Tuesday, March 30, 2021

U.S. Home Prices Rise at Fastest Pace in 15 Years

While consumer prices stay low this real estate price inflation will certainly feed the general price inflation! It will also eventually affect business property/apartment rents etc. This is fueled by several years of e.g. zero or even negative nominal interest rates driving down yields on long financial assets as well! What do you invest in when nominal interest rates and yields are low?

"... The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering the entire U.S., reported an 11.2 percent annual gain in January [latest available data], up from 10.4 percent in the previous month. That is the fastest pace for home prices since 2006 ...
The 20-city home price index rose 11.1 percent in January from a year earlier. That’s the biggest gain since March 2014. Prices rose in all 20 cities, and the 12-month increase was larger for all cities in January than in the previous month. ..."

U.S. Home Prices Rise at Fastest Pace in 15 Years

Monday, March 29, 2021

Martin Luther, the Reformation and the nation

Recommendable!

Wolfgang Kubicki: "Angela Merkel glaubt, sie sei die Gouvernante Deutschlands"

Der Bundestagsvizepräsident ist wahrlich nicht der Einzige, der so denkt!

Seit 16 Jahren hat die SED Kanzlerin Merkel hat aktiv und tatkräftig dazu beigetragen Deutschland in eine Bananenrepublik zu verwandeln!

"... Ich bin ehrlich erschüttert, wie wenig gerade Regierungen und Exekutivbehörden heute auf die Verfassung und Rechtsstaatlichkeit Wert legen. Unter der großen Direktive bei der Pandemie-Bekämpfung ist angeblich alles erlaubt, werden Maßnahmen getroffen, die ich bisher nur in demokratiefernen Systemen für möglich gehalten hätte. ..."

Kubicki: "Manchmal habe ich das Gefühl, Angela Merkel glaubt, sie sei die Gouvernante Deutschlands" Bundestagsvizepräsident Wolfgang Kubicki ist erschüttert über die Ignoranz der Regierenden gegenüber der Verfassung. Und entsetzt über deren Unfähigkeit. Deswegen und nicht wegen des Virus sei Deutschland im Lockdown.

Seven Wonders of the Buddhist World With Bettany Hughes

Very recommendable!

Sunday, March 28, 2021

Design could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium batteries

Recommendable, but I don't think the article said much about reduced charging times! Further, all the electricity necessary for electric cars still would need to be produced somehow! 😄

Would it not be an interesting idea to develop electric car batteries such that every time the battery is discharged, you replace it with a charged one. I am afraid current batteries are still way too large for that!

Unfortunately, MIT curiously omitted to provide a link to the underlying research paper nor its title!

"... One promising approach is the use of metal electrodes in place of the conventional graphite, with a higher charging voltage in the cathode. Those efforts have been hampered, however, by a variety of unwanted chemical reactions that take place with the electrolyte that separates the electrodes. Now, a team of researchers at MIT and elsewhere has found a novel electrolyte that overcomes these problems and could enable a significant leap in the power-per-weight of next-generation batteries, without sacrificing the cycle life. ..."

Design could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium batteries | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Use of a novel electrolyte could allow advanced metal electrodes and higher voltages, boosting capacity and cycle life.

'Like Magic,' Physicists Conjure Curious Quasiparticles

Recommendable, but a long winded story telling style like most Quanta Magazine articles!

Quasiparticles have the potential to cause a major paradigm shift in physics! Not unlike quarks, protons, neutrons, and electrons before!

'Like Magic,' Physicists Conjure Curious Quasiparticles | Quanta Magazine

U.S. Special Operations Command hired a chief of diversity and inclusion

Americas enemies are lying on the floor laughing about the cognitively impaired 46th President of the United States! It is so unreal, so horrifying what the Dimocratic Party is capable of! What a sure way to loose military conflicts!

What are the best ways to deteriorate or erode a professional military force from within by your own doing? The Dimocratic Party can help!

Mission aborted: Special operations is deadly serious business that needs to be performed at the highest possible professional skills and qualifications and should not be contaminated with such ideological nonsense! If there is any doubt about a special ops soldier that he/she was admitted due to diversity/inclusion considerations superseding prowess it could seriously undermine any mission and jeopardize its team members! 

Lord have mercy! We are less than 70 days into the 46th President's administration!

US Special Operations Command ‘Not Aware’ of New Hire’s Anti-Trump Posts

Cooling homes without warming the planet

Recommendable! Are you ready for a more energy-efficient air conditioner? We need more energy supply like nuclear power!

"As incomes in developing countries continue to rise, demand for air conditioners is expected to triple by 2050. ... Air conditioning is currently responsible for almost 20 percent of electricity use in buildings around the world. ...
“The thing about air conditioning is the basic technology hasn't changed much since it was invented 100 years ago,” ...
a class of highly porous materials called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs, that passively pull moisture from the air as the machine works. ...
MOF’s intriguing properties come from their large internal surface area [like activated carbon] and the ability to finely tune the size of the tiny chambers that run through them. ...
Transaera’s MOFs passively collect moisture as air enters the system. The machine’s waste heat is then used to dry the MOF material for continuous reuse. ..."

Cooling homes without warming the planet | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology The startup Transaera is using a class of materials, advanced by MIT Professor Mircea Dinca for over a decade, to create a more energy-efficient air conditioner.

Persistent Gender Inequality Regarding Military Draft Registration

If we are serious about gender equality, then women must be registered for military draft like men!

The U.S. Military Selective Service Act of 1948 exempts women from having to register for military service like men! From a gender equality perspective, this is a case of blatant sex discrimination!

Feminists obviously like to cherry pick! Yes, gender quotas for board rooms and corporate officers! Serving in the military, not so much! 😄 Makes perfect sense in the battle of the sexes! Chivalrous gentlemen wake up and watch out!

Credits to following article, which is kind of wrong on the merits as indicated in the headline, but it made me aware that men are discriminated against in favor of women:
Gender Inequality Isn't the Problem With the Draft - Foundation for Economic Education While draft registration does involve unequal treatment of men and women, the larger issue is Selective Service registration itself.

You local PBS station: 'Extinction: The Facts' and 'Climate Change: The Facts'

Arizona PBS disseminates the propaganda and demagoguery of Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion! Shocking and irresponsible!

"Featuring some of the world’s leading scientists" Really? Like this much abused teenager Greta Thunberg from Sweden:


"Scientists explore the impact of climate change and what could happen if global warming exceeds 1.5 degrees." Joseph Goebbels could not have invented a better line! This is propaganda and disinformation of the worst kind! Propaganda dressed up as science!

If you like indoctrination with ideology go watch it!

'Extinction: The Facts' and 'Climate Change: The Facts' | Arizona PBS

Saturday, March 27, 2021

‘Barely cogent’ Joe Biden starring in ‘Weekend at Bidens’: Bernardi

Very recommendable! This is so hilarious if it was not so serious! This Australian parody on the (mostly or nearly octogenarian) leaders of the Dimocratic Party (Pelosi, Schumer, Harris, Biden) is so much fun to watch!

