Brian Mays says:
January 12, 2015 at 8:05 PM
“The question arises: Were the decisions concerning this enormous funding for global warming research taken out of genuine concern that the climate is allegedly changing as a result of CO2 industrial emissions, or do some other undisclosed ideas stand behind this money, IPCC activity, Kyoto, and all the gruesome catastrophic propaganda the world is now exposed to? If this concern is genuine, then why do we not see a storm of enthusiastic environmentalists and United Nations officials demanding to replace all fossil-fuel plants with nuclear plants, which have zero emission of greenhouse gases, are environmentally friendly, more economical, and much safer for plant workers and much safer for the general population than other sources of energy?”
– Zbigniew Jaworowski
What I don’t believe is that society needs to seek to reduce either “man-made” CO2 or “man-made” radiation doses to near zero. There are reasons to limit both CO2 and radiation doses, but there is no logical or moral reason to impose too tight a limit on either one.
In fact, I’ve often found that people working very hard to impose such limits don’t even like other people and seek to restrict their access to economic prosperity and physical power.
Human Health and Welfare Effects from Increased Greenhouse Gases and Warming
-- John Dunn and David Legates
Claims that global warming will have net negative effects on human health are not supported by scientific evidence. Moderate warming and increased atmospheric concentrations of carbon-dioxide levels could provide net benefits for human welfare, agriculture, and the biosphere by reducing cold-related deaths, increasing the amount of arable land, extending the length of growing seasons, and invigorating plant life. The harmful effects of restricting access to fossil fuel energy and subsequently causing energy costs to increase would likely outweigh any potential benefits from slightly delaying any rise in temperatures. Climate change is likely to have less impact on health and welfare than polices that would deprive the poor living in emerging economies of the benefits of abundant and inexpensive energy. //
As this chart shows, by a wide margin, the Gasparrini et al. study illustrates that cold extremes kill far more people that heatwaves—and by a wide margin. They concluded:
Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths…7.71% of the mortality…. Most of the mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7.29%) compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0.42%). So cold produced 17 times the number of heat deaths.7 //
Underlying the concept of Net Zero is the LNT [Linear No Threshold - nuclear radiation] philosophy laid down more than three decades earlier: no net emissions of greenhouse gases are acceptable. There is no threshold that allows some net production of greenhouse gases such that at any level, the net emission of greenhouse gases at any non-zero level is detrimental to the environment and must, therefore, be stopped. The belief is that since urgent action must be taken to avoid any additional warming of the planet, greenhouse gases must be removed from the atmosphere.71 When “emissions released by human action are taking a catastrophic toll on our planet and propelling us further into an irreversible climate crisis,” no threshold is acceptable.72 //
Linear No-Threshold theory began in 1927 when H. J. Muller examined phenotypical damages in fruit flies resulting from x-ray exposure, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946.78
Ibid.
It was introduced in radiological risk studies in 1959 and subsequently into general cancer risk. Consequently, the U.S. National Academy of Science recommended use of the LNT model to the induction of radiation-related mutations in somatic cells and, subsequently, to the study of cancer initiation.79
Edward J. Calabrese, “Cancer Risk Assessment, Its Wretched History and What It Means for Public Health,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, Vol. 21 (2024).
In low-energy radiation, The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation based its radiological protection system on the assumption that the radiation-induced risk was directly proportional (i.e., linear) to the dosage, with no dose threshold below which no risk exists.80
Dominique Laurier et al., “The Scientific Basis for the Use of the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model at Low Doses and Dose Rates in Radiological Protection,” Journal of Radiological Protection, Vol. 43 (2023), 024003.
About a decade after receiving the Nobel Prize, Muller admitted that he did not discover small mutations in fruit flies with the x-ray exposure for which he was heralded; rather, the high-energy radiation nearly obliterated large portions of their chromosomes. However, his Nobel Lecture argued that no safe radiation dose existed and that the LNT model must replace a threshold-dose-response model.81
Ibid., and Edward J. Calabrese, “Flaws in the LN Single-Hit Model for Cancer Risk: An Historical Assessment,” Environmental Research, Vol. 158 (2017), pp. 773–788; Edward J. Calabrese, “From Muller to Mechanism: How LNT Became the Default Model for Cancer Risk Assessment,” Environmental Pollution, Vol. 241 (2018), pp. 289–302; and Edward J. Calabrese, “Ethical Failures: The Problematic History of Cancer Risk Assessment,” Environmental Research, Vol. 193 (2020), 110582.
