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

January 6 Tapes?

Where are the tapes? Anyone, Anyone? Bueller? Johnson??

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

Boebert Day

Friday was the day that delegates from all over Colorado’s 4th Congressional District met to designate a candidate. This is Ken B*ck’s old district. Lauren Boebert who now represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District, has moved into this district believing that she has a better chance of winning here. Her election in 2022 was the closest race for Congress anywhere in the United States; she won by a few hundred votes.

OK a bit of personal background. I live in El Paso county; that’s the one where Colorado Springs is located. It’s actually the most populous county in Colorado (even beating out the City and County of Denver). As a result of the last census, Colorado gained an eighth house seat and everything got redistricted. My old congressional district, 5 (Doug Lamborn, who is also leaving) had formerly included El Paso County and a bunch of smaller surrounding counties, now CD5 can’t even cover the whole county. A bit on the west side of the county got shaved off and given to CD 7, my piece on the east, on the prairie, got shaved off and handed over to CD4.

Finding myself in Ken B*ck’s district I have said several times that I wished I were in Boebert’s district. With her making this move…well now I am…but first she has to win the election!

It’s a near certainty that the Republican nominee will win the district; the problem is to ensure that Lauren Boebert becomes the nominee.

I was an alternate to this assembly but did manage to fill in for someone who didn’t show, so now delegate SteveInCO had the opportunity to vote.

Four candidates were vying for the nomination at the assembly. Boebert, some guy named Ted Harvey, someone else named Richard Holtorf and yet another named Jerry Sonnenberg.

As it turns out, the other three are verifiable RINOs with scores in the 60s (100=perfect conservative) though in the case of Harvey I had to talk to another former state legislator who worked with him to find it out; his term was too long ago.

Of course every single one of them talked a good game…Did you know that they are all ranchers? No? You would within five minutes of arriving at the assembly; every one of their signs said “rancher” on it.

An observer from Mars would be forgiven for concluding, on the basis of their speeches, that all four were equally conservative. (This is why listening to the speeches is pointless. However, IF you’ve been around long enough to know who the old retired RINOs are, you can sometimes figure things out by watching WHO is doing the nominating.)

So after the speeches it was time to vote. (And yes one of the other three went out of his way to say he wasn’t a carpetbagger from Rifle, and I could hear people’s surprise that he would attempt to call out Boebert that way; generally candidates at these things do not sling mud at each other.)

And at 12:20 on Friday, April 5, I happily cast my ballot for Lauren Boebert.

That felt good.

And it has been many years I could feel good casting a ballot (with the exception of the presidential primary on Super Tuesday).

So here’s the deal. To get to go to this assembly, you must attend precinct caususes; each precinct is assigned a number of delegates in proportion to the number of people who voted for the Republican candidate for governor the last gubernatorial election. (That really should be spelled goober-natorial.) At the caucus they vote for people to go. I failed to get into this (but did get into county and state house level assemblies) but secured an alternate slot. If enough people from my county failed to show up I could replace one of them. As it happens, out of 7 delegates total, one did not show up, and I was the only alternate from my county, and I got “elevated”…and so I got to vote for Boebert. (El Paso County, the 900 lb gorilla of the state, only had 7 delegates here…because only a tiny sliver of the county got put into this congressional district.)

OK so here are the rules: only candidates who get 30 percent of the vote are considered “designated” and will appear on the primary ballot. UNLESS the candidate also gets an adequate number of signatures by petition, in which case the threshold is ten percent. This is a major problem, as I will explain below.

In any case the final vote tally (with 159 votes being 30 percent, or 53 votes being ten percent) is: Boebert 215, Ted Harvey 135, Richard Holtorf 81, and Jerry Sonnenberg getting 96 votes. So only Lauren Boebert would appear on the primary ballot.

Except for those damn petitions.

Under Colorado law, you can petition onto the primary ballot and completely bypass these assemblies. Almost every incumbent GOP politician does this; they’re generally despised by the party grassroots because…they’re RINOs. Or you can petition AND go to the assembly and be designated with only ten percent of the vote.

