Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Contradicting consensus

No Prizes


















 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stanczyk_Matejko.JPG


Mostly, there are no prizes for contradicting consensus.  Prizes are for consolidating an existing consensus in a way that will allow it to roll better, not (to use a railroad analogy), for switching the points that make it turn sharp left, or stops it in its tracks, or, as is the case here, go into reverse.  Not only are all the bandwagoners likely to fall off, but the vehicle is likely to be so severely damaged it is only fit for the scrap heap.  Even moreso there are no prizes for blowing whistles while doing so. If significant deviation is the intention it is usually better to adopt a quieter, more sober, and more surreptitious (political) approach by canvassing opinion and building a consensus, so that with time the bandwagon (and the people on it) are able to take the curve at a more acceptable pace.

It is half a century since Plate Tectonics left the station, and has been gathering momentum ever since as the framework for interpreting geology.  The increase in momentum however is due more to its path being downhill, helped by the weight of conjectural baggage, than it is to to do with any fuel stoking its firebox, which at every test turns out to be more damp squibs than anything else.  "Downhill all the way" ('subduction'), is Plate Tectonics default acknowledgement of the imperative of gravity.  It would surely far rather have a primary mechanism tangential to the Earth's crust whose full force could better make plates collide and crumple crust. 

It's actually something of a discomfiture for Plate Tectonics (not at all highlighted), that its *primary* mechanism *is* vertical - as in Earth Expansion.  The difference is simply that Earth expansion's primary verticality acts in the opposite direction from subduction. It is not down (towards the Earth's core, but  up, away from it, and has an accompanying signature related to the Earth's rotation and its first-order deformation (its oblate shape), and the way that oblateness has been modified in the dilation of the crust.  The big question for Earth expansion, which it can't yet answer (because it is a question for theoretical physics, not geology), is how rotation and energy are linked to create the material of the mantle (with its magnetic signature).

There is a further irony for Plate Tectonics too,  in that the more directly its primary downward dynamic is actioned (as in slab 'rollback'), the less collisional crumpling and moving plates can happen, and the more crustal extension is increased (e.g. the 'back-arc basins of the Western Pacific).  But crustal extension is what happens at the ridges where the supposed convection cell is rising. So no matter which way Plate tectonics turns, gravity-driven extension is its primary dynamic (as in Earth expansion).

In Plate Tectonics gravitational adjustment (by falling mantle slabs) is the motive force, .. the driver, .. the *cause* of plate movement.   In Earth expansion downwards gravitational adjustment is a *result* of upwards (/'outwards') global enlargement, that has a symmetry of inscription linking it to Earth's rotation - which Plate Tectonics ignores.  What precisely is causing the enlargement is not known, but it is materially manifest in the creation of the  mantle (including water).

Earth expansion thus *empirically* (not hypothetically) links the Earth's gravitational field with rotation and the creation of planetary material, and is a pointer to the physical reality of the quantum world at a scale that is directly accessible to us.  It is an exciting perspective on a subject that for half a century has shown no inclination to progress.  Plate Tectonics on the other hand remains mired in the *assumptions, speculations and escapes* of goal-post shifts of half a century in order to avoid exactly this conclusion, and even then is forced to recognise gravitational collapse (of the mantle) as its primary dynamic (subduction /return to the mantle), despite its yearning for a dominantly tangential one (to crumple continents).

...........................

Of course there's a cost. Financial and health are uppermost.  The time (mis-)spent working through something like this is substantial and negatively affects income in a number of ways.  And a desk job is a pain, literally.  There is also the psychic cost of being irked by the corruption and the threat to free speech that contrived conformity induces.  Encountering corruption in science (our "truth-teller"), is not good for you. Scepticism is insidious and leads to cynicism, which tends to spill over into other areas of life.  The often spectacular, errant behaviour of our commanders of societal institutions generally, doesn't help.  And of course if you're going to indulge in what others see as a foolish enterprise, then there's the cost of having to dress the part too. Well, .. it allows some concession to their view - but if they don't understand the nuttiness of the target subject(s) I doubt they'd see the irony in the fancy dress adopted to hob-nob with the walkers and the talkers.

Others, scientists among them who should know better, typically trot out the shibboleth, "If you have something to say, you should say it within the pages of scientific discourse and test it with peer review, .. scientists would give their right hand to say something new..etc etc."   This of course is a myth.  To bring any alternative message to the attention of a monolithic consensus (particularly when it reeks of corruption) is simply an invitation to be shot.  As has been demonstrated over the period of some ten years ["ten" refers to my old website; today (20200522) it is more like twenty]of posting about this on the internet, scientists are *not* interested in questioning the cardiac health of consensus, especially when that consensus appears increasingly like a cadaver. The reasons are not on account of any geo-logic, but on account of their own personal professional security.  Despite its logic and scientific credentials, Earth expansion is a professional poison that, by the evidence, virtually all academics will not touch however much they might be inclined, or even want, to do so.  And be sure there are no prizes for drawing attention to the courage of their convictions.


Finally, a word of caution for others who think they might be in a position to go forward with this.  Make no mistake, there will be no prizes.  Geology today is far too ensconced in its own convictions and the (unwarranted) institutional kudos that supports it. Previous advances in the field followed crises of sorts, when things weren't working.  There were questions about what to do with the ocean floors.  Were they submerged continents?  Did landbridges exist? Exactly how were the vertical movements of orogenesis, taphrogenesis and epeirogenesis related? And what about the thousands of kilometres of trans-Atlantic displacement (Continental Drift")?  And the heat source apparently necessary to do that?  And (to cap it all) the astounding discovery of recent sea-floor spreading.  All of these represented advances from a position gained.  Earth expansion represents nothing of the sort, but a return to an earlier position already discarded. Investigating it means undoing everything that has been assembled to support a false consensus, and by implication to a considerable extent, the reputations of those who have built it.  Despite the  manifest contradictions of Plate Tectonics, and the vistas offered by the alternative of expansion, the advocates of Plate Tectonics will do everything in their power to maintain its current status.

After the war and the triumph of theoretical physics in the creation of The Bomb, the whole way science was done, changed.  Natural philosophy was replaced by more quantitative and theoretical methods to which the principle of multiple working hypotheses was seen as better adapted.  It allowed focus, .. a more reductionist, 'scientific' approach.  Logic took a back seat.  Overnight it was acceptable to allow illogical contradictions, because if you scratched beneath the surface (with a little more arithmetical scribbling based on a 'good idea') you might find (at best) they were not contradictions at all, or (at worst) have another 'piece-of-the-jigsaw' to add to the mix.  In geology, neither proved to be true.  There has been no conceptual advance since Plate Tectonics was first formulated, only goal-post-shifts of the 'escape' sort.  Of course, these are not seen as such by a new generation who have learned the litany (and the method), but as proof of the theory.

Is this why (Earth) science is failing?  Because its core principle of logic has been usurped by theory?  Because theory has come to be maladapted?  ..  and, in the case of the Earth sciences at least, made it possible for those who inherently cannot see the difference between the two, to hog the driving seat?

Sam Carey (on Earth expansion; interviewed in 2002 just before he died).

"Through the 30s and 40s and 50s if you dared to propose this sort of thing [EE - d.f.] in America you'd be laughed at, you're a ratbag flat-earther. And there was no chance of getting a job if you had that kind of idea. But by about 1956 I could see the glimmerings of the recognition that something was wrong."   http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/tribute-to-sam-carey-and-peter-hunt/3508908#transcript

The present cohort, demonstrating obeisance to consensus.   Paradoxically, those who can, and should, and who are ostensibly in the best position to do so, .. will not, because like ingenues coerced to the sex trade, their hands are tied by the threat of retribution.  Even when the door is opened to set them free they cannot escape.  The risks are too great.  They are prisoners of the politics of consensus.
"Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-- science and the nation will suffer."    (Michael Crichton quoting Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences.)

Plainly, the worst of it is that the science is not the issue. Rational argument is irrelevant. The subtext, 'consensus' and the politics of one sort or another that attend it, is the issue.  

Why science is failing? - willing idiotry in the driving seat, incompetence stoking the firebox, and consensus politics in the guard's van.

[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]


61 comments:

Milu said...

(This is the page where I meant to post this comment, not the one at /2013/03/geologists-r-us.html - sorry.)

Hi Don, it's Michael - I bought your CD back in 2011 and we exchanged a couple of emails … not being a geologist, I lacked knowledge and vocabulary and consequently was struggling to properly understand the points you were making. Anyhow, I'm giving it another try now, reading your ebook on a tablet which works great with a local web server installed.

I hope you're doing fine … Seems like you switched from Blogger to Twitter.

There's something I wanted to draw your attention to. Quote from this page:

» After the war and the triumph of theoretical physics in the creation of The Bomb, the whole way science was done, changed. «

And there's also a nuke explosion pic in your ebook, with a similar reasoning as to how physics got in control and geology was relegated to second class in its own domain.

Well … :)

There's something about "The Bomb" that may have escaped your attention. In order to find out what that might be, could you take a look at the old b/w photos from 1945, aerial and ground, showing cities destroyed by English and American bombers, allowing damage assessment? May I suggest three groups: (a) German: Hamburg, Köln/Cologne, Dresden, for example; (b) Hiroshima and Nagasaki (nuked); (c) other Japanese cities subjected to conventional bombing, such as Tokyo, Kobe, Osaka, Fukuoka, or whatever else.

Observations? Or, as you wrote in "Geologists 'R Us" on March 24, 2013: "And let me have your thoughts by Monday." Just joking, of yourse … but there is something to be learnt!

Best wishes to you!

Michael

don findlay said...

Got it (that quoted sentence) Thanks. And thanks for tackling this small comment-box. It's doesn't encourage much more than snappy one-liners. A more 'at-a-glance' full-page format would be good. (Google if you're listening ..)

Milu said...

Okay, The Bomb. The Atomic Bomb, to make it crystal clear. This is not about the horrors of war or bombing cities. It's just about The Bomb.

As I said, there is something about The Bomb that definitely has escaped your attention, and mine, too, until late 2015, and almost everyone's attention on the entire planet. I could just tell you what it is, but that would spoil it, given the *impact* The Bomb has had on physics, on science in general, including geology, leading to the absurdity of Plate Tectonics, on which you are probably the number one expert on the planet. (Not a joke - I've never seen PT dissected anywhere else, maybe questioned a bit, but not exposed as the pompous absurdity that it is.)

To cut it short: Plate Tectonics relies on The Bomb.

So let's look at The Bomb!

You need the investigative mindset and the inquiring attitude displayed on the "Geologists 'R' Us" page. Where you started from a simple photo of an excursion. Likewise, use Google Images to find images that allow *damage assessment* of the effects of bombing on cities. I propose three groups as above. Just google the images as Ι suggested and compare them, within a group, and between groups. This should take just a couple of minutes and something should be apparent. You will see! And remember the investigative mindset that is needed and that you can put in action! (Otherwise you would never have debunked PT in the first place.)

Talk to you later!

don findlay said...

Michael,

I really don't know how to answer you. I started yesterday and put it aside ("You could write a book about it") I just meant that experiment and modelling came to replace observation and logic. Dig deeper and the 'logic' part graphically is illustrated in that devastation, the context in which it happened, and that perennial question whether the end justifies the means. Can we honestly say (in retrospect), "Case in point"? Despair, aversion, madness, evil, redemption, power - "it's all in the book". Surely the short answer is just that we're looking at the human condition in action - expanded, and writ large.

I'm trying to reign in my mullings on the parallels between the abuse of geo-logic and societal malfeasance. Texts and subtexts. Experiments and models as a foundation for observation and logic. Because (as they say "You never have all the pieces", .. and .. "The more you get to know, the more you find you don't"). So although personal inclinations towards omnipotence might be offended, a certain humility is called for. (Or is it, .. 'humility is certainly called for?) :))

If it is, then I don't know if I'm ready for it yet, but getting there as I find enquiry inevitably pointing towards electromagnetism - about which I am totally ignorant - and dumb when I try to interrogate it. I don't have the enculturation and therefore never could from the inside.

What did you have in mind?

Milu said...

Hi Don … sorry, I wrote this 19 days ago, but was unable to get it posted on your page using the browser on my tablet. Found out yesterday that using the PC instead, it might work. Sorry again. Here goes:

Cold, cold. Wrong direction. You're going metaphysical - a dead end street (in this case). Not the way of enlightenment.

You need to apply the opposite approach. Physical evidence. Material evidence. Damage assessment. Damage clearly visible on the photos, which are all over the web. Damage to buildings, damage to the material world. Many details can be seen from the photos. The discovery is to be made in the Hiro/Naga photos. By comparing them to the other two groups of photos, something will become apparent. Differences, similarities. It's pretty much apparent at first glance. Shouldn't take more than five minutes. Any thought about tragedy, horror, suffering, etc ... forget it, it's not helpful, it gets in the way of making that discovery of something that is hidden in plain sight. You just have to open your eyes.

Okay, here's a hint: Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne in 1945 - they all look pretty much the same way. How come? And what about the other groups? Free your mind from preconceived notions and look at the facts on the ground that are clearly visible on many photos.

don findlay said...

No, .. I'm not gettting you, Michael. Destruction is (destructive). I wondered if you were referring to particular buildings that survived, or maybe the roads that in many cases appear to have been left intact, but then I supposed that the accent is on the firestorms rather than blast damage. I did wonder if you were in a conspiratorial vein re authenticity of the photos since one I came across shows untouched, obviously leafy trees down the middle of a boulevard where the buildings on either side had been totally ravaged, and also because I did come across a conspiracy page to do with American - Nazi business collusion /collaboration (https://tinyurl.com/yddrmw8a) Which could account for 'selective ? preservation' of some buildings (but hardly the cathedral(s?). I do find it difficult to get past just the visual impact. Can you clarify what I'm missing?

Milu said...

Sure, I can clarify. You did mention some points that may lead you onto the right track. But you do not need to "get past just the visual impact". On the contrary, the visual impact must be fully appreciated - as in your analysis of the dyke. I am not "in a conspiratorial vein re authenticity of the photos" - I am in an observational vein and not doubting photographic authenticity.

American-German corporate collusion is not a conspiracy. Corporate collusion in general isn't. What was the main war? It was Germany against the Soviet Union. Our Western and Southern fronts were side shows. German defeat was brought about by the Soviet Union. The Western military contribution was minor. What was the Western objective? To have both Germany and Russia destroyed. What better method than to have them destroy each other? So why would they bomb German armament production when the hardware was going to be sent to the East to fight Russia? German armament production peaked in 1944. The Western powers only started a massive campaign against German armament production when they invaded Normandy (which would not have succeeded without wide-spread treason among high-ranking German officers on the Western front, like Hans Speidel, who was rewarded with a high-ranking role in NATO from 1957 to 1963). Before the invasion, the Western bombers mostly terrorized civilians by carpet bombing densely populated residential areas. That is well known, even though propaganda continues to this day, as epitomised by the Jewish Jason Weixelbaum page you're linking to ("Debunking Conspiracy: Ford-Werke and the Allied bombing Campaign of Cologne", 2012-05-09) where no mention is made of the Soviet Union or Russia. That's like talking about Christianity and omitting Jesus Christ.

