RINOs function. They push, push, push the line that only a “moderate” can get elected. Stomp them when they pull that shit. Tell everyone in ear shot that that’s exactly what the Left wants you to think, and oh-by-the-way-Mister-RINO if you’re in this party selling the same message as the Left…well, whythefuckexactly are you in this party, you lying piece of rancid weasel shit?
Justice
It says “Justice” on the picture.
And I’m sure someone will post the standard joke about what the fish thinks about the situation.
But what is it?
Here’s a take, from a different context: It’s about how you do justice, not the justice that must be done to our massively corrupt government and media. You must properly identify the nature of a person, before you can do him justice.
Ayn Rand, On Justice (speaking through her character John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged):
Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification—that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero—that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions—that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement—that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit—and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.
Ayn Rand identified seven virtues, chief among them rationality. The other six, including justice, she considered subsidiary because they are essentially different aspects and applications of rationality.
I’m sure enough of this that I put my money where my mouth is.
The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system. (This doesn’t necessarily include deposing Joe and Hoe and putting Trump where he belongs, but it would certainly be a lot easier to fix our broken electoral system with the right people in charge.)
Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2024 or 2026 is pointless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud in the system is not part of the plan, you have no plan.
This will necessarily be piecemeal, state by state, which is why I am encouraged by those states working to change their laws to alleviate the fraud both via computer and via bogus voters. If enough states do that we might end up with a working majority in Congress and that would be something Trump never really had.
Martin Luther King
When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice
President Donald Trump, 20 January 2017 (The “Dark” Inauguration Speech).
[NOTE: Yes, technically this is something I should delete since it’s not January 18th any more and it is dated, but I decided to give it one more run, because some things said here don’t depend on what’s showing on the page-a-day calendar.]
….But I’ll still say something about MLK. He was a decidedly mixed individual. As are we all. But I think he, and many others of his time, did something important and unpleasant; he (and those others) forced a recognition that even after the Civil War we were being hypocritical on the subject of equality under the law. Those people who descended from those who (shall we say) involuntarily migrated to what is now the United States were still getting the shitty end of the stick in many parts of this country, as a matter of law.
He was one hundred percent correct on that.
Unfortunately his successors have turned the point full circle and want a leg up from the law, supposedly to make up for the past mistreatment, but that can only lead to an endless round of back and forth. There are some signs that MLK himself had he not been killed (he would be turning 96 this year were he still alive), would have been right alongside the race baiters (which include some who were with him), other signs that he wouldn’t have.
But just as Thomas Jefferson penned these words, in spite of owning slaves, the words that eventually shamed us into abolishing the “peculiar institution”:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…
I’ll go with what Martin Luther King said…not all that far from where the Inauguration will take place:
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Emphasis mine. Judge people by the content of their character.
That is as it should be.
I see that at Trump rallies. His words about opening hearts to patriotism were true.
I see nothing but reverse racism on the Left. To them the world is defined by what one group does to another, some group must be on top shitting on everyone else. And it shows. There’s a false dichotomy in their thinking. Either white shits on black, or black shits on white. The way to deal with this false dichotomy, though, is not to gin up a third “group” to make it a trichotomy, or a fourth group to make it, what, a tetrachotomy? quadrichotomy? Is either of those actually a word? Gee maybe we can have a different group on top every week of the year at least until some jackass makes up a 53rd group! (Let’s leave aside the one or two day remainder you get from dividing 365(or 6) by 7. These are leftists studying critical race theory, not mathematicians.)
How about we do something different? How about we work towards a system where the law shits on NO ONE except those who violate the rights of others?
Lawyer Appeasement Section
OK now for the fine print.
This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines, here, with an addendum on 20191110.
We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.
And remember Wheatie’s Rules:
1. No food fights 2. No running with scissors. 3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone. 4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns. 5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded. 5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty. 6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. 7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire. 8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.
Gold dipped a tiny bit Friday from its Thursday high mark. Silver dropped 46 cents. Par for the course; silver just can’t keep up with gold for whatever reason. As a result the gold:silver ratio just busted 90, again (it was this high a few weeks ago).
