November 24, 2018

San Francisco comes to the ISS

Timothy Birdnow

The International Space Station nee Space Station Freedom (as it was originally called until we outsourced the project) is infected with bacteria.

a strain of "infectious organisms" have been found on the ISS. From the article:

A Nasa team found five different varieties of Enterobacter, which are similar to bugs found in hospitals down here on Earth.

The toilet of the orbiting space base was one of the main sites of infection along with the exercise area.

Researchers calculated that there is a â€˜79% probability that they may potentially cause diseaseâ€™, although analysis has only been carried out on dead samples at this stage so this risk could prove to be higher or lower following further research."

End excerpt.

So, much like San Francisco, human excrement from foreigners is threatening the public health - at least on Man's only extra-planetary mobile home.

Scientists determined that the three strains are not virulent, at least not yet.

Might I suggest that a.everyone do a better job of screening the astro/cosmonauts who go to the station and b.somebody buy them a toiolet brush and maybe a bottle of Toilet Duck. There is no good reason to have an infectious organism living in the space crapper; this is a sterile environment with no good reason for bacteria to survive.

America is fast becoming a Third World country, with a return of diseases not seen here in a long time, as well as other fun things like bedbugs. Can't we at least have a First World space station?

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1 Nothing wrong with advice they pay more attention to sanitation, although who knows how well the zero-G toilet(s) work, the ISS wasn't exactly a model of good design as opposed to yet another NASA public works program from what I remember. And I'll bet a lot of diligence is required to use them properly.

But look at the first root of the bacterial genus, "entero", "relating to the intestine", it's entirely normal to have bacteria of this genus in your intestines, although with others, we've got billions and billions of bacteria in our gut, in a normally mutualistic relationship, we provide them food and water, they convert VitaminK₁to K_2,digest stuff we otherwise can't (not always a good thing for the lactose intolerant), etc.

So "screening" astronauts probably doesn't make any sense, the key is to keep the bacteria where they belong, in the various parts of their guts, in the sewage system, but not much elsewhere. Which obviously is the same thing you should do if you don't want your ostensibly First World city to become a Third World "shithole".

Posted by: Anonymous at November 24, 2018 12:42 PM (FPIRN)

2 Thanks Anon!

Certainly intestinal bacteria are the culprits here and these are normal things. My mother developed c-dif in the hospital; her normal intestinal bacteria died from excessive antibiotics and the sole survivor ran amok. As they don't identify the species in the article we don't know if it is related to an intestinal infection of some sort or is just normal bacteria, but one wonders when considering we are sending people from places like Kazakstan to the ISS if a little more care should be employed in checking these guys out before flying them off. One wonders what these guys eat. Our astronauts are well checked by the flight surgeons but are the Russkies? I suspect they are a bit more lax - which is why we should never have gone along with them in building the station. Being locked in a sterile box with a bunch of Second Worlders in an environment with elevated radiation isn't a great idea. It's a place that is ripe for, well, being ripe.

At least it wasn't e-coli, or was it? We all have some e-coli in our intestinal tract. In fact, my wife developed a kidney infection of e-coli and spent a month in the hospital a few years ago. There is a real danger with those intestinal agents.

Yeah; going in space has to be difficult. I'm not sure how they do it, to be honest. I know I'd be constipated for as long as I was up there, if it were me.

Not sure how they wipe, either. I doubt they bring a case of Charmin up with them. And with water being scarce?

Yuck.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at November 26, 2018 10:20 AM (Av220)

3 You're welcome as always.

Nothing wrong with E. Coli per se, I used to pipette strain K-12 or mutants of it by mouth when I did a bit of biology lab work long ago, if you messed up just spit it out and rinsed your mouth. K-12 is human derived and non-pathogenic, the species as a whole has been a model organism for a long time, just found a web portal and wiki dedicated to it, might even have a physically huge genetic map of it circa 1980, but I think it was discarded in a move after I moved to other STEM fields. See also below the likely fate of any CFUs of it getting into your gut.

The really bad type that's making lots of headlines appears to be ruminant, especially cow adapted, strain O157:H7, but in humans is extremely bad news, forms little plateaus in your gut from which it excretes toxins. According to that link, a bit like norovirus which takes 20 to perhaps as few as 5 virus particles to infect, it also requires very few, "an inoculation of fewer than 10 to 100 CFU of E. coli O157:H7 is sufficient to cause infection, compared to over one-million CFU for other pathogenic E. coli strains." That's 10-100 viable, live bacteria....