A Better Rule. An obviously better rule than LNT (and to net zero and other greenhouse gas–reduction strategies) is that of Paracelsus, a Swiss physician and alchemist of the 16th century: “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison” (Sola dosis facit venenum).82 //
Eighty percent of modern energy is produced by burning petroleum, natural gas, or coal to turn the turbines inside electricity generators. (See Chart 2.) Running 24 hours a day and seven days a week, a traditional coal, natural gas, or nuclear plant requires about 12.5 acres per megawatt of electricity. By contrast, solar (43.5 acres per megawatt) and wind (70.6 acres per megawatt) arrays occupy vastly more land area and have a much larger negative impact on the local habitat and its environment.93
How do I Select the Right Inrush Current Limiter for My Application?
Inrush current limiters are designed with different characteristics like resistance versus temperature curve to accommodate numerous applications. Because of this, it is necessary to make some calculations based on your system requirements to select the best inrush current limiter for your needs.
If the AC wave is going through its zero value, the current drawn will be very high and exceed the saturation current (Figure 1). In this situation, transformer inrush current protection becomes necessary to keep the transformer functioning properly.
Transformer inrush current wave
Figure 1: A transformer draws inrush current that can exceed saturation current affecting the magnetic property of the core.
Solution to Transformer Inrush Current
What is a practical solution to this problem? One convenient way to limit inrush current in a transformer is by using an NTC thermistor.
A time delay circuit, consisting of a relay and timer, can be employed to take the inrush current limiter out of the circuit as soon as the inrush current has passed through, allowing the inrush current limiter to begin to cool down much sooner. A great example of how this is done can be found at instructables.com, showing how to create this time delay when the inrush current limiter needs a little rest.
Large transformers have a huge current demand when they are initially turned on. This is because, until the magnetic field and inductive resistance builds, they are essentially short circuits. For example, you may have turned on some large tool or appliance and heard an initial large "HUMMMMMMM". That is the transformer say "Ow". The circuit breaker for that outlet might also go "Whoa, what are you doing!"
The transformer above (Avel Y236907 800VA 45V+45V Toroidal Transformer), for example, will try to draw over 100 Amps on the first cycle of 60 Hz Power.
To keep a large transformer from being damaged at turn-on (and to keep it from saying "ow"), or to keep a breaker from popping, you put in an inrush current limiter circuit. This Instructable will detail how to do that.
Collins frets about the politicization of science, but largely conflates science with his own political agenda. //
But don’t expect many mea culpas from Collins about his time at NIH. He offers no apology for funding the harvesting of body parts from late-term aborted babies for medical research. Or for financing research that used gender-destructive puberty blockers on young people. Likewise, he fails to acknowledge his past promotion of the failed Darwinian idea that our genome is swamped with “junk DNA.”
Nor does Collins take real ownership of his most significant missteps during Covid. During the rollout of the Covid vaccines, Collins falsely assured the public that mRNA from the vaccines wouldn’t stay in the body “beyond probably a few hours.” A subsequent study showed that the mRNA could persist in a person’s lymph system some two months after vaccination. Collins’ promotion of misinformation has been memory-holed. So has his emphatic promise in April 2021 that “There’s not going to be any mandating of vaccines from the U.S. government, I can assure you.” A few months later, Collins was praising the imposition of mandates as a “forceful, muscular approach” and demonizing those who didn’t want to take the vaccines as killers on the wrong side of history.
Collins does acknowledge problems with government messaging during Covid and the “collateral damage” inflicted on ordinary Americans by various policies. But he calls the collateral damage “inevitable.”