And of course the FRNSI is up, having handily busted the 140 mark.
*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) is a measure of how much the dollar has inflated. It’s the ratio of the current price of gold, to the number of dollars an ounce of fine gold made up when the dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of 0.900 gold. That worked out to an ounce being $20.67+71/387 of a cent. (Note gold wasn’t worth this much back then, thus much gold was $20.67 71/387ths. It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67 back then, it was $20.67.) Once this ratio is computed, 1 is subtracted from it so that the number is zero when the dollar is at its proper value, indicating zero suckage.
A Canadian Talks Back
Here’s a video from a Canadian’s Youtube channel. That channel normally is about urban planning or something like that, but he’s stressed out about the “51st State” stuff. And the tariffs.
If this person’s attitude is typical of the Canadian in the street…well, it’s interesting.
I admit I can’t understand what PDJTs play is here. (I think I may have figured out Greenland.) I understand the tariffs; I don’t understand the “51st state” even though I’m aware he might not actually want to take over Canada and then give it statehood. At first I thought he was simply trolling TrueDope, but if so that would have ended when TrueDope announced he was stepping down. Anyhow, maybe someone reading this has ideas that make some sense of this.
The Final Experiment: More Hypocrisy from the Flerfs
The Flerfs have been going over the videos taken in Antarctica with a fine-toothed comb, and when one of them thinks they’ve found an irregularity, he trumpets it.
And then the others mindlessly echo it. In other words they hold normal people up to a microscope and apply zero critical thinking to claims made by their own side.
Up to 14:06, Jeran allegedly said the sun set in Antarctica, while there. No amount of denials on Jeran’s part will sway them. After 14:06 the clowns don’t know how to read a file listing.
Meanwhile Flat Earth Dave, a/k/a Dirth a/k/a Potato finds his bluff called discussing things with an MIT physicist, who wants to set up a big formal working group to design experiments (starting at 2:38:30 and running through 3:50:00 at least though it gets good at about 3:40:00–at 3:55:00 Flat Earth Dave realizes he’s fucked). Throughout this whole conversation MC Toon analyzes Dave’s cult recruiting techniques.
And his leaking-like-a-sieve app is about to get him in BIG trouble in multiple countries.
Potato was moderating the chat in a livestream Witsit was holding, and people started coming in to say his app leaked, and he spent a half an hour banning those people, starting around 17 minutes in, picking up steam at about 26 minutes.
Glaciation
Another method of wearing down the landscape that we often see today is glaciation. And it leaves behind very obvious signs, enough so that we can chart the extent of glaciation during the geologically recent Ice Age.
Though to be sure we are still in the ice age. We just happen to be in the middle (I hope it’s the middle and not the end) of an “interglacial,” a temporary retreat of the glaciers. The interglacial started in roughly 10,000 BCE (I usually see 9,700 BCE) and that is the beginning of the current epoch, the Holocene. (As a reminder, an epoch is the largest subdivision of a period; a period is something like the Cambrian, Permian, Jurassic, Cretaceous, or Quaternary (the one we’re in), and periods are the third level of subdivision of geologic time after the eon and era.)
[As a complete aside, some advocate for changing our year numbering, by adding 10,000 to them, which would make this the year 12,025. The advantage is that there would be no negative dates throughout human recorded history, yet any idiot can convert the new date back to the old for anything that’s not “BC”. Doing so would pretty closely align with the Holocene, so this is called the “Holocene Calendar.” NB that the year 10,001 is 1 CE, and the year 10,000 is 1 BCE (there was no zero in our current system). Using this system: Julius Caesar was assassinated in 9957 HE; Alexander the Great died in 9678 HE, and the Great Pyramid was built in about 7400 HE, but most importantly Trump began his second term in 12025 HE.]
OK so how do we detect past glaciation? It helps to understand what glaciers are. They are ice, but they start out as snow falling in places where it never has the chance to melt; today that’s high up in mountains, in Greenland, and in Antarctica. Even in those latter areas, though it tends to start in the interior high areas of those landmasses.
