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

Speaker Johnson: A Reminder.

And MTG is there to help make it stick.

January 6 tapes. A good start…but then nothing.

Were you just hoping we’d be distracted by the first set and not notice?

Are you THAT kind of “Republican”?

Are you Kevin McCarthy lite?

What are you waiting for?

I have a personal interest in this issue.

An Interesting Point

This video by Lauren Southern is titled, “Conservative Sensitivity Training.” A bit longwinded at first; if you want, skip to 30 minutes in if you like.

Now before you tell me that’s oxymoronic (or just moronic), I have watched this, and it makes some good points.

Many people are struggling with the Brandon Economy. Yes they take to Twitter, YouTube, et. endless al. to complain and maybe even cry about it.

And we dump on them.

Instead of pointing out to them in reasonable tones WHY it is that they are having such a hard time of it. It’s the same reason we are.

Our corrupt government.

Lauren draws a parallel (starting about halfway in) between a “cry” video and Oliver Anthony (who just happens to be posted below, scroll down for a reminder/refresher if you want one). We dump on the upset 20-something woman and lionize Oliver Anthony.

The parallel is not perfect, because Oliver Anthony is identifying the cause and the 20-something may very well have voted for it.

But then that 20-something might not have made the connection. Especially if she lives in the YSM/pop culture bubble. So yes, it’s necessary to connect the dots for her. But she won’t listen to people who treat her like Cat Turd did. Her pain is real, it is caused by the same things our pain is caused by…so we should try to win her over, not (figuratively) stomp her guts out.

My close-in generation, graduating high school in the early 80s, was, and is, conservative. We lived with the Carter Malaise. Now the Carter Malaise isn’t nearly as bad as the Brandon Shitstorm, but Brandon has a distinct advantage over Carter: There are millions of people who are so wrapped up in a bubble as they suffer, that except for some true independent thinkers amongst them, the herd will follow Brandon right off the cliff. Under Carter there were plenty of conservative voices, and they could be heard even via the YSM if you looked hard enough. Now the YSM is as consistent (with itself) as the Soviet media was.

So here’s my thinking: If someone is in such a state, and it’s caused by the same symptoms as your struggles under Brandon, engage them in a positive manner, not an insulting one or even an “I’m going to win this discussion even if it pisses you off” manner. Help them see the cause if they don’t already see it.

[On the other hand, if they’re upset because of something Trump did…proceed as you would have before reading this.]

This Man is Pissed!

And if you aren’t…what the hell is wrong with you?

Is This Our Anthem?

Or at least our song to march to?

I’m sure most of you know I don’t believe in “devolution” or any variant of “we’re really still in charge” and certainly not the ones that come with “They’re waiting for everyone to wake up.”

No, I don’t think the good guys are in charge. But that makes it even more necessary that people wake up.

This might be the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of our age. (Or perhaps the recent trafficking movie was it. Or maybe both.)

Certainly there seem to be a huge number of people who are finally having the light bulb turning on when they hear this song.

Joining The Herd Of Lemmings

I’ve had cause to consider a few things. Maybe we’re going about it the wrong way, and we need to ditch Trump

Yeah, NO

Trump all the way! Why? Because being hated by the people who hate him is a sign of impeccable character, that’s why.

The haters can go fuck themselves with rusty twelve gauge bore brushes. I’d prefer ten gauge but that’s kind of scarce, so…I’m willing to compromise.

The RINO’s Dilemma

The RINOs who who have burrowed in and taken over most GOP organizations, from the state down to local organizations, have quite a dilemma on their hands, and most of them have their heads too far up their asses to realize it.

OK, I’m not talking about the liberal in a Republican area, who knows they’re in the wrong party, but is there because it’s the only game in their town; they hope to capture a nomination someday, at which point they’re guaranteed to be elected…otherwise, they never will be. These people are a hazard in any heavily conservative area.

No, I’m talking about the guys who are a little bit conservative and want to do some good by going into politics, and they’re in a closely matched area, closely enough that they can join the party they are most aligned with and still have a chance. They think the Democrats…particularly the ones who end up running for office…are nuts.

They don’t think much better of the Deplorable types, either. A bunch of bumpkins whose hearts are in the right place, mostly…OK a bit extreme. But they think Deplorables can’t understand that first you have to get elected, then work within the system to change things…a slow process. They genuinely want many of the things Deplorables want…just not as much. The government is spending too much. Or they need to spend money on highways instead of welfare for illegal immigrants. But they want to work within the system to get these things done.

Or maybe they think things are pretty close to ideal right now, and they want to nail it in place.

The problem is, that means they don’t stand for anything in particular. And it shows. They’re about as unappetizing to the electorate as a puddle of dog vomit. The folks in the middle, who they think they are appealing to because they themselves are not extreme, would honestly prefer a clear-spoken radical to someone who qualifies everything they say to the point where they sound like they don’t believe anything at all.

The problem these “Mild RINOs” have, is they just can’t see that. And the reason they just can’t see that, is their entire sense of self-worth is tied up in not seeing that. In their minds, they’ve worked tirelessly for their party, to keep those crazy Democrats out…only to have to constantly fight with a small number of crazy Republicans–who are only liabilities if they end up as candidates. They’ve fought the good fight, and if they can just find the right candidate, someone with some charisma, they might stop the crazies…without being too beholden to the OTHER crazies. In the meantime it’s not working. What’s a responsible guy in politics to do?

They simply cannot understand that the Republicans can’t succeed as the party of nothing in particular. Not really in the past, and certainly not today when people are starting to realize that no matter what they do in the voting booth, the country is still about to fly off a precipice. If they did see it, they’d suddenly have two choices: Go away and let the GOP succeed, or stay and fight. But “go away” isn’t really an option, because what’s the point of having a party now owned by the crazies, win?

Well, they have a dilemma…and WE, therefore have a problem. And we would have that problem even IF they realized that they had a problem…that they were the problem.

No one ever thinks they are the bad guy. Even Epstein probably thought he was the good guy. Right up to the moment where he didn’t kill himself.

So if you ever wonder why these unappetizing dufuses cling on even when their fingernails are being left behind…that’s why. They don’t understand no one wants them, and can’t imagine that no one should want them. And oftentimes their greatest pride is in all the hard work they’ve done for the party. They’re not going to give that up; it’d be psychological suicide.

If you’ve worked with these people, there’s a good chance you like them and consider some of them your friends. But even if so…we’re going to have to give them a good, hard shove. Because America is more important than those milquetoasts’ egos.

Justice Must Be Done

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

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot (i.e., paper) Prices

Last week:

Gold $2,156.70
Silver $25.28
Platinum $946.00
Palladium $1,102.00
Rhodium $5,400.00

This week, 3PM Mountain Time, Kitco “ask” prices. Markets have closed for the weekend.

Gold $2,165.50
Silver $24.73
Platinum $903.00
Palladium $1,007.00
Rhodium $4,925.00

Thursday gold closed at just over $2180. Friday was the usual pattern with gold being pushed down just before the weekend, this time 16 bucks. However, it’s still higher than last week.

(Fuck Joe B*d*n

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

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

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

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

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

China is in the White House

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

Joe Biden is Asshoe

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

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

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

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

January 6 Tapes?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet,

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

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

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

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

In Defense of Ranked Choice Voting

One of the biggest obstacles to direly-needed change is RINOs, and one of the weapons in their arsenal is the “Wasted Vote” argument.

Periodically a third party has arisen, trying to hold RINOs to account by putting pressure on them from outside of the party, since doing so from the inside has historically done very little good. But, even if you find a third party candidate who perfectly reflects your views, you’re likely to vote for the RINO anyway. Why? Because if you don’t, the Democrat might win, and that would be even worse. So if you vote for that third party (that few will vote for), you’re throwing your vote away and increasing the likelihood of the Democrat winning. (It’s half as much a gain for the Democrat, as actually voting for the Democrat would be. Not as much, but half as much. Because although you denied the R your vote, you did not flip your vote to the Democrat.)

The Republican Party Establishment knows you don’t love them. But they know you hate the Democrats worse, and they use that to continue to herd you into supporting them. With gritted teeth you cast your vote, but your vote counts the same whether you cast it enthusiastically. And the other alternative, pissing on the voting apparatus to express your actual feelings, is probably a felony.

But what if you could vote for that third party without increasing the chances of the Dem walking away with the prize?

This is what ranked choice voting, or instant runoff voting, can do provided it is properly implemented. (And this includes the votes, and only genuine votes, being counted honestly, of course. However, I’m going to compare it to what we have today, and pretend that is honestly done too. RCV can’t work if it’s not honestly administered, just like our current system isn’t working because it isn’t honestly administered.)

