Guest “Make Orwell Fiction Again!” by David Middleton.

David Blackmon is a highly regarded energy and oil industry analyst. His work has often been featured here on WUWT. He is was one of my LinkedIn connections.

Dear LinkedIn: Why Have I Been Suspended? by David Blackmon

https://open.substack.com/pub/blackmon/p/dear-linkedin-why-have-i-been-suspended

While it is possible that someone hacked his account, I think it’s more likely that a ski instructor, pilot/songwriter or some other LinkedIn-recognized energy experts complained about something he posted.

David Blackmon’s Substack is very appropriately titled “Energy Transition Absurdities.”

Republican vice-presidential candidate defends spreading false, racist claims demonizing Haitian immigrants. //

Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”.

Asked by the CNN host Dana Bash whether the false rumors centering on Springfield, Ohio, were “a story that you created”, Vance replied, “Yes!” He then said the claims were rooted in “accounts from … constituents” and that he as well as the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, had spoken publicly about them to draw attention to Springfield’s relatively large Haitian population.

Would-be Donald Trump assassin and leftist tool Ryan Routh apparently arrived at his firing position nearly twelve hours before the Secret Service discovered him on Sunday. Cell phone data indicates that Ryan Wesley Routh arrived at the tree line fence near the Trump International Golf Club at 1:59 a.m. Sunday. The former president's security detail discovered him at 1:31 p.m. //

In the area of the tree line from which ROUTH fled, agents found a digital camera, two (2) bags, including a backpack, a loaded SKS-style, 7.62x39 caliber rifle with a scope, and a black plastic bag containing food. The serial number on the SKS-style rifle was obliterated and unreadable to the naked eye.

The rifle appears to be a Chinese knock-off of the ancient Soviet SKS made by Norinco. The SKS, scope or no scope, is not the rifle, nor does it fire the round (Warsaw Pact 7.62mm x 39mm) needed for reliable shooting at any distance. //

Had he had sufficient skills to avoid sticking the barrel of the rifle through the fence, he could very well have succeeded.

At approximately 1:31 PM, a United States Secret Service ("USSS") Special Agent assigned to the former President's security detail was walking the perimeter of Trump International when the USSS Agent saw what appeared to be a rifle poking out of the tree line. //

Avatar
anon-brte a day ago

A simple sweep with an infrared camera should have picked him up. That's pretty basic tech and not a function of understaffing. Yet another easily preventable situation botched by the SS, which is of course ultimately under DHS Sec Mayorkas and Pres Biden. Meanwhile, the MSM is obsessed with talking about whether Haitian illegals are eating cats in Springfield OH. //

Billy Wallace DoubleXman a day ago

They did secure it, the got the guy who was outside of the course itself

Min Headroom llme Billy Wallace a day ago

No they didn’t. Looking at the aerial map, this was an obvious point of vulnerability, compared to much of the course; it should have gotten special attention. To a significant extent, this is a replay of failing to secure the most obvious rooftop at Butler. The USSS needs some basic site and perimeter skills it either doesn’t have or isn’t choosing to use. //

etba_ss anon-brte a day ago

If the MSM is talking about Haitian illegals not eating cats, we are still winning the argument. The point isn't that they eat cats, that was just the clickbait that got the story going. The point is that tens of thousands of immigrants are being dumped into communities, overrunning them and destroying them. Whether they are eating pets or just raping and pillaging and not eating pets, doesn't make that much of a difference.

Some stories you win by simply getting them covered, even if they are claiming a real problem is not a problem.

Media talking heads like former CNN and current News Nation correspondent Chris Cuomo, who were vociferous about how dangerous, stupid, and corrupt Donald Trump is, are now seeing him through new eyes after not one but two attempted assassinations.

I did not have that on my 2024 Bingo card.

On Monday, Cuomo did an 18-minute monologue about this change of perspective on the matters of this election and on Donald Trump. Cuomo talked about it being his mother's birthday and him asking her what she wants to see in the world. Mama Cuomo insisted that she wished people would come together. That family and community are the linchpins of our society. From there, Cuomo launched into what turned out to be an amazingly thoughtful treatise on what America could be, and what it will take to get there.

I don't know if enough of us believe that anymore. The unique truth about America is that she only works if we tap into our interconnectedness and "interdependentness." Those are big words indicating a simple idea: Here, we have to care about one another. It is our only bond. We don't have homogeneity, we don't have common heritage or even really culture. What we have and what has made our greatness so durable is our ability to combine to magnified effect. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

And the great news is, we have so much more potential in America than I see anywhere else.

Who red-pilled Chris Cuomo? Who knew Fredo could actually reason?

We are so desperate to drag ourselves away from greatness, from progress, from each other. That is what I see that really bothers me, and the reaction and lack of reaction to the second attempt on Trump in the last couple of months. Oh, but the guy didn't even shoot. What if it was your father? Or what if it was Kamala Harris? Or President Biden—God forbid. Do you think it would be almost a shoulder shrug and more talk about the Secret Service and allocation of funds than just how crazy it is that this is what's happening in our country? That reaction of, well, come on, don't make too much of it. He had an AK-47 pointed at him! The reaction is unacceptable, and it's the second time media and political players have gotten away with playing down what should be a cause for panic. //

But the sheer fact that this man who has spent countless hours and years on cable television bashing Donald Trump is now able to put himself in another man's shoes and reach out. "I'm not supporting Trump, I'm supporting us," is a profound statement and in a way, kind of mind-blowing.

This is the difference between debate--even aggressive debate--and censorship. It is one thing to attack Kamala Harris for "destroying the country" and quite another to say that President Trump should be "eliminated." It is one thing to criticize overheated rhetoric, and another to say that a former president has invited an assassination on himself. It is one thing to say that Donald J. Trump's arguments about the election of 2020 are wrong; it is another thing to attempt to remove him from the ballot over it.

It is one thing to say that pets are not, in fact being eaten, and another thing to say that anyone who disagrees is trying to murder people. Dissent, even vigorous dissent, is a great tradition of the United States. Censorship is not.

For the next 7 weeks of this campaign, I will vigorously defend your right to speak your mind. I believe you have every right to criticize me and Donald J. Trump, even if you say terrible or untrue things about us. But when I ask you to "tone down the rhetoric" it's not about being nice--our citizens have every right to be mean, even if I don't like it--or empty platitudes.

Instead, I'm asking all of us to reject censorship. Reject the idea that you can control what other people think and say. Embrace persuasion of your fellow citizens over silencing them--either through the powers of Big Tech or through moral blackmail.

I think this will make our public debate much better. But there's something else. Reject censorship and you reject political violence. Embrace censorship, and you will inevitably embrace violence on its behalf.

The reason is simple. The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being: put a bullet in his brain.

The Israeli spy agency Mossad allegedly intercepted Hezbollah’s shipment of new pagers months ago and rigged them with high explosives — resulting in the stunning attack on the Lebanese terror group Tuesday, according to a new report.

Mossad agents reportedly placed Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), a highly explosive material, inside the batteries of the pagers, sources told Sky News Arabia, according to a translation from the Times of Israel.

The devices were then detonated by an external signal that caused the batteries inside to overheat, the sources added. //

This once again proves the old maxim: There is no problem that cannot be solved with the suitable application of high explosives.

CNN’s Daniel Dale has done the unthinkable. He took aim at @KamalaHQ, the official rapid response page on X for Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. With over 1.3 million followers, the account has a wide reach, and according to Dale, “has made a habit of misleadingly clipping and inaccurately captioning video clips to attack former President Donald Trump.”

The account has been “repeatedly deceptive” and has made “inaccurate comments on multiple occasions,” Dale wrote. And he goes on to detail eight of the account’s most disingenuous posts from the last month.

SpaceX allegedly used an “unapproved launch control room” and “did not conduct the required T-2 hour poll” for the June 2023 Falcon 9 flight for the PSN SATRA Mission, which involved launching an Indonesian communication satellite. In July, SpaceX then allegedly used an unapproved, newly constructed “rocket propellant farm,” or a specialized facility to fuel the EchoStar XXIV/Jupiter mission. SpaceX now has 30 days to respond to the civil penalty.

The proposed fine is raising speculation that the FAA wants to get tough with SpaceX, which is also facing allegations that it violated environmental regulations with Starship rocket launches. Last month, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket also failed to stick its landing, resulting in a fiery explosion. It's unclear what caused the malfunction, but the FAA has cleared the company to continue Falcon 9 flights in the interim. //

Last week, SpaceX also blasted US government regulations for pushing back the next launch of Starship to possibly late November when the vehicle is ready to fly for its next test. “The narrative that we operate free of, or in defiance of, environmental regulation is demonstrably false,” the company said at the time.

In response, the FAA told PCMag it's conducting a more in-depth review of the next Starship flight due to changes made by SpaceX. "In addition, SpaceX submitted new information in mid-August detailing how the environmental impact of Flight 5 will cover a larger area than previously reviewed. This requires the FAA to consult with other agencies," the agency said.

In February 2023, the FAA also fined SpaceX $175,000 for failing to submit pre-launch data to the agency for an earlier Starlink mission. SpaceX later paid the fine in October 2023.

In one of the most unbelievable developments of 2024, Israel somehow hacked into the pagers and cell phones of Hezbollah fighters and caused them to explode. News of hundreds of injuries, including dismemberments broke on Tuesday morning. Shortly after, videos of devices blowing up began to circulate.

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yashar
·
BREAKING via Reuters

Hundreds of members of Hezbollah were seriously wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded.

Here is one video of one of the pager explosions.
0:19 / 0:19
Last edited
9:44 AM · Sep 17, 2024 //

DKnight
an hour ago
I'm thinking this is not some secret code that makes a phone or pager battery blow up.

My best guess is that Israeli intel penetrated the supply chains of phones and pagers shipped to the Middle East and loaded a lot of them with a small explosive. Then they traced the buyers to keep a list of phones and pagers tied to known or suspected Hezbollah members. A call with a certain code causes that small explosive to go off.

Migrate your system to a faster drive using Clonezilla.

BASH: You just said that you're creating a story.

VANCE: We ought to be talking about public policy. [09:15:05]

BASH: Sir, you just said that you're creating the story.

VANCE: What's that, Dana?

BASH: You just said that this is a story that you created...

VANCE: Yes.

BASH: So, the eating dogs and cats thing is not accurate.

VANCE: We are creating -- we are -- Dana, it comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents.

I say that we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it. I didn't create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield, thanks to Kamala Harris' policies. Her policies did that, but yes, we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story and the suffering caused by Kamala Harris' policies.

As my colleague Teri Cristopher chronicled, Kamala Harris has repeatedly used that phrase to describe the former president, presenting him as a dictator-in-waiting ready to end the republic. According to the Trump campaign, that kind of rhetoric has consequences, and they sought to prove that on Monday by dropping a laundry list of statements made by Democrat politicians and media figures.

https://djt.nucleusemail.com/amplify/v/zj98BGQ8cG?hids=Yr6pI5VQ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ncl_amplify&utm_campaign=240916-democrats_rhetoric_inspired_another_attempt_on_president_trumps_life&utm_content=ncl-KPpWgv9bSK&_nlid=KPpWgv9bSK&_nhids=Yr6pI5VQ

When you continually tell people that one man is not just bad for the country, but that he's akin to Adolf Hitler and will put "LGBTQ" people in prisons, that is an invitation for the less mentally stable among us to act. Think about it. If Trump really is the second coming of one of the most murderous figures in world history, then why wouldn't someone try to eliminate him before the election? //

Democrats are so convinced they are righteous among the few, though, that they will say anything at this point. Does that mean that every person quoted above was explicitly calling for Trump to be assassinated? No, but it does mean that they are purposely feeding into something very dangerous. This is the second, not the first attempt on Trump's life. If ignorance was an excuse prior, it's not anymore. //

Liberty Belle
8 hours ago
When you see it compiled together like that, it's even more appalling. And apparently, yesterday, Elon Musk pointed out that no one is taking a shot at Biden or Harris. Which is accurate. That simple factual statement led for calls for his deportment from the U.S., with the hashtag regarding it trending on X. It's maddening.

HOST: But the rhetoric is on both sides, it's coming from the right, it's coming from the left

JENNINGS: The rhetoric, they have tried to kill this man twice. He got shot in the ear, and this guy was setting up shop outside of a golf course to try to kill him this weekend, and I know after something like this happens, it's very fashionable to, you know, talk about rhetoric on both sides.

Donald Trump is the target. He's the current target, and it's happening, and it's happening again, and I just, honestly, we have to have a conversation about elections. If you lose an election, the country is not going to come to an end, okay. What I want Democrats to do, honestly, is to say, it's okay. Like, if Donald Trump wins, democracy will not end, the constitution will not end, we're not going to live in a dictatorship, there will not be a bloodbath. All the things they say are totally fabricated to me, it would be a good day to stop doing that. //

JENNINGS: And I know everybody's talking today about all the rhetoric in this country and what are going to do to fix it going forward. It's too late. Folks, it's too late in my opinion because all of the rhetoric about Donald Trump over the last several years, that he's a threat to democracy, that the country will come to an end if he gets elected president again. You know, even over the weekend, we had people blaming him and JD Vance for a bomb threat in Springfield.

Well, if you have believed that over the weekend, then how could you not believe the rhetoric leading up to today is not somehow responsible that this man has now somehow survived two assassination attempts?

Following the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, a common refrain from the left was that political violence is a "both sides" issue. MSNBC tried that line multiple times, as did some of the major newspapers, with the idea being that you can't call out Democrat rhetoric because Republican rhetoric has caused issues as well.

So what was the evidence for that equivocation being used as a way to deflect from someone trying to murder Trump again? CNN's Dana Bash provided a perfect example of it when she accused JD Vance of inciting "bomb threats" in Springfield, OH.

JD Vance to Dana Bash: "You accused me of causing a bomb threat. Doesn't that mean you should shut up about the residents of Springfield? Don't you realize you're engaged in basic propaganda to silence the concerns of American citizens?" pic.twitter.com/tYFvpZgVKJ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 15, 2024

To be sure, the claim was dubious from the moment it left her mouth. //

Greg Price @greg_price11
·
Gov. Mike DeWine says that all of the bomb threats that were made against Springfield schools were hoaxes and came from overseas.

But we were reliably informed by the media that JD Vance's cat memes were responsible for this

4:29 PM · Sep 16, 2024.
https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1835777987754569960

This service extends security support for old Debian releases up to 10 years. It is an extension of the regular Debian LTS support offer which contributes to security support during the first 5 years and is made possible thanks to the same set of Debian contributors.

To make Extended LTS possible and sustainable, there are supplementary restrictions compared to regular LTS:

• we support only the packages used by the customers
• we provide updates for a limited set of architectures (at least amd64, others can be added on request)
• we support the Linux kernel only with a backport of a newer kernel version

Customers are invoiced twice a year for the amount needed to support their packages.

Calculates the short circuit fault current level of a 3-phase, core type transformer with a Dyn winding connection.

anon-24tf
a minute ago

"Democrats ..., saying they are happy for Harris to say what she needs to say to win."

Well, that tells you everything you need to know about Democrats. Islam calls it taqiyya.

Curtis Houck
@CurtisHouck
·
Follow
CNN's Juliette Kayyem laments this second Trump assassination attempt "could have impacted voters" and "will be used for political purposes" and that's "exceptionally unfortunate"

9:40 PM · Sep 15, 2024 //

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
Follow
Kinzinger: “Look, isn’t it really Trump’s fault that libs keep trying to shoot him?”
Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱
@AdamKinzinger
Look violent rhetoric is wrong, and has no place.

But MAGA pretending they didn’t light this fire is gaslighting to the 100th power. Since Trump showed up our politics has gone to crap.

Literally just accused a group of people of eating our pets.

So stop
6:39 AM · Sep 16, 2024 //

Does any of the above read like anything other than derangement?

But understand, these people don't care about lowering the temperature or returning civility to politics. Their equivocations and deflections serve only their pursuit of power. If Trump being killed helps them, they are fine with that. I know that's a pointed, perhaps controversial thing to say, but why should I assume any differently given their own words? //

Clare Boothe Lucid
43 minutes ago
If a D is attacked or threatened, lefties accuse the GOP of inciting the violence. If an R is attacked or threatened, the lefties accuse the GOP of inciting the violence.
Heads I win, tails you lose //

LDRider
4 minutes ago
Trump = two assassination attempts
Harris = zero news conferences

Pretty much sums up politics today. //

Largo Patriot
3 minutes ago
Don't forget NBC anchor, Lester Holt, who suggested the assassin was motivated by Trump's discussion of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio despite the fact it was residents of Springfield, Ohio who began that discussion. It has been reported that a favorite Democratic talking point is posted on one of Routh's social media accounts - Democracy is on the ballot - and his son said his father hates Donald Trump "like every reasonable person does" but that he's not a violent person. Think about that for a minute. It is reasonable among Democratic voters to hate people they disagree with while blaming MAGA Republicans for political violence. Apparently, not being a violent person doesn't apply when that person has been encouraged by Democrats and the media to believe Donald Trump is a Hitler-like authoritarian who will throw his political opponents in concentration camps and must be kept out of the White House by any means possible. //

jester6
a minute ago
"But MAGA pretending they didn’t light this fire is gaslighting to the 100th power. Since Trump showed up our politics has gone to crap."

I was thinking about som recent conversations with otherwise intelligent anti-Trumpers and realized something. These fools think Trump is the cause of our political schism. It never occurs to them that his rise is just a symptom of our internal problems. And the truly frightening thing is, he is a relatively mild symptom of our internal divisions. If we don't address the reasons someone like Trump can rise in politics, anti-Trumpers might wistfully look back at him someday.

The Secret Service states that former President Donald Trump is safe, after being evacuated from his Trump West Palm Baech golf course in Florida, after shots were fired in the area. //

Gasoline Forever
15 hours ago
This is all the fault of the machine. So many people under 40 are brainwashed and confused and miserable. They have no morals, no spiritual leader, disconnected parents and no hope. They have been fed misery since they started kindergarten and their parents don’t go to church.

Alan BrownSilver badge
Reply Icon
Re: graeme@the-leggetts.org.uk
"Plus also it takes a fairly massive dose of it to do any sort of damage"

The LD50 of paracetamol is 200% of the effective dose - where the effective dose for the average 60-90kg human is roughly 1000mg 4 times in a day. This is one of the closest margins between effective and Uh Oh for any painkiller and the closest for any OTC one.

SolidSquid
Reply Icon
Re: so he scoffed “a huge handful of ibuprofen and acetaminophen”
I'd thought it was difficult to kill yourself with paracetamol, but that it did large amounts of damage to your digestive tract. A quick google tells me I'm wrong on that, but that it is difficult to kill yourself quickly with it. It's your liver that's destroyed by it, it takes 3-5 days for you to die and is incredibly unpleasant since your liver is slowly dying.

Anonymous Coward
Reply Icon
Anonymous Coward
Re: so he scoffed “a huge handful of ibuprofen and acetaminophen”
Actually what I think is "Why is it not sold with the antidote already in it?".

Methionine is the stuff that's needed, in some countries it is compulsory to supply paracetamol with the appropriate percentage included.