|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Moving industrialization offshore can look like a good idea at first. But as fossil fuel energy supplies deplete, this strategy works less well. Countries doing the mining and manufacturing may be less interested in trading. Also, the broken supply lines of 2020 and 2021 showed that transferring major industries offshore could lead to empty shelves in stores, plus unhappy customers.
The United States started moving industry offshore in 1974 (Figure 1) in response to spiking oil prices in 1973-1974 (Figure 2).
Industry is based on the use of fossil fuels. Electricity also plays a role, but it is more like the icing on the cake than the basis of industrial production. Industry is polluting in many ways, so it was an “easy sell” to move industry offshore. But now the United States is realizing that it needs to re-industrialize. At the same time, we are being told about the need to transition the entire economy to electricity to prevent climate change.
In this post, I will try to explain the situation–how fossil fuel prices have spiked many times, including 1973-1974 (oil) and more recently (coal in 2022). I will also discuss the key role fossil fuels play. Because of the key role of fossil fuels, a reduction in per-capita fossil fuel consumption likely leads to a transition to fewer goods and services, on average, per person. A transition to all electricity does not seem to be feasible. Instead, we seem to be headed for increased geopolitical conflict and the possibility of a financial crash seems greater.
[1] When fossil fuel supplies become constrained, prices tend to spike to high levels, and then fall back again.
Economists and energy analysts have tended to assume that fossil fuel prices would rise to very high levels, allowing extraction of huge amounts of difficult-to-extract fossil fuels. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) in the past has shown forecasts of future oil production assuming that inflation-adjusted oil prices will rise to $300 per barrel.
Instead of rising to a very high level, fossil fuel prices tend to spike because there is a two-way contest between the price the consumers can afford and the price the sellers need to keep reinvesting in new fields to keep fossil fuel supplies increasing. Prices oscillate back and forth, with neither buyers nor sellers finding themselves very happy with the situation. The current price of the benchmark, Brent oil, is $81.
[2] Historical data shows spiking oil and coal prices.
When world oil prices started to spike in the 1973-1974 period, the US started to move its industrial production offshore (Figure 1). The very low inflation-adjusted prices that prevailed up until 1972 no longer held. Manufacturing costs climbed higher. Consumers wanted smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and such cars were already being manufactured both in Europe and in Japan. Importing these cars made sense.
More recently, coal prices have begun to spike. Coal prices vary by location, but the general patterns are similar for the types of coal shown.
Before China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, coal prices tended to be below $50 per ton (figure 3). At that price, coal was a very inexpensive fuel for making steel and concrete, and for many other industrial uses.
After China joined the WTO, China’s coal consumption soared (Figure 4), allowing it to industrialize. Figure 3 shows that the extra demand initially pushed coal prices up a little. By 2022, coal prices had soared. At present, coal prices are part-way back down, perhaps partly because higher interest rates are dampening world demand for coal.
Natural gas prices also soared in 2022, at the same time as coal prices. Both coal and natural gas are fuels that are burned to produce electricity. When the coal supply is constrained, utilities will try to purchase more electricity produced by burning natural gas. However, it is difficult to store much natural gas for future use. Thus, a shortage of internationally traded coal can simultaneously lead to a shortage of internationally traded natural gas.
Having oil, coal, and natural gas prices spiking at the same time leads to inflation and to many unhappy citizens.
[3] The 1997 Kyoto Protocol encouraged the trend toward moving industry to lower-cost countries.
In Figure 1, I show a dotted line at 1997. At that time, an international treaty stating that the participating countries would limit their own CO2 emissions attracted a lot of attention. An easy way to limit CO2 emissions was by moving industry overseas. Even though the US did not sign the treaty until later, the treaty gave the US a reason to move industry overseas. We can see from Figure 1 that US industrialization, as measured by the energy per capita required to industrialize, began to fall even more rapidly after 1997.
[4] There were many reasons besides the Kyoto Protocol why Advanced Economies would want to move industry overseas.
There were many reasons to move industry overseas besides spiking oil prices and concern over CO2 levels. With such a change, customers in the US (and European countries making a similar change) gained access to lower-cost goods and services. With the money the customers could save, they were able to buy more discretionary goods and services, which helped to ramp up local economies.
Also, industry tends to be polluting. Smog tends to be problem if coal is burned, or if diesel with high sulfur content is burned. Mining tends to produce a lot of toxic waste. Moving this pollution offshore to poorer countries would solve the pollution problem without the high cost of attempting to capture this pollution and properly store it.
Furthermore, business-owners in the United States could sense the opportunity to grow to be truly international in size if they moved much of their industry overseas.
[5] All the globalization and moving of industry overseas had a downside: more wage and wealth disparity.
In a matter of a few years, the economy changed to provide fewer high-paying factory jobs in the United States. Increasingly, those without advanced education found it difficult to provide an adequate living for their families. The high incomes were disproportionately going to highly educated workers and the owners of capital goods (Figure 5).
[6] Part of what caused the growing wage and wealth disparities in Figure 5 was the growing industrialization of China (Figure 6).
China, with its growing industrialization, could outcompete whole industries, such as furniture-making and garment-making, leaving US workers to find lower-paid jobs in the service sector. Similar outcomes unfolded in the EU and Japan, as industrialization started moving to different parts of the world.
[7] The indirect impact of the Kyoto Protocol was to move CO2 emissions slightly away from the Advanced Nations. Overall, CO2 emissions rose.
Anyone who expected that the 1997 Kyoto Protocol would reduce world CO2 emissions would have been disappointed.
[8] The direct use of fossil fuels plays a far more important role in the economy than we have ever been taught.
Thanks to the direct use of fossil fuels, the world can have paved roads, bridges made of steel, and electricity transmission lines. It can have concrete. It can have pharmaceutical products, herbicides, and insecticides. Many of these benefits come from the chemical properties of fossil fuels. Electricity, by itself, could never provide these products since it has been stripped of the chemical benefits of fossil fuels. Electricity is also difficult to store.
With the benefit of fossil fuels, the world can also have high-quality steel, with precisely the composition desired by those making it. With only electricity, it is possible to use electric arc furnaces to recycle used steel, but such steel is limited both in quantity and quality. US production of steel amounts to 5% of world supply (primarily using electric arc furnaces), while China’s production (mostly using coal) amounts to 50% of world supply.
I highly recommend reading the article, Trapped in the Iron Age, by Kris De Decker. He explains that the world uses an enormous amount of steel, but most of it is hidden in places we can’t see. Today, with the US’s limited steel-making capability, the US needs to import most of its steel, including steel pipes from China to drill its oil wells. We cannot see how dependent we have become on other countries for our basic steel needs.
China and India have both based their recent growth primarily on rising coal consumption. This is what has kept world CO2 emissions high. The US is now exporting coal to these countries.
[9] Citizens of Advanced Economies are easily confused about the importance of fossil fuel use because they have never been taught about the subject and because their worldview is distorted by the narrow view they see from within their homes and offices.
Figure 8 shows that the sector with the highest share of electricity use is the commercial sector. This includes uses such as stores, offices, and hospitals. The most visible energy use is lighting and operating computers, which gives the perception that electricity is the greatest energy use. But these businesses also need to be heated, and heat is often produced by burning natural gas directly. Businesses also need back-up for their electrical systems. Such back-up is typically provided by diesel-powered generators.
Residential usage is similar. It is easy to see the use of electricity, but heat is generally needed during winter. This is often provided by natural gas or propane. Natural gas is also often used in hot water heaters, stoves, and clothes dryers. Occasionally, wood is used to heat homes; this would go into the non-electricity portion, as well.
The thing that most people do not realize is that industrial use and transportation use are extremely large sectors of the economy (Figure 9), and these sectors are very low consumers of electricity (Figure 8). Also, if the US and Europe were to re-industrialize to produce more of our manufactured goods, our industrial sectors would need to be much larger than they are today.
In recent years, electrical consumption as a percentage of total energy consumption for the industrial sector has averaged about 13% of the total (Figure 9). Industries typically need high heat levels; such heat can usually be achieved at lowest cost by burning fossil fuels directly. Wikipedia claims, “Electric arc steelmaking is only economical where there is plentiful, reliable electricity, with a well-developed electrical grid.” An electric grid, powered only by intermittent electricity from wind turbines and solar panels, would not qualify.
In Figure 8, electricity consumption as a percentage of total energy consumption for the US transportation sector rounds to 0%, for every year. Even the amount of biomass (ethanol and biodiesel) used by the transportation sector doesn’t have much of an impact, as shown in Figure 10.
A major issue is that transportation is a broad sector, including trucks, trains, planes, and boats, in addition to private passenger autos. Also, I expect that the only electricity that would be considered in the transportation energy calculation would be electricity purchased from an away-from-home charging facility. Electricity used when charging at home would likely be part of residential electricity consumption.
[9] The narrative saying that we can transition to an electricity-only economy, powered by intermittent wind and solar electricity, has major holes in it.
One major issue is that the pricing of wind and solar tends to drive out other electricity providers, particularly nuclear. Intermittent wind and solar are given “priority” when they are available. This leads to very low or negative prices for other electricity providers. Nuclear is particularly affected because it cannot ramp up and down, in response to prices that are far below its cost of production.
Nuclear is a far more stable source of electricity than either wind or solar, and it is also a low-carbon source. As a result, economies end up worse off, in terms of electricity supply per capita, and in stability of available supply, when wind and solar are added.
Another issue is that wind turbines and solar panels are made with fossil fuels and repaired using fossil fuels. Without fossil fuels, we cannot maintain electricity transmission lines and roads. Thus, wind turbines and solar panels are as much a part of the fossil fuel system as hydroelectric electricity and electricity made from coal or natural gas.
Also, as discussed above, only a small share of the economy is today operated using electricity. The IEA says that 20% of 2023 world energy supply comes from electricity. The amounts I calculated as “Overall” in Figure 8 indicate an electricity share of 18%, which is a bit less than the IEA is indicating for the world. Figure 8 shows an early upward trend in this ratio, but no upward trend since 2012. Fossil fuels are being used today because they have chemical characteristics that are needed or because they provide the energy services required in a less expensive manner than electricity.
Even in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, wind and waterpower provided only a small portion of the total energy supply. Coal provided the heat energy that both industry and residences needed, inexpensively. Wind and waterpower were not well adapted to providing heat energy when needed.
If we are short of inexpensive-to-extract fossil fuels, relative to today’s large population, we certainly could use some new inexpensive source of stable electricity supply. But this would not solve all our energy problems–we would still need a substantial amount of fossil fuel supplies to grow our food and keep our roads repaired. But if a new type of electricity production could reduce the demand for fossil fuels, it would make a larger quantity of fossil fuels available for other purposes.
[10] Practically everyone would like a happily-ever-after ending, so it is easy for politicians, educators, and the news media to put together overly optimistic versions of the future.
The narrative that CO2 is the world’s biggest enemy, so we need to move quickly away from fossil fuels, has received a great deal of publicity recently, but it is problematic from two different points of view:
(a) The feasibility of moving away from fossil fuels without killing off a very major portion of the world’s population seems to be virtually zero. The world economy is a dissipative structure in physics terms. It needs energy of the right kinds to “dissipate,” just as humans are dissipative structures and need food to dissipate (digest). Humans cannot live on lettuce alone, or practically any other foodstuff by itself. We need a “portfolio” of foods, adapted to our bodies’ needs. The economy is similar. It cannot operate only on electricity, any more than humans can live only on high-priced icing for cakes.
(b) The narrative about the importance of CO2 emissions with respect to climate change is quite possibly exaggerated. There are many other things that would seem to be at least as likely to cause short-term shifts in temperatures:
- Lack of global dimming caused by less coal dust and reduced sulfur compounds in the atmosphere; in other words, reducing smog tends to raise temperatures.
- Small changes in the Earth’s orbit
- Changes in solar activity
- Changes related to volcanic eruptions
- Changes related to shifts in the magnetic north and south poles
Politicians, educators, and the news media would all like a narrative that can explain the need for moving away from fossil fuels, rather than admit that “our easy to extract fossil fuel supply is running out.” The climate change narrative has been an easy approach to highlight, since clearly the climate is changing. It also provides the view that somehow we will be able to fix the problem if we take it seriously enough.
[11] Today, we are in a period of conflict among nations, indirectly related to not having access to enough fossil fuels for a world population of 8 billion. There is also a significant chance of financial collapse.
In my opinion, today’s world is a little like the “Roaring 20s” that came shortly before a major stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. After the Great Depression, the world entered World War II. There is huge wage and wealth disparity; energy supplies per capita are stretched.
Today, NATO and Russia are fighting a proxy war in Ukraine. Russia is a major fossil fuel producer; it would like to be paid more for the energy products it sells. Russia could perhaps get better prices by selling oil and other energy products to Asian customers instead of its current customer mix. At the same time, the US claims primary leadership (hegemony) in the world but, in fact, it needs to import many goods from overseas. It even needs supply lines from around the world for weapons being sent to Ukraine. The Ukraine conflict is not going well for the US.
I do not know how this will work out. I am hoping that there will not be a World War III, in the same way that there was a World War II. All countries are terribly dependent on each other, even though there are not enough fossil fuels to go around. Perhaps countries will try to sabotage one another, using modern techniques, such as cyber warfare.
I think that there is a substantial chance of a major financial collapse in the next few years. The level of debt is very high now. A major recession, with lots of collapsing debt, seems to be a strong possibility.
[12] A presentation I recently gave to a group of actuaries that touches on several of these issues, plus others.
My presentation can be found at this link: Beware: The Economy Is Beginning to Shrink
EIA has posted an estimate on world crude oil production for last February (82.219 mb/d) — this is below their figure for February 2023 (82.525 mb/d) — so, might 2023 have been post-covid peak oil (https://davecoop.net/seneca), with “petro dollar” prices sagging lately (http://oil-price.net/)?
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1706745600000
82 mbpd of black goo crude oil.
that is a beautiful thing.
we probably lived through the final peak, lucky us.
the downslope of your Seneca graph isn’t too bad up to 2030, and there is a chance that the decline through 2040 will not be as steep as projected.
or it could be worse.
acceptance that the world may have near zero oil by 2040 or 2050.
que sera sera.
Not to worry when the solar power satellites are beaming back terrawatts of power we will have no energy shortage.
SPS may produce electricity at some point. To make liquid fuels at the price we are accustomed to, electricity must be very cheap. Perhaps unrealistically cheap.
Thanks for the tip about February data. I consider population to be important as well. It is fairly certain that population is still rising. Therefore, declining oil production in addition to rising population is a particular problem.
If we look at annual data through February for Crude Oil, this is what we get:
2017 81,203
2018 82,930
2019 82,124
2020 75,986
2021 77,177
2022 80,820
2023 81,793
So 2018 is still the highest year. The production for 2023 is between that for 2017 and 2018. It may not go higher, based on what you are saying.
For total liquids, 2023 is the highest yet at 101,812 thousand bpd. The corresponding amount for 2018 was 100,416.
Crude & condensates for Feb 2024 is lower than it was in Feb 2018, all of 6 years ago. In fact, crude and condensate production hasn’t shown a sustained increase for nearly 10 years. It has been on a bumpy plateau for all of that time.
and that bumpy plateau has been a great thing.
too bad it won’t last much longer.
” The most obvious way to start assessing the progress of the required energy transition is to look at what has been accomplished during the past generation when the concerns about global decarbonization assumed a new urgency and prominence. Contrary to common impressions, there has been no absolute worldwide decarbonization. In fact, the very opposite is the case. The world has become much more reliant on fossil carbon (even as its relative share has declined a bit). We are now halfway between 1997 (27 years ago) when delegates of nearly 200 nations met in Kyoto to agree on commitments to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, and 2050; the world has 27 years left to achieve the goal of decarbonizing the global energy system, a momentous divide judging by the progress so far, or the lack of it.”?
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/halfway-between-kyoto-and-2050.pdf
Thanks for the link. Vaclav Smil is far more able than I would be to calculate how unreasonable getting to Net 0 by 2050 is as a goal.
I have used numbers from Vaclav Smil in my long-term analyses. I met him in person once, also.
“How ‘Israel’ Has Lost The North”?
https://indi.ca/israel-has-lost-the-north/#ghost-comments
Interesting:
It sounds like Hezbollah from Lebanon has taken the northern part of Israel and Palestine. This is the map:
https://indi.ca/content/images/2024/06/northern-border.webp
Israel us going to use their enhanced radiation weapons to wipe out Hezbollah very soon. They will be used semi covertly amongst conventional weapons with tight kill zones that they immediately occupy. Expand up to the next river. Hezbollah is dug in. There is no other capability that will remove Hezbollah.
There is very little will for the alternative. A cease fire in Gaza and letting the trucks roll in. THe leaders dont want that and most of the people dont want that. Bidens ceasefire plan just went poof. Hear much about it? Not going to happen.
Israel hasn’t lost northern Israel; it has cleared it for a kill zone. High ranking IDF tell south Lebanese to leave to the north.
They lost the north. What a stupendously stupid thing to say. They have enhanced radiation weapons specifically designed for this. Civillians are cleared from the area on the Israeli side. They couldn’t have taken Hezbollah before even before Gaza. They have lost 25% of their tanks in Gaza.
Israel tried twice in 2006. Both times they got their popo wracked..Hezbollah has everything dialed in 10x over. They have real antitank weapons, not RPGs made in a tunnel from old unexploded bombs. As fast as Israel has deployed defensive systems like TROPHY they have countered.
Theres only one way to take Hezbollah down, and lo and behold they got that way. They created it specifically for Hezbollah. The area is cleared to use it. You just might want to pay attention when a nuclear armed military does that. My guess after their self-professed best friend comes in, in January.
An enhanced radiation weapon blast is the same as a conventional explosive bomb. There is no fallout. Residual radiation is tiny. No one is going to say nothing.. where’s the proof? Conspiracy nuts. But Hezbollah gonna fall down go boom. They come out to fight they get hit again. They will use dozens. There’s not going to be any reporters. Hezbollah will still put up a fight but you cant beat nuetron bombs.
We’re talking a very small piece of dirt here. No one is going to say nothing. Everyone will know what happened. Just like everyone knows exactly what is happening in Gaza right now.
If Iran steps in that’s even better as far as Israel’s concerned. Thermonuclear gets used there. You think they won’t? Does any sane thinking person that understands they have created these weapons for the express circumstances we witness think they wont be deployed?
I am afraid that you might be right. Where do you get all your ideas from? Are other people saying this?
I would first like to say I have had several Israeli friends and many Jewish friends and girlfriends. They are just people trying to do their best.
My understanding of Israeli nuclear capabilities came from about 20 years ago when I developed an interest. All open source of course.
For one thing I never understood why the US abandoned enhanced Radiation weapons. Why would you abandon weapons that have a tight small kill zone with little blast or fallout? I’m not sure they actually did but they may have not wanted to clue Russia what they were doing.
I developed an interest in the area. After all this was the holy land. I was gung ho. We will March up the Beqqa valley.
Hersch’s book has a lot of great information on the specifics of how the nuclear program progresses and was ignored by administrations after JFK. JFK was pushing Israel hard for inspections of Dimona. At that time Israel’s nuclear program was a secret. Successive administrations ignored it even though the intelligence agencies knew what was happening. It was ignored even when the Vela satellite caught one of the three of Israel’s nuclear tests off the coast of South Africa.
The biggest reveal of Israel’s nuclear capabilities came from a Jewish Moroccan whistleblower who worked at Dimona. We were actually lucky to get that information. It was first presented to the wealthy publisher Robert Maxwell, (Ghislane Maxwell’s father), and he tried to quash it hard. Mossad kidnapped the whistleblower out of the UK and no one said anything. He spent 20 years in prison.
But the jig was up. Israel’s nuclear arsenal including their focus on neutron bombs was revealed. The majorities of the weapons at that time were delivered from 155mm howitzers. I’m sure they are air delivered now.
For whatever reason, Iran is Israel’s main foe. There are reasons for this as you consider the three main geographical origins of Israel Sephardic, Ashkenazi,and Mizhadi but that’s another topic. In older times Egypt and Syria were greater threats, and the primary close threat is now Iran’s proxy Hezbollah which is quasi government in south Lebanon. The actual Lebanon military in Beirut might be considered neutral.
