A More Serious Blurb About Mountains

Of course someone took exception to my characterizing the more prominent bumps in the terrain east of Kansas as “stupid.”

Well, every once in a while I decide to go through the exercise of being as obnoxious about Colorado as Texans are about Texas.

But it is looking more and more like Boebert will be re-elected. So maybe it wasn’t all in vain. (Of course my little ramble had absolutely nothing to do with her victory, so, well yes, it was in vain.)

So let me try to be a little more serious now, though in talking about geology I am in a realm where I have almost zero formal education and therefore much more likely to end up on the wrong side of the handlebars, or out ahead of my skis.

Mountains. Where do they come from? After all if the Earth is billions of years old (and it is), and it had mountains when it started (which, really, it didn’t), it should be glass-smooth by now from erosion with all continents worn down to sea level. (I was about to say it should look like a cue ball, but a cue ball is actually rougher than the Earth, for its size.)

So clearly mountains formed after the Earth did; well afterwards in fact. And as it happens there are mountains forming right now. And all are eroding away (even the ones that are forming) as we speak.

What’s going on here?

Well, let’s start our little tour with the Appalachians.

It was pointed out last Saturday that in spite of current appearances, the Appalachians are indeed mountains, albeit very much in the geological nursing home. According to my very surface-level research, the Appalachians first formed in the Orodovician period roughly 480 million years ago, from plate collisions between the future North America and something called the Iapetus ocean. What’s left of these mountains is largely old seabeds, rumpled up and pushed into the sky over a span of millions of years, then eroded. This range was as high as today’s Alps and Rockies (and therefore not stupid). These mountains were in the middle of the old supercontinent of Pangaea. An episode of mountain building is called an “orogeny” (and I’ve sometimes seen the term used to refer to the location where it happened/is happening) and this was the “Taconic orogeny.” A later episode in the late Carboniferous/early Permian periods, covering 325-260 million years ago, is the Alleghanian orogeny. (Yes, it’s Alleghanian, not Alleghenian as one might expect. Apparently a certain geologist couldn’t spell…) Of course over hundreds of millions of years they eroded. And here is an interesting fact…the rocks that make up mountains are a bit lighter than the “mantle” rocks below our continents, so they actually, in a way, float. If you pile them up, they tend to sink into the mantle rock (which is slightly elastic thanks to its high temperature). In other words, mountains are like icebergs, most of them are below the surface. If a foot of rock erodes off the top of a mountain, the mountain will rise something like 10-11 inches to reach equilibrium, so to actually permanently shorten a mountain by a foot you have to erode ten feet off the top. But of course that only works if the mountain isn’t still being uplifted!

But what causes the uplift?

In a word…okay, two words…plate tectonics.

The entire surface of the earth is divided up into “plates.” Some of the plates are entirely ocean floor, a relatively thin layer of basaltic rock, which is heavy. Others have continental crust, a much thicker layer of lighter rock…which is why mountains are like icebergs. Most plates that have continental crust have a great deal of ocean crust too, with the continent largely if not entirely surrounded by ocean crust. If you’ve ever looked at one of those maps that shows underwater features, you’ll see around the margin of every continent, a shallow sea floor, then an abrupt drop down to deep ocean. That shallow sea floor is “continental shelf” and is geologically part of the continent even though it’s under water. The deeps are ocean floors.

The places where plates come together–the seams–are “plate boundaries” and are also fault zones. Fault zone as in “earthquake.”

The reason mountains exist is that these tectonic plates move. The red arrows on the diagram above show the direction of motion in a number of locations.

If the plates cover all of the surface of the earth, how do they move? It’s like having one of those sliding block puzzles (arrange the numbers 1-15 in order…you know, that kind), but with no open hole to move blocks into.

Well, that’s an interesting story! And it happens, geology would make no damned sense without the answer to that question.

So let’s take a look at a few cases.

The Himalaya mountains (definitely VSG or genius level mountains) are still being built; they’re the result of the Indian plate being pushed into the Eurasian plate. In a head-on collision the continental crust has nowhere to go, so it goes up. The Himalayas are damned tall, and getting taller. Although erosion is acting on them, the uplift is faster than the erosion, resulting in a net increase in height.

