Saturday, November 21, 2015

Gaslighting must be coming from the top

Given the Instapundit link here, one can see how unfairly the Democrats treated George W. Bush.  Check out the links. ( I haven't yet, but I remember the time very well.  ) Now they are trying to hide behind Bush.  The video below asks why the current crop of GOP candidates for the highest office don't talk more like Bush.  I haven't detected a difference that makes any difference.  All the current candidates were talking about "radical" Islam.  None of them were condemning Islam per se.  But that is how it is being misrepresented.  Now THAT is gaslighting.



If anything, the ad is trying to leave the impression that there's no such thing as radical Islam.  It's all in your head, folks.   Don't you know those guns that were fired by the freakin' fairy godmother?  Those bullets could not have come from radical ISLAMIC terrorists, now could they?

This is a fraud.  The DNC has to know that not one of these soundbites equated ISLAM per se with terrorism.  Not a single one.  It INCLUDED Islam because that's what those people were, and they were doing the killing in the name of their so-called caliphate.

The actual truth is what is being concealed here.  If Islam really is about peace, why do they allow these guys to operate in their own countries?  Why are they the only religion that I know of that murders people as one of their rights?  They claim the right to jihad, you know.  Jihad means holy war.

If anything, the candidates are really quite modest in what they say against Islam.  But it is being equated with across the board condemnation of all Muslims.  What exactly are the gaslighters trying to hide from the public?  The true nature of Islam?


You aren't gaslighting if you're nuts

The left might be excused then and can honestly plead insanity, cuz that's the way it looks to yours truly.

We can be generous to our inferiors and treat them humanely, but it would be just as crazy if you treat them as equals, which they are not.

The left isn't equal because they believe that:
  • Bruce Jenner really is a girl
  • equality is for all people, just not for themselves cuz they are special snowflakes
  • Homosexuals can marry and still be Christians (as if that really mattered to them)
  • Homosexuals were born that way, and therefore aren't responsible for their behavior
  • All religions are equal, except Christianity.  Christianity is just superstition.
  • All races are equal, except white people, who are especially evil
  • Climate change is more of a threat to national security than terrorism.  Even though terrorism exists today, and the Earth's climate isn't due to change for decades yet ( if at all).
  • Climate change causes terrorism.  Terrorists aren't poor.  Osama bin Laden wasn't.  ISIS isn't.
  • Climate change is caused by human activity.  Climate can change without our help.  We couldn't change the climate if we tried.
and so on and so on.  To put it succinctly, they're not equal cuz they're nuts.

They'll say that this is fascism and bigotry.   They'll do that while proclaiming their own superiority and won't even have the snap to understand their own hypocrisy.

Arguing with liberals is like arguing with a child.  It is totally futile, and besides, once these kids gets put in their place, they'll pitch a fit.  You never lower yourself to the level of the child.

So called conservatives are afraid to do anything about this because they are scared to death of these monsters.  There may be a rational basis for such thinking.  But it is a bit weak to give in to fear.  It may be rational to fear the inevitable rage that is on the way if you do what is necessary, but you're going to have to suck it up if you want to improve the situation.  That's cuz the left is gone way beyond reason.  They're way off in cloud cuckoo land.


A few lessons on how to play "I'm Your Captain" on the gitfiddle

I started to learn to play this once upon a time, but didn't get far.  The reason being that I cannot listen to something and just repeat it.  I needed the materials, but the materials provided weren't thorough enough, or I wasn't good enough to reproduce what was on the sheet music.  Whatever the reason, don't remember why exactly, but I never learned to play this song.

Funny thing, it's not that hard.  But then again, once you know something, it isn't hard.  It's just hard when you're beginning.

It helps to have formal lessons, but I didn't opt for that, but one time.  A guy taught me to play the opening to "Stairway to Heaven".  Another popular song that isn't all that hard, but the sheet music ( or something that was my fault ) prevented me from learning the entire song.

I think these videos can get somebody over the hump, and you can actually play the song.

Here's the first:



Now this dude really does leave out something.  He left off a short solo portion that leads into the finish to the song.  This next video supplies that, and it is also features a full play along with the song performance.  He doesn't try to sing it, though.  Nor supply any of the other instruments.  For that, the song is played in the background.

The next video:



With these two videos, you can try your hand at being a guitar hero.  Woo-hoo!