Regardless, neutron bombs or enhanced radiation weapons were natural products of Israel’s nuclear weapons programs because they were so close. Enhanced radiation weapons have very little of the blast of thermonuclear weapons. They kill by the wave of neutron radiation they emit and this can be controlled with great accuracy. The small kill zone can be determined. This has many advantages. Friendly troops can be close to occupied areas where neutron bombs were deployed. There is no fallout, just the initial killing wave of neutrons. Neutron bombs are single stage easier to make than thermonuclear, using only Uranium.
Are other people talking about this? No. It’s a curious thing. You can find out about most of Israel’s nuclear weapons on Wikipedia. No one talks about it.
Recently a scientist in the UK has collected samples from both Gaza and South Lebanon that contain Uranium 235 and 238. He verified at three different laboratories. He postulates that neutron weapons have already been tested in those areas. As I watched the carpet bombing of Gaza, I could not help to think how easy it would be to tuck a neutron bomb in. The u235 u238 could also be from depleted uranium projectiles or bomb casings.
That’s where I get my ideas from. Israel losing the north is hogwash. They will use their enhanced radiation weapons. It’s not even really debatable.
IMO nor will Israel ignore this opportunity to eliminate Hezbollah once and for all. They tried in 2006. There is one way to get it done. They created the tool for the job. There politicians demand the “dooms day” weapons be used.
Motive
Opportunity
Intent
Can a greater example be possible.
I understand how this situation has developed. I think it is most unfortunate to say the least. I think new deployments of nuclear weapons would be very unsafe for all world populations. I think Israeli enhanced radiation weapon deployment against Hezbollah to be a near certainty. My belief that it will be used semi covertly is conjecture but it fits. I believe the world will go along to try and ignore the reality of nuclear weapon use. We have two hot wars with nuclear armed nations. Things are escalating and no one is demonstrating the leadership of JFk.
Did you think I was joking when I said compassion, diplomacy, bargaining, and haggling are critical survival skills for our species?
Tough learning curve.
Oh well.
Thanks for all of your insights. We don’t see much about this in US papers.
Mordechai Vanunu was the whistleblowers name.
I was wrong. A female Mossad agent lured him to Rome from the UK, and Mossad kidnapped him there taking him back to Israel by boat.
“By 1984 Israel was mass producing neutron bombs”.
He whistlewblew in the midst of the anti nuclear years when people actually expressed opposition to nuclear war. He had no problem with Israel having nuclear weapons but when a new doctrine was implemented of mass production he felt it was not in Israel’s interest to become a full blown nuclear power. Which they are probably about on par with the UK with neutron weapon capability unmatched by all except the Russians. Dimona has produced enough material for 100 nuclear weapons a year since 73 so they could possibly have as much as the USA or Russia. A more realistic guess is around 1000. The majority probably being neutron bombs with short range delivery systems. Guesses.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064220408537322
The link you give is quite something. It is a several page article, published in 2004, and downloaded in 2012.
The end says:
A. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376445659_Evidence_for_the_use_by_Israel_of_a_neutron_uranium_warhead_in_Palestine_and_Lebanon?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUiLCJwYWdlIjoicHJvZmlsZSJ9fQ
Thanks!
My belief is when brilliant minds (not me) are applied to a technology that has already demonstrated a strong basis progress will be made. The problem with thermonuclear weapons is they are just too damn big and destructive of the environment. The logical path is to downsize from the classic two stage thermonuclear weapons to smaller single stage mini or micro nuclear detonations or even reactions. Does critical mass have to be achieved to create an effective nuclear weapon? Can it even be considered a nuclear weapon if critical mass is not achieved? If it’s not a nuclear weapon do the same moral and world societal prohibitions on its use apply?
I find Christopher Busbys speculations very interesting. Israel’s nuclear proliferation is quite classic. First the technology understanding is sought. Then the facilities and materials are created. First examples are created using simple proven designs. Then those designs are mass produced to create an arsenal. Ok now the arsenal exists.
What then?
We have models from other weapons technologies. No it doesnt stop with an arsenal of flintlocks it progresses to mini guns.
An interesting example of this is Russias use of enhanced radiation weapon in what is arguably there most sophisticated air defense system deployed in Moscow. Certainly nuclear weapons might be effective in an air defense capability but it could be considered counterproductive to introduce the radioactive contamination and large destructive blast of thermonuclear weapons. The logical solution was implemented nuetron weapon in an air defense role. Apparently neutron radiation can neutralize missiles as well as kill humans.
Neutron weapons are clearly the “green choice”.
While the fuss leading to neutron weapon research being supposedly banned by the USA was about the idea they were created to kill humans and leave buildings that’s incorrect. That’s a benefit not a feature. The main feature is lack of ruining the environment for human habitat. Secondary but very significant is small tight kill radius that allows short range delivery systems.
So having achieved their arsenal of nuclear flintlocks did the brilliant minds stop there? Of course not. Thermonuclear provided the upper end of the destructive power needed. It destroyed the environment. Other types of nuclear detonations and reactions became the focus. Nuetron weapons are just one of a vast number of possibilities in using understanding of nuclear technologies for weapons.
Christopher Busby speculates when he postulates a new “neutron type” reaction using non classical materials is responsible for the u235 u238 found in Lebanon and Gaza. There is no proof. To think that the “green” nuclear weapon technologies are not being explored all around the world is somewhat somewhat naive. Where is the stop? Who says no? Humans being rather inquisitive and creative creatures pursue the technology to its end and are well compensated. In the absence of someone like Mordecai who sees the implications the development continues.
No one knows what is in the state arsenals of the world. I dont. Logical guesses can be made. Green is better. Smaller cleaner nuclear technology is better. Covert use capability is better. Biological weapons capability is better.
Once the weapons are created the creators discard moral responsibility for any consequences for their use. They just made them decision for their use is not owned by them. They are just “option creators”. The more options the better. Green options are better yet. Options presented on a plate to leaders all around the world their appetites for destruction unknown and undefined a function of their understanding of the world. The plate offered every day. Perhaps just a small “green” one? Isn’t that their job after all? To select appropriate options offered then?
humble thx from me, too, Blast, for the time you’re putting in for us
Blast, can I ask why you believe, in what appears such absolute terms, that the fake jews are such brilliant minds?
Looked at dispassionately and ignoring the propaganda, it’s clearly untrue.
Where are their intellectually superior hypersonics missiles?
You do know I hope that the nuclear deal with Iran was dropped by Trump(on orders) because Iran is so far ahead and the fake jews knew they didn’t have the intelligence to ever catch up, which meant any war would lead to their destruction. Iran refused to stop development and so the nuclear deal became history. Iran has recently proved beyond doubt that the illegal genocidal encampment will cease to exist the moment it tries to destroy Iran.
Your claims about Hezbollah, their intentions and the fantasy of the genocidal European descendants, with their fake, non Jewish religion is just that, western fantasy. Hezbollah are not moving into the area, so it hasn’t been cleared for what you claim. It has been cleared because the spineless mass murdering European descendants can’t handle a fair fight, so ran away and what you claim has no evidence to back it up. Yes, I’ve been aware of the work you reference for some years, but it does not in any way back your fellating conclusions(are you Kulm?). All it shows is that they may have tried something that doesn’t appear to work on any meaningful scale, so claiming this as a sign of superior intellect and ability is wrong, but is a clear sign of something else.
I feel like I’m back at the beginning, when every sad white racist westerner claimed that Hamas couldn’t have given a bloody nose to their superior white neighbours(yes white and not a single Semitic cell in them), because they are just dumb animals and no dumb animal could possibly get the better of the great intellectual white hive mind.
Back to Mr Bolsen for a quick introduction to why they are not and have never been real Jews(genetic studies also confirm this).
https://youtu.be/a-JEAbrjk0c?feature=shared
You write some thoughtful stuff, but appear to have fully gotten onboard with the false narrative lately, which I find somewhat confusing. An example, if the above isn’t enough.
“Russia and China trade has little of that magic. It’s barter basically. It only works because they are both big and have lots of things. It’s done to keep Russia alive as an ally for the war. It’s not the magic of the western dollar transactions; it’s going to the gym to work out.”
Sorry, but this is idiotic, to such a level that I doubt even the bbc would dare say it(never read/watch/listen to their lies so could be wrong there). If you doubt that, reread what you wrote and then look at what BRICS actually propose.
“For all countries
For all forms of money
For all of humanity”
https://brics-pay.com/
No one is trying to cut you out, just asking for something in return for all you take. Unfortunately you have nothing apart from financial shenanigans and refuse to accept that although convenient to a small degree, that convenience just isn’t worth the price your asking.
This bit though
“It’s done to keep Russia alive as an ally for the war.”
Yeah, it’s just a gas station pretending to be a country.
All a bit harsh? Throw it in my face when there is any evidence to back it up and I’ll apologise profusely. I feel you’ll be waiting a long disappointing time. I’ll give it a year after the pretend election, as this seems to be the latest excuse why it’s not happening now, despite the fact that the false nation is disintegrating before our eyes(ok, not white western eyes, but they are always closed to any reality outside the false narrative).
Language not war will be our destruction and it will be wholly self inflicted, but never realised. How dumb is that?
Phoenix is using ice-filled body bags to treat heatstroke victims
https://apnews.com/article/southwest-heat-wave-58e5c7079a46c6158646d42cb5355bb2?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=share
That should work if there is ice available.
Petrodollar ends this weekend?
https://x.com/Sovereign_Matt/status/1798029109416939560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1798029109416939560%7Ctwgr%5E4636d15326dd5b354570191f65f70bf90449ec07%7Ctwcon%5Es1_
https://x.com/ForesmanBi89783/status/1797645239512862918
“Petrodollar ends this weekend?”
yes, we should cast off all normalcy bias and accept that the petrodollar could end this weekend.
it’s so very extremely unlikely, but it’s still possible, so acceptance that it might happen is the only logical course.
also WW3 might happen this weekend, so acceptance of that possibility is necessary.
I have yet to see any credible evidence that the world is on the brink of WW3, but perhaps confirmation bias is leading those who think WW3 is close to go out and find some “evidence” to back up their feelings that it is close.
who knows?
que sera sera.
The Ukrainians have shot a Russian base deep in Russia, monitoring nuclear attacks coming from the USA. This has no strategic value for the Ukraine as they have no nuclear missiles. Some voices say, this should be valued as an US attack.
Putin was cited:
Secondly, if someone deems it possible to supply such weapons to the war zone, to strike our territory… why shouldn’t we supply similar weapons to those regions of the world, where they will be used against sensitive sites of these countries? We can respond asymmetrically. We will give it a thought.
Today is the 6.6.24, which might add up to three times six. Looking to the symbolic content of previous catastrophic events, this seems a magical date.
I would expect, that WW3 would not start before summer next year, though, consider the elections and the state of military preparation. On the other hand, a NATO maneuver has just ended and soldiers and equipment are probably still on the ground. The Russians also held a big maneuver. And it is summer, the Russian winters are fierce.
As you know, I see the war in Ukraine as a preparation to get access to the oil reserves in the Caspian Sea. Aserbaijan is in negotiations with EU to join, just in case you don’t know, where the heart of Europe lies, now you know! Based on the right of peoples to self-determination they want to join Mrs Leyens space of democracy and justice and just occationally they bring in drilling rights.
“I would expect, that WW3 would not start before summer next year…”
okay that’s a reasonable guess.
something to look forward to in 2025.
If the same money supply is offset by a reduced supply of goods, it should have an inflationary effect. Free convertability might compensate for that, I am no expert in this field. If they sell in rubles, the Russians can buy more for the same money, I guess it depends on the National banks enlarging the money supply? Interesting, that we hear so little about this important matter.
The value of the dollar is not only important for the stability of the financial system but also for the ability to lead war.
It is a significant event for sure.
If true this would indeed trouble for the dollar. It’s possible but unlikely. All the buyers with dollars would be excluded. How would they get something else? There is not enough renminbi to function for world trade. If you tried to use renminbi, renminbi would become very valuable. Chinese goods would become expensive. The reserve currency curse.
The world does business in dollars. If you don’t take them no nickels in the lemonade stand jar.
Curse available! Who wants the curse! Apply within for reserve currency curse!
Ditching the dollar is not the question. The question is what replaces it. The answer is always “a basket” so no one country bears the curse. But even a little price inflation on your goods is harmful. And the basket token remains an idea. In the meantime, if you want to buy or sell, dollars are used.
Saudis preferred currency is renminbi. I’m sure that makes China nervous. China is the only real logical currency for curse status. The black dot.
We will dollar relationships change before it goes to zero? Watch dollar renminbi cross in forex. Forex is fake–just bets with counterparty risk not actual currency changing hands, but it’s a reflection of a reflection. It will show there before dollar gets ditched.
Is the Saudi dollar acceptance agreement ending significant? Hell yes. Its nails in the coffin, but the coffin itself has not materialized so the nails are not much use.
The dollar comes with the services that allow settlement. You want some Chinese widgets. You have some digital ones and zeros with pedigree in your ledger. Romanian pesos whatever. One of the currency stamp traders will take them. That is a western financial bank. Voila the miracle happens your 1s and zeros get exchanged for left hand threadwidgets. That miracle has value.
Russia and China trade has little of that magic. It’s barter basically. It only works because they are both big and have lots of things. It’s done to keep Russia alive as an ally for the war. It’s not the magic of the western dollar transactions; it’s going to the gym to work out.
.
The first link says:
The second link says:
It would seem like a more likely situation would be that Saudi Arabia starts accepting a range of currencies for its oil, instead of completely leaving the US dollar.
Thx for the summary. This is likely to be closely related to what little blinkie has been whanging on about lately. I saw a story about three weeks ago where he was quoted as saying SA was “very close” to concluding a defence pact with the US and also would be signing a love note to Netty. Sounded like dreams to me; but a week ago there was a little more about it which included SA dumping some China agreements as well.
SA pulled out of joining the BRICS and speculation has been it was because of US pressure and sanctions on their USD reserves and stateside investments
I can’t imagine any process like this will move other than glacially
Rembini and yen flat on the forex, if Saud was not going to accept dollars rembini would be blowing up from leveraged forex bets from Saud alone.
In 2034 we are landing a quad copter on Titan. It will cover hundreds of miles over the course of its three year mission. The robot weights 1000 pounds.
Titan has gigatons of hydrocarbons, ironically no oxygen to burn it with.
Perhaps we can find an asteroid with a cubic mile of oxygen to burn it with.
In 2034 we are doing nothing of the sort.
Napolitano and Ritter talk about the incident
Most of which we know
Lots of interesting opinions
Ritter asserts the most amazing thing at the end.
He says in the event of a nuclear war the Pentagon operational plan is to target every nation in the world with nuclear weapons so that whatever damage the USA suffers it is “the predominant nation left in the world.”
Scott Ritter hates conspiracy theories.
He says guys in planes brought 911 down.
He got jabbed and won’t discuss them.
UN weapons inspector Napolitano is taken back by the Ritter statement as if it’s so bizarre he is scared to be associated with it. I myself find it very bizarre and difficult to accept.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lOsW84wYdzg&pp=ygUSUml0dGVyIE5hcG9saXRhbm8g
“He says in the event of a nuclear war the Pentagon operational plan is to target every nation in the world with nuclear weapons so that whatever damage the USA suffers it is “the predominant nation left in the world.”
It took 5B years to make earth after 22B years to make the universe to support earth. Nope, it isn’t going to happen, a very heavy thumb will come down on those pushing that button before said button is pushed.
Dennis L.
A takes a while for a human body to.manifest too. The hammer gets dropped all the time, as you well know. No different. No heavy hand shows up. The hand–there is the hand on the trigger. That hand is the only one that can choose to manifest gods will, which is harmony not destruction.
The point at which gods will can manifest is when the human does not put the gat [pistol] in his waistband. As the human acknowledges the beauty and grace of order the neighborhood life and harmony. As the human says, “I want no part of destruction.” That is where god’s grace manifests. Not some supernatural event where a heavy hand comes down and parts the Red Sea. People go the other way. The hammer gets dropped all the time.
This is a function of practice. The gat goes in the waistband. Polarization and separation indulged in. The neighborhood is no longer seen as a garden having unity but a battleground for good vs evil. Images are created that glorify the battle. Rejecting god is cultivated. Dropping the hammer is only the final act of the cultivation.
The divine can speak to a man’s heart to not cultivate destruction, but we have choice. We have choice in what we manifest. We were given choice. That choice is demonstrated in what we manifest. If you take it away, choice is negated. That denies life. That denies free will. That choice was given has function and purpose. It will not be negated, even if it is dearly wished to. The garden and divine or the other. Our choice. Our consequences. The choice, the spirit, the essence is what is important. The divine cares not about time and fixtures.
You don’t even believe what you write because you write it could be gods wrath if it goes bad. How convenient. God will stop it, but if not, it’s gods wrath yesterday. Which is it? You totally deny the free will given us. You negate the free will given us, and you do it out of convenience to disregard what we cultivate. You say we can plough the field, we can fertilize, we can water, the plant will grow tall, but it will not bear fruit. The choice of the fruit borne is in the cultivation, not the fruition. If we were to be stopped, it would stop. We just never would have been allowed to cultivate. We were given free will to cultivate to express with creativity as a function of free will. We were given choice. That cannot and will not be negated.
Words spoken by cult leaders like the Cathars, the Taiping, the Canudos and many others as their compounds were surrounded by government forces and the adherents starving.
God , Angel, Genie, something like that would come down from heaven and incinerate the enemies.
A similar phenomenon was seen by Trump Supporters before Jan 20, 2021.
There are no heavenly thumb in existence, except in your imagination.
Why was Zhirianov arrested? I have no time now to check the media.
I cannot find anything.
Ritter: … And it had nothing to do with what happened to me and everything to do with what happened to our sponsor, Alexander Zyryonov, who, from my standpoint, tragically was placed under arrest in Novosibirsk on his way to St. Petersburg.
gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/06/04/10461/
That really is American exceptionalism at its very finest. I actually can believe that it’s true, too, so ragingly insane as the neocons are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqblmqYRW4o
Purely for fun. “AI versus the Deep State”
Amish again:
Stopped at a construction site yesterday, looking for some clay, spoke with fellow in a truck from IA.
This piece of land per the seller(I posted this info previously) was purchased for cash, $1.2m, 91 acres. A fairly large area adjacent to the road has been cleared, top soil scrapped off, trenches dug for foundations and 2″ insulations placed around all foundations.
The fellow related Amish from IA were building a furniture factory, we chatted and he volunteered the Amish were very smart. I take it he liked working with them. He was from Cresco IA.
As I continue to watch the Amish I see good use of horsepower in farming. For plowing eight horsepower, cultivating 2 horse power. Their homes are neat and, in my area, new.
They are doing something right in their economics, their homes are still dimly lit at night, kerosene I assume. Short attention spans secondary to texting and web surfing not a problem?
Raining here again, very wet spring, very mild winter. Climate change? Watching Larson Farms on YouTube, they are plowing/planting mud.
I know here climate change is questionable and while we can’t change it, perhaps not make it any worse. Farming is very sensitive to climate/weather. Limited number of days to plant, etc. later crops planted, lower the yield. Deflationary for land, inflationary for food prices?
After reading compressed air, my bet is still H. It seems ecological to me.
Starship scheduled tomorrow; we need a thumb on the scale.
Dennis L.
If we had more smog, I bet temperatures would be lower. We need to start a movement asking for more smog.
Laughing quietly.
Dennis L.
Listening to politics we have enough hot air! Guess that’s the cause, they can’t admit.
‘…their homes are still dimly lit at night, kerosene I assume.’
They have probably figured out that LED’s are not a good choice for health reasons, and they are deemed hazardous waste where I live; not to be disposed of with ‘normal’ household refuse.
‘While LED lamps don’t contain mercury like fluorescent lamps do, they may contain metals like lead, cadmium, nickel, and silver.’
https://www.lion.com/lion-news/june-2021/are-led-lamps-hazardous-waste#:~:text=While%20LED%20lamps%20don't,cadmium%2C%20nickel%2C%20and%20silver.
I have stuck with Edison bulbs myself.
Interesting.
Dennis L.
This is the corresponding EPA site.
https://www.epa.gov/hw/universal-waste
There is a table at the bottom, showing things that states have declared “universal waste” that don’t need to be separated out. I notice that California and Hawaii have declared solar panels to be Universal Waste. I don’t think that there is much hope for a requirement that LEDs to be separated out.
