Month: September 2022
What the Hell is Really Going On?
When I read about the Nord Stream sabotage, I was thinking that the CIA and the State Department were figuring a way to force the Europeans to back their play in the Ukraine. After all, if there was no way to get gas to Europe except through the Ukraine pipelines then effectively, they would have to go along with beating Russia to get the gas back. But suddenly it seems like there’s more going on here.
What it is, I’m not sure. Will it be some kind of October Surprise to sway the Mid-Term election? Will these maniacs go to the brink with Russia to try and win the mid-term elections. Is Creepy Uncle Joe going to go on television before the election and tell us that war with Russia is imminent and the only way he can win that war is to have a united Congress to rubber stamp his every action in the war? It’s hard to believe he would do something that crazy. But then again what’s crazy nowadays?
But what else could be going on? Could this really all be about not letting the Germans buy natural gas from Russia? That seems absurdly trivial when questions of nuclear war are being considered. Surely war and peace are at a much higher level of US foreign policy than commercial relationships between European nations even if one of them is Russia. But that is the claim of some people. That we are trying to prevent Europe from cozying up to Russia because we want to prevent anything interfering with our hegemony over the West.
All of these actions and motives are bizarre to say the least. It no longer seems that our foreign policy is being run by people who are grounded in reality. Brinksmanship in the Ukraine is the height of dangerous behavior. Sabotaging critical infrastructure that our closest allies depend on for the energy supply for their homes and businesses seems insane. Having Joe Biden repeatedly state that the United States would get into a shooting war with China over Taiwan when the Chinese weren’t making an issue of it is just plain stupid. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe very stupid people are running our foreign policy now. Maybe this is the best they could come up with to stave off the collapse of their “new world order” which seems to be coming apart at the seams everywhere we look.
After all, the EU is seeing defections from their immigration policy in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and now also in Sweden and Italy. The BRICS and some other countries have rejected Washington’s embargo of Russian petroleum and mineral products. And more and more Americans are tired of the madness that’s been going on for the last two years over COVID, crime and the destruction of the economy.
So if this is the Elites flailing around to distract us from the shambles they’ve made of everything, then my only fear is that we may not survive to see them rejected at the polls. After all it’s still about forty days until election day and at this rate they’ll have triggered nuclear Armageddon and a Great Depression simultaneously before they can be fired.
Is this all just Joe playing “tail wagging the dog” or are these people so delusional that they think they can do any crazy damn thing and get away with it? Maybe it’s too much to hope to know what’s really going on but I assure you I’m not the only one thinking that we’ve descended into a mad house. The slogan that the Republicans should use for both 2022 and 2024 is, “Had enough yet or do you want the crazy to keep going?”
28SEP2022 Photo of the Day – 2022 Yellowstone Trip
28SEP2022 – Quote of the Day
“Science is nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only as far as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.”
Thomas Henry Huxley
Both Nord Stream Pipelines Have Been Sabotaged
Apparently underwater sabotage has rendered both Russian Nord Stream gas pipelines inoperable for the foreseeable future. This is going to make the current energy situation in Germany and Central Europe untenable.
Theories on who is responsible range from the Russians to the Ukrainians to the German Greens to the CIA. You know, I can begin to see how this crisis is beginning to spin out of control.
I am reminded of the Obama era operative who said “Never let a crisis go to waste.” It looks like someone has decided to push this thing into the crisis range. Maybe it will force Germany to reactivate their nuclear power plants. Or maybe it will cause a humanitarian crisis of mammoth proportions that will plunge the people of the European Union into revolt against their elites. But either way they’re about to find out how windmills and solar panels work in a European winter.
We shall see.
ABC – Wash Post Slanted Poll Still Very Bad News for Dems in November
I don’t like to spread good news prematurely but when the Left starts saying discouraging things about the November Elections it does tempt me to weigh in.
Here are some of the highlights of this ABC / Washington Post Poll:
The headline on the poll results is: “Biden Struggles, As Does His Party; Most Dems Look Elsewhere for 2024.”
But what makes this poll notable is that it found some remarkably weak findings for Democrats, even with the Democrat-leaning sample and the alleged shopping for youth respondents.
Among Registered Voters in competitive (close) Congressional districts
55% favor Republicans (mirroring the 24 lead for Republicans in solid GOP districts)
34% favor Democrats
Suburban women
47% favor Republicans
44% favor Democrats
So let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here. Election fraud is a very powerful friend of the Democrats. When you just open up a firehose of manufactured votes it’s pretty easy to overcome a twenty one point lead in the actual vote. But it does say something about the possibility of a whole bunch of chickens coming home to roost on Joe Biden’s head. And roosting chickens (and the attendant debris) couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Well, if at least we know Nancy Pelosi will be losing her gavel in a few months that is something to be looking forward to. If Schumer is also demoted that would be fun. And maybe I’m about to be pleasantly surprised by the incompetence of the Democrat fraud machine. We’ll have to see.
27SEP2022 Photo of the Day – 2022 Yellowstone Trip
27SEP2022 – Quote of the Day
The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious — fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Joe Biden Cures Cancer
Recently the odious fungoid that infests 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was raving about his imaginary “war against cancer.” Under ordinary circumstances I assume that every pronouncement that emanates from that malignant wretch is a lie. But when it comes to wars on cancer, I have a special level of scorn.