Weekend at Biden's Comedy

Why did this comedy movie come out so late in 2020? According to IMDb it was only released October 22, 2020, days before the presidential election!

Weekend at Biden's (2020) - IMDb

US military 'go woke' as Chinese commit serious incursion into Taiwan airspace

Recommendable! Australian news on the cognitively impaired 46th President! Americas enemies could not be happier!

Bernd Baumann über korrupte Unionsabgeordnete

Sehr empfehlenswert!
Typisch Bananenrepublik Deutschland mit SED Kanzlerin Merkel!

Google's unusual move to shut down an active counterterrorism operation being conducted by a Western democracy

This headline definitely caught my eye! Highly unusual indeed unless such activities were previously not or under reported! This incident raises some serious questions about how Google handles cyber attacks!

"In October 2020, Google Project Zero discovered seven 0-day exploits being actively used in-the-wild. These exploits were delivered via "watering hole" attacks in a handful of websites pointing to two exploit servers that hosted exploit chains for Android, Windows, and iOS devices. These attacks appear to be the next iteration of the campaign discovered in February 2020 and documented in this blog post series."

"A pair of recent Google blog posts detail the collection of zero-day vulnerabilities that it discovered hackers using over the course of nine months. The exploits, which went back to early 2020 and used never-before-seen techniques, were “watering hole” attacks that used infected websites to deliver malware to visitors. They caught the attention of cybersecurity experts thanks to their scale, sophistication, and speed. 

Google’s announcement glaringly omitted key details, however, including who was responsible for the hacking and who was being targeted, as well as important technical information on the malware or the domains used in the operation. At least some of that information would typically be made public in some way, leading one security expert to criticize the report as a “dark hole.”  ...
It’s true that Project Zero does not formally attribute hacking to specific groups. But the Threat Analysis Group, which also worked on the project, does perform attribution. Google omitted many more details than just the name of the government behind the hacks, and through that information, the teams knew internally who the hacker and targets were. It is not clear whether Google gave advance notice to government officials that they would be publicizing and shutting down the method of attack.
But Western operations are recognizable, according to one former senior US intelligence official.
“There are certain hallmarks in Western operations that are not present in other entities … you can see it translate down into the code,” said the former official, who is not authorized to comment on operations and spoke on condition of anonymity. “ ...
This is far from the first time a Western cybersecurity team has caught hackers from allied countries. Some companies, however, have a quiet policy of not publicly exposing such hacking operations if both the security team and the hackers are considered friendly—for example, if they are members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, which is made up of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Several members of Google’s security teams are veterans of Western intelligence agencies, and some have conducted hacking campaigns for these governments. ...
The Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky came under fire in 2018 when it exposed an American-led counterterrorism cyber operation against ISIS and Al Qaeda members in the Middle East. Kaspersky, like Google, did not explicitly attribute the threat but nevertheless exposed it and rendered it useless, American officials said, which caused the operatives to lose access to a valuable surveillance program and even put the lives of soldiers on the ground at risk. ...
Google’s recent announcements, however, put the spotlight on what had been a live cyber-espionage operation. ..."

Google's unusual move to shut down an active counterterrorism operation being conducted by a Western democracy | MIT Technology Review

Google blogged here about it!

Biden has signed twice as many executive orders as immediate predecessors

The cognitively impaired 46th President of the United States has taken government by executive order to new and very worrying extremes!

"... As of March 10, which marked Biden's first 50 days in office, he had signed 37 EOs, according the FederalRegister.gov. That number compares to 16 for President Trump, 17 for President Obama and eight for President George W. Bush. ..."

Biden has signed twice as many executive orders as immediate predecessors

China defends its ‘vocational training centres’ in Xinjiang white paper

The Communist Party of China is offering "vocational training centers" perhaps a la "Arbeit macht frei!"!

"China released a white paper on Thursday [9/17/2020?] claiming that its far western Xinjiang region has provided “vocational training” to nearly 1.3 million workers every year on average from 2014 to 2019. ..."

China defends its ‘vocational training centres’ in Xinjiang white paper | South China Morning Post (9/17/2020) It claims regional government organised ‘employment-oriented training’ and labour skills for nearly 1.3 million workers a year from 2014 to 2019
Beijing faces mounting criticism from Western countries and human rights groups over its policies in the far western region

Israeli cargo ship hit by missile near Yemen in suspected Iranian attack

Serious stuff! Skirmishes can lead to war! A cold war between Iran and Israel goes on!

"... An Israeli-owned cargo ship was struck by a missile in the Arabian Sea in a suspected Iranian attack, an Israeli security official said.
The ship was sailing from Tanzania to India and continued its voyage after the attack Thursday, the official told Reuters. ... 
Since 2019, Israel has been attacking ships carrying Iranian oil and weapons through the eastern Mediterranean and Red seas, according to a New York Times article published Friday. The Iranians recently have begun to retaliate by targeting Israeli vessels, the report said. ...
Last month, an Israeli cargo ship, the Helios Ray, sustained minor damage when explosives attached to its hull were set off by what The Times said was an Iranian commando unit.
Earlier this month, an Iranian ship, Shahr e Kord, was hit in an explosion and slightly damaged about 50 miles off the coast of Israel."

Israeli cargo ship hit by missile near Yemen in suspected Iranian attack - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

U.S. Senator from Utah Mitt Romney wins ‘Profile in Courage’ award for impeachment vote

I bet this fool of a GOP U.S. Senator will not decline this award! Hope, the citizens of Utah will finally vote this man out of office by next election!

"... Romney became the first U.S. senator in history to vote to convict a president in his same party. ..."

Mitt Romney wins ‘Profile in Courage’ award for impeachment vote

Goldwater Institute: Breaking Down Barriers to Work in the United States

Good and long overdue idea! Like the Right to Try initiative this is another worthy cause for the Goldwater Institute!

Other Western countries suffer from similar regulations!

"... about one in four jobs in America requires an occupational license — a government permission slip to work. ..."
This is totally unamerican! Why did this even happen/evolve in the United States, in the land of the free?

"... No matter how qualified someone is, Americans must re-apply for permission to work when they move to a new state. That’s a costly and unnecessary barrier for countless Americans to earn a living. ...
The average military family moves every two to three years ... And for military spouses, these frequent relocations can mean major disruptions in their careers. ..."

Breaking Down Barriers to Work - Goldwater Institute Ensuring Americans Are Free to Work, No Matter Where They Live

Many Climate Crisis Claims Are Based on Manipulated Science

Very recommendable! Sums up some of the egregious manipulations in which scientists where involved! I blogged e.g. about the infamous heat island deception!