This would be an example of Gaslighting, but perhaps not

Free Republic

When I read this Salon piece, the dude is saying many things I've written right here on this blog.  So, as I'm reading it, I am amazed how it is just like the gaslighting phenomenon I wrote about just yesterday.  Except one thing, I would say that it is a perfect example.  Basically, the author is saying that the conservatives, who gathered to hear Cruz, are crazy.  You'd think then, that he is making up this stuff, in which case he would be gaslighting.  But then the thought occurred to me:  what if the author really believed it?  Then he would just be mistaken, and not a liar.  In order to gaslight, one has to be a liar.  If one believes what one says, he cannot be lying.  He is just wrong.

So, how is this author merely wrong, and not gaslighting?

He calls Christians the following:

despite the fact that American Christians are the most entitled and privileged people in the history of the planet, many feel persecuted

I have to take exception to that.  If the author really believed what he is saying, he would have to believe that whatever Christians got, it was by immoral and illegal means.  Or unjustly.  So, where's the injustice?  For a liberal, everyone is equal.  But what about merit?  What about one's ability to get ahead based upon the ability to do things that others cannot?  That's not privileged, that is earned.  It is definitely not immoral, but quite moral and correct. Basically, he is saying that American Christians haven't earned their positions.  Well, thanks a lot, pal.

Secondly, in the Middle East, Christians are being slaughtered.  Sounds like real persecution to me.  What's the difference between over there and over here?  Only distance.  If we have a government that is sympathetic to the people who do these things to Christians over there, how long will it be before they start doing it over here?  We've already had the 9.11 atrocity.  What more does this guy need?  There's real persecution, in the Middle East, and elsewhere in recent history.  In the former Soviet Union, Christianity was against the law.  It was banned.   Persecution isn't imagined.  It's a real possibility, even here.

Thirdly, I don't sense that Christians are being persecuted here and now in America.  This is a false accusation.  Christians are losing their preferred place in America, ( according to Obama, America is no longer a Christian nation ) and that's a shame.  Evidently, the author has a problem with Christianity.  Perhaps the author would like us to become Mohammedans.  If you don't believe Christianity is better than Islam, then what does that make you?  Mohammedans?  Perhaps not, but not Christian either.  Once again, liberals believe everybody is equal.  They may claim that they don't think one religion is better than the other.  And they may truly believe it.  However, to believe that, one has to swallow down the lies of the far left and the Mohammedans themselves.  Christianity is based upon the truth.  There's no truth in what the left peddles, nor the Mohammedans.  The author is most likely an atheist posing as a Christian.

Note that the author doesn't identify as an atheist.  He seems to identify as a Christian.  He cannot be truly Christian if he believes that all faiths are equal.  Jesus Christ said he was the truth and the way.  You have to believe that in order to be a Christian.  The prophet Mohammed doesn't fit into that picture.  The prophet Mohammed taught that Jesus was not the way.  The far left doesn't believe in either religion.  They are atheists.

The author wants people to believe his authenticity, and maybe he is sincere.  If he isn't sincere, then he really gaslighting after all.  He is telling the Christians that they are crazy to feel persecuted, even when nobody is claiming persecution YET.  I think he believes his own bravo sierra, and is ignorant about the faith that he is criticizing.  I went down the same road myself.  I wasn't lying.  I was just wrong.


Friday, November 20, 2015

Goldman eyes $20 oil as glut overwhelms storage sites

Free Republic

Saudi Arabia is the low cost producer of oil.  They can still make money on $20 oil.  The fracking industry cannot.  This is going to increase dependency on foreign oil.  It may seem good at the moment, but this is going to drive a lot of producers out of the market.

This is why you need clean coal.  It is cheaper than oil, and we have plenty of it in America.  America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.

The far left will oppose it, but by doing so, they are enabling the terror masters, and harming the US.


Tech problems with "smart phone"

Since we are all into using scare quotes in order to indicate doubt, I am going to express some doubt about how smart these phones really are.  If they are so doggone smart, how come they are malfunctioning so often?

I've spent hours, maybe even the better part of the day getting this phone to work properly.

Perhaps I could consider another phone?  This is my second "smart" phone.  I replaced the first one when it didn't want to work.  That one lasted nearly two years.  This one hasn't lasted three months.

It seems to be working at the moment.


Gaslighting Gang

It's not just Democrats, I suspect.  We are told WE are nuts because we see what we see and say what we see, but the gaslighting gang says "Islam is the religion of peace".  Bravo Sierra.  Islam must be held accountable for what is happening.  It's their problem if they really are peaceful, and mean us no harm.  They should police their violent brethren, or we should hold them responsible.  We are not being paranoid nor excessively fearful for doing so.  It is called "gaslighting" when you are told that you are crazy for having some respect for the truth.  That last part was one I threw in.  I suspect that our civilization does not have the respect for truth that it should have.  Maybe it's because many in the leadership are telling us that it is crazy when it's the truth.  We trust our leadership too much when we start to doubt our own eyes, ears, and mind.