But normal human adapted E. Coli, no problem for almost all people as long as it stays where it belongs, there's a good chance you've got a strain of it in your gut as you note. And probably a good chance you don't, reading up for the previous reply, I came across a claim there tends to be only 30-40 species in any general human gut, it's a real jungle of competition, which is important to remember when someone is trying to scare you. Drop most bacteria in it, and they die a horrible death, if the hydrochloric acid and enzymes in the stomach doesn't get them, they've got to compete successfully against strains which are by definition well adapted to you, and probably mostly to the general types of food you eat. Or so I was told by the hard core microbiologists I was working for, and that principle of fierce competition in existing ecosystems explains why so many predictions of the Greens never come to pass.

As for the space station, yeah, the Soviet Union was notorious as a place tourists had provide their own Charmin. Which reminds me of an anecdote about a group of political East Germans being given a tour of West Berlin, they kept insisting it was all Potemkin Village, until they came to a store where there was not just lots of toilet paper, but many varieties, which caused such a shock one woman fainted dead away.

With the constraints ... well, what good is water if it doesn't stay where you want it, but forms free floating globules if you let it get loose? Maybe wet wipes? Not sure I really want to think hard about it, especially since we really need to move away from the zero-G thing all the time, see if we can make rotation work to provide some simulated gravity, last time I checked there's concerns about the Coriolis force when people turn their heads. Or just get to Mars in a moderately fast trip and set up shop where there's some natural gravity, ~38% of Earth's.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 26, 2018 01:20 PM (FPIRN)

4 Wow; that strain O157:H7 sounds like some bad stuff.

Your story about the Soviet woman's amazement at toilet paper in East Berlin reminds me of a story I read once about some Russian hockey players who defected to the U.S. back in the early eighties. The first time they were taken to a grocery store the players eyes grew wide and they began piling carts full of stuff, believing they had hit the jackpot, a chance of a lifetime as the store was full of food. They couldn't believe the stuff would be there every day! In the old Soviet Union you were fortunate indeed to find shelves even partly stocked.

Anonymous, you are a font of interesting information, I must say! I really like the way you think.

I've been complaining about zero g in that stupid space station since they built it. We have to have gravity in our space endeavors; we are evolved to it and I don't think we can live without it indefinitely. Even if we can, can people reproduce in zero-g? I suspect not.

I'm a fan of settling on the Moon before Mars, though. Closer, easier to resupply, and you can go home if you have to. Granted, the lower gravity is a problem, but Mars is low too and both have the same radiation problems. I think we should cut our teeth on the Moon then think about Mars, but many people disagree and the case is easily made that Mars is a better option. Certainly there is more water.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at November 27, 2018 10:38 AM (4zEn5)

5 As a place for humanity to survive if something truly bad happens on the Earth, Mars is probably better, even the small difference in distance might matter. There's lots more water to be found, as you note, the gravity is more than twice as strong, the Moon's is 16.6% of the Earth and that might turn out to be critical. But most important is tht going to Mars is like burning your ships after you arrive on a new shore, you've got to be pretty self-sufficient in attitude as well as real plans and how they work out. Musk has clearly sussed at least some of this out.

Certainly a much larger undertaking, although I suppose sending regular packets of medicine to Mars you aren't set up to synthesize yet would be fairly easy, but if you're on the Moon too many solutions to problems will be "take the next trip back", or speed that up to an emergency one if needed. Almost closer to civilization than the South Pole in the dead of winter when it's very dicey for a plane to get to and from it.

Radiation from solar storms in mid-flight is a big issue, though, and was one of the reasons Nixon shut down Apollo with some planned missions left, the project coincided with a solar minimum, but the usual delays extended the last missions into dangerous ground. Heinlein covered this very well in his "last" "juvenile" (officially it wasn't one, but it clearly was), Podkayne of Mars, everyone huddles behind a small, thick shield.

Or we could terraform Venus, maybe, I'm not sure anyone has any good concepts for that, but a NASA that hires people who are freaking out over the concept of "colonizing" Mars isn't going to contributing much to the effort.