Moving on to the Andes, a similar thing is going on, except that they aren’t the result of two continental plates making a head on collision, but rather of an ocean plate being pushed under a continental plate, down into the mantle. This results in a chain of volcanoes as the light sediment on the subducted ocean crust melts and forces its way to the surface as magma (molten rock)–again, its crustal rock and is lighter than the mantle, and is what’s going on under Japan and Alaska (and Indonesia and Kamchatka and the Pacific Northwest).

That’s how the plates can move. An ocean plate will be pushed under a continental plate, down into the Earth’s mantle, this is called “subduction.”

These are two of the three major ways mountains form. The third is a little less prominent…unless you look under the oceans. When you do that, you discover the longest mountain range on Earth. The main part of this is the Mid Atlantic Ridge, and it is a place where ocean floor plates move away from each other. Basically, magma wells up along a long rift in the ocean floor, and solidifies, some of it becomes part of the ocean crust attached to North and South America, and some becomes attached to Europe and Africa. It’s a bit like a conveyor belt, moving the Americas away from the Old World.

Iceland is actually on this ridge and represents a place where more than the usual amount of magma comes up through the rift (we’ll come back to that later). Reykjavik is actually on the part of Iceland that is, geologically, part of North America, while the eastern two thirds or so of the island is geologically part of Europe. The rift runs right through Thingvellir park (Icelandic spelling: Þingvellir), near where the original Icelandic Althing met. (The Althing is the Icelandic parliament, and it has been a going concern since 930. That is not a typo; it’s the oldest parliamentary body in the world.)

Once, North America and Europe were joined, and South America and Africa were joined. But then for some reason, deep inside the earth, the continents were slowly, inexorably tugged apart. A rift began to form; the land inside that rift simply began to sink (it wasn’t a gigantic crack through all that rock), until it dropped below sea level, then a shallow sea was there and as the continents moved further apart, finally a deep ocean, the Atlantic, formed, with the Mid Atlantic ridge where the rift originally was. And the continents are still moving apart. (We can actually measure this in real time thanks to GPS and lasers–they move apart about as fast as your fingernails grow.)

Right now, Africa has a new “rift valley” running a bit east of center down the continent, starting with the Red Sea then coming ashore at Djibouti (which is measurably sinking), down through the “Rift Valley” and through all those big (and deep!) lakes, Victoria, Malawi, Tanganyika…The continent is literally splitting apart. Lake Baikal in Siberia is another example of a rift feature.

The Pacific Ocean is one large plate, with smaller plates around the edges, almost none of it continental crust. But one exception we’re all aware of is Baja California and part of the US state of California. As the Atlantic spreads, the Pacific must shrink and the continents are moving into the Pacific. The Pacific ocean floor is getting pushed under the continents around its margin, which is where the “Ring of Fire” comes from.

As I said the Pacific isn’t just one big plate, and there are more mid-ocean ridges in the Pacific. But their net effect is to simply produce ocean crust that’s going to get pushed under North and South America and Asia even faster, because that crust is moving towards the continents, head on. There are two ridges in the eastern Pacific (i.e., the parts nearest the Americas), the Juan de Fuca near the Pacific Northwest, and the East Pacific Rise, a couple of thousand miles off the coast of South America. The plates to the east of the East Pacific rise are the Cocos and Nazca plates, and the Nazca plate subduction under South America is what is pushing the Andes up.

In fact, plate tectonics explains almost all volcanos and mountain ranges on Earth, and it might interest you to know that we did not understand plate tectonics in 1960. As a kid I had a book about volcanoes, and it was maybe twelve years old and totally out of date. It said, in essence, that we didn’t know why volcanoes showed up where they did and not other places. The entire science of geology went through a revolution during that decade. I’ve seen videos of college professors who were students during that time, describing what it was like to be getting into the field during such a time–it was exciting! (And perhaps I can tell that story, sometime.) It represented the final vindication of Alfred Wegener.

Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) is famous for suggesting that the continents move. It explained a lot of things, such as matching rock formations and fossils on either side of the Atlantic, to say nothing of how the outlines almost look like puzzle pieces, especially if you look at the edges of the continental shelves.

But the problem was, no one could see how the continents could just plow through the ocean crust. Wegener was considered a crackpot. The correct answer–that the ocean floor isn’t something continents have to plow through, it’s a conveyor belt carrying the continents with it–finally became clear during the 1950s and 1960s, long after Wegener had died.

These edge-of-tectonic-plate effects account for almost all volcanoes and mountain ranges…which means not all of them. A couple of prominent exceptions are Hawaii, and the Rocky Mountains. But even there, plate tectonics helps explain them.

We can start by taking a look at the Pacific Plate (and adjoining plates).

You’ll notice in the upper right the Juan de Fuca plate (and ridge), and at the mid-right edge the Nazca and Cocos plates. Easter Island, it turns out, owes its existence to these tectonic forces, as do the Galapagos islands (unlabeled, but a couple of hundred miles south of the junction of the Nazca, Cocos and Pacific plates).

Hawaii is smack dab in the middle of the upper part of the plate (it’s shown in very low contrast outline), and the forces that create volcanoes and mountains generally operate at the edges of plates. Hawaii is thousands of miles from such an edge. So how is it that the Big Island–which is a humongous multi-peaked volcano, which if measured from the ocean floor on which it rests, is taller than Mount Everest (thus, distinctly unstupid) is way the heck out there?

Well, there’s another feature of geology, somewhat related to mid ocean ridges, known as hot spots.

There is, apparently, a “hot spot” deep underground in the interior of the Earth, that has been pushing magma upwards for tens of millions of years. The Pacific plate is moving northwest over this hot spot. The Big Island is over it now, but in the past, Maui and Oahu were. They’re no longer active volcanos and have been eroding away ever since which is why the Hawaiian islands get smaller the further away they are from the Big Island. In fact, the island chain continues clear out to Wake Island. Beyond Wake Island, there’s a long line of undersea mounts…former islands running off to the west-northwest of Hawaii…then suddenly, as you follow it further west and further into the past, it turns north. The Pacific plate was once moving northward, then abruptly turned west, and you can follow the line of travel over the hot spot by following those undersea mounts–which are now called the Emperor Seamounts

So yes, plate tectonics doesn’t tell you why Hawaii is there…but it does explain why there’s a long string of islands and former islands there, rather than just one really, really big volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. (Imagine what it would look like if ALL of that vulcanism happened at the same spot on the Pacific Ocean floor, rather than along a line.)

That diagram shows you the other conundrum–the Rockies, too, are nowhere near a plate boundary. You can see the Colorado Rockies, halfway down near the right side, and distinctly reddish from their altitude. The San Andreas in California is the plate boundary, and it’s actually two plates sliding sideways past each other, rather than away from each other or into each other, which makes for not much mountainbuilding and actually, milder earthquakes. (California quakes are nothing next to things like the Chilean, Alaskan and Japanese earthquakes along subduction zones; the two worst earthquakes reliably measured were in Alaska and Chile in the 1960s; the Fukushima-wrecking quake wasn’t that far behind.)

The Pacific plate actually touches a continent in two places, Alaska and California. There’s no mid ocean ridge off the coast of California.

But with a little imagination, you can see that perhaps once upon a time the East Pacific rise and the Juan de Fuca ridge were connected…but the connection has been overrun by North America as it moves west away from the Mid Atlantic ridge!

In fact, geologists strongly suspect this is what’s going on, and they call the old, combined but now subducted plate the Farallon plate. An actual mid-ocean ridge ended up under North America, and it’s perhaps only a couple of hundred miles under North America, and still spewing magma down there. And that is what pushed up the Rockies. Give it long enough, and it might just put mountains in Kansas, because Kansas will eventually be over that old, buried midocean ridge. (However, the bit about the ridge still operating down there is a bit speculative; most geologists seem to think it’s all due to the old Farallon plate being at a fairly shallow depth and friction causing the uplift.)

The Rockies, by the way, are estimated to have once been 25,000 feet tall, with a large Tibet-like plateau at 20,000 feet, but they stopped being pushed up roughly 55 million years ago (that was the “Laramide Orogeny”) and have been eroding ever since. Ten thousand feet in 50 million years.

One last thing. Is that Hawaiian hot spot particularly unusual? Yes and no. There are plenty of hot spots, but they tend to be on mid ocean ridges and rift zones, in fact they probably help continents break up and form those ridges and rifts in the first place. Iceland is an example, but there are other mid-Atlantic islands like the Azores, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and so on that are likely hot spots albeit not as strong as Hawaii–those are all on the Mid Atlantic ridge. Hawaii is unusual in being nowhere near a ridge.

But there’s another hot spot nowhere near a ridge or rift valley, and that’s Yellowstone. And there’s a key difference between it and Hawaii–it’s under a continent. When Hawaii erupts, it erupts, basically, molten basalt and that tends to be a gentle eruption. The hot spot under Yellowstone, by contrast, heats up granitic rock. Molten granite is much thicker, gooier stuff and will erupt explosively…which is why when Yellowstone goes, it’s a Big Deal, an absolute catastrophe for the world. When it goes, it doesn’t just destroy a mountain…it takes a huge chunk out of a mountain range. And it will probably trigger an ice age all by itself, after dumping several feet of ash over something like a million square miles. (Honestly, I want to be on Mars when this thing goes kablooey!)

Remember that terrain map of Colorado I showed you last week? Here’s the one for Idaho from the same site (geology.com). (All of my maps from last week besides the congressional district one were from geology.com.)

Note the big, flat floored valley running in an arc across the southern part of the state. And also note that instead of the mountains framing that valley as was the case for Colorado’s San Luis Valley, the valley looks like it was bulldozed across or perpendicular to the riges. And then, remember what’s off that northeast corner…Yellowstone. Meet the bulldozer.

That valley was literally blasted out of those mountains, by Yellowstone. North America is moving west-southwest over the hot spot, and every time Yellowstone blows, a bit more of that broad valley is formed, it gets cut deeper and deeper into the Rocky Mountains.

Now here’s the thing I realized (and if I can realize it as I go further and further over the edge of my skis, then actual geologists have probably thought of it and either laughed because they know some reason (that I don’t) that makes it ridiculous, or they’ve actually thought about it for at least five seconds.

I mentioned hot spots tend to be found around ocean ridges (and also rift valleys, which are how continents split and form those ridges to begin with). And that in large part really, it’s the hot spots that cause the ridges not the other way around (so of course there’s an association). I’ve also mentioned the crazy thought that the Farallon plate and its border ridge is under North America, still acting like a ridge even though it’s buried, and pushing up mountains.

What if Yellowstone was actually, many millions of years ago, a hot spot on that rift?

Anyhow, this was probably more than you wanted to know about mountains, genius level down to stupid, and even a bit about the short-tempered ones that blow their stacks.

I just hope I didn’t mangle the geology too badly.

The Real Fascist is His Fraudulency Joe Biden*

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

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

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

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

Come and get us, asswipes!

Justice Must Be Done.

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

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

Small Government?

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

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

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

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

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

Political Science In Summation

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

A Few Things We Cannot Blame on His Fraudulency

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

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

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

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

Last week:

Gold $1,772.30
Silver $21.80
Platinum $1037.00
Palladium $2,132.00
Rhodium $14,450.00

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

Gold $1,752.20
Silver $21.05
Platinum $988.00
Palladium $2,020.00
Rhodium $14,150.00

Everything is down for the week, a bit, unsurprising given the huge jump last week.

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 !!!

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 Election

There is quite a difference of opinion on whether this last election was a disaster or not. (There is much less disagreement on whether it would have been a disaster if only there were no fraud, although some have raised the point that there truly are huge swathes of people in this country with no damned sense, who would still make up a large voting block even if honestly counted.)

So, Steve, disaster, or not a disaster?

My answer: Yes.

YES, it is bad that we’re not going to be able to do much to stop the Bidenazi steamroller, at least not via Congress.

But also:

YES, it is good that we now know what we need to do.

And I mean a little more specifically than “win.” Of course we need to win, dumbass! But how do we win?

Well, we clean up the elections. We sort of knew that, but now we have information on how big a difference it makes, thanks to Florida, and Ohio. It makes a LOT of difference, which means it’s worth the effort.

It does NOT mean it will be easy. Or that the effort to make elections honest will ever end…because even once we succeed, we must be ever vigilant to ensure they stay that way. This is something that will never end though it does get a bit less intractable with each small victory.

Now, I’ll be honest and tell you I have no idea how we’re going to fix Colorado. Much less California. Congress is allowed to override the states on election rules for congresscritters, but as far as I know, they can do nothing about electing the state officials that do the cheating and of course built in cheating to ensure they will remain in office and be able to continue to cheat.

But there IS a goal that takes us closer to where we want to be. If only it isn’t too late.

Colorado

[Hopefully both entertaining and informative. Regional insults meant in good fun.

Well, mostly. :D]

One of our favorite congresswomen, Lauren Boebert, is in a bit of a tight spot right now. She’ll probably pull through…if only the recount that looks unavoidable is tolerably honest.

There has been a lot of misguided speculation about “Boulder” messing things up for her; I want to reassure you that “Boulder” can’t do anything about this. But the state government can, and guess where our (freshly re-elected) governor came from?

Colorado is a peculiar state for a number of reasons. Someone once came up with a mathematical algorithm to draw congressional district boundaries; you could go to his site and view maps of what his algorithm would have done. It does nothing but draw polygons such that every polygon has the same number of people in it; it doesn’t balance for political registration or racial composition or anything like that. It’s evenhanded though because the rules don’t change just because some asshole on some committee somewhere was able to be intransigent until other people gave him what he wanted.

The algorithm did some really freaky stuff in Colorado, and that’s because pretty much all of the population of the state is concentrated along a line. The algorithm starts by drawing a north-south line through the state, situated so it divides the population in half (if there are an even number of seats) and that line has to go right down the center of the line where all the people live. You end up with a district map that looks like a shattered pane of glass, pie wedges out to the edges of the state.

Anyhow, why? Why do people clump up like this in Colorado?

Time for some geography. Yes, I’m going to throw up a map. But not just an outline of the state (any kid can draw a rectangle).

The first thing you’ll notice is a shitload of mountains. The second thing you will notice is a shitload of flat land. Unless you are Arabic or Hebrew, in which case you read from right to left and you’ll pick up on things in the other order.

The transition from prairie–albeit rolling prairie, it’s not flat like Louisiana or Illinois between Chicago and St. Louis–and mountains is quite abrupt. (And these are serious mountains…you guys east of the Mississippi–hell, east of the Kansas state line–just shut up. Your “mountains” are stupid.)

The flat land may be a bit of a surprise to some; Colorado is famous for mountains, not prairie. Well, that’s because a lot of places do “flat,” and as I alluded, many of them do it far better than Colorado. Few places do mountains better than Colorado. We have far more “Fourteeners” (peaks higher than 14,000 feet) than any other state in the “lower 48” for for that matter all of the rest of them put together, even if those assholes in California had to scare up one damn mountain just to beat us.

Not a single fourteener…or thirteener…or twelver…or elevener…or tenner…or niner…or eighter…or sevener is to be found east of the Mississippi. Your tallest “mountain” barely reaches the bottom of my well…and I live in the prairie part of the state. (Like I said, your “mountains” are stupid.)

Many is the tourist, driving to Colorado from the east, who crosses the state line and says “so where are the mountains?” And they drive. And drive. Finally about 90 miles in, they start to see them…and they say, “oh. OH!”

Anyhow, if you live in Colorado, you eventually form a mental map of the state. There’s “the plains” (the eastern 2/5ths of the state). There’s “the mountains” (again obvious–sort of; it usually pertains to the highest bunches, in the southwest and north-central and central parts, where most of the fourteeners are). There’s “the San Luis Valley” which is the large flat area just to the left of center in the south. That IS flat as a plate, surrounded by mountains, about 7700 feet in elevation (well above the stupid eastern “mountains”), and tends to trap cold air during the winter.

But then you hear somewhat more obscure terms, like “Front Range” and “Western Slope.” What? OK, Western Slope is basically the western part of the state, west of the tall mountains where the Continental Divide is; so in general the land slopes downward to the west. The “Front Range” is the very easternmost line of mountains. That’s logical, European settlers came in from the east and that range is “in front of” all the ones beyond it.

But “The Front Range” doesn’t just apply to that particular mountain range, it applies to the line of cities along the Front Range. And that’s why our cities are in a line, they follow the Front Range and are themselves called “the Front Range” as well. The East is empty. In the northeast there’s dryland farming, and on the Arkansas river running east from Pueblo there’s also farming–Rocky Ford is famous for its melons. But population density is low. And that’s true up in the mountains. So basically everyone piles up along the Front Range.

There are some fairly sizeable cities elsewhere…most notably Grand Junction. If you look at the western edge of the map, halfway down you see a river in a flat-bottomed valley. Follow that river to the left/east a bit and it forks. That’s the “Grand Junction” the city is named after. Also, that county (which sort of looks like Idaho, rotated 90 degrees clockwise) is Mesa county, from which Tina Peters hails.

OK, time for another map. This one labels the counties. Because I’m going to have to name names.

You’ll notice that in general small counties are in the mountains, larger ones in flatter areas. And those mountain counties can have very low populations, sometimes less than a thousand people. Why so darn small? Because the original idea was to make sure that no matter where you lived, your county seat was less than a day’s horse ride away. A horse can cover less distance in the mountains. (So we tend to have small counties with even smaller populations.)

El Paso county…that’s the yellow one to the right of dead center…contains Pikes Peak (in that little knob on the western border). It contains Colorado Springs, at the foot of Pikes Peak, and it runs far enough east to contain a lot of that prairie. It is in a neck-and neck race with the City and County of Denver (that rather convoluted green blob a ways to the north of El Paso county–incidentally the north-eastern arm of it is Denver International Airport) for most populous county in the state. It will eventually win, because Denver just doesn’t have space to put lots of people.

El Paso County is pretty darned red, although a blue cancerous tumor has developed in downtown Colorado Springs.

Now for a rundown of the Front Range: Scroll down for a map that shows cities.

South of El Paso county is Pueblo County, old-style Democrat/union territory. Running north from Colorado Springs, you get to Douglas county and the booming town of Castle Rock, which will eventually merge with the Denver metro area. Denver Metro consists of most of Jefferson county, and the western parts of Adams and Arapahoe county, as well as Broomfield and Boulder. When I went to university in Boulder (oh, the Left hated my guts) there was a lot of open land on the highway between Denver and Boulder, and Broomfield was an exit you couldn’t see anything built on–it’s now filled in the whole way. So Boulder tends to think of itself as not part of Denver, but it has been absorbed. Larimer county, the eastern part, is where Fort Collins is located, and that rounds out the Front Range.

Our Congressional Districts

When I was in college, Colorado had five congressional districts. #1 was central Denver Metro. #2 was centered on Boulder but included large parts of Jeffco (as we call Jefferson County), #3 included Pueblo and most of the west, #4 included Fort Collins and most of the east…and #5 was centered on Colorado Springs.

This is largely still true today! Fort Collins has slipped into district 2 now, but other than that, those five districts are pretty much describable the same way now. But we have another three districts and they all ended up in Denver metro, possibly running out into the country. 1 is now pretty much just Denver itself, 6 is suburbs, 8 is suburbs plus the smaller cities running up towards Greeley (a fair amount of agriculture there), and 7 includes the southwest suburbs, but that wasn’t quite enough to make up an eighth of the population of the state so it gobbled up huge parts of the mountains including South Park (yes, that South Park, there really is such a place) to make up the tiny difference. Likewise with 2.

Boebert’s district 3 is, therefore, the “West Plus Pueblo” district. It’s vast; it’s one of the geographically largest congressional districts in the country. And (note), Boulder is nowhere near that district (it is just northwest of Denver, barely inside 2). And District 5, which has been tied to Colorado Springs since it was created, now no longer even covers all of El Paso county.

In fact, district 3 is farther away from Boulder than any other Colorado congressional district. And, alas, I do not live in it.

In closing a bit more fun at lowlanders’ expense.
(Come on, I have Jared Polis for a Governor and Jenna Griswold for a Secretary of State, and our elections are stupid; I gotta take it out on somebody. Why not a bunch of lowland swamp dwellers?*)

(I live for the day some crusty old guy (or gal) in Vermont calls me a “Flatlander,” which apparently is how they insult people from out of state who didn’t elect Bernie Sanders their senator–the insults should run the other way, methinks. Oh, and by the way their “mountains” are stupid.)

*I said lowland swamp dwellers. Not The Swamp that needs draining and gets capitalized.

Going back to physical geography…here’s that map again.

I’ve already mentioned the Colorado River which exits the state on the middle of the western side. That river goes through the Grand Canyon, then down the Arizona-Nevada and Arizona-California border, and then into the Gulf of Cortez (or California).

Running out the northeast corner is the Platte river, which runs along the length of Nebraska; it’s basically the river in Nebraska. It joins the Missouri river, which goes through Kansas City and St. Louis.

The middle of the south, down through the San Luis Valley? That’s the Rio Grande; yes, that Rio Grande, which separates Texas from Mexico, at least when our government will let it.

Out the east, three quarters of the way down, is the Arkansas River, which eventually runs through Tulsa, and Arkansas, and into the Mississippi.

It does seem like most of the Western US is downstream from me. Which should underscore the importance of not pissing me off. Because that runs downhill.

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 $1,682.60
Silver $20.98
Platinum $974.00
Palladium $1,950.00
Rhodium $14,300.00

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

Gold $1,772.30
Silver $21.80
Platinum $1037.00
Palladium $2,132.00
Rhodium $14,450.00

Two words: Holy Shit!!!! Gold up almost 90 bucks! Most of this is since the election.

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!!!

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 !!!

RINOs an Endangered Species?
If Only!

According to Wikipoo, et. al., the Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) is a critically endangered species. Apparently two females live on a wildlife preserve in Sudan, and no males are known to be alive. So basically, this species is dead as soon as the females die of old age. Presently they are watched over by armed guards 24/7.

Biologists have been trying to cross them with the other subspecies, Southern White Rhinoceroses (Rhinoceri?) without success; and some genetic analyses suggest that perhaps they aren’t two subspecies at all, but two distinct species, which would make the whole project a lot more difficult.

I should hope if the American RINO (Parasitus rectum pseudoconservativum) is ever this endangered, there will be heroic efforts not to save the species, but rather to push the remainder off a cliff. Onto punji sticks. With feces smeared on them. Failing that a good bath in red fuming nitric acid will do.

But I’m not done ranting about RINOs.

The RINOs (if they are capable of any introspection whatsoever) probably wonder why they constantly have to deal with “populist” eruptions like the Trump-led MAGA movement. That would be because the so-called populists stand for absolutely nothing except for going along to get along. That allows the Left to drive the culture and politics.

Given the results of our most recent elections, the Left will now push harder, and the RINOs will now turn even squishier than they were before.

I well remember 1989-1990 in my state when the RINO establishment started preaching the message that a conservative simply couldn’t win in Colorado. Never mind the fact that Reagan had won the state TWICE (in 1984 bringing in a veto-proof state house and senate with him) and GHWB had won after (falsely!) assuring everyone that a vote for him was a vote for Reagan’s third term.

This is how the RINOs function. They push, push, push the line that only a “moderate” can get elected. Stomp them when they pull that shit. Tell everyone in ear shot that that’s exactly what the Left wants you to think, and oh-by-the-way-Mister-RINO if you’re in this party selling the same message as the Left…well, whythefuckexactly are you in this party, you lying piece of rancid weasel shit?

Justice

It says “Justice” on the picture.

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

But what is it?

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

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

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

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

—Ayn Rand Lexicon (aynrandlexicon.com)

Justice Must Be Done.

Trump, it is supposed, had some documents.

Biden and company stole the country.

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

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

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

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

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

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

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

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

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

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

Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1,658.90
Silver $19.52
Platinum $941.00
Palladium $2,096.00
Rhodium $15,000.00

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

Gold $1,646.70
Silver $19.34
Platinum $952.00
Palladium $1,981.00
Rhodium $15,000.00

Everything is down except rhodium, which hasn’t budged. Relatively speaking palladium is the big loser, dropping over 5 percent and falling through the $2000 barrier.

The Eagle in The Nebula

A number of people seemed to have trouble seeing the eagle in M-16 the Eagle Nebula.

(M-16 stands for Messier 16; Charles Messier was an astronomer in the 1700s who was interested in comets. He made a list of about 100 objects in the sky that were not comets because he kept hitting them over and over. M-16 is one of that list. It’s also redundantly listed as NGC 6611 (there are exactly 7000 objects in the New General Catalog…which isn’t all that new anymore having been compiled in 1888). NGC objects were typically nebulae, only about 40 years later did they realize that many of the nebulae were actually galaxies.

Anyhow, here’s a picture of the Eagle Nebula similar to what you’d see in a really BIG earthbound telescope, without any false colors. (You’d probably, even so, need a long camera exposure.)

What you can see, even in a dinky little six inch (diameter!) telescope is the central structure (and absolutely no color at all). Most of the orange area is basically black, the blue area looks white. (I know this, because that’s what I see in my dinky little six inch telescope.) You can see the three “pillars of creation” there, but note that the one on the left, the tallest, is less visible than the other two. So what you see is a zig-zag and that bit off to the right that looks like a T on its side.

OK, so I said something like “turn it 90 degrees clockwise to see the eagle” and that still didn’t work for some people so I did five minutes of really crappy drawing with a mouse to produce:

Which I hope makes it clearer. It’s not a perfectly well proportioned eagle like the actual eagles at the top of the Saturday posts, but it’s there nonetheless. (There’s no freaking way the talons should be in front of the wings, just for instance; wings are the forelimbs, the legs are the rear limbs.)

It’s one of those things that once seen, cannot be unseen.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

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

Remember Hong Kong!!!

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

China is in the White House

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

Joe Biden is Asshoe

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

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

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