Not only was science manipulated and abused for political purposes, more importantly, there are still too many things we know very little about like variations in solar radiation, oceans, and much more! Too many scientists are reluctant to admit how much they don't know!

Many Climate Crisis Claims Are Based on Manipulated Science by H. Sterling Burnett

Where Did the Term “Gerrymander” Come From?

Recommendable! I was surprised to learn that the practice of designing district boundaries in such a way to favor a political party or candidate goes back to the very early days (1812). It is named after a Founding Father and Anti-federalist!

Why are the Anti-Federalist Papers so much less known than the Federalist Papers? The Anti-Federalist Papers deserve much more attention! They are very insightful!

"... Gerry was at first opposed to the idea of political parties, and cultivated enduring friendships on both sides of the political divide between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. ..."

"... Well-known in his day, Gerry was a wild-eyed eccentric and an awkward speaker, a trusted confidant of John Adams and a deep (if peculiar) thinker. He could also be a dyspeptic hothead—a trait that got the better of him when he signed the infamous redistricting bill. ...
Colleagues respected Gerry’s intelligence, gentlemanliness, attention to detail, and hard work, but his maverick political views and personality sometimes hurt his judgment. According to Adams, he had an “obstinacy that will risk great things to secure small ones.” ...
Gerry refused to sign the Constitution—“as complete an aristocracy as ever was framed,” he complained – in part because he thought the standing army and the powerful Senate could become tyrannical.  He became an Anti-Federalist, arguing that the Constitution had gotten the balance of power between states and the national government wrong. ..."

Where Did the Term “Gerrymander” Come From? | History | Smithsonian Magazine Elbridge Gerry was a powerful voice in the founding of the nation, but today he’s best known for the political practice with an amphibious origin




US. Senator Lindsey Graham shares blunt public message for VP Kamala Harris

Recommendable! Watch several GOP U.S. Senators in casual clothing give a press conference near U.S.-Mexico border!

Friday, March 26, 2021

Tucker Carlson: Our military leadership has gone 'woke'

Very recommendable! Shocking! The Dimocratic Party and its cognitively impaired 46th President are undermining the U.S. military with diversity and inclusion nonsense!

In Chicago, 116 people have been killed so far in 2021

Why are we so focused on the latest Atlanta, GA and Boulder, Co mass shootings when just in Chicago alone in the first 80 days of this year 116 people were killed (not all by gun shots)! This translates into more than 16 homicides per week! The homicide statistics of other Dimocratic Party run big cities (e.g. LA, Baltimore, NYC) look similar despite heightened gun control measures! That is the real and long time scandal the Dimocratic Party tries to cover up!

This is called exploitation of carefully selected gun violence for political purposes! Deplorable! It is shameful! It is racist, because plenty of this gun violence involves black Americans!

"The majority of the victims of homicide in Chicago are young, black men." and certainly the large majority of them are not killed by white cops!

Why the Chicago Tribune shows so many unknown causes (roughly 2/3) of homicides is a riddle to me! Does it perhaps mean they can not keep up with determining the cause of the homicides in Chicago, because there are so many? How they treat multiple injuries vs. gun shot wounds I did not investigate, but my hunch is that it is not counted as killed by gun shot!

Tracking Chicago homicide victims - Chicago Tribune 



Ultrasound has potential to damage coronaviruses

Good news! Can ultrasound also be used against other pathogenic viruses? However, these are simulated, preliminary results!

"... A new study by researchers in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering suggests that coronaviruses may be vulnerable to ultrasound vibrations, within the frequencies used in medical diagnostic imaging.

Through computer simulations, the team has modeled the virus’ mechanical response to vibrations across a range of ultrasound frequencies. They found that vibrations between 25 and 100 megahertz triggered the virus’ shell and spikes to collapse and start to rupture within a fraction of a millisecond. This effect was seen in simulations of the virus in air and in water.

The results are preliminary, and based on limited data regarding the virus’ physical properties. ..."

Ultrasound has potential to damage coronaviruses, study finds | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Simulations show ultrasound waves at medical imaging frequencies can cause the virus’ shell and spikes to collapse and rupture.

Here is the link to the referenced research paper:

Trans woman accuses TSA of being 'transphobic'

Are some men not prettier than women? (just kidding)
Or is this a very clever businessman seeking a million dollar settlement from the Transportation Security Administration?
Does this transgender woman suggest she still has a penis? How transphobic would any man get dating her?

"... Model and content creator Rosalynne Montoya recently shared an experience with social media users and insisted that TSA is transphobic.

Montoya, according to Buzzfeed, is an Arizona-based, Hispanic, bisexual, nonbinary transgender woman. She was recently traveling from Phoenix to Los Angeles to visit her boyfriend. ..."

Trans woman accuses TSA of being 'transphobic': 'Going through the scanner, I always have an "anomaly" between my legs that sets off the alarm' - TheBlaze



Bundesverfassungsgericht stoppt das Ja des Bundestags zur EU-Schuldenunion

Werden die Bundesverfassungsrichter den Mut aufbringen dem verantwortungslosen Treiben der über 700 Bundestagsabgeordneten Einhalt zu gebieten? Zweifelhaft, aber lassen wir uns mal überraschen! Der Druck auf diese Richter ist enorm! Wünschen wir den Richtern Mut und Standfestigkeit! Manchmal in der Geschichte der Menschheit hängt so viel von so wenigen ab, die richtige Entscheidung zu treffen! Dies ist so ein Moment!

"... Unter dem Radar der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung hat gestern Vormittag der Bundestag mit einer Mehrheit von fast drei Viertel der abstimmenden Abgeordneten sein vornehmstes Recht, die uneingeschränkte Ausübung seiner Budgethoheit, an die EU-Ebene abgetreten. Mit der Zustimmung zum „Eigenmittelbeschluss-Ratifizierungsgesetz (ERatG)“ reicht eine übergroße Parlamentsmehrheit leichtfertig und endgültig die Hand für die europäische Schuldenunion. Obwohl die europäischen Verträge eine Kreditaufnahme der EU ausschließen, hat jetzt also das euphemistisch „Next Generation EU“ genannte Corona-Wiederaufbaupaket auch den parlamentarischen Segen aus Deutschland. ..."

Hier ist der Link zu den offiziellen Abstimmungsergebnis: Namentliche Abstimmung 25. März 2021 Eigenmittelsystem der EU

Wieder mal hat die FDP kolossal versagt mit 80 Ja Stimmen, 4 Nein, und 12 Enthaltungen.

Kein SPD Mitglied hat mit Nein gestimmt! In der CDU haben nur 8 mit Nein gestimmt! 63 Abgeordnete haben keine Stimme abgegeben! Unglaublich!