Posted by: Anonymous at November 27, 2018 01:59 PM (FPIRN)

6 Great points Anonymous!

I don't disagree that mars is the prime candidate for colonization ultimately. What else do we have that we can colonize with current technology? The Moon, Mars, and perhaps Callisto and maybe Ganymede, although that gets a lot of radiation. Europa and Io are way too deep in Jupiter's radiation belt - and Io is so very volcanic. Titan, with her dense atmosphere and bitter cold, would be a poor candidate, as would Neptune's moon Triton. Everything else would be too small without some sort of artificial gravity. Venus and Mercury would be difficult, to put it mildly (impossible really, especially Venus, although we could float habitats in the upper atmosphere there. The question would be why; you'd have no view, and you'd have to truck in everything you needed. You could do this same trick in Saturn's atmosphere and it would be a much better view, at any rate. Also, more productive as you could at least harvest some gases. You'd still need to truck a lot of stuff in. Mars is clearly the most Earthlike world, and our ultimate hope in the solar system.

But I really do not believe current technology would be adequate, and that Mars would be economically viable. There won't be reciprocal trade with a Mars colony; it would be at subsistence levels at best. The Moon could be paying for it's own keep in a much shorter time. There is Helium 3 there, and a host of other things that would be useful. Vacuum industry. Pharmaceuticals and materials that require sp cial conditions. This would all be close to a market. So too it could be the hub of deeper space travel. Mars would be like Little America in Antarctica; some people live there but it is primarily a research station. Even though Mars has a lot of resources that could ultimately be harvested I suspect the startup would be too difficult. Bear in mind, you are going to have to build all your environment, not just slap up a few houses, and those habitats will have to be buried under ground. The difficulty of doing that so far from any assistance is, in my opinion, too great at this point. Maybe when we have faster ships, but not now.

And Spacex or whoever will tire of funding something that does not pay back. Eventually they may seek to close it out. If the state of the art is good enough they would bring the colonists home, but if not they would find a way to justify pulling out then the colonists would wither away. Either way I don't see this working out so well. Not now, at any rate. But a moon colony would be profitable and could eschew government funding in a much shorter time. And if something happens they can always go home. Think about a guy getting cancer; on Mars he'll just die, on the Moon he'll be at Barnes Hospital inside of a week.

As you say, though Anon, the lower gravity could be absolutely critical (and we'll have the same problem if we try to settle Ganymede or Callisto, which, though larger than the Moon, have lower surface gravities.) Mars is definitely a better option long term.

Our only other options for space settlement would be a rotating structure - either a hollowed out asteroid or a stand alone space colony. I' used to be excited about these ideas but, given the lack of shielding for a space colony, you just couldn't do it. Gerard O'Neil, who worked out a lot of the issues with space colonies, never did come up with anything better than storm shelters. But what of all the other life on the colony? You can't put EVERYTHING in a storm shelter. Even if you could somehow put all the animals in you wouldn't be able to put the plants all in. And while a hollowed out asteroid would be protected from solar storms, it would still have the problems inherent in spin gravity, like wobbling turning to "spin quakes". And it would be a big, big project to hollow out an asteroid.

So I agree; Mars is the best option. I just think we need to go via the Moon first, get our feet wet, learn what is needed to make it work, then move on. As you say, if the government does it the project will likely be a huge boondoggle, and shut down after a few years.

By the way, I hadn't heard NASA people arguing against Mars because it was "colonialism" although I had heard that type of argument from academics. I know they are pushing against sending astronauts on the theory there might be microbial life and we would contaminate the planet. If they were around when the first Mammal crawled out of the sea we would be looking at an empty, empty Earth indeed.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at November 29, 2018 09:34 AM (tUOOe)

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Alex Occasional-Cortex gets pissed when her "word-slips" are pointed out.

Dana Mathewson

Gee, I wonder why. Is it because they make her look as stupid as she really is? http://tammybruce.com/2018/11/ocasio-cortez-plays-victim-card-after-being-mocked-for-lates t-word-slips.html

I'd say this babe is the gift that keeps on giving. She, La-la Pelosi, Biden, Uncle Bernie. . . the list goes on. Hillary better hurry to get back into the spotlight (or is that "stoplight?").