The idea behind RCV is to vote by expressing your order of preference. You could vote for the Patriot Party, then for the RINO Party as your second choice (and ignore the Democrat, the Green, the Overt Socialist Schmuckmonkey Party, etc).

What does this do? It nullifies the wasted vote argument. Your vote will be counted for the Patriot party, first, then instead of it being “wasted” when the Patriot Party loses, it ends up going to the RINO. Actually, it’s just barely possible that the Patriot Party would actually beat the RINO, if people weren’t all individually afraid to vote for it.

It’s just like the famous “Prisoner’s Dilemma” where your fear of other peoples’ actions prevents you from doing the optimal thing–and vice-versa. As long as Job Lowe is afraid to vote Patriot because he’s afraid you’ll vote RINO, you’ll have to vote RINO because you fear that Job Lowe will, because he fears you will.

So on the whole I like RCV. It gives you a no-risk way to vote against the RINO scum, and in favor of someone who deserves your vote.

The problem is, as done here in the US, it comes packaged with a “jungle primary.” A bunch of candidates get to put their name out there, and the top four (or so) candidates get onto the “main” ballot. This gives party establishments their way around the threat of a good third party bumping them off. Because they know that few people bother with primaries, and third parties don’t have the resources to run in a primary…so they throw two or three establishment hacks into the primary and they will probably beat the third party. The result is the RINOs end up with two of the four slots in the general election, and the Dems get the other two. Now there’s suddenly no third party candidate on the ballot at all.

If we were to combine RCV with the present system where each party could nominate exactly one candidate to appear on the November ballot, or at the very least, ensure minor parties could get onto the ballot with at least one candidate regardless of the primary, we would be getting somewhere, but the establishment is smarter than we like to give them credit for. They will support the jungle primary + RCV “solution” rather than the more appropriate one-candidate-per-party + RCV solution.

It’s not RCV that is the problem, it’s the primary structure grafted onto it.

Justice

It says “Justice” on the picture.

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

But what is it?

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

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

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

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

—Ayn Rand Lexicon (aynrandlexicon.com)

Justice Must Be Done.

Trump, it is supposed, had some documents.

Biden and company stole the country.

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

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

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

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $2,083.30
Silver $23.19
Platinum $895.00
Palladium $980.00
Rhodium $5,000.00

This week, at Friday close:

Gold $2,179.60
Silver $24.36
Platinum $922.00
Palladium $1,045.00
Rhodium $5,050.00

Everything up. Gold rose $96.30 this last week.

Palladium is up 65 bucks. Proportionally speaking, even more than gold.

Even platinum managed to quit falling off the floor.

It should be noted that silver, platinum and palladium were down Friday, from Thursday’s close.

Venus

Or much more seriously, and much more grimly…the planet that should be named Hell.

Actually, I’m going to get one bit of semi-related trivia out of the way.

Planets and Metals

The Ancients recognized seven planets: The Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. (And yes, two of those are no longer regarded as planets. Back then the definition was basically anything that moved in a regular pattern against the celestial sphere. This excluded comets and shooting stars, and of course the (as far as they could tell) “fixed stars,” but not much else.)

There were also seven recognized metals: Iron, tin, lead, gold, silver, mercury and copper.

The seven metals were commonly associated with the seven planets, to the point in fact where the planetary symbols were often used for the metals. Mercury was of course associated with mercury. The Moon was associated with silver.

And Venus was associated with copper.

Oddly enough, the association of planets to metals continued into the modern era. Uranium, discovered in 1789 (well sort of), was named after Uranus. When neptunium was synthesized, it was known to be uranium’s neighbor to the right, and so it was named after Uranus’s neighbor in the solar system, Neptune. And continuing the trend, plutonium, the element after neptunium, after Pluto, then regarded as the planet after Neptune. Of course Pluto got demoted.

But that isn’t actually the first time that a metallic element got named after a planet…which then got demoted! Consider the case of Ceres (discovered 1801) and cerium.

OK now Venus.
Really.

Venus is very easy to spot. If it’s above the horizon at night but you are wearing three paper bags over your head, have your eyes shut, and are facing the wrong way, you might miss it.

It’s the brightest object in the night sky, except for the Moon.

Because Venus is one of those objects that orbits the Sun, but is closer to the Sun than we are, it will always be relatively close to the Sun on the celestial sphere, however its maximum distance is roughly 60 degrees, which is far enough away that it will hang around for as long as four hours after sunset, depending on a bunch of other factors (like the time of year and your latitude). Or, conversely, it could rise four hours before sunrise.

This dual nature at first confused the ancients, but they quickly realized that that super bright “morning star” and the super-bright “evening star” were the same thing. The Sumerians, one of the earliest civilizations of Mesopotamia (and perhaps the oldest anywhere), had figured it out. The Greeks didn’t start out with that memo, though, and initially named the morning star Phosphorus and the evening star Hesperus. Pythagoras, 6th century BCE, was credited with (re-)figuring it out.

Mercury and Venus’s habit of sticking close to the Sun ought to have been a clue that perhaps the Sun was at the center of things, rather than the Earth, but as far as I can tell, few took that seriously before Copernicus (published and died, 1543). And even Copernicus wasn’t believed.

Galileo in 1610 looked at Venus with a telescope and over time saw an almost full set of phases. He didn’t see a full Venus, nor a new Venus, but he saw almost everything else, and as you can see in the diagrams below, that shows that Venus must orbit the Sun, not move back and forth between us and the Sun.

Above: Venus orbiting the sun, displaying crescent and gibbous phases. Below, hypothetical Venus on an epicycle, whose center in turn orbits the Earth. It only ever shows crescent phases. (If the epicycle were beyond the sun, we’d see nothing but gibbous and even full phases.)

It’s also significant that the crescent Venus is much, much larger than the gibbous Venus. This size change counteracts the fact that normally a crescent should be less bright than a gibbous phase, because less of the disk we see is lit.

Nor was that the end…not by any means!!!…of the contributions to astronomy that looking at Venus with earthbound telescopes would make!

And this is in spite of the fact that Venus shows us no surface detail. Imagine a brightly-lit ping pong ball. That’s Venus. Blast white, no markings. We couldn’t tell how fast it was rotating. Or even if it was rotating. We did know that it’s a sphere, because of the phases. But that’s it.

As for the Solar System as a whole, Kepler had by 1611 demonstrated that the planets move around the Sun in elliptical orbits, with the Sun at one focus, and that their rates of travel were such that a line connecting the planet and the Sun would sweep out equal areas in equal times (meaning the planet moved faster both in angle seen from the Sun and in absolute terms, when it was closer to the Sun).

He was able to establish relative sizes of the orbits. Setting the Earth’s orbit’s size to 1 unit, Venus’s orbit was roughly 0.72 units in size. (Measuring half the long axis of the ellipse, also called the semi-major axis.) This “unit” of Kepler’s survives as our present-day “Astronomical Unit” (AU).

He didn’t know how big an astronomical unit was. No one knew. The only thing we did know was that it was at least two million miles, because attempts to measure the distance to the Sun by triangulation had been made, and failed. We’d have got a good reading with these methods if the Sun were less than two million miles away. (Similar methods had worked with the Moon.) It didn’t help that it’s hard to triangulate against background stars when you cannot see them because it’s daytime!

But what if we could watch Venus cross the face of the Sun?

You know, like this:

(Venus is three to four times closer to us than is the Sun when it is between us and the Sun, yet still looks puny by comparison. That should tell you something about the Sun.)

Imagine watching one of these “transits” from one place on Earth and noting where against the Sun’s disk Venus was. Meanwhile someone else thousands of miles away does the same thing and takes his notes. Since Venus is closer than the Sun, it should appear in two different places; if you know how far apart your observers are, you can triangulate.

Better yet, time how long it takes to cross. That will nail down, far more accurately, the length of Venus’s path across the Sun, and you can compare the two times, lay down two lines of corresponding length, and really get a good read on the difference in Venus’s apparent position on the sun.

This was first attempted in 1639, by astronomers in Yorkshire and Manchester. They weren’t very far apart, and they got an answer indicating an astronomical unit was about 60 million miles. That was ten times larger than most people had…well, basically, guessed.

This was done again in 1761, with people observing from Russia, Newfoundland, and the Cape of Good Hope. Much better circumstances and equipment! And again in 1769, with people in St. Petersburg, Baja California, and Norway. Combined, the answer was 153 million km, give or take 1 million km. That’s about 2% off the current value (which we know down to a hundred meters). Not bad!