Greenpeace on clean coal

If you notice, the phrase "clean coal" is often used to write about clean coal.  Why the quote marks?  To instill doubt about the cleanliness of the coal, and to bring opprobrium upon the term.

Read the article linked, and understand that Greenpeace really believes windfarms are the solution to our energy needs.  Never mind that windpower isn't 100% available and kills birds.  Not to mention that it is an eyesore and makes a lot of noise.  These reasons are given for the NIMBY attitude expressed by some folks with respect to windfarms.

The end result is that NO ENERGY will ever be permitted.  Obviously, this is not a viable position.  But for the purposes of this article, Greenpeace will at least accept windpower ( for now ).  Even it they did so, and enthusiastically, it isn't good enough.

As for clean coal, Greenpeace needs to study their science a bit more.  Nothing goes back that wasn't there previously.  If they take "dirty coal" out of the ground, and put it back, then how are things any worse than before?  It has the same stuff in it.


Obama administration shuts down Bush’s ‘clean coal’ project (Feb 2015)

The Hill

This looks suspicious to me.  Hardly any of the money was spent even though it was authorized.

The article was written to look like it was a measure intended to save taxpayer money.  More than likely, the writer wasn't probing very deeply into the story.  Nobody on the left likes coal, so this wasn't something that was going to cause them to shed any tears over it.  They could always blame Republicans.  The key is that the money wasn't spent.  Why not?

It was to be a clean coal demonstration plant that would have shown how to make low carbon emissions work with coal.  The left wing mantra is that coal is too dirty.  We cannot have any such thing as "clean coal" according to the left.  The truth is that they don't want coal to succeed, so they won't spend the money even though it was authorized.

It was also a Bush administration initiative.  Politics, plain and simple.


The ancient Egyptians knew how to make methanol

Why can't we do that now?

As I wrote in an earlier post, clean coal technology is nothing really new.  It is the destructive distillation of hydrocarbons, whether such hydrocarbons are coal, or biomass.  The destructive distillation, called pyrolysis, is carried out in the absence of oxygen, so little to no carbon dioxide is formed.  Instead, the hydrogen is driven out.

You can take the hydrogen and make ammonia, if the goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  Or, the goal could be to make methanol instead, which can also be used in an internal combustion engine.  The downside to methanol, if carbon dioxide emissions are to be limited, is that it will produce that.  The possibilities are varied enough, though, that a number of strategies can be employed, which is an upside.  The biggest upside would be energy independence.   That would be bad news for oil exporting nations, which do not like us very much.

Methanol can used in flex fuel vehicles, which now are limited to ethanol.  Why the limits?  If carbon dioxide can be limited, what's the excuse then?

The excuse would be that clean coal isn't really clean.  But, how is it any dirtier than what came out of the ground anyway?  Simply put it back, and you are no worse off than before.  Most of the same stuff that was there will still be there.  More likely though, what goes back into the ground will be "cleaner" than what it was when it was taken out.

Policy makers are too addicted to oil.  Break the addiction and break the back of terrorist sponsoring states.  It would be hard for the left to oppose this.  That's why the GOP ought to embrace it.


Thursday, November 19, 2015

Dick Morris is leaning too hard towards Trump

Morris wants to go gung-ho with the military.  I don't think the military is necessary.  Not that bombing them like Trump says would be such a bad thing.   It's just that bombing them is something that can wait until after he's in office.  He can defer what he will do until the time he gets there, if he does get there.  Morris is all for Trump now, it seems.  But Trump doesn't get the political nuances down pat, which Morris is overlooking.  The left wing is already working on Trump, trying to get him to make political mistakes.  At some point, Trump is going to say something he shouldn't.  Maybe he already has.  So far, it hasn't hurt him too much, but it could end up disqualifying him, or making him unelectable.

Trump's idea of a wall could do a lot to keep out the bad guys.  He could just mention that France doesn't have his type of fence.  He doesn't have to answer all the questions that the left throws out at him.  Or any of their questions for that matter.  They are asking him gotcha type questions in order to harm him politically.  He's not handling it the way he should.   He ought to ask them:   "Who's side are you on?"  And then remark:  "Looks like the bad guys' side".

Trump should own this race now.  He's not pulling away.   Probably not a good sign for him.


Obligatory, 11.19.15; Perfection as an enemy of the good

When it comes to war, the measurement of a policy should be its effectiveness, not its intentions.  If the intention is energy independence, one must measure the effectiveness in reaching the goal as to whether or not it will work.