Back to the main topic. You mentioned, without saying which group of targets you were referring to:

* particular buildings that survived
* the roads that in many cases appear to have been left intact
* firestorms rather than blast damage
* leafy trees

Now these are some pertinent observations. Now what do you find if you compare Hiro/Naga to other Japanese cities as I suggested in my first post? What is the respective damage? How do they differ? Or do they? :)

Okay, further clues: How can you tell from the Hiro/Naga damage where to locate Ground Zero (if they didn't tell you where it is)? Where is the central crater blown by that powerful nuke detonation? Where are the blast alleys from that big nuke shockwave? How come the bridges at "Ground Zero" were not pushed into the river? What's going on with those amazing Japanese trees that resisted the nuclear fireball that vaporized watery humans? What about these antennas, light poles and other exposed objects that strangely didn't melt or burn down? Why is there so much evidence of resilience against the effects of that horrible nuke in the details of the photos?

don findlay said...

"Talking Christianity and omitting Jesus Christ." That's a good one :))

But you're right. All these things, even so (?)long ago, need addressed - and re-addressed ("Lest we forget.")

("Long.") And that was *not long after the one that got labelled, "The war to end all wars" - the one that got mechanised /industrialised, when a new meaning to 'war' was spun to meet the 'zeitgeist' (?) of industrialisation, when allegiances got ramped up a notch, from the local barons on the killing field with pikes and staffs (and bows and arrows) (and valourous deeds on horseback) (+ maidens and castles), to all out squalid, despotic nationalistic mayhem. You'd think it would all be in the past by now, but it has just got 'better' (and more entertaining).

Maybe we should be talking the other way round - about Jesus Christ and Christianity, and forgetting that in scattering the shekels he was effectively robbing the bank of its profits, which is where we are today. I often wonder how humanity has survided this far, and come to the conclusion it must be because in the long run the 'carers' who see the other in themselves, win out compared to those who, well, .. don't. (Un?)Fortunately we're all a bit of both, except in extremis (the extremes being deplorable). And generally speaking (with time and hindsight) can maybe be won over to the Golden Rule ("as we would be done by.").

It does appear to be a lesson that is to fathom and understand. Shopping, yesterday, in the car I entered here https://tinyurl.com/y95gv5vs (@ ~ 23mins to end). Point being that in the Donald Trump saga of pathological narcissism (which all of us suffer from to a degree) (hence the need for rules and regulations) (and particularly golden ones) (to deal with the bad guys) mostly it's only black Americans put their finger on the root of America's divide being racism. White America frames it more in socio-economic terms. Race is apparently too hard to face. It's not supposed to be a discussable issue, and therefore isn't.

So, we still have the mega-rich and its 'virtues', and, with a "leader of the Free world" who revels in a disregard for truth (except the ones he makes up all by himself to get him where he want to go, there is no doubting the need for evermore clarification of the events of the past which is why we have historians who have the time and the inclination to feret them out. (Who else would? - Or can, when there is a job to do etc., .) But certainly there is a need to be more informed about everything, and to know that it matters that there is such a thing. Who tells the truth has become the issue of our time - with President Trump right out there in the vanguard (and Plate Tectonics bringing up the rear. :)))

Sticks, stones, bows-and-arrows, dynamite, guns, bombs ( ordinary, incendiary, nuclear) (and now the possible revival of bio-war).. .. There's no shortage of ingenuity, is there, when it comes to killing and when all people want (and need)is to live in peace and hope for their children.

=>2/2

don findlay said...


(P.S.) By the time we got to nuclear we learned to detonate them in the air to maximise civilian damage (maximum blast with no craters). Hopefully with this virus cutting across everything, things will take at least a bit of a U-turn towards a more peaceful world and away from the psychopaths and militarists needing to rape the tax coffers for their boutique wars, .. and power supremacists fighting the Battles of the Brand.

"Talking Christianity and omitting Jesus Christ." (Is like talking America without Race).
https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1158569576168402945
.. and to a lesser degree, Europe.

Seems like madness is back on the table. It needs called out at every turn. Racism is a powerful theme that confronts reason with emotion. Somehow, adults seem to see problems where children (left to themselves) see none. Something to do with security ($$-jobs /economy) and the learned imperatives of tribalism. These are lessons that should have been learned long ago, but hey seem to be needing revisited with every generation.

I don't know, Michael, we seem intent on looking for 'wars' everywhere (drugs, poverty, violence) yet not learning many lessons. The devastation you're talking about marks the progression from those sticks and stones to nuclear 'gadgets' (as they preferred to call them back then). What's the future going to hold when an enforced couple of weeks indoors drives people up the wall?

--------------------------
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/08/08/the-height-of-the-bomb/
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/08/06/hiroshima-at-67-the-line-we-crossed/

Milu said...

"nationalistic mayhem" - Nothing to do with nationalism, Don. That's a smokescreen. Great book on the WW1 by two Scottish compatriots of yours. It puts the blame where it belongs: on London, and then on Paris and Moscow. No "Sleepwalkers" disinfo (Christopher Clark).

Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor - Hidden History
https://firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordpress.com/publications/hidden-history-the-book/

Back on topic:

"By the time we got to nuclear we learned to detonate them in the air to maximise civilian damage (maximum blast with no craters)."

Now that's practical, isn't it. Learnt to detonate a nuke without leaving a trace. You can't make this up. (Or can you?) So there's no crater because The Bomb was detonated ~2000 feet above ground. Right … And there's no ocean floor older than 200 mio years because of subduction, you know, and mantle convection, of course. Convenient assumptions.

It is a patent absurdity to want to maximize damage by reducing shock wave and heat. Just look at the bridges still intact. And some of those buildings, still standing, only slight damage. What a huge fail that nuke was. Detonation height … right …

Alex Wellerstein's Nuclear Secrecy Blog is, of course, a leading nuke propaganda website. It's actually amazing how much it reveals about what was really going on. If only you could push aside that veil.

There is still no indication that you have considered to do the group comparison I suggested would be instructive. Tokyo 1945, Yokohama 1945, Osaka 1945, Nagoya 1945 … Why don't you take a look? What are the differences to Hiro/Naga? Just what are they?

don findlay said...

Michael,

I was aware of, but never looked into, that collusion between Churchill and Rooseveldt re. Russia. With truth being the first casualty of war, looking beneath the surface becomes fraught with too many angels trying to sit on the head of a pin - decisions taken by individuals aided, abetted and executed by others, and everybody with a story to tell.

There is an article on the wikipedia for the test site at Maralinga in South Australia
https://tinyurl.com/yb5nzbj6
which seems informative re. ground impact versus above-ground. (I put the images (googleEarth) on twitter for the relevant maps ( Location, GoogleEarth searchbox co-ordinate is -30.121358°, 131.667243° )
Apparently they've been experimenting with the tool/ /gadjet (and language)
https://fas.org/blogs/security/2016/01/b61-12_earth-penetration/
ever since., .. and trying to infuse government with sanity (?).
https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/B61-12_letter2011.pdf

As regards the devastation Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are told the houses were of very flimsy construction (wood & paper) so surely there's no real reason to expect anything other than total obliteration in the face of the biggest firestorm.

Which virtually takes us to where we are now in global politics and why Donald Trump is seen as so dangerous (blinded by self-aggrandisement and dynastic aspirations. Not to mention his peculiar fascination with the truth. His hope lies in Hope.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-hope-hicks-coronavirus-crisis-210808
(.. and by all accounts he could do a lot worse.). (Not sure about Hope. I suspect she practices a lot with lighting, angles, smoke and mirrors.) (but in fact think she's turning away from the guy with the camera in the background). On the surface Trump is not a warmonger (toy buildings when small, rather than toy guns.), unless it's a distraction from threats to self.

I hope the youth of the world will organise a global coalition of those willing to invest in trust. Can you imagine (with Hope behind him) that being Trump's legacy. He's already claiming it for the virus (thanks to her). He really could do it, turn on a dime. Amaazing grace from the "Chosen one". He just needs to allow himself to be open to where the future lies (rather than try to return to the past). The priority is the weapons, .. engendering trust and getting rid of them. It is not a sideshow.

Could 'THE VIRUS' (entering stage left) do it? I think it could (if it was allowed a proper voice https://twitter.com/earthexpansion/status/1255625519602610176

Milu said...

"As regards the devastation Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we are told the houses were of very flimsy construction (wood & paper) so surely there's no real reason to expect anything other than total obliteration in the face of the biggest firestorm."

Why would you need a big firestorm to obliterate wood and paper? Wouldn't an ordinary fire do the job?

(Maybe you know, but a firestorm is not just an expression for a big fire, but an actual atmospheric condition that may develop with a very large fire due to huge masses of hot gas rising fast and creating very low pressure, hence the storm that will further feed and intensify the fire. It may become so intense that it can suck people into the fire.)

And yes, flimsy houses made of wood and paper. Except the few that weren't. Easy to spot on the photos: they're still standing.

You're really trying very hard to avoid doing the group comparison I suggested would be instructive. :) Again: Tokyo 1945, Yokohama 1945, Osaka 1945, Nagoya 1945 …

don findlay said...

I don't know what you're getting at, Michael. Bombs are destructive whether by blast, fire or radiation - or all of them. Of course an ordinary fire would have done the job (Japan), but as I understand it the idea behind the bombing was to stop the war (at a stroke). And there was apparently much disagreement as to how to deploy it (whether actually, or virtually (as a potential warning), to avoid unnecessary loss of life.

If you're suggesting I'm missing something then I certainly agree. I'm certainly mindful that some might see my own take-down of Plate Tectonics as 'conspiratorial fake news' (maybe analogous to the implication you're suggesting for the pictures of destruction) but I would argue that it's PT that's being conspiratorial and disingenuous and 'fake'. There's nothing hypothetical about the destruction in the pictures you're drawing attention to, but Plate Tectonics builds huypothesis on hypothesis, and ignores a great deal of the facts. What *is hypothetical in the geological parallel is a subduction zone of oceanic rubble pulling half the world's crust around. And accentuating the "building" of mountains (rather than their erosion). And plates moving and colliding. But I don't think it's a question of collusion or conspriacy, I think it's more about expedient academic tribalism, and being disingenuous with a large dollop of just being dumb and unquestioning obeisance to authority for good measure, than to do with any observable facts.

I'm not sure what your point is other than the destruction, the selective preservation of some buildings and many of the roads are adequately covered in the various articles right on top of the Googlesearch, e.g.,
Buildings that survived Nagasaki https://tinyurl.com/y7ouffgl
Buildings that survived Hiroshima https://tinyurl.com/yauug2nh
(and why they survived.) A nuclear bomb => rubble is difficult to argue with (detonated 600m above ground)
https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=20678
https://ww2db.com/image.php?image_id=20381
One of the surviving buildings (cathedral?) ( more solid construction) was reckoned to be right underneath the blast ( so no /minimal 'sideways' effect). More generally the selective preservation of buildings is a comment on the difference in materials used between the older and newer ones

And of course neutron bombs are designed to maximise radiation while minimising destruction.)

That's all I know, but seem to remember too that the flimsier construction allowed for easy repair after earthquakes. Also bombs retain the horizontal speed of the plane, they don''t fall vertically, so don't have a clear path to roads and streets.

Milu said...

What I'm getting it is that there is no evidence whatsoever that an extraordinarily huge detonation ever took place at Hiroshima or Nagasaki where an extraordinary shockwave and extraordinary heat would have been released. No evidence whatsoever.

That's why there's no hint of a crater. That's why there's no blast alleys (unable to find the proper English term - what I mean is the radial features created by gas and matter expanding outwards from the center of the detonation). That's why the bridges and stone buildings are still there. That's why poles, antennas and trees are still there.

The trees went in blossom again in spring '46, which was interpreted as a sign of hope. Sure. But what it means when viewed with a sober mind is that The Bomb didn't even kill the trees. And humans went back to speedily resettle and rebuild Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How was that possible? No deadly radiation lingering on as we are told? Of course not.

It sounds like you still haven't compared Hiro/Naga to other Japanese towns such as Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, etc as they appeared in 1945. What you'll find is that they all look the same. Extensive rather than intensive damage. Just like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Why do they all show the same pattern of destruction? Because they were all built the same way and destroyed the same way.

This is the evidence in plain sight … a striking lack of strictly everything you'd expect from an extraordinarily huge detonation … a wealth of features that preclude an extraordinarily huge and hot detonation … but we unconsciously choose to ignore the evidence, we unconsciously choose not to see it, because we are told by authority there was "an atomic bomb", unheard of, with enormous power, unleashed by American scientists, awesome, awful, awe-inspiring. Something like a religious belief in the Almighty Bomb has been instilled in us … when we were still kids.

» After the war and the triumph of theoretical physics in the creation of The Bomb, the whole way science was done, changed. «

Your take-down of Plate Tectonics is well substantiated, well evidenced, well argued.

» There's nothing hypothetical about the destruction in the pictures you're drawing attention to, but Plate Tectonics builds huypothesis on hypothesis, and ignores a great deal of the facts. What *is hypothetical in the geological parallel is a subduction zone of oceanic rubble pulling half the world's crust around. And accentuating the "building" of mountains (rather than their erosion). And plates moving and colliding. But I don't think it's a question of collusion or conspriacy, I think it's more about expedient academic tribalism, and being disingenuous with a large dollop of just being dumb and unquestioning obeisance to authority for good measure, than to do with any observable facts. «

There's nothing hypothetical about earthquakes going on here and there, but Theoretical Physics and Military Propaganda build assertion upon assertion, and ignore a great deal of the facts. What *is* hypothetical in the military parallel is an enormous detonation of a new kind of bomb that has no enormous effect whatsoever. And accentuating the contamination of the area (rather than life going on). And deadly radiation lingering on. And I do think (in this case) it's a question of collusion and conspiracy, but it's also about expedient propagandistic tribalism, and being credulous with a large dollop of just not looking at the evidence and unquestioning obeisance to authority for good measure, than to do with any observable facts.

Now what with The Bomb?

don findlay said...

I take your point(s) but unlike with geology, I don't feel qualified to question the official account. I would look to what other nuclear physicists are saying. Certainly the resilience of specific structures is impressive, but I think the points you're raising are covered ok (e.g., with detonation height being optimised for reflection to maximise surface destruction). I don't think there is any reason to doubt nuclear bombs being used on Japan (there being a natural progression from ordinary bombs to incendiaries to nuclear) (and I'm really wondering why you do) (?). But maybe you're underestimating the efficiency of airburst 'sci /tech' destruction?

Castle Bravo (Bikini Atoll) was detonated about 600m above ground and created a crater ~75m deep, but it was 1000 times more powerful than Hiroshima ("vaporised three coral islands") Krushchev's "Anything-you-can-do-we-can-do-better" 'Tsar' bomb was *3,000* times more powerful than Hiroshima. Threat? Bluff? Showcasing madness? (All of them.) (Which may have been the point.)

I know you know this, but I'm mindful because dissent (of any sort) (me too I guess with PT) presents society with real problems. It's the essence of so-called 'security'. (Shouldn't be of course, but increasingly is.)

------------------------
(This excursion is just a record.)
AIRBURST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_burst
NUCLEAR TESTS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOWxmclxwMM
(Three-in-one )
-----------------------

But you raise the larger point of Brand Power, and who has the high ground of 'Trust'. Free speech is one thing, trust is another. And so is 'truth'. Who questions Authority's truth ( and what are their credentials)? And what are the credentials of Authority? I get the impression that the geological credentials of 'authority' are those of kids who have learned it all in school. Sort of 'Trump's stunts'. And who among those who support authority (because it suits them) will listen anyway? And why should they?

Truth, trust and justice (not law, but justice) (and authority) being called to account. And then there's the still larger point of societal disruption (regardless of 'T, T, J, and A'). All of them are pertinent to your point, I agree.