The 1761 cooperation is particularly striking because Europe was still in the throes of the Seven Years War, and Russia and England were on opposite sides. In some ways it’s better to think of that war as World War Zero. Our “French and Indian War” was basically a side-theater of that mess…though it was also the start of that mess. (An excellent argument can be made that Colonel George Washington started the whole thing. Fortunately he became more astute by 1775.)

OK, so why did they sit around twiddling their thumbs between 1639 and 1761?

Because Venus transits are rare. They occur in pairs eight years apart…but those pairs, in turn, are over a hundred years apart!

How does that make sense?

Venus “laps” Earth almost exactly every 1.6 Earth years, crossing between us and the Sun. Well almost crossing. The two orbits are not in the same plane; they are in two different planes. The two planes intersect on a certain line, but if Venus laps us anywhere else other than that line through the Sun (either side of the line), Venus will appear to pass north or south of the Sun.

In the diagram above, the red line represents the line that is the intersection of the two orbital planes. Only if the Earth, Sun and Venus are all lined up on that line (on either side of the Sun) will we see a transit. (There’s a tiny bit of tolerance here because the Sun has width..you can be a little bit off that line, but not much.)

So imagine there is a Venus transit. Wait 1.6 years, and Venus laps us…but we’re 6/10ths of the way around the sun at that point, and the lapping does not happen where the planes intersect. Clean miss. Then again at 3.2 years, 4.8 years, 6.4 years…all misses. Only something-point-zero and something-point-five will work. But the next lapping is at 8.0 years. Bingo, another transit. So that explains the 8 year pairings. But why isn’t it every eight years? Because the lappings aren’t exactly every 1.6 years. They’re just a little bit off. Eight years after the second transit in the example, the lapping will happen, but slightly earlier and not quite close enough to the line of intersection to be a transit. And so we wait. And wait. And wait. Eventually things line up on the other side of the Sun and we get two more transits.

So, we had a transit in 2004 on June 8. And another in 2012 on June 5. Note just three days shy of exactly eight years later. The next lapping would have been 2020 on about June 2, and that’s far enough from the place where the planes intersect to ensure Venus does not cross in front of the Sun’s disk as seen from Earth.

The next transit is…wait for it…in 2117, on the 10th of December. Earth and Venus will be on the other side of the Sun when this happens, going through the other half of the line of intersection of their two orbital planes.

I observed the 2012 transit with eclipse glasses and took pictures with the same craptastic solar filter I used for the annular eclipse last year. I do remember that triangle of sunspots from the picture I pasted in. See below. The sunspots are quite faint. and the orientation is a bit different.

I Lied. Now, really about Venus.

I’ve talked about Venus’s orbit already, but I spotted this cool animation and you can watch the four terrestrial planets orbit the Sun in it. Note that there are faint circles every 0.5 AU you can compare the elliptical orbits with, the circles look elliptical because the diagram is at an oblique angle.

Venus orbits the Sun every 224.7 Earth days. And at present it’s the closest orbit to circular of any of the planets. That period works out to Venus orbiting almost exactly 13 times while Earth orbits 8 times. (That’s logical, it laps us 5 times in eight years, so it has orbited 8+5=13 times while we’ve poked along.)

Here’s a true color picture of Venus taken by the MESSENGER probe as it flew by, using Venus for a gravity assist (“slingshot”).

There’s only the slightest hint of banding, like clouds overlying clouds.

In ultraviolet light, though, you can see more:

Venus is a completely cloud-bound world. It’s almost as big as Earth, and seems like it could almost be a twin.

There was a belief clear up into the 1950s that Venus was a younger world than Earth (and Mars was older), so it was expected that under all those clouds Venus could be a swampy world with primitive life. It’d no doubt be warmer, but with the cloud layer blocking the Sun, maybe not much warmer than Earth. Maybe we could even live there!

Oh boy did that ever turn out wrong. We (well the USSR actually) sent our first probe, Venera 1, in 1961. And there have been many others since.

The surface temperature of Venus is 737K or about 867 F.

Lead melts at 621 F. I guess we would need something else for bullets there.

The atmosphere turns out to be almost pure carbon dioxide, with a pressure 92 times as great as our atmosphere at sea level.

And the upper layers of it are sulfuric acid.

So we have a baked, dessicated world with sulfuric acid…not a bad match for Hell.

We’ve managed to land spacecraft and have them survive for minutes to a couple of hours. (The USSR had better luck there, we did better with Mars.) Here’s one of the pictures, from Venera 9.

And another from Venera 14:

In fact here: https://www.planetary.org/articles/every-picture-from-venus-surface-ever is a compilation of every image ever taken from the surface. Only four spacecraft have managed it, all of them Russian or Soviet.

Nevertheless we do know quite a bit about Venus’s surface, because we’ve mapped it with radar from orbiting satellites, including Magellan in the early 90s. We’ve got topographic maps.

It turns out there are a lot of volcanoes on Venus (more hellishness). There are continents–sizable plateaus just like our continents are, but without oceans overfilling the low spots. There’s no chance of plate tectonics because no water is around as a lubricant for the plates. Nevertheless, it appears as though the entire surface gets catastrophically replaced every few hundred million years.

So here is the topographic map.

One last thing about Venus that stands out, and that is its rotation. It rotates once every 243 days…that’s longer than its year. So it seems as if Venus might almost be tidally locked, except that in fact it’s not even close. It rotates backward. (And that is a big WTF!)

The net effect is, someone standing on the surface of Venus would see the sun rise in the west, and set in the east, with the day lasting 116.75 earth days. Except you would never see sunrise or sunset with that thick layer of clouds.

Venus serves as a poster child for “runaway greenhouse effect” on account of the carbon dioxide, the heat, and the lack of water. It is believed it warmed up just a bit too much a few billion years ago, thanks largely to the early atmosphere being largely carbon dioxide (that was true here too; we needed life to make oxygen from the carbon dioxide); the oceans evaporated and the water molecules escaped. (Water vapor escapes Earth, too, but very very slowly. We’re more massive and cooler than Venus.) More carbon dioxide was released from the rocks which just made things worse. So it’s a favorite of the Global Warming crowd.

Admittedly, if we were that close the Sun we’d be hosed too. But we’re not. And they’ve fudged their data as to what is actually happening.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

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

Remember Hong Kong!!!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3tnH4FGbd0

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

China is in the White House

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

Joe Biden is Asshoe

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

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

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

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

January 6 Tapes?

I won’t beat this dead horse too much. We got some kind of weirdly redacted release of some number of tapes.

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

News Flash

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

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

But the past cannot actually be changed.

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s Go, Brandon!!

Hey China!

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

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

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

[Language warning]

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

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

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

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

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

You’re LOSING.

You LOSER.

You Chinese-bought ratfucking traitor.

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

His Fraudulency

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

One can hope that all is not as it seems.

I’d love to feast on that crow.

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

Justice Must Be Done.

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

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot Prices.

Kitco Ask. Last week:

Gold $2,036.30
Silver $23.01
Platinum $909.00
Palladium $956.00
Rhodium $5,000.00

This week, markets closed as of 3PM MT.

Gold $2,083.30
Silver $23.19
Platinum $895.00
Palladium $980.00
Rhodium $5,000.00

Gold went straight up today! The other PMs are up, but not nearly so well.

Platinum continues to dwell in the toilet. Even though it was up $7 today, it has now slid below $900/oz.

Gold is above the magic $2,067 mark. That’s the point at which the dollar is worth one cent in gold by the old gold standard of one troy ounce of gold is $20.67.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

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

China is in the White House

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

Joe Biden is Asshoe

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

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

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

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

Speaker Johnson
Pinging you on January 6 Tapes

Just a friendly reminder Speaker Johnson. You’re doing some good things–or at least trying in the case of the budget–but this is the most important thing out there still hanging. One initial block released with the promise of more…and?

We have American patriots being held without bail and without trial, and the tapes almost certainly contain exculpatory evidence. (And if they don’t, and we’re all just yelling in an echo chamber over here, we need to know that too. And there’s only one way to know.)

Either we have a weaponized, corrupt government or we have a lot of internet charlatans. Let’s expose whatever it is. (I’m betting it’s the corrupt weaponized government, but if I am wrong, I’d like to see proof.)

A Political Statement

One of my stock jokes is to say, as I head off to the bathroom or washroom or restroom, “I’m going to go make a political statement.”

It certainly seems like urinating is a good way to make a statement about the YSM, and defecating works for politicians. Or the other way around is good too, though “#1” just never seems emphatic enough.