Clean coal will work, technically.  The reason that it may not work would be in the politics of implementing it.  The far left has a substantial number of people convinced that it is still too dirty.  Clean coal may still have some issues, but these issues are manageable.  In other words, it can be an effective way toward the goal of energy independence, but it isn't perfect.

Nobody has discovered the perfect means of energy.  All known energy sources have their costs of some kind.  If no perfect means of energy production is ever found, we will be at the mercy of the Islamic Jihadists.  We won't have a relatively peaceful way of fighting back.  That relatively peaceful way would be an economic type of war that I mentioned in an earlier post.  That is, if that means of way is rejected too, because it isn't perfect.

We are subsidizing the Muslim enemy.  Time to stop subsidizing them.  If they are truly the strong horse that Osama bin Laden believed the world will follow, they would find another way to power their civilization.  If we can't power ours without them and their energy resources, which at the moment is oil, they will enslave us all.  Our biggest enemy, then, is the left wing's insistence upon perfection.  It is perhaps beyond our reach.  The left's insistence upon perfection in energy production is truly the enemy of the good, if you believe that the Western way of life is better than the Islamic way.


Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Mid day break, 11.18.15; The Islamic Jihadists are outsmarting the Western Leaders

Why did they do this attack?  Because they knew what our response would be.  Our response is to do either of the following:
  1. Pretend that it didn't happen.
  2. Or, to acknowledge what happened, but respond ineffectually.  Afterwards, forget that it happened.
As with number 1, there was a story about how the 9.11 atrocity was being flushed down the memory hole.  And, since Bush won in Iraq, we elected Obama, who promptly set about negating that victory, and implementing number 1.

Bush's invasion was a mistake, but he did achieve a victory.  It was a ruinous victory, though.  It ushered in an Obama presidency.  What Bush should have done was to keep the far left marginalized.  Since Bush had initially very large popularity ratings at the beginning of the War on Terror, he had the far left marginalized by definition.  When the body bags started arriving, he began to lose that political capital.

He should have done what Carson suggested with respect to energy independence.  Yes, Bush was for clean coal, and oil production, but the increasingly unpopular war made it harder for him to advocate this type of policy.

Instead of energy independence, we get Obama, who, if he had his way, would end fracking, and put all the coal industry out of business.  We get windmills and solar panels, but these aren't going to make us energy independent.

So, after 14 years, the War on Terror still goes on.  The Islamic Jihadists attack, and we are arguing over the use of military force.  This isn't a very intelligent response.  Most likely, we may get a re-run of the Bush presidency, or another term for the far left.  Either way, and we are just sinking slowly into abject failure.

The Jihadists can use only a small amount of resources in order to make us spend ourselves under the table.  Not only that, they can exploit the divisions between the two sides and we will quarrel amongst ourselves.  If we were smart, we could reach a consensus that would defeat them for good.  Energy independence would hurt them and help us.  What's not to like?


Pulling the wool over our eyes

This world affairs article ( h/t Transterrestrial Musings ) gives me the impression that we are being lied to about what France is doing about the recent terrorist attacks.  The article appears to be saying that the military ops are mostly toothless.  Not only that, but it was an attack on a country carrying the banner of the cross, which is a Christian reference.  In other words, it is an attack on Christianity itself.  Here they are, letting in more Muslim invaders ( refugees ), and letting an enemy attack Christianity on its own soil.  The usual suspects aren't telling us these fact, but saying something a bit different.  Like Holland is being "merciless", and the terrorist attacks differed from the Hebdo attacks in that it was without motivation.  We are being lied to.


Quick post, 11.18.15, Presidential politics 2016

I'd rather not follow the horse race aspect of the race.  But one notices who is leading and who is dropping out.  Trump on top, still.  Jindal is out.

Carson is having some difficulties.  Trump may be leading, but he isn't sewing it up.  It's still up for grabs.

One thing about Trump:  I think he makes too many unforced errors.  The story about a Trump Cruz ticket is another example.  Of course, it is only my opinion, but Cruz doesn't "balance" the ticket.  Who would balance the ticket better than Cruz?  The guy who is opposite, but not incompatible with Trump.  Don't want to speculate on who that is, but Trump is said to like Cruz because he is in agreement with him 100%.  If that's a correct story, then it indicates to me a lack of understanding of politics.  Trump has to unite all the factions of the party, and he won't do that by nominating a clone of himself.

Trump probably won't be the nominee.  But if he is, he probably won't win the general election.