As the snow piles up it compresses and gets packed into ice. Ice is not particularly hard stuff (compared to rocks), and will eventually start to flow under the pressure, once it’s about 30 meters (100 feet) thick. There’s still some trace of the layered structure of the snow and these layers are relatively weakly bonded to each other. So a glacier is in many ways like a super-super slow river. A typical speed is about one meter per day though that can vary greatly. Imagine a glacier forming way up in a mountain valley, and then flowing downhill.
Here’s an example, from Denali Mt McKinley. (Incidentally, Wikipedia has not changed the name yet, but searching for “Mt. McKinley” redirects to “Denali.”)
You’ll note the flat area on the left that sort of looks like a river; that’s the top of a glacier. And if you look closely, you’ll even see tributaries on the right hand side, smaller glaciers flowing from smaller valleys into this glacier, with black stripes marking the boundaries. The color differences are generally due to stuff falling onto the top of the glacier; if that happens more in one “tributary” than another, there will be a color difference when they merge.
Some glaciers are actually lubricated by a thin layer of meltwater where they touch the ground; this can be from geothermal activity, or just the sheer mass of the glacier melting the ice, the same way the blade of an ice skate will momentarily melt the water under the skate. This helps the glacier “flow” more quickly.
The upper layers of a glacier have less stress on them than lower layers and don’t want to flow. They’re essentially being carried along by the layers underneath, and will actually crack if the glacier goes over some irregularity in the terrain below, creating crevasses, like here:
If snow should happen to fall on this sort of thing and obscure it, it can be deadly. In fact, the Union Glacier camp in Antarctica is marked off by flags; if you go beyond those flags you could step onto a hidden crevasse and at that point you’re likely dead before you can be rescued. On the other hand geologists will sometimes deliberately descend into crevasses to take samples. Not for the faint-hearted.
So…how can we tell a glacier used to be somewhere but has since melted away?
One way, that works in mountains, is to note the shapes of the mountains and valleys. Glaciers tend to leave wide, U shaped valleys. They also tend to leave pyramidal-shaped mountains, because they will eat away at the mountain and often there are several glaciers off the same mountain. As they eat back into the mountain they will leave sharp edges between adjacent glaciers. Both of these can be seen in this notional diagram:
A cirque is a depression formed by a glacier, if and when it melts, a lake or pond called a tarn may be left behind. Cirques seem to form at the very heads of glacial valleys (I can’t quite find a statement that straightforward, but all the diagrams I see imply it). Neighboring glaciers leave sharp ridges called aretes, the ends of fingers of rock can be ground away by a main glacier to leave a truncated spur, and the mountain at the middle ends up becoming a horn…as in Matterhorn.
Compare a picture of the Southern Rockies in Wyoming:
To the Northern Rockies well into Canada, Banff Park:
Notice that the Canadian peaks are much sharper (and OhByTheWay note the blatantly obvious layering of the sedimentary rocks in those mountains); they’ve been worked over by glaciers and the Southern Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming have not. In fact the lake is Moraine Lake because it appears in a moraine.
When a glacier is doing it’s thing there are two ways it can grind down the terrain it’s on, plucking and abrasion.
Plucking is where the glacier actually uproots rocks–even parts of bedrock–as it passes over them. It’s aided in doing so by having subglacial water get into cracks in the rock and then freezing; that breaks up rocks fairly quickly. Rocks of many different sizes get plucked and incorporated into the underside of the glacier.
Here is a landscape that had much of its rock plucked away at some time in the past, the Aland Islands in the Baltic Sea.
Which leads to the second method, abrasion: Now the bottom of the glacier is like rough grit sandpaper and as the glacier flows grooves or striations can be cut in the underlying rock, as shown here in Mount Rainier national park:
Here’s an illustration showing the two at work. Note that as the glacier goes over the hump, crevasses open up as the top layers flex.
The rock ground away in this fashion becomes fine powder a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter.