Maybe “#1” is just being polite, and “#2” is telling the fixtures what you really think.

Anyhow, I pretty much do plan to be polite to RINOs that electioneer or fundraise. I’ll tell them, Sorry, but I need to GO Pee…

Language Warning

In the next piece I had to discuss a particular topic. Unfortunately, I couldn’t discuss it without naming it. Therefore I apologize in advance for having to do so, and apologize to anyone offended by the sight of the name.

RINO McDaniel

RINO McDaniel continues to infest the GOP. But RINO McDaniel isn’t the problem.

Let me be crystal clear on this, RINO McDaniel is a lower-than-whale-shit, piss guzzling ratfucking shit eating traitorous rancid syphillitic cunt. Her worth as a human being is substantially less than zero, any oxygen sucked into her lungs is wasted, and it would be, no matter what job she had.

I fear I haven’t been clear enough, but that will have to suffice.

But she is not the problem…or rather, she would not be a problem were it not for others. She’d still be as I have described, but we wouldn’t know who she is and would not care, because she could do no damage. She’d just be anonymous human refuse.

No, the real problem is the fact that a majority of the 168 top GOP people voted for her. And now that has happened five times so they cannot claim they didn’t know what she was.

In spite of the fact that under her “leadership” the party has deliberately sabotaged the will of its base, has deliberately refused to challenge blatant election fraud, had gone out of its way to ensure certain candidates do not get nominated, has diverted donor money to namby-pamby candidates who have all the electoral appeal of a puddle of dog vomit…and in general has done nothing whatsoever to help fix the problems that plague America.

However that last is to be expected; I cannot expect anyone who IS the problem to help FIX the problem.

RINO McDaniel would be powerless without an entire party leadership of the same mind as her. They want this dismal performance; they want to ignore the party base.

If she were to drop dead this instant, it would solve nothing as someone just like her would be elected by those same pustulous people.

According to Charlie Kirk, about 55 people voted against her, 10-12 wanted something different but were too chickenshit to do the right thing, and roughly 100 people voted for her enthusiastically, and even had the unmitigated gall to complain to Kirk about US. Fuck ’em. Rusty 12 gauge bore brushes would be too good for these arrogant pricks and cunts.

Every single one of those hundred is just as bad as she is. In other words, they are all worse than I described at the beginning of this piece. And no doubt those people in turn have people who supported them to be state party chairs and whateveritis they call the other two people from each state and territory who were voting.

It’s time to face up to the fact that the Republican party is effectively owned by the shit-eating RINOs. We’ve got more work to do, a lot more work, to make the GOP an instrument for the restoration of the United States of America. And that’s in addition to cleaning up our elections.

There’s no point in cleaning up elections just to elect ratfucking RINOs.

OK, hopefully now you will have some inkling of my true attitude towards RINOs. Sorry that words were inadequate to give you the full picture.

The Real Fascist is His Fraudulency Joe Biden*

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

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

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

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

Come and get us, asswipes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h6ZZ28QtX4

Justice Must Be Done.

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

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

Small Government?

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

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

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

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

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

Political Science In Summation

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

A Few Things We Cannot Blame on His Fraudulency

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

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

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

His Truth?

Again we saw an instance of “It might be true for Billy, but it’s not true for Bob” logic this week.

I hear this often, and it’s usually harmless. As when it’s describing differing circumstances, not different facts. “Housing is unaffordable” can be true for one person, but not for another who makes ten times as much.

But sometimes the speaker means it literally. Something like 2+2=4 is asserted to be true for Billy but not for Bob. (And when it’s literal, it’s usually Bob saying it.) And in that sense, it’s nonsense, dangerous nonsense. There is ONE reality, and it exists independent of our desires and our perceptions. It would go on existing if we weren’t here. We exist in it. It does not exist in our heads. It’s not a personal construct, and it isn’t a social construct. If there were no society, reality would continue to be what it is, it wouldn’t vanish…which it would have to do, if it were a social construct.

Now what can change from person to person is the perception of reality. We see that all the time. And people will, of course, act on those perceptions. They will vote for Trump (or try to) if their perception is close to mine, and vote against Trump (and certainly succeed at doing so) if their perception is distant from mine (and therefore, if I do say so, wrong). I have heard people say “perception is reality” and usually, that’s what they’re trying to say–your perception of reality is, as far as you know, an accurate representation of reality, or you’d change it.

But I really wish they’d say it differently. And sometimes, to get back to Billy and Bob, the person who says they have different truths is really saying they have different perceptions of reality–different worldviews. I can’t argue with the latter. But I sure wish they’d say it better. That way I’d know that someone who blabbers about two different truths is delusional and not worth my time, at least not until he passes kindergarten-level metaphysics on his umpteenth attempt.

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

(Paper) Spot Prices

Kitco “Ask” prices. Last week:

Gold $2,014.20
Silver $23.49
Platinum $915.00
Palladium $972.00
Rhodium $4,850.00

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

Gold $2,036.30
Silver $23.01
Platinum $909.00
Palladium $956.00
Rhodium $5,000.00

Gold continues to recover from the big dip it took a week and a half ago. Everything else seems to be struggling. Friday was an up day for everything, but silver, platinum and palladium are all down since last week.

Mercury

Uh, no. I meant:

That looks an awful lot like the Moon, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s not. This is a photograph of Mercury, taken by the MESSENGER probe in 2008. (Apparently the message to be delivered had to be shouted; the probe’s name is spelled in ALL CAPS.)

Mercury is covered in craters, indicating it’s had a long, violent past with lots of meteor impacts. So has every other body in the solar system, but in the case of larger planets, various things erase the old craters (in our case, erosion and plate tectonics–none of our ocean floors, for instance, are more than 300 million years old). We see signs here of the “late heavy bombardment” four billion years ago. So it’s going to be pretty desolate looking up close.

To us here on Earth Mercury appears as a white point of light low in the sky at sunset or sunrise, close to the Sun. This diagram comparing the geometry of Venus and Mercury’s orbits (as seen from here on Earth) shows many of the reasons why:

Not only is Mercury constrained to be close to the Sun because of its orbit, but if the plane of its orbit is tilted at an oblique angle to the horizon, it’s going to set that much sooner, so that even when Mercury is at “maximum elongation” (farthest from the sun as seen from Earth), you don’t have much time to look at it. Add to this the fact that you’re looking sideways through Earth’s atmosphere, which is going to be very turbulent right after sunset…and it’s hard to see anything worthwhile from Earth based observatories. Those “maximum elongations” occur on average every 115.8 days. Mercury orbits the Sun in 88 days, but Earth is moving too and so it takes another 28 days or so for Mercury to “lap” the Earth. That same interval must elapse between elongations (where Mercury is about a quarter lap behind Earth), too.

Also, in a telescope, Mercury will exhibit phases like the Moon does, being a “half moon” at elongations, a crescent just before (or after) it laps us, and full (but small because of the greater distance) when it’s near the opposite side of the sun. (The diagram shows this too.) It was Galileo’s telescopic observations of Mercury and Venus’s phases that proved that Venus and Mercury orbit the Sun and not the Earth.

Because Mercury sometimes appeared in the morning sky, just before sunrise, and sometimes in the evening sky, just after sunset, it took a while for us to twig that both occurrences were the same object. The Greeks had figured it out by about 350 BCE. (I can almost imagine the old jokes about how these two things were never seen in the same place at the same time…)

Putting an orbiter around Mercury was quite an achievement. In terms of “delta V”, the change in velocity we need to impart to a spacecraft to get it where we want to go, a flyby of Mercury is more difficult than a flyby of Neptune. Delta V directly affects the size and power of the rocket needed. For instance, imagine two spacecraft, one double the mass of the other, going on the same mission. They both have to have the same delta v, but (as one likely intuits) the heavier one will require twice as much rocket fuel. This is in part why NASA and other space agencies shave milligrams off of spacecraft any way they can. The bigger reason, though, comes in when you imagine two identical-mass spacecraft going on two different missions, one with twice the delta-v of the other. Let’s say one of them has a delta v of 30 km/sec and the other has a delta v of 15 km/sec. In this case your intuition fails you. The higher delta-v mission doesn’t require twice the fuel, it requires much more than that. Why? Because for that 30 km/sec mission, the first 15 km/sec of delta v doesn’t just occur to the probe, but to all the fuel it needs to take with it to do the last 15 km/sec of delta v. And we already know what the last 15 km/second takes–the bigass rocket it took to send the other mission on its way! As you can imagine, taking another kilogram off the weight of that payload reduces the fuel required by a lot.

