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.

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

Fun Quote

(HT Aubergine)

This is amazing. This is glorious. Summon a surgeon – it’s been a little over a week and you’re supposed to call the doctor after just four hours.

From Kurt Schlichter, who can certainly write a good rant (https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2025/01/30/trumps-winning-streak-is-totally-discombobulating-the-democrats-n2651308)

Yep, Kurt has noticed that lots of people are getting twanging schadenböners.

And you do not have to be male to get this kind of böner.

Hat tip to Scott (I think–if it wasn’t Scott it was 4GodAndCountry) for this video, which implies a LOT of schadenböners in our future.

[WOLF EDIT – for whatever reason this YouTube video no longer embeds, even as the shortened URL (below), so I have converted both URLs to links which open up in a new tab.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFGOddatJVku0026amp;pp=ygUfc293IHRoZSB3aW5kIHJlYXAgdGhlIHdoaXJsd2luZA%3D%3D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFGOddatJVku0026amp

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 (all prices Kitco bid/ask):

Gold $0,000.00/0,000.00
Silver $00.00/00.00
Platinum $0,00.00/$0,000.00
Palladium $0,000.00/0,000.00
Rhodium $0,000.00/0,000.00
FRNSI* 000.000±
Gold:Silver 000.000±

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

Gold $0,000.00/0,000.00
Silver $00.00/00.00
Platinum $0,00.00/$0,000.00
Palladium $0,000.00/0,000.00
Rhodium $0,000.00/0,000.00
FRNSI* 000.000±
Gold:Silver 000.000±

[Blah, blah, blah.]

*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) is a measure of how much the dollar has inflated. It’s the ratio of the current price of gold, to the number of dollars an ounce of fine gold made up when the dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of 0.900 gold. That worked out to an ounce being $20.67+71/387 of a cent. (Note gold wasn’t worth this much back then, thus much gold was $20.67 71/387ths. It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67 back then, it was $20.67.) Once this ratio is computed, 1 is subtracted from it so that the number is zero when the dollar is at its proper value, indicating zero suckage.

The Unit You (Probably) Never Heard Of

It’s oftentimes convenient for people in technical fields to think in terms of ratios. For instance, a translucent object might block 90 percent of the light that goes through it.

It makes no sense to talk about the object blocking so-and-so many lumens, because how much it blocks depends on how bright the light source is. But it does make sense to say something like “it blocks 90 percent of the light that goes through it.” Or that it “transmits ten percent of the light that goes through it.” You could write down that its “transmissivity” is 0.1. The problem is that the “transmissivity” could be some really low number, like one over a billion, 0.000000001.

To make the numbers more manageable, use logarithms. 0.1 is 1×10^-1, so say the transmissivity is -1. And in the second case, you’re dealing with 1×10^-9, so the transmissivity is -9. And you could call the unit the “bel.” So a transmissivity of -1 bel, or -9 bel.

Convenience like this is not quite sufficient reason to justify using a logarithm instead of a “straight” number, though. But it does make sense to do it this way for other reasons. For example, if you’re dealing with a light source, or a signal, going through multiple things that cause a loss, it turns out you multiply the losses together. Going through two translucent objects each of which have a transmissivity of -1 bel, thus each blocking 90 percent of the light, leaves you with one percent–the first object reduces to ten percent, and the second reduces to ten percent of what’s left over, i.e., ten percent of ten percent, which is to say one percent, total transmissivity -2 bels…which is the sum of the two individual transmissivities (-1 each).

But the fact of the matter is, we don’t use bels for this sort of thing. We use units one tenth that size, i.e., decibels. A tenfold reduction is given as -10 decibels (dB), not -1 bel (B). It turns out that -3 dB is roughly 1/2; -6 dB is roughly 1/2*1/2=1/4, -9 dB is 1/8th. Electrical engineers and technicians often deal with losses (and sometimes boosts to signals) and work in decibels all the time, and will often refer to a doubling (or halving) as 3dB.

Photographers work in “stops”–a stop is a doubling or halving of the light hitting the film or sensor–you can go a stop higher by doubling the exposure or changing the aperture by a factor of 1.4 (aperture is an area, so making it 40 percent wider makes it twice as big). So one “stop” is 3dB. If your camera can adjust exposure in thirds of a stop, it’s working in single decibels–unbeknownst to almost all photographers.

Absolute strengths, like say electrical is sometimes characterized in “dBm”–decibels compared to a milliwatt. A ten watt source is “40 dBm” because it’s 10,000 milliwatts and that’s 40 decibels above a milliwatt.

But one of the most common uses of decibels in in something called the “Signal to Noise Ratio” (SNR). Compare the strength of the signal you want to receive–say a radio transmission–and compare it to the strength of the static (noise). You get a ratio; maybe the signal is eight times stronger than the static. Turn that into decibels, and your SNR is 9 dB. If the two levels are identical, SNR is 0 db (not 1).

I didn’t write this section to add to the science series, but rather to explain why I am now about to tell you to…

Consider It Permanent

Before I continue, while you all are still not boiling mad at me, I want to give a loud shoutout to TheseTruths. TheseTruths is the best at identifying logical fallacies and pushing back on the BS that all people sometimes bring here, but some people always bring here. I do not except myself. TheseTruths is better at this than I am. Sometimes I’d read something, it would peg my bullshit meter, but I couldn’t tell why; at least not in a way I could put into words. TheseTruths would often post, identifying exactly why.

You all would do well to emulate These Truths. I hope you can. If Q was there to teach us how to think, then we should think well and not just latch onto whatever bullshit is tossed out there that fits our prejudices.

Anyhow, to start the story, clear back in the Spring, I anticipated working on a big project running into August and decided to curtail writing science posts until then.

In hindsight, though I didn’t know it at the time, the beginning of the end was when two…individuals…decided that because I don’t think it’s a good idea for Iran to have a nuke, I must therefore be more loyal to Israel than the United States. (No, you fucking morons, it’s because I consider an Iranian nuke a threat to the US. And so does President Trump. Is he a Zionist?)

One of the two is a very prolific poster, mostly bullshit, but occasionally I would respond to something that wasn’t just a long discursive dump from the paste buffer. I liked this individual in spite of the bullshit. Not any more; even after all these weeks I have nothing but contempt for her.

My recent total absence from this site starting a couple of weeks later, however, was because I was sick of the histrionics being engaged in at the time (I didn’t say so then, but it was the histrionics over Epstein). There’s no particular reason why that should be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It wasn’t that bad. But in hindsight, it was just sheer luck in timing; I was close to the big “Fuck It” already thanks to the shitbags; this just pushed me over the line.

I thought I simply needed to go away for a while; I fully intended to come back, eventually. I was running out of time for the project anyway, so it was just as well.

I could tell you that the project was a success–but frankly, I doubt anyone will care by the time they get done reading this.

Because a funny thing happened about two weeks after I went completely absent (and well before the last minute crunch on the project).

I realized that on the whole I simply don’t miss this place.

There ARE individual people that I do miss, but the site as a whole? The SNR is less than zero.

It is unfortunate that I must leave some of you in the position of wondering whether I considered you part of the problem–that’s assuming of course that you’re not towering mad at me right now and don’t care what I think.

But I’ll say that the overwhelming majority of you aren’t. There are good people here, but you’re drowned out by noise from prolific noisemakers.

At the end of the day, the sad fact is that thanks to a very few this place had become a poor use of my time, and I find now I have time to do other things. Relaxing things, or productive things. I can even read a book!

And I honestly feel the same way I felt when I stopped watching network TV entertainment; like I’ve given up something addictive, time-sucking, and mind-impairing. A sad comment for a site that’s supposed to be about getting people to think. Instead we drown in propaganda brought by our own people, we drown in endless argumentation, and we also risk locking ourselves into a bubble of unreality.

So…to make it plain, I am Out Of Here, not just as an author but as a commenter, and I am sure the celebration by most will be deafening.

I don’t expect I’ll ever be back, and I doubt I will ever be welcome back.

Farewell.