"... Erinnern wir uns:
Zur Gründung des Euros wurde im Vertrag von Maastricht [1992] vereinbart: 
Der staatliche Schuldenstand in den Ländern der Währungsunion darf nicht mehr als 60 % des Bruttoinlandsprodukts betragen.
Das jährliche Haushaltsdefizit darf nicht mehr als 3 % des Bruttoinlandsprodukts betragen.
Eine Übernahme der Schulden anderer („Bail-Out“) wurde ausgeschlossen. ..." (Quelle)

"... Jedenfalls diesem letzten Argument sind die Karlsruher Richter nun offenbar gefolgt. In einem sogenannten Hängebeschluss haben sie dem Bundespräsidenten untersagt, das Gesetz zu unterzeichnen. Eine nähere Begründung enthält der Beschluss noch nicht; diese soll nachgereicht werden. Mit an Sicherheit grenzender Wahrscheinlichkeit wird sich das Bundesverfassungsgericht darin jedoch nicht zur eigentlichen Zulässigkeit des Wiederaufbaufonds äußern, sondern lediglich darauf hinweisen, dass man für die weitere Prüfung habe Zeit gewinnen wollen, bevor durch eine Unterzeichnung Tatsachen geschaffen würden. ...
Hat Steinmeier eine Stillhaltezusage abgelehnt?
Der Vorgang ist dennoch ungewöhnlich, denn eigentlich entspricht es dem politischen Komment, dass das Bundesverfassungsgericht den Bundespräsidenten in solchen Konstellationen informell auf die laufende Prüfung hinweist und ihn bittet, mit seiner Unterschrift bis zu einer Entscheidung zu warten, statt ihm dies durch einen förmlichen Beschluss zu untersagen. Ob es eine solche informelle Anfrage in diesem Fall gegeben hat, und, falls ja, wie sie beschieden wurde, wollte das Bundesverfassungsgericht auf Anfrage der F.A.Z. nicht mitteilen und verwies auf das Bundespräsidialamt. 
Von dort hieß es auf Anfrage der F.A.Z., ein entsprechendes Ersuchen sei „telefonisch auf Arbeitsebene“ eingegangen. Zu den Einzelheiten des Gesprächs könne man sich nicht äußern, das Ersuchen des Verfassungsgerichts sei aber jedenfalls nicht abgelehnt worden; über den Beschluss von Freitagnachmittag sei man „überrascht“ gewesen. ..."

Ich wäre überhaupt nicht überrascht, wenn der Depp im Bundespräsidialamt, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, das Ersuchen des BVerfG abgelehnt hätte oder anderswie unangemessen reagiert hätte!

Bundesverfassungsgericht stoppt das Ja des Bundestags zur EU-Schuldenunion Sensation in Karlsruhe: Die Verfassungsrichter verhindern vorerst, dass der Bundespräsident unterschreibt, was eine Bundestagsmehrheit aus Union, SPD, FDP und Grüne gerade beschlossen hatte: nämlich die teilweise Abtretung des Budgetrechts an Brüssel.

508,164,642 vaccine doses administered worldwide

A milestone was reached with half a billion vaccine doses! It is almost a miracle that this happened so fast on a global scale! It is absolutely extraordinary! (Source)

Not to mention we have how many different, approved and effective vaccines available and produced in multiple countries (about a dozen based on four different approaches)! Absolutely mind boggling!

What a miracle to behold!

Global Covid-19 Recovered Statistics: United States is missing

Is it not very peculiar that the U.S. does not report the number of recovered (at least not according to Johns Hopkins University)? If find it extraordinary!

But Canada and Mexico are not missing from this list!

The number of recovered is essential to compute and determine herd immunity! Thus, the omission of the number of recovered in the U.S. from the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center is strange!

Here is the link to the website: Covid-19 dashboard of the JHU



Biden’s Mach 2 Madness on the U.S. military

Recommendable! This article is in response to the 46th President of the United States recent lunatic call for maternity flight suits, updating the requirements for hairstyles, and tailoring combat uniforms for women (see also my blog post).

Yes, women ought to be able to choose combat roles in the military in the name of equal rights! However, the military is too serious a job to make feminine accommodations! A pregnant female pilot should not be flying in a fighter jet unless there is no other choice!

"... On October 25, 1994, Hultgreen took off from Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego and flew southwest toward the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. In her approach, Hultgreen swung wide of the centerline and the Landing Signal Officer (LSO) yelled “Wave off!” with increasing urgency, then “Eject!” as the F-14 began to yaw. The fighter rolled so far that the ejection seat drove Hultgreen directly into the ocean. A Navy salvage team found her body in 4,000 feet of water some 90 yards from the aircraft. The first female pilot to fly the F-14 had become the first to die. ..."

Biden’s Mach 2 Madness | Frontpagemag Why forcing 'wokeness' on the U.S. military will bring death, destruction and defeat.

Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide

Nature has a powerful way of dealing with atmospheric carbon dioxide! Global Warming is a hoax! Climate Change is a religion!

"... Has plant growth increased alongside rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? It turns out the answer is Yes – in a big way. A new study published in the April 6 edition of the journal Nature concludes that as emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels have increased since the start of the 20th century, plants around the world are utilizing 30 percent more carbon dioxide (CO2), spurring plant growth. ..."

"... Plants take up CO2 when they photosynthesize, but they release it when they respire, decay or are burned. That means that the removal rate of CO2 by plants can’t be directly estimated on global scales from measurements of CO2 alone. ..."
This essentially means the estimation of the global carbon cycle is flawed (I blogged here about it). 

Study: Global plant growth surging alongside carbon dioxide - Welcome to NOAA Research (published 2017)

How Plants Became Carnivores

Very recommendable!

Thursday, March 25, 2021

FULL first press conference of the 46th President of the United States

Painful to watch! I watched only the first 15 minutes!

Trump gives exclusive reaction to Biden's first press conference

Recommendable! Compared to President Trump, the 46th President sounded like a total moron during his first press conference after 66 days in office!

Harvard University creates Office for Gender Equity

Ideology and demagoguery at an elite U.S. university! Battle of the sexes! Males beware it means active and pervasive discrimination against men!

Certainly, this will provide female students a lot of options to deal with men they don't like etc.!

Why is e.g. sexual assault/harassment/stalking etc. not assigned to the Harvard University police department?

"Harvard will form a new Office for Gender Equity, which will bring together existing resources previously housed within the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (OSAPR) and the Title IX Office ...
which will report to the Office of the President and the Provost ...
In terms of prevention and education, the office will offer workshops ranging from gender diversity and inclusion, to consent education, to bystander intervention and more. This will represent enhanced and expanded programming beyond what OSAPR and Title IX have offered in the past. ...
A repeated theme through our many conversations with community members was the need for dedicated resources with expertise in restorative practices as well as experience working directly with individuals [males?] who may have caused harm within our community. ...
This includes helping individuals access supportive measures such as counseling, extensions of deadlines or other course-related adjustments, modifications of work or class schedules, campus escort services, no-contact orders, changes in work or housing locations, leaves of absence, increased security, or monitoring. ..."