So–excuse that digression, but it’s the fundamental bugbear of space travel–getting to Mercury is hard. Why?

Let’s compare it to going to Jupiter. Jupiter is much further away than Mercury. At closest approach Jupiter is 4.2 AUs away. Mercury is 0.6 AUs away, seven times closer. [And if you don’t recall, an AU–astronomical unit–is our solar system “yardstick” and is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, roughly 150 million kilometers/93 million miles.]

To make the trip to either planet, you must first break free of Earth’s gravity. That’s the same in both cases, 12.6 km/sec. At that point your spacecraft is in orbit about the Sun, but it’s likely to be an orbit rather similar to Earth’s orbit. From this point, things diverge. To go to Jupiter, and just fly by, you need 3.36 km/sec more. To fly by Neptune, you need 5.39 km/sec instead.

To go inwards, to Venus and Mercury, you have to slow the spacecraft down relative to the Sun, so that the other side of its orbit gets closer to the Sun than we are. Which means we must work against Earth’s orbital motion. In the most extreme case, if we want to drop something into the Sun, we must cancel the entire orbital motion of the Earth, (and that’s after breaking free of Earth’s gravity to begin with). Mercury is not that bad, but merely to intercept it takes an additional 8.65 km/sec, compared to the 5.39 km/second to go to Neptune.

Add to this the fact that we don’t just want to fly by Mercury, but go into orbit around it. Add 1.22 km/second for that.

Our total is 12.6 + 8.65 + 1.22 = 22.47 km/sec (check me I did that in my head). New Horizons only needed 16 km/sec to go to Pluto.

We couldn’t do that without cheating, or rather by getting clever. We made no less than six gravity assists, which cost no fuel but require precise timing, to put MESSENGER into orbit around Mercury. The total mileage of the trip was 7.9 billion kilometers–further than a straight line to Pluto, about 53 AUs.

In the comments here https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/45617/why-is-it-easier-to-escape-the-solar-system-than-get-to-mercury-or-the-sun is a “subway map.”

Start at the bottom and add up numbers to see how hard it is to get to various bodies of the solar system, on intercept (flyby), or into orbit, or to actually land. (And the same applies in the reverse direction, if you want a round trip from landing, back to Earth.) Look at how much it takes to “land” on Jupiter (not that there’s anything to land on)! 45 km/sec just for the last step, to drop out of Jovian orbit! That alone blows everything we’ve ever done in the past out of the water.

But enough talk of going there, how about we look at the planet itself?

Well, sure but let’s sneak up on it.

That diagram I just pasted in shows a key attribute of Mercury, but it’s a bit obscured. The planets’ orbits are shown at a bit of an oblique angle, making them look elliptical, but notice that in the case of Earth (blue) and Venus (cyan) the Sun is at the center of the drawn ellipses. Since the Sun must be at one of the two foci of a planet’s orbit, that tells you those orbits are actually pretty close to circular and they only look like ellipses because of perspective. But the Sun is visibly off center in the Mercury ellipse…which means it’s still an obvious ellipse even when not seen at an oblique angle.

Here’s a face-on diagram, which also includes Mars:

Mercury’s orbit still looks pretty circular, but you can see it’s just a tiny bit flattened along a line running from 1 to 7 o’clock. But the big tell is that the Sun is off center by an obvious amount, indicating the two foci of that ellipse are actually pretty far apart. Venus, on the other hand is almost perfectly centered on the Sun (it has the most circular orbit of any planet). Earth is a bit off center, Mars is more so. But Mercury is in the most eccentric orbit of any planet, and that has consequences.

Mercury zips around the Sun in 88 Earth days, and its closest/furthest approaches to the Sun are 0.3075 AU and 0.4667 AU, in other words at its farthest it’s over 50 percent further away from the Sun. Its average orbital speed is 47.36 km/sec (compare to Earth’s 29.7 km/sec or so). But it’s going to move considerably more slowly at aphelion (farthest distance from the sun) and considerably faster at perihelion (closest distance to the sun), 39.1 km/sec and 58.65 km/sec respectively. This might seem kind of boring, but it is going to matter.

Mercury itself is the smallest of the 8 currently-recognized planets in our solar system, its mass is 0.055 that of Earth (barely more than 1/20th) and its diameter is 4,480 km (compare to Earth at 12,700 km). In fact there are moons in our solar system that are bigger than Mercury.

We could not measure the mass of Mercury very accurately at all until we could send a spacecraft (Mariner 10, in the mid 1970s) on a flyby and measure how much the spacecraft’s trajectory bent as it flew by. That’s because Mercury doesn’t have any natural satellites (at least none big enough that we’ve been able to detect them). A natural satellite would give us the mass of the planet instantly and accurately based on its distance from the planet and its orbital period. Before spacecraft, we knew Neptune’s mass far better than we knew Mercury’s mass.

But once we knew Mercury’s mass, we could compute its average density (mass divided by volume), and that’s 5.427 grams per cubic centimeter. (Water is 1.0, generic rocks are about 3, iron is close to 8.) Earth’s is slightly higher at 5.513. These numbers tell us right off the bat that both planets contain a lot of metal in them, and both have cores of iron. But actually, Mercury is more impressive than Earth despite the numbers. Because in both cases, the planet’s innards are compressed under the weight of the outer layers (is “outtards” a word?). Earth, being almost 20 times more massive, is going to be a lot more compressed deep inside than is Mercury. So if, in spite of much more compression Earth is just barely more dense on average than Mercury, that tells you that Mercury’s iron core is much bigger, in comparison to the planet, than is Earth’s.

And we know some of that iron is molten, because Mercury has a magnetic field.

If you look at this diagram, the molten outer core of Mercury is much thicker, comparatively speaking, than our is, and the rocky mantle is thinner.

And also just like with diagram’s of Earth’s magnetic field, you’ll see that the solar wind gets deflected by the magnetic field. So people on the surface of Mercury wouldn’t be getting pelted by that kind of radiation.

But that’s poor consolation. It’s a shitty place to be for other reasons.

Mercury has very little atmosphere. And that’s largely because it’s hot. No surprise given how much closer to the Sun it is. But them, because it doesn’t have an atmosphere, there’s nothing to insulate the dark or nighttime side, so the nighttime side of Mercury can get quite cool. At the equator, Mercury can reach 427 °C in the daytime, but it cools to -173 °C at nighttime. At 85 °N latitude, it’s a still-intolerable 107°C in daytime and -193 °C at night. The average temperatures at these two places, 67 and -73 °C, almost seem tolerable by comparison. I don’t have info for any other latitudes, but there must be one in the middle somewhere with an average of 20 °C or so, room temperature to us Earthlings.

And that could be useful. Imagine being in a place on Mercury just a bit after sunset, before it has cooled off too much. If you could just move around enough to always be “just after sunset” or “just before sunrise” you might be able to build a base without busting the national budget just running the climate control.

That sounds a lot harder than it is, because Mercury rotates very slowly.

[OK…”tidal effects” time! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!]

Astronomers who managed to see something on Mercury were pretty confident it was tidally locked to the Sun…i.e., it always kept the same side facing the Sun, just like the Moon keeps the same side facing Earth. It turns out that that wasn’t true, but looked that way, because by coincidence every time they could observe Mercury well enough to get some hint of surface markings, it sure enough did have the same orientation to us and the Sun.

How does this happen? How do tidal effects cause this sort of thing?

Imagine the Sun off the bottom of that diagram, and some planet being pulled out of shape by the Sun’s tidal effects on the planet. The planet gets ever so slightly ellipsoidal (rugby ball shaped), but it’s cocked. The Sun will actually tug on the bulge closest to it, trying to force it to “line up.” The effect is to slow the planet’s rotation down, so that the bulge has time to settle directly in line with the Sun. And indeed if you look at our Moon (for comparison) it tends to be bulged on a line towards/away from Earth. Tidal effects pin that in place.

The problem was when they did the calculations, the Sun’s effect on Mercury shouldn’t be as strong as the Earth’s effect on the moon. So the real answer is that Mercury ends up being partially locked to the Sun.

With the Earth and the Moon, someone looking at the system from a “God’s Eye View” would see that the Moon rotates, relative to the stars, exactly as fast as it orbits the Earth. The net effect is the Moon rotates just fast enough that it always presents the same side to Earth.

Looking at Mercury, it actually rotates 1 1/2 times every time it goes around the Sun. So, at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun), Mercury will present one side to the Sun. The next time it’s at perihelion, it presents the opposite side to the Sun. Then the next time, it’s presenting the original side once again.