Obligatory, 11.18.15; The beat goes on

An interpretation of the sixties song by Sonny and Cher:  What's it about, I think, is the irresistible movement of time, and our place within it.   Time moves us along from birth to death.  Things inevitably happen in the due course of time.  In time, you will be tested in various ways, in a type of trial by fire.  During these trials, you will discover what you are made of.  The answer may inspire you, or sadden you.  The choice of how to take this knowledge is yours.  If something about you needs to be improved, you can choose to improve it-- or not.  You can choose to rise above that weakness, or give in to it, if that is what you are made of.  In time, you will discover this truth for yourself.  Life is a quest for that knowledge.  Everyone must go on this quest, as time will force you into this trial, whether you wish it to or not.  The beat goes on.

Sonny Bono may not have had exactly this in mind, but that is I how I will interpret it.


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

The problem ain't so much Obama being weak

The problem is that the GOP lets him get away with giving us the finger.

For those who claim this:  who is being convinced that Obama is weak?  Democrats?  If Obama walks away from this, who looks weak?  That's from our domestic perspective.  From the terrorists' perspective, we all look weak.  The terrorists will think:  "They can't stop us".  That's the bottom line, as far as results go.  Even if the GOP would stop them if they could- since they won't stand up to the Democrats, they won't get the chance to stop the terrorists.  The unspoken domestic message is that the GOP is the weak horse as far as the voters are concerned.


Why the open borders crowd are wrong ( and they know it )

What did the French leader do after the terrorist attack in Paris?  He shut the borders.  Why would he do that?  Surely, open borders would not allow terrorists to take advantage of that fact and cross the border, with guns no less, and start killing people.  Of course he knew that they could cross with guns, that's why he shut down the borders.  People ought to ask why he didn't shut them down the first time and keep them shut down.

But if you close down the borders, wouldn't that interfere with commerce?  Why, yes it would.  So, they have to choose between money and life, and they choose the money.  But they'll never admit that.  Precious snowflakes cannot handle truth like that.  It's just so mean to say it.

Kinda reminds me of gun-control here in the US.  You've got these gun-free zones and the bad guys can go into these zones and start killing people.  Now, if you had armed guards around the periphery of the zone, the bad guys might think it a bit too dangerous to try to sneak in.  In case they did, armed people on the inside still won't have to die.  Nope.  They can defend themselves.  But these truths cannot be uttered to the snowflakes.  It might hurt their feewings.  All those guns reminds them that the world is dangerous.  But it can't be!  How can precious snowflakes live in such a world!


Obligatory, 11.17.15; Terrorism won't stop no matter who is elected

It looks like Time magazine is backing up Bernie Sanders in his claim that climate change causes terrorism.   One would think that the only thing you could do if you disagree would be to vote for the GOP candidate.  That's because, for all intents and purposes, Hillary isn't going to be any different from Sanders on the issue.

However, the GOP candidates aren't addressing climate change.  Why?  None of them believe it.  But that is not a good enough reason not to address climate change.  I am of the opinion that neither side of the political spectrum is much interested in addressing the solutions to this issue, an issue which coincides with where the terrorism problem is originating in the first place.  It originates in our addiction to oil, which is largely supplied by the facilitators of terrorism.  We can break that addiction, and punish the facilitators because we have a potential solution to that problem if we were to use the lowest cost form of energy now available, which is coal.  America is the Saudi Arabia of coal.

The claim will be that coal is too dirty, but that isn't correct.  Coal can be cleaned up.  Since energy can clean up any form of chemical pollution, then what better alternative is there than coal which is the cheapest form of energy available?

Any form of chemical pollution can be cleaned up with enough energy because chemical pollution is just chemistry.  And coal is just chemistry, too.  Not to mention that it is cheaper.  Since it is cheaper, it can replace oil, which we use to power our economy.  In the bargain, we get richer, while our enemies go bankrupt.

While we break their economies, we just may get better behavior out of them.  If not, at least they are less capable of causing trouble.

You'd think the GOP would advocate that, just to distinguish themselves from the Democrats.  But if they are, I haven't heard anything about it.  Therefore, terrorism will still be funded through our addiction to oil from the Middle East, who are the main culprits behind the scourge of terrorism.


Monday, November 16, 2015

How to fillet a Catfish

That's a big fish.  I don't expect to be able to grow anything this big.  Indeed, it may not be possible to raise catfish at all out there.  People may look at you in awe if you can raise catfish in the desert without any well water.  Of course they would.  That's cuz it probably can't be done.


Snooze you lose

I have suspected that there are plenty of ways that already exist which could bring the hydrogen economy into being.  But none of them have been implemented.