Harvard creates Office for Gender Equity – Harvard Gazette

Roboter-Teams für den Mond: DFKI startet EU-Projekt zur Erkundung von Lava-Höhlen durch kooperierende autonome Rover

Wären nicht Drohnen besser geeignet für die erstmalige Erkundung dieser Lava-Höhlen auf dem Mond?

Roboter-Teams für den Mond: DFKI startet EU-Projekt zur Erkundung von Lava-Höhlen durch kooperierende autonome Rover

Giant container ship blocks Suez Canal

I did not realize that Caterpillar makes such strong equipment. It takes just one to move one of the largest container ships in the world? I am impressed! News reports are saying it may take weeks! Never underestimate the Cat! (just kidding) 😄



46th U.S. President says he expects to run for re-election in 2024

Mr. Gaffe, the cognitively impaired 46th President of the United States, keeps on giving! The best or worst political joke in recent times! Or is this Kafkaesque (having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality)?

Or is this even outright deception as it appears very unlikely that he will finish his first term in office! The citizens of the United States deserve more transparency regarding the President's health status!

Casus Biden (not casus belli! Pardon my satire) even deserves an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that presidential candidates are required to disclose a comprehensive health checkup and term limits for Members of the U.S. Congress!

Lord have mercy on us! The 46th President has been in office for less than 70 days! 

Biden says he expects to run for re-election in 2024

Work-From-Home Challenges City Income Tax Reach

Another good reason to work from home more often! 😄

"Two dozen Michigan cities that levy local income taxes face a reckoning with a new workplace reality brought on by the COVID pandemic.

Workers who commute to jobs inside these cities have been obligated to pay local income taxes. Many of these employees, however, no longer come to the office, and it’s unclear how many of these nonresidents still pay the local income tax. ..."

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

— Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy, 1789

Work-From-Home Challenges City Income Tax Reach – Michigan Capitol Confidential Stay-at-home orders meant fewer workers commuting into cities that tax income

How do you know that SARS-CoV-2 is fairly harmless

I have seen a number of reports over the last several months that human volunteers were intentionally infected with the virus to test treatments etc. in various studies and countries. Would humans be used as guinea pigs or like lab mice, if the virus was really dangerous?

See e.g. this U.S. National Institutes of health website:
Volunteer for COVID-19 Clinical Trials

Plus, 50-60% of all infected have no symptoms, another 20-30% have only mild symptoms, and, most unusual, children/teenagers are little affected!

SaNOtize Begins Production In Israel Of Anti-viral Nasal Spray

Recommendable! A nasal spray sounds like a good idea to me! I have just blogged here about inhalable vaccinations. To treat mucous membranes directly to fight pathogens makes a lot of sense!

"... SaNOtize, ... developed a patented platform technology that allows for the topical delivery of nitric oxide (a naturally occurring nanomolecule with the formula NO, hence the name) to treat a variety of bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases. ...
The spray is undergoing clinical trial in the UK and is currently in Phase II prevention and efficacy trial in Canada. Early tests at Utah State University’s Antiviral Research Institute have shown that the nasal solution inactivated more than 99.9 percent of SARs-CoV-2, SaNOtize announced in January. ..."

SaNOtize Begins Production In Israel Of Anti-COVID Nasal Spray SaNOtize, the company behind a proposed antiviral nasal spray for use against COVID-19 has started a production line in Israel where the Health Ministry gave interim approval for the sale of the product to people over 12 years of age, the Times of Israel reported this week. The company is also registered to begin sales in New Zealand.

Tucker Carlson: Der Scharfmacher von Fox News

Was für ein grob dummes Zeug die Neue Züricher Zeitung ihren Lesern auftischt. Inzwischen ist das der NZZ wohl auch aufgefallen, weil sie zwischenzeitlich die Schlagzeile geändert/abgeschwächt haben ("Wie der Fox-News-Moderator Tucker Carlson allerhand Unsinn über Covid-19 verbreitet"). Wenn Tucker Carslon ein "rechter Scharfmacher" ist, dann ist die NZZ ein kommunistisches Hetzblatt! 😄

Ich schaue mir Tucker Carlson's mehrmals pro Woche an. Manch seiner Kommentare habe ich als empfehlenswert hier auf meinem Blog erwaehnt (z.B. hier, hier).

Tucker Carlson: Der Scharfmacher von Fox News Manche sehen in ihm den gefährlichsten Mann der USA. Tucker Carlson breitet in seiner Sendung vor einem Millionenpublikum stramm rechte Ansichten und viel Unsinn aus, vor allem über Covid-19 und Impfungen.

Cities of the Underworld: Rome

Very recommendable! However, the host of this documentary is barely bearable! History Channel sensationalized it and chosen over dramatic music for it as if it was an action movie!
The Catacombs are not even mentioned!

The Whispers - And the Beat Goes On (Official Music Video)

Enjoy! Just like my loving! Just watch the classic dance routine by the Whispers!

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Tucker Carlson: Two Democrat U.S. Senators want to deny jobs based on race

Very recommendable! Shocking! The U.S. Senators are Tammy Duckworth ("A combat veteran of the Iraq War, she served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. In 2004, after her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents, she suffered severe combat wounds, which caused her to lose both of her legs and some mobility in her right arm. She was the first female double amputee from the war.") and Mazie Hirono ("the first U.S. senator born in Japan, and the nation's first Buddhist senator.")

How Humans Became (Mostly) Right-Handed

Very recommendable! Amazing stuff!

Jens Spahn, ein typischer Berufspolitiker im Umkreis von Merkel

Warum ist so ein Hans Dampf in allen Gassen und Dünnbrettbohrer wie der lebenslange Berufspolitiker Jens Spahn Bundesgesundheitsminister im Kabinett Merkel? Sehr früh hat Jens Spahn parteipolitische Karriere gemacht in der CDU, aber was hat er eigentlich geleistet? Dürftig, sehr dürftig!

Man muss schon beinahe vermuten er wurde aus folgenden beiden Gründen favorisiert/qualifiziert:
  1. Er hat sich treu der SED Kanzlerin Merkel unterworfen
  2. Seine scheinbare Jugendlichkeit (heute doch 40 Jahre alt) sowie Homosexualität und Heirat mit einem Mann war von kalkuliertem Vorteil, ein Vorzeigekandidat, für die CDU bei Wahlen mit den Grünen/Linken um Stimmen zu buhlen
War dar noch was mit Maskenverkauf?

Jens Spahn – Wikipedia



Notes on 2 Massachusetts Towns Create Legal Polyamorous Partnerships

When a leading Christian conservatives like Tony Perkins (current President of the Family Research Council) uses blatant demagoguery to make his point! I am not even sure Mr. Perkins really speaks for the majority of  Christian conservatives in America.