All this suspended rock, the stuff that fell on top of the glacier and the stuff it picked up through plucking and abrasion, eventually gets out of the glacier.
If the glacier ends on land, it can dump a lot of its load as it melts and retreats; this is called glacial till. This ends up as fine sediment with larger rocks in it, in moraines. Also quite a bit can be carried by the stream coming out from under the glacier–all that subglacial water is now released.
The furthest a glacier got before beginning is often revealed by a ridge called a terminal moraine, which can often be seen long after the glacier is completely gone. These are used to determine the extent of the last glaciation that covered much of North America and Europe.
A melting glacier will drop the large stuff it contains, too. If the glacier was particularly large, it might have carried things hundreds of miles, such as these rocks from Norway found in the Netherlands; these are called “glacial erratics”:
However it’s much more common to get smaller rocks appearing in a matrix of finer-grained rock, like this:
When a geologist sees this, it practically screams that a glacier left this behind.
If the glacier gets out over water and starts calving icebergs, those boulders melt out and drop right down into what would otherwise be a nice orderly layering of sediment. This photo is of just such a dropstone and is iconic.
Here’s another…from Namibia. Remember this; I’ll get back to it.
Thus far I’ve been talking about glaciers termed “alpine” and “valley” glaciers, because they start way up in some valley in the mountains…somewhere. But sometimes, a glacier can completely cover a mountain or volcano, as seen in Iceland; that’s called an icecap. But there are even bigger ones; anything over about 50,000 square kilometers is called an ice sheet or a continental glacier. Today there are two of those: Greenland and Antarctica. These tend to flow outward in all directions from a center. We can detect former ice sheets by looking for all of these landforms and even tell where the center was from the direction of the striations left by abrasion. Here is the Laurentide ice sheet from the last glaciation. (For some reason, forms of the word “Laurentian” get applied to North America by geologists.) Note it’s actually contiguous with the “Cordilleran” ice sheet over the Canadian Rockies, and the Innuitian Ice Sheet over the northern Arctic Islands…and the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is still with us today albeit a bit smaller. Iceland was completely covered; its current icecap now confined to the interior of the island was larger back then. The Rockies further south had much more limited glaciation.
The weight of all of that ice (it can be thousands of feet thick) can actually push down the rocks underneath it. The rocks underlying the Earth’s crust are plastic and will flow, if you push on them hard enough and for a long enough time. Then when the ice melts, there’s not nearly as much weight there any more and the land slowly rises. The area around the Great Lakes is still undergoing “isostatic rebound” (or “postglacial rebound”) as the rock continues to rise after the weight of the ice is gone. The Great Lakes essentially fill a depression formed by the weight of the ice; depending on how much rebounding happens they may eventually empty out as the depression ceases to exist.
While a glacier is in the process of melting “proglacial” lakes can form, either dammed by ice that hasn’t melted, or in cirques (the aforementioned tarns), or behind terminal moraines. Sometimes these lakes can be very large and if caused by an ice dam, a major flood can happen when it breaks open. Lake Agassiz is an example. It has been known for quite some time; here’s a map drawn in the 19th century by Warren Upham.
(And there’s that word “Laurentian” again in the title). Note also labelings of Keewatin and Assiniboia for parts of Canada now in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northern Ontario. Canada tended to give “new” territory to already existing provinces.)
Lake Agassiz may even have been larger than the Caspian Sea at one point. But once enough ice melted in what is now Hudson Bay, torrents of water–a million cubic meters per second–likely poured into Hudson Bay and thence out into the Atlantic. Sea levels probably rose anywhere from 0.8 to 2.8 meters from this one event alone. But that was only the more recent formation and melting of the lake, the prior one 13000 years ago may have caused the Younger Dryas cooling worldwide.
Here is a a diagram reconstructing the history of what is now the Great Lakes. Notice 4000 years ago the Ottawa River drained Lake Huron.
