The curtains are beginning to close for the A-10 Thunderbolt II (aka Warthog). The United States Air Force is set to retire 56 in fiscal year 2025 (around 20% of the remaining inventory), reducing the number of A-10s in active service to around 200. Meanwhile, the US Air Force has stated it is about to retire the last of its Warthogs based in South Korea, and these will be replaced by F-16 Fighting Falcons (upgraded with fifth-generation-like software).

Jaguar, what have you done?

I appreciate things have not been easy in recent years. That your once sparkling reputation has been tarnished by poor reliability and a garage full of often average cars. That you’ve been traded from one parent company to another with barely a thought for your brand. And that when you landed at Tata Motors you had to face the ignominy of being outshone by sister brand Land Rover. For every Jaguar sold last year they shifted six.

He predicted, “That ratio will disappear completely next year, when Jaguar stops producing or selling anything. For the next 12 months, perhaps longer, the company will make nothing but headlines.”

“Jaguar has rebranded when it needed to revitalize,” Ritson explained. “Jaguar’s bizarre new campaign marks a complete overhaul of its positioning, when instead it should have celebrated and updated what once made it great.”

But, according to Ritson, “Jaguar no longer cares about retaining its current customer base. … The company expects to retain only 10% to 15% of its current customer base. Jaguar will shift its targeting to younger, wealthier, more urban shoppers that the company describes as ‘design-minded’ and ‘cash-rich, time-poor.’”.

Since 2005, one spot in particular — the Solfatara crater — has been releasing increased volumes of gas, catching the attention of researchers and locals alike. //

Even without a major eruption, the Solfatara crater outs out between 4,000 and 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide each and each day. That's roughly the equivalent of burning half a million gallons of gasoline - every day.

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Random US Citizen an hour ago edited

Art is not subjective. That is a post-modern effort to deconstruct the idea of beauty. While there may be differences of opinion about the relative merit of particular pieces of art, anyone with the sense God gave a gnat knows that Mona Lisa is beautiful art, and a banana duct-taped to a piece of art board is not. Blue Boy is beautiful art, Pollocks' random spatters of paint on a canvas is not. Ansel Adams' Yosemite Park is a beautiful photograph, Rhein II is not.

Pretending otherwise is a surrender to the "fat is beautiful" crowd an their efforts to twist both reality and perception. //

bintexas Random US Citizen 32 minutes ago

What about Rubens? Is his art beautiful because it is ethereal or ugly because his interpretation of the female form wasnt svelte?

We believe Mona Lisa is beautiful because we have been conditioned to believe it. I am visiting the Louvre next month and will stand in a long line to take my turn gawking at it because it is just something the Western society has decided we must do. I dont know who decided this, I dont think she is particularly pretty.

I love the French Impressionists. The light and color makes me happy. But, a lot of ppl think it is cliché and I am simplistic in my taste.

Art like beauty absolutely is subjective. If there were only one standard, a whole lot of people would be eternally lonely or dead fighting for the few “perfect” specimens. //

Sam F. Jackson's favorite wor Random US Citizen 34 minutes ago

"Post-modern" and "deconstruction" are made up terms to sound fancy by the kernoozers.

Art and it's appeal should not require long-winded explanations.

The Supreme Court, which dealt a major blow to the power of federal agencies in June, agreed on Friday to consider another: whether Congress violates the Constitution by delegating broad discretion to them.

The so-called nondelegation doctrine has been largely dormant since 1935, when the Supreme Court struck down New Deal laws for granting too much leeway to agencies with insufficient guidance. //

Judge Andrew S. Oldham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit wrote in the majority ruling that deemed the program unconstitutional:

“The universal service contribution mechanism’s double-layered delegation is incompatible with our constitutional structure.”

HBO is doubling down on working with J.K. Rowling on the new Harry Potter series despite complaints of "transphobia" from the neon blue-haired, and mentally ill:

“We are proud to once again tell the story of Harry Potter — the heartwarming books that speak to power of friendship, resolve and acceptance,” the statement continued. “J.K. Rowling has a right to express her personal views. We will remain focused on the development of the new series, which will only benefit from her involvement.” //

WB told the permanently outraged to kick rocks.

That's not a good look if you're the authoritarian crowd who want to keep society under your thumb through guilt and suppression of ideas. This was the WB saying, "our ideas are going to actually be diverse, thanks."

And it truly goes to show something else that the left would rather you not figure out.

In order to defeat evil, you just have to endure as you refuse to move. We've seen constant reminders that when the left comes for you, the worst thing you can possibly do is apologize and back down, because this doesn't appease them. It just tells them you're easier to bully and that they can take their time in destroying you. //

Rowling, and indeed everyone who withstood the social pressure of the transgender movement at the height of its power, has won. While the infection is still here, it's clearly receding. Soon, it will be relegated to the fringes of society, where it belongs.

Retired Professor
2 hours ago edited
Anything that builds public trust is to the good. Only those who have something to hide resist transparency.