Looking back to the 60's it seems to me there was a schizophrenia od sorts about the decade that we seem not to have recovered from. Awareness of the destruction of the war years course, but it was in the past and was being replaced by optimism and hope for a better world. The bottom fell out of that with the economic rise of Japan, Korea and China, and it quickly reverted to a more 'divide-and-rule' societal framework. That 'schizophrenia' hasn't gone away. In fact it's legacy is very real, more in Europe (maybe) than in America, which has its own (racial) substrate of problems.

So here we are now in the present with that hope as far away as ever. Eyes in the Sky have given us this communication (and its downsides), but at the same time has proven that weapons of war are not an answer to anything but gluttonous self-destruction.

Time for change, but not to some Trumpian past. In fact all the '-isms' seem to fail us.

So where to next? Is a good question. Maybe the virus and the reconfiguration(s) that it will impose will provide an answer.

PS. If there was collusion, it would have to fool those pesky Ruskies. Y/N?

don findlay said...

2/2
One thing 'the virus' seems to have brought out is the conflict between an agreement (generally unspoken, but latterly, with this virus loudly, spoken) that we have a responsibility to each other, but also an understanding that this is limited.

It is a contract that is embodied in the word 'wealth'. Its root - 'weal' has two meanings
1. a red, swollen mark left on flesh by a blow or pressure.
2. (which has somewhat fallen into disuse) - that which is best for someone or something. (as in 'Commonwealth')
https://tinyurl.com/y939sh7n
... some spin maybe from the days of colonialisation, but nevertheless and whether lip-service or not (as First Nations' people would attest it is), it exists.

Ironies too, .. everywhere we look, in the many contradictions of this.duality /ambiguity.

Responsibility in that we recognise we have one to each other when something like a pandemic comes along ("social distancing") (Some, saying distancing is hardly social, would rather it was "physical distancing")

Limits. in the recognition that despite this, life must go on; our economy must thrive, we need jobs, money, food, we have bills of all sorts to pay in this other contract - of living.

The order in which these two have arisen is salutory. We have seen fly-bys /drive-bys, and otherwise bye-byes from the military, police, fire departments, and even Google, paying tribute to healthworkers (especially), food suppliers, and all those whose job (job) it is to look after our health etc., without which everything falls apart, .. raising the question where does the Wealth of Nations actually lie? In those who supply us with essential goods and services and keep us safe, .. and then safe from what? Our natural environment (external threat)? Or the bad guys who would do us harm either directly by hard criiminal behaviour, or more softly and indirectly by exploitation (internal threat)?

Does it lie with real goods and services and betterment generally (food supply, garbage collectors, cleaners, health-workers , , or with those who, in the name of opportunity, deliberately seek out exploitable opportunities and laud the label "between-taker" (and code it in French to bamboozle us in their attempts to exploit the very basis of fair exchange.

(On cue. As I started this I switched on the radio for the news and just caught the end of the previous program. A fellow was saying how, when a bee-keeper dies someone has to go and tell the bees. I thought that was a nice touch reminding us of this particular connection - and reponsibility. (So thought here I would check what the maestro on bees has to say (and what the flowers have to tell us).
https://tinyurl.com/yaax5uds )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQY2z6aALD4
:))

Milu said...

» I think the points you're raising are covered ok (e.g., with detonation height being optimised for reflection to maximise surface destruction). I don't think there is any reason to doubt nuclear bombs being used on Japan (there being a natural progression from ordinary bombs to incendiaries to nuclear) (and I'm really wondering why you do) «

Well, destruction wasn't maximized by detonation height. Ordinary buildings that weren't reinforced withstood the shockwave. So did bridges. Trees and poles and antennas withstood the heat. Almost all the destruction was on flimsy dwellings of wood and paper. (That's like a deadly virus that only manages to kill sick people who are about to die anyway.)

Every single Japanese town was built, attacked and destroyed the same way. Low-flying bombers dropped loads of bombs carpet-style. Incendiaries (napalm) caused fires everywhere at the same time. There was no chance to put them out. Large areas burnt to the ground - large areas covered with lightweight huts. Stone buildings were hit occasionally with explosives and suffered damage, some heavy, some minor. Horrible burn wounds on people that were hit by napalm spilling around. All in all, horrific terror attacks on civilians, but as such, nothing extraordinary about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Par for the course.

The narrative about Castle Bravo (Bikini atoll) is that it was a ground explosion. The film footage shows a slomo fireball with cloud formations and a very slim stem. Do you think it looks real? I do not. The footage is usually accompanied by impressive sounds or bombastic music to make up for the lack of realism. Little propagandistic fuss is made about the crater because, being part of the atoll and filled with water, it is unimpressive. It may well be a natural feature, which is why the site was selected. The accent with Castle Bravo is on the radioactive fallout and on the contamination: native people, a Japanese boat, American militay ship - all contaminated. Then a radioactive cloud spreads about the entire world. No one can see or smell or feel it, but it is definitely very scary. Wikipedia usually has a good summary of the mainstream narrative as it is an important reference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo

Dissent gets in the way of propaganda and is seen as a problem. Up to the individual to decide whether it's worth the trouble. A lot of propaganda is to keep people fearful and sheepish. I don't like that. Nuke propaganda scared me as a child.

The point about an air burst is indeed the shell fragments or the fireball. Meant to kill soft targets, like humans or airplanes. The section about nuclear airburst is just propaganda as missing craters and absence of significant damage to stone buildings (of which threre were only a few) have to be accounted for.

Milu said...

» If there was collusion, it would have to fool those pesky Ruskies. Y/N? «

They wanted to fool them, but then colluded with them, which was very effective. :)

They wanted to fool the world into believing they had a phantastic new weapon. Fool the world - meaning their own military as well as foreign, their own population as well as foreign, and foreign leadership, of course. Success was not total, but considerable - and was consolidated because the Russians and then others played along with the hoax, simply copying it, corroborating it such that to this day, almost all of humanity unquestioningly believes nukes are real.

Here's a good one about a later hydrogen bomb test with real action and real witnesses:

https://911crashtest.org/being-there-a-slice-of-history-from-hydrogen-bomb-testing-in-1958/

I never questioned The Bomb on my own initiative. I came across the notion that The Bomb was a hoax ("the mother of all hoaxes, the Manhattan Project") when reading an article about the WTC architect on a forum where 9/11 is questioned (and solved). It had never occurred to me that The Bomb could be a hoax. I had grown up with the narrative. We even had lessons about the horrors of nuclear weapons in school.

Architect Yamasaki, WTC & how an Insider Built the Worlds Largest Illusion
http://letsrollforums.com//architect-yamasaki-wtc-insider-t27306.html

You will see (or won't …) that this is highly sophisticated propaganda in many respects. They even created organisations such as the IPPNW or UCS (which my parents adhered to) to warn against the dangers of nuclear extinction and have a test ban put in place because of all the radioactive pollution and threat to humanity etc. You build your own opposition groups to enhance your credibility. But the main pillar, in my view, is the history of Russian-American bipolarity with Cold War, deterrence, nuclear balance, various incidents and crises, eves of destruction and so on. It's such a great story.

All these concepts like megatons and first strike capability and M.A.D. and overkill and so on - some of it is really in your face, but you're still held in awe, as you're supposed to be.

There's no shortage of money to pay the fraudsters and their machinations - just think about the enormous budgets allocated to maintenance and development of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear power, on the other hand, is real, and nuclear power stations work fine and are very useful, despite a certain radiation risk (which can be controlled). The stuff can melt, but not explode, except due to secondary effects such as hydrogen, as happened in Fukushima.

I thought you might find it interesting (sorry if not) because you mentioned The Bomb in your writings about Plate Tectonics, sort of like the bedrock they built their theory on … Well, that bedrock is just fiction, not science - much like PT.

As for me, I'm happy to know it's a fraud. I never liked the thought that entire cities could be wiped out and millions killed in a second. Fortunately, man doesn't have that power.

don findlay said...

Michael,

You say :-
--------------------------
" .. Here's a good one about a later hydrogen bomb test with real action and real witnesses:
https://911crashtest.org/being-there-a-slice-of-history-from-hydrogen-bomb-testing-in-1958/
-------------------------
I was a bit confused here till I realised Steve (the nephew), was citing Paul's (the uncle's) wartime experience, then linking this to his (Steve's) youtube channel on 9/11. Steve does seem concerned about these "forever-wars" of American adventurism, making me wonder if there might be some family dynamics going on there (Paul did seem to enjoy himself). The account surely validates the reality of atomic bombs but in the replies Steve seems to represent them as fake (I wonder why, .. and what the uncle would have said).

Some other points (first pass, would need to check to make sure).
1. Carpet bombing of Japanese cities. Tokyo (only) (?) ( ".. conducted on the night of 9–10 March 1945, is the single most destructive bombing raid in human history. Wikipedia . "). Didn't much explore for any other.
2. Nagasaki was not bombed prior to dropping the atom bomb in Augsut (no earlier bombing).
3. Hiroshima (photos /record). Can't find any reference to bombing prior to the atom bomb..

Of these two videos, the second one details the destruction on Hiroshima, referencing the effects of the bomb in successive zones outwards from the blast. In the outer zones, yes, you can see the trees have survived (somewhat), .. and might well flower in a year or so (promising a better future)

Not everyone was killed (particularly in the outer zones of the blast. (in the inner zones, yes, I suppose. (How else?).
(a) A guided tour => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtvqoKQrwQg
(b) July 16th 1945 (new mexico)
1945 U.S. ARMY REPORT ON ATOMIC BOMBING OF JAPAN 25042
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMzYJPEWH6Y

--------------------------
2. " ... As for me, I'm happy to know it's a fraud. I never liked the thought that entire cities could be wiped out and millions killed in a second. Fortunately, man doesn't have that power."
--------------------------
Me neither, but I think history tells us otherwise (unfortunately). And just on this morning's news we could be getting a warning about another bit of American adventurism, with Pompeo talking up the "Chinese virus", and threatening to "do something about it". (That guy's more dangerous than Trump i.m.o.). Trump earlier resisted calls for an invasion of Iran (because they shot down a drone in Iranian airspace) (a drone that shouldn't have been there) (and settled for killing Suleiman to take the heat off Trump's impeachment. These guys are just thugs. The sooner people waken up to them before they can put us jail for saying so, the better.

Milu said...

I watched the two videos you linked to.

The first one features an eye witness. There are fraudulent ones, but this one seems perfectly honest. He reports seeing burn wounds, skin coming off the flesh, human suffering. All real. Napalm is a horrible weapon. What he does not report is even more interesting: a giant bright flash; an overwhelmingly loud bang; a shockwave; a giant fireball; a giant smoke column. Certainly those would have been very impressive. I still remember when lightning struck like 30 meters away when I was a small kid. But he does not remember - because those things could not be observed - because they weren't there. And they would have been observable even 20 km away from the center. But weren't.

Other than that, there is a lot of "human interest" points in that video, like the guide and his son (unconvincing), and all this bizarre folded paper crane business. A substitute for facts. Not uncommon to find with propaganda topics.

One could also wonder why there is so much propaganda about Hiroshima (and Nagasaki) and not about many other horrible bombinbgs like Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg.

The second video is great. What about the blast footage? A slomo fireball, looks like a conflagration of jet fuel. We can see a lot of buildings that are still standing, with flat roofs still there, bridges still there, trees still there everywhere. At 8:45 there is a concrete building that is unharmed. Don't know what they're trying to prove with the "shadows" on the pavement where allegedly people were vaporized. Windows blown out or blown in, okay, impressive. At 12:00 and 12:40, smokestacks still standing. From 16:00 to 22:50 the Jesuit, German accent, reporting what he saw … but at the end, he's reading off a piece of paper … Japanese admired the B-29 when they saw it in the sky. Nagasaki at 23:20, the blast at 24:30. At 25:20, you can see that the tip of the smoke column is a different colour and separate from the stem. Not sure what to make of that. At 29:00 there's a building that's been wiped out a mile away from the alleged ground zero, whereas there are other buildings much closer with hardly any damage, which is just so inconsistent with the alleged huge detonation. All in all, that video is a treasure trove of proof that no extraordinary detonation took place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Aomori_in_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamamatsu_in_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hiratsuka_in_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Nagaoka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Osaka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Sendai_during_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Shizuoka_in_World_War_II

Do these differ from Hiro/Naga?

There are also videos on Youtube with post-bombing overflight footage (damage assessment).

About the Steve De'ak article: Steve asked his uncle before posting the article, and the uncle agreed. (Steve said so when he announced his blog article on the LRF forum.) Uncle Sam (not Paul) went to great lengths to convince his serviceman of the reality of the atomic bomb. So an elaborate stage was prepared for them. Steve and me discussing it in the comments. It is useful to watch the video of the Oak Shot 1958 to complement the article:

hydrogen bomb in the pacific (Oak 8.9 Megatons 1958)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22nRx-ntauI

HD Oak Shot the 6th largest U.S.Hydrogen bomb testing yielded 8.9 megatons 1958
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxO5VKG0Qq4

It is simply steam, water vapour, but a lot of it. Impressive!

don findlay said...

You picked a good one, Michael. What does it matter if the atom bomb is real or not, so long as people believe that it is, and living in fear /peace and security (whichever) is the issue?

It's highlighted by this virus too (Covid-19). The importance of viral load v. underlying conditions is something that hasn't been given the attention it deserves (imo), despite it being clear in daily deaths - aged people in rest homes, cruise ships, and here just the other day, a particular abbatoir ("petri dishes" for a virus if ever there was one). And of course the deaths of medical people looking after them.

The financial cost of not paying not much attention to what amounts to little more than empirical observation is in the trillions, not to mention the wrecked lives consequent on loss and the economic downturn, nor the possible consequence (now) of talking-up of blame to cover what, really, could turn out to be crass stupidity resulting from stirring the virus in petri-dishes. (What else to expect?). Science is a moving target ("always wrong" but trying to get better")
Googlesearch
https://tinyurl.com/y7vq9qys

Doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to viruses of course. We should. Unlike the atom bomb they're immune to argument or logic. With the facility for spreading these days one person eating a dead bat of the right sort could decimate humity, which is why we study them. But it is dangerous. (A person I worked with years ago contracted (and died in a week from) "batosis" after breathing in the disturbed air in an old mine "living with bats", and a while back here, a much-liked radio broadcaster similarly died in a couple of days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Saunders_(broadcaster)#Death_and_tributes
(.. not to mention the curse of the Pharaohs) (nor Saudis kissing their camels each morning).
Googlesearch :-
https://tinyurl.com/y7vq9qys

It's a risky business, thinking otherwise from consensus. I'm very aware of it so don't get me wrong. If you didn't see them, these were the posts that prefaced the above "Contradicting consensus" (seem appropriate to wrap up)
1. https://earthexpansion.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-consensus-of-plate-tectonics.html
2. https://earthexpansion.blogspot.com/2017/03/consensus-underbelly-of-science.html

don findlay said...

Michael,

It does seem strange to me that there can be doubt about this, so thanks for drawing to attention something I thought was a given, so had to look it up.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-the-processes-th/
There is also this one
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8NdT4Yq2DvwT5liJ9QAJbA
(See the blue video on the page with Marena Hunsberger at 0.15mins for a collage of free films. Not active, but google the titles for youtube links.)

<> Yes, I know. He doesn't say, but surviving something like that when it defines what the rest of the world now knows. I doubt if he would be inclined to get into pyrotechnics over more personal memories. Any number of things could account for missing the flash

<> /Origami. Maybe, .. but the bird is symbolic
https://www.jccc.on.ca/origami-cranes/pdf/meaning_of_the_origami_crane.pdf
(I think there's a reference to that in the video(?) [Quite touching, I thought (reflection and social bonding.]