Fact 1:  The molten-salt reactor.  This is technology proven in the lab by a Manhattan Project scientist.  It was never commercialized.  This has been a long term gripe by yours truly.

Fact 2:  Clean coal technology.  Not that the clean coal tech is new, either.  Actually, the processes that clean coal tech uses have been around for a very long time.  What that tech is is simple pyrolysis.  Pyrolysis removes the hydrogen from the coal instead of burning it.  The energy needed for the pyrolysis is but a small portion of the total amount of coal.  The rest of the coal is heated in the absence of oxygen, and that heat drives out the hydrogen in the unburnt coal.  The resultant gas can be burned cleanly without carbon dioxide.  Pyrolysis was known even by the Pharoahs.

Fact 3:  Just came across a pdf file that describes a catalyst that removes hydrogen from methane.  Once again, this yields clean hydrogen.  Perhaps it is being used in modern pyrolysis processes in order to make them more efficient.  But this pdf file is fifteen years old.  Why hasn't it been implemented in a commercial process in order to make hydrogen from natural gas?

It looks like a pattern.  Somebody invents a new process, but it doesn't get commercialized.  One may ask, why not?  Or conclude that there must have been something wrong with it.  But what if the only thing wrong with it is that it works?  It's like the Tiberius Syndrome that I've discussed before.

I write this because Instapundit says there's a new way to make hydrogen from water.  Oh?  Maybe fifteen years from now, nobody will know about it because it never got to market.  Somebody in a high place will stop it.  That what I meant by Tiberius Syndrome.  The Roman Emperor Tiberius had a man beheaded for discovering how to mine a new metal that we now know as aluminum.

In case you think I am being too negative, consider this:  The Romans also knew how to make a steam engine, but they never commercialized it.  They had slaves.

We have a dysfunction in our society.  We need to focus on fixing that even more than finding these new discoveries that may get forgotten about because nobody upstairs cares about them very much.  Nero fiddled while Rome burnt.  These days, they hold candlelight vigils for the victims of terrorist attacks.  Our "leaders" want to look good while the society burns down around them.

The people can change the leadership if they wake up in time.  We need the kind of leaders that won't fiddle around.  Just thought I'd let you know, you little snowflakes.


Bobby Jindal Offers Chris Christie A 'Participation Ribbon And A Juice Box'

When I read about that the first time, I did a double take.  What's this "juice box"?  It seemed a bit, shall we say, strange.  It is just a orange juice or something they give to a kid for a nice try.  I thought about that, and I thought, you know, something sounds wrong about this.  What's the point here?

I think Jindal is being like Yoda, when he tells young Luke Skywalker to do it or not do it, there is no "try".

We seem to be too satisfied with mere effort.  But effort is meaningless without the will to succeed.  You can "try" all day long, but never succeed.  Oftentimes, somebody can "try" without making any real effort at improvement.

Vincent Bugliosi ripped the prosecutors in the OJ Simpson case back in 1995.  I think that is a real life example of a "try" without any real intention to succeed.  Bugliosi didn't say it that way, though.  But what he did say can be summed up as pretty much the same.

Other examples?  The GOP "tries" to oppose Obama.  But they don't try very hard.  Romney "tried" to beat Obama in 2012, but he seemed to go "beanbag" on us.

Raising Catfish Off grid style

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[Note: This post will go into the food subseries of the off-the-grid main series of posts.]

I saw one of those aquaponics videos and may well have it in this subseries somewhere.  One of those videos featured a cart that had a tank full of fish below, and vegetable garden above.  It looked like a pretty neat miniature farm.  Is it possible for me to do that?  Let's see what it would take.

First, for some research.  I start looking around for some videos to educate myself.  Here's a good one, maybe.

Links:  Pond Boss Magazine

This looks like an interesting info source.  It is something of a disappointment that catfish prefer grain.  I was thinking of feeding them crickets and earthworms.  However, it looks like this is about open ponds.  I'm more interested in a closed container type of arrangement.




Catfish Farming in the South

This is about 30 minutes of information, so be prepared for a long video.  It is about commercial catfish farming, which is not what I'm interested in.

I'm a little disappointed in their rate of growth.  It seems that a catfish growing from fingerling size to food size will take a year or so.  I can review the video again for that information, as it is in there.  Also, the yield expectancy per acre may tell something about what to expect.
**************
Preliminary conclusions:

The above doesn't look all that economical to grow by yourself.  Consider that it takes more than 8k per acre capital cost and 5k pounds, that's well over a buck a pound per year.  It can sell for more than that of course, but still.  In my own case, I would have to obtain fingerlings and then grow them out.  How much to grow, and thus how much to pay for fingerlings?  If they cost too much, it doesn't make sense.

Doing a little arithmetic gives about 1300 square feet to make 6 oz. of catfish per day.  I'm thinking of adapting these ideas to the tanks I plan to build.  Build them inside the quadrangle, and have the veggie gardens in the greenhouses surrounding it.  The tank cannot be that deep, because there isn't much water.

It would be a challenge.  Maybe too big?


The Long Goodbye

Or is it Hello?  Whatever it is, I'm not working again.  I just about decided to go back, but I changed my mind when I bent over to pick something up.  Uh, oh!  There it was again, that same back pain that I've had for the last year.  It seems that one gets used to a thing, but there's no doubt that this isn't getting any better.

But I'm hoping that it gets better than what it is.  It may be good enough to work, but that would be pushing myself.  Perhaps I should back off a bit, hence the day off.

While taking the day off, I started rummaging through all the old stuff I've found in the place.  Stuff that I had forgotten about.  I even found instructions on how to use the slide rule I had in high school.  Wow.  The slide rule may still be around, but if it is, it is hidden somewhere.

The "Long Goodbye" was the title of some story in the "Holodeck" of the USS Enterprise.  You know, Star Trek, the Next Generation.  Maybe that was the name of it the story on the Holodeck.  It was something like that.  It may be in the movie First Contact, as there was a scene in which the Captain was talking to "Nicky, the Nose".

Anyway, I'm using that as the title of this post because the thought of that ran through my mind as I was throwing out the old stuff.  In a way, I'm saying goodbye to my past, and hello to the future.  It is a long goodbye because there's a lot of stuff that is reminding me of all the years gone by.

Are you bored yet?  I thought so.  Enough of this nonsense.  Note:  It was the "Big Goodbye", not the Long Goodbye.  Maybe that's the title of something else I'm mixing up with Star Trek.


To do list for the ranch, 11.16.15

High priority, and should be accomplished on next trip:
  1. See if a dolly can scape off dirt and vegetation down to 4 inches.  This technique is being proposed so as to prep an area for a greenhouse.  Bring all the old dollies I have.  One way to dispose of them and have some use for them.
  2. Find the last boundary marker.
  3. Want to check the shack and see how it held up after 7 months.  Original idea was to use shack to store stuff.  Downsized it in order to simplify task.  Could be larger, considering enlargement.
  4. Test the drilling methods I didn't test on an earlier trip.  May want to use the technique to make concrete anchored posts.
  5. I brought a barrel out there, and it is now full of crap.  I need to get the crap out of it in order to use the barrel.
None of these items should take all that much time, nor require a lot of heavy, physical labor.  Therefore, I can probably get all this done in one day.   Number one shouldn't take more than an hour.  Number two, the same.  Number three could take less than five minutes.  Number four shouldn't take much time.  Most of the time would be to set up the drill.  Number five could take an hour or so.   If I don't get bogged down on any of these, all of this could be completed in less than a day.

Other things

Low priority, and therefore can be deferred to some future date:
  • Dispose of some junk:  Want to use it to burn off the excess paper junk that I have.  Short list of junk: Maybe five large boxes of paper junk.
  • Other junk not necessarily to burn:  Maybe five boxes of books I don't need.  Still got electronics to get rid of.  Old stereo.  Old vcrs.  Computer desks.  Might be able to recycle the desks and end tables.  Two recliners.  Old chest of drawers.  Various boxes of unspecified junk.
This post is now ready to go in the general subtopic of the main series of posts in the off-the-grid series.

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Obligatory, 11.16.15; Sanders and climate change- terrorism link

CBS News

quote:
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders doubled down on the link between terrorism and climate change Sunday in defense of his stance that global warming presents the greatest national security threat to the United States.
comment:

Some of what he says seems to jibe with what I have written here on this blog.  But does that mean that I support Sanders or agree with him?  No, and I'll explain why.

It is interesting that Sanders mentions that people migrate to the big cities where they are subject to propaganda.  If it weren't for that, left wing politicians would have a tougher time getting elected.  In other words, the modus operandi that Sanders accuses the terrorists of - is the same one that the left uses itself, and Sanders is a Socialist.

In the US, all the blue regions are in, or near, the big cities that Sanders is talking about.  Whether Sanders realizes or not, he is making a strong indictment against left wing politics.  How this helps him is not very clear.  But it doesn't help is rival, Hillary Clinton, either.   They are both one and the same on the type of issues that the left advocates- for instance, man-made climate change.