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The Big Wheel to be named Permanent EPA Boss

Timothy Birdnow

It looks like President Trump is going to nominate Andrew Wheeler to succeed Scott Pruitt at the hyper-partisan Environmental Protection Agency.

Wheeler has been the man at the wheel of the EPA since the Left drove Scott Pruitt out. He's done a fairly good job, but not as well as Pruitt (which was why they had to create accusations of corruption against him.)

According to his bio at EPA.gov:

Mr. Wheeler has dedicated his career to advancing sound environmental policies. He began his career during the George H. W. Bush Administration as a Special Assistant in EPA's Pollution Prevention and Toxics office.

He was a Principal and the team leader of the Energy and Environment Practice Group at FaegreBD Consulting, as well as Counsel at Faegre Baker Daniels law firm, where he practiced since 2009. He also served as the Co-chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Industry team across the entire firm.

Prior to his work with the firm, Mr. Wheeler served for six years as the Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel, as well as the Minority Staff Director, of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Before his time at the full Senate EPW Committee, Mr. Wheeler served in a similar capacity for six years for the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, Wetlands and Nuclear Safety.

Mr. Wheeler is the past Chairman of the National Energy Resource Organization (NERO) and a Stennis Fellow. Mr. Wheeler is also an Eagle Scout.

End excerpt.

The self-satisfied Gang Greenous DeSmug Blog (yes, I meant to say that) is quite unhappy with Wheels. See here.

Wheeler's not as aggressive as Pruitt, but he is a decent choice. Hopefully the Senate won't hold him up. I imagine the Democrats are planning to Kavanaugh him; be prepared for an onslaught of accusations and character assassinations.

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Mad Macron: the Toad Warrior

Dana Mathewson

Who needs the French?

From Victor Davis Hansen:

The Mad, Mad Meditations of Monsieur Macron

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November 23, 2018

Castrating Christ; the Transgendering of the Trinity

Timothy Birdnow

The Church of England has been descending into madness for some time now. The latest craziness comes from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has declared God a eunuch.

Breitbart has the story:

"Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said that God is "not male nor female,â€ after female bishops demanded the Church of England stop referring to God solely as "he.â€

The head of the worldwide Anglican communion told attendees at a lecture at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square: "All human language about God is inadequate and to some degree metaphorical.

"God is not a father in exactly the same way as a human being is a father. God is not male or female. God is not definable."

End excerpt.

This despite absolutely clear-cut language in the Bible making it incontrovertible that the First person in the Trinity is to be viewed as male (and the Second Person WAS male on this Earth).
more...

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Noemie Emery's great analysis of Christine Blasey "Fraud" Hearing

Jack Kemp forwards this:

Noemie Emery: One Anita Hill moment was enough, voters say

Did Dianne Feinstein lose the Senate for Democrats by trying to turn the battle of Justice Brett Kavanaugh into a second Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas fight? The answer is most likely yes.

Sen. Feinstein, D-Calif., didn't intend this when she made the calculated decision to create the fiasco.

But decide she did. She sat for more than two months on the letter that Christine Blasey Ford sent her. She released it only when Kavanaugh's hearings were over, so that a new, stand-alone hearing would have to take place. She refused Ford's request that she be allowed to testify in private and in California, as was her preference, making her instead come to Washington to participate in a day-long, nationally televised he-said-she-said extravaganza.

Was it because Feinstein wanted this to have the same look and feel as the Hill-Thomas hearing, which she saw as a win for her side and her party, and which also had made her a star?

If the Republicans won in the sense that Justice Clarence Thomas has served and still serves on the Supreme Court, a case can be made that the Democrats won even more. Liberal rage at the outcome made 1992 the Year of the Woman; empowered former President Bill Clinton and his lovely wife, Hillary; gave a rebirth and reboot to the feminist movement; gave the Democrats an issue to run on in perpetuity (or at least until 1998 and the Monica problem); and, last but not least, brought in four new female senators, Feinstein among them. Two of them are still in the Senate today, and three of them stayed a very long time.

No wonder Feinstein remembered the experience as something good for her party and worth reliving.

But although the script and the players both appeared similar, the conditions around them had become very different. Feinstein thought that the court fight would swell the blue wave and make it unstoppable. In fact, it was stopped in its tracks.