<> I thought documented the raidal effects quite well (virtually total annihilation, diminishing outwards from the centre ("cherry trees in blossom the next year"). 'Pavement shadows' (radiation effect?) (Don't know, wondered that too). Smokestacks, may have to do with them being round (stress distribution) and vertical (i.e. more or less under the blast) (?). Yes, about the priest obviously reading from a script (a couple of other evasive bits too I thought)

<> Maybe because it is more about 'THE GADGET' (and it's "don't-mess-with-me" destructive power) than it is about destruction as such. As you say, conventional destruction (in large and 'pyrotechnic' enough amounts) would achieve the same end (radiation being a + or - depending on point of view).

<> (?) Again, surely, it lies in one bomb doing what it took hundreds of others night-after-night (in Europe at least) to 'achieve'.

List of cities as per your links noted as mostly strategic targets :-
1. Amori
2. Hamamatsu
3. Hiratsuka
4. Nagaoka
5. Osaka
6. Sendai
7. Shizuoka

<>? Quantitatively, I guess. (Not one bomb, but many.)

<> (not Paul?) From your link :-
------------------------
" The following is an excerpt from my uncle Paul De’ak’s memoir, “Being There.” Paul was privy to several hydrogen bomb tests when he was in the army about 70 years ago. I love this stuff! Thank you , Uncle Paul!"
------------------------
I didn't notice mention of a Sam. (Will need to check the discussion notes.) But yes, certainly a lot of steam and water would be generated (anyway).

You're tickling me, that you could think (from the evidence) that nuclear blasts are a put-up job. I don't know what to say. I don't go that far :)) Maybe that real or not, people are convinced enough to make nuclear testing a thing of the past, that will henceforth be used to calibrate simulations (2nd link above) until there is enough trust to get rid of them completely. Maybe a younger generation will do that.

I think your proposal is exactly the same as confronts Earth expansion =>suppose it's not happening when the evidence says that it is. To suppose that it isn't depends too much on too many suppositions built on prior suppositions. It becomes a tower of improbabilities that fails in the context (as well as the data). The support for Plate Tectonics is analogous to epicycles in the earlier days of astronomy. (imo)

Milu said...

Unfortunately, I don't believe in this "dangerous new virus" story either. I think we're being abused on a massive scale. You wrote that what matters is the "underlying conditions", and I agree. There has neven been such a virus scare here, and not in other countries either as far as I know. We can go back 200 years and there's never been such a thing. You mentioned a virus issue with an abbatoir in Oz, and you know what? Just yesterday on the (fake) news they reported a similar story here ("infections among foreign abbatoir workers living close together", which just means the unreliable PCR test was positive). That's just new spin to keep the virus hoax going.

In Tansania, a papaya and a goat have been tested positive for the Corona virus. (Do a web search for: Magufuli corona papaya goat.) Goes to show how much this is a hoax. The tests should be applied to all kinds of stuff, and with public control: to squeezed hedgehogs on the roadside, dog poop, rotten yoghurt etc.

I've been 100% convinced from the onset of the hoax that there is no new dangerous virus, no new illness that would deserve a name of its own such as COVID-19. It's a psychovirus and a mental illness spread from TV and radio and government. There's a divide here on the issue - the majority of sheeple doing as they're told, but more and more resistance from various groups and on various grounds.

In some countries (France, UK, US), there's been state propaganda for a drug called Chloroquine or Hydroxy-Chloroquine. The issue with it is that it is dangerous for certain ethnic groups, or let's say racial groups - the term is appropriate here. Populations from areas where malaria is endemic have a high rate of something called favism (or Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency). They must not eat certain beans, and they must not be given certain drugs - depending on the dose, the outcome can be lethal. Mainly concerns Africans and Indians, but also Italians and Greeks. This has been a well-known medical fact for decades - but now "forgotten" in certain countries. Do a web search for: corona afro-americans - to find out that they die in disproportionate numbers - allegedly because of "the virus", but in truth because of the treatment.

Milu said...

» mostly strategic targets « - They typically bombed densely populated residential areas in city centers to maximize human suffering. There was nothing strategic about it - unless the strategy was terror (and, in the case of Germany, population reduction). That is not a strategy in the classic military sense of the word.

To clear up a misunderstanding: Uncle Sam is a moniker for "United States". I wrote: "Uncle Sam (not Paul) went to great lengths to convince his serviceman [should have been plural] of the reality of the atomic bomb."

Nukes are a hoax. But of course everyone is free to continue to believe in nukes. Most people simply accept whatever authorities (gov/edu/media) tell them to believe. When there's a nuke, then there's a nuke. When there's a moon landing, then there's a moon landing. When there's a dangerous new virus, then there's a dangerous new virus. The statement has to be made with authority, with sufficient detail, and on a terrain that layman feel unqualified to venture onto. Add some human suffering and only die-hard cynics would dare to express doubt. That's the way it works. Because we've been brought up that way. Real simple.

There is a lot of evidence for Earth Expansion, and a lot of consensus for Plate Tectonics and Atomcic Bombs.

Milu said...

The Maren Hunsberger video featuring Greg Spriggs that you mentioned:

Answering FAQs about the Nuclear Test Films
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsOrRWzmmUU

Again, an interesting video! So we know Greg is a real scientist because of the odd shirt he's wearing. Scientists aren't salesmen, after all! (Or are they, some of them at least?)

I have many doubts about the film footage shown in that video. (And so do others, which is why they made that FAQ video in the first place.) Why black smoke from burning coral reefs? Tether balloon cables vaporized because of the alleged X-rays? Smoke trails to visualize the shockwave similar to how the image of a straw in a glass of water is refracted? Kodak microfile film used to capture the extraordinary light output of +12 orders of magnitude? They managed to do 2400 frames per second (for the "early cloud") with that back in the 1950ies? But only 1 fps for the "later cloud"? Slow motion and time lapse, he said so himself … because many people noticed the film fakery. Why is there smoke hovering on the ground with many of these explosions (like at 10:43), unphazed by the shockwave?

At 12:22 there is something about the so-called Nevada Test Site. So ground tests vaporized soil, leaving cavities in the ground, which collapsed, leaving subsidence craters. I examined these with Google Earth back in January 2016 and wrote a short forum post about it, maybe of interest to you as a geologist:

Re: Do Nuclear Weapons Exist? Are they also a Hoax? - 4 Feb 2016
http://letsrollforums.com//showpost.php?p=265134&postcount=91

don findlay said...

1/2
*The dangerous new virus*
As I write :-
https://tinyurl.com/ybr3fonp
A journalist writes, an editor edits, a reader reads. And over everything presides trust (or the lack of it) in the written word. Which is why videos and audio are better (though not infallible). Fauci on CNN with Cuomo makes an aside that he "doesn't like models", which is edited out of another video of the same interview, but is picked up on Fox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URZB0Cp0mW0
.. and so on. And another (segment from 28mins) :-
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/11-05/12227680

Four months (nearly) down the track and almost still on the news (which is usually all people mostly have time to listen to) all we're hearing is "Cases" (as fast as can be tested for) and "Deaths" (faster than can be handled - and unfortunately including far too many medical staff). Why the medics? Because they're run off their feet and as tired as can be, so their immunity is at rock-bottom. Deaths? Because they're including a whole lot of 'underlying causes' (even if they do test positive) and, we learn, hospitals are instructing staff to put covid-19 on the certificates anyway (even of they don't test positive - or did yesterday (+ve) and don't today) - and a whole lot of contradictory information that we just don't know where we stand really. Facemasks. "Wear /don't wear them", .. Just wash your hands and don't cough on people. Just my view, but there seems to be a very large slice of this that includes the increasing recognition of an overarching theme of "Infantilisation of the public space." (IOPS) And it's costing a Bomb! (as we still sometimes say) (though it's been a while since the threat of bombs did give way to a pan(demon)ic as the biggest threat to humanity. Infants-of-the-space is the overarching theme to all of this, but is another story. Meanwhile institutional authority has a lot of ground to recover. 'Modelling' is another thread to this whole story. And we still have no idea (good enough anyway to make any models) of the breakdown of figures. Or at least I don't. But it does go hand-in hand with the way of "doing science" these days (by models, rather than by data (models being essentially guesses replacing data). Basing public policy on the so-called 'science' of modelling is not only daft, it's irresponsible (and very expensive). There is a need to be more pragmatic, though at the same time, whether we die of the virus or the underlying cause (e.g., old age "is a lethal disease" - is a moot point.) The deaths are one thing, using them to whip up fear is quite another. The way they're being communicated could be done with much less drama by including for comparison (say) the contraindications /pathologies already known of those at risk.

Really, we've learned very little about this virus (except that it's very easy to pick up (and so keep out of its way as much as we can) (and wear a mask if you think you might infect somebody). (Which of course is a warning to everybody to keep out of *your way). I suppose that's where we're at, except for the law taking charge of what really should be just personal responsibility. Which is another thread entirely (education /responsibility of the self to others /tantrums /psychopathic reversal..

*Abattoirs*
Yes, .. I saw that (in Germany). Here it was one, now it's four.)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-05-12/china-trade-escalation-as-beef-farmers-are-targeted/12237468
I didn't mean to imply that the meat itself was a problem (but then, neither did I hear that it might be)(and if there were questions I doubt if they'd be aired). Abattoirs are where new immigrants who are not to get a job elsewhere are glad to get one, and so tend to be overworked and underpaid. So it's a workspace that's extra-vulnerable on that score.

don findlay said...

2/2
*Animals*
Are full of corona viruses (all sorts), but they need an intermediary (or manipulation - hence the spin on China) to jump, which is dangerous to imply (Trump and Pompeo). But accidental or not, the result is the same - near paralysis of the economy. Years ago a work colleague died in a week from a virus picked up in an old mine that was full of bats ("batosis", they called it at the time), and a radio announcer some years ago here too, died in 24 hours from one. So they are around .. And I just learned the other day that beans can be poisonous unless steeped and /or boiled. Fancy that! Something to check.)

*Hoaxes*
Indeed. There's no question the public can be hoodwinked. It's why governments have press secretaries ('Merchants of spin'), to put an acceptable gloss on the unacceptable. (Death's in Custody, Royal enquiries into banks, the Churchm child abuse, Family violence, anything you like The public is tired of them, and so trust in institutions breaks down. And therefore so does democracy - which is only as secure as our trust in the government we elect. Which these days is not great. I think everything has just got too hard too quickly for everybody. There are no easy solutions any more. Technology drives the economy, but for all sorts of reasons things need to slow down (/equilibrate), .. one thing at a time. When everything is thrown in the pot at once it becomes virtually impossible to keep up. Few have the inclination, fewer have the time. But there is increasing transparency as 'things' float to the top' via social media.

But I am intrigued by this general trend to 'conspiracy' generally. (I mean, who but a nutter would contradict a consensus like Plate Tectonics, which has the backing of virtually the whole of academia of Earth science ("The Romance of Geology"), .. and is being taught in schools the world over (thanks to Uncle Sam) (and many others).
https://tinyurl.com/ydez7nba Why, is a good question. Well, "You could write a book about it". Where does the truth lie(?). And does it count, .. really? We do live comfortably with lies when they are innocuous, like much of Trump's hyperbole, but he mixes it too much with the real thing to be comfortable. Like the "virtual love" in the sidebar -(first cab off the googlesearch) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejrSFTD9w10 (Jeez! Five minutes of that (adlescent virtual love) is enough for a year. High octane. ) I don't think I could have managed to come up with two sentences in reply to the wind of *that nuclear bomb (!!) :)) (Virtual Love - it's a virus.)

She's certainly setting a style. Once upon a time adolescents tried to act grown-up, now grown-ups are dedicated to acting like adlescents
https://twitter.com/axios/status/1259959091704799233
.. which is another thread (what it means to be 'grown-up'.)

I think everything is just too complicated to build a large-scale conspiracy. To be successful it requires 1. cultivating an abuse of trust, and 2. the complicity of others to buy into it. Both of them are possible at the personal level, but surely it just gets too difficult on a big scale. There are going to be doubters and therefore many different lines of investigation that will converge to a truth of sorts. I know that cuts both ways, but if truth and common sense did not prevail in the long term humanity would not exist. Trust is essential, and begins with the infant's security - or lack of it. Problems that arise when the infant turns inward to the self (insecurity) rather than recognises an identity with 'the other' (security) (somewhere about the age of three). But from then on all the hand-me-down cultural baggage gets in the way. Then there's the bio of the adolescent "falling in love" minefield (as linked above) to navigate.

Not such a far cry from nuclear bombs and viruses, really :))

Milu said...

Don, I agree with you about infantilisation of the public space. People are being dumbed down, and it shows on many levels, for example semantic and linguistic level of public communication. This is the age of anti-enlightenment and pseudo-science.

I do not believe in the high death tolls that are claimed in some countries. And the death toll is the only number that matters, the others are bogus per definition as they are based on the irrelevant PCR tests. The death toll numbers in some countries (F/UK/US, Italy, Spain) are doctored, that's the simplest explanation. Governments are lying, they've done it before, they have a rock solid track record of lying. They don't call it lying, they call it narrative, and voilà: no lying, only narratives.

"we've learned very little about this virus" - We've learnt that there is no new dangerous virus. What more is there to learn?

The entire story is bogus, bats and all.

If indeed there was a dangerous new virus at the origin, it must have sprung from some lab where it had been bred in an artificially hostile environment, precisely to create something dangerous. But once released into the open, it would have quickly degenerated into just another harmless virus that every human being is filled up with anyway, because in the wild there is no need for the virus to retain its resilience against the artificially hostile lab environment.

But I find it simpler to assume that the lab story is bogus, too. I don't have evidence to assume it is true.

What I do have evidence for is that in Germany (and other countries, too) there is a pandemic of nonsense happening in media and politics and public life while no trace of a general health threat is to be found anywhere.

Sorry, I lost patience two minutes into that virtual love girl video. Wasn't clear what the point was going to be, and I felt silly watching it.

"I think everything is just too complicated to build a large-scale conspiracy."

9/11 proves otherwise. That is a very large-scale conspiracy. And it worked great. The way it works is very simple: money. It is also important to know what happened and what didn't. Once you understand the core trick that was used, it's easy to see how people could be recruited to play a part in the hoax. You can read up about it on the LetsRollForums.com, the 9/11 hoax exposed by Phil Jayhan and Larry McWilliams alias do2read. Highly instructive. And this is a very large-scale and highly spectacular conspiracy.

What about the Gagarin and Moon Landing sagas? These are large-scale conspiracies, too, that continue to this very day.

"if truth and common sense did not prevail in the long term humanity would not exist."

There is no requirement for truth or common sense in order to facilitate the existence of humanity. Food and water are enough. Also, what is humanity? History shows that, over and over again, parts of humanity have been happily, if brutally, erased by other parts of humanity. And doing so was considered common sense. Blatant lies were used (and continue to be used) to justify the atrocities. In all of this, the existence of humanity, which is a mere abstraction, has never been at stake.

Man being a social animal, capable of language and thought, the rulers that invariably arise in any human congregation have always found it handy to use lies in addition to violence in order to strengthen their rule. That's been the way it is for more than two thousand years. What is to be gained by pretending it is not so?

don findlay said...