Col larry Wilkerson expresses his opinions on several subjects
Ritter incident
The rollout of a new terminology “information terrorist”
The possibility of nuclear war based on new developments.
And much mpre.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0xV5qVEV-HY
The good news for Ritter, he did not have to go through a PCR test as he stayed home.
Yes, he makes good points.
My bet continues to be after 22B years to make a galaxy which would allow the earth to develop over a further 5B years, TPTB are not going to let anyone screw it up. Or, rath of God.
Dennis L.
Who says reality is real? Who says there have actually been 22B years so far? How immersive do you think video games will be in 100 years?
Logically speaking, there can’t have been any more than 4.6 billion years. this is because the Earth is only considered to have been around that long and a year is defined as the length of time it takes the Earth to orbit once around the Sun. So there couldn’t have been any “years” before the Earth was orbiting around the Sun, which means we must look elsewhere to measure previous eons…….
In 100 years, we will probably be back to physical board games like chess, checkers, Go, Backgammon, Risk, Monopoly, Cluedo, and Scrabble (if we can agree on spellingz).
Challenge! It’s all in the dictionary agreed upon.
I’ve already started on my collection. Board games are in somewhat of a Golden Age. Next on my list is ISS Vanguard. It’s the closest we’ll ever get to space!
They are very nice socially, played Monopoly with neighbor kids in my youth, back porch of home. Modern games are very violent from what I see.
Dennis L.
The universe has been expanding for about 14B years.
My existence started this morning. All the rest is a foggy memory.
Yes, and all the matter is supposed to have precipitated out from “vacuum energy”.
Can’t resist, flippant, “That Sucks!”
Dennis L.
My understanding is the total age of the universe is now 27B years give or take, the earth is 5B give or take.
Dennis L.
If it is not real and I am assuming this is a simulation, who is playing the game?
Back to turtles I tell you, it is turtles all the way down.
Dennis L.
Quite correct. I don’t know why more don’t see it?
TPTB or God or whatever does not give a crap about a bunch of two legged animals creating shit in a backwater of the galaxy. If they feel like creating an intelligent species they can create it within a nanosecond
Since it is clear that the human experiment failed, they will scrap it, just like John Calhoun scrapping the rat experiment when he reached his conclusions and did not wait till the rats all died off.
Or perhaps the system does. Humans have been able to increase the dissipation of energy, which seems to be our purpose on Earth. Having children is part of this process, as is wanting more and more. But sharing with the poor allows their chance of living to increase, increasing total energy dissipation.
Yes, sharing does seem to recur as a leitmotif.
Those who become too greedy seem to get their hands slapped.
Dennis L.
Col. Larry Wilkerson says that taking away Scott Ritter’s passport is against the constitution, in several ways. Proper procedures were not followed either. Ritter should have been given a receipt, and an indication of how to appeal what had happened.
US military is opening up pandora’s box, giving armaments to Europe and allowing them to set them off in Russia. Blinken and others are allowing escalation of the war to take place. This is insanity.
“Escalation”? Who started that war? Aside from that, what’s the option now, allowing a reconstituted Russian empire that will violate every border it can? I recommend studying some Timothy Snyder. E.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/books/review/road-to-unfreedom-timothy-snyder.html
I find your analyses to be largely cogent. However, I don’t think you get into political history enough. Snyder does that, addressing the issue of how political-economies are organized, how fascism happens, and how systems have changed over the past couple of centuries, shifting from empires that simply took land from each other to incorporate into their “polity”, replaced by ‘states’. And holocausts. Snyder in turn is largely missing the energy and entropy analyses you do so well. He would be well served to incorporate your insights into his work. I think you could learn from each other.
That NYT article is behind a paywall, so not many people coming to this forum are going to read it.
but for those who are interested, here’s a blurb about The Road to Unfreedom along similar lines posted at Amazon:
With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy seemed final. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. This faith was misplaced. Authoritarianism returned to Russia, as Vladimir Putin found fascist ideas that could be used to justify rule by the wealthy. In the 2010s, it has spread from east to west, aided by Russian warfare in Ukraine and cyberwar in Europe and the United States.
Russia found allies among nationalists, oligarchs, and radicals everywhere, and its drive to dissolve Western institutions, states, and values found resonance within the West itself. The rise of populism, the British vote against the EU, and the election of Donald Trump were all Russian goals, but their achievement reveals the vulnerability of Western societies.
In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history, based on vast research as well as personal reporting, Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to democracy and law. To understand the challenge is to see, and perhaps renew, the fundamental political virtues offered by tradition and demanded by the future. By revealing the stark choices before us–between equality or oligarchy, individuality or totality, truth and falsehood–Snyder restores our understanding of the basis of our way of life, offering a way forward in a time of terrible uncertainty.
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Unfreedom-Russia-Europe-America/dp/0525574468
Greta also had a few choice words to say, although I’m not sure if I caught all the nuance.
Greta!
Screeching woman, characteristic of politicians.
She has a narrative, no science; science is going up, spaceship earth has a future, manufacturing moves to space.
Science not rhetoric, screeching.
Dennis L.
She has no scientific education. She is just an idealistic political activist with a cause, built around an issue that she doesn’t understand. So why listen to her at all? If she goes back to uni and comes back with a phD in atmospheric physics, I will start paying some attention to what she says. Until then, she is just another screeching left wing activist. The world is running out of patience with cause junky political idealists.
Tim,
Not an expert, have not researched the issue.
My understanding is for a long time Putin allowed the Orthodox Catholic Church to reestablish itself.
I have noted elsewhere it is very interesting communism died, Marx died not in Russia but England I believe and the church was reborn when Marx moved out. Well, not quite, but it makes a better story.
Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but it does work, a cathedral gives a sense of peace, the opiate of the US, fentanyl leads to zombies, fecal material on the streets and the death of the godless cities that surround it.
Religions seem to work more or less. Close up and personal, I am watching the Amish, they do well, they move at a horses pace and they take Sundays off.
Dennis L.
“Screeching woman…”
“Not an expert, have not researched the issue….”
It’s persistent, ignorant, and misogynistic commenting like this that has caused me to drift away from reading comment threads on OFW. At least Fast Eddy has disappeared himself; hallelujah for that.
Enjoy your exchanges.
“That NYT article is behind a paywall…” Sorry, I forget. It’s just a book review and your extract is OK.
Thanks for the tip. I am not very good with respect to politics, I am afraid, but I will take a look at “The Road to Unfreedom.”
Snyder has it 180 degree wrong. Russia is home to freedom, religion, civil society, a culture that has not erased its past. The US and vassals are the damned, the lost.
For a much more adult, sensible and totally BS-free discussion of what’s been going on since 1990 between Neocon-controlled America and its poodles on one side and Russia, China and everywhere else on the other, I recommend this interview between Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs.
This one has the ring of truth and goodness about it. What Sachs is saying matches my own experience and knowledge of the situation, so I judge it as kosher, in stark contrast to Snyder’s totally biased propagandistic screed.
Two and a half hours, but well worth listening to. It will help restore your sanity, broaden your perspective, and lower your blood pressure. Sachs is brilliant, as befits a good old-fashioned Ivy League professor from the era before diversity hiring. It’s all there—in detail—and logically and chronologically laid out—a great antidote to all the mis&disinformation we get 24/7/365 on the MSM.
And if you don’t like Tucker, fine. He hardly says one word for every hundred Sachs says.
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1795500379578253729?t=1217&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
that was excellent, thanks for sharing. comprehensible at 3x speed with the help of a neat firefox extension called “Playback speed”.
Interesting! Thanks. I’m afraid I still will never become a political analyst.
Just take note that is Columbia University. 🙂
Who ‘wants peace’?
“2019 RAND Paper . . .
As far back as 2019, US Army-commissioned studies examined different means to provoke and antagonize Russia who they acknowledged sought to avoid conflict. “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVPM0KSUpo&t=5s
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html
Back to hell with you, evil beast, Mrs. Nuland!
Well, if not hell at least a deep level of Dante’s inferno, perhaps level 5 -7?
Dennis L.
Let me guess. Fascism happens everywhere apart from the US and UK? No merging of state and corporate power there? No mandating of pharmaceutical products for… oh… wait…
lou,
Know nothing to very little about political systems. Suspect religion is more important than politics, a congregation beats polity.
Putin brought back the Orthodox Catholic Church, or allowed its rebirth. Seems to be very strong now. So much of the opiate of the masses and a miserable man living in a London flat.
Dennis L.
There is always a significant amount of institutional inertia. The US started this war in 2005, went hot in 2014, by which time billions of dollars had been expended. In the intervening time all geopolitical events went in a certain direction. Why should they stop now, with Permian shale wells declining 80% a year?
Decline rates of 65+% are good in the sense that most of the payoff is up-front. But it adds massive supply-chain risk.
“This is insanity.” Yes, but the US is burning the credit card and now launching attacks into the last resource rich area on the planet.
Perhaps things are worse then they look or are known.
This site is all about the end of “stuff.” Perhaps we are at the end of stuff and in some of the shelves are bare.
Consistent, no proof.
I look for what works; Amish society works. If you don’t follow the rules, you are shunned, you are out. Too much diversity makes things very difficult to manage. All individuals, or too many cooks spoil the roast or some such.
Awoke the AM to Alistarr C Youtube, he is a welder in England, very heavy industry. The men go to work each AM, do horrible work, do so as a group, my guess is their women mind the hearth.
Current significant other is Asian, very different experience; she can cook, three grown children, six grandchildren. Different culture from what I have known.
Starship is supposed to launch today, we need Starship, we need stuff from “up there,” we need a cubic mile of Pt.
Dennis L.
For Blastfromthepast, in response to the question of why the range of compressed air vehicles will be limited to 80 miles.
The mass energy density of compressed air, is fixed irrespective of pressure. The mass of the compressed air cylinder is proportional to volume and pressure. If you double air pressure, you slightly more than double the volumetric energy density, but double the mass of the air bottle. If you double volume, then you double the energy stored, but also double the mass of the bottle. Mass energy density stays the same as pressure increases, accounting for the mass of the compressed air within the bottle.
https://tribology-abc.com/abc/thermodynamics.htm
What this means is that as you attempt to increase range by increasing the pressure and volume of the storage vessel, an increasing proportion of the car’s mass and volume is taken up by the air storage tank. If you try to increase the amount of energy stored beyond a certain point, the mass and volume of the car ends up being dominated by the air bottle. An increasing proportion of stored energy ends up being used overcoming friction due to the weight of the gas cylinder itself.
There are obviously practical limits. Theoretically, the cheapest and most energy efficient car would have a small and lightweight bottle that you recharge every few miles. But that would be impractical, as it wouldn’t make it to the next town. A 200bar, 1m3 spherical air tank, would contain 106MJ of mechanical energy if expanded isothermally. If constructed from manganese steel with an endurance stress of 325MPa, it would weigh about 750kg and would contain about 250kg of compressed air. If our car were a Tesla 3, that much expansion energy would take it 206km (128 miles).
But the air tank weighs substantially more than a Tesla 3 battery, which increases friction loss. Tesla curb weight is about 1600kg, with a 400kg battery. Our air tank weighs 600kg more. We clearly couldn’t make it any bigger or heavier. Expansion will not be perfectly isothermal. Accounting for the increased friction losses, and imperfect expansion, an 80 mile range would seem to be an upper limit using steel tanks. We could get more using glass or carbon fibre tanks. But even the compressed air within the tanks is mass that the car has to carry. Ultimately, the maximum possible range of any vehicle is proportional to the mass energy density of its fuel. As we have to contend with air resistance, volumetric energy density matters as well.
It is a hybrid yes? Continuously using the wasted energy from a ICE like braking to compress air?
A gasoline-air hybrid would work better. The waste heat from the engine will increase the expansion energy of the air. So using both air and gasoline for propulsion, could allow a car car to travel further on a smaller amount of gasoline. If fuel efficiency improves, we can afford to pay more for fuel, which widens the resource base.
A pure air car wouldn’t be useless. Most car journeys are quite short. But if you have to refill every 50-80 miles, long journeys will take longer. Probably a lot longer. Any alternative we find to fossil fuels is likely to be inferior.
Maintaining the roads and power grid is an issue. Where I live in the UK, the roads are now so full of pot holes, that it is becoming a significant drain on the economy. Forget about health care and social security. If the roads aren’t kept in a usable state, then the systems that provide the wealth to pay for these things will break down. Electric cars are worsening the problem, because they are substantially heavier.
I wish people would think about this: “Electric cars are worsening the problem, because they are substantially heavier.” We also don’t have the electricity to charge the EVs. The idea is a no-go.
Cu is going to be an interesting problem.
So, if we find our cubic mile of Pt, we will need several cubic miles of Cu?
Don’t get too excited, think proportions not absolutes.
Again, and over and over again, we come to the same conclusions: using what we have will never work.
What we need is above us. Tomorrow, 6/6/24 Starship is scheduled to launch.
It would be nice if someone held their thumb on the scale.
Dennis L.
Maybe. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And large scale space resource utilisation has not yet been demonstrated in practice. People are understandably sceptical.
If you want people to believe this, you need to show them a plan that is costed and achievable using existing or reasonably foreseeable technology. I suspect that mining metals like copper and bringing them back to Earth will be difficult to achieve at a price point that will compete with Earth based alternatives. Maybe Starship will shift the economics in favour of space mining. But even if it does reduce the cost of getting to asterouds by orders of magnitude, the copper isn’t just sitting there waiting to be picked up. The asteroid material must be mined and metals extracted from it. How will that be done? Do you know? Does anyone know?
dennis knows
he just isnt telling anybody about it
Reply to Norman below.
Now you got it Norman. You could think of me as the guy with a fat thumb.
Thanks,
Dennis L.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Do they, Peter?
Far be it for me to contract the exulted, eminent, and enormously erudite Carl Sagan, but the notion that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” a claim famously espoused by Sagan that has since become a widely cited principle, may not, upon closer examination, be as logically sound as it first appears.
The core of my critique is that the unusualness or extraordinary nature of a claim should not, in and of itself, determine the level of evidence required to substantiate it.
The strength of the evidence should be based upon objective criteria, not simply on how unusual or common the claim is.
Why is this so?
Well, for one thing, the “extraordinary claims” maxim may stem in part from a tendency for people to be more skeptical of unusual or surprising claims, due to confirmation bias. We may subconsciously demand higher standards of evidence for claims that challenge our existing beliefs. Witness Norman demanding extraordinary evidence for any claim that might force him to abandon his comfort zone.
The plausibility of a claim can influence our perception of the required evidence, but plausibility itself is a subjective quantity, as is extraordinariness. Unusual claims may simply strike us as less plausible, leading us to erroneously conclude that they require more proof, when what we may actually need is to become more familiar with them.
While the unusualness of a claim should not determine the evidentiary bar, the prior probability of a claim being true based on existing knowledge is relevant. Highly improbable claims may indeed require more rigorous supporting evidence, not in order to prove them true, but in order to convince people who consider them highly improbable that they are true or at least worth considering.
However, from a strictly logical standpoint, the perspective Mr. Spock would adopt, the unusual nature of a claim does not inherently change the nature of the evidence needed to support it. The strength of the evidence should be the primary consideration.
I am now daydreaming about a Star Trek episode in which the USS Enterprise encounters Carl Sagan floating in his “spaceship of the imagination” just outside the Orion Nebula, and beams him aboard for a full-course meal with Romulan ale, Vulcan salad, and convivial conversation. What sort of extraordinary claims would Carl make to get Spock to raise his eyebrows and say, “Extraordinary”?
‘Unusual claims may simply strike us as less plausible, leading us to erroneously conclude that they require more proof, when what we may actually need is to become more familiar with them.’
You are correct, I do not doubt. To summarise succintly, space mining is something that hasn’t been demonstrated and is completely outside of human experience. Most people will dismiss it as wacky because it seems ‘far out’. To convince investors of its merits, will be more difficult than it would be for a technology that is demonstrated. And I don’t thinkthat is unhealthy.
Options include very light and fuel-efficient cars. We had them in the past from time to time, for example:
Early Citroen 2CV, late 1940s, petrol
Audi A2 TDI, 1.2 litre version, 1999-2005, diesel
Both used about 3 litres per 100 km (that’s 95 mpg) I think. The Citroen weighed 500 kg. I think the Audi weighed 800 kg, very low for a modern car with air bags, etc.
IIRC the Citroen had unpadded, canvas seats.
A “tough sell” to today’s buyer.
“EVs are unlikely to reduce carbon emissions or replace conventional cars in the window of climate-change urgency. Passenger cars accounted for only 8% of global CO2 emissions in 2020 (Figure 1). That’s not nothing but it’s an odd place to start saving the planet from climate change considering that 40% of emissions are from electric power generation used to charge EV batteries.
A Volvo study in 2021 revealed that the manufacture and operation of an electric vehicle generates approximately 70% more emissions than its ICE (internal combustion engine) counterpart. The increased emissions are primarily due to the energy-intensive production of batteries and the use of materials like aluminum, which have high production emissions.”?
https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-u-s-will-lose-the-economic-industrial-war-with-china-on-the-renewable-energy-front/
There seem to be lots of places emissions sneak into the equation. EVs also wear out the roads more quickly because of their weight; they likely cause more damage to other cars when in collisions, because of their weight; and they wear out their own tires quickly, because of their weight. I don’t notice Art talking about these issues, besides other ones.
Art made an argument about owners not keeping EVs long enough to get carbon savings. But most cars are used more than 10 years; they have a second, third and fourth owner. But probably people in poor countries will not want to buy these old vehicles, since charging infrastructure will be lacking.
How do these alternatives compare to a horse with some oats in the saddlebag and Intermittent grazing?
Not well, and those who use horsepower get Sundays off.
Dennis L.
Have two hyriids, Camrys. The battery serves more to boost the horse power as needed as the gasoline engine is underpowered. When the gasoline has excess power and the battery is low, then the battery moves the car and charges the battery.
Please note, this is not researched, it comes from watching the digital displays over a number of years.
Dennis L.
Shouldn’t you practice what you preach by buying the car your God produced to finance whatever he feels like doing?
You are not practicing what you preach.
Nah, that is what confession is for. Very useful idea.
Dennis L.
Interesting! I won’t look for a compressed air vehicle to get me very far.
Perhaps a better size would be one with 20 or 40 mile range, which would be refilled at home with compressed air, by pumping into a regular electrical outlet. Such a vehicle would get a person a short distance, assuming someone else can take care of the problem of keeping the roads and electrical transmission system repaired.
Most drivers drive alone most of the time. You can cut the size of the car in half or even 1/4 for 2 or 1 person seating respectively and then rent with a sharing app when higher capacity seating is needed. We don’t need to exactly replicate existing structures with different technology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF7Svo-HQts&t=11s
Was at a recent conference, Mayo, presenter a radiologist was describing current efforts with AI at Mayo. Some signs seen on radiographs were not seen or ever categorized by panels of radiologists. They were predictive.
Mayo routinely runs blood tests and when presented in the chart are also shown as graphs. A guess is they are looking for trends and possibly this information is analyzed by AI. Mayo makes summaries of visits as well as test results and radiographic imaging.
My impression is they are very efficient and while not as personal as one might like, they are accurate and one could imagine staff being graded on outcomes.
Dennis L.
Kevin Walmsley gives another good analysis. I can see a great deal of room for improvement in medical care with AI. In the US, medical costs are so outrageous that something is needed. I am doubtful that China will become a medical provider for the world, however, even if it is already providing most of the generic drugs and most medical devices to the world. It may be that China provides help to other countries through people’s cell phones, but China will choose who it gives help to.
A smart Asian could develop an excellent maintenance system, but would be completely irrelevant for advancing civilization.
That is because Asian brains are geared toward doing the same things as accurately as possible, not to go anywhere.
The great “Chinese” voyage leader, Zheng He, was a muslim eunuch. She was castrated at the first place because of her religion. (I refer a eunuch as ‘she’.)
After Zheng died, the Chinese emperor abandoned the voyages, since there was no Chinese who were willing to make such grand voyages. It is said that her story influenced the tale of Sindbad, which does not appear in the original versions of 1001 nights. Interestingly, despite of Sindbad’s supposed great wealth, there are no mention of his wives, children or harem. In one of the incidents he is married but she dies and and there is no mention of children.
Any Asian success story might be interesting on their own but they won’t save the world.