Read the rest

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Facebook "liberal values" on display as they list details of child bride auction

Jack Kemp

According to Yahoo Australia:

A heated bidding war for a child bride has caused outrage after details were shared on Facebook.
Five hundred cows, two luxury cars, $13,000 in cash, two bikes, a boat and a few cell phones made up the final price in a heated bidding war for a 17-year-old in South Sudan.

The highest bidder was a man three times the girl's age.

At least four other men in Eastern Lakes state competed, Philips Anyang Ngong, a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding last month, said. Among the bidders was the state's deputy governor.

END OF QUOTE

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John Crudele takes on Facebook not being safe for children

Jack Kemp

NY Post financial writer John Crudele is a favorite of mine as he often points out the follies of Wall St. and U.S. government "creative accounting" self delusions. Today he takes on Facebook's lack of controls against pedophiliacs lurking on their website.

Here is his very short article:

Facebook needs to focus on becoming safer for children

The money quote:

"My questions are these: Can Facebook with or without an independent group actually keep the bad stuff off its site? And if all the bad and dangerous stuff is removed, what will be left on Facebook?"

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Facebook's Zuckerberg Pushed Executive To Publicly Disavow Trump, Then Fired Him

Jack Kemp

In an article by Ben Shapiro at The Daily Wire, drawing on a Wall St. Journal piece, Shapiro recently stated:

BEGIN QUOTE

"In one of the most shocking stories to get little media coverage this year, The Wall Street Journal reported ten days ago that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg pressured a top executive at his company to apologize for his support of President Trump in the 2016 election, and issue a letter just before that election explaining that he had switched his support to libertarian Gary Johnson.

According to reporters Kirsten Grind and Keach Hagey, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey says that he was put on leave and then fired for his support for Trump. The Journal reported:

In the fall of 2016, as unhappiness over the donation simmered, Facebook executives including Mr. Zuckerberg pressured Mr. Luckey to publicly voice support for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, despite Mr. Luckey's yearslong support of Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the conversations and internal emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Luckey ended up negotiating a $100 million settlement, an acceleration of stock awards and bonuses that he would have received thanks to his sale of Oculus VR to Facebook in 2014. Facebook, for its part, denied that Luckey was fired for his political views. But Luckey was a supporter of President Trump's for years, going back to 2011, when he urged Trump to run for president by mail. In September 2016, The Daily Beast reported that Luckey had given a $10,000 donation to NimbleAmerica, an anti-Hillary ad group focused on trolling the Democratic candidate.""

END OF QUOTE

Read the rest here.

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Coulter Crushes kushner for "Prison Reform"

Jack Kemp:

Ann Coulter rips Jared Kushner, son of a jailbird, on prison "reform".

Jared: The Birdbrain of Alcatraz

Here is a brief excerpt.

"In the systematic dismantling of common sense in America, Jared Kushner's "sentencing reform" bill is the coup de grace -- a Mack Truck hurtling down the highway about to take out thousands of Americans. The Idiot Army is already in place to fight and win this battle.

Jared and the hip-hop artists currently advising him have decided that too many people are in prison. If you think you've heard this before, you have: Genius insights of this sort have preceded nearly every major crime wave this country has experienced, from Philadelphia to California to a bloody period known as "the Warren Court."

As anyone with an amoeba's understanding of recent history knows, beginning in the early '60s, assorted heads-up-their-asses liberals jettisoned logic, common sense and a basic understanding of human nature by releasing criminals from the prisons where they belonged"

Read the whole column at Townhall. more...

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November 22, 2018

The Mayflower Compact

In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc.

Having undertaken for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith and Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the First Colony in the Northern Parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one of another, Covenant and Combine ourselves together in a Civil Body Politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and Offices from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Domini 1620.

(William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison, 75-6.) See the Mayflower Compact in William Bradford's hand.
John Carver Edward Tilly Digery Priest
William Bradford John Tilly Thomas Williams
Edward Winslow Francis Cooke Gilbert Winslow
William Brewster Thomas Rogers Edmund Margeson
Isaac Allerton Thomas Tinker Peter Brown
Miles Standish John Rigdale Richard Bitteridge
John Alden Edward Fuller George Soule
Samuel Fuller John Turner Richard Clark
Christopher Martin Francis Eaton Richard Gardiner
William Mullins James Chilton John Allerton
William White John Craxton Thomas English
Richard Warren John Billington Edward Doten
John Howland Moses Fletcher Edward Leister
Stephen Hopkins John Goodman

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Freedom for Freedom's Sake

Timothy Birdnow

Why did the Pilgrims come to Plymouth? That is a question worth asking this Thanksgiving morn. It's not an idle question, either, for it speaks to the very bedrock of America, what it was intended to be as opposed to what it has become.