For the purpose of this blog post, I mean to understand polygamy/polyamory as the consensual, romantic, and voluntary partnership between unrelated adults.

For Mr. Perkins polygamy/polyamory is akin to Sodom and Gomorrah! He compares or alludes polygamy to "adult incest", "bestiality, and obscenity" and "pedophilia". He even uses/abuses a quote of the late Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia for his purposes. This is extreme and deplorable agitation! 

In his conclusion: "Once a culture rejects God’s design, basic biology, and thousands of years of civilization, there are no boundaries."
Nobody knows what God's design is not least Mr. Perkins! What a pretense, what a blasphemy! Of course, there are boundaries and they are well defined by (natural) law in e.g. in the Ten Commandments!

2 Massachusetts Towns Create Legal Polyamorous Partnerships

The Carbon cycle and the Global Warming hoax

The carbon cycle is probably one of the most important concepts on which the Global Warming hoax and the Climate Change religion relies on. The story about carbon sources and sinks etc.

I have a strong hunch that this carbon cycle narrative does not hold up to close scrutiny. The science is very far from settled! There is still too much we do not know about it and which we can not exactly quantify (margins of error are probably huge)! 

"... Perhaps the most challenging and societally relevant question is whether the rate at which the land and ocean can sequester carbon will continue to keep pace with rising carbon dioxide emissions. ...
Although anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, this natural climate change mitigation has so far proportionally kept pace with emissions ...
Predicting interactions between Earth’s climate and carbon cycle is challenging because of the number of feedbacks involved. ...
Thus, there are observational gaps in climate-sensitive tropical, boreal, and Arctic ecosystems. ...
With multidecadal satellite remote sensing records, it has become possible to distinguish interannual variability from trends. ...
Observational systems monitoring ocean chemical and physical processes are also critical for understanding the ocean carbon cycle. Current ocean observing systems include ship-based measurements, the Argo floats network, and surface buoys from the Global CO2 Time-Series and Moorings Project. These systems measure surface water CO2 and temperature ...
Just as observational methods produce different results, current terrestrial ecosystem models indicate different trends in carbon uptake ..., limiting our understanding of the evolution of carbon-climate feedbacks ..."
Perhaps, it has more than just kept pace! When scientists use words like "challenging" they mean they don't know! 😄 
"Observational gaps" a very neat euphemism for huge holes!
"multidecadal satellite ... records" Laughable! Only 5-4 decades at most, the first  NASA meteorological weather satellite was launched in 1960. Only in the last two decades or so we have a tight net of satellites with better technologies orbiting earth for such scientific research!
We still know very little what goes on in our oceans especially below the surface!  

E.g. the recent greening of our planet (plants absorbing more carbon dioxide) was not part of the narrative! "According to climate models, the future looks even greener."

Most likely, we still do not understand the carbon dioxide sinks very well. Our current knowledge is more like assumptions/approximations than confirmed verifiable, and quantifiable facts!

Here is an 2020 article from EOS (published by the American Geophysical Union) about the carbon cycle.
 
The NASA Earth Observatory posted an article about carbon cycle in 2011 that still comes up at the top of Google search, although this article is archived and not updated anymore since 2011 (see references at the bottom of article). Not only that NASA does not even bother to refer the reader to a more updated version of this article!

P.S. Ocean acidification is another of the typical scaremongering terms often and willingly used even in popular scientific publications (see e.g. this NOAA educational web page


Boulder mass shooting suspect was ‘previously known’ by FBI: Report

Perhaps the FBI wasted too much time and resources investigating phony claims against the President Trump administration and his election campaign! 

Plus, you have to suspect that the FBI was just too politically correct given all this daily diversity, inclusion, and BLM nonsense! You have to assume that quite a few in the upper echelons of the FBI in Washington DC have fully ingested and are indoctrinated with this propaganda!

Was he a lone, self-radicalized killer or did he have terrorism related contacts? Was he mentally ill as his brother so quickly claimed? What else does the brother know? The brother ought to be thoroughly investigated.

"... The suspect’s identity was previously known to the F.B.I. because he was linked to another individual under investigation by the bureau, according to law enforcement officials. ..."

The timing of this mass shooting event is conspicuous to say the least! Is it really only a coincidence or did the perpetrator choose this time because it was the right time to inflict more horror on the American people in the wake of a previous, recent mass shooting?

Boulder mass killing suspect who reportedly criticized Trump for his immigration stance was ‘previously known’ by FBI: Report - TheBlaze

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on TB detection and mortality in 2020

Just a reminder that Covid-19 is not the only pathogenic mass killer! Why has humanity still not defeated this age old scourge?

Unfortunately, the UN and its organisations think Big Government or socialism is the solution: "Universal care a priority “These sobering data point to the need for countries to make universal health coverage a key priority as they respond to and recover from the pandemic, to ensure access to essential services for TB and all diseases.” ..."

"Provisional data compiled by the World Health Organization (WHO) from 84 countries indicates that an estimated 1.4 million fewer people received care for tuberculosis (TB) in 2020 than in 2019 - a reduction of 21% from 2019. In the group of 10 high-burden countries with the largest reported shortfalls compared with 2019, the overall shortfall was 28%. With many people with TB unable to access care, WHO estimates that half a million more people may have died from TB in 2020 alone. TB remains one of the world’s top infectious killers. ..."

"... The biggest differences were in Indonesia (down 42 per cent), South Africa (41 per cent), the Philippines (37 per cent)  and India (25 per cent). ..."

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on TB detection and mortality in 2020

Intriguing new result from the LHCb experiment at CERN

Recommendable! About the not so settled science of the Standard Model! The particle zoo evolves ... Can you feel the excitement?

"Today [3/23/2021] the LHCb experiment at CERN announced new results which, if confirmed, would suggest hints of a violation of the Standard Model of particle physics. The results focus on the potential violation of lepton flavour universality ...
The new result indicates hints of a deviation from one: the statistical significance of the result is 3.1 standard deviations, which implies a probability of around 0.1% that the data is compatible with the Standard Model predictions. “If a violation of lepton flavour universality were to be confirmed, it would require a new physical process, such as the existence of new fundamental particles or interactions,” says LHCb spokesperson Professor Chris Parkes from the University of Manchester and CERN."

"... This article presents evidence for the breaking of lepton universality in beauty-quark decays, with a significance of 3.1 standard deviations, based on proton-proton collision data collected with the LHCb detector at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. ... If confirmed by future measurements, this violation of lepton universality would imply physics beyond the Standard Model, such as a new fundamental interaction between quarks and leptons. ..."

Intriguing new result from the LHCb experiment at CERN | CERN The LHCb results strengthen hints of a violation of lepton flavour universality

Here is the link to the referenced research paper:

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Neuer Säugetieratlas der Schweiz: mehr Arten als vor 25 Jahren

Kann doch gar nicht wahr sein! Das muss eine Falschmeldung sein! 😄 Täglich werden die Bürger von Tierschützern und Umweltschützern mit gegenteiliger Propaganda versorgt!