Since the 1960s America has been bombarded with headlines on how the titanic energies of the federal government and the medical science infrastructure would finally defeat cancer “within twenty years.” Now this twenty-year estimate is very similar to the one that has been promising us nuclear fusion energy “within fifty years. We’re currently on the eightieth year of that guesstimate.
The idea that a moron like Joe Biden is going to solve a biological mystery like curing all cancers is truly absurd. Sure, he’s only talking about funding a research initiative but the scope of what he’s proposing to do dwarfs the resources he’s talking about by a factor of a million to one.
The mistake that people make when they compare biology to something like technology or economics is thinking that there is a linear relation between what you know and what you don’t know. Everyone was told that once we had decoded the human genome everything else in human biology would be a matter of reverse engineering solutions to every disease and problem. Boy was that stupid. The genome gives us the code for figuring out the peptide sequence in all the proteins that the body uses. But it turns out that understanding how these proteins interact with all the other chemical substances in the body is so complicated that all knowing the compositions of the proteins does is mock us with the actual complexity of our cells.
Even the shape of these protein molecules is a mystery that has to be painstakingly determined with X-ray crystallography and other complicated and exacting techniques. And even then, we don’t know the shape the molecule assumes in the specialized environment when other molecules are associated during various interactions. Recently artificial intelligence has been tasked with automating the calculation of the shapes of all the proteins known to man. And this is surely a boon. The countless man-hours saved by the machine cataloguing the shape of two hundred million proteins is stunning. But as is freely admitted by the AI’s creators, these shape estimates are extremely questionable. They only form the basis for a more through examination of the protein. Maybe they really only help to narrow a research effort down from an even larger problem down to just an enormous one.
The metabolic pathways associated with the human immune system is one of those areas where protein shape is critical. An enormous amount of effort has been expended in trying to understand how the human body differentiates between pathogens and self when it tries to protect from viruses, bacteria and other organisms. When the immune system becomes too active, we end up with auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s Disease where the body attacks its own cells. And yet that same immune system is also charged with attacking cancer cells. Tumor necrosis factors exist in the body for this purpose. These delicate balances and how they fail is the subject of endless research.
Practical results have been made. Antibodies have been manufactured with the ability to target the exact cancer cells that a patient is producing. There have been cures. But failure is the rule, success the exception. Once again, what we know is still an infinitesimal part of what needs to be learned.
It can be hoped that AI will eventually be an accelerant for the research being done. But I suspect that what we are looking at is a multi-generational effort that will involve incremental progress. In fact, it’s possible that fundamental biological research not even aimed at cancer will provide the stepping stones that one day will allow truly effective cancer treatment.
One thing I can guarantee is that Joe Biden will never be thought to have done anything meaningful to help advance cancer research. In fact, I’ll go one better. Joe Biden will never be thought to have done anything meaningful to help anyone but himself.
When Worlds Collide (1951) – A Science Fiction Movie Review
I haven’t seen this movie since I was a kid. Back then I had read the book and the sequel, “After Worlds Collide.”
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
The plot is relatively straightforward. Astronomers discover a small star and a planet circling it entering the solar system. It is calculated that within a year the star will collide with and destroy the Earth but the new planet will be captured by the sun and might provide a possible home for some humans to colonize if a rocket can be launched. At first most scientists discount the crisis. But a few industrialists believe the danger and begin building a rocket for the journey. One selfish millionaire, wheel-chair-bound Sydney Stanton, agrees to finish funding the rocket only if he is on the passenger list. The project team races desperately against time to complete the rocket before the end of the world.
The project is run by Dr. Cole Hendron who along with his daughter Joyce and Dave Randall provide the human interest for the story. Randall doesn’t want to go along on the trip because he doesn’t believe he is entitled due to a lack of needed skills that the mission requires. But Joyce (of course) is in love with him so eventually they trick him into going based on his abilities as the only qualified but unnecessary co-pilot. As the moment of truth comes, we see Earth devastated by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tidal waves that destroy all the coastal cities. Finally, the fifty passengers are drawn by lots and just as the ship is preparing to launch the unlucky lottery losers attack the ship with guns. Dr Hendron decides at the last minute to remain on the ground to provide a margin of error for the fuel and while he’s at it he prevents Stanton from getting on the ship too. As the ship launches Stanton staggers to his feet. An Armageddon miracle.
We get to see Earth destroyed. Improbably the Earth blows up in a giant fireball without coming in contact with the star. The ship reaches the new world and Randall finally has to glide the rocket to a landing after its fuel tanks are completely emptied during the braking maneuver. The landing is rocky but doesn’t kill them. And of course, the air is good and there’s green life growing on the ground and it looks like there may be the ruins of cyclopean buildings nearby. Joyce and Randall embrace, a dog gives birth to puppies and everybody rejoices at the first dawn on their new world.
The only familiar faces were Larry Keating playing Dr. Hendron and John Hoyt as Stanton. The rest of them were completely unknown to me. The special effects aren’t very good. But they weren’t awful. The acting was sturdy B movie Hollywood acting of the time. About what you’d expect in a decent western or a melodrama. I quite enjoyed it. The plot is simple but quite relatable on both a human-interest level and as a science fiction story. I’ll say this is recommended for science fiction fans especially for connoisseurs of the 1950s period in the genre.