Here’s a diagram, showing two orbits of Mercury around the Sun, starting at 6 o’clock (position 1, arrow pointing to the Sun, it’s “noon”) and moving counter-clockwise (always counterclockwise!). At position 4 (half an orbit later), the arrow has gone through 3/4 of a turn compared to you, but compared to the Sun, it’s only now gone throug 1/4 of a turn and now it’s sunset there. Another half orbit, position 7, and the arrow has gone 1 1/2 times around (to you) but the arrow is now at midnight, pointing away from the Sun, for the first time since we started this. Another orbit, and the arrow spins 1 1/2 times (to you) or 1/2 of a time (as seen from the Sun, and we’re back at position 1.

This is a very stark example of the difference between a sidereal day (a rotation relative to the stars; 360 degrees in absolute terms), versus a synodic day (a rotation as seen from the Sun). The sidereal day is 56.6 earth days, the synodic day is 176 days, three times as long.

So Mercury is rotating a little too fast, still, to be tidally locked, or is it? By most scientists’ reckoning, this is actually a form of tidal lock–otherwise it’d be one heck of a coincidence!

Remember when I said that Mercury’s much higher than average speed near perihelion would matter? It matters here. It so happens that at that part of its orbit–and this is the part with the strongest tidal effect because it’s closest to the Sun–Mercury is moving at about the right speed to keep the same face towards the sun…for a while. What you’d see if you were standing at that red arrow is the Sun slowly climbing into the sky…but as it got near the meridian it would seem to slow down, stop, and hang there for much longer than you’d expect, and then it would speed up again and eventually set. The tidal effect is strongest when Mercury is closest to the Sun, and at that time it fakes a full-on tidal lock!

More info on tidal locking here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking (I barely scratched the surface).

56.6 days (relative to the stars) is a pretty slow rotation period, and Mercury is tiny. It turns out that its rotation speed at the equator is 10.892 kph or 6.8 mph. A long distance runner could conceivably run fast enough for quite some time, to get the stars to stand still from his point of view. But it’s far more interesting to try to keep up with the Sun (or keep ahead of it). But that’s easier; the sun on average seems to move 1/3 has fast as the stars.

So you can imagine a base, mounted on some sort of motorized platform doing less than 2 1/2 miles an hour on average, staying just ahead of the rising sun or just behind the setting sun. As long as it doesn’t break down, you’re in good shape.

But it’d be expensive to try. And who’s going to trust a motor under such harsh conditions, tens of millions of miles away from the repair shop?

That highly elliptical orbit of Mercury has one other consequence, one that affected us. If you draw a line through that ellipse the long way, that’s the “line of apsides” (the line from aphelion to perihelion). If there were only the Sun and Mercury in the solar system, that line should never move, according to Newton’s theory of Gravitation. However, there are other planets, and they do tug, slightly, on Mercury. That’s enough to shift the line of apsides slowly.

And this is indeed what we see. Measuring carefully, every century the line of apsides turns 574.1 arc-seconds in a century. (An arc-second is 1/3600th of a degree of arc.) That’s very slow, but it’s not zero.

In 1859, French astronomer and mathematician Urbain Le Verrier did the math. Exactly how much should the planets be mucking with Mercury’s line of apsides? He included the effects of all of the other planets, and the Sun’s equatorial bulge, and got an answer of 531.63 arc-seconds per century.

There was a 43.5 arc-second discrepancy.

Le Verrier had successfully predicted the existence of Neptune thirteen years earlier, by noting that Uranus’ orbital motion was being perturbed, first speeding up as it catches up to Neptune and is pulled on by it, then slowing down after it laps Neptune and is tugged back by it. This was a major triumph for the theory of gravitation; an effect that seemed “off” which should have made the theory doubtful, had actually been used to make a good prediction, making the theory stronger.

But what this means is that Le Verrier had a hammer, a very good one, and this problem with Mercury looked like another nail.

Le Verrier predicted that there was a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury, that would cause the line of apsides to move another 43.5 arc-seconds per century. This planet would be very close to the Sun, obviously, and very hot. The natural name for this given the Graeco-Roman mythological theme for planet names, was Vulcan after the god of the forge (Hephaestus to the Greeks). No, nothing to do with the Star Trek Vulcans. (In fact, this confusion got highlighted in one of the original Star Trek series’ episodes, where Spock has to explain to a 20th century Air Force officer that he’s not from that Vulcan.)

Astronomers looked in vain for Vulcan. It has never been seen, and almost certainly does not exist.

Fast forward to 1915 and a certain obscure scientist by the name of Albert Einstein is trying to work out an improved theory of gravitation. For it to make sense it had to resemble Newtonian gravitation under all normal circumstances, and only be different with extremely strong gravitational fields, stronger than anything we’d yet encountered.

But it turns out there’s a border case: close to the Sun, gravity is strong, just strong enough that the difference between Newton’s theory and Einstein’s idea might have a slight effect.

Einstein decided to see what the motion of Mercury would be like under his theory, as compared to Newton.

And he got a 43 1/2 arcsecond per century difference. When he got that answer, he later said, it was the happiest moment of his life. He had a possible explanation for that nagging problem of Mercury’s line of apsides! This was a very strong tell that he was on the right track. It would take more work to prove it, but that didn’t take long…four years in fact. (I tell that story elsewhere.)

So there you have it: Mercury in ancient lore, Mercury as a charred, bombarded cinder of a world, the solar system’s most extreme and slowest rotisserie, and Mercury as an object that helped open the door to our modern understanding of physics.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=L3tnH4FGbd0

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

China is in the White House

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

Joe Biden is Asshoe

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

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

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

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

Speaker Johnson: A Reminder.

January 6 tapes. A good start…but then nothing.

Were you just hoping we’d be distracted by the first set and not notice?

Are you THAT kind of “Republican”?

Are you Kevin McCarthy lite?

What are you waiting for?

I have a personal interest in this issue.

This Man is Pissed!

And if you aren’t…what the hell is wrong with you?

Is This Our Anthem?

Or at least our song to march to?

I’m sure most of you know I don’t believe in “devolution” or any variant of “we’re really still in charge” and certainly not the ones that come with “They’re waiting for everyone to wake up.”

No, I don’t think the good guys are in charge. But that makes it even more necessary that people wake up.

This might be the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of our age. (Or perhaps the recent trafficking movie was it. Or maybe both.)

Certainly there seem to be a huge number of people who are finally having the light bulb turning on when they hear this song.

Joining The Herd Of Lemmings

I’ve had cause to consider a few things. Maybe we’re going about it the wrong way, and we need to ditch Trump

Yeah, NO

Trump all the way! Why? Because being hated by the people who hate him is a sign of impeccable character, that’s why.

The haters can go fuck themselves with rusty twelve gauge bore brushes. I’d prefer ten gauge but that’s kind of scarce, so…I’m willing to compromise.

The RINO’s Dilemma

The RINOs who who have burrowed in and taken over most GOP organizations, from the state down to local organizations, have quite a dilemma on their hands, and most of them have their heads too far up their asses to realize it.

OK, I’m not talking about the liberal in a Republican area, who knows they’re in the wrong party, but is there because it’s the only game in their town; they hope to capture a nomination someday, at which point they’re guaranteed to be elected…otherwise, they never will be. These people are a hazard in any heavily conservative area.

No, I’m talking about the guys who are a little bit conservative and want to do some good by going into politics, and they’re in a closely matched area, closely enough that they can join the party they are most aligned with and still have a chance. They think the Democrats…particularly the ones who end up running for office…are nuts.

They don’t think much better of the Deplorable types, either. A bunch of bumpkins whose hearts are in the right place, mostly…OK a bit extreme. But they think Deplorables can’t understand that first you have to get elected, then work within the system to change things…a slow process. They genuinely want many of the things Deplorables want…just not as much. The government is spending too much. Or they need to spend money on highways instead of welfare for illegal immigrants. But they want to work within the system to get these things done.

Or maybe they think things are pretty close to ideal right now, and they want to nail it in place.

The problem is, that means they don’t stand for anything in particular. And it shows. They’re about as unappetizing to the electorate as a puddle of dog vomit. The folks in the middle, who they think they are appealing to because they themselves are not extreme, would honestly prefer a clear-spoken radical to someone who qualifies everything they say to the point where they sound like they don’t believe anything at all.

The problem these “Mild RINOs” have, is they just can’t see that. And the reason they just can’t see that, is their entire sense of self-worth is tied up in not seeing that. In their minds, they’ve worked tirelessly for their party, to keep those crazy Democrats out…only to have to constantly fight with a small number of crazy Republicans–who are only liabilities if they end up as candidates. They’ve fought the good fight, and if they can just find the right candidate, someone with some charisma, they might stop the crazies…without being too beholden to the OTHER crazies. In the meantime it’s not working. What’s a responsible guy in politics to do?