"Laut dem neu erschienenen «Atlas der Säugetiere» sind viele grosse Arten auf dem Vormarsch. Mit Wolf, Bär und Fischotter sind einst ausgerottete Tiere wieder in die Schweiz zurückgekehrt. Allerdings werden kleine Arten wie Igel und Fledermaus immer seltener."

Neuer Säugetieratlas der Schweiz: mehr Arten als vor 25 Jahren Der neu erschienene «Atlas der Säugetiere» zeichnet ein detailliertes Bild über die Verbreitung und den Zustand der Säugetiere in der Schweiz und in Liechtenstein. Während viele grosse Arten auf dem Vormarsch sind, werden kleine Arten immer seltener.

EU, US, Canada, and UK sanction Chinese officials for massive human rights violations in Xinjiang

When will the Chinese people finally rid themselves of this murderous Communist Party dictatorship that has ruled the country since 1949!

Why are Australia, India, Israel and other countries not part of these sanctions?

The article below also shows declassified documents as proof for the human rights violations!

"... The bloc’s top diplomats imposed travel bans and asset freezes on four senior Chinese officials including Zhu Hailun, the former deputy party secretary in Xinjiang, and one of the architects of the mass-detention program ...
Zhu’s signature was on five of the six documents at the heart of the China Cables, which documented China’s use of prison-like structures and highly sophisticated mass-surveillance technology to detain and control members of the Uyghur community in Xinjiang. ..."
EU, US, Canada, and UK sanction Chinese officials for human rights violations in Xinjiang - ICIJ The rare, coordinated effort has triggered a strong reaction from China, which retaliated with tit-for-tat sanctions against European politicians and scholars.

Fly the urban skies with Urban Aeronautic flying cars

Are looking here (AirMule, X-Hawk) at the future of urban mobility or at a hyped stock? A bit of both? 😄 Less traffic congestion? 

URBAN AERONAUTICS

Notes on the Atlanta spa murders

Powerful propaganda and demagoguery forces are trying to convince the public that this event represented a certain form of hate crime!

Here is a hypothesis against the propaganda of racist hate crime:

Had a similar crime been committed in a large German city, then many of the homicide victims would have been probably (white) women from eastern Europe or even former USSR countries!

It perhaps just so happens that in the U.S. Asian women tend to work disproportionately in such businesses.

Had the perpetrator of this heinous crime not committed it if the females working in those spa businesses had been let's say mostly white Hispanics?

Victor Davis Hanson: Follow The ‘Science,’ They Said

Recommendable, like so many of his essays! As usual, it is packed with various kinds of food for thought!

One thing caught my eye: VDH mentions the noble lie! I knew about it, but had almost forgotten about it.

Following quote perhaps captures the essence of his essay:
"In truth, leftists and Democrats have become the purveyors of superstition. Their creation of a fantasy world is not because they do not believe in science per se, but because they believe more in the primacy of ideology that should shape and warp science in the proper fashion for the greater good"

About the clown Anthony Fauci (Why President Trump did not fire, retire or transfer this charlatan is still a mystery):
"... The medical pandemic godhead of the Left has been octogenarian Dr. Anthony Fauci. His twin chief public relations explainer has been liberal darling New York governor Andrew Cuomo. Both were always supposed to be on top of “the science.” 

Dr. Fauci has not just been flat-out wrong on the science of COVID—in his assessments of the origins and possible dangers of COVID-19, of when we can get back to normal, of when the vaccinations would appear, and of which particular governors have been doing the most or least effective management of the disease. He has also, by his own admission, deliberately lied. 

That is, Fauci has rejected science, as he knew it, to mislead the public. For our own interests, he adopted the Platonic “noble lie” on occasion. So, for example, he conceded that he had downplayed the value of masks (he now seems to approve of wearing one on top of another) in order to prevent too many wearing them, and thus the public shorting the supply available to more important health care workers. 

Fauci also proverbially moved the goal posts on herd immunity, from the high 60s to the low 90s as a percent of the population, either vaccinated or with antibodies, necessary to achieve a de facto end of the pandemic. Again, Fauci defied the science on the theory he knew better, in assuming that the childish public would become too lax when and if it believed herd immunity was on the horizon. 

Unspoken, is that Fauci usually errs on the side of what is deemed progressive orthodoxy. In contrast, Dr. Scott Atlas warned us that extended and complete lockdowns in any cost-benefit analyses might well inflict more human and economic damage than the virus. And he added that an opened-up Florida and Texas might do no worse virally than a locked-down California or New York, while avoiding the severe recessionary collateral damage. ..."
 
Follow The ‘Science,’ They Said - American Greatness

Estonian Top NATO Scientist With Security Clearance Busted Spying for China

You have to almost tip your hat towards Chinese spy operations! How did they infiltrate even the Baltic States! It appears Chinese spy operations against Western countries are much better and deeper than has been publicly acknowledged so far! Is this and other, similar recently publicized cases only a tip of the iceberg?

Sentenced only to three years in prison! What! 

"Chinese military intelligence recruited an Estonian national working at a NATO research institution focused on maritime and submarine research ... The spy, Tarmo Kouts, renowned in the Estonian scientific community for his research, was convicted last week and sentenced to three years in prison. The Baltic country’s intelligence services had warned for years of the growing Chinese threat, but the conviction was the first of its kind. So far, Estonia’s counterintelligence service, known domestically by its acronym KAPO, has been praised for its success in catching spies recruited and run by Russia. ..."

The article provides quite some details about the spy's recruitment and handling!

Top NATO Scientist With Security Clearance Busted Spying for China An Estonian military defense scientist, who held a senior role at NATO, was convicted of spying for China last week.

Endlich verlässt die Kröte Merkel das Bundeskanzleramt! Eine Abrechnung!

Die 16 Jahre Amtszeit der SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland) Kanzlerin Merkel waren verheerend für Deutschland! Unter ihrer Regierung hatte sich Deutschland voll in eine Bananenrepublik entwickelt!  Wie viele Jahre wird es dauern bis sich Deutschland von dem Trauma Merkel wieder erholt? Sehr wahrscheinlich und spielend wird Merkel als der schlechteste Kanzler seit 1945 in die Geschichte eingehen!

Viel zu viele Jahre haben die Bürger und die CDU die Kröte Merkel geschluckt!

Deutschland braucht dringend eine verfassungsrechtliche Amtszeitbegrenzung für alle Mitglieder des Bundestags und Bundeskanzler! Deutschland hat viel zu viele unbedarfte lebenslange Berufspolitiker! Der seit vielen Jahren völlig aufgeblähte deutsche Bundestag mit 709 Mandaten muss auch dringendst geschrumpft werden!