Glacial lakes, while they exist and are fed by meltwater, can have sediment deposited in their beds and these are known as varves. (I see conflicting information on whether varves only happen in glacial lakes, or any lakes, but everything I read agrees they form in fresh water, not salt water.) The layers are annual, a repeating sequence every year, like the alternating light-and-dark bands of tree rings. What causes the annual structure? Springtime runoff is much more energetic and brings larger particles with the water, so one can see alternating coarse/fine layers in the sediment. The reason for thinking varves cannot form in salt water is that the salt will cause clay particles to clump together, erasing the fine/coarse/fine/coarse sequencing. It’s therefore much harder to see annual layers in ocean-deposited sediment.
Varves can be correlated over limited distances and sequences up to 50,000 years long have been assembled, in a process similar to dendrochronology, where tree ring sequences have extended back over ten thousand years. This is a recent varve formation in Japan. More ancient ones running for twenty million annual layers have been found.
One might argue that the assumption that the layers are annual, though plausible (seasonal changes in seasonal water flow are quite plausible), are unwarranted. Note though that those making this argument are arguing for a young earth, and generally they want to believe that all of the varves were laid down within one year. But that twenty million layer formation would still be 50,000 years old if the varves were laid down once a day, and the 50,000 years of the lake in Japan would have taken well over a century at that rate. And the sediments within the varves are simply too fine to have settled out that fast, so thinking about an even faster rate is even more unreasonable. But leaving that one aside, sometimes there is an event that causes a non-annual layer to form, such as a flash flood. But we’ve seen these happen, and they are invariably quite irregular (due to turbulence in the water, I am guessing) and easy to tell from a ‘regular’ annual varve–we’ve also watched those happen and they’re nice and regular. Varves laid down in the past generally look like the annual varves being laid down today, and we can account for the irregular ones that don’t. Another factor is that we can detect seasonal pollen changes in recent varves. And we can date organic fragments in recently-laid-down varves via radiocarbon dating (and I will get to such methods of dating soon), and those results are consistent with annual layers.
Not the First Ice Age
The current intermittent Ice Age began at the beginning of the Quaternary period; indeed that’s how the Quaternary is defined.
I’m going to bring the outline of eons, eras, and periods in from a few weeks ago, to refresh our memories. I’m going to highlight certain things I’ll discuss below, and also expand the Cenozoic.
Phanerozoic (the current eon/eonthem)
Cenozoic (the current era/erathem)
Quaternary
Holocene
Pleistocene
Neogene
Pliocene
Miocene
Paleogene
Oligocene
Eocene
Paleocene
Mesozoic
Cretaceous
Jurrasic
Triassic
Paleozoic
Permian
Carboniferous (Mississippian + Pennsylvanian)
Devonian
Silurian
Orodivician
Cambrian
Proterozoic
Neoproterozoic
Ediacaran
Cryogenian
Tonian
Mesoproterozoic
3 periods
Paleoproterozoic
4 periods
Archean
Neoarchean
Mesoarchean
Paleoarchean
Eoarchean
Hadean (starts with the formation of the Earth)
But it wasn’t the first and it is far from being the worst. We have been able to detect the signs of widespread glaciation in the late Paleozoic (late Devonian through late Permian), an early Paleozoic ice age running from the late Ordovician into the Silurian, and a Huronian ice age, during the early Proterozoic (that’s the eon before the current Phanerozoic, so this was quite some time ago! All of these highlighted above.
But there was also a late Proterozoic ice age, and it was a doozy. As might be suggested from the fact that the name “Cryogenian” suggests “cryogenics” and other things having to do with cold.
The Cryogenian was established as a recognized period in 1990, so it’s fairly “new” in that respect.
The entire world froze over. All of it. At least, everything we can find today shows it happening–we can’t tell what was happening in the mid-oceans. Not only that this happened twice, in events called the Sturtian and Marinoan glaciations (named after epochs within the Cryogenian). That Namibian rock was not dropped recently; Namibia wasn’t affected by the recent ice ages.
But with very little doubt every continent on Earth was blanketed by these two glaciations.
Here’s a map as best as we can reconstruct things that happened that long ago. You’ll note the continents are in very different locations (USA south of the equator and rotated 90 degrees clockwise, just for instance); we’ll get to that in a future post.
