Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Trump
2. Intelsat
3. Study
4. Israel
5. Penny
6. Ejection
7. Refineries
1. Trump. As we head into Election Day tomorrow, former President Donald Trump had himself quite a week. Enough to win outside the margin of fraud? Who knows? The best indicator that the democrat fraud machine is cranked up to 15 are the polls which studiously are reporting a dead even race. It’s much easier to sell a Kamala win via election fraud if the polls are tied than if the polling supports a strong Trump win. In this, the media and the pollsters are both conspiring to set the stage for election fraud. With that in mind …
- The funniest event last week was Biden’s response to a joke told at the Trump rally at Madison Square Garden. The comic, who specializes in roasts made a comment about garbage piled up in Puerto Rico. This gave the media a respite from calling the rally a reprise of a 1939 Nazi rally, smartly pivoting to accusing Trump calling Puerto Rico a garbage island. Note to self, when you invite a roast comic, they will bring their comedic chainsaw with them. I don’t mind, but some of the fairer sex masquerading as what used to be men on Our Side seemed to, calling it an unforced error.
- With this background, Biden, who was briefly turned loose by his handlers, managed to get in front of a camera, opining that the only garbage he sees are the people who support Trump. This sort of name calling delighted the media and triggered conservatives. Whether or not Biden knew what he was saying is up for discussion, though his history has been to vilify opposition every chance he gets. Trump’s response? He chartered a garbage truck for his Green Bay rally. His staff talked him into donning an orange vest coming off the plane. Trump then climbed into the garbage truck (very clean with a Trump – Vance campaign sign) and speak with the press for a bit. He wore the same vest for the entirety of his speech in Green Bay. The speech was pure comedy gold, with Trump claiming he wore the vest because his staff told him it would make him look thinner. And the use of the garbage truck ridiculed both Biden and the democrats who tried to turn this into an issue.
- Bill Whittle does the occasional Hot Mike podcast. He discussed the MSG / garbage kerfuffle and made the very real point that in accepting the democrat terms, we are allowing them to get away with getting us to look past the sale (again). The real awfulness was not Biden calling those on Our Side garbage. Rather, it is allowing them to get away with calling us Nazis and fascists. Remember that Nazi is a contraction for National Socialist. And if there are any socialists populating organizations here in the US these days, they are all democrats. Pretty good podcast.
- Back to Madison Square Garden (MSG) rally, Sunday, Oct 27. It was a packed and raucous house. Everybody seemed to have a good time, other than democrats and their campaign mouthpieces in the media which immediately tried to paint it as a reprise of the previously mentioned 1939 Nazi rally. Ever ready to take things out of context, the media conveniently forgot to mention that in the mid to late 1930s there was a substantial pro-Nazi movement in the US. They were loud, proud, and publicly supportive. They had more than a little public support from media in the US at the time. Their popularity was such that Roosevelt had to be somewhat careful preparing the US for entry into WWII. Their fixation on the 1939 Nazi rally provided fodder for multiple memes ridiculing the notion that if you hold a rally at the same place as a previous Bad Actor, you are by definition the same sort of Bad Actor. This isn’t guilt by association. Rather, it is guilt by location. Logic was never a strong point for democrats.
2. Intelsat. There is enough worry in this world to go around. Among those in the space community it is the growing problem of orbital debris. Sandra Bullock starred in a 2013 movie, Gravity, which followed the impact of a debris cloud in low earth orbit. One of the very sensitive locations in near earth space is geosynchronous orbit, a belt around the equator some 22,300 miles high. This is where most of the communications satellites were put as they are stationary above a fixed point on the earth. If the satellites don’t move, then you don’t have to move the receiving antenna. Musk’s Starlink has a different strategy, which is to put thousands of satellites into lower orbits. Geosynchronous orbit (Geo) has long been a valuable piece of real estate, so it is incumbent on everyone operating there to keep things as pristine as possible. That changed a couple weeks ago with the destruction of Intelsat 33e Oct 19. The Boeing manufactured satellite was the second of this particular model flown. The earlier satellite was declared a total loss in 2019 after three years in orbit following what was thought to be a micrometeoroid impact. Intelsat 33e was launched in 2016 and had some thruster problems that cut 3.5 years off its planned 15-year lifetime. Intelsat reported problems with the satellite Oct 19, reporting it as a total loss two days later. Space Force reported 20 and eventually 57 pieces of debris associated with the satellite which apparently exploded. That debris is now spreading out across the Geo satellite belt. I will leave the obvious discussion of the failure of yet another newish Boeing product while operational to the discerning reader.