1/2
*A 'space' that is increasingly being called 'infantile' *
(https://tinyurl.com/yblpeb3b ).
This is where I'm at, and (as far as I can work out), where the world is at. I recognise that it is pervasive, that it includes me, and has very many entanglements. So I'm not being derogative. I'm speaking from the inside, as it were. This virus has highlighted it. It is also why I watched the young lady right to the end, musing all the while both at the subject matter, on her slick performance and her own possible personal demons /'angst' that might be driving her (if it was all hers) (and not a put-up job by some 'higher power') :)).) Either way I reckon she deserves an Oscar. I will watch it again for some finer points re. the cartoon on the right. I can easily see it as either hers or Mr. Power's). But how to discriminate, to dig beneath a surface that may not want to be dug? But either way too, it doesn't matter. That's what I mean by a 'consensus' - we are all implicated.

The voice. ("vocal fry" - what do you call it in German, I wonder..).
https://twitter.com/earthexpansion/status/1026024829789462529
Here it is likened to the sound of bacon sizzling in the pan, the western preference for which (the bacon not not the voice) I learned from somewhere on the internet (so it must be true)(a cook book, maybe) dates back to the time when there was a surfeit of pork on the American market in the early-middle(?) part of the last century, when they were trying to work out how to get rid of it - which they solved by dipping it in a 'solution' of sodium /potassium nitrate and marketing it aggressively to the world - which has been gorging on it ever since leading to the situation we have now, incl. a resurgence of ISIS and a vocally compromised younger generation (thanks much to cool Ms.K.).

That's audially. I see it visually, like one of those square bar-codes, where half the sound is missing, lost in a swamp of slurred vowels and attenuated consonants that sounds as if it is coming out of ears rather than a mouth. That's the girls. The guys sound like they're trying to talk like airline pilots, but with flying us into mountains, dumping us in oceans on account of getting *themselves dumped by girlfriends, or just trying to climb that stairway to heaven so steeply that the whole thing stalls and we fall back into the ocean, they're losing that veneer of authority they think the gold braid entitles them to.

We, the public, pay the piper, a point that both governments, *and the public, don't quite seem to grasp, leaving a space that needs a lot of tightening up to prevent the bad actors exploiting it.

Which returns us to the aformentioned Oscar Performance, virtual love, and those who might fall for it, for the consequences (of pornogrpahy and single-motherhood) can be dire (on a global scale).

Enter the virus stage left, getting exported around the world from goodness knows where, reminding us of the decimation of the native peoples of Ancient Worlds (not so long ago) - and the carriers exporting it too maybe, .. (Cruise ships and old people's homes). Cruise ships were prominent in the beginning, but I can't remember any fuss being made about where they came from though earlier it would have been the diseases of Europe. Old people's homes (later, in a masterly stroke of rebranding, being called 'rest' homes ) were later too, so it's unlikely they were the source.

I did work with a colleague who died within a week from what they called at the time "batosis" after doing a tour of old mines full of bats, so they are around ok (and of course remember the Curse of the Phaoroes). Also there was the astonishing case here of Alan Saunders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Saunders_(broadcaster)#Death_and_tributes

2/2 to follow (later)

don findlay said...

2/2
More on *The virus.*
If I was being conspiratorial I would be thinking, "Maybe it is "degenerating quickly into a harmless virus". And anyway whether it is generated in a lab or is natural, the result would be the same - global lockdown, .. ideal cover for a President to take over a country while everybody looks to themselves. Yet nothing happened by any of the big players (though I have no doubt some might have mused over a 'what-if'). Anyway, what could any possible virus-conspiracy have been about? What could China (or America if it was them) have stood to gain (as each does accuse the other)? (Just musing, .. I agree, even on the media-fest hyping it all up. There's truth in it and enough hyperbole for everyone.

I do think 'conspiracies' are self-organising, and that they depend on people buying into them for their own reasons, which is why they are so appealing. People see in them what they want. I watched a Fox News video of a car chase last night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYe8ZuF8A2I
It's nearly an hour and a half, so only some (before scrolling to the finale at ~1hr 8mins). (Looks like it is a 'thing' on television for whoever likes to tune in). On camera, a high-value stolen car, a home run, a race as police-bait (all through some remarkably wet weather for their trouble) before stopping in what appears to be their local neighbourhood. All the people come out to witess the (peaceable) arrest. But it seems to me (given America's pain) that there is no doubting the subtext of potential violence. We might not be privy to the central plot, but its peripheral expressions are usually self-evident if we pay attention to the context in which it is happening. Does that make it a 'conspiracy'? Good question.

*"Big Lies" (and what is to be gained?)
In a word, power. I agree with you (about man as "animal"). Certainly nothing is gained by pretending otherwise. Apparently apes deal with the bully of the tribe in much the same way as people might. They lure the bully to a spot where he (/she) is set upon by others lying in wait, and killed. Problem solved. Tribal harmony is maintained. Benevolent power evolves to democracy, which is what we have (of a sort). Inveterate lying is societal abuse (psychopathy).

(Thought for the day - Contradicting consensus is risky biz.)

Milu said...

Hi Don, sorry for replying so late.

"batosis disease" - Whatever that is, there is no mention of it on the Internet. It sounds like a frivolous term that someone made up. Would make me doubt their qualification.

"… ideal cover for a President to take over a country … Yet nothing happened by any of the big players … Anyway, what could any possible virus-conspiracy have been about? What could China (or America if it was them) have stood to gain (as each does accuse the other)?"

It seems to me that you're thinking about it in terms of one country against the other. What if it is just about tighter control of the populace? A massive deployment of digital and bio tech to control our every move? Creating massive new opportunities for control freaks? That are totally unproductive yet have to be paid for by the tax-payer? Isn't that precisely what's being projected?

"Apparently apes deal with the bully of the tribe in much the same way as people might. They lure the bully to a spot where he (/she) is set upon by others lying in wait, and killed. Problem solved."

I have never heard of such a behaviour among animals. It is also untypical of man. If it were true, people would get together and knock down Uncle Sam. But that doesn't happen.

"Benevolent power evolves to democracy, which is what we have (of a sort)."

Benevolent power? Like benevolent Big Brother? Seems like a lofty concept to me. What about the millions of people murdered by so-called democracies? We do get the same kind of pro-democratic propaganda here, but a concept such as "benevolent power" bears a self-complacency that is simply over-the-top … Instead, what about a power that never interferes abroad?

Milu said...

"airline pilots, but with flying us into mountains, dumping us in oceans on account of getting *themselves dumped by girlfriends" - That sounds like you're alluding to the 3/24/15 catastrophe of GermanWings flight 9525. The story is the young co-pilot made a controlled flight into terrain, willfully crashed the plane into the mountains. The story is obviously ridiculous and an insult to reason and experience. For every airline pilot, there are hundreds of bus drivers. Have you ever heard of a bus driver killing himself and his passengers by crashing into a concrete wall or driving down a steep slope?

It is perfectly clear that someone from outside took control of the airplane and made it crash. Every modern Boeing and Airbus is fitted with a remote control system for security reasons. The Boeing system is called Boeing/Honeywell Uninterruptible Autopilot. Don't know what the Airbus equivalent is called. But its security must have been breached. Basically, it consists of a crypted radio link (probably via a satellite network such as Inmarsat) into the avionics that can deny the pilots control of the airplane. Drone technology, basically. Tried and true. It's like a remote co-pilot who can take over control. That may save crew and passengers in case the pilots are incapacitated. And it may doom them in case a terrorist takes over.

There were press reports on 4/30/15 that Airbus filed a criminal complaint because of industrial espionnage. And there were press reports on 4/15/15 that Airbus might fit its airliners with remote control systems to prevent repeat incidents such as on 3/24/15 - which is a cynical lie, because it's the very remote control system that made that particular attack possible in the first place.

The motivation? I think it has to do with what was going on in Ukraine. On 2/6/15, Merkel and Hollande met with Putin in the Kremlin - without Washington's consent. Merkel usually acts like a void puppet and Uncle Sam wants her to stay that way. To that effect, a message was sent. GermanWings were cut. They call it tragedy, but it is mass murder. Uncle Sam is a terrorist.

It is beyond me why 99% of people believe this ridiculous suicide story. Well, probably because they believe everything they're told by authority.

Milu said...

Virtual love, vocal fry … Guess I know what you mean by audial impression and vocal fry. Is it the guttural or glottal timbre in her voice? Apparently, vocal fry is called Strohbass in German, a singing technique.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertongesang

Saw articles about it being fashionable a couple years ago, like "a new trend from America", but it's actually nothing new. Maybe related to "I want to become a superstar" TV shows. I like music, but these streamlined fashionable superficial contests don't produce the quality of rock/soul/funk/metal from past decades. Seems to be more about the looks and behaviour shaping aspects.

And her video is also what I call behaviour shaping. Pretty girls posing in soap operas or on Youtube as role models for other girls. Just another form of mass propaganda, only targetting the behavioral level rather than the opinion level. So actually more subtle and going deeper. Part of the conformity & consensus apparatus. No? (Still a bit clueless about your fascination with that video. Managed to go up to minute 10 this time.)

Milu said...

Okay, I watched that twitter link Kim Kardashian video and that clarifies it, it's the glottal staccato that she's using, very easy to imitate for Germans (but probably very hard for Italians, French etc because they don't have the glottal stop in their phonetic repertoire), so very easy to imitate (we sometimes spoke like that as kids for fun), but she's using it as a kind of vocal special effect, and indeed I've heard that before many times and always filed it under "stupid American affectation", and what more could it be?

Milu said...

So I watched a few minutes of that alleged car chase as well … the one you linked to above. From what I've seen, a relatively low-risk drive, no extraordinary speeding, no chasing, just being followed by the helicopter camera. In my opinion, this could be a job made to be captured on camera … I say it's fake in that sense. No idea why else that would be broadcast on TV. And the two ladies commenting … one trying to be more stupid than the other. Men would at least complain at the lack of action instead of going Oh my gosh! all the time. Youtube is full of CCTV car crash & road accident compilations if you're interested. :)

don findlay said...

Batosis.
Yes, It didn't strike me at the time that it was (as you say) frivolous ( like "eye-itis"). The medical profession is full of words that seem almost designed to hoodwink us. I seem to be noticing too, just in the last couple of weeks since George Floyd was murdered by the police, that the media, seemingly hoodwinked up until now by Donald Trump's masterly use of hyperbole and mafia-boss speak, are finally beginning to catch on to his use of language. "Kazillions" for example, is not a lie, .. it just means 'a lot' (if you like), or maybe not (if you don't like). I pass, though, on "Grab me, Donald, .. grab my pussy". I think he's exaggerating there. I've never had any woman (that I an remember at least) (there might havwe been a hundred or two) say that to me, ..but then, .. I never had his money, and certainly not his charisma. Do we think that might make a difference? We might leave that one to the ladies to judge whether it would or not.
(Batosis) That was back in 1985/6. The word was quite likely frivolous. Like you I entered it in googleearch too, but added the word 'virus', and got one entry ( "The Human disease Network") beneath the 'zombies', but couldn't find it in the page, so google was finding virus, not 'batosis' So, given the escalation of control by social media networks we have to realise that "Words Matter" even more than ever since The Big 'O' (Orwell) drew our attention to the ones that are not spoken - The Lies of Omission, .. (Trump with his bible last week) => A whole other thread.

"… ideal cover for a President to take over a country / Tighter control of the populace."
Oh, absolutely. There are many threads arising out of this, principal among which I think is the emerging realisation (I hope) that the pace of tech innovation has outstripped the humanities, and that the imbalance needs to be corrected. We been too clever for our own good and need to slow down a bit to let the humanities catch up, instead of increasing weapons development under the guise of going to the Moon again and Mars, which is no more than sops to a public Cerberus. As a rep from the Arts community said the other day regarding societal cohesion, "Sport and the Arts are equivalents, the only difference (when we think ab out it), is gambling, which is not really in the interest of social cohesion.

I don't know whether it's that simple ("simple') but in passing it seemed a good point.
('Sport') => https://tinyurl.com/y8dy334w
('Arts') => I don't know. Fill it in with something insp-/aspirational needing 10,000hrs of work (beginning as young as possible).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iwOpAEzvko
(From memory, this one is almost a decade(?) ago.) Not just the technique, the musicality is terrific too.

Bullies.
I can''t find the item I remember. This one
https://tinyurl.com/y7pxzxb3
.. is not a happy message, but could well be related. Uncle Sam? We could well be living it.

Benevolent Power / so-called democracies ..
("So-called") Yes that's it. I was thinking of Lee Kuan Yew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew
I know he made some enemies (particularly among those needing haircuts). But, ... ... he did lift Singapore out of the swamp.

don findlay said...

"Airline Pilots crashing their planes just to show 'em."
Yes, that one, and the Malaysian airlines flight 370, that ended in the Indian ocean (colleagues reckoned it was a "see what you're making me do" message to the wife for having an affair). The third one was the Air France 447
https://tinyurl.com/y9jxkn8h
But people are .. Well let's say the only people who are reasonable and rational (besides you and me) are 'scientists' and we've broadened the field now to include the opposite sex and pronouns var., .. And going by twitter feed, "Lost its mind" applies equally well to cats and dogs. Airline pilots operate in the stratosphere (or at least used to) of public perception), while bus drivers are well and truly grounded. It's true that people generally are quite status conscious, but I can't think of anybody who would apply for a job as a bus driver for that reason.

But no (and being a bit facetious) I do think people prove themselves to be nuts at least 50% of the time, and anyway operate subconsciously from an emotional centre - which is why no politiician ever wins an election on policy. Other tactics are needed (like denigrating the opposition's). For explanations we mostly need to look no further than the wysiwyg timeline of events and associations, which is what the law mostly does. The "mostly" is why we need good journalism who check and double-check, because daily life for most people doesn't allow the time nor the wherewithall to 'get informed' (much less the inclination). Yet we entrust the election of leaders to this cohort - who mostly don't know,and care even less). What can be crazier than that?

It's also why people can be manipulated, if you know how to move their emotional centre. There's a whole industry built around that one that's worth a lot to the 'economy'. One person's hero is another's war criminal. And so on. On cue as we speak :-
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/snowden-and-the-surveillance-state/12337382
Not to mention Assange, and the ruckus he caused by hanging out some dirty linen.. And of course, right now in the news about Prince Andrew and friend Epstein. (murdered(?) in his cell) .

Who's to know and what difference does it make one-way and another, what people 'believe'... (?) It's just stories, .. all passe. And all 'true'. In the real world, there's a bus to catch - and the driver is the real hero! (Until he starts driving us down the road to where we get thrown over the cliff, whereupon (so the story goes) pink unicorns will elevate us to the promised land. There must be some truth in that one somewhere, because it's lasted for at least a couple of thousand years, and nobody has ever said why it's not true - not in a way that will move masses anyway. Alternative stories are all very well, but there are surely situations where it is perilous not to go with the flow. "Suspend belief". "Think about it later". Almost always, critical pieces of the jigsaw are missing. Meanwhile, there are the 'authoritarians' to deal with. We hope ('hope'? - no, we make sure) they are well intentioned. How? (Fill < this> space.)

don findlay said...