But Sanders makes sense when he says too many people are migrating to the cities, where there are no jobs for them; thus presenting something of a problem.  What he doesn't do is to advocate anything that would actually help solve the problem that he claims exists- man made climate change.  He would be a far more interesting candidate if he advocated a return to homesteading in the United States.   There's a lot of vacant land in this country.   Everybody doesn't have to live in the city.   Perhaps something can be done to reverse the trend towards migrating to the big cities?  I don't see any solution coming from Sanders that are along these lines.

Sanders was asked if he found any direct link of climate change to terrorism, which he would not confirm.  This leads me to believe that he is stretching the truth a bit.  That's a bit of an understatement.  He may be stretching the truth a lot.

If there is any direct link of public policy to terrorism, it is the open borders policies that this current administration favors.  But this isn't really a partisan issue.  Many on the GOP side favor open borders policy as well.

Therefore, Sanders statements are a bit misleading.  His analysis is flawed, to say the least.

The article points to the polls that have Hillary leading by a substantial margin.  One question was asked about which candidate could bring about change, and Hillary won that one too.  But we've been getting "change" for the last eight years.  Do they support Obama's version of change, or something else?  If it is something else, what that something is isn't clear.   Fighting climate change isn't exactly a new idea for the left.
Perhaps they should reconsider their ideas, if change is what they are really after.  With this kind of talk, we are likely to see more of the same from these two candidates, if one of them is elected.


Sunday, November 15, 2015

There are those who may disagree, but this blog is meant to be constructive

What criticism that is made at the Boots and Oil Blog isn't designed to destroy people.  That is not my purpose here.

That said, I have decided to make a post about my project out in West Texas.

I've written a bit about clean coal tech and so forth.  Not only that, but I've been cleaning out a lot of junk that I can't take with me out West.  Then a little brainstorm hit.  Why not use this stuff?  It so happens that I would like to reclaim waste water through distillation.  I can burn the waste paper junk ( mostly junk mail and old books ) in order to obtain energy that can boil the water, condense the vapor back into pure water.  I can accomplish many things at the same time.  Perhaps I can even make a point of two worthy of note.  ( I blush as I write this.  Not)

What kind of energy can I get out of a pound of waste paper?  I googled it and found this page.  I read through a bit until I found the answer I felt I could use.  I'll put it up here:  ( actually down there )

1055 joules equal 1 BTU.  There 6447 BTU/lb equals 6801585 joules.  3.6 million joules in 1 kwh.  1 lb paper yields 1.88 kwh of heat energy!  Can that be right????????????????? 
If I have a couple hundred pounds of waste paper ( and I could have that much and more ), then that's a lot of frickin' energy, kemosabe.

There's already a post on a system to make distilled water.  Alrighty, put that on the To do list when I get out there.

I don't have to throw away all of this junk.  I can use it.  Point made.

Update:

Since we know that 1 lb of paper yields on average about 6.8 megajoules, then from this page, we may be able to calculate the approximate amount of water that it can distill in kg.    Heat of vaporization is 2.257 megajoules /kg  or about 3 kg of water.  Not quite a gallon, I'd say.  Actual results may vary, of course.

This one goes into the water subtopic of the off-the-grid posts.


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George Carlin on Global Warming

A little humor can help in bad times.  But this one has a bite.  If you can't take a joke, don't watch it.






Obligatory, 11.15.15; The precious snowflakes are never wrong

Yep, the pattern continues.  The left never learns.  Sanders criticizes CBS for changing the focus to defense in the wake of the Paris atrocities.  The Mahablog blames Bush for 9.11.2001 atrocity in New York and Washington.  Salon says we are too violent, we are too mean.  We can't blame the Muslims, let's blame ourselves.

No, the blame needs to fall on the utter lack of wisdom of these people on the left.  They want unlimited migration and open borders.  They want to cater to Muslims and be nice to them and not demand that they change their ways, but that we change our ways instead.  The result: more attacks.  The left got what it wanted, but we got more attacks.  The left has failed, yet again.

But what does the left do?  They deny blame and blame the so-called right wing.  But that is wrong too, because the so-called right wing is too busy acting like the left.  Jeb Bush says we ought to emulate the left because of their political successes.  For his trouble, the left blames his brother for 9.11.2001 instead of thanking him for being their patsy.

The left is never wrong and we can never please them by going along with them.  If anything goes wrong with their approach, it's our fault, for they are never wrong.

The left wing media complex asked George W. Bush if he ever made a mistake while President.  Will any of them ask Obama?  Will they ask themselves if they are making a mistake with their policy preferences?