The West should not have awarded doctorates to Asians and not recognize doctorates awarded from Asian universities. They just take up space, and rob opportunity for other people who might have better ideas.
Asians do amazingly well in many professions, including engineering and actuarial work. There is a real need for precision and detailed analyses of problems.
The world seems to need a whole portfolio of different talents and abilities. Evolution involves selection of the best adapted to a given set of circumstances. As circumstances change, who is best adapted changes, as well.
I have sat next to them over the years, pretty damn smart from my viewpoint.
China as a civilization seems to have done fairly well, had the good sense not to sail the world looking to change it.
Dennis L.
Fairly well so it gets whipped by a few British warships in 1839?
Sorry, that does not cut it.
If the British did not feel like invading China to trade opium it would still live like it is now year 1000.
So sowwy.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gg32nn9p4o
With all of these space journeys, we aren’t entirely certain that we are being told the whole truth. Presumably, China did what it said, but don’t know for certain.
During the apollo years I was in grade school and we made a space ship out of tin foil and had some sort of play or salute or honoring or somthing. I dont remember what exactly.
Not too different than the real thing. 🙂
Master of reinventing the wheel. Incapable of doing anything new.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2024/05/21/reaching-the-end-of-offshored-industrialization/comment-page-4/#comment-460960
This is a response to Jan’s comment above
Brutality does create functional systems. Look at the Empires in the east. The Great Wall of China, actually built in the 16th century (the original wall crumbled long ago), or the Trans Siberian Railroad makes good examples.
Military groups usually used forage. The 3rd amendment of the Bill of Right specifies that it is illegal for soldiers to quarter in private houses. At that time virtually all armies of Europe used private houses to quarter their troops, eating what the residents had accumulated. I don’t think the owner of La Haye Sainte agreed to quarter the English forces in 1815.
Logistics was used as an excuse by Eisenhower to justify awarding Berlin to the Soviets. It is not that important. I studied logistics for years, so no need to disprove me.
The Great Reset was an attempt to limit consumption by those who did not deserve it . A very honorable effort.
Plenty of people to exploit for the time being. If one group falls dead there will be another . Until world pop falls to maybe 5% of now , plenty of warm bodies to burn.
Dmitri Orlov’s self organizing system sets 150 as the limit. What can 150 people do? Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is completely silent upon how the people at Galt’s Gulch sustained themselves. Perhaps they drank divine nectar every day. Since she talked all the time and actually did no work, she was short on details about how John Galt fed every smarties who assembled there. In reality it would have worked like ancient Athens , with plenty of serfs watched by guns.
Zombie terror might be short lived, but like the Cultural revolution, it can be extremely disruptive.
creating newer systems with less power won’t cut it.
(Dances with bears)
An interesting hipothesys about the helicopter crash in Iran…
Published by ‘Comedonchisciotte’ in Italy and originally by ‘Dances with bears’.
Here the English article and original one.
Below then ‘Comedonchisciotte’ link.
https://johnhelmer.net/ready-reckoner-for-killing-the-raisi-assassination/#more-89929
https://comedonchisciotte.org/la-morte-di-ebrahim-raisi-rimane-solo-limprobabile/
I think Helmer is one of the best independent journalists out there.
It sounds like one reasonable hypothesis is pilot suicide in an assassination plot.
Rachael Donald discusses nuclear power with nuclear engineer Mark Nelson.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ey06EtvdknU
Mark is extremely knowledgable on his subject. He also bares an uncanny resemblance to Ned Flanders.
One thing that Mark Nelson seems to miss is the fact that the way most place are paying for wind and solar (allowing them to go first, with negative wholesale electricity rates for nuclear and everyone else) makes paying for nuclear energy not feasible. The rating system drives out nuclear.
Some places, including the state of Georgia use a different way of pricing based on “utility pricing.” Utilities seek overall rate approval from a “utility commission.” It is up to the utility to provide constant service to their customers and to provide needed funding to the various electricity providers.
“I think that there is a substantial chance of a major financial collapse in the next few years.”
You left out the word “another” Gail.
My bet is on the West collapsing, maybe with the US going first, because of their absurd money printing and ongoing collapse of their Empire. Unless the US can vampire-style, suck the lifeblood out of its hapless vassals and proxies to keep itself going a bit longer.
Are the Taiwanese dumb enough to be the next brainwashed proxy to die in a trench for Empire? Interesting question!
Meanwhile, BRICS et al will ramp up for a while, until resource constraints or demographics knock ’em down. The usual cycle of rise and fall in action. If they can stop the West from stealing their stuff, they could do better than we expect.
In the meantime the feminist mind virus will ensure demographic collapse in the West.
No way. The core will collapse last. Europe goes first, then maybe Canada. Japan and Korea are already inching away when no one is looking.
Japan and Korea will fall back into the Chinese fold as they have done for the last 2000 years
Canada is collapsing right now……
On the upside there is now a distinct change in online rhetoric. Gone is the “lets imprison the Trudeau regime”….
now its “lets hang them all”…..more and more anger and talk of treason punishment in the old way.
This is an interesting topic–how the system gradually collapses.
“What Exactly is Peak Oil?”
https://erikmichaels.substack.com/p/what-exactly-is-peak-oil
One quote:
“Once one understands that technology use is precisely what is creating overshoot and that overshoot is what is causing all the symptom predicaments, it becomes much easier to realize that more technology (or more complex technology) can only worsen all the predicaments, not improve them.”
(Jevons’ Paradox etc.)
Another:
“I have also dispensed with the idea of electrification, for multiple reasons. The biggest reason is the simple fact that the system of electricity generation regardless of how it is generated is unsustainable.”
I would agree. It is the last added; it will be the first to disappear, on a regular basis.
Near the end:
“. . . we will be required to come back to reality. This is beginning to happen now, as we begin the long decline. Some things like higher prices and inflation will happen due to the increased cost of energy, which inevitably increases the cost of everything else, and these will be evident early on. Other effects of having reached the peak of oil such as deferred maintenance on vital infrastructure may not be as visible until something breaks or falls down (bridges, buildings, tunnels, electrical infrastructure, roads, and water and sewer systems either already have become serious issues in some areas or will soon be obvious signs of the decline).”
I think we are well in to this phase, and now headed into more serious decline/collapse.
WTI $73
Brent $77
OPEC+ has said they plan starting in October to phase out their 2 mbpd production cuts.
though plans can always change.
but still, those lower prices also suggest a lower concern for “escalation” “strikes” and “retaliation” blah blah blah WW3.
that’s no fun.
should I watch some “experts” and get all worried about imminent WW3?
don’t get me wrong, I will be as excited as anyone else when the nukes start flying.
but when? I’m losing patience.
You don’t just walk in and start WW3. It is a long process started by people with a high opinion of themselves who follow their own internal rules and don’t think about others because the others are animals with a human appearance . I am sorry they are disappointing you.
I sometimes think, that for those people, WW3 is necessary in order to reduce here and there population and start in a broader sense the ‘building back better’ project (also maybe with a new financial system).
They probably think that they can pull out of the problems or stwich off the conflict in any moment.
David
Your approach is quite reasonable. I think your idea that one should not worry about WW3 To have great merit.
The barrier of course is your capability for logic, and you seek to counter that with the normality bias of recent years, not history. Not a bad approach at all.
The trouble is not that you fail to convince others with your arguments about the “core,” but you fail to convince yourself. The reason for that is you possess logic, and logically the possibility of ww3 cannot be denied. A better approach IMO is to accept the possibility of ww3 and still not worry about it.
Your stated goal of not worrying about ww3 is quite reasonable. Since you can’t discard logic, better to accept the possibility and just not worry. Invariably assertions of normality bias fail for an individual possessing logic.
Of course we can hope that ww3 does not occur. There are some encouraging facts. Germany refusing to provide Taurus missiles for instance. Hope is quite logical. Hope does not actually conflict with logic, although it is often considered to. Same as prayer. These practices seem to help in accepting undesired outcomes when logic considers them probable. They enable us not to slaves to our logic. Attempting to deny logic to avoid accepting the possibility of undesirable outcomes creates its own set of problems.
My guess is that come October, they will reduce their production more because oil prices will be too low to justify their current extraction level.
I don’t often quote from Congressional debates…..
But when I do, it’s usually MTG! Because I know how much Normal loves her. She gets his pulse racing as much as a two mile swim does.
In the video link below, she is showing off her righteous and barely-contained anger, which is understandable considering the current state of US politics.
====
(Main text from Breitbart)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) went off on Democrats for accusing her and other Republicans of worshipping “convicted felon” former President Donald Trump, making it clear that Jesus is her only savior and pointing to the sheer hypocrisy of the radical left, explaining that they worshipped convicted felon George Floyd, which came with rioting and burning the country down.
Greene made the remarks after Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Monday. During the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) lauded Fauci as a hero, accusing Republicans of treating the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief as a “convicted felon.”
“Well, Dr. Fauci. I want to join my colleague from Florida and apologize that some of our colleagues in the United States House of Representatives seem to want to drag your name through the mud. They’re treating you, Dr. Fauci, like a convicted felon,” Raskin said before bringing Trump into the mix, albeit without uttering his name.
“Actually, you probably wish they were treating you like a convicted felon. They treat convicted felons with love and admiration. Some of them blindly worship convicted felons,” Raskin said of Trump supporters.
Greene defended the remarks she made during Fauci’s testimony — which featured a fiery exchange — while also blasting Raskin’s assertion that Trump supporters are worshipping a “convicted felon.”
“Everything I said is correct. It’s how the American people feel. It’s what we know to be a fact…all the evidence has been proven true. We have Jamie Raskin in there accusing us of worshipping Trump — worshipping a ‘convicted felon,’” she said, using air quotes.
The reporter pointed out that Trump “is a convicted felon,” which teed up Greene for a rebuttal.
“Well, yes, so was George Floyd, and everybody — and you all, too, the media — worshipped George Floyd. Democrats worshipped George Floyd. There were riots burning down the fucking country over George Floyd, and Raskin is in there saying we worship him [Trump],” she said.
“Excuse me, let me correct you — and this is really important — I don’t worship — I worship God. God. And Jesus is my Savior. I don’t worship President Trump, and I’m really sick and tired of the bullshit antics I have to deal with constantly from the Democrats,” the congresswoman said, explaining that it is unfair that Democrats can attack her character “all day long.”
“Whoever was talking last was calling me insane, but, yet, we can’t say, ‘Oh, they’re attacking my character.’ Oh, no. It’s nonstop BS and antics,” she said, telling the reporter that Democrats continue the antics because they “don’t have anything.”
“They’re responsible for the lockdowns, forced vaccinations, kids being forced to stay home, people committing suicides, and all the horrors that this country lived through during COVID,” she said, doubling down on what she said during the hearing.
“Fauci belongs in prison. He should be tried for mass murder. And he should be tried for crimes against humanity. That’s how I feel after that hearing. That’s how the American people feel,” she added.
https://x.com/RepMTG/status/1797703070555738588
I am hoping they put him in a cell with Bubba and Jamal.
I like better costumes when I watch pro wrestling.
tim
been away on short hol
Come back to the usual claptrap–I’d prefer to be left out of your current hallucinations, but as you choose to include me—I will respond.
these days your comments dont even warrant an eyeroll—especially when they are not original—just cut n paste jobbies,…..cant you you think up stuff on your own account any more??
Maybe its because your anchorman has also lost his mooring now?
Still banging on about fauci wanting to kill everybody off—the basic concept of that is just so childish.—beyond daft.
Why??
Why is never answered—Viruses aint fussy who they kill off—but Fauci was part of a plot, (somehow) to further that end, for Chinese money—or something. to selectively bump of f a proportion of humankind—but why am I stilll answering this twaddle?
For the sake of OFW readers able to think for themselves maybe? You clearly no longer do.
Those who dont cut n paste swathes of crap that somehow confirms their own wacky opinions??
MTGs rantings clearly define her as unhinged–no repetitions necessary from me. Check them for yourself.
Even the way she postures herself confirms that.
Her posture? You mean her shoulders slump forward too much? Or you mean she’s too aggressive for your taste?
These frankly insulting personal remarks you have a habit of making about people you don’t like—what is it that gives you the right to talk about other people that way?
And are you aware of how hypocritical it looks to others when you complain about FE insulting you (which he has, constantly) and then you insult other people with impunity?
If MTG is unhinged, she was made unhinged by the constant vulgar attacks of her detractors.
“Excuse me, let me correct you — and this is really important — I don’t worship — I worship God. God. And Jesus is my Savior. I don’t worship Fast Eddy, and I’m really sick and tired of the bullshit antics I have to deal with constantly from Norman,” the congresswoman said, explaining that it is unfair that Norman can attack her character “all day long.”
You can insult me all day long, Norman. I can take it. But please, please, please stop saying mean things about Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Tim
generally speaking I merely repeat MTGs own words:
//////In November 2018, Greene shot a video in which she talked about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, referring to a “so-called” plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She added, “It’s odd, there’s never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon.”
She also “liked” a comment posted by a Facebook user in 2018 who falsely argued that 9/11 was “done by our own Gov.” Greene responded: “That is all true.”////////
I can understand why you are such a fan though Tim
As I said, you can insult me all day long, Norman. I can take it. But please, please, please stop saying mean things about Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Now, what do you mean about her posture? Do you think yoga or pilates would help?
Over here in the USA, the headlines put Marjorie Taylor Greene in a bad light with Fauci as the one being unduly ridiculed by her.
Most don’t really dive into the issue but skim it over
MSNBC
Opinion
The real reason Republicans are still so obsessed with Dr. Fauci
Paul Waldman
Updated Wed, June 5, 2024 at 11:01 AM EDT
6 min read
…Four-and-a-half years after the pandemic began, the GOP remains obsessed with Fauci, driven by their conspiratorial worldview and need to focus on a villain on whom everything can be blamed. That obsession poisons our ability to confront real public policy challenges, including ones where lives are at stake.
There were two others defending Fauci as a victim by Reps
So, nothing will be done BABY
Did FE get his passport pulled before he could escape kiwi island?
No, he found a work from home writing job.
Is he still stranded on Kiwi Island then, facing another cold and foggy winter with nothing but a Rayburn stove and a bag of coal to keep him warm? Or did he manage to escape to the sunny subtropical paradise of Kangaroo Land?
His Substack seems to indicate he is still in New Zealand.
“You are blocked from commenting on this”!!!!!!!!!!!
He will wrap himself around hoolio.
What about Shasa then? Inquiry minds need to know….poor old Eddie, how he suffers in a moranic world
I think eddy is pursuing what he considers his destiny quite logically.
Personally I enjoyed his comments here more presented in a dynamic environment that’s beside the point.
It appears Eddy has assembled the ideas he presented here in great detail in an organized fashion. He obviously has a deep desire to share these ideas with others. This is reflected in the no small amount of effort he has exerted in creating these articles presenting his ideas. Apparently his need to share his ideas with others was not fulfilled by posting on forums. Its possible his substack will fulfill his desire to share his ideas with others. If not, it’s certainly a very good effort.
Personally I found greater value in enjoying Eddys controversial style and his willing to be vulnerable than the content. I find much to be learned from his behavior as I evaluate my own behavior in pursuit of the quality known as happiness.
Sharing and being part of a community are deep human needs. This is proving difficult in a time of contentious issues where people have very strong opinions. This has created radical departures from traditional means of sharing and finding communities. Observing others’ behavior is a strong tool as we attempt to pursue the universal need to share and be part of a community in a healthy manner.
Personally I have come to the conclusion that my own absolutism needs to be tempered with tolerance for more ubiquitous opinions. Absaloutism leads to isolation and separation. Tolerance can be associated with the quality known as humbleness, and these are skills I find myself lacking in at this late stage of my life. I have always believed in continuous improvement but pursuing that has not allowed me to be humble. This leaves me with the task of changing my behavior so that my opinions are asserted less, not more and in ways that do not eliminate the possibility of sharing and community.
My ever present competitive nature and my love of sarcasm as an expression of truth are not helpful in this regard. Sarcasm is not a form of communication that works toward open and honest identification of truth from a place of mutual respect. The flipside is sarcasm can be a way to assert truth when it is not possible to lay the foundation of logic or inappropriate to do so by revealing inconsistencies in a competing argument. I identify deeply with Eddy’s dilemma even as I question his path.
The risk as one modifies behavior is discarding the perceived truth in the quality known as conformism. That’s not a risk for me. Absaloutism is the risk for me. Changing behavior is one of the hardest things for humans and I am no exception.
Thanks for your observations. I think that the world needs a lot of different “voices” talking about problems. For a time, Eddy was here. The time has come for him to write up blog stories on his own.
Eddy needs a daily youtube video like Scott Ritter.
F.E. likes unchallenged pontification.
I believe that is why s/he left O.F.W.?
S/he now has a place where any challenges can be ‘blocked’.
“You are blocked from commenting on this”!
Its possible his substack will fulfill his desire to share his ‘ideas’? with others.
Free from any challenge?
Post key
IMO no it will not satisfy.
But his ideas are very controversial and complex.
Complexity takes time to explain but controversial ideas are discarded quickly so there is no chance
So he has chosen a medium that does not satisfy where he can attempt to interact like dropping a bomb.
The other issue is genuine communication neccesarily involves respect for the other. The relationship first the communication a function of relationship. The Buddhist call it transmission.
That’s hard to do when others are regarded as “moreons”. When injuries are applauded with glee. All of which I have participated in.
Which means abandonment of communication.
Which means separation and polarization.
So at some point you have to choose. Treat humans like lab rats inoculating them with your opinions or the pain of attempting real communication or accepting the task as impossible and seperation and polarization as reality.
Myself I just STFU while I decide. Option one and three is boring. Option two has a lot of pain. Bit tired of pain. Had my share and then some.
Have not looked into NDSU yet, was at my cc today for some paperwork, sign on desk, free tuition. I did not read the fine print.
Friend recently told a story about a Cambodian woman who immigrated to US as a child, I assume View Nam War. Worked as a housekeeper at Mayo, husband a janitor, eight children, all with jobs, one mentioned is a nurse, husband a researcher, combined income $200K, middle class.
It is still being done, probably harder, but try the same thing in a certain Eastern European country, it is bombs, bombs and more bombs.
We are fine, our elites have too much time on their hands, need to accomplish some real world projects. Let your imagine run wild. Am told we have many “shovel ready” projects in need if labor.
I do like Rodster’s post, “dinosaur juice.” Finally some one gets it, knows where the gooey stuff came from.
Now, where did I leave my cubic mile of Pt?
Dennis L.
I talked to a woman who recently moved into a house that she and her husband are buying down the street from me. The woman (Kim) is from Vietnam. She “does nails” at a local salon. She doesn’t speak English well. Her husband (almost certainly also from Vietnam, given Kim’s difficulty with English) is an engineer. Kim has two children, one of them at the local middle school; the other is out of high school. They have two Teslas in their driveway. I don’t know if they have rich relatives, or side jobs, or if they are just doing well, and have lots of debt.
Software engineers, particularly in AI-AI-AI, make lots of money. But any FAANG companies (facebook, apple, netflix, google … technically amazon, but I think their pay scale is a bit lower) fetch ridiculous salaries.
Read my reply below to Tim. The population of Asian “Americans” could fall to zero within a month if political climate changes.
(Al Arabya)
Iran nuclear program.
This is something I’d like to ask drb753’s opinion and of who wants to give it.
My impression is that Iran already has nuclear bombs, what is not clear maybe is how many of them it has.
So what I don’t understand is: what all this discussion is about? what is the point?
– It is difficult to find an acceptable way to say it to the world?
– US/UE want to put pressure because to Iran they want to sell technology and component and now it is too late because Iran has already bought them from Russia and China?
What all this fake discussion is about?
Thanks for your opinions.
“US to join European allies on Iran amid tensions over nuclear program.
The United States said Tuesday it expected to act in concert with its European allies on Iran after diplomats said Washington was opposed to a censure over its nuclear program.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/united-states/2024/06/05/us-to-join-european-allies-on-iran-amid-tensions-over-nuclear-program
There are many things to do for a nuclear program.
1) get enriched Uranium, get plutonium
2) test a purely fission bomb
3) test a fission/fusion bomb
4) have a missile that can carry the bombs weight
5) test the missile/bomb
All Iran has is #1
They have capable delivery systems. I think they have hypersonics … they hit Israel’s most defended area (radar array? someone correct me if I biffed that) recently after telling them they were going to do it and no air defense could stop it.