"Strohbass".
:)) Is closely related to 'snarl', both much beloved of power-talkers speaking to each other. (Millennial-shaping'). And you're right, it actually derives from the schoolyard as a social bonding thing. ('Teletubbies' craze in Britain.), which I knew about after the fact, but it took me a while to work out that it was actually for real. Now we have people in authority in every sphere talking like habbly-babbly 4-8 year-olds. Mangled/strangled vowels and attenuated consonants 'spoken' as if through their ears. ("Can you write it down please?"- is when you realise they can't spell either, and why there is such a plethora of grammar courses on the internet. {Stop me here.. ]

(Formative years, I guess.) That is one saving grace of Mr Trump. He has neither snarl nor fry. But he does have a bad case of 'the pouting self'. If his 'centre' could somehow 'gastrulate', I'm quite sure he could rid the world of nuclear weapons, terrorism, the lot. Unfortunately he gets himself in the way. He'll go down in history as the most written-about president - ever - anyway. For sure. When he came on the scene, I thought (for about a couple of weeks) he was such a balloon he could be just the guy. Never seen him before (only heard of). There's no doubting his societal appeal (which is the disturbing part).

But Hey!, I haven't ("looked again") (yet). :))) By the end I did think she was brave, and also how hard it is these days to navigate being a millennial in the real world (which is why we have the protests we do). If everybody had a job, food and a home to go to, and the opportunity to "realise our potential" ("as humans"), there would be no need for all this police-power violence.

"The Car Chase."
I did wonder too if it was a put-up job, but finally no, .. The car would be stolen (I guess), and the safest thing would be just to let them stop it somewhere (then pounce). It might have been a dare (a prearranged $$-backpocket backhander). But what rain! Obviously they didn't take the weather into account. But no, Not interested. Had it been Elvis, some beach babes, a sunny day and some suitable songs from the sixties I might. (Well, would. :))) ) America is not what it used to be, but if that's what Trump meant by MAGA, there's a whole half of the country wanting to hog the driving seat! (maybe even settle for one at the back with the girls), but be bus-drivers? .. I don't think so. (That was a joke in poor taste b.t.w., .. in case someone reading this is misunderstanding the hyper-flexi-bole.)
================
By the way, talking of conspiracies, this was right on cue while I was writing :-
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/biowarfare-%E2%80%93-can-it-tell-us-anything-about-the-corona-virus/12308784
I just caught a snippet. (I certainly don't mean to denigrate all things that come under nthe umbralla of the word 'conspiracy'. There are certainly things that are conspiratorial, (so, 'journalists' again, and the need for .. (Glasnost / Transparency). And a couple of others that are 'timely' (that the media here are airing since the virus:-
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/weird-antarctica---the-truth-behind-secret-nazi-bases-and-aliens/12325562
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/climate-grief-3---climate-and-comedy/12326026
.. the last I might take issue with myself.

Milu said...

That litte girl from North Korea playing the guitar is incredible.

MH-370 was extremely fishy, too. Uncle Sam may have deviated it to Diego Garcia to then repurpose it for MH-17 to launch launch a narrative against Russia.

Again, the assumption that the MH-370 pilot crashed the plane in order to show his wife what kind of bad things may happen if she isn't nice to him is so ridiculous that it can only be believed in the Anglosphere, which, not coincidentally, is invariably the source of such absurd lies. Have to rectify about stuff being believed … it may be believed anywhere it is repeated often enough with authority because most people are credulous.

I didn't follow the Assange business back when it happened and never got into Wikileaks. But seeing the way Assange is treated and Manning was subject to emasculation (in order to deter others), their revelations must have rocked the boat quite a bit. Uncle Sam is a monster, and once he's dead, the world will be a better place.

Epstein is probably still alive and well, just taken off stage. Steady supply of lolitas and lolitos mustn't stop. It's apparently important to how Western democracy works …

Conspiracy of Silence: The Franklin Cover Up - 56 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw6rUuEWso4

I liked that idea of pink unicorn elevation.

So, Hitler living on in Antarctica. Well, actually, that's an interesting question. Not about Antarctica and the Anglo phantasies about extensive German fortifications etc. But about Hitler and his whereabouts. So we do know he committed suicide with Eva Braun, and their bodies were burnt. Right … but how do we know this? And this is where it gets interesting. Because the information is based on Expertise by the Brits, namely by one rather junior guy called Hugh Trevor-Roper. He was 31 years old when he was tasked with assessing what had happened to Hitler … because the Russians were claiming that Hitler was alive in the West, and they wanted to counter the Russian claims. But did the Brits not have anyone senior with more experience? Apparently, Trevor-Roper was just the guy to be entrusted with the job. And he became such a Hitler expert that in 1983, he stated that the so-called Hitler diaries were authentic with 97.5 % certitude. Well, too bad for Trevor-Roper that some federal office in Germany found that they were a laughable forgery.

The main point about this, though, is the Soviet claims in 1945 about Hitler being alive. This has fallen into oblivion. And yet we all know that the Soviets took Berlin and were first around to investigate, which they did very thoroughly. Stalin tasked two independent rival intelligence agencies to find out Hitler's fate. And they found that Hitler's body wasn't there and the bodies that were present were someone else's, probably doubles. There was clear evidence such as dental records. Tommy-come-lately Trevor-Roper wasn't in a position to prove anything. But the point was only to establish a narrative and to propagate it. Which was done.

So Hitler was gone. But where? There's people in Argentina claiming he lived on there with wife and children. Then died in the 1960ies. Sounds crazy? Actually no. But is it true? And what would it mean?

http://barilochenazi.com.ar/site/

don findlay said...

1/2
Michael,

1. Little girl guitarist. (Yes, .. truly remarkable.) Just shows what the 10,000 hours will do (though some will say "stolen childhood /pushy parents". But she completely internalises that music. It *is* her.

2. MH-370. Well, if he was behaving rationally he wouldn't have done it at all. The casual search I did at the time turned up reports by his colleagues who offered that explanation. Who knows what people will do when they are shamed in the community's eyes (in order to divert and transfer blame) (which is why Trump is potentially so dangerous).

3. "Uncle Sam" is wrestling with his demons. Trump has only brought it to a head by his divisiveness Same as we are here in Australia. The chickens of the colonial era are coming home to roost. Trump is both a cat's paw and the fall guy, depending on from which side of the fence we look at him ("follow the money trail"). He's incidental, really. As is the racism too ("nothing new to see here") Though it is *very much* implicated, I don't think it's central). It's the whole structure of the capitalist system and the threat to democracy that it engenders that is on the table (black and white alike - and now single mothers - as the working poor. ... .. the *structure* of the economy, and what it's for ("whether we work for an economy, or the economy works for us"), and societal /institutional cohesion /stability. It was (/has all been) built on slavery (one way or another) (black *and* white),"Gone with the Wind" in America, and Dickensian Britain in Europe, The Republicans must be trying very hard to work out how to cut him loose, at the same time as he is doing exactly the same - working out how to cut *them loose. ("We live in interesting times".) Trump's only interest in the military is its function for his own personal protection. (I hope they realise that). Time for the Eponymous Mr. Pence to step up and prove his eponymous credentials, methinks. ("In for a Penny, .. "). Where is he anyway these days? He seems to have been keeping a very low profile since 'the virus'.

4. The Franklin cover up :- I don't remember /never knew about this. I was working in the bush over that time (the news of the day being often not accessible, and certainly not front-and-centre. Since then of course we've had the Royal Comminssion in many countries into sexual abuse of children by the Catholic Church and other related istitutions. Just today (or was it yesterday) somebody was arrested for "having images" on his phone. And for all the talk of domestic abuse in the media there has been (over the years) virtually no mention of sexual abuse of minors in the home. For all the finger-pointing at *men*, are we to take it that the silence means it doesn't happen? And if it does, who gains by dragging it into the spotlight? I wouldn't mind betting that one underpins a lot of the misandry that's rife. (More dirty linen.)

5. Unicorns. Yes, I know, .. but religion is a very powerful trope in people's consciousness - "societal glue", .. like football, 'Rolling Stones' etc., (That 10,000 hrs thing again)

6. ." Hitler in Antarctica. . " .. brings to mind .. (carried in the rythm of a song - "Winter in Antarctica is cold... and I just keep growing older..") ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiegKW5UKgc

Was it all worth it? One man's 'aspirations' for the death of millions. (Yes, I know, .. telescopes the whole misadventure of colonialism into a single generation, and where's the difference and all that?.. ) But ("We must take the next step.")
People - "Daft as a brush".

don findlay said...

2/2

And now we have those who would again look to an authoritarian leader. (No problem if ... /benevolence) .. but one person's 'benevolence' can be another's "Look-what-you're-making-me-do" narcissistic psychopathic malevolent madness.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52690464
Conspiracies take many hands - and knives - for it to work. ("Et tu, Brute!")

Hitler's base found in Antarctica? I found another youtube-with-pictures (in silent Russian). I don't know what the Russians use for co-ordinates in that part of the world (task-bar) but it seemed to me even the whole degrees puts it near the north (not the south pole) (somewhere offshore in the Arctic ocean .. )

Did you ever come across this one for a 'conspiracy'?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat.
I found the interview with the author of the book on which the film was based,
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/wwii-swindle-operation-mincemeat/3043828
.. quite amusing (listened to it again), although the slot in history it referred to was far from that.

Fabrication is how we explain unpleasant truths to ourselves, and why we have the 30-year 'Freedon (*from) Information Act, to protect the innocent till the time that nobody will care any more to do anything about it, when 'it' then all makes for entertainment and another thread in the weave of societal cohesion and pink unicorns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRZZC-DH7M
When pop music in the west was musical (for a short while before descending into the punk, grunge, heavy metal, rap ... and the dark place of today, while China (remembering its medieval history and the opium wars, and the irritant of Japan) decides enough is enough. Soft Power? Remains to be seen.

But first, Trump needs to be removed - one way or another - by his own hand, by his own self, by his own piece of enough-rope. (Or maybe that gun on 5th Avenue.) Time's up.
(Just my view)

My guess (fwiw) is that Mr Trump will soon be escorted from the White House, https://tinyurl.com/yd5xo29b
.. before he can do further damage to the Republican Party, Mr Pence will take over the presidency until a suitable way can be found to fiddle elections along the lines of Georgia (just past), so he (Pence) can emerge as the President America Always Wanted (the cat's 'PAAW'), the Republicans (to a man /woman) will claim redemption along traditional lines, the money men can continue business as usual, and Trump will be straightjacketed, bemoaning the conspiracy that was always against him. But unlike Epstein, he will be quite safe naming people, because everybody will just say "Tut-tut .. Poor man".

Actually, the fiddle might not even be necessary, .. as (almost) everybody breathes a sigh of relief and places their bets on their own pink personal unicorn (/uniform), while the BLM crowd wonders what hit them. Problem solved. ("What problem? It was a pre-ordained conspiracy from the beginning, executed by an (alleged) $20 note"). And artificial intelligence will be deified as the start of a New Era - the Homeocentropathene.

Milu said...

Hi Don, it's not unusual for me to disagree with majority views, and so I don't buy the pilot suicide theory and plead innocence in all cases where such is invoked by Western propaganda (MH-370, Germanwings 9525, and others), and the bus driver analogy alone is good enough for me. In addition, consider the ease with which a modern aircraft can be remote controlled like a drone via satellite comm link. This is tried and true tech and it's been perfected during the last two decades.

I also do not understand why so many people see someting evil or bad or dangerous in Donald Trump. His predecessor in office and Nobel "peace" laureate Obama bombed seven countries in 2016 alone.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-bombed-iraq-syria-pakistan-afghanistan-libya-yemen-somalia-n704636

I think Trump as a person is moreless irrelevant. He's a playboy and an actor and quite frankly not qualified to decide anything on geopolitics. His job is that of a salesman, selling politics to foreign and domestic audiences, while others who stay in the background decide what is to be done and what is to be said. Overall, the part of the US elites behind Trump may be less pernicious for the rest of the world than the part backing Clinton or whatever is next. The president simply has to be there to maintain belief in the system; otherwise, he could be dispensed with entirely. His function is purely propagandistic, just like elections.

The whole racism business is not too interesting to me. There's constant blabla about racism this and racism that nowadays. It's an anti-white ideology, like white=bad, and racism presupposes a bad white male and an innocent non-white victim. That ideology is full of lies and I don't like it.

Another story is that in Uncle Sam's own country, if the only tool you have is a gun, all problems look like targets. And this seems so deeply entrenched in US culture, from Hollywood to the Army, that it is applied universally, including to black criminals. Guess in this case, death was brought about by other means, okay, but guns are everywhere and hence an escalation of violence.

The Franklin cover-up … I didn't know about this either, not sure it got any coverage in Europe at all, seems widely unknown here, but in the mid-nineties there was this Dutroux scandal in Belgium, and during the trial 27+ witnesses died, think about it, why does it happen? Well, because it's not just about some crazy pervert, but he's simply a provider working for a certain network that branches into rich and powerful circles, and they can't have their rich and powerful asses exposed by some due judicial procedure, can they, so the witnesses have to be dealt with, can't be helped.

I also disagree about Hitler being one of the main culprits for World War II. Just like WW1 was organized from London, so WW2 was organized from New York and Washington. Hitler's aspirations didn't go beyond restauring Germany to what it was in 1914 plus, of course, his German-Austrian homeland and non-German Bohemia and Moravia, which had been part of the Reich for 1000 years. Our every move was tactical in nature, and none was strategic. The war Washington and London wished to see was between Germany and Russia, and thanks to Stalin, it eventually came to pass.

Never heard about Operation Mincemeat, going to read up about it later.

One of my favourite bands from down under is Little River Band. Do you like their music?

don findlay said...

Michael, I'm going to cut to your bottom line just now, just to say yes about the Little River Band. Homage - Cool Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bKwRW0l-Qk
.. and a few others (vignettes of life in picture and song) (the genre before there was rap). Then the sidebar puts up Mark Knopfler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R2Qtf3UeL0
(lyrics - lyrics https://tinyurl.com/ybywpcuh )
and the Telegraph road
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LS7ZKn5TyQ
(lyrics https://tinyurl.com/ydd5pdyq
(Old soldiers, not giving in, .. and a time when music was music

I'll answer yours later

Milu said...

Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler are another favourite of mine.

Rap is mostly crap to my ears, and 100% so as played on mainstream radio. There are some good parts, decades old, but they're few and far between.

Spoonie Gee - The Godfather (1987) - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEWTaMSe64w

don findlay said...

Michael,

Returning to yours of the 24th (two above).
(1 of 2)
*Disagreeing with majority views*
Me too. It's the gremlin that A.I. is trying to come to terms with, to make sure that 'common' - 'sense' in the "new reality" is approximated. Deviations are to be abhorred, which is why you and me (though I should say 'I') are the only ones fucking this cat (..there, see what intelligent artificies make of that one! :)) ) despite me alerting you to updates on twitter (which should be capitalised) (and I'm not sure why not, "I alert"), and finding an answer couched in the word 'despite' and realising that substituting it with 'even though' would be grammatically better. And of course I should have said 'I too', and not 'me too" (but I guess A.I. is comfortable with that one.). And so these steel balls of words oscillate, knocking all sorts of 'reveals' back-and-forth through sentences, making the reader wonder what sort of a dope I must be to pick up on *that one, when Artificial Intelligence is trying very hard to make life easier for us. Well, .. it was because the word 'individuation' popped into my mind, and because it was from a dark and distant past I thought I would quickly refresh on meaning - and find it in French, the suggestion-list below with explanations in psychology (as I remembered) and the sidebar in brutal objectification. And so Google fragments us in a 'Divide-and-Rule' coup d'etat. (No reply please, .. ta very much.)