They simply cannot understand that the Republicans can’t succeed as the party of nothing in particular. Not really in the past, and certainly not today when people are starting to realize that no matter what they do in the voting booth, the country is still about to fly off a precipice. If they did see it, they’d suddenly have two choices: Go away and let the GOP succeed, or stay and fight. But “go away” isn’t really an option, because what’s the point of having a party now owned by the crazies, win?

Well, they have a dilemma…and WE, therefore have a problem. And we would have that problem even IF they realized that they had a problem…that they were the problem.

No one ever thinks they are the bad guy. Even Epstein probably thought he was the good guy. Right up to the moment where he didn’t kill himself.

So if you ever wonder why these unappetizing dufuses cling on even when their fingernails are being left behind…that’s why. They don’t understand no one wants them, and can’t imagine that no one should want them. And oftentimes their greatest pride is in all the hard work they’ve done for the party. They’re not going to give that up; it’d be psychological suicide.

If you’ve worked with these people, there’s a good chance you like them and consider some of them your friends. But even if so…we’re going to have to give them a good, hard shove. Because America is more important than those milquetoasts’ egos.

Justice Must Be Done

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

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot (i.e., paper) Prices

Last week:

Gold $2,025.40
Silver $22.69
Platinum $884.00
Palladium $887.00
Rhodium $4800.00

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

Gold $2,014.20
Silver $23.49
Platinum $915.00
Palladium $972.00
Rhodium $4,850.00

On Wednesday gold got clubbed by the markets like a baby seal. It dropped well below $2000. In essence the Big Money in the financial markets finally decided the Fed wouldn’t be dropping interest rates any time soon. That, of course, increases the nominal yield of dollar-based instruments, so the Big Money hominids moved at least some of their money out of gold.

Friday’s close price represents a recovery from that Big Dump.

The Moon

I was originally going to write about Mercury, but it turns out to be more complex than the Moon, and since I like to build on prior ramblings, it’s more logical to do it this way.

The Moon and Sun are the two compact objects in the sky that you can see detail on without magnification. Though you’d better have a filter to cut out 999,990/1,000,000ths (or thereabouts, call it 17 stops if you are a photographer) of sunlight before you go looking at the Sun for any length of time.

Everything else up there looks like a point of light, or is a cloud of gas or dust that will be a bit fuzzy (those are non-compact objects). The visible planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and just barely, Uranus) actually have a little more breadth as seen from Earth, than do stars, which is why they don’t usually twinkle…ripples in the atmosphere are unlikely to blot the whole thing out.

So let’s consider the Moon.

It’s very close, vastly closer than other planets. I mentioned that the Astronomical Unit is the basic “yardstick” for distances in the solar system; it’s the average distance between Earth and Sun and comes in at about 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles.

The Moon averages 0.00257 AUs away, in other words about 1/400th of an AU. Which means it is 1/400th as far away as the Sun.

Using bare eyeballs, the obvious features of the Moon are that it has bright and dark areas, and it goes through phases.

Paying a bit of attention to patterns, we note that the Moon is sometimes close to the Sun, and sometimes far away in the sky, and that the phases correlate to the distance; when the Moon is close to the Sun, it’s a crescent…the closer it is, the thinner the crescent. When the Moon is roughly 90 degrees away from the Sun, it looks like a half circle; when its more than 90 degrees away but less than 180, it’s in a shape called “gibbous,” and when it is 180 degrees away, at the opposite side of the sky, rising at the same time the Sun sets and vice versa, it’s a full circle. The pattern then reverses, the Moon becoming gibbous, than half full, and a crescent. The sequence repeats every 29.5 days, this is the lunar month and is ultimately the origin of our calendar months even though the lengths don’t match up.

This is one of those many times that geometry plays a role in understanding astronomy. If you understand the relative positions of things, and are able to imagine your point of view being at one corner of a triangle, the phases of the Moon become very understandable. It’s a sphere, and the part we can see is what the Sun is shining on. The next time you see the Moon during the daytime, draw in your mind’s eye the complete circle, and note that the lit part is the part nearest to the Sun.

(I apologize to those who find this too obvious to need me to belabor this. But I know from personal experience there are some who not only don’t understand this, but will assert the exact opposite is true, asserting the lit side of the Moon faces away from the Sun, etc.)

The direction of motion is invariable, too. If you sit and watch it one evening, it’s obviously going from east to west…but that’s an illusion, caused by the Earth’s rotation. If the Moon is just above the western horizon after sunset one day (and it will be a thin crescent), the next day, it will be higher above the horizon at sunset, further from the Sun, and a fatter crescent. This tells you it’s really moving west-to-east (right to left if you’re in the northern hemisphere). If instead of comparing it to the Sun, you compare it to the background stars (a much better “absolute” reference frame), you’ll see it’s moving west-to-east a bit faster than you thought comparing it to the Sun. (And it will become evident, as you notice that stars set earlier and earlier each evening, that the Sun is itself moving west to east against the background stars, at least from our point of view here on Earth. It’s just not doing so nearly as fast as the Moon is.)

That about wraps up the phases, now let’s discuss those dark and bright areas. This is like the case of the “dog that did not bark” (which realization helped Sherlock Holmes solve the case in one of the classic stories). The important thing is what is not happening. Those dark and bright areas don’t change. Oh, they may or may not be visible depending on the phase of the Moon, but they don’t change. They don’t move.

If the Moon is a sphere, as shown from its phase behavior, it always presents the same face to us here on Earth. It doesn’t rotate.

Actually, it does. If you step away from Earth and adopt the stars as your frame of reference, the Moon does indeed rotate, once every orbit. Since the rotation is in the same direction as its orbital path around the Earth, the effect is to present the same face to the Earth, all the time.

In this diagram, on the left the Moon is shown rotating (relative to a “God’s Eye View” once per month, but keeping the same face to the earth. If it didn’t rotate, you’d have a situation like the right hand side of the diagram, where people on Earth can see all of the Moon’s surface over the course of a month.

This 1-1 match of rotation to orbital period is sometimes presented as a cosmic coincidence and I’ve even seen people try to present it as proof that Someone set it up that way to send us a message. But as I will show later on, it would be more incredible if it did not do this.

OK so on to the Moon itself.

We know the Moon better than any other astronomical body, both from the fact that it’s practically sitting in our laps, comparatively speaking, and from the fact that we’ve actually sent people there and brought pieces of it back. Unlike almost everything else up there we can put pieces of the Moon in a test tube.

Here is a comparison of sizes, Moon to Earth, with a lot of other planets’ moons for comparison:

(And that brings up a point: moons are astronomical bodies that orbit planets, which in turn orbit the Sun. But the Moon (and notice the capital M), is the particular astronomical body that orbits the Earth. Before 1609 it was the only moon known, so it naturally ended up with the generic name…or rather, it gave its name to the entire class of objects–that being reference in the diagram’s title. Of course, in a sentence it’s awkward to just say “Moon” without “The” in front of it: “Moon orbits the Earth” sounds like a headline, not like good grammar. It’s a proper noun, so it shouldn’t need a “the” in front of it, yet it does. In most other cases “the” in front of a noun makes it not a proper noun. For example, “The president” versus “President Trump”; in the first case it’s not a proper noun, in the second case it’s part of a proper noun. Note in the diagram it’s just capital-M “Moon”. The Sun has the same issue. It’s never just called “Sun.” Earth has a tendency to glom onto “the” too but a bit but less so; you can leave off “the” without having it sound awkward because no class of bodies are called “earths”. Personally I’d be perfectly happy giving “the Moon” a unique proper name that doesn’t mean every body like it, and in science fiction it’s often called “Luna” [though that’s just “Moon” in another language].)

So you have a size comparison. How about mass? It turns out the Moon has 1/81 the mass of Earth, yet it’s about 1/50th the volume. That indicates that its average density is less than that of Earth. The average cubic centimeter of Earth is 5.5 grams, for the Moon it’s 3.344, 60.6% of Earth’s; for reference water comes in at 1.0, typical rocks range from 2 to 3 g/cc, and iron comes in at 7.87.

You could take a wild guess and say this means that the Moon has much more rock and less iron in it than Earth, and you’d be right. It is believed that the Moon has a solid iron core, a small one maybe only 200 miles across, with some liquid iron above it, but it’s mostly rocks.