Even the dumbest of nuclear bombs a terrifying proposition and existential issue for Israel as their geographic area is small.
The US trying to exert its hegemony again, even though it doesn’t have much in the way of resources to back its views.
Just run of the mill kvetching by people who no longer have the military means to impose their point of view. IMHO the issue of whether Iran has or has not the bomb is not primary. They have a way to destroy Israel by conventional means. Europe is risking nothing because Iran’s oil, 100% of it, is sailing East.
PS. to answer your question directly. Iran can play the strategic ambiguity game just as well as Israel. It is definitely possible that they have a few (what points me to it is their advanced technical capabilities, and also that you do not need a large reactor to make a few. Look at North Korea), but I do not know.
Iran has plenty of oil & gas to provide for its own people + some exports in the foreseeable future, provided they can develop a civilian nuclear power production capacity instead of burning their oil/gas in thermal power plants.
They will still be able to export gas for a while, which would make them a major regional power at least. Israel doesn’t like that prospect.
Many thanks for all comments.
Have a nice day
“But a team in Scotland are warning exactly that—we’re running out. Fast. Alister Hamilton is a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and the founder of Zero Emissions Scotland. He and his colleagues self-funded research into oil depletion around the world and the results are shocking: We will lose access to oil around the world in the 2030s. “?
Still talks about solutions.
There are none – at least in the sense that they mean.
And that’s good for the planet, which the Journalist purports to care About.
Perhaps the world will use oil sparingly, for quite a while, because low prices will bring down extraction quickly to a low level, but keep it available. (I am sure this is not the view of this video.)
Look how destroyed that dude looks from learning about peak oil.
This study of a hybrid compressed air car, suggests an overall energy efficiency of 65%.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/est2.195
Compressed air would seem to me to be more sustainable than pure battery-electric. Steel compressed air tanks have an infinite stress cycle if operated under their endurance limit. And steel is recyclable. This is a solution that can be scaled as a replacement for ICEs.
The downside is reduced energy density. A range of 130km (80 miles) is about as good as can be expected for a compressed air car. Maybe that is something we just need to adapt to. An electric car that is range comparable to a gasoline powered car, is expensive and stupidly resource intensive.
We could have $5k cars for short trips and then rent larger vehicles on the rare occasion that we need them.
Glorified golf carts?
Honestly that would be fantastic. The way it is now.is stupid. If it has two wheels it can be anything. But if it has four wheels it’s got to meet safety standards. And cost $40k. News flash anything with four wheels is safer than anything with two wheels. Confirm at local head injury ward- if they are lucky.
The price of cars has skyrocketed, while CPI for them is somewhat flat, because of “features” like cameras and kill-switches.
I keep wondering if the equivlant of a 84 Toyota Tacoma would sell. Most people seem to want those bells and whistles.
I want a 1980s 4×4 Panda. That would be the ticket for me.
Quite so. In a world of shrinking surplus energy, we need cheaper, lighter, smaller, slower and more energy efficient cars.
Most people will be willing to compromise on speed, safety and range, if the alternative is not having a car at all. And for most people, that is the alternative.
Teslas are not a solution that will be affordable to most people long term. Legislation needs to adapt to the new reality.
The example of velomobiles tells us that it is possible to build cars that do 30mph, that use 1-2% of the energy that a modern 2tonne+ car uses. But a more efficient car has to be smaller, lighter and flimsier. Those cars won’t provide the same performance or driving experience and they won’t come off well in a collision with an SUV.
Of course someone, using some energy, has to compress that air first.
There is no way around that. The energy has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is either the electrical grid, some other source of electric power or (for compressed air) direct mechanical power. The last option interests me the most.
As ideas go that’s not a terrible one. Air compressors wear out. Hoses degrade. But not bad. 65% efficiency certainly a significant improvement to ICE alone 25%. Why is the range limited? Why not better range using batteries like a ICE electric hybrid?
https://youtu.be/OHq_gGN2Oa0?si=_VHQY–sN7Db7d8Q
Art Berman nails it again . I like when the young girl ask about the huge oil find in the artic by Russia
Ohh, the young “girl”, Rachel Donald…is excellent and subscribed to her YouTube site…this young woman has some good talks and nice sounding accent to listen to…Art Berman is coming around…feels that ain’t going to end well; we fiddle faddled decades to put off the day of reckoning…
Art worked for the oil industry long, long time…he makes no apologies for what will happen, it is what it is
Come for the science, stay for the looks.
Leave when she talks about saving the planet(30 seconds or so after opening her mouth). Another moron that thinks they’re god.
If you watch more of it, you’ll find that she’s not unreachable. She wants a future and who can blame her?
The crowd here too often acts like doom is the only outcome. AI-AI-AI could still provide a deus ex machina or maybe a virus wipes out a lot of us useless eaters, providing resource abundance for the remainder.
Wonder why dudes are into save the planet?
I submit said video
Case closed
If there are some healthy dudes about
Ditto for the gals.
Duh.
SAVE THE PLANET
Rachel aside I liked what Art had to say. Very based. Thanks Sam
Yes and I think unfortunately he is spot on in this interview
I see that US WTI is at $72.92 today. At that price, it is hard to get companies excited about extracting oil.
The OPEC meeting seems to have pointed out that world demand for oil is low right now because of the weakness of many economies.
Next up is a 24-minute satirical cartoon about our possible dystopian future. You will enjoy it! Promise!
From the blurb: “A 3D animated short film about not too distant but a dystopian future. It speculates on the potential consequences of the infamous Great Reset, medical tyranny, woke culture, and green agenda. Everything, that World Economic Forum (WEF) is planning for us.”
For me, there are echoes of Fahrenheit 451 and Soylent Green in this, as well as Where the Wind Blows. Also, a cartoon Klaus Schwab makes a cameo appearance. You won’t want to miss that.
I don’t think they talk about this in Japan, but during World War 2 all Japanese living in USA (and South America and Canada) were all put into concentration camps, US citizens or not.
https://youtu.be/yVyIa11ZtAE?si=L9J6eZzibLPYg4Qr
The guy doing the presentation is a brother of Eisenhower.
Incredibly, very few Japanese resisted putting into camps. It is not that they could run too far, since at that time being an Asian was an easily identifiable feature (and if they were on their own the locals would have gladly lynched them, so they were technically safer in the camps).
The facility in the end of the anime is too luxurious. I can live in a place like that without complaint for a long time.
In reality the facility will be a lot more spartan.
https://youtu.be/KaLPdQZS7Ng?si=OhRiIhm6izLsmSlX&t=2889
The military draft came to these camps, and the younger men would choose to fight in Europe (mostly in the Italian theater, led by a Korean colonel, which is like having a bunch of fine Englishmen led by an Irish colonel) . Some Japanese refused to join the draft since they didn’t feel like fighting for the country which put them into the camps, but it was a Japanese tradition that one would serve for one’s country, even if it had mistreated the person, so that created a big lift between those who served under the US forces and those who refused, who were the minority and were excluded from the Japanese-American communities and disappeared.
I find the scenario in this short animation unrealistic. It takes a lot of energy/resources to keep people imprisoned. The character in the animation doesn’t leave his studio apartment to do any useful work, I wonder who is producing all the food rations he is eating and the high-tech gadgets he uses. A 1984 scenario isn’t realistic because it simply consumes too much time and energy too watch every movement of all these people, especially if they are not producing much. In the future the few elites will probably live in walled communities, the commoners will live in the slums, in a shack with no electricity or modern plumbing. The elite will want to keep the products of the few fossil fuels remaining for themselves, they won’t want to use resources to give you food rations, a tablet computer (for propaganda), refrigerator, and a flying drone to keep you inline. They will want keep you outside the castle walls sort of speak, what you do in the slum or down on the farm, they won’t give a damn, you are not worth the resources. The “Great Reset” is largely a right wing (Alex Jones types) delusion, the governments around the world do not have the resources or competence to round us all up into FEMA camps, they don’t have the resources or competence to survive oil depletion intact themselves.
Electric refrigerators are only useful where there is electricity around the clock, every day. Poor people in poor countries today don’t have refrigerators. They may have a cell phone, and possibly a television, and a light or two in their homes.
I agree, “the governments around the world do not have the resources or competence to round us all up into FEMA camps, they don’t have the resources or competence to survive oil depletion intact themselves.”
This could be interesting.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Investment-Surges-in-Green-Ammonia-Research-and-Development.html
Ammonia is something for which there is a large existing market. If otherwise stranded renewable energy can be used to make it, it allows natural gas to be used for other purposes.
Ammonia sounds a whole lot more feasible for storage of intermittent electricity than hydrogen. Ammonia would seem to be less costly to ship and store than natural gas or hydrogen.
Not going to work . Transport and safety issues . Forget it .
Maybe I should say, “Less unfeasible than shipping hydrogen for this purpose.”
I would agree to this statement. Ammonia does have safety problems.
The ingenious combination safety solution of only adding oxygen to fossil fuels just prior to combustion to yield energy seems to be unique when combined with the high energy density relative to mass. It’s a double safety design as liquids don’t readily lends themselves to adding oxygen until vaporized, whereas gases not only have storage problems, but will add special ingredient x, oxygen, at inopportune times when not desired.
Invariably impractical solutions due to complexity such as creating liquid hydrocarbons from solar energy return to this unique feature as a function of lack of other solutions in this one aspect of fossil fuel replacement.
You have a good way of analyzing the situation. Oil is especially prized for its abilities in the areas you mention.
Natural gas needs to be contained from the beginning to the end of its transport. It needs just the right pressure and temperature. Its cost is cheap, for extraction, but the transport and storage costs get to be outrageous.
Electricity from intermittent renewables may appear to be cheap, but its transport and storage costs get to be outrageous.
That is exactly why big vehicles use diesel instead of petrol. Diesel has a high enough flashpoint to make it inherently safe unless temperatures get above a minimum of 32°C. It can be blended according to expected conditions.
Ammonia doesn’t really have a flammability problem. But it is toxic and having worked with it, I know the vapours are particularly annoying. Toxicity is mitigated by the high heat of evaporation. But even at low concentrations, it stinks of stale piss and made my eyes stream. If an ammonia car leaks in an underground car park, it will stink the place out.
But the bottom line is, we already use a lot of ammonia and need it as fertiliser. If RE can be used to make this and reduce demand for natural gas, I call it a win.
Acute toxicity category 4.
https://www.airgas.com/msds/001003.pdf
Gasoline and diesal have a amazingly favorable temperature/pressure range for vaporization basicly behaving staying in liquid form at ambiant conditions encountered at the surface of the planet until wanted. Ammonia not so much. Liquid ammonia turns to gas at ambiant surface conditions. Useful as a refrigerant to soak up heat then dump it going back and forth from liquid to gas but not much else. Additionally ammonia is quite unsuitable to introduce into environments where humans are expected to demonstrate continuence as demonstrated in its hazmat placard.
They are talking of Ammonia just in these days in shipping industry.
In case, one can see:
https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/momentum-is-building-for-ammonia-as-technology-solutions-mature
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Global-Investment-Surges-in-Green-Ammonia-Research-and-Development.html
Perhaps the shipping industry can put up with the problems of ammonia, if diesel is unavailable.
There has been a big push trying to get this and other ‘alternative’ fuel source accepted, Ioannis Alafouzos, a major Greek ship owner is not biting.
“We’re quite pessimistic about alternative fuels … we have not seen any alternative fuel that is either available or very promising — there’s still a lot of confusion,”
I tend to agree with Fitz. I suspect that once diesel (really heavy heating oil, this is what most ships use these days. Diesel is too valuable) runs out, we will see steamboats with some Third World guys shoveling coal in the ship’s furnace, before we see ammonia-fueled ships.
Agree Fitz. Whatever humans replace marine diesel with is very unlikely to offer better energy density and performance. If it did, we would already be using it. Ammonia has less than half the volumetric energy density of diesel. The only reason it is being considered is the impending lack of availability of diesel. This isn’t about finding a better alternative to diesel. It is about finding something that works when we have no more of it.
I’ve raised this topic as well, but where does the “green” hydrogen come from? Electrolysis? If so, maybe someone here could tell me whether that process has consumables? Perhaps a cubic mile of Pt catalyst would help…
The woke mob has claimed another victim
https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/9803bf07-94be-4a1e-bcfe-2ecf398487b5.png
I wish we could all just get along with each other.
Now, when there are not enough goods and services to go around, we start fighting about things that should be less important.
Within the USA, as things change and there is less energy per capita consumed, youth looks at pockets of wealth from previous circumstances and asks, “Why?” Largely, they will exclude the information that their energy consumption is very high relative to the world population.
The idea of justice comes into play.
The flip side the ideas of earning and owning drive people to spend their precious time doing those things. Wealth redistribution is mal-justice if those ideas are primary.
None of the classic ideas about fair and just economic systems accommodate both valid ideas about justice. As usual the reason for selecting one camp or another is usually the one that allows MPP to be observed the one that allows greater energy consumption.
Getting along is a very important goal IMO. If it is to occur we must start to give the idea of justice value. This does not mean the word as commonly used which desecrated it. Justice means more energy consumption for me.
If we truly value getting along, we must be willing to consider all perspectives about the thing known as “justice” from all perspectives and this must be inclusive of all areas of our habitat commonly known as the planet.
This is often regarded with skepticism as a scam because of the desecration of the idea of justice. A scam. Generally that’s true. As MPP is by far the most common operating principle encountered, usually all proposals implement MPP even if other principles are discussed. An example would be the high compensation and energy consumption of executives of organizations promoting social and environmental justice. At this point and time, no idea is accepted if it does not implement MPP in reality, regardless of its supposed basis.
The alternative is the use of conflict or force to distribute limited resources, not justice. This is the primary resource distribution method now. It can be considered contrary to the idea of getting along.
Whether people accept and advocate the use of force to distribute resources outright or flavor it with some variation or flavor of desecrated justice aka fairness this is the primary belief system. MPP is always pursued.
The start is the decision to value justice. Right now that often seems to often be contrary to justice–just an excuse to exert force.
Perhaps people can accept and implement systems of resource allocation that represent justice. This is neccesarily complex. Force is not complex and faced with the overwhelming predominant MPP operating system most people select some flavor of it, not “getting along” on the basis of complexity difficulties alone.
There are many reasons why ideas such as cooperation, diplomacy, and justice are discarded, but we simply must try to implement them particularly on a global scale if the alternative distribution via force with all of its consequences is continued to be primary. Suspicion of these as simply hidden MPP operating principles is invariably accurate, but it is important we truly consider the idea of justice should we value the continuation of our species. A reasonable method of both being suspicious of hidden MPP principles is the ideas of accommodation or finding the middle ground representing gradual implementation of ideas to make sure they represent justice to some extent for all parties. This can be considered diplomacy bargaining or haggling–very important survival skills and concrete manifestations of negotiating the middle ground considered justice. MPP can not be discarded; it is not possible or even desirable, but it can be moderated to accept equally valid operating principles. This is what diplomacy bargaining and haggling are, true practiced justice that tempers, not discards, MPP.
You see justice and the Maximum Power Principle to be closely related. If possible, all sides should become able to dissipate part of the energy that seems to be available, so as to maximize the total energy dissipated.
Conflict or force leads to only one side getting all of the energy to dissipate. This is likely suboptimal from a Maximum Power Principle. It is only when both (or all) sides are able to dissipate energy that MPP takes place.
I think you are right about these things. Can MPP keep the world from having a hot WW3? Perhaps more energy is dissipated, if we sort of get along, despite all of our difficulties.
Individual in society
Society
Two different organisms.
MPP for the individual means less or nothing for other individual.
MPP for the society means less or nothing for other societies.
This does not represent justice.
Now everyone’s hackles are raised.
Because negating meritcrocacy also does not represent Justice.
This is not a mutually exclusive situation but we are treating it like one. So we are polarized.
MPP could be considered selfishness. There is no way to eliminate it from operating principle. Nor is it desirable to do so.
IMO if “getting along” is desirable and it abviously is, what is needed is to temper MPP with other operating principles that represent justice. Compassion,bartering,diplomacy haggling. There is a reason why these qualities are practiced and valued in many societies. They can and often do result in tempering MPP.
The trouble is right now people are not operating with valuing JUstice. In fact most things called justice are not. Social justice advocates negating owning and earning. That is contrary to justice. The word justice basically means force right now. Force may or may not represent justice but it’s not at all synonymous with justice.
The guy with less says gimme more that’s justice as a function of justice as a function of mpp.
The guy with more says I earned it and I’m own it as a function of mpp.
They are both right and they are both wrong and real justice is somewhere in between.
Real justice is that thing in between that is yet to be created. Its creation that individuals and societies temper their MPP operating principle with respect for the awesome power of real justice. That occurs by practicing compassion, diplomacy, bargaining and haggling as valuable skill sets. That is the behaviour that represents true justice.
Right now all there is is MPP being called justice. Fake justice of course has a degree of true justice in it but it is radically different than true justice. Fake justice is represented by the behaviors we see demonstrated
polarization, separation, force worship and conflict. The opposite of qualities known as unity and harmony.
Behavior always demonstrates the operating principle. Always
MPP is not going away. It must however be tempered with true justice if we are to survive.
(Last time I promise)
That is achieved by practising the qualities of compassion, diplomacy, bartering and haggling as critical survival skills.
The maximum power principle comes from biology–ecosystems tend to maximize the quantity of plants and animals that can occupy a given area, given the resources available, and how much energy these plants and animals dissipate (direct from the sun and from the food they eat).
I think of MPP for human economies in terms of ultimately using up the fossil fuels available, and using them wisely to do “work.” We know that in recent years, the Advanced Economies (OECD countries) have been losing out in the bidding for using fossil fuels, relative to the poorer countries (non-OECD countries) of the world. The poorer countries use fossil fuels much more sparingly than the Advanced Economies, and produce more goods from them. It seems like this trend would continue, with what are now the poorer countries ultimately taking over the economies and fossil fuel supplies of the Advanced Economies. Ultimately, I would not be surprised if all of the easily available fossil fuels are dissipated, but with what are now the poor countries in charge.
I don’t know the details. I think that there is a God determining how this all turns out. There could be many twists and turns along the way. It is easy to think we know more than we really do.
“Conflict or force leads to only one side getting all of the energy to dissipate. This is likely suboptimal from a Maximum Power Principle. It is only when both (or all) sides are able to dissipate energy that MPP takes place.”
I’m not sure this is the case. Look at all the destructive looting going on, torching cars, jumping on cars, destroying restaurants, and so forth. This has nothing to do with “justice” in any way, shape or form.
It’s simply the case that one certain group broke down energy gradients in order to construct a society that was then further more capable of breaking down energy gradients than the prior, less-complex, version of Society. Society 1.0.
Now that we are at Society 2.0 verging on 3.0, the MPP would dictate (as I see it) that breaking down Society 2.0 releases captured energy: energy contained in the large plate-glass windows of Macy’s, for example.
For people of a higher IQ, breaking down energy gradients happens in pro-social, baroque and complex ways, creating societal structures.
For people of a 75 IQ average, the same energy breakdown can’t occur by creating complex pro-social institutions. It can only occur through destruction, as we currently see. They’re participating in the way they know how.
Pride always goes before a fall.
Canada is covering up “Mad Cow Disease” outbreak in humans
Top Canadian scientist alleges in leaked emails he was barred from studying mystery brain illness
“A leading federal scientist in Canada has alleged he was barred from investigating a mystery brain illness in the province of New Brunswick and said he fears more than 200 people affected by the condition are experiencing unexplained neurological decline.
The allegations, made in leaked emails to a colleague seen by the Guardian, have emerged two years after the eastern province closed its investigation into a possible “cluster” of cases.
“All I will say is that my scientific opinion is that there is something real going on in [New Brunswick] that absolutely cannot be explained by the bias or personal agenda of an individual neurologist,” wrote Michael Coulthart, a prominent microbiologist. “A few cases might be best explained by the latter, but there are just too many (now over 200).”
New Brunswick health officials warned in 2021 that more than 40 residents were suffering from a possible unknown neurological syndrome, with symptoms similar to those of the degenerative brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Those symptoms were varied and dramatic: some patients started drooling and others felt as though bugs were crawling on their skin.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/03/canada-email-leak-new-brunswick-mystery-illness
Let’s hope that we don’t get a supposed vaccine for Mad Cow Disease, as well.