It wasnt me Retired Professor
an hour ago
Trump won every State with ID required.
Harris won every State that ID was NOT required. //

Rain or Shine Colorado 2022
an hour ago
If you want public trust, seems 1st step is to trust the public.

and hold violators accountable

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Bjorn Lomborg
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg researches the smartest ways to do good. With his think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus, he has worked with hundreds of the world’s top economists and seven Nobel Laureates to find and promote the most effective solutions to the world’s greatest challenges, from disease and hunger to climate and education.

The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a think tank that researches and publishes the smartest solutions to the world's biggest problems. Our studies are conducted by more than 300 economists from internationally renowned institutions, including seven Nobel Laureates, to advise policymakers and philanthropists how to achieve the best results with their limited resources. 

cupera1 Mike P. 2 days ago edited

About 40 years ago an ASU professor conducted an experiment in Tempe Arizona with orange trees in two greenhouses one was a control and the other he had increased the CO2 level to 3X of what he had in the control, ~1000 ppm of CO2. All other conditions: water, fertilizer and temperature were left the same. The results of that study were astounding. The growth rate and fruit production that the trees in the greenhouse with the higher CO2 was incredible, it was almost double what the control was able to produce. If you look at the production per acre that farmers have experience with the higher CO2 levels is close to matching those results. With the higher CO2 crops are producing more and have a higher tolerance to drought.

anon-f9f0 mopani 2 days ago

Dr. Sherwood Idso wrote many, many articles on this experiment. You might be interested in:
CO2 enrichment of sour orange trees: 2.5 years into a long-term experiment
S. B. IDSO, B. A. KIMBALL, S. G. ALLEN. Plant, Cell, & Environment
Volume14, Issue 3. Pages 351-353
First published: April 1991 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3040.1991.tb01512.x

CO2 enrichment of sour orange trees: 2.5 years into a long-term experiment

S. B. IDSO, B. A. KIMBALL, S. G. ALLEN. Plant, Cell, & Environment
Volume14, Issue 3. Pages 351-353
First published: April 1991

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3040.1991.tb01512.x

Abstract. Eight sour orange trees have been grown from seedling stage in the field at Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A., in four identically-vented, open-top, clear-plastic-wall chambers for close to 2.5 years. Half of the chambers have been maintained at ambient atmospheric CO2 concentrations over this period, while half of them have been maintained at 300 ppm (300 μlmol CO2 per mol air) above ambient. Initially, the trees in each treatment were essentially identical; but in less than 2 years, the trunks of the CO2-enriched trees had become twice as large as their ambient-treatment counterparts. After 2 full years of growth, the enriched trees had 79% more leaves, 56% more primary branches with 172% more volume, 70% more secondary branches with 190% more volume, and 240% more tertiary branches with 855% more volume. In addition, the CO2-enriched trees also had fourth-, fifth- and sixth-order branches, while the ambient-treatment trees had no branches above third order. Total trunk plus branch volume of the CO2-en-riched trees was 2.79 times that of the ambient-treatment trees after 2 fulf years of growth.

Watch the full episode here: Ep. 320 -    • Climate "Science" | Dr. Richard Lindz...  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LVSrTZDopM

so the narrative was the climate is
determined by a greenhouse effect
and adding CO2 to it
increases it causes warming and moreover
the natural greenhouse substances
besides CO2 water vapor clouds upper
level clouds will amplify whatever man
does
now that immediately goes against Le
chatelier's principle which says if you
perturb a system and it is capable
internally of counteracting it it will
and our system is and that
applies so that was a
little bit odd you began wondering where
did these feedbacks come from
and uh immediately people including
myself
started uh looking into the feedbacks
and seeing whether there were any
negative ones or how did it work
but underlying it and this is what I
learned if you want to get a narrative
established
learned if you want to get a narrative
established
The crucial thing is to Pepper it with
errors
questionable things so that the critics
will seize on that and not question the
basic narrative the basic narrative in
this sense was that climate is
controlled by the greenhouse effect
in point of fact the earth's climate
system
which has many regions but two distinct
different regions are the tropics
roughly the minus 30 to 30 degrees
latitude
and the extra Tropics outside of 30
degrees plus or minus
they have very different Dynamics

LTG Donahue refused to open the gates at HKIA despite Marines reporting up the chain of command that American passport holding citizens were trying to get in to evacuate. In addition to the statements from Marines, we had plenty of other evidence of Americans trying to get into HKIA to evacuate.

Donahue was the ground commander who ultimately made the decision to not get those Americans out. We can banter back and forth about security and other critical elements of why he chose to do what he did, but I can’t sidestep or forgive a commander not making every attempt to get those Americans out who were standing at the gate, talking directly to the Marines, and being refused entry.

The other nonsense about the fake photo op of “last boots on ground” that was proven false due to the Air Force load master being the last to get on the airplane and an entire medical unit still being on ground conducting operations well after the evacuation, plus borrowing the equipment from the delta team that was with him to take a cool guy photo, can be shrugged off.

Making an effort to use critical space on the airplanes to take home a Toyota Land Cruiser with a mounted anti-aircraft gun as a war trophy, instead of human beings, or at the very least the dozens of working dogs that were left to die in kennels at the hands of the Taliban, can also be shrugged off.