The Moon has essentially no atmosphere. The atmosphere it does have is so thin it might as well be a vacuum; the total mass of the entire atmosphere is estimated at about ten (metric) tonnes. (When you consider that is spread out over a surface that’s larger than North America…that’s thin.)

Because the Moon is essentially airless, the day side bakes under the Sun, and the night side freezes because there is no insulating blanket to keep it from doing so, and no wind to carry heat from one side to the other. Temperatures range from 100-390 K (with 0 Fahrenheit being 273 K), or -173 to +117 C.

The Moon has almost no carbon or nitrogen, and water is absent except in permanently shadowed craters at the poles, where it is in the form of ice. What about oxygen? The Moon has plenty of that, but not in the form of air; rocks are largely composed of oxygen. That’s true on Earth, too; the oxygen in the air and in the water is but a tiny fraction of all of the oxygen on (and in) the Earth. Crustal rock (what you see) is on average 47% oxygen by mass. Yes almost half of what you stand on is oxygen, down for hundreds or even thousands of miles.

The surface gravity is 1/6th that of Earth. The following gif shows (in real time, not slo-mo) an astronaut jumping as he salutes the Flag.

At such low gravity people lose their balance easily; the gravity isn’t quite enough to trigger the body’s “gut sense” of up and down. That plus the mass of those big backpacks throwing off their centers of gravity tended to make the astronauts clumsy on the Moon.

OK, so let’s go back to the Moon always presenting the same side to the Earth. This is, in fact a perfectly normal effect of (wait for it) tidal forces. [I told you they’d come up again and again…well, this is the first time so maybe you still doubt the “again and again” part.]

As prominent as the tides are on Earth, the lunar contribution to them, the tidal effect of the Moon on the Earth, is only going to be 1/81 the tidal effect of the Earth on the Moon.

Even though the Moon is essentially a ball of rock, it will flex under tidal forces and that will have some unexpected effects. (The Earth’s solid surface rises and falls almost 40 centimeters in response to the tidal forces from the Moon and Sun.)

What happens is the Moon elongates a bit, roughly along a line from Earth to Moon. It is thought that the Moon rotated at a very different rate at some point in the past, so the tidal bulge would actually move along the Moon’s surface as it rotated with respect to Earth. However, this wasn’t instantaneous. If you were standing on the Moon back then, you’d expect the tidal bulge to be maximum when the Earth was directly overhead, but in fact the bulge arrives sometime after that time. Which means your bit of the Moon has rotated past the point where Earth was overhead. The Earth, having raised the bulge, also pulls on it…giving the Moon a slight tug to slow its rotation down. Run that for millions of years and the Moon eventually just stops rotating with respect to the Earth.

This isn’t just our moon, it’s every moon. Every one of the twenty moons in that diagram I presented above that’s large enough to be round is tidally locked to the planet it orbits. (If you’re going back to count, Hyperion is the largest one that’s not round.) It would be weird if any of them weren’t. It’s also an important piece of evidence that the solar system as a whole is many millions of years old. Or to flip that around, if some moon weren’t tidally locked to its primary, it would be clear evidence that that moon had not been in that orbit for very long, geologically speaking.

Speaking of orbits, these tidal effects have another consequence: They’re causing the Moon’s orbit to get larger over time. This isn’t just theory, we’ve measured it by bouncing lasers off reflectors left on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts.

How does this work? One contributing factor is those tidal bulges. Just as the Earth pulls on those tidal bulges on the Moon, the Moon pulls on those tidal bulges on the Earth, slowing our rotation down (and our days are, indeed growing gradually longer. Given a lot of time we would become tidally locked to the Moon, but the Sun will have gone red giant and possibly destroyed the Earth and Moon long before then). But since the tidal bulges on Earth’s surface are basically ahead of the Moon’s position, they pull on it, and the Moon pulls on them. That actually causes the Moon to speed up, just a tiny bit. But if you’re in an orbit and you speed up, you end up making the orbit larger (and ironically, then slowing down more than you sped up). So, the Moon gets further from the Earth, at a rate of 38 millimeters per year. (And, as I said, this has been measured.)

More info on tidal locking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

Earth and Moon are unusually close to each other in size. All of those other big moons in the diagram above orbit planets much larger than Earth. Since bodies actually orbit their common center of gravity, the sheer size of the Moon makes the center of gravity 4,670 kilometers above the center of Earth. Although this is still below the Earth’s surface (which is 6378 km out), it’s still most of the way to being outside of the Earth. In fact, many regard the Earth and Moon as a double planet. (Pluto and its moon Charon are actually closer to each other in size and the barycenter is actually outside of Pluto. Were they planets, they’d definitely qualify as a double planet.)

So what accounts for this freakishly large Moon? How did it get there?

Based on analysis of the rocks brought back from the Moon, our best theory is that, shortly after the Earth formed, when it was still red hot, another planet, about the size of Mars (but not Mars) collided with Earth, not directly head on but a bit obliquely. A lot of Earth’s outer layers were blown out into space, as well as most of the matter from the other planet, and went into orbit about Earth, very rapidly (over tens of thousands of years) collecting to form the Moon. Since the Moon ended up mostly made of the stuff from the other planet, that explains why its composition is subtly different from Earth’s.

This is called the “Big Thwack.” And astronomers have even named the planet that hit the proto-Earth; they call it “Theia.”

Immediately after its formation from all of the debris, the Moon would have been much closer to Earth (and tidal forces much, much, much stronger); its present distance of roughly a quarter of a million miles is the result of over four billion years of tidal action. Tides on earth would have been measured in hundreds if not thousands of meters.

One other “big result” from studying rocks from the Moon is that we are pretty confident of an event called the “Late Heavy Bombardment.” The solar system formed between 4.6 and 4.5 billion years ago, and in those early days, before planets had coalesced, there were a lot of rocks out there, small objects in orbit about the Sun. Planets grew by impacting with and absorbing these objects. After a (comparatively) brief amount of time most of that junk should have been swept up, but about 500 million years later, there was another spate of bombardments by sky junk, asteroids and comets. This hit every planet in the inner solar system, and the Moon and Mercury in particular bear the scars, because their surfaces are essentially unchanged since then. Of course if all we can do is look we just see craters. But we were able to radio-isotope date the moon rocks so it became apparent that many of those rocks formed well after the crust should have solidified after the initial formation. So now, we believe, something happened to cause a later barrage of material to plunge into the inner solar system. This is, however, based largely on lunar samples and we might just have happened to get a bunch of rocks from one impact (it’s unlikely but possible). So we want to collect many more samples from all over the moon to try to confirm this.

As I mentioned before the Moon has light and dark blotches on it. The light areas turn out to be mountainous areas with terrain; the dark areas are flat, reminding many of seas. (And the Latin names get translated into English, for example the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed.) In fact they are called maria (plural of Latin mare) for that reason. And it turns out they probably were seas once; seas of lava brought to the surface by big strikes from the Late Heavy Bombardment.

The presence of our Moon has had major effects on Earth, not “just” the tides; its presence acts as a stabilizing factor on our axis of rotation. Were it not for the Moon, the Earth’s axial tilt could vary a lot more than the one or two degrees that it actually does, and that would make it hard for life to survive here. And there’s speculation that the significant tides we have, may have been necessary for life to get started in the first place. If so, that makes life a rarity, because Earth sized planets with large moons are likely a rarity too.

There’s one last random factoid I want to share. I mentioned earlier that some believe that the Moon’s turning the same face toward the Earth is a cosmic coincidence, when it actually isn’t. But there really is one cosmic coincidence that should be mentioned. As I mentioned before, the Moon is 400 times closer to us than the Sun. I didn’t mention that the Sun is about 400 times the Moon’s diameter. Which means that the Sun and Moon look almost exactly the same size as seen from Earth. And indeed there are times when the Moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun, and at that point it covers the Sun’s disc quite neatly, resulting in a solar eclipse that covers the Sun, but not much of the Sun’s atmosphere (also called the Sun’s corona). This relationship isn’t perfect, and it’s possible for a lineup like this to happen when the Moon is as far away as it gets in its orbit, and, because it looks smaller at that distance, it doesn’t quite cover the Sun resulting in an annular eclipse (one happened last year, I posted photos).

Coming up on April 8, we will see a total eclipse of the Sun across much of the United States, in a swath running from Texas to Maine. I highly recommend you go see it if at all possible…do not settle for anything less than totality. If you see a 99% eclipse because you weren’t quite in the right place, you’ve wasted an opportunity.

Fuck Joe B*d*n

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

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

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

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

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

China is in the White House

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

Joe Biden is Asshoe

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

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

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