For many people, his admissions will be too little, too late. //
The most serious flaw is Collins’ core message. He frets about the politicization of science and the growing distrust of claims made in the name of science. He wants to restore public trust in “science” and the experts.
The problem is he largely conflates science with his own political agenda. By the end of the book, it becomes clear that for him “science” has become a convenient club to bludgeon people who disagree with him. //
His “pre-bunking” is entirely one-sided. His goal is to shut down critical inquiry, not cultivate it. //
Collins also suggests listening to people with whom you disagree. Unfortunately, he has spent much of his career doing the opposite.
In October 2020, three distinguished epidemiologists published the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized the government’s lockdown policies. How did Collins respond? Did he convene a meeting with them to hear them out? No, he derided them in private as “fringe” figures and told subordinates: “There needs to be a quick and devastating take down” of their ideas. Collins expresses regret for his “intemperate” language, but says he has “no regrets for the point I made.”
In other words, he really hasn’t learned anything.
It’s precisely because Collins has insulated himself from fellow experts who disagree with him that he finds it so easy to caricature the viewpoints he opposes.
That is not the road to wisdom. It’s a road to folly.
A convicted felon said he was paying the legal fees of Matt Gaetz’s accuser and controlling her. //
Among the many powerful figures in Washington, D.C. opposed to the Gaetz nomination are some who are attempting to thwart it by releasing a report from the House Ethics Committee that will attempt to tie Gaetz to salacious allegations involving child sex trafficking.
The report comes years after DOJ dropped its investigation into the same claims on the grounds that the two central witnesses had serious credibility issues. Yet these are the same two central witnesses the House Ethics Committee has relied on for its critical report of Gaetz—the same report it is leaking to compliant reporters as part of a coordinated effort to thwart his nomination as President-elect Donald Trump’s next attorney general. //
Yet even the DOJ was unwilling to exploit Greenberg’s unsubstantiated claims — apart from leaking them to the press to hurt Gaetz’s reputation. They announced their closure of the investigation in 2022. //
The DOJ decided that the people making the accusations against Gaetz had such massive credibility problems that they could in no way charge him with any crimes. All the House Ethics Committee has done is revive those same accusations from the same unreliable witnesses.
people are sick and tired of people in Washington, D.C., doing nothing as these people tried to destroy the country and getting upset at someone who actually might root out the corruption there.
We don't have a Department of Justice.
We have a Department of Injustice, and that's why you get Matt Gaetz as a nominee. //
ConservativeInMinnesota
4 hours ago
The deep state themselves offer the strongest possible endorsement of Gaetz. By all reports they are in a complete panic. We’re not hearing rallying cries of ‘resist’. That means the deep state fears Gaetz.
Gaetz spent years battling the deep state and knows their ways. Trump only asked for recess appointments from a new Senate leader to get Gaetz in. Trump has carefully chosen Gaetz for good reason.
a new study described by The Daily Sceptic's Environment Editor Chris Morrison shows that the sea ice around Antarctica has actually been increasing since satellite monitoring began in 1979. https://dailysceptic.org/2024/11/16/antarctica-sea-ice-has-slowly-increased-since-1979-science-paper-finds/
Sea ice around Antarctica has “slowly increased” since the start of continuous satellite recordings in 1979 with any changes caused by natural climate variation. In a paper published earlier this year, four environmental scientists further state that any sign that humans are responsible for any change is “inconclusive”. Not of course for mainstream media that have been crying wolf about the sea ice in Antarctica for decades to promote the Net Zero fantasy. Last year there was a reduced level of winter sea ice and this caused the Financial Times Science Editor Clive Cookson to exclaim that the entire area “faces a catastrophic cascade of extreme environmental events… that will affect climate around the world”. //
Thoughts and prayers are also the order of the day for those who set great store in all the coral disappearing. Three years of record growth on the huge Great Barrier Reef put an end to that headliner. Polar bears are just as bad and keep breeding to top up new Arctic highs. Satellites keep discovering vast colonies of penguins in Antarctica, and mainstream media seem shocked into complete silence to report that the eyes in the sky have detected a vast recent plant greening of the Earth. There is a growing trend to debunk any ‘extreme’ weather claim – the great citizen journalist Paul Homewood even writes a book about the BBC’s more egregious climate howlers, every year no less, such is the volume to process. //
Musicman
5 hours ago
Here is a trick question. When did the last ice age end? Most people guess 10,000 years ago. Correct answer: it hasn't. By definition, an ice age is any time there are glaciers on the poles. 10,000 years ago the current ice peaked. It's now waning but no one knows for how long. And the reason it has a special name--"ice age"--is because it's not the norm. Over the last 541 million years or so, Earth has been in ice ages about a quarter of the time, and hotter the other times.