Let me explain why I ask this.

Writing in Conservative HQ, Jeffrey A. Rendall states:

"Honest conservatives see Trump as an effective vehicle to implement policy ideas that have been tucked away for decades. The Constitution limits government for a reason â€“ mainly because freedom of thought and action produce the most desirable outcomes for everyone. Government canâ€™t do it all â€“ and shouldnâ€™t try, either." more...

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The Truth about the Caravan

Timothy Birndow

Conservative HQ gives us a rundown on who is behind the so-called "migrant caravan".

From the article:

"People Without Borders is a Chicago-based nonprofit that has organized multiple migrant caravans aimed at the U.S. border. The nonprofit notably organized a caravan of Central American migrants in April known as the Migrantsâ€™ Way of the Cross.

As we previously reported, the "caravanâ€ is supported by the coalition CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, which includes Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLIN), the American Immigration Council (AIC), the Refugee and Immigration Center for Education and Legal Services (RICELS) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) â€“ thus the acronym CARA.

It should be noted that there are deep ties between the Leftwing activists attacking the border and corporate and foundation sponsorship, as Pueblo Sin Fronteras has been recognized as a member of the National Day Laborer Network â€“ a group affiliated with United for Justice and Peace, Caravan Against Fear and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Furthermore, as WND has reported, "At least three of the four groups are funded by George Sorosâ€™ Open Society Foundation.â€

End excerpt.

The article links to this video that illustrates that 90 to 95% of the caravan is composed of younger males, contrary to the lie told by the American media.

The DOJ needs to launch an investigation into this project. This is a conspiracy to commit multiple crimes against the United States. It must be investigated and punished.

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Ingrates and the First Thanksgiving

Timothy Birdnow

John Stossel tells an ungrateful nation why they should give thanks this day.

He tells us the sad tale of Plymouth, where the Pilgrim settlers nearly died from an experiment with socialism. He thanks God for property rights, the cornerstone of all other rights.

Americans aren't sitting around a dinner table with Uncle Sam carving the Turkey. Sadly, too many of our fellow citizens think that is the case.

Do read the Townhall article; Stossel nails it.

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November 21, 2018

Yes, Folks, It's Bad Now. But What About Back Then?

Dana Mathewson

536 was the worst year ever (so give 2018 a break)

In A.D. 536, Europe had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year.

It started when a mysterious fog swept over the continent, veiling the sun in a blue haze and casting Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia into darkness 24 hours a day, for 18 months. Falling temperatures ushered in the coldest decade of the past 2,000 years, crops failed from Ireland to China, and famine ran rampant. Those who endured the long, cold night faced even harsher times in the years to come; in A.D. 541, an outbreak of bubonic plague known as Justinian's Plague scythed through the Mediterranean, killing up to 100 million people.

This series of events was, to put it in scientific terms, a total bummer. Michael McCormick, a medieval historian and archaeologist, recently told Science magazine that the year 536 was "the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year." But despite all that is known about the devastation that began then, scientists still aren't sure exactly what caused the mystery cloud of doom to descend over Europe in the first place. [End of the World? Top 10 Doomsday Threats]

Now, McCormick and his colleagues from the U.S., the U.K. and Germany believe they've finally uncovered the answer. In a new study published this week (Nov. 14) in the journal Antiquity, the team analyzed an ancient ice core pulled from the Swiss Alps containing more than 2,000 years' worth of microscopic history lessons. Particles of dust, metal and airborne elements frozen at various levels of the 235-foot-long (72 meters) core hint at how the atmosphere over Europe changed throughout the past two millennia â€” a Saharan dust storm here, a silver-mining boom there â€” and, according to the new study, reveal that a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland directly preceded the beginning of Europe's darkest days.

more...

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Americanâ€™t: From Midterms to End Times

By Selwyn Duke

Truly great disasters come like a thief in the night. How many foresaw Romeâ€™s sacking in 410 A.D., her collapse 66 years later, WWI or WWII? As for today, how many see that the United States is at what some call a tipping point, what others may call aFourth Turning? Whatever you call it, the American republic is in its last days. This is too scary for many to contemplate, but thereâ€™s something far scarier: playing ostrich and not being prepared for things to come.

The so-called Left, ever violent since its French Revolution birth and as power hungry as ever, wholly controls the culture: the media, mainstream and social; academia; and entertainment. This means it controls long-term politics, since the latter is downstream of culture. So is big business, mind you, which is why the Left controls most of it as well; this, of course, translates into funding.

Trumpâ€™s 2016 victory will not MAGA; it was merely a stay of execution, a prolonging of the inevitable.

But this isnâ€™t your grandfatherâ€™s Democrat Party. Voters this time empowered socialistic to socialist to closet-communist, sexual devolutionary, rabble-rousing, low-I.Q., no virtue, ignorant freaks who often encourage political violence by their Antifa-Brownshirt useful idiots. So itâ€™s not your great-grandfatherâ€™s America, either.

Digging into the electoral numbers also tells a tale. Ninety percent of blacks, 79 percent of Jews, 77 percent of Asians, 69 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of women voted Democrat â€”same as usual. Can we stop now with talk about "Blexit,â€ the "Walkawayâ€ movement, how "Hispanics are natural conservatives,â€ how Jews are waking up to the Leftâ€™s anti-Semitism and all the other connedservativeself-delusion? People vote in accordance with their emotional and philosophical foundations, and "You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into,â€ as Jonathan Swift put it. Fooling oneself doesnâ€™t help.

The voters are only getting worse, too, for three basic reasons: immigration, indoctrination and moral corruption. Letâ€™s consider the first.

more...

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Remember this Thanksgiving song from school or church?

Jack Kemp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6gAE_ODosM

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

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"Manspreading" and Rent Control in NYC

Jack Kemp

Monica Showalter wrote a piece at Amer.Thinker today about the problems of the NY City subway system, its overcrowding, lack of repairs and people fleeing for other transportation. Someone took her to task about her complaint of "manspreading" on the subways:

BEGIN QUOTE

I did not look to see who wrote this but, as soon as I saw "manspreaders" I knew it had to be a woman. Men have to spread their legs a little to be comfortable, at least those of us with balls do. Only men who take up the space our anatomy demands are persecuted with $100 fines for taking up "too much space." Women put their purses and packages on the seats next to them and no one writes them a ticket or complains about that. I wonder how many of the people who abandoned the system are men who have finally had enough.
END

Not to be outdone in Showalter's New York bashing, Thomas Lifson added to Showalter's piece, saying that New York's subway finance problems are directly connected to rent control keeping rents down and distorting the housing picture in the city. In reply to Lifson, I posted this comment:

JackKemp Ã¢€Â¢ a few seconds ago
Thomas Lifson leaves out one significant factor involved in New York City's Rent Stabilization (a type of rent control). New York is full of foreign nationals who come to town literally with a suitcase full of money (Newsweek once reported this decades ago) to buy an apartment. Whole apartment houses that have gone condo are full of Chinese nationals where I live in the outer boroughs. And, as an anecdote, I can tell you I had a chance conversation with a real estate agent who works and lives in the Bronx this week who complained about the European nationals who contact her and demand all kinds of constant free service from her, expecting her to be available day and night to handle their phone calls - all while not closing any real estate purchases. She now tells them to only email her.

New Yorkers, who grew up paying taxes and going to both public and private schools in NY, now have to compete with much richer foreign nationals coming in who drive up both rents and apartment purchase prices. Without some form of rent control, half or more of NY City residents would have had to flee the only communities they have known their entire lives. Any solution to New York's woes needs to take into account that hordes of invaders with suitcases full of cash instead of guns and tanks are causing havoc with the locals.
END OF QUOTE

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Reverse Mortgage Mess Redoux

Jack Kemp

I woke up early and found this pretty good analysis of messed up the federal govt. guaranteed (taxpayer guaranteed) Reverse Mortgage business is.

(See more on the meltdown here.

Real estate trouble: reverse mortgages deplete FHA insurance reserves

From the article:

"Reverse mortgages were supposed to offer seniors the ability to generate retirement fixed monthly cash or line of credit by borrowing money against their home equity. Unlike standard loans, no repayments are required during the borrower's lifetime and homeowner heirs could repay the loan or turn the home over to the lender. Seniors could only default by not making property repairs or by failing to pay property tax and insurance.

But Reuters reported that the California Reinvestment Coalition found that foreclosures on reverse loans that averaged 490 a month from January 2009 to March 2016, spiked by 646 percent during the last nine months of the Obama Administration to 3,664 per month. CRC added that HUD data revealed that defaults expected to lead to involuntary foreclosures doubled in fiscal 2016 to 89,064, from 45,381 in the prior year.

President Trump's Federal Housing Administration Commissioner Brian Montgomery, who was confirmed by the Senate in May, is moving quickly to investigate the HECM high-risk taxpayer guaranteed portfolio, according to the Wall Street Journal.

After an FHA staff review of 134,000 reverse mortgages found that at least 37 percent of reverse mortgage appraisals were overvalued by 3 percent or more, Montgomery announced that HECM reverse mortgage lenders provide a second property appraisal on loans flagged by FHA as potentially having an inflated property valuation.

Read the whole article.

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November 20, 2018

Black Robes Stealing America

Timothy Birdnow

Oops they did it again!

An Obama-appointed judge issued a restraining order on Monday forcing the Trump Administration to process asylum claims for the Caravan invasion.

Fox News has the story:

"Trump issued a proclamation on Nov. 9 that said anyone who crossed the southern border would be ineligible for asylum.

U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar, who was nominated by President Obama in 2012 to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, issued a temporary restraining order after hearing arguments in San Francisco.

The request was made by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which quickly sued after President Trump issued the ban this month in response to the caravans of migrants that have started to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border."

End excerpt.

It doesn't matter what the law says, or how angry the public is over this. Judges simply overturn the will of the People to promote their radical agenda.

The law couldn't be any clearer; the President has overwhelming discretion on who gets into this country. Federal judges have no say in it. But since the President is hated by both parties he must step gingerly to avoid being impeached, so he has to obey these tiny tyrants.

America is being given away piece by piece by those entrusted with guaranteeing our rights. And too few are really angry about it.

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1 And too few are really angry about it.

That's pretty easy to say, but what exactly do you advocate if we were to get "really angry" about this unmoored by law or constitution judicial tyranny that's been going on since at least Griswold v. Connecticut, or better, since it among other things established all the judicial president required to implement terror famines as well as pretty much ended any Constitutional restraint that's not worded as a "thou shall not" Wickard v. Filburn?

This is the subject of the Z Man's latest essay, "Kritocracy Then Chaos". Whatever the Constitution says, the constitution that we actually follow gives all the power to our robed masters. You ever read Livy on the tyranny of the second decemvirate?

Posted by: Anonymous at November 20, 2018 12:40 PM (FPIRN)

2 Thanks for the link Anonymous! I cannot say I disagree.

It appears too few in America care about this, and as a result we had the last election, which should have gone in a landslide for Republicans. It didn't. Congress could disband any court that issued some crazy ruling but it refuses to do so. The President can exercise nullification, too, as Andrew Jackson did when he refused to enforce the SCOTUS ruling in Worcester v. Geogia. He famously said "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it". SEe, that is why the Executive and the Judiciary, and Legislative branches were separated in the first place.

And Nullification was argued for by both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson after the passage of the Alien and Sedition Act, a matter largely forgotten by most people today.

But, given the pucillanimous nature of the GOP in Congress, Trump would be impeached for defying a court order.

It is illegal to threaten a judge over a court ruling, too. But it's reaching the point where these creeps need to face a little public pressure. If the Left can chase Republicans out of restaurants, why shouldn't people put some heat on these judges?

I don't know, but Americans should at least give their representatives and senators hell over this. Congress CAN rein these judges in - they just chose not to.

Of course, judicial overreach goes all the way back to SCOTUS asserting the right to judicial review in Marbury v. Madison in 1803. They've been doing it ever since.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at November 21, 2018 03:50 PM (Vl+LV)

3 Oops; I meant James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, not John Adams. I was trying to do three things at once and misspoke.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at November 21, 2018 05:24 PM (IJhtV)

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