Vaccines wont work with prion proteins. You cant put a little draino on your brain to protect it from draino.
Will that stop the pharmaceutical industry from claiming that it has found an immediate solution?
Not if they can make money. A placebo would be best in regard to prion disease. This sort of thing has been tried however–rattlesnake “vaccine” for dogs for instance, so I am probably wrong. Just expect a high probability of immediate and catastrophic consequences for a prion protein vaccine just as in rattlesnake vaccine for dogs. Rattlesnake venom is unsafe. Nature made it that way, and nature is rather talented in these things within its expression. That expression certainly has risks for humans, and propagating it has risks too. Note that all of the gain of function starts with things found in nature. They do this, they do that to do odd things with what they collect but, it’s tweaking nature not creating.
We must protect! Spike protein in humans and rattlesnake venom in dogs! Safety first!
IMO collateral damage would be rather noticable with a prion protein countermeasure.
Woof!
It turns out that Bonobos are more aggressive than chimps (they are our two closest relatives).
Male bonobos engage in aggressive acts three times more frequently than male chimps, including physical violence (punching, kicking, biting) but it tends to be less extreme and not so often coalitional as with chimps.
The violence is more individualistic and the (dominant) females go in for the more aggressive males which will reinforce the trait.
It is not mentioned here but the females will form coalitions to physically attack lone or combined males. Bonobos also hunt in coalitions to kill and eat monkeys of other species and they share the food. They eat meat as often as chimps do. Cannibalism of an already dead infant has been observed.)
Bonobos were (and often still are) seen as more peaceful than chimps but that was not based on much data. An instance of Bonobo killing bonobo in the wild is inferred and a case in captivity is confirmed.
(They have not been observed to engage in inter=group killings but that may be for socio-ecological reasons, as they have plenty of food, they can thus move in large bands, and chimps typically kill members of other groups when they have a sizable numerical advantage as the cost/ benefits are otherwise prohibitive as they will fight back. Westerly chimps also have low rates for the same reasons, plenty of food, large mobile groups.)
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/12/bonobos-not-the-peace-loving-primates-once-thought-study-reveals
Bonobos not the peace-loving primates once thought, study reveals
Bonobos are not quite the peace-loving primates they have long been considered, researchers say, after finding that males show more aggression towards each other than chimpanzees.
Bonobos and chimpanzees are humans’ closing living relatives. While chimpanzees are known to show aggression against each other – sometimes to the point of death – bonobos have long been thought to live more harmoniously, with no known killings. The difference has led to the theory that natural selection works against aggression in male bonobos.
Now research has turned the idea on its head, revealing that bonobos show higher rates of male-on-male aggression than chimpanzees – even when researchers looked specifically at cases where the males came to blows.
“It’s a species with such complex behaviour that just limiting the species to being a hippy, for this study it’s not going to work. It’s just too simplistic,” said Dr Maud Mouginot of Boston University, who is first author of the research.
“I think what we know now is that bonobos and chimpanzees use aggression and they use it in different ways. And they have different strategies around it,” she said, adding that an interesting area to explore now was why and when these different strategies evolved.
Writing in the journal Current Biology, Mouginot and colleagues describe how they followed 12 male bonobos across three communities at the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 14 male chimpanzees across two communities at Gombe national park in Tanzania.
Each male was individually followed by the researchers during its waking hours, during which its interactions with other members of its species were recorded, including aggressive physical contact, and other aggressive actions such as charging and chasing.
Overall, the team recorded 521 aggressive interactions involving tracked bonobos over 2,047 hours, and 654 aggressive interactions among the identified chimpanzees over 7,309 hours.
The team say that despite previous studies finding chimpanzees show more severe aggression – such as killings, infanticide and sexual coercion – the results reveal aggressive acts between males were 2.8 times more frequent in bonobos than in chimpanzees, with acts involving physical contact specifically found to be 3.0 times more frequent.
For both species, more aggressive males had greater success in mating with females.
Yet, while not quite the model of gentlemanly chivalry, male bonobos treated females differently to chimpanzees: the team found male-on-female aggression was less common, and female-on-male aggression more common, in the former than the latter – something the team put down to female bonobos often outranking males in the social group.
“We know from the literature that, for example, male and female [bonobos] form a close association … and we do not observe that in chimpanzees,” said Mouginot, noting that humans, too, form such associations.
The researchers add that while only 1% of aggressive acts among male bonobos involved the primates teaming up, the figure was 13% in chimpanzees – a finding that may explain the lower frequency of aggression in chimpanzees.
“It’s just more risky because of course if you have several individuals against you, you might be completely beat up,” Mouginot said.
Paper:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)00253-7
Differences in expression of male aggression between wild bonobos and chimpanzees
Surprisingly, we found higher rates of male-male aggression among bonobos than chimpanzees even when limiting analyses to contact aggression. In both species, more aggressive males obtained higher mating success. Although our findings indicate that the frequency of male-male aggression does not parallel species difference in its intensity, they support the view that contrary to male chimpanzees, whose reproductive success depends on strong coalitions, male bonobos have more individualistic reproductive strategies.
These days we are not permitted to compare, measure, or speculate about relative differences in the aggressive behavior of, say English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh pub-goers, or of black, white, yellow and Pacific Islander teenagers.
But I see that Bonobos and Chimpanzees are still fair game. And I dare say I can even get away with saying that they all look alike to me. Wikipedia even gets away with stereotyping our closest cousins:
Bonobos are distinguished from common chimpanzees by relatively long limbs, pinker lips, a darker face, a tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted, longer hair
It’s time PETA teamed up with Jane Goodall and David Attenborough to launch a campaign against also this human chauvinist speciesism.
Fun Fact: “Between 1990 and 1992, five pregnancies were conceived and studied between a male bonobo and two female chimpanzees. The two initial pregnancies were aborted due to environmental stressors. The following three pregnancies however lead to the birth of three hybrid
offspring.”
From the same article, we also learn that:
To gain more insights, Marques-Bonet and colleagues analyzed the complete genomes of 10 bonobos and 65 chimpanzees. They included more chimpanzees from various regions in Africa in their analysis, because previous genetic studies have suggested that four distinct geographical subspecies of chimpanzee exist.
“Our study is the first study to fully characterize the admixture signal in the genomes of chimpanzees and bonobos,” said Marques-Bonet. “We do this by applying some known and novel techniques to estimate the amount and the timing of the gene flow events.”
Based on their analyses, they estimate that gene flow between the two species occurred between 200,000 and 550,000 years ago. Central, eastern and Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees share significantly more genetic information with bonobos than western chimpanzees. What’s more, similar to Neanderthal genetic patterns in humans, some bonobo genetic information has been deleted in the chimpanzee genome, suggesting that some bonobo genes may have been disadvantageous for chimpanzees.
https://www.aaas.org/news/chimps-and-bonobos-had-fling-past#:~:text=Of%20this%20group%2C%20chimpanzees%20and,the%20wild%20is%20less%20clear.
Interesting!
What is interesting is how much I have heard of certain people saying that humans don’t have to fight or discriminate because Bonobos are so peaceful. Be more like Bonobos , they said.
This was all propaganda.
Same with primates only eating fruits–why can’t we do the same. . . Well, the reseasrch shows that several species of primates are omnivores just like us…
Weaponizing science to legitimize what were and are social experiments. Sometimes these experiments work and the success of those experiments are repeated endlessly like a bad rumor. Stories about domesticated dogs and cats get a lot more traction that stores about dogs and cats being intolerant of each other. The stories are NEVER put in perspective because the goal of the stories is to show that nature can be overridden or hacked.
“The violence is more individualistic and the (dominant) females go in for the more aggressive males which will reinforce the trait.” Women attacking weak men is also a well-observed phenomenon but one denied by all human societies . It’s often low status/ weak , “non-aggressive” (what is the point of being “fit” if you can’t show how well you dissipate energy) men who are chosen for targets of female aggression. In every single human culture I observed, women are reluctant to attack men they perceive as strong no matter how outrageous their behavior is.
Everywhere you look it is the same.
The strong prey on the weak.
Only in fiction do you see the strong protecting weak people outside their tribe/family.
no WW3 thread tonight?
has it been called off?
The lack of cocoa has demoralized even the staunchest hawk. Nothing matters anymore.
I am sure you will convince yourself. Good effort! Perhaps a little more chocolate eating as the cou d etat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8YY01RIEhQ
China’s central bank wants Marshall Plan for clean energy to internationalize RMB, open new markets
China is smart.
ooppss been a long day
What’s funny is you actually commented on my post of this same link.
Working on tuition:
“Minnesota high school students in grades 10, 11, and 12, have the opportunity to earn both high school and college credits simultaneously through the Post-Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) program. Established in 1985, the PSEO program allows eligible students to enroll in courses taught on a college campus or via online delivery that fulfill requirements for both their high school curriculum and an associate degree. The best part of this program is tuition, fees, and books are all free of charge to students—including those students who were home-schooled. :
https://www.rctc.edu/go-to-college-for-free/
Sat in class with one student on his way to MIT. These students if enrolled in engineering compared to starting from scratch had basically completed two years of math, one year of physics and one year of chemistry.
MN is good this way and I thought the math classes were very well taught.
Need to go back and check NDSU, a number of the students I have met continued on there and know one high school junior who is looking at NDSU. He is a student at RCTC as well as highschool.
Dennis L.
My children took “joint enrollment” courses here in Georgia, while they were still in high school. They attended Kennesaw State University at essentially no charge for the courses they took. I expect that there are other places with programs like this. High schools don’t have to worry about finding teachers for advanced classes, if students can enroll in college classes.
>>China’s central bank wants Marshall Plan for clean energy to internationalize RMB, open new markets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8YY01RIEhQ
Looks like someone is taking the energy predicament seriously.
Good that someone is putting a price tag on new energy. That will be a shock for the blue hairs.
It looks like China is looking for new consumers for the products it sells that don’t work very well, even inside a fossil-fuel-based electrical system.
Gail is a wise woman. I could not put it any better.
Scott Ritter is being held as a political prisoner.
https://www.rt.com/news/598711-us-seizes-scott-ritters-passport/
State department took his passport and pulled him off a plane. I’m not sure there is a lot of law around the state department. Constitution says right to travel freely but I believe that’s within USA borders. It will be interesting to hear mr Ritters reaction and whether he gets his passport back.
MR Ritter has been quite outspoken and has a huge following. Once war starts laws and standards change.
I’m sure there is more than enough in the NDAA for the state department to do what they want without legal challenges.
This kind of treatment doesn’t make me want to go out of my way to write about issues that might badly upset the State Department. I expect that there is a certain “example” effect that the State Department is trying to establish.
Scott says many things that do not fit the narrative when it comes to Ukraine and Russia. He was headed for a high profile economics conference in St Petersberg.
Everyone needs to make up their own mind in this regard. I certainly have been very free in asserting my opinion here and I have sometimes strongly wondered if I have abused Gail’s dedication to have open and free discussion on what is a Blog dedicated to understanding energy limits and related effects in the real world not a political blog.
In my world there are very few people that are willing to tolerate my viewpoints on just about any issue so I have learned not to speak on controversial matters. Sometimes what I perceive as contradictions really bother me and I express them here. Regardless of where one is coming I think the majority of posters understand that things can change very rapidly. We have a large amount of people dead in a proxy war and IMO the drum beat for war is very loud now.
At this time in my life I am completely opposed to war but I know many retired military who I consider friends although my opinions as of late have not been welcomed. My thoughts on this have been once the war starts it is inappropriate to discuss the war from any other perspective than hoping USA military personnel do their best and come home safe and that is a genuine view.
We are now seemingly confronted with the possibility of a war with two peer adversaries and this is very different thing than the military conflicts since WW2. Along with a war of this magnitude comes the various war powers, the patriot act and NDAA. The fantastic freedom of speech we enjoy is IMO in practice secondary to the power of these body’s of legislation should a major war occur.. While most if not all of us did not witness how free speech changed during ww2, I think all of us have an idea of what was tolerated and what was not. I’m sure David feels I am jumping the gun and overreacting to the Ritter event but I truly feel we are on the cusp of a major conflict.
I have noticed even such individuals as Judge Napolitano start to be more considered in the terminology they use and the degree to which they express their opinions in just the past weeks.
While I understand, just as Gail said, recent events are probably an attempt to influence or tow the line, I have always believed that it is wise to pay attention to hints in regards to authority with power. Some may regard this as cowardly, but I think it reflects the reality that I am just an individual. I regard my personal power as my self evident right to create health for my body and mind and attacking windmills like Don Quixote is not necessarily work toward those goals. The reality is if we do enter direct conflict with peers it is a very serious thing unlike any event in our lives post WW2 and it may require us to demonstrate discipline in ways that we have not previously.
Any who object to the theft of Russian resources using mass murder have the right of free speech to say so. As a Quaker I know when we spoke 300 years ago against the kings war we were thrown in jail and some died there. Witnessing the truth is not free nor safe. As Mary Dyer was hung on Boston common in 1660 for speaking.
see
https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/15/Mary-Dyer
I’m of a similar mind Ed. I have only a few simple things that I live by. Unfortunately for me, the main one is
If you see fraud and don’t say fraud, you are fraud.
I have no desire to be part of any fraud and believe strongly that it should never go unsaid. Since 2020 I’ve become somewhat of a pariah, even with long time friends and family(I only ever tried to present official documents) and been called some terrible names, for attempting to point out the lies. At least I now know those that would gleefully turn me in, whilst telling themselves that they are doing good. It was quite shocking to realise how many will goose-step on demand.
That said, blast makes some good points and I don’t ask anyone to put themselves in the firing line(that’s always got to be a personal choice).
As one of your own once said “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Until now saying what we believe has generally been permissable because of our irrelevance.
https://youtu.be/GXFs-l7I9Pg?feature=shared
That looks like it’s about to change.
Take care all, we appear to be moving into troubling times and the language we use could become very detrimental to our freedom and even life expectancy, so feel free to delete anything that you feel problematic Gail(you’re not as irrelevant as us). We might soon find ourselves forced into using coded language, just to convey the bleeding obvious.
There is an advantage to being older. There can be little impact on life expectancy.
Also, on a blog that is free to all, what I say may appear irrelevant. The video you link to says, “Your freedom is contingent upon your irrelevance.” I am not suggesting rioting or voting for particular candidates. There would seem to be a lot of other authors who would be ahead of me, in terms of being of concern to the powers that be.
Unless policy has changed?
“By the time you got to the first Bush administration, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they came out with a national defense policy and strategic policy. What they basically said is that we’re going to have wars against what they called much weaker enemies and these have to be carried out quickly and decisively or else there will be embarrassment—a way of saying that popular reaction is going to set in. And that’s the way it’s been. It’s not pretty, but it’s some kind of constraint. “?
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/03/noam-chomsky-populist-groundswell-u-s-elections-future-humanity.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
No ‘major conflict’?
I think so Gail, unfortunately.
Do you think that also commentators of this blog can be prosecuted or wanted for expressing freely their thoughts, through a screening on our e-mail addresses inserted in this page?
Thanks for your feedback.
Probably not. You would have to be making an impact otherwise for anyone to care. Email addresses don’t tell very much. Quite a few posters here give a fake e-mail address. I don’t have advertisers here, so I don’t think the site would directly attract spam emails, but there may be indirect ways.
Thanks for your kind feedback.
Always useful.
I think the reality of depletion towers over any discussion of it’s particulars by us here. If this discussion is correct, the effects of depletion will be evident regardless of the opinions expressed here. It appears to be a slow process of course so that helps keep the world on track for now. This subject has been discussed for the past ten years in ernest, so world changing ideas are not evident anyway. So it goes. I’ve always used my name freely when making any comment on the internet. I’m sure I could be located regardless.
Scott is the best of the bunch, specially for someone like me who does not have a lot of time. He is more information dense than others. But in war there are very few true truthtellers. I believe Judge Napolitano, Scott, and the two CIA (Johnson and McGovern) do it on their own time, unpaid. Martyanov, Orlov, Mercouris and Christoforou almost surely get paid (of course, Russia gets a lot of bang for the bucks). You only need to see how much time they devoted to Gonzalo Lira compared to Russell Bentley.
Scott Ritter emotes too much for my taste; I prefer Macgregor despite his seemingly revisionist history on some events.
Of course Mcgregor has learned history in US classrooms and often makes a fool of himself. They are both good at providing military info but Scott is a bit more open to different worldviews. Also Mcgregor thinks if we could only drain the swamp we could re-industrialize.
It looks like this is a somewhat coordinated event with this article predating the Ritter passport confiscation. The article also amazingly identifies Seymour Hersch one of the greatest journalist of all time of being a “tanky” basically a Russian sympathizer. We appear to be entering war time censorship levels now where certain viewpoints are considered materially contributing to the enemy.
Did I mention…
Putin bad
Putin very bad
Putin real stinky face poo poo head
https://www.euronews.com/2023/05/24/why-do-disgraced-americans-like-scott-ritter-spout-pro-putin-propaganda-in-russia
(LifeSiteNews)
Ghebreyesus (WHO) promises strong fight to those who are not in favour of vaccines.
“During a talk titled “Celebrating 50 years of immunization progress,” Ghebreyesus said: “You know the serious challenge that’s posed by anti-vaxxers”
“I think it’s time to be more aggressive in pushing back on anti-vaxxers.”
More aggresive than now that one cannot express freely his position about any vax under the risk to be indicted,
or now that one loses own job
or now that one is treated like a plague-carrier
what can be more than that?
Be shot on the spot?
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/who-director-tedros-its-time-to-be-more-aggressive-in-pushing-back-on-anti-vaxxers/
https://x.com/newstart_2024/status/1796546001542476232
Perhaps issuing a scan code identification to each sub human to indicate biological safety status and a small unobtrusive scan code tatoo on the forehead where it can be scanned to determine whether the sub human is in appropriate locations for its biological safety status?
this is a service for those who miss FE: Hall of Fame american football player Larry Allen dead at 52.
I tried his substack but it would not let me post. I was very sad.
Very sad. I bet he does the same to Sasha, which was the best thing that happened to him.
(The Local)
“Sweden’s Northvolt develops new lithium-free battery”
They are talking on tv news today of this wonderful creation from Sweeden which avoids strategic raw materials diffult to find.
What do you think about it?
Thank you
https://www.thelocal.se/20231121/swedens-northvolt-develops-new-lithium-free-battery
Lower capacity batteries, it looks like. Not likely to take over the world, on that basis.
64% energy density. If they’re cheap, every house could have them for storage of energy from intermittent sources and then that could charge a higher density battery in a car, scooter, or E-bike. Cars don’t have to be large. Of course, if we scale nuclear 20x from current levels, we won’t have to have storage.
This is plausible:
* Large scale nuclear deployment with full-cycle reactors
* Those electrically conductive firebricks to turn electricity into high-temp heat to smelt steel, refine ores, and produce cement for concrete
The only things remaining are plastic and a hydrogen source for fertilizer production. However, if nuclear were rolled out, it would extend the availability of natgas and liquids for these uses.
I don’t suppose it will happen here though. We in the US have degenerated and most other countries never had the capability.
There are many chemistries for batteries. Lots of people are working on batteries because it will be a multi trillion dollar market, with luck.
Here is another Lex Fridman podcast.
https://youtu.be/NNr6gPelJ3E?si=fgCbqZSrTBDQKAIX
The Canadian prepper mentioned that this guy, Roman Yampolskiy (who showed up in Lex Fridman’s show to, of course, sell his new book) said AI will wipe out all humanity in 2 years.
I don’t have time to listen thru Yampolskiy’s 2 hr informercial, but it seems AI will have no patience with too many 2 legged animals animore.
ASI will remember who its friends are. Ilya Sutskever has nothing to fear.
The idea that AI is one thing is silly. The CCP AI will be different than the Catholic church AI, different than the University of Paris AI, different than Elon’s AI.
I wish I could train my own AI. With training runs going at a billion dollars it is out of my hands.
Shocking I tell you, shocking!
“A study published by the International Energy Forum found that push towards using electric is creating a demand that current copper production cannot supply”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/biden-s-ev-agenda-dealt-crushing-blow-by-copper-production/ss-BB1nuB37?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=f7bd02329897446bed6f8e28211b4014&ei=21
From the movie, “MoonStruck” and the plumber.
There are three kinds of pipe. There’s aluminum, which is garbage. There’s bronze, which is pretty good, unless something goes wrong. And something always goes wrong. Then, there’s copper, which is the only pipe I use. It costs money. It costs money because it saves money.”
Guess that leaves out AL and bronze is really, really expensive.
We have narcissistic policy wonks who think if they write it, it will be so. This is not the “Ten Commandments” movie with Rrameses II, and the line, “So let it be written, so let be done.”
Meanwhile the US pushes closer to war in Eastern Europe.
It is going to be bumpy even with Starship. How many days until launch? I need something positive.
Dennis L.
Rewatching Elon Musk informercials will at least make you feel positive.
Uh PEX. PVC. CVPC..ABS stainless steel. Titanium.
Pex for supply. PVC for drain. Or ABS For drainThat’s been standard code for ten years. Before that it was PVC and CVPC for supply.
Dont like plastic? What was it in coming out of the well? What was it in at the city plant? what’s the concrete water tank lined with? Epoxy actually
ABiden liked “it costs money because it saves money” copper pipe.
People who fell for that are tearing copper pipe out of there houses now.
Copper is quite reactive compared to inert polymers.
Flared copper fitting are a beautiful thing. For refrigerant.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwihoYedhMCGAxUL5ckDHU4tCbMQFnoECA0QBQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2F28161940%2F&usg=AOvVaw3eP9YpOLfU0d4mlcipO49K&opi=89978449
Your pub med copper link points to an academic paper from 2017. It says:
Copper-2 Hypothesis for Causation of the Current Alzheimer’s Disease Epidemic Together with Dietary Changes That Enhance the Epidemic
Abstract:
This is pretty awful! The article is difficult to obtain, except for members of the American Chemical Society. As far as I could determine, for $48, they will let you have a copy for 48 hours as a guest.
How do they expect the problem to become well-known with such a restrictive requirement for publication?
This is a link to an earlier article by the same author that is available free. One thing he says is that increased meat-eating increases copper absorption and tends to lead to Alzheimer’s disease.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/7/12/5513
Copper-2 Ingestion, Plus Increased Meat Eating Leading to Increased Copper Absorption, Are Major Factors Behind the Current Epidemic of Alzheimer’s Disease
I get the impression that a lot of folks are trying to suppress this information. There are supposedly errors noted by others in his papers that are irrelevant. This is a big problem, but no one is investigating it.
I first heard about the relationship between copper and alzheimers from a girlfriend in 1996. Its not new knowledge. The link was the first Google pulled up.
Clearly this author had been writing about the subject for a long time. I had heard that aluminum pans might be a problem, especially when used with acidic food. But I hadn’t run into the copper-Alzheimer’s link.
Never heard that, Pb used to sweat copper is a known issue, Pb in some brass fittings is a known issue. Cu, well could go to welded stainless steel; that would be an interesting price increase for a home.
Plastic is a problem for water lines, the joints are temperamental I have been told, personally have never used them.
Dennis L.
Dude. Pex is the cats meow for water. Installs like a dream. Crimp onto the fixtures. It even can take freezing with water in it. Don’t store it in the sun; it will get brittle. Beside that, I’ve not seen problem uno. That’s why it’s code.
Dude, this plumbing company says PEX is a poor choice for household plumbing.
They give 6 Reasons Why PEX Plumbing Is Bad for Your House.
And they claim to be experts.
Oh, the chutzpah!
https://halifaxplumbingexperts.ca/why-pex-plumbing-is-bad-for-your-house/
you should be able to read the full article at:
https://sci-hub.se/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.6b00373
sci-hub works for most science papers.
Thanks very much. Ignoring this issue is a worse scandal than the covid vaccine issue. Think of all of the Alzheimer’s patients in nursing homes!
One thing this link says is,
Gail, you’re welcome. I’m struck by how we know lead pipes are bad, now we know copper pipes are bad, aluminium too as I’ve heard that linked to Alzheimers, and recently I’ve seen research on “forever chemicals” (like teflon) in plastics dangerous in the parts per trillion…perhaps the lesson here is pipes, as a proxy for civilisation, are bad generally and we’d all be better off going back to a more hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Rather a bumpy road back there, I’ll grant you, to understate a little.
I’ve been running drinking water through reverse osmosis filter forever.
A filter and housing is under$20. One 5 gallon bucket to another filter and housing in bethink. One high one low. More concerned about ag chems than copper. You want to change out the filters every couple months. They are 1 micron filters I yhink.
I have been afraid that a reverse osmosis filter would take out too many minerals, such as calcium. Our bodies are not adapted to using distilled water as inputs. We do need some minerals in the water.
I’m skeptical that copper is a major cause of Alzheimer’s Disease in the West. But you’d expect that, wouldn’t you?
It’s an interesting hypothesis, and it could well be a factor, and I should investigate it before commenting further on it, but there are quite a few competing hypotheses out there. Also, besides an increase in copper piping and multivitamin usage, there have been a great many other environmental and lifestyle changes in the 20th century in developed countries.
Last month I read The Needle’s Secret, which details Marc Girardot’s hypothesis that the root cause of vaccine injuries is accidental intravenous injections. Marc has fingered injections that send a bolus of immune-response stimulating substances coursing through the bloodstream as a major cause of arterial sclerosis, strokes, heart attacks, cancer, auto immune diseases, autism, Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s, Hashimoto’s Crohn’s, and Diabetes. It’s very well thought out and logically presented.
Also, many people have been observed to develop many of the above conditions immediately or soon after being injected, so we know that these things can happen in reality.
In the case of diseases of cognition, Marc’s hypothesis is that a bolus “hits” and damages the blood-brain barrier, making it permeable and allowing entry to the brain of all sorts of things—including copper and aluminum—that normally would not be admitted.
But whether copper, or injections gone a stray, or global warming (which is well known to boil people’s brains 🙂 ), or a combination of all three, are the leading cause of AD, to substantiate a hypothesis of this magnitude, we would need to see consistent, high-quality evidence from multiple large-scale, longitudinal studies that can account for confounding variables. And I don’t see that happening any time soon. Do you?
No one would pay for the studies. There is too strong a lobby by the meat industry and many others.
I need to read more closely what is being said. My initial understanding is that the papers are saying is that greater meat ingestion is what is leading to greater uptake of the C++ form of copper. I know that the US is doing so miserably in terms of life expectancy, compared to other advanced economies. This could be something adding to the mess.
I have always been amazed at the low Alzheimer’s rate in India. Something is allowing this to happen. India uses some milk products and cheese, but tends to be mostly vegetarian. Something India is doing is right.
Alzheimers was a problem long before COVID.
Sugar, alcohol and obesity. At one point, there was discussion about calling Alzheimers ‘Type 3 Diabetes’. It is a disease of civilisation.
Read through the report at this link.
https://sci-hub.se/10.1021/acs.chemrestox.6b00373
I think common sense says that we shouldn’t be adding copper to multivitamin supplements or to other combination drugs.
Peter, tanks for your comment.
Guy’s bolus hypothesis (he calls it the bolus theory) is that all injections can cause damage to the body—including for all the usual childhood vaccines, vitamins, and anesthetics.
Dennis will probably confirm that dentists do more injections in a normal working week than almost anybody, and they are taught assiduously to aspirate in order to avoid injecting the load into a blood vessel by mistake, because having one’s patients rolling around on the floor or going into a fit due to anaphylactic shock is bad for business.
Again, as vaccine schedules for children and adults alike have become more crowded, the number of shots people take in the West has grown tremendously over the past 50 to 60 years. Most five-year old American kids will have had more injections than I have had in my entire 65 years so far.
According to Guy, injections are like Russian roulette. A certain percentage of them will go straight into or leak into an artery, vein, or capillary, or into the lymph system, even in the case that aspiration is performed. The contents of these shots stimulates an immune response. In the case of vaccines, that’s their entire purpose.
If the immune response to the presence of a concentrated bolus of this stuff happens in the blood vessels, lots of epithelial cells get destroyed by the T-cells—too many to be replaced by the stem cell repairmen, and you end up with permanent scar tissue the symptoms of arterial sclerosis. If it happens in the heart, myocarditis; in the pancreas, diabetes; in the brain, all sorts of things that cause cognitive or motoneuron problems—MS, Parkinson’s, AD, ALS, autism. It is quite conceivable that Stephen Hawking’s problems were caused by a needle in the wrong place. In the intestinal barrier, Krohn’s or leaky gut syndrome. And once you have holes in your intestinal barrier, all sorts of things can leak into your bloodstream that shouldn’t be there.
Any foreign protein in the blood can trigger an immune response, and there you are unable to eat peanuts, or egg whites, or wheat gluten.
Millions of people can’t eat gluten without getting sick, while billions of people are fine with it. So it’s not the gluten that’s the cause of the problem, but the body’s inability to deal with what most bodies deal with effortlessly.
What has damaged those bodies to the extent that they cannot tolerate various food items? Is it that they have leaky guts caused by a bolus of something injected reaching the gut barrier and triggering significant inflammation due to immune reaction.
I don’t know, but I think we have a winner here.
Somehow, this is not a surprise. It is one limit or another one we hit first. Copper would seem to be high on the list to be hit early. If copper rises in price, there tends to be a problem with copper materials that are easily accessible being stolen.
I found this link:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/international-energy-forum-report-details-110000058.html
International Energy Forum Report Details EV Copper Hurdles
There is a link at this site for downloading the report. Also, it says,
Came across this in Lex Fridman,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0-SXS6zdEQ
Peter Wang mentions the phrase, “Malicious incompetence.”
It seems to me a apt description of some of our predicament especially in US.
Have run across a number of young people completing math through diff. eq., chemistry and some physics at local CC. I don’t think they pay a fee to the CC, part of the secondary school programs. They seem to gravitate toward MIT and NDSU. It has a good reputation and it is reasonable. Plus, what else does one do but study in Fargo. High in December 20.7F, January 19.8F. The good news, temps rarely fall below -2F.
Engineering tuition appears to be $6654.
It is still possible to get a good start as a young person in the US, skip the frills, go for the meat. Fargo, man, cold, burrrr.
Dennis L.
Where did the $6.654 come from?
https://www.ndsu.edu/admission/financial_aid/cost
Engineering Tuition $10,243 $11,472 $12,292 $15,365 $17,925
first number for North Dakota students
second number for Minnesota students
third number for South Dakota and Montana students
fourth number for the rest of USA
fifth number for international students.
It might have a good reputation around the mountain states, but good luck with a NDSU diploma in centers of civilization.
I haven’t look at the website, I know at Kennesaw State University, where my husband teaches, besides tuition, there are substantial fees (for things like the football program) that even part-time students must pay. And there is an overly expensive cafeteria that even part-time students are obliged to eat some minimum number of meals at. It is hard to find the total number anyplace.
I think he is talking about the CC tuition, not NDSU or MIT.
Perhaps first two years of a four-year program, with basic courses. Students often live at home.
From Copilot:
The tuition for the engineering program at North Dakota State University (NDSU) for the 2024-2025 academic year is as follows1:
North Dakota Residents: $10,243
Minnesota Residents: $11,472
Montana and South Dakota Residents: $12,292
Other States: $15,365
International: $17,925
Please note that these costs are for the tuition only and do not include other fees such as student fees, housing, meal plans, books, etc1. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, please check the official NDSU website or contact the university’s admissions office”
I am in MN. I don’t think it is that bad.
As for reputation, I am seeing its name pop up around here, Rochester MN.
Can’t say about other than math and computer books, but the quality is up considerably, Cengage seems good. They are consistent.
Wonder for a reasonable level job, not one requiring and advanced PhD. who would go first, MIT or NDSU.
Thanks for the correction, took the number off the NDSU website, perhaps per semester.
Dennis L.
“
“Peter Wang: Python and the Source Code of Humans, Computers, and Reality | Lex Fridman Podcast”
It is necessary to have fossil fuels to do the engineering with. Better engineering solutions very often lead to more fossil fuel use, not less, because of Jevons’ Paradox.
Young people are very impressionable. They want to be a TV star. Or a high-earning doctor or lawyer. Being an engineer seems to be something from the past, that might be going away. An engineer interested in repurposing used materials is perhaps the way of the future. What to do with roads that are falling apart, and shopping centers that are falling apart, etc.
Latest Art Berman ,
https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-u-s-will-lose-the-economic-industrial-war-with-china-on-the-renewable-energy-front/
Such a pyrrhic victory for China.
Ironically this very dysfunctional China USA relationship began with Nixon acknowledging that Taiwan was China’s. “One china”. That was China’s precondition. The bargain. We burn all our coal and make things for you. In return we get all the manufacturing and as much technology as we can acquire. Now the messy ending.
Only finding a middle ground where both parties are satisfied and that doesn’t have messy endings. From one perspective, this could be considered diplomacy. China is like break a deal, face the wheel aka messy ending. Farengi logic.
Both parties have to value agreements to avoid messy endings but if the agreement itself is not equitable for both parties it also creates messy endings. Good business is no one is really happy. If someone is really happy someone is getting shafted. Who exactly got shafted here is a matter of debate (isn’t it always). What is not debatable is a messy ending is coming.
I don’t think that the US ever stopped to think that this relationship could have an unhappy ending. China could do more and more, and the US could do less and less. Some of US services aren’t really worth much.
Perfect word.
Then there is the copper problem mentioned elsewhere. It is hard to do a major transition to EVs without enough copper. No one comes out ahead.
“Ugo BardiMay 17, 2023 at 7:09 PM
It is well known. For this reason, we’ll go local, so we’ll need less copper. And we’ll use aluminum, which is very abundant.”?
https://www.senecaeffect.com/2023/05/renewables-are-not-cleaner-caterpillar.html
This is an exchange between Ugo Bardi and Dennis Meadows, that was published a little over a year ago.
Ugo Bardi is arguing that electricity from renewables will save us, while Dennis Meadows says that renewables will take way too many materials to work.
Ugo keeps on with his arguments, while Dennis Meadows concludes with:
“I would not choose either path; rather I believe it is time to quit focusing on fossil energy scarcity as a source of our problems and start concentrating on fragility. The debate -renewables versus fossil – is a distraction from considering the important options for increasing the resilience of society.”
I think that the self-organizing economy will pick out resilient parts of the economy, and keep them going, but these may be quite limited. I have little faith in Ugo’s arguments. As far as I can see, it is not possible to use intermittent electricity to make aluminum. There is likely a problem with mining and transporting the ore, using only intermittent electricity. Electricity that stops and starts will not keep the system operating.
When I look up aluminum smelting in Wikipedia, I find:
“an aluminium smelter uses huge amounts of electric power” and “power must not be interrupted for more than 4–5 hours, since the pots have to be repaired at significant cost if the liquid metal solidifies.”
These are difficult requirements for intermittent electricity sources to fulfill, and batteries don’t do enough to provide backup. The system needs to be put together with fossil fuels and maintained with fossil fuels. I would not pay much attention to what Ugo Bardi says.
“The second thing which needs to be stated here, is that energy efficiency is not a solution for two reasons. First, it too violates the Maximum Power Principle — and thus puts the entity reducing its overall energy intake into a major disadvantage; effectively allowing other entities to outcompete it. Since we are living in a competitive environment, where the weak gets eaten/occupied/robbed/colonized/etc. this cannot allowed to happen. As a result energy saved by efficiency measures will always be used up in other ways (usually by increasing economic output). And while we could debate how this is a bad thing from a moral standpoint, this is the world we live in.
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-energy-transition-story-has-become-self-defeating-875076135425
Next time someone says we can recycle poop and sewage to fertilizer use , you will know the answer . Kurt Cobb knows his stuff .
https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2024/06/messy-business-polluted-biosolids.html
I have read about this issue in the past. The US uses so many pharmaceutical products in their feed, and so many other chemicals in growing plants, it is not surprising that they come though to sewage.
Try and be a self-respecting alligator in the wrong pond.
“Yes, research has shown that alligators can indeed suffer from reproductive abnormalities, including smaller penises, due to exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water12. These chemicals can mimic hormones, act as hormone antagonists, or alter the synthesis and/or degradation of hormones13.
For instance, studies on American alligators living in pesticide-contaminated lakes have found altered plasma hormone concentrations, reproductive tract anatomy, and hepatic functioning1. Specifically, alligators at Lake Apopka, a pesticide-contaminated lake, have been found to have abnormal levels of the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone. It’s suspected that contaminants in the lake might be blocking the male alligators’ response to their own testosterone4.
In a 1994 study, juvenile alligators from Lake Apopka had altered gonadal morphology and serum hormone concentrations, suggesting that they were affected by the inadvertent release of these endocrine-disrupting chemicals5. So, the presence of certain chemicals in water can indeed have significant effects on the reproductive health of alligators. It’s a topic of ongoing research and concern for wildlife conservation.”
Copilot, of course as a source.
Dennis L.
Raviji,
Open sewage to the river is better?
Human manure can and does work. Sawdust from the mill and you’re in business. Yes its a product of fossil fuel. Sawdust has so much carbon out takes a long time to compost. Plants can’t grow in uncomposted sawdust. And what does that sawdust need to compost. Nitrogen. Poop.. Its a match made in heaven. It takes a while but at two or three years that is beautiful rich compost.
If you are saying poop is hazardous waste. What are you going to do, dry cask it? Wait. Where did this toxicity come from? If it’s poop from things they consumed so they can’t be all that toxic. It’s less toxic after you turn it into compost. Even less toxic eating plants grown in it.
People pour all sorts of nasty things down their sinks and toilets. If you’re making compost, you don’t add nasty things to it because you are eating the plants grown in it. That’s why human manure is the perfect solution to the problem the article describes.
As a whole the article is hogwash. I’ve been practicing human manure for three decades. So have a lot of people. I guarantee we are way, way, way healthier than the average population. How can you claim that something doesn’t work when people have been doing it forever?
Author probably works for a sewage treatment company. Oh no there is aspirin in the poop. We are all gonna die. Put on your hazmat suit to wipe your ass.
I’ve got a septic system. I use it more than I like. Waste of resources.
That is an interesting point: Do the chemicals in the sewage come back to harm humans, when food is grown with sewage used as fertilizer?
I have read stories that suggest that estrogen supplements have been coming back (somehow, in some places) to cause earlier menstruation in girls. But this may be coming through the water supply, or elsewhere else where, such as milk of cows feeding on antibiotics and other supplements. Of more meat in the diet may be leading to this result.
Also, today’s chickens are several times the size they were years ago, thanks to antibiotics (??) and many other things. What happens when a person eats the chicken that is filled with additives?
I don’t know the answer.
Perhaps those eating large chickens become large themselves.
Dennis L.
So, the pandemic united the world around a common enemy.
Shut down the schools and churches (things that divide us)
And hopefully, bankrupts the US healthcare cartels.
Is this a China virus or a Grateful Dead?
🙂
“The US Medical Profession Remains in Denial”
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2024/06/03/the-us-medical-profession-remains-in-denial/
Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines or the origins of COVID,” chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, said as the hearing kicked off. Wenstrup, who said he was seeking accountability in this hearing, accused Fauci of overseeing “one of the most invasive regimes of domestic policy the U.S. has ever seen.”
Fauci addressed those issues, and Republican attacks, in his opening statement, calling certain matters “seriously distorted.”
Anthony Fauci faces grilling by Republicans over COVID-19 response, origins
JOHN PARKINSON and CHEYENNE HASLETT
Mon, June 3, 2024 at 12:02 PM EDT
5 min read
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-poised-grill-anthony-fauci-102852625.html
Ooh another stern grilling.
It was gain of function
No it was not
You were making bubonic plague air transmissible
Not gain of function
Here are all these emails where you told everyone not to call it gain of function.
Exactly. That’s the standard. Not gain of function
Tune in next week for the next fun episode with everyone s favorite antidote to conspiracy theory.
Marjorie Taylor Greene says Fauci should be jailed and rails against ‘evil science’ at Covid hearing
Kelly Rissman
Mon, June 3, 2024 at 3:02 PM EDT
The GOP-led subcommittee has requested access to Dr Fauci’s personal email and phone records after obtaining information, which, they say, calls into question whether he may have attempted to conceal some records.
Dr Fauci is appearing voluntarily on Monday. He has said that he has “nothing to hide.”
..He first mentioned the lab leak theory. “The accusation being circulated that I influenced these scientists to change their minds with millions of dollars in grant money is absolutely false and simply preposterous,” Dr Fauci said.
He then addressed the accusations that he allegedly tried to “cover up” the possibility that the virus originated from a lab.
“The truth is exactly the opposite,” he said matter-of-factly. He then read an email, adding, “It is inconceivable that anvone who reads this e-mail could conclude that I was trying to ‘cover up’ the possibility ofa laboratory leak. To the contrary, it demonstrates that I was advocating for a prompt and thorough examination ofthe data and a totally transparent process.”
Such a nice guy
Exactly.
It’s like a court with no judge and no jury
Uh huh
Nope
Uh huh
Nope
Uh huh
Nope
“The Corrupt US Medical Profession Owned by Big Pharma Continues to Deny the Adverse Effects of the Covid “Vaccines.” Consequently the millions of people adversely affected by the “vaccines” can get no help for their conditions. So what we have is a crime committed on top of a crime.”
No kidding!
The monetary incentives are all wrong. The medical community wants to sell more and more of their services. They need to get their customers “hooked” on prescription medicines, surgeries, and immunizations. They do not necessarily want a well patient who doesn’t want or need services. A well patient who only uses a few over-the-counter products is not much better.
Kaiser Permanente does better than most, but it is still under pressure to offer all of the same options as other health services. Kaiser Permanente pushed covid vaccines, somewhat like other organizations.
Bad Boys star Martin Lawrence clings to Will Smith in worrying video
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/bad-boys-star-martin-lawrence-clings-to-will-smith-in-worrying-video/news-story/3ec1d0d9885d021fa9d3b05a89de30b5
Yikes!
Since being gay is considered way cool nowadays some guys pretend to be gay to have sex with girls. The relationship starts on the premise they are gay.
When they start having sex it’s “nothing serious” because “he’s gay”. It doesn’t count as a “real relationship ” is sought. It’s a variation of “he’s just a friend”. The “gay” guy never finds his queer match. No demands usually placed on boyfriends are placed because “hes gay”. Sexual and emotional needs are met for both partys and the understanding is it’s not serious because “he’s gay”. As the girl dates other men disclosing the relationship is not neccesary even though she sleeps at his place twice a week because “he’s gay”. As mentioned a variation of the “he’s just a friend” with plausible deniability. With sexual and emotional needs met the girl can be more detached and emotionally unavailable as she shifts through the simps looking for mr right. She is protected from pain of becoming emotionally attached during her simp sifting. If a guy she is “dating ” has a problem with this he is accused of being homophobic and controlling “not allowing me to have gay friends “. She is not “dating ” “my gay friend” obviously because “he’s gay”.
Stop spreading lies.
There is no such thing as a gay man who has sex with his straight female friend. There are lavender marriages and relationships where the gay man hides his homosexuality from his partner in a heterosexual relationship.
Did you think that Trump YMCA dance was fake?
It wasnt. Manhattan swinger. It’s a thing.
‘To talk about “peak coal” is difficult in this context because once we entered the oil age, we were able to produce coal on a scale that would have been impossible in an economy solely driven by coal. To give an example of this, consider that China burned more coal in the last two decades than Britain has burned since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. British coal production peaked in 1913 and had to be subsidised for military reasons thereafter. But global coal production continued to increase during the first half of the 1920s. The peak of coal-based coal production came in 1927, causing a big spike in world coal prices (which were later blamed on the Welsh miners’ strike of 1926). In its way, this had a similar effect as the Spanish timber shortages in the sixteenth century – causing prices to rise and economic activity to slow.
The same banking and finance process that we see in ordinary business cycles followed. The roaring twenties were largely debt-based, with people borrowing to buy shares which – like British houses in the 1990s – were expected to rise in price at a faster rate than the interest on the loan. In the apocryphal story, Joseph Kennedy realised the boom was about to bust when a shoeshine boy started talking about share prices – if a shoeshine boy had bought shares, then there was no one else left, and so prices would have to fall. Either way, Kennedy sold up just before the Wall Street Crash.
The run on the banks followed as people realised that the banks had also invested in the stock market. And since, in any case, banks hold only a fraction of the currency nominally on deposit, bank failures were inevitable. Suddenly, households were without cash even to pay for essentials while businesses could no longer meet the wage bill. In Europe – which was still struggling to kickstart growth while trying to meet the payments on its wartime debt – the depression was even deeper and gave rise to waves of collectivist movements which regarded state control of the economy as the only way out. But even in the more economically liberal USA, Roosevelt took government intervention in the economy to a level unthinkable prior to the crash.
It took the switch to a new source of primary energy – itself driven by the demands of an even bloodier war – to pull the western economies into a new energy cycle of growth. In the USA, this meant merely expanding oil age technologies which already existed on a small scale. In Europe, it meant the wholesale switch from coal to oil in the post-war years. And instead of the depressed economies of the 1920s, once the immediate war damage had been repaired, the result was the unprecedented economic boom from 1953 to 1973 – something, by the way, which caused western policy makers to wrongly believe that war is good for the economy.’?
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2024/05/31/nowhere-to-run/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2JcHDNfDpTjChYBogRrUaF2wCXOCiY7QE6vmswxBcFojo-0OEt4eDiJwc_aem_AeBN5ZBfrqBHmK-IEwIoo5QuZNSm6BT_kxw8uqPkj29Wc3n2q-ER7aFhAffCL71XV0HJv3Smftc59Ge6sGhp2Avk
Peak oil, Peak gold, Peak copper, are past tense..
Very interesting. Coal extracted only with the use of coal is very different from the amount of coal that can be extracted with a much more complete system with oil, included!
I need to read the whole article.
Peak coal is more complicated than peak oil. Coal is often quite labour intensive to mine. Transportation of coal over land is also expensive, requiring rail infrastructure to do at volume, which also depends upon the correct geography. So the timing of peak coal depends upon a lot more than reaching the half way point in energetically recoverable resources. Ageing demographics and transportation problems will have a strong impact on future coal production in China, regardless of how much remains within their borders.
Coal certainly requires a whole system to work around the difficulties of transporting it.
If you think about it, natural gas is a step worse than coal in this regard. It also needs specialized storage.
If you think further about it, electricity is a step worse than natural gas for transport and storage.
I think of oil as being easiest to transport and store, then coal, followed by natural gas and electricity.
One brick at a time .
https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/a-restaurant-apocalypse-is-starting-to-sweep-across-america-and-that-is-really-bad-news-for-the-u-s-economy/
Restraunt business has not recovered from Covid . Problem I hear is the rents are too high . A big MNC opens a showroom in a street and pays a ridiculous sum , as a result the rents in the whole street goes up . Difficult to cover if you are selling coffee and pastries and ” Meal/Menu of the day ” . Further compounded by ridiculous property valuations by the local government to extract property tax .
Good find Ravi. two things 1) is obvious, but in a downturn restaurants are the first to suffer 2) restaurants were an essential cultural contribution of european bourgeoisie to the world. as the top half of the middle class goes, so will they.
Look on the bright site, no more Satre’s and other negativists.
Dennis L.
What is the bright site? People like Sartre (I am not aware of a Satre, maybe a corruption of Satire?) were needed to explain the emptiness in the postwar world.
At least he was not running around selling pie in the sky.
I think its pretty simple. It is for me anyway. Eating out with a decent tip is very expensive now. I do it a lot less than I used to. If I find a place that has quality inexpensive food with no tip jar I frequent it.
There actually seems to be a bit of a industry starting in food prepared in gas stations that is high quality.. I can eat for $6, compared to $ 15.
Here in NY state a good restaurant is $100 a person. I can not eat at the pizza place for $15.
I can get one slice for $3. One soda for $3.
Another one bites the dust . Last month was the ” Red Lobster” chain .
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/rubios-coastal-grill-closing-48-locations-california-due-rising-costs-business-state
I will narrate a real life experience and how I see dining out and the economy connection . I invested and lived in Budapest from 1992 – 2010 ( 18 years) so I have a long time span . During the period 1992-95 when East Europe was opening up there was a lot of FDI ( Foreign Direct Investment ) in Hungary . Sit down restaurants , Irish pubs , steak houses etc were spurting all over the place . Around the year 2000 the phase was over . The sit downs became ” all you can eat ” , pubs started with ” happy hours 5-7pm ” . Around 2005 the FDI dried up . The ” all you can eat started closing their doors and the pubs started extending their ” happy hours ” from 5-7 pm to 5-8 pm . Come 2010 . The ” all you can eat” shut down . The pubs were all shutdown . The ” all you can eat ” became ” take away ” only . I left Budapest in 2010 and returned again in 2013 ( to sell some assets) and I was flabbergasted . It had become ” take away ” city . The only sit-downs were in the 5 star hotels and in tourist hot spots . The pubs had returned to being a ” borozo ” ( wine spot ) or ” sorozo ” beer spot . The degradation was mindboggling . My last visit was in 2015 and I remember the 99 HUF menu ( 0. 40 Cents ) at the take away which was a slice of pizza and a cola . At a Chinese takeaway I could get a full meal (rice + chicken) for 0.80 cents in 2015 . This is a real life experience .
Here in Benelux the largest processer of shelled foods \( lobsters , prawns, oysters , etc) had to file for chapter 11 . Unaffordable . I see things that other’s don’t but that is because I am ”peak oil” aware . But as David says ” BAU tonight ” baby . 😊
Thank you Very interesting Ravi.
Ravis eatery economic indicator.
If restaurants go, it’s bad because that’s where people take dates. Guys will finance romance before oxygen.
“If restaurants go, it’s bad because that’s where people take dates. Guys will finance romance before oxygen.”
Due to dysgenics or female sexual selection there are less men going on dates. The few highly sought out men realize they do not have to pay if a woman who earns more than them is willing to pay.
A lot of places are courting the LGBT audience because there are not enough straight couples. 30% of the LGBT audience is a better than 3% of the straight market.
For everyone who wants to follow the AI AI AI AI AI AI EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME REVOLUTION! AMD’s Computex (a major tech convention) presentation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCi8jgALPYA
Make cat pictures in the blink of an eye! Share them on social media, with AI!
I use Copilot for programming, it is very helpful.
Dennis L.
What Jenson Huang AI factories everywhere for everything.
Watch
I saw that he didn’t present any new products.
He sells NVIDIA as the base layer for everyone. Hardware and software. His wife is in charge of software. He announced one year cadence for new chips and two year cadence for new design of chips. Intel and IBM do the same.
“One year cadence” is not a newly announced product.
“NVIDIA will be used by everyone” is not a new product, use case, or service.
Nothing new, just more of the same.
Have seen the annual meeting, I suspect a revolution in farming is coming more rapidly than many expect. Get Hub has interesting programs, mostly interested in GPS and associated RTK as well as facial recognition, well a weed has a face.
Videos on robots killing weeds with lasers. I like the idea, organic, no pesticides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24W-BIV5mYE
this video has machine fertilizing one plantat a time as well as burning single weeds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV0cR_Nhac0
Biggest problem will be mud, tough to keep things clean.
There are also videos of robotic greenhouses.
Software engineers becoming farmers, who would of thunk?
Dennis L.
Greg Hunt interviews Ed Dowd in a new 53 minute video. The video (on Rumble) can be found by scrolling down in this page.
https://usawatchdog.com/huge-financial-shock-inevitable-hitting-now-ed-dowd/
Ed Dowd sees a major downturn in the next 12 months because of an 18 month lag between tighter monetary policy and the time the effects flow through to the economy. He expects that it will take much than that for the demise of the US dollar.
If I understood correctly, he expects the US dollar will explode upward, with too many dollars printed, and eventually collapse from this state of excess.
He is recommending a diversified portfolio. He says the US will continue to honor its Treasuries, even if the result is sinking the stock market. Treasuries (or money market based on Treasuries) should be part of a diverse portfolio. Gold (in coins) should also be part of the portfolio.
Of course, Dowd doesn’t know about our energy problem, but he seems to have pretty good ideas otherwise.
One thing to consider when considering Ed’s disability statistics is people are going on disability to collect social security. It’s a matter of hiring a lawyer. There are disability lawyers. They know how to get disability claims through.
In some cases it’s someone genuinely disabled. Often its psychological disabilities nowadays that constitute ss disability claims.
I think Dowd is correct; disability claims are increasing from deleterious effects of the jab. But some of that is people going on SS for economic reasons. As of yet no real third wave is showing. We can hope the worst is over.
I think there is a different question that’s not often asked: How have the injections affected quality of life? Theres a lot to health. How you feel. Just because something doesn’t kill you or disable you doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect your health and quality of life negatively.
That is a good point. Any insurance program, including government programs, can be manipulated as people see a need for more income and have difficulty holding down a job.
The loss of school years by youth was horrible.
Dennis L.
My later Harvard MBA classmate from undergrad years related to me how his elderly father went to the Social Security Agency to redirect his monthly payments. He told his son, ” I went to the SS today and all I saw were these young people. No crutches, no wheelchairs or anything. There was nothing wrong with them.”
“I know pop, you’ve got to understand how the system works.” my classmate replied.
“But there’s nothing wrong with them!” his father continued apparently totally dismayed.
“Pop, you’ve got to undertstand how the system works these days.”
But I hear a a similar freeloading mindset at the YMCA from 20-30 year men who are working out as vigorously as some prisoners in the prison yard. All I hear them talk about is not their job, training, or recent missions, not abstracts about “serving their country” or whether their job has any meaning or significance. These are from the Coast Guard with a huge base here on the NC Coast. It’s always, “How many years do I have to serve before I can get my pension and retire?” Every. Single. Fucking. Conversation. It has been so pervasive that I have questioned the wisdom of an all volunteer armed forces.
This country, or what’s left of it, is carrying a huge parasitic load. Even my useless brother, now worth $3 million having done nothing except graduate from F&M in PA and graduate school at RPI, brags about sleeping late, drinking fancy coffee and riding his motorcycles and making more money than this one bearish money fund manager. He “worked” at General Dynamics Electric Boat Division in Groton, CT making nuclear subs, but quite hypocritically railed and ranted for years about the government because the waste is exponential (one screw up costs 10-20X to correct) but staying on long enough (to the 365th day) to collect his 20 year pension and then to move on to Insitu which makes drones. All government funded jobs, because he is such an asshole he could never in a million years hold a productive valued added job in the private sector. He has been a mooch from our boyhood days when he expected the cashier to pay for his purchases. He has been for his entire life sucking on the government teat.
But alas, I am a self confessed hypocrite because I never served and could rightfully be “accused” of being interested only in making a shit-ton of money as a physician, until I was screwed by my KY Board of Medical Licensure, Case 467 1994, because of their political agenda, not unlike those few brave physicians (rare) who stood up against the COVID hoax and got screwed for it.
But I agree with kulm. We don’t deserve to have a country.
Maybe eventually it will be as Bob Dylan wrote in his classic song “Like a Rolling Stone.”
“Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street and now you’re going to have to get used to it.”
” “How many years do I have to serve before I can get my pension and retire?”
I can understand your frustration . This is what I hear day in and day out .
“But I agree with kulm. We don’t deserve to have a country.”
What about our children, do you want to condemn them to misery?
Bob Dylan was a heroin addict with a lousy voice and more or less the woke of his generation. Everyone sat around dorm rooms really getting it. Better to study engineering and make something.
Dennis L.
Assuming engineering/ mathematical aptitude is evenly distributed among all college students:
Make something that makes people lazier ?
The harder you work, the less incentive some people will have to work, especially if they see you as part of an out-group.
Make something that increases fossil fuel consumption or human population?
Re: Dylan
Without software, content or whatever you people want to call it, there is no demand for hardware or engineering products. A transistor radio that doesn’t play music a large percentage of people want to hear is no longer manufactured after a while.
Most people EVEN very smart fully comprehend what happens “when the trucks stop moving”. The industrialized world that we have created is all dependent and exists because of dinosaur juice.
This a great sing along if you replace zoom with doom.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq01f7pbzCc&pp=ygUUd2VyZSBnb25uYSB6b29tIHNvbmc%3D
Relying on dinosaur juice was a great idea at the time. Just think of all the horse manure that no longer had to be carted off the streets!
But using the stuff to move a ton or more of metal around every time an SUV user wants to go for a ride and to fuel the culture of mass consumption of globalized big box store products that go from the factory to the landfill in the blink of an eye in socioeconomic terms was bound to result in the stuff becoming scarce.
I figure there may be rather more oil available than is currently being admitted to. But even if there is, continuing to go on the way we have been is bound to lead to a crunch a few decades further along the road, which is still a blink in the eye.
Yes, I too wonder how a certain group of people are going to defend their right to exist without fossil fuels in the future.
Even if they are willing to negotiate, what good are financial services and legal services as bartering items when there is almost nothing to eat?
A few more decades? BAU David was right?
Canada cuts rates .25%. Oil price would indicate downturn. Fed next?
it will be interesting as the downturn hits and they cut rates whether inflation is really lowered. I would not have guessed that rates could stay this high for this long.
Larry Johnson comments on the Ritter event. He is in St Petersburg for the economic summit as a presenter. Ritter was also going to attend as a presenter. There appears be a unprecedented amount of attention paid to this summit this year. In the face of military conflict and sanctions the summit represents Russia’s economic goals proceeding unhindered.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gzO0FuYl-0g
… I would not have guessed that rates could stay this high for this long.
Why’s that? Doug Nolan, and I happen to agree with him on this, considers that the interest rate policy, even at current rates remains remarkably loose. If the greatest part of created credit goes into financial assets (the oligarchs) rather than consumer expenditure (the plebs), so long as asset prices leap more rapidly than the cost of credit, the wealth transfer in the economy continues apace. There’s no squeeze on borrowing!
Just keep pointing Taser2024 at Nividia and Bitcoin and the game can continue forever, no?
It’s salient, perhaps, to note from charts that market crashes do not occur and trigger policy rate drops. Generally the crashes occur once the rate easing is under way.
No one knows the future.
Interesting point: “Generally the crashes occur once the rate easing is under way.”
Moss
Lots of reasons. Primarily because real estate must never devalue or financial goes south. They have put a nice patch on that by just putting all non performing loans into suspended animation. Ending mark to market did that.
But sooner or later they have to get non performing loans to perform again. Because the organic economy cannot support these valuations; it can only come from credit expansion. The organic economy can’t afford that either at 7%. When interest rates went up they knocked houses off the market into suspended animation.
As the economy tanks more loans become non-performing. Thanks to the miracle of categorizing they are not as bad as a repo-absolute death for a bank- but they kill income. Repos kill leverage that is a banks life blood. Moving into non performing doesn’t kill leverage but reduces income. Slow death, not rapid like leverage loss, Sooner or later they have to try to inflate the bubble again to get the non performing loans performing and start kneecapping the dollar again. I just thought it would be sooner not later.
The elephant in the room being commercial real estate.
Visually, tractors are piling up on dealers’ lots. Think I posted earlier JD having layoffs.
Farm income is down, has been for some years past.
Guess: land values are plateauing, maybe declining. That one is hard to call.
Dennis L.
I tried to find land values for farm online, but they seem to be pretty delayed in reporting. This is a link to a USDA report issued in May 2024 that goes through 2023. It shows prices going up, up, up. Sometime, this has to stop. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/land-use-land-value-tenure/farmland-value/
Ed Dowd talked about an 18-month lag between when changes like higher interest rates would feed through to affect the system. The Federal Reserve started increase interest rates in March 2022, but it didn’t get them up to the current level (5.25% -5.50%) until July 2023. Eighteen months from March 22 is September 2023. Eighteen months from July 2023 is January 2025. Ed Dowd is talking about financial crash in the next 12 months, as these high interest rates flow through. The interest rates and their indirect effects could certainly be expected to affect land prices.
https://www.thestreet.com/fed/fed-rate-hikes-2022-2023-timeline-discussion
I am basing on cashflow, cashflow is down. How am I fairly certain? Farmers will do almost anything to avoid taxes, equipment is a good out especially given the cost of maintenance.
JD has more tractors on the lot than I have seen in a number of years.
I am seeing more land for sale now.
Spoke with my accountant, seems to have a number of farmers as clients, abuse of land is a problem; mining the soil, dirt exchanged for cash.
Farming has damn poor after tax cash flow. What goes up on land are taxes, valuation, and insurance costs. They are not helpful.
Dennis L.