The Sturtian lasted most of the Cryogenian, and the Cryogenian was a LONG period, longer than the Cretaceous. (The preceding Tonian was much longer.) Before the Cryogenian, there are possible fossils of something resembling sponges. I have some difficulty imagining any multicellular life surviving what turns out to be tens of millions of years of the Earth being mostly if not entirely covered with ice, in an extreme case looking superficially like Jupiter’s moon Europa.
This was well before the Cambrian “explosion” of fossils that resemble things alive today; it’s possible that this age wiped out any multicellular life that was out there and cleared the way for things more familiar to us (except that we don’t know yet how the Ediacaran life fits in to that–so what I just said is worth exactly what you paid for it).
How do we know this happened? Because there are glacial deposits everywhere on Earth from this time period. More precisely, on every continent, if we can find Cryogenian systems, they show signs of glaciations; not like the Quaternary events where the evidence of glaciation is confined to the northern parts of Earth and, of course (duh) Antarctica. Here’s one of the right age (Neoproterozoic) from Idaho:
You should have no problem recognizing this for what it is, though of course you can’t date the rock with your eyeballs, so you don’t know from this picture when it is.
The one thing we can’t quite be certain of is whether the oceans completely froze over; no oceanic floor rocks survive from then (again, something that will be discussed in a future post). It’s also possible some thin ribbons of land remained uncovered. But if not, if the whole planet truly froze over, well, we call that “Snowball Earth.” If some parts were exposed…that’s “Slushball Earth.”
So what happened? The thing about ice ages is, at the start they are a positive feedback loop. If it gets a bit colder, and more ocean freezes over, that white ice (covering deep blue ocean) increases the Earth’s albedo, meaning we reflect more light and heat, and absorb less, so the Earth cools down more. Which creates more pack ice, which lowers the albedo again. Without some sort of counterbalancing effect, everything freezes. And this time there doesn’t seem to have been any counterbalancing effect.
In some ways the more interesting question is why, having gone global or nearly so, it ever ended. We may have volcanoes to thank for that, as they gradually pumped more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. With no plant life to consume it, it simply warmed the planet to the point where the ice could start to melt…and then the feedback now runs in the opposite direction; more dark oceans increase heat retention. So after tens of millions of years, the Sturtian is over. But the respite isn’t long, because the Marinoan began some time after that…running roughly ten million years.
One can imagine an alien exploratory vessel coming by during this period, looking at the Snowball Earth, and saying, “No point in tarrying. Uninhabitable. Nothing multicellular will ever live here.”
I’ve hinted here at some durations, and these came from subtracting two sets of absolute dates. But I haven’t actually covered absolute dating…so that’s next.
The above free vintage image of a meeting is courtesy of Masterfile and Google Images.
Health Friday is a series devoted to Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. Today’s offering will discuss the appointment by President Donald J. Trump of Gerald W. Parker, Jr., DVM, PhD, to lead the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.
There are Important Wolf Moon Notifications, the Rules of our late, good Wheatie, and certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here.
Today’s offering has several aspects to the “tapestry of the whole.” There is much information. The first aspect begins here, with a CDC Health Advisory “requiring” hospitals to test patients hospitalized for influenza for the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus: https://merylnass.substack.com/cp/156773935, “CDC has issued a bulletin requiring hospitals to test for bird flu (H5N1) so they can find human cases and start the vaccine”, 9 February 2025. A screenshot of the title and secondary header for this article is below. Dr. Nass is a physician.
On 16 January 2025, a few days before the Inauguration of the former 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, as the current 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, the CDC (a department of Health and Human Services, HHS) issued the following Health Advisory regarding new, mandatory hospital testing for Avian Influenza H5N1 for all hospitalized influenza patients: https://www.cdc.gov/han/2025/han00520.html, “Accelerated Subtyping of Influenza A in Hospitalized Patients.” However, it appears that the Health Advisory is being used in ways to make look as if it were issued by the new Trump administration. Or so it seems. Please see below, from the article by Dr. Nass (AdventHealth is a hospital chain that has several facilities, including in Florida and in Wisconsin):
The opening paragraphs of the CDC Health Advisory, per the article by Dr. Nass:
The Health Advisory goes on to list and describe what H5N1 testing needs to be performed, and so on.
Below is a portion of his remarks, from page 27 (of 30) of his prepared statement for the House hearing. Notice the emphasis on federal government funding for university laboratories:
The third aspect is about Global One Health, headquartered at Texas A&M University. Please see: https://onehealth.tamu.edu/about. Below is a screenshot of the “collaborators” involved with Global One Health:
The fourth aspect is about CIDRAP itself: its Director, Michael T. Osterholm PhD. Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Osterholm. Dr. Osterholm founded CIDRAP at the University of Minnesota in 2001 and has been its Director ever since. Dr. Osterholm has been and/or is still involved with: the NIH; the World Health Organization; the FDA; the United States Defense Department; and, through CIDRAP, is a partner in the United States Department of Health and Human Services BioWatch Program since 2003. He has also been a member of the government’s COVID-19 Advisory Board since November 2020.
The fifth aspect of this “tapestry” is about the “vaccines” now available against the H5N1 Avian Influenza virus. There are several H5N1 “vaccines” available for use in the United States. They are listed here: https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/vaccines-licensed-use-united-states, “Vaccines Licensed for Use in the United States”, current as of 14 February 2025. A screenshot of the current list of H5N1 “vaccines” is below:
AREPANRIX and AUDENZ are cell-based injectables. The Package Insert for AREPANRIX is here: https://www.fda.gov/media/182872/download. The Package Insert for AUDENZ is here: https://www.fda.gov/media/135020/download. For each of these, please read carefully regarding the Warnings and the Adverse Reactions listed and described in Section 5 and Section 6 of each product. (Note: the FDA is “reorganizing” its web pages. If either, or both, of the Package Insert documents do not load from the links above, use a search engine and type in “Package Insert for AREPANRIX” and/or “Package Insert for AUDENZ” in the search box.) The FDA Memorandum regarding the H5N1 “vaccines” in the National Stockpile is here: https://www.fda.gov/media/141737/download.
Note the language regarding the “sole discretion” of “national regulatory authorities” (for example, the USDA) to “mandate” commercial poultry against Avian Influenza. Note also the “fact” that over “150 million birds in the U.S. have been affected with HPAI since February 2022.” The APHIS press release cited in the above is here, dated 20 June 2024: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/commercial-backyard-flocks.
Who at the USDA or the CVB (Center for Veterinary Biologics, a unit of the USDA) signed the “Conditional License” for the Zoetis Avian Influenza H5N1 “vaccine” on 13 February 2025? The new USDA Director, Brooke Rollins, was only confirmed for the office on 13 February 2025. Would Ms. Rollins have then immediately signed the “Conditional License” paperwork? Or — did a Biden administration holdover sign the paperwork? Let’s examine the situation:
On 13 February 2025, Brooke Rollins was confirmed as the new USDA Director. She took over on that date from the Acting Director, Gary Washington, a Biden administration holdover, who was the Chief Information Officer for the USDA.
On 13 February 2025, the top organizational flowchart for the USDA’s CVB (Center for Veterinary Biologics) looked like this (the chart is from 31 December 2024; Yours Truly cannot find a more recent one):
The CVB would have been the department that most likely signed off on the “Conditional License” for the Zoetis new “vaccine” for H5N2 that is to be given to chickens. Looking at the above chart, the person who signed off on this “vaccine” likely would have either David White, DVM (Biden holdover), the Director of the CVB; or, Bruce Thomsen, DVM (Biden holdover), the Virology Section Leader. On the other hand, a search via https://www.aphis.usda.gov/leadership (list current as of 22 January 2025) turns up at least two other possibilities: Michael Watson, PhD, (Biden holdover) the USDA Administrator; and, Rosemary Clifford, DVM, (Biden holdover) the USDA’s Chief Veterinary Officer.