Warum die CDU sich nicht vor Jahren rechtzeitig von dieser unfähigen Politikerin getrennt hat bleibt unbegreiflich. Wie sich damals Bundeskanzler Kohl in dieser Frau (Mädchen) so verguckt hat!

Die Liste ihrer gravierenden und weitreichenden Fehlleistungen ist sehr lang (bestimmt übersehe ich einige oder sie fallen mir nicht mehr ein. Die Nummerierung reflektiert nicht die Brisanz etc.):

  1. Abrupte, irrationale Ausstieg aus der friedlichen Nutzung der Kernenergie
  2. Einführung des Mindestlohns in Deutschland (2014). Staatliche Preiskontrollen sind grundsätzlich verfassungswidrig!
  3. Energiewende, ein Disaster
  4. Abschaltung der Kohlekraftwerke
  5. Unkontrollierte, planlose Masseneinwanderung
  6. Die Europäische Union ist unter ihr zu einem dirigistischen Zentralstaat mutiert. Machte den Brexit möglich u.v.m. Das e.g. Subsidiaritätsprinzip wurde ausgehölt
  7. Die Europäische Währungsunion wurde aufgeweicht und die diesbezüglichen Verträge grob missachtet
  8. Die jahrelange, einseitige Hetze gegen Rechtsradikale und Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Partei
  9. Einführung von Frauenquoten in den Vorständen von Unternehmen. Verfassungswidrig ohne Zweifel!
  10. Installierung der blöden Ursula von der Leyen als EU Kommissionspräsidentin
  11. Am Ende ihrer langen Amtszeit darf sie noch das enorme westliche Debakel von Afghanistan gewahr werden, aber sie geht lieber ins Kino!
  12. Wäre das idiotische Klimawahn Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts möglich gewesen ohne die Kanzlerin?
  13. Nach dem raschen und unvorgesehenen Fall Afghanistans werden wir auch wieder daran erinnert, dass das Bundesverfassungsgericht die Spionage des Bundesnachrichtendienstes gegen Afghanistan in unverständlicher und in völlig realitätsferner Weise erschwert hat! Bundeswehrsoldaten haben ihr Leben und ihre Gesundheit in Afghanistan riskiert! Die Kanzlerin trägt Mitverantwortung auch dafür!!

P.S. Klarstellung: Nicht die Frau ist eine Kröte, aber die deutschen Bürger haben eine Kröte unglaubliche 16 Jahre lang geschluckt. Oder sie sass wie eine Kröte auf dem Kanzleramt!




Hypersonic weapons are coming—whether we’re ready or not

Recommendable! Definitely concerning! There is also a paper by the same author available, which I did not read.

"Hypersonic systems include anything that travels faster than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. We may be on the cusp of seeing hypersonic weapons proliferate around the world, with Russia, China and the US all in the process of developing and testing them. By 2030 they are likely to be in the inventory of all of the major powers. And Australia might well join them - we have some world class researchers and have been active in joint programs with the US for over 20 years. The government has added hypersonic weapons to its defence acquisition plan. ...
Russian and Chinese systems are being developed with a nuclear or conventional warhead capability. ..."

"... Re-entering the earth’s atmosphere at speeds in excess of Mach 20, ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] were essentially immune to any sort of defensive action, leading to the Cold War standoff of mutually assured destruction. Even today, defence against anything other than a small number of unsophisticated ICBMs remains highly problematic. And the emerging generation of hypersonic weapons is likely to render defensive efforts even less effective. ...
By travelling at a lower altitude than the lofted trajectories of ICBMs, they provide reduced warning times to ground-based radar. And, because they can manoeuvre—in contrast to the predictable trajectories of ICBMs—they can approach the intended target from almost any direction. ...
ecause high speed precludes high manoeuvrability, such weapons won’t be suitable against fast-moving targets but could be very effective against fixed targets or slow-moving targets such as ships. ...
Australia is investing many billions of dollars in advanced sensors and combat systems to defend its surface vessels against subsonic and supersonic weapons. ...
In between strategic and tactical systems, intermediate range (500- to 5,000-kilometre) hypersonic weapons raise some serious arms control and stability issues. Intermediate range ballistic weapons were banned by treaty towards the end of the Cold War because the reduced warning times increased the risk of uncontrolled escalation. ..."

Hypersonic weapons are coming—whether we’re ready or not | The Strategist

Monday, March 22, 2021

A next step in renewable Bionic Leaf fuel production

Recommendable! Contrast renewable energy with synthetic renewable fuels! The production based on photosynthesis of renewable fuels could be a virtuous recycling program of atmospheric carbon dioxide! Unfortunately, it seems it takes much longer to develop this technology into a real world application. Do not confuse this with bioethanol or biodiesel!

First, this Harvard chemistry professor, i.e. Daniel G. Nocera, who was interviewed for this article, turns out to be a typical member of the elite to call for dictatorial Big Government: "Scalable energy storage is energy storage that everybody can use. It needs to penetrate society, and it needs to displace the current energy infrastructure, which is based on carbon." What arrogant hubris!

Actually, the interview is more about water purification than the large scale production of synthetic renewable fuels through photosynthesis. However, it includes the splitting of water as an energy source.

"... Nocera has accomplished the solar fuels process of photosynthesis – the splitting of water to hydrogen and oxygen using light from neutral water, at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. He has performed this solar process at efficiencies of greater than 10%. ... He has since elaborated this invention to accomplish a complete artificial photosynthetic cycle. To do so, he created the bionic leaf, which is a bio-engineered bacterium that uses the hydrogen from that artificial leaf and carbon dioxide from air to make biomass and liquid fuels. ..." (Source)

"... The best batteries store energy 50 to 100 times less than fuel. Take a Tesla. You’re getting into a huge battery. That’s what you’re sitting in: a massive battery that’s replacing the little gas tank in the back of your car. No matter what though, the batteries run up against their limit and have to recharge, same as your phone. Fuels have much more capacity to store energy, which is when you get to the scalable piece. ...

We did that years ago with the Artificial Leaf system we developed. It is completely renewable because when you take the hydrogen it produces and you recombine it with oxygen, you get water, or if you have hydrogen as a fuel directly, or in combination with carbon dioxide to make a liquid fuel, and then you burn that fuel, you get the water back. You’re not using up the water, you’re cycling it. 
In most other catalysts that do water splitting, the water has to come from pristine environments or they corrode. My group created what’s called self-healing catalysts, and they fix themselves in real time. Because they self-heal, you don’t need to use pure water sources. After, all, almost 97 percent of the world’s water is impure. That’s what we added to our system in this latest approach. It combines forward osmosis, to purify the water, with water splitting so you can take dirty water and then get it to a clean water stage, which is then split to make hydrogen and oxygen. ..."

Turning seawater into stored energy – Harvard Gazette

Here is the link to the underlying research paper: