Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Pervnado
- Lightning
- Sanctuary
- Fusion GPS
- Permafrost
- Asteroid
- SWAT
- Lerner
- Pervnado. When you light a fire, it is always a good idea to make sure that fire does not get out of control. When you drop a bomb, it is always a good idea to stay out of the frag envelope, as you will end up shredding your airframe with shrapnel. The democrats and Washington Post did either (both?) with their carefully crafted hit sexual harassment hit on Republican US Senate candidate Roy Moore. Initial results were good, as it took his double-digit lead in the race back to a statistical tie. During the height of the festivities, there were several polls that had Moore trailing. Over the weekend, polling has Moore pulling ahead once again. He may very well win this race. Ran across a term borrowed from the SyFy Channel’s Sharknado movie series to describe the current festivities: Pervnado. It is a great term, and describes precisely the damage and destruction the wildfire the democrats set aimed at Moore, as it turns on their side of the political fence. Fix popcorn. You might need it. https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/22/report-trump-stuck-moore-partly-pervnado-made-easier/
- Lightning. From the world of “the science is settled’ comes new information about lightning. You would think we quite knew everything there is to know about lightning and its impact on the atmosphere. Not so fast. A crowd-funded study out of a Kyoto University finds that gamma rays created by lightning after a strike reacts with other particles in the atmosphere to create a wide array of subatomic particles including positrons (electron antimatter) which then react with other particles causing yet more gamma rays. In the subatomic physics world, this is referred to as a cascade. Not only were these scientists the first to record large gamma ray spikes immediately after a lightning strike, they also recorded the aftermath, which included two additional gamma ray spikes, the first decaying within a millisecond, and the second taking up to a minute to decay. They believe that the first spike of gamma rays impact nitrogen molecules (N2 is over 70% of all gas in the atmosphere), knocks a particle (likely a neutron) out of atom nucleus of a molecule, making the atom unstable. The reabsorption of the neutron is what causes the second spike. The final and longer spike is the nuclear breakdown of the newly unstable nitrogen atoms. It is this breakdown which releases positrons as a product of that decay. The positrons collide with electrons creating the longer gamma ray decay. This sort of whodunnit is what happens when science is allowed to continue unfettered by ideological rent-seeking government funded outcomes. It is why the government-funded fraud currently referred to as climate science is such a terrible waste of time, money, and effort. We humans learn things when we take a look at the world with open eyes, or are not free enough to ask WTF when our pre-conceived results do not match the actual results. Over the last few decades, we have figured out that large lightning strikes in thunderheads cause emissions consistent with those of large particle accelerators. These are referred to as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) and include things called sprites, sprite halos, blue jets, gigantic jets, blue starters, and ELVES. They first one was inadvertently recorded in video in July 1989. They are estimated to occur several million times a year worldwide and were reported by aircraft pilots for decades before the video was taken. The scientists (meteorologists) at the time discounted the PIREPs until actual video evidence was recorded in 1989. We are blessed with a magnificent universe. Perhaps this finding will explain the mysterious presence of positrons in another story that reports earth is getting hit by too much antimatter (positrons). The more you find out, the less you actually know. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/22/discovery-lightning-creates-anti-matter-in-our-atmosphere/
- Sanctuary. O’Bama appointee Judge William Orrick last week weighed in once again on the matter of sanctuary cities, issuing a “permanent nationwide injunction” against the Trump administration’s plan to shut off federal law enforcement grants to self-selected sanctuary cities. Orrick was a long-term democrat donor and fundraiser who was rewarded with a seat on the federal judiciary during the O’Bama regime. Orrick rejected administration arguments that the Executive Order applies for only a small pot of money and found in favor of the San Francisco and Santa Clara Counties, both homes of the sanctuary movement, who did judge shopping of their lawsuits in support of their participation in that movement. Once again, Orrick used Trump’s statements during the campaign last year as proof that the Trump administration was going to apply the EO to all federal grant funds. Orrick demands that Trump go to congress for approval of the very rules that the legislation allowed him to write. Expect this to be appealed to the Ninth Circus, where it will be upheld, and then to the SCOTUS where God only knows what happens. https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/21/familiar-judge-wastes-time-sanctuary-city-orders/
- Fusion GPS. Not only was Fusion GPS a democrat dirty tricks / opposition research outfit, it paid reporters to report and publish its hit pieces on Republicans. Court papers filed last week document that Fusion GPS paid three reporters June 2016 – Feb 2017. All three reporters wrote stories reported on “Russia issues relevant to [the committee’s] investigation” i.e., the Trump Russia Dossier at the heart of the ongoing Mueller investigation. Reporter names, dollar amounts, and purposes of the payments were redacted by Fusion GPS in the court papers filed. Expect the House Intelligence Committee to demand the court get unredacted papers. To review:
- Fusion was paid by the Hillary campaign, the DNC and anti-Trumpers to craft a bogus “dossier” on Trump
- They shopped it for months before it was ever printed
- The O’Bama intelligence agencies, FBI and DoJ used the dossier as an excuse to get FISA warrants for surveillance of Trump campaign officials
- Fusion GPS paid at least 3 reporters who published stories based on the Dossier
- The Deputy Attorney General used the dossier as an excuse to appoint a special council aimed directly at Trump.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fusion-gps-paid-journalists-court-papers-confirm/article/2641454
- Permafrost. Is permafrost a wetland? When you are in the business of expanding government control over all things Alaska like the Army Corps of Engineers over the last few decades, it most certainly is. A court appeal filed Oct. 31 by the Pacific Legal Foundation challenged an Alaska Supplement to the Corps’ 1987 Wetlands Delineation Manual. This is the manual that defines what is and what is not a wetland. The lawsuit is filed on behalf of a family owned business in North Pole, Alaska called Tin Cup LLC. This company operates a pipe manufacturing company that supports the Prudhoe Bay oil patch called Flowline. The family wants to build on 200 acres of land they own. And being near Fairbanks, that land is underlain by about 50 m of permafrost that is as close as 30 – 40 cm below the surface. The company wants to bring in gravel for roads and other buildings to expand their manufacturing base. Unfortunately, the Corps defines gravel as a pollutant under the Clean Water Act, burying this small business, and every other business here in Alaska under a dump truck load of Clean Water Act required, paperwork, permits, reviews, and environmental impact statements. By defining any part of Alaska underlain by permafrost regardless of its depth as a wetland, puts the Corps firmly in control of 85% of Alaska. Wetlands designations have been intentionally confusing for decades, especially coupled with creeping revisions of what is and what is not a wetland. Congress stepped in in 1993 requiring the Corps to use the 1987 manual until it was replaced with a new one. The greens infesting the Corps didn’t want to write or get a new one approved by congress, so did an end run writing and issuing a series of “regional supplements” to the official manual. A federal court in Alaska rejected the initial challenge. The appeal was filed the end of October. http://mustreadalaska.com/lawsuit-is-frozen-ground-considered-wetlands/
- Asteroid. The solar system had its first observed interstellar visitor last month, when a 2 km long, reddish, highly elongated asteroid swooped in and bent its path around the sun. The nature of the orbit was such that astronomers are calling it interstellar. It did not exhibit any cometary type emissions. Its rotation rate was such that the body is thought to have significant tensile strength making it a highly metallic body. The rotation rate is inferred from the light curve during its visit. Proposed sizes range from 80 – 200 m diameter with the long axis 10 times that (80 – 2,000 m). The tinfoil hat crowd (or the Arthur C Clarke Rama fans) could point out that a cylindrical metallic object just passed through the solar system. This was the first interstellar inbound we found. It will not be the last. https://www.universetoday.com/137944/interstellar-asteroid-probably-pretty-strange-looking/
- SWAT. Ugly story in Legal Insurrection last week about an elderly couple who endured a SWAT raid after a Nationwide Insurance agent turned them in for growing marijuana. The agent was at their home to assess a claim. The couple, ages 66 & 69 were gardeners growing hibiscus among other plants. The agent, being an idiot, took photos of the hibiscus and turned the couple into the local Buffalo Township police for growing pot on premises. The local cops either being idiots themselves, or wanting to play with their cool dude cop equipment and training (likely both), conducted a raid on the couple’s home. The wife was the only one home at the time of the raid and was not allowed to get dressed before being handcuffed and marched outside and deposited in a police car. Her husband arrived a bit later, and was met with loaded firearms in his face. All told, they spent 4 ½ hours in the back of a police car on a bright sunny day while the cops ransacked their home. The couple was not charged. The lawsuit is aimed at both Nationwide and Buffalo Township. I expect it will pay a goodly sum. In other locales, police have mistaken home grown tomato, okra and horsemint for marijuana, so gardeners beware. Another way local law enforcement gets names of people to raid is by writing down license plates of customers at hydroponics stores. I couldn’t think of a better reason to vote for marijuana legalization than this sort of foolishness. https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/11/pennsylvania-couple-sues-over-police-drug-raid-that-mistook-hibiscus-for-marijuana/
- Lerner. Lawsuits against Lois Lerner and her fellow vermin in the IRS continue to make their way through the federal courts. Last week, Lerner and her former Deputy, Holly Paz, filed documents in court saying tapes and transcripts of their depositions ought to remain sealed in perpetuity or else they could spur an enraged general public to retaliate. They claimed that whenever they were in the media spotlight they have faced death threats and harassment. Damn unfortunate that tar and feathers are not yet on the menu. We can all hope, though. Lerner and Paz feel they will be targeted by the people they targeted because of their political beliefs. Doug Powers writing in Michelle Malkin suggests the “I” in IRS be changed to “Irony.” http://michellemalkin.com/2017/11/20/the-i-in-irs-now-stands-for-irony-as-inspired-by-lois-lerner/
More later –
– AG