3. Study. When any activity becomes politicized, it is not what they say that is important, mostly because we have come to expect the endless series of lies. The problem comes from what they know and refuse to say in public, burying data and results from a public that can put it to good use. Last week’s example was a $9.7 million study buried by a medical doctor and trans advocate. The taxpayer-funded study done by Dr Johanna Olson – Kennedy found that the use of puberty blockers on children does not improve the mental health of the patient. One of the powerful reasons the health community use to sell the use of these drugs on children is that if they are not used, mental health issues will increase the chances of suicide by the child. Her excuse for burying the study was that it would be weaponized by critics and used in court to argue against the use of these drugs. The sheer horror of the kids studied brings this home, at least to me. They studied 95 kids, average age of 11 getting puberty blocking drugs starting in 2015. Treatments were typically two years long. Note that once you start with puberty blockers, the effects on the child are irreversible. She managed to bury the study for nine solid years. If it were me, I would pull this woman’s license to practice medicine and make sure she never receives another penny in public research money. This is rank corruption. Why is it that the more we see of publicly funded health care, the more corrupt the entire system seems to be (Anthony Fauci, this means you)?
4. Israel. Two stories out of Israel this week. In the first, the Knesset passed legislation banning the UN relief organization for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). This stops them from operating in Israel and stops Israelis from cooperating with the organization. The bans come following the discovery that many UNRWA employees were also doubling as bodyguards and other integrated operatives for Hamas and Hezbollah officials. The second bit of news is Israel’s announcement that they will be fielding Iron Beam defense lasers, integrating them into their network of air defense laser systems within a year. Rafel developed the system with Elbit. This has been a while coming as the concept was first announced in Feb 2014 at the Singapore Air Shore. It was tested in S Israel three years ago after which it entered OT&E. The use of energy weapons will work the cost issue with the Iron Dome missile system, at $100,000/missile. As with any laser system, it will have problems during times of impaired visibility.
5. Penny. NY prosecutor Alvin Bragg is prosecuting Daniel Perry for restraining Jordan Neely in a NYC subway car a couple years ago. Neely was harassing passengers. Penny stepped in and restrained him with a choke hold. Bragg’s filed murder charges against him for the death, mostly because Penny is white, and Neely was black. The court saw video footage of the event late last week that did significant damage to Bragg’s case. Once Neely was no longer a threat, Perry relaxed the hold and put him into what is called a recovery position. Police showed up and took over. Neely was unconscious but still breathing when Penny handed him over. Bragg made sure nobody knew about that until last week’s testimony. The police did not want to give mouth to mouth out of fear of getting hepatitis and injected him with Narcan. Neely stopped breathing shortly afterwards.
6. Ejection. CNN threw Ryan Girdusky off the air following a rather nasty exchange with Mehdi Hasan during a live panel discussion. Hasan went into the Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden was and exercise in Nazi love. Girdusky responded in kind, saying he hoped Hasan’s beeper wouldn’t go off. At this point, the CNN moderator stepped in, stopped everything, and went to commercial. When they returned, the moderator explained that Girdusky was ejected for racist comments. This is a case of being careful of what you ask for. It is also an example of playing by the left’s new rules. When they call you a Nazi, we are then free to call them any name in the book, the more hurtful / harmful the better. Why? Because calling someone a Nazi gives those on the unhinged left an excuse to physically assault you, putting your very life at risk. AntiFa has long practiced the notion of punching a fascist, more excused physical assault by the left. Returning fire in kind is the least we can do.
7. Refineries. When you war against oil and natural gas producers, it is only a matter of time before they take their business elsewhere. California was the seventh largest oil producing state in the US last year. Valero announced that it is considering closing its two refineries in Cali. These produce over 14% of the state’s gasoline. Previous closures already have Cali importing 8% of its refined products. Valero is being squeezed by low margins from its refinery business. Cali continues to tighten the screws on producers via increased regulatory pressure, with Gov Newsom famously quoted in 2021 that he didn’t see a future for oil in Cali. This led to new regulatory powers granted him by a special session of the legislature. Valero is not the only producer leaving the state, with Phillips 66 announcing closure of its LA refinery complex, 8% of the state’s refining capacity immediately after the new legislation passed. New laws making it more difficult to drill in Cali have cut production statewide in half since 2008 when in state oil met 38% of its needs. Some of that is imported from Alaska, the rest from overseas. Today, 23% is produced in state, with the rest from Alaska and overseas. Chasing off in-state refining will require importing refined products, further jacking up costs for Cali motorists. Not to be ignored in all of this is Cali’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which is expected to tighten another notch or two this month. The low carbon fuel standard requires refiners to produce low carbon fuels or purchase credits. For the record, none of this will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in any meaningful way. They will increase significantly the cost of doing anything in Cali.
More later –
- AG