Would we need to adjust in a major way if the ice age ends? You bet. And will need to adjust if the ice age worsens and the glaciers cover Minnesota again. You bet. That's life on planet earth. Our species can survive because we can adapt. We can't control the temperature of the planet.
Liberia gained its independence on this day in 1847. Rightfully claiming its title as Africa’s oldest democratic republic, Liberia gained its independence well over a hundred years before the rest of Africa.
The never-before-colonized nation was founded in 1822 by former slaves and free-born blacks who resettled from the United States. The independence declaration of Liberia was done by its first black governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who later on became the country’s first elected president.
To commemorate their independence day, Face2Face Africa takes you through a list of the presidents of Africa’s oldest democratic republic.
Mélanie Bonis (Composer)
- 21.1.1858, Paris, Île-de-France, France
† 18.3.1937, Sarcelles, Île-de-France, France
Barcarolle For Piano In E Flat Major (Op. 71)
Doni 🤓🏴🏴☠️
@DoniTheMisfit
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I remember when the government decided which jobs were "essential" and which weren't. Politicians on the left, along with their pundits, dismissed the livelihoods of countless families with a callous:
"Oh well, find a new career."
That same indifference resonates with me now in… Show more
celia
@_celiabedelia
Quick question - when 3 million civil servants lose their jobs, can’t pay their bills, taxes, contribute to the economy….how does that HELP the economy?
2:42 PM · Nov 16, 2024. //
Pastor in OKC
14 hours ago edited
As someone who was DoD contractor for years and still does some consulting, let me tell you that the bureaucratic workforce today is lazy and incompetent. Over the last 10 years many quality personnel have retired and some quit because it was not based on merit. In so doing, the contracts I see now are so poorly written and administered it is embarrassing. A purge of federal employees will be good and they get jobs they are more qualified for like fast food. //
anon-x8p1
18 hours ago
When 99% of all government employee political donations go only to Democrats, we have a wretched "spoils system" already in place.
Bust it up and ban all government employee unions.
Sorry, no, you can’t just digitize, share copyrighted books without permission. //
The San Francisco-based Internet Archive has been scanning printed books and distributing them online – without the consent of copyright holders – through a process called Controlled Digital Lending (CDL). The idea is that the Internet Archive can lend readers one digital copy as a proxy for each physical book in its control without violating the law.
That idea has been rejected by US courts, first by Judge John Koeltl from the Southern District of New York in March 2023, and now by Second Circuit Judges Steven J. Menashi, Beth Robinson, and Maria Araújo Kahn.
The appeals court decision [PDF] states, "This appeal presents the following question: Is it 'fair use' for a nonprofit organization to scan copyright-protected print books in their entirety, and distribute those digital copies online, in full, for free, subject to a one-to-one owned-to-loaned ratio between its print copies and the digital copies it makes available at any given time, all without authorization from the copyright-holding publishers or authors?"
The answer from the US justice system so far is no, it's not fair use.
That virus is the implementation of DEI and gender theory in our service academies. This is damaging to the intent of those academies. It's dangerous. It's harmful. And it could cause us to lose a major war. Pete Hegseth obviously understands this. //
Pete Hegseth has been there. He has led men in a war zone. He has smelled the smoke, and knows what it is like to be in a foreign place, to be in danger, to face possible death or maiming - and to have his men look at him and say "Sir, what do we do now?" Making a decision and acting under those conditions is like nothing else in any other field of endeavor. The wrong decision may get the officer and all his men killed, and he may have only seconds to make that decision. Pete Hegseth knows what that is like.