What I can’t shrug off is leaving American citizens behind in Afghanistan when they were standing at the gates with their passports out pleading with the Marine guards to let them in. He shouldn’t have been allowed to pin on a third star, let alone a fourth. //

Hopefully, this will be more than a blip on the radar, and Donahue's promotion is scuttled. As he was the prime mover in renaming Fort Bragg to "Fort Liberty," it would be more than poetic justice if his upward trajectory ended just as Fort Bragg got its rightful name back.

To be clear, there really are 12 black dots in the image. But (most) people can’t see all 12 dots at the same time, which is driving people nuts.

"They think, 'It’s an existential crisis,'" says Derek Arnold, a vision scientist at the University of Queensland in Australia. "'How can I ever know what the truth is?'" But, he adds, scientists who study the visual system know that perception doesn’t always equal reality.

In this optical illusion, the black dot in the center of your vision should always appear. But the black dots around it seem to appear and disappear. That’s because humans have pretty bad peripheral vision. If you focus on a word in the center of this line you’ll probably see it clearly. But if you try to read the words at either end without moving your eyes, they most likely look blurry. As a result, the brain has to make its best guess about what’s most likely to be going on in the fuzzy periphery — and fill in the mental image accordingly.

""It’s an existential crisis.""

That means that when you’re staring at that black dot in the center of your field of view, your visual system is filling in what’s going on around it. And with this regular pattern of gray lines on a white background, the brain guesses that there’ll just be more of the same, missing the intermittent black dots.

American Majority Action turned out low-participation voters in battleground States to help Trump and fellow Republicans to victory. //

If you want to win the war, you’d better have a good ground game.

It’s taken Republicans a long time to learn that basic truth on the battleground of politics, often through painful losses. But some grassroots conservative groups got it in the latest election cycle, and the armies they deployed in ballot-chasing battles across the seven battleground states appear to have had a pronounced impact on the outcome of this month’s presidential election.

Taking a page from the successful ground game playbook in Florida’s successful 2022 elections, American Majority Action (AMA) developed and launched a blanketing ballot-chasing initiative in four swing states — Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. //

Consultant Shannon Love told the publication there’s “no secret” to the Republicans’ success.

“They do the work. I think that Democrats get caught up in the message and the polls instead of doing the consistent work,” Love said.

‘The DoD IG knowingly concealed the extent of the delay in constructing a narrative that is favorable to DoD and Pentagon leadership,’ the letter says.

It didn't take long for the media to run a hit piece on Chris Wright, who President-elect Donald Trump nominated as his Secretary of Energy. Wright, the founder and CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, a fracking company, was nominated earlier this week; see NEW: Trump Taps Fracking Exec As Next Energy Secretary. Today, Reuters is on the move with a story headlined: Trump energy pick wrote ESG report hailing oil, gas, downplaying climate worry.

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the energy department believes fossil fuels are the key to ending world poverty which, he says, is a greater problem than climate change's "distant" threat, according to a report he penned as CEO of oilfield services company Liberty Energy.

In a corporate report released in February called 'Bettering Human Lives,' Chris Wright said that the energy transition has not begun and that climate change, while a challenge, is not the greatest threat to humans.

Poverty is a bigger threat that can be alleviated with access to hydrocarbons, said Wright, who started a foundation aimed at expanding propane cook stoves in developing countries. //

Wright wrote "the wealthy world has gone beyond over-optimism surrounding the breadth and scalability of a narrow slice of alternative energy and, unfortunately, has rushed head-long into outright obstruction of hydrocarbon infrastructure and production." //

Wright places the welfare of people and communities above scientific grift. He supports what works and is critical of what doesn't and can't work...looking at you, wind and solar. He understands that energy production is inextricably linked to our freedom and prosperity. This bill of indictment against Wright should be read into the Congressional Record ...

In a grotesque display of utter disdain for America and its citizens, MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos wrote an article entitled "Laken Riley's Killer Never Stood a Chance," in which he argues that Jose Ibarra, the violent, remorseless thug who took Laken Riley's life, "apparently had no chance with the judge" who found Ibarra guilty and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

It's the sentencing that seems to have gotten under Cevallos's skin and led to that headline. The judge decided that Ibarra should serve his numerous convictions consecutively and not concurrently, meaning Ibarra will never again be a free man. Deservedly so. Based off that hideous headline, however, it's easy to conclude that Cavallos, and, indeed, MSNBC, think Jose Ibarra should get out of prison someday and live a life of freedom, something that has been denied Laken Riley. //

It's not the merits of the case that's the point here; it's the sentiment of the media as embodied by MSNBC and that sick headline that's the true story. Illegal alien Jose Ibarra, though undeserving, got the very best of the American judicial system, and he received the verdict he so richly deserved. But MSNBC's takeaway is that the U.S. is not doing nearly enough for the illegals who are wreaking havoc on our society.

As this article's own headline says, the media hates you far more than you hate them. //

This crime should never have happened. Jose Ibarra should have never been here, and Laken Riley should be, at this very moment, getting ready to spend Thanksgiving with her loving family. Shame on MSNBC for their terribly bad take.