*Dangerous Donald Trump*
Oh Yes (i.m.o.). Not because he's an unapologetic narcissistic psychopath (as we all are to a degree) (and especially comes with the territory at executive level) but because of the massive glitsch in agendas between the leader and the led that to me seems not to be fully appreciated but is finally beginning to be voiced (news outlets have to be careful). He's not a leader, but a provocateur in (for America) the most dangerous way possible - race. I can talk. I recognise that I am one too (a provocateur) but in an area that is of virtually no consequence (PT /EE) - an intention of stirring people up to question the logic and reasoning between the two - and by extension to be more critical of so-called 'experts in the field' whose agenda may not be so much veracity as expedience. - such that people pay more attention to deficiencies in the 'certainties' we take for granted). But my intentions are positive for what I see as a larger, more *reasonable 'truth' (yes, I know about 'truth' and all that) for the public benefit. I have taken my website down and am having second thoughts about the point of taking things much further). Destabilising a consensus has consequences.

*In my view*, Trump is intent on declaring himself Leader-for-Life (like Xi) and by further default installing a family dynasty, and is trying to create a race war to that end. He is leveraging 'white' America and the bleeding sore of slavery, Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act, which was offensive to many, and the "ghost that dare not speak its name" (in America) of the Civil War. He is 'leading from behind', so to speak as the pied piper, not at the front, but at the end of the line or from the sidelines.

It's not clear on what level this is deliberate, ordered manipulation, or a kind of random 'throwing-down-of-the-chips' and letting them fall where they will in order to simply disrupt
Psychopathy is creating one's own reality (in Trump's case as above), narcissism is it being self-focussed.

He's trying to get the people to dance to his dogwhistling, which very many (especially the older segment of the population) are very ready to do because they remember the good old days of golden post-war years when they never had it so good (in America) despite some overseas misadventures, and think they can get back to it. But there is no going back.

don findlay said...

2/2

He's not a warmongering adventurist, though he keeps refering to himself as "The Wartime President". That's just music for the ears of others - another dogwhistle to leverage) Bolton is/was, and I'm sure there are others who are, both under the cloak of religion and/or just interested in militaristic adventure for its own sake or to maintain their own agendas). But he's not above signing executive orders for an adventure if it serves him. It's appalling that it has taken people so long to figure him out. Blinded by their own whiteness, maybe, .. or maybe just waking up to the extent of the danger. Letting others carry the can is Trump's stock in trade.

Imo his immediate goal is to nullify any chance of an election, though he didn't initially bet on losing ground. He's already stacked the Judiciary, has 'Police Culture' in the bag, and half the country as well (possibly increasingly less, though I wouldn't bet on that.) And has most of the guns in the country on his side.

No, .. I think he's a very dangerous man, not just for America, but for the world at this point when there is so much uncertainty and unrest. I just hope those of a religious persuasion can read into it the lesson of biblical plagues being cast upon the land. Yes, he's a playboy and an actor, but he is also in his twighlight years and has undergone that cognitive shift of retrospect, which is, or could well be, leading him down some road of "revenge" (his word).

It is not a simple black-white 'race-thing', but much bigger. America's whole identity. (ask the natives - especially those ancient civilisations "down Mexico way" (song here).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMBMkm184pU
"The Land of the Free" with the 'embediment within' of the unfree. It resonates across the world, particularly these days with the youngsters because of the failing capitalist economy leading to a lack of jobs, and the way the pace of technology has outstripped the basic needs of humanity. Globally, ..politically. America leads the world (or used to) but has proven how the electoral system ('democracy') can be manipulated. Trust and societal cohesion is under attack. (Another 'domino' to be leveraged for ulterior ends).

Which is why "contradicting consensus" is not healthy. True or False doesn't much matter, so long as there is stability. And if there is anything Trump is not, it is 'stable'.

MIlu said...

Well, I think you need not worry about Trump … for the reasons I stated before.

Uncle Sam has been losing influence for a couple years now, and that's a good thing. China on the rise, and Russia as well. Another good thing.

Uncle Sam's internal problems are his to solve, and there's no reason why we in Australia or Europe would have to be affected as long as we defend our own interests. So let them have some race riots, let them have their gun laws and gun crimes - none of our business. Up to them to figure out what to do about it, if anything. I have family in the US and they live in middle class or even upper middle class areas. I am not holding my breath for law and order to break down in those areas. Ghost towns such as Detroit are a different story. It's a big country and people segregate according to income and race, so you space for the wealthy and space for the poor, and if push comes to shove the police is militarized and there's the national guard and they will act to protect those areas that are of interest to them, and let others decay if they're not important. Wealthy people will not be affected.

Yes, I noticed you've taken down your site.

And I don't do Twitter. I have an account, yes, but I rarely check, and only randomly.

I don't have a feeling that I'll be a consensus fanboy anytime soon. With leaderships pushing more and more crap down our throats, consensus is more difficult to maintain, and there's more anti-dissent propaganda in the mass media, but you don't have to listen or take it seriously. At least I don't think I have to. After all, why have we been endowed with a brain?

I'm realizing you somehow believe in democracy and the electoral system, which I've stopped doing 15 years ago. It's mostly a facade to provide the illusion of choice, that's my opinion.

don findlay said...

Michael,

Picking you up on a couple of points. But first a mention of respect for our difference in views, and to acknowledge that we are able to express them without significant consequences (not so in China (/Hong Kong) nor in Russia) or many other places in the world.

1. *Democracy, the Electoral System, and the illusion of choice*.
Yes I know what you mean. I don't know about 'belief'', but I do *think*it's best available. Belief is non-negotiable, thinking means you can always change, develop, or reject. Personally I find 'belief' a difficult word, and it always pulls me up when I read, "Scientists believe .. .." (I usually do a search to see what the count is for "scientists believe" versus "scientists think". It's been balancing up a bit better, over the years.

It's taken me a while though to get involved (and recognise the need to). I've never liked compulsory voting because of the authoritarian overtones and because I've never felt informed enough to cast a counting vote. Compulsory voting is also democracy's Achilles' heel(swing voters in swing seats who don't know and don't care, but who usually end up deciding the result of the election). The way around it of course is to ignore the 'compulsory', and just vote.

2. *Consensus* (and contradicting it).
(Hints of 1. above.) I think people mostly don't have the time nor the inclination to think about things in any but the most superficial way, and prefer to have whatever thoughts they might have trumped by social expediencies. ("I agree") - but dig deeper and we might find that the agreement is for entirely different, and contradictory reasons, therefore negating the 'agreement'. "Themes, memes, and wannabe dreams" - (and tattoos) are often enough. And thus does a 'consensus' muddle along. Thinking for yourself, and saying so, can have unlooked-for and undesirable consequences. Voicing it (though reasonable) can be irrational.

For example Trump's Tulsa rally, covid cases should be maturing about now, but there are no reports of any serious infections https://tinyurl.com/y9lpudp5 . Meaning, it's reasonable to say so, but irrational if doing so will lose you your job. (Which may be why wer'e not hearing anything.)

Milu said...

Hi Don … we're certainly free to express a lot of views as long as they do not endanger the way the system works … with most people being well-fed materialists with hardly anything beyond, eager to maintain their standard of living, the system is very stable anyway. Don't know about China (never been there, don't speak Chinese), but when I was in Russia (only tourism) I didn't have the impression that the people enjoyed less freedom than in France, Germany or England. So how can you tell? Or do you feel confident, when expressing those views, to rely on Western propaganda? ;)

As for believing and thinking, is it more than wording? In English, people tend to *think*, whereas in German, we tend to *believe*. But it's the same thing, isn't it, regardless of linguistic bias.

» Thinking for yourself, and saying so, can have unlooked-for and undesirable consequences. Voicing it (though reasonable) can be irrational. «

I know. Still cannot refrain from doing so … thinking, most of the time … and saying so, occasionally … which makes me think: What's up with that freedom when there is such a strong compulsion to consensus and such self-censorship? Can't be all roses, can it. Not indicative of individuals educated to cherish freedom. I mean the individual member of a herd of sheep also enjoys a certain liberty.

I've been reading some of your June 2006 newsgroups conversations. Not much to be learnt from it, unfortunately. Hardly any discussion of science, hardly any curiosity and openness of mind. Quite appalling, actually. Sad.

What I found useful to learn is that some of the few scientists who appeared to be in at least partially good faith (and who obviously know much more about geology than I do) also had difficulty understanding your points. One of them called you "opaque". Or were they all geophysicists clueless about the geology?

I've read through the PT part of your disk, and that is all pretty clear. But I'm struggling with the EE part, just like nine years ago. For example, today I've read "Dip and Strike" (pr/strike1.html) and didn't understand a thing although dip & strike (fallen & streichen) does not appear to be a hard concept to grasp. Feeling stupid. Will carry on regardless.

Flat detachments on a massive scale … Indonesia, Himalaya, Tarim, Mongolia … not easy to imagine! Wouldn't that create way more friction (and hence need way more energy) than vertical rupture?

Milu said...

Here's the obstacle to my understanding from the "Dip and Strike" page:

"The slightest angular deviation from the horizontal is enough to make the strike of any block different from its neighbour across a fault. One second of arc of tilt is more than enough to give strike difference the full sweep of the compass."

So if a horizontal plane is in the x and y coordinates, with z being the vertical dimension, and strike is in the plane (x and y) - where is the angular deviation and how would that result in 360° strike difference? I don't get it.

"And the flatter the dip, the more the lateral offset on any small vertical displacement on the fault will be. Lateral displacements almost infinite."

I may have understood this bit now. Flat dip, lower part slides down: small vertical displacement, big lateral one. With a steep dip, it's the other way round. Seems to be simple geometry. Is that it?

The ten or so pages coming after that "Dip and Strike" page in the order they're listed on the EE entry page are much clearer.

don findlay said...

Michael,

1. *The West as well-paid materialists.*
Yes, that's true (mostly), but there's nothing like being out of a job (overnight) to make us realise the precariousness of all that. The knife-edge that we walk beteween 'civilisation' and dystopia is true - as this virus coupled with a belief in our omnipotence to control it, shows. I have views :))) which, tho' even fuzzy, may well get me excoriated, then bathed in acid to cleanse me should I try to spread them around. I need to do some (more) homework on "The Cult of the Expert"
https://tinyurl.com/ybe3fhzz . I did try to discover (briefly) how viruses and the immune system evolve to some mutual equilibrium (even symbiosis), but didn't get far before reflecting on the time required to do it, which most people don't have (nor the inclination), which is why they rely on experts, who by-and-large are more concerned (rightly) with the security of some modest materialism, than the short-term contract work on offer. Just to say though, I don't understand why a virus (which by itself is not living) should be intent on killing its potential host - and thereby itself. Would a virus so disposed ever evolve at all? Hardly. It seems to me that any questions of 'lethal virulence' falls squarely on the weakness of living hosts. And these days, with the massive cohorts of overweight (and dare I say, 'fat'?) people with diabetes, heart disease kidneys and liver etc troubles (not to mention the very elderly) ( like me, just limping along after a lifetime of dissoluted self-abuse, and kidding myself I stll can) (limp) (and medical staff who are run-ragged and totally zonked) well, ..this virus is, as they say, *totally out of control*, and scoring freebies because we've let it by not cutting back on our material lifestyle. And the cost is in the trillions. ("How much was this pizza tonight? It's bloody good! Let's have another beer.")

Of course, if it stayed where it belongs (with animals) we would have no problem. I guess the species jump is the wildcard which has caused it, but it is interesting to know how long it takes for some equilibrium to get established. Here (Aust.), after having successfully dealt with the first wave we're on to the "second wave", we now have record cases, escalating because of accellerated testing. There have been virtually no deaths, and those few hardly unexpected (e.g. very elderly in nursing homes). So it seems it could be very quick indeed, after the initial ravages of the vulnerable. But it remains to be seen, really. I read the hyped media reports as experts butt-covering. We're even having exerts say that the virus can *cause* those western debilities, or at least make them worse than they already are! If that's not putting the horse before the cart I don't know what is. (How the hell would the ever know - in the space of a few days?)

2. *Newsgroups /Opacity*
Deteriorated very quickly (right from the beginning, really), then limped along cat-and-mouse .. and for years too, as I kept posting links to my web-page as I developed it (though I had the framework together from much earlier, back as far as '76). Once it petered out in (as I like to think) a 'fait accompli', I moved over to Rationalskepticism to sort them out, but got met with the Balrogs from Richard Dawkins' site - anti-religious enthusiasts who were giving him a bad name and who had all congregated there, where I got banned for essentially baiting them
https://earthexpansion.blogspot.com/2013/01/banned-day-music-died.html

I'll stop here for the moment. You're getting ahead of me, and I keep getting distracted, so give me bit of time here till I catch up.

don findlay said...

Hello Again Michael,

I have to give you top marks for Pereseverance with a topic that a worldful of geologists don't want a bar of (as we say here in Oz) though I've never rightly understood what this bar is. Certainly not the one you get in a pub. Maybe something like beef jerky, or somebody else's wife's special cooking. This guy has a view (when I look it up) (though it seems he's as much at sea as me, though he's managed to write a book about it, proving thta he's well and truly ensconced in that first bar, and capable of consuming the whole lot:-
https://aussieenglish.com.au/ae-511-expression-not-have-a-bar-of-it/ )

Anyway ...

*360 degree strike difference*
Well, 180, I suppose (NS, EW, NNE-SSW .. etc.). But round the clock anyway. I think you've got that essentially right anyway. The strike is given by the tilt of the layer referenced to the horizontal plane, and only the slightest tilt of the plane measured (in any direction) is needed to give a 'strike' orientation, so the layer can be essentially flat, and give strikes that are all over the place, .. and the variation doesn't mean very much from an Earth-structure perspective. The more vertical the layers are, the more structurally significant the strike is (because layers (/sediments) that are naturally horizontal, have been so greatly disturbed from that orientation

*Flatter the dip, the greater the *APPARENT* (horiontal) offset *
[(The capitalised and bracketed words being the important ones). The Earth's crust (being essentially horizontal) only gives a two dimensional view of Earth structure]

("Lower part slides down") Yes but combined with mantle *growth* it's a long story. Basically, yes, "a small vertical displacement can give a huge horizontal one", but the more vertical the layers are, the more the apparewnt displacement reflects the real displacement.

But (big but). In fold BELTS, vertical dips don't mean a lot at the larger scale, because the strata are concertinaed into folds, and the aggregate envelope of the pile is then essentially flat on the crustal scale, e.g see the offset along the India-Pakistan border between the Zagros and the Himalayas. That's a near-flat displacement ('apparent-only'), although in the field every dip will 'prove' the offset to be real (that offset measured in km). Well, it is 'real' (because you can see it), but it is an artifact of slight vertical offset of conceretinaed, gravitationally collapsing pile of folds.

Milu said...

Hi Don, sorry for the long silence, and thanks for your explanation, which clarified the arcsecond & 360° (or 180°) business. I finished reading your ebook a couple days ago, and the more I progressed, the more it made sense to me. You say it's just an outline or a sketch, and yes, it is, but I consider it the insights of a genius. More on that later.

I also read Wegener's "Über die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane" a few months ago. IIRC, you had a question about continental ploughing through oceans nine years ago. Guess I can answer that one now, and also others. A good book, by the way, soundly reasoned, well written, easy and interesting to read, accessible to the layman.

I also read some other web pages on geology to get at least some modest basis for understanding your work. For example, I was surprised to learn that I live on top of five or more kilometers of sediments! (Exclamation mark to underline my surprise.) Northern Germany, surface shaped by glaciers during the last ice age. Closest mountains to here about two hours by car, and I've hardly ever been there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harz

"It seems to me that any questions of 'lethal virulence' falls squarely on the weakness of living hosts." - Exactly.