A couple of years ago, Amazon removed the ability to purchase e-books with their flagship Kindle for Android from the Google Play Store. Google implemented a policy that all in-app purchases had to be made using their billing system. Instead of paying Google 30% of each e-book sold, Amazon removed the ability to buy e-books or audiobooks. //
Amazon operates their own Android App store. You can install the Amazon App Store and download the Kindle app if you have a smartphone or tablet. All of the audiobooks and e-books that are available in the store can be purchased. This is because Amazon uses their billing system, the same one that their Kindle e-readers use.
At the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Azerbaijan, attendees are full of dire predictions that the world’s climate will worsen under President-elect Trump. But when Trump fulfills his campaign promises to increase U.S. oil and gas production and removes President Biden’s pause on new liquid natural gas exports, global emissions will likely decline rather than rise.
This is because exports of U.S. natural gas generally displace coal, reducing global CO2 emissions. Even Germany, Europe’s largest manufacturer, is using lignite coal (rather than the less-polluting bituminous coal) to deal with shortages of renewables now that it has closed its nuclear power plants and Russian gas is no longer available.
About 3 billion people in emerging economies lack electricity and running water, and cook over wood and dung. Natural gas power plants would reduce particulates from wood and dung and make the air cleaner. Under President Biden, the World Bank does not make loans for fossil fuel power plants. //
a dramatic increase in American oil and gas production will have a significant effect on prices - even gas we don't export, as these are fungible commodities. And that will make the use of gas-fired power plants more practical, which will incentivize gas rather than coal plants, and will reduce emissions. That's what the climate scolds want, right?
But American exports of coal to Europe have been increasing under President Biden.
In an op-ed posted to Fox News on Saturday, former Mumford & Sons guitarist Winston Marshall put Trump's historic win into perspective -- including with a bit of humor.
The White House, the Senate, the House, the popular vote, a state legislative and mayoral majority, all on top of the Supreme Court majority... George Clooney retiring from politics and late-night TV hosts like Jimmy Kimmel literally crying on television. It's all too good to be true. //
And already, America has a spring back in her step. Ebullience fills the air. Hope rushes its veins. The land of freedom has embraced those qualities that made it great -- aspiration, entrepreneurship, responsibility. The nation’s eyes are fixed upwards once again. Up to Mars. Up to God. What a pleasure it was to witness history being made, and to see our transatlantic cousins back on their feet. //
Alas, this morning I have walked into a parallel universe. Beneath the heavy clouds of Heathrow, I touched down back in Blighty. You see, my country, Britain, today is what America would be if Kamala had won.
Violent criminals released from prison and replaced by Tweeters and Facebook meme creators. Rioters, let alone if they are a protected minority but given the heavy hand if they are indigenous working classes. Crippling taxes against campaign promises.
Full steam into Net Zero [climate] oblivion while protesting farmers roar tractors down Whitehall. And the hapless relinquishing of the Chagos Islands suggests Starmer’s heart is set on making British self-flagellation as public as possible.
All these decisions make sense if one understands the self-hating anti-human globalist ideology behind them.
Casey is unlikely to change the result without counting defective or challenged ballots. Fortunately, law and precedent “does matter in this country.” There are still officials who can transcend their political preferences to maintain the rule of law. After the last presidential election, many Trump appointees ruled against the former president, and many Democratic judges rejected the effort to strip Trump from ballots.
That does not mean that Democrats who value the weaponization of law will not continue to embrace lawfare warriors like New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
Others will use the rage of these times as a license to ignore legal and ethical obligations altogether. They are arguably the saddest manifestation of our political discord. They are people who have not just lost faith in our system but in themselves. They have become untethered from any defining principle for their own conduct. This election has left them adrift in a sea of moral and legal relativism, with only their rage as a following wind. They cling to that rage as reason vanishes like a distant shore.
For the rest of us, there is work to be done as a nation committed to the rule of law. We cannot win at any cost when that cost is the very thing that defines us.