In this case, Harvey did not petition at all, so he is out of the race, and good riddance. However Holtorf and Sonnenberg did petition (perhaps unsuccessfully, I don’t know yet) and therefore WILL be on the ballot if they were successful.

There is at least one other candidate, Flora (I don’t know if that’s a first or last name) who petitioned on and did not go through the assembly; she (?) will be on the primary ballot. There may be others.

The one bit of good news is that assembly winners go on the ballot above the petitioners.

The reason I said petitioning is a problem is that Incumbent politicians use the petition process to circumvent the party grassroots. They don’t have to pay any attention to us whatsoever; they hire someone to gather signatures for them, they end up on the primary ballot with no indication of how they got there (other than they aren’t top line on the ballot), and because of name recognition they win the primary, again. Petitioning needs to either be ditched, or require a 20% showing at the relevant assembly. But this will never happen, the incumbents know they can’t get re-elected without the petition process, so it will remain required by law, because they won’t change the law.

Other races decided on Friday were state school board…where a RINO and a good candidate ended up almost tied, so both will be on the primary ballot, and my house district (at a totally separate meeting), where there were two good people and one RINO, however his home base county (whose people he has snookered) had half of the delegates in that assembly. So it was a 50-25-25 split and the RINO will be on the ballot unopposed (no petitioners for this race). The incumbent, by the way, is a RINO who has brain cancer; he opted not to run.

I still have the (unused because unnecessary) second round ballot from the House 4th CD race; it’s going to become a treasured souvenir of the first time I got to vote for Lauren Boebert. I even have a picture of it:

Saturday (today) will be the election of RNC committee people; three candidates, the incumbent talks too much about being Hispanic and endorsed RINO McDaniel in 2022 (HELL NO!), of the two others, one has managed to turn Pueblo County red (former union democrat stronghold) and will get my vote. The third one has been spamming me a lot (almost as much as the incumbent) and I’ve been ignoring her.

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 $2,234.00
Silver $25.04
Platinum $918.00
Palladium $1,038.00
Rhodium $5,150.00

This week, markets closed as of 3PM MT.

Gold $2,330.20
Silver $27.54
Platinum $936.00
Palladium $1,026.00
Rhodium $5,150.00

Gold has been going up, and up, and up. It touched $2300 on Wednesday, dipped on Thursday, and more than made up for the dip on Friday. And Silver Finally Woke Up. It was $2.50 over the previous week, just shy of a ten percent increase. (Gold went up less than five percent.)

Gold is well 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. Does that mean the dollar is worth a real penny? I would say it probably has more purchasing power than a cent did in the 1920s, but then we’ve gotten better at producing things…what you should see with stable money is a decline in prices as we get more productive. Instead we get a steady inflation. Sometimes very strong, but never do prices trend down. Gee, I wonder what that could be about.

(I think we all know.)

The Eclipse

Of course the big news in the hard sciences is the upcoming solar eclipse.

I won’t belabor what an eclipse is…especially since I did so a few months ago in a combined Annular/Total article: https://www.theqtree.com/2023/09/30/2023%C2%B709%C2%B730-joe-biden-didnt-win-daily-thread/ .

But I will show this map of the path of the eclipse.

A bit of a joke there but it highlights the point that only totality is going to be something more than mildly interesting. If you can get to that O! M! G! stripe, do so; the closer to the center the better.

Weather is looking bad through all of Texas with slightly better chances of good weather near the border with Mexico. But chances are, we’ll have this to say on Tuesday.

As has been pointed out a solar eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth roughly every 18 months or so. These are not rare events in that sense. But it can be centuries between occurrences at any one particular spot on Earth, so they seem like truly unusual events. Most people must travel to see one during their lifetimes. (And some make it their rather expensive hobby to try to see them all; these people are called “eclipse chasers.”)

Well I am part eclipse chaser. I’m going to this just in case the weather turns out better than expected.

See you on the 9th.

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: 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 !!!