What, in Yours Truly’s opinion, appears likely was that a Biden holdover at the USDA or the CVB signed the “Conditional License” of the Zoetis new H5N2 “vaccine” for chickens just before, or even perhaps on the day of, the confirmation of Brooke Rollins on 13 February 2025 as the new Director of the USDA.
But wait, there’s even more! — what appears to be another component of the “perceived threat” combined with gaslighting aspects regarding the “spread of H5N1 Avian Influenza among humans.” And, interestingly enough, the following article from CIDRAP (the organization “tied to the hip” with Gerald Parker, DVM) is dated 13 February 2025 — the day that Brooke Rollins was confirmed as the new Director of the USDA: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/avian-influenza-bird-flu/cdc-3-veterinarians-had-recent-h5n1-infections-didnt-know-they-had-been, “CDC: 3 veterinarians had recent H5N1 infections but didn’t know they had been exposed”, 13 February 2025. The three veterinarians had been working with cattle when they were exposed to H5N1.
And further followed by some of his recommendations:
Further: The AMA has just come out with a new CME (Continuing Medical Education) course offering: https://edhub.ama-assn.org/stanford-medicine-cme/audio-player/18944368, “Stanford Medcast Episode 89: Hot Topics Mini-Series: Insights and the Potential Global Impact of H5N1 Bird Flu”, 22 January 2025. This is an interview with Dr. Abraar Karan, MD, MS, MPH. There is an option further down on the webpage to listen to the transcript of the audio; click on “Read Transcript.” Dr. Karan covers various aspects of the current H5N1 situation. Among other items he talks about, Dr. Karan appears to be of the opinion that people should not drink raw milk, as it may contain elements of H5N1 from untested cows. He also appears to approve the testing and “vaccination” of poultry workers and dairy workers related to H5N1. In addition, he appears to be for mass testing of poultry and of dairy cows; and, for the federal government to be more “active” in coordinating and facilitating testing and “vaccination” of animals and humans regarding H5N1.
In Yours Truly’s opinion, it is still unclear as to whether or not there is (or, will be) an “H5N1 Avian Influenza pandemic” on the horizon. On the other hand, there appears to be an increasing amount of what may be seen as “perceived threat” gaslighting — from the federal government, the mainstream media, the AMA, and other entities. And, the issuance of the HHS Health Advisory that “requires” hospitals to test hospitalized influenza patients for Avian Influenza could be a “signal” that there may be the start of increasing pressure to get Americans “vaccinated” against this virus. In addition, also in Yours Truly’s opinion, this increasing pressure **may** be a method of “corralling” Americans to “get back onto the plantation” of obediently doing what the government wants / “mandates” them to do, which is what occurred, and with such success, during the declared COVID-19 pandemic. It has taken the American people almost five years to fully realize that the COVID-19 “vaccines” WERE NOT and ARE NOT “safe and effective”; to fully realize that mass lockdowns created economic chaos; to understand that standing six feet away from another person did not “stop the spread” of the virus; and so on.
Why is there now an EcoHealth Alliance “collaborator”, Gerald W. Parker, Jr., DVM, PhD, in the Trump White House? Why was Dr. Parker appointed to lead the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy?
Paging Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Paging Brooke Rollins.
Below is a screenshot, again from the Halligan blog post via the Presidential Wire article, about GERALD W. PARKER, JR., DVM, PHD, having been appointed to lead the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy:
And, guess what? There is a poultry testing laboratory at the University of Minnesota (a university that is “tied to the hip” with Gerald W. Parker, Jr., DVM, PhD — please see above in the original Health Friday post of Friday 21 February 2025): https://vdl.umn.edu/laboratories/minnesota-poultry-testing-laboratory (which Yours Truly suspects is the same type of BSL-2 safety level that is the case at the USDA Southeast Poultry Testing facility in Athens, Georgia.)
Yours Truly feels it is ** interesting ** that the state of Minnesota declared an Avian Influenza among chickens State of Emergency ** just after ** Dr. Parker was appointed to lead the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.