"..this virus is, as they say, *totally out of control*, and scoring freebies because we've let it by not cutting back on our material lifestyle." - The virus is harmless. Something else is out of control. Them. The leaders. The propaganda apparatus. The shepherds are out of control. The sheeple are under control. Mind controlled by deceitful propaganda.

"Second wave." There's not been a first wave, at least not due to some dangerous virus. There's been a wave of administrative measures enforcing isolation, hospitalisation, malmedication, intubation, mistreatment, taking their deadly toll on people who otherwise would have lived on.

The whole COVID scam seems to be related to something called Agenda 2030 (previously Agenda 21), which aims at depriving us of freedom and installing a new kind of high-tech communism.

Regardless of all that, I wish you the very best health possible. It's not something we have 100 % control over, seen enough examples of that, a friend of mine died at 30, cancer did the job, a neighbour lost her mental health beyond recognition despite a role-model lifestyle. Dissoluted self-abuse or not, there's no guarantee health and sanity will remain intact till one day the pink unicorn takes over.

More tonight.

Milu said...

Alfred Wegener: Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane, 6th edition 1941, text identical to 5th edition 1928, bibliography updated (which lists on page 239: [1933] O. C. Hilgenberg, Vom wachsenden Erdball. Selbstverlag [self-published], Charlottenburg)

So IIRC, you were asking about Wegener's use of the plough metaphor. In the final chapter of the book (Ergänzende Bemerkungen über die Tiefseeböden - Complementary remarks on the deep sea floors), on the second-to-last and last page of the text, pages 218f, I found the following paragraph:

"Bei der tiefen, rechtwinklig gebogenen Rinne südlich und südöstlich der Insel Neupommern beruht die Entstehung offensichtlich auf dem gewaltsamen Fortzerren der Insel nach Nordwesten infolge Anhaftens an Neuguinea; die tief hinabreichende Inselscholle pflügt das Sima, welches nachströmend das Loch noch nicht ganz gefüllt hat. Es ist dies vielleicht derjenige Fall, wo wir uns am genauesten Rechenschaft über die Entstehung einer Tiefseerinne ablegen können."

Translation (mine):

"Regarding the deep, orthogonally bent trench South and Southeast of the island New Pomerania [= New Britain], its formation is obviously due to violent tearing away of the island to the Northwest consequent on remaining attached to New Guinea; the island slab, extending deep down, ploughs the sima, which, following in a stream, has not quite filled up the hole yet. This just might be the very case where we can render the most exact account of the formation of a deep sea trench."

This is the only use of a plough metaphor in the book.

Milu said...

"I have views :))) which, tho' even fuzzy, may well get me excoriated, then bathed in acid to cleanse me should I try to spread them around." - I'm very open-minded regarding such views … I have a lot of those myself.

Yeah, fat & lazy lifestyle … and then getting hysterical about a virus … because the telly says so! People are stupid.

So this Agenda 2030 business … seems to be about transforming (= reducing) our lifestyle … for our own good, of course. Seventeen goals … sounds all really nice. But how could it be implemented? Does it not require some sort of world government? So what is it really about?

https://sdgs.un.org/goals

I'm very suspicious of such far-reaching scheming and goaling.

I hope the tide is going to turn against the virus propaganda and lockdown nonsense now. There's been a very large demonstration against the new "rules" in Berlin the other day … 800,000 participants according to police estimates, which were then ordered to be lowered to a mere 17,000 … incommensurate with the photo and video evidence … which goes to show the level of lies and deceit the gov & media is infested with.

Everything about the virus story can be doubted, including the zoonotic hypothesis (jump from animals to humans). There is no evidence, only assumptions, based on genetic proximity, with very limited data.

This guy, Wolfgang Wodarg, has blown the whistle on the virus scare from the onset, most of it in German, some in English: https://www.wodarg.com/

Milu said...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachment_fault

One thing difficult to accept or understand for me has been detachment faults, and the more difficult the larger they must be assumed to be. Hard to accept because the more horizontal the fault lies (the lower the dip angle), the larger the surface on which friction has to be overcome. A steep dip angle seems to be more economical to me in terms of energy needed.

On one of your ebook pages you're suggesting South America and Africa fit better when the African coastline is matched against the cordilleras rather than against the South American Eastern coastline. So a large part of Africa would have been on top of the Amazonas plain, but there are also some mountains near the East coast of South America.

At any rate, an enormous displacement. But given a couple millions of years, displacement per year would be a meter or less per year to make Africa slide off of South America.

On the other hand, wouldn't the African crust then have to be relatively thin (like 10 km) where it once was a superstratum of South America? Why did it not break vertically and stay put where it was?

And wouldn't you expect the bottom layer of superposition, basically all of South America East of the corilleras, to be covered with a layer of mylonite?

I do not find large-area detachment faults as hard to accept as PT's continents moving willy-nilly about the mantle and colliding with each other, because the crust has to react in some way to expansion when it happens, but I'm struggling with the notion of flat detachments because to my mind (not experienced in geology) it seems to require more energy than a clean vertical break.

The scale of it so enormous that my mind struggles to grasp what's going on.

don findlay said...

Michael,

Likewise about 'silences', so no apologies needed. I'm transfixed by this guy in the White House. I think they'll need to put a dart in him like they do with large rogue animals and get a crane to lift him out of that place, .. even if it means putting a hole in the roof and abseiling down in the dark to catch him off-guard before he reaches for that red button he keeps in the desk. Like they did with Bin Laden. He gets more deranged by the day, not to mention that he has spelt out in no uncertain terms that his central ethos is revenge, and that he has the backing of half the country behind him. The police can't act on a 'domestic' before an act of violence is committed, but he's abused norms, his office, and the country so many times since he was elected, and apparently before that was flying (just) under the radar in ways that would have put him in Jail were it not that it would put a whole lot of others in jail as well (such is the freedom to be corrupt in 'business') that, well, ... enough said.

The way he's been sacking people and recruiting others (by extortion (/'donation') it's a wonder they haven't done it before now. Bandy Lee and co-authors nailed him almost from the start,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghg4-1rEZzk
but hardly anybody seems to have been paying much attention beyond grmbling about it till this last year. A selected quote from her book (beginning this link)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nhoGIvOKJU
cites his 'deficiecy', but in another context I think it might be considered a mark of creative (/"lateral") thinking that characterises the world of high art in general and the literary world in particular (and the tripe that people love to watch on telly) (I don't have one by the way). Artists (/painters) sell their stuff to others who even consider it 'investment'.

I do it all the time and find it serves me quite well in trying to untangle the many threads of this enterprise called 'living', We all do (in our various little ways), but it's when it gets out of hand, or is 'inappropriate' for the so-called "public sphere' (when "the personal becomes the political") that it can be a problem. Freedom should be (mostly) left up to the properly informed individual, in the understanding that laws are for those who contravene acceptable public norms.)

But I can't deny (and do recognise) its downsides (re those norms), which is why I'm going slow these days and finding the need to answer yours by this preamble. I think Trump is often misrepresented for his hyplerbole and his 'peculiar style' of projecting it, and runs foul of confusing America with his own personal space, and thus transgressing presidential norms, and testing the judiciary.

Keeping within the bounds of ordinary norms (and making no claims on "genius") (having many times been called a nutter) I wrote this note about that a while back, culled from my old website sometime about 2011 (you may already have seen it)
https://earthexpansion.blogspot.com/2018/03/eureka.html

Hang in and I'll answer yours later. I have so much to do in ways of catching up on years of not keeping up (on all fronts) that I feel I'm grinding to a halt.

don findlay said...

P.S.
I forgot to summarily say (as others also do - notably the Obamas in their appeal to the nation to vote ("and not get it wrong"), that it's not an election at all (that's on the table) but a yes/no referendum on the Black Lives Matter issue, or a broader plebiscite on guns /standing armies /'freedoms' and tidying up the constitution generally. All nations have faced similar at different times in their history, and it won't be resolved by simply holding an election unless everybody understands that it is only a proxy for much more fundamental restructuring. As I suppose they do. But these days of popular media and "sidebar-celebrity" policies don't win elections. They should, but they don't. Not the last few I've been paying attention to anyway. Hence the need for clarity and calling it like it is (referendums / plebiscite on constitutional reform). By his total detachment from all issues of government (except to leverage for personal ends) Trump has made it very clear what his intentions are - "Revenge" (his word), dismantling democracy and installing some sort of familial dynastic succession. I don't know why (about revenge), maybe also a transfered familial thing. 'Grandiosity' certainly. I would also guess thwarted entitlement, because it would fit the classic psychopath profile, which Trump has proven himself to be.

Whichever way the vote goes (if the situation gets as far as a vote) the real unrest is only beginning - unless *by* naming it as it is, it lances the boil so to speak, so healing can begin. I do see in it an extreme example of the pathology that the self faces in relation to others. ('Upsetting applecarts', so to speak.) :)) "Contradicting Consensus" )

So back to geology. The longer I live with it (E.E.), the less there is to say. It will be told eventually in that 'elephantine' way as everyone grabs their own blind piece of the beastly thing and wrestles it to the ground of their own experience. In fact, putting a dart in it might not even be advisable, because it would deprive others of their own self-satisfaction. Having the general picture essentially in place I'm confronted with the conundrum of 'threads'
https://earthexpansion.blogspot.com/2017/01/threads.html
and which one is best for the reader. I still don't have an answer to that. I can only tell my own story how I got there. (And yes, I guess there is the pathology of self-validation in that.)

Milu said...

I hope you won't be disappointed when Trump will be reelected (reappointed), as he clearly will be ... Why else would they place a man afflicted by age-related cognitive issues as a challenger? Media may cheer for Biden and battle against Trump as much as they like, there is no plausible narrative for Biden to win.

'Biden's cognitive issues can no longer be ignored'
Sky News Australia - 13.03.2020
https://youtu.be/aA-GoeFGyIc

No need to worry about the red button on the desk ... it's not connected to anything meaningful.

I found those Bandy Lee analyses you linked to very superficial ... Dreigroschenpsychologie ... like she and her co-author were taking Trump's stage performance at face value. They either haven't understood a thing or act out the stupidity that is demanded by the media system.

By the way, in both videos (just as in the video on Biden's beginning dementia) they pointed out that "red button" or "nuclear trigger" issue ... I remember it was also brought forward against Jacques Chirac in the last days of his presidency, and it impressed me back then because I didn't know it was all just a hoax.

And that's what the entire electoral circus in the US amounts to ... a hoax ... a theater ... the illusion of choice. Or let's rather say: the choice is in style only, but is very limited in terms of substance.

So, after the Bush years, we had Hopey Changey, known as Obama. Hopey Changey bombed seven countries. Then came Firsty Greaty, known as Trump. Firsty Greaty also bombed a couple countries, but not as many.

And now comes Biden. What is Biden? He is nothing. Why should he win?

Here's my own psychological analysis of what's being played out in the childish debate about Trump:

Proponents of Trump - and that's, I think, what everybody says - have a gut feeling or substantiated conviction (doesn't matter which one) that the system is rigged, is broken, is corrupt, working to their disadvantage - so they vote for an outsider who has voiced just that opinion.

Now, the people who oppose Trump, they still identify with the system. This may be very practically because the system feeds them quite well. But it more likely is because they have a mental need to live in a system that is basically good and just and righteous, both in essence and in appearance. The typical anglosaxon hypocrisy. (Sorry about that.) These people will do everything to avoid facing reality and calling a spade a spade, to avoid to own up. And that's why they can't stand Trump. He's taking away their cherished illusions. He is, again and again, behaving in ways that makes the system recognizable for the brutal hoax it is. He is making it so very hard for them to avoid to take a look in the mirror and own up. And they don't like that, they are discomforted by the realization that Trump puts in full display the shocking truth about the preconditions of their undeserved mental and material well-being. They are hypocrites.

Just my two cents of cultural analysis, based on years of watching the anglosaxon world from the perspective of an outsider, and no insult intended just because you happen to be sort of battling against Trump, the reason for which escapes me. Why would you care?

When Trump was elected four years ago, I didn't have any high hopes, but I enjoyed the general dismay and discontent among the political and mediatical apparatchiks which I despise.

"Freedom should be (mostly) left up to the properly informed individual, in the understanding that laws are for those who contravene acceptable public norms."

But what is that? Surely freedom is for everybody, and laws apply to everybody? Without any fuzzy qualifications about properliness and acceptability?

Milu said...

I'm curious … have you ever read this book by Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval, published in 1956? I haven't but it sounds interesting! Has apparently made quite a wave back in the 70ies … Sounds like this writer has inspired a lot of people!

Earth in Upheaval, Velikovsky, part 1
(bit about Harry Hess and Plate Tectonics)
https://youtu.be/uflfUwrNx2k?t=13m55s

don findlay said...

* Trump/Biden, cognitive issues, narratives *
iyam, Biden has at least been through the flames of growing up and reaching that stage in life where there is something to look back on and be chastened about. Trump is still lost in the fifites ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jCVbMUgMuA
... In fact I don't think he's really ever got past the three-year-old stage of recognising the 'other' and developing empathy (check spindle neurons). Fifties /sixties, .. Good times (except for The Bomb), but there is no going back. (Now it's drones and/or cups of tea.) I think the only reason Trump might win is exactly because of who he is, in the developing age of infantilisim and me/me/me (memes). And that's what Biden+democrats are concerned about - the authoritarian father figure peddling fascism and despotism under the guise of democracy & freedom. The Wolf in sheep's clothing, with the White House his lair. There's no doubting Biden's cognitive deterioration, and I wish he wouldn't wag his finger like that (shades of Trump), but his heart's in the right place. Trump otoh has no concern for America or its people other than it being his own personal fiefdom for personal enrichment.

* The "red button" *
Is a thing of the past. If he had focussed on that and gotten rid of them (as he could have) (as he himself said) (He's such a buffoon) he would have gone down in history as a legend. Anyway, with so many to get rid of, and so much water under the bridge and people forgetting or never knowing, I wouldn't be surprised if nobody remembers how to build one any more, much less use them. It should be a shoo-in really (these days of the cuddly-feelies spreading their cuddles around).

*The media*
Yes, it is (becoming an evermore disappointment) (filling up the public space with young issues - Koalas, cats/dogs and dinners. Real journalism is getting sacked /poisoned or shot, or having to resort to writing books that nobody has time nor the interest to read. Given such forces, I do think they do a good job. It's up to us to contextualise the facts from our own understanding

*Trump vocalising about rigged and broken*
('Twas always thus.). "A mess, a mess, a mess..." (First minute of
https://www.ted.com/talks/benoit_mandelbrot_fractals_and_the_art_of_roughness/up-next?language=en
https://tinyurl.com/yygoza47
George Orwell wrote extensively on it .. as have many of course on political systems. Everybody should know that Trump is not the bearer of any newsies here. (Only oldies). The public generally are not interested in political systems, only a fair chance at a job that doesn't exploit them and a respectful place in society, but today (with 99% of the wealth being held by 1% of the people) (or so) there is a manifest imbalance that most agree needs addressed. Trump however, sees it as a business opportunity for him and his family. Nothing to do with America. And therefore giving the green light to others (despots) to be part of his club.)

*Laws (are for people who won't do the right thing*
Sometimes you don't even need laws (like Putin). If you run the restaurant the right way even the waitress can get away with murder if it's in the boss's interest (Navalny). Any political system is ok provided everybody's happy. America is showing that Celebrity and Cowboys-and-Indians won't cut the 99% - 1% cake any more (not that it ever did), that policies are needed, and that reality and fantasy are not compatible bedfellows.

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