Insiders are unhappy that the "circus of lies" didn't work. They aren't sorry.

 

 

Democrat 'knife fight' for control after $1.5B Kamala 'circus of lies' https://t.co/OYdysV304i via @MailOnline --- GOP barely wins, and sits comfortably on a foundation of sand. There needs to be a reckoning within the GOP too. This shouldn't even have been close. But it was.

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) December 14, 2024

 

 

There's no adequate answer to the machinations of the left

Piecemeal tactics is no substitute for an over-arching strategy.

I may be connecting some dots that really don't connect.  But here goes anyway.

In an earlier, seemingly unrelated post, I discuss space colonization in terms of a talk given by Jeff Greason many years ago.

Greason discussed this very thing that I'm mentioning here.  He discusses that we're basically stumbling around in the dark, trying these tactics with respect to what we're doing in space.  He says something UNIVERSAL here, which may sail over your head if you're not thinking about it.  Well, it sailed over mine.

What's our strategy in space, he asks.   But that question has universal applications.  In other words, it is higher ordered thinking.  We are applying lower-level thinking to a high ordered problem, in other words.

The left has a strategy to take down civilization. Study what they do, and verify this for yourself. A counter strategy must be found and enacted in order to preserve this civilization, or they will succeed. We are not doing so well. Everything we do is a reaction. We need to be PROACTIVE.

All this reminds me of a Star Trek movie. Yep. That's probably not smart to mention, because it may trivialize my point. Those writers of that script were on to something. The scene about it being "easier to destroy than to create" is the point. The left is about destruction, so the counter strategy implies that the task to sustain and to create is the answer.

The left is attacking the opposition's very right to exist. But what about THEIRS?

Turnabout is fair play

Or payback is a beach, main.

Lefties Suddenly Shocked to Find They're Not the Only Ones Who Can Topple Statues https://t.co/7LsIakTwDs

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) December 14, 2024

(Repost) The Mighty Mississippi to Run Dry?

12/13/24:

More true than ever.

11/13/13:



Note:

It seems appropriate to include this "blast from the past".  What do you do when the your source of wealth runs dry?  Life becomes a matter of survival.  You have to be able to live off the land.

With respect to growing algae, chickens, ducks, and goats, I'd say you could probably do that in the driest desert on Earth---that would be the Atacama Desert in Chile.  If Algenol produced the water from its ethanol producing algae, you can take it from there and grow everything else.  Algenol claims to be able to take seawater and make fresh water out of it.  It so happens that the Atacama desert is next to the Pacific Ocean.

So, if the Mississippi runs dry, you can still survive.  There is a way.

But not if you trust in money.  The country is said to be divided between the cities and the countryside.  Who do you think will make it when things fall apart?


So, here's the post---




 From theTrumpet.com

What is the single greatest reason America is so wealthy? According to the analysts at Stratfor, it is because of a river.

What is wealth?  It is a term that is not precisely defined.  Some may say it is the amount of money that you have stashed away in your bank account.  But if a catastrophe occurred, that money wouldn't mean much to you.  You can't eat it.  You can't build a house out of it.  It can't keep you warm in winter and cool in summer.  It is merely a medium of exchange.

Another way to define wealth is to say that it is a store of knowledge.  Without knowledge, where would you be?  Wealth has to begin with knowledge, I would think.

In my post about machines, I wondered if we have become too dependent upon them.  An individual's knowledge should include a basic ability to stay alive.  If one is too dependent upon machines, one's own life is hostage to the machine.  That could be said to be another form of poverty.

I'm all for raising the level of civilization.  But fundamental things should not be forgotten.

Just before my father died, he liked to talk about living off the land.  He knew how.  He was born and raised in the country.  But being a city boy all my life, I only know about living off the land- not actually doing it.  I wonder if all my knowledge gained from books in school is worth nearly as much as being able to survive off the land, as the old man said.

Colonizing space is just another way to survive.  But living off the land is where is all began.  Wealth cannot even have a meaning if you can't use it for survival.  You have to eat and have shelter and so forth.  You shouldn't die just because there's a drought.  Or any other force of nature, like an asteroid strike. You need to be able to survive, or your wealth means nothing.

A commenter on Free Republic included a link to the following video. I think it is appropriate to the post, so I'll include it here.  It's Hank Williams' A Country Boy Can Survive.



Update:

I guess the bottom line is this: if it can't keep you alive, it isn't worth much.  If you were to choose between alternatives, then the longer something can keep you alive, the more it is worth.

Wealth then is about value and how to properly evaluate it.

To forget useful skills do not make you richer, but poorer. To know how to make a fire could be a life saver. The electricity could be out. No matches could be available. No cigarette lighters to be found. You need a fire, what do you do if you don't know how? You may die.

Another thing to remember is that we almost allowed the knowledge of molten salt reactors to be forgotten.  Not good.  We may desperately need that energy some day.

Also, those in high places who think they are superior may be forgetting what the true value of religion is.  There was a reason for it to exist for all that time, mainly because it helped keep people alive.

Plane attempts landing on highway, crashes

Must have been an emergency landing. Looks like it would've been okay, except there was traffic at the intersection.

🚨#BREAKING: A small plane makes a emergency landing and crashing into multiple cars on a busy interstate ⁰
📌#Victoria | #Texas

Emergency crews are on the scene in Victoria, Texas, after a small plane crashed into three vehicles at a busy intersection. Video footage shows… pic.twitter.com/wA1pR49yhb

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) December 11, 2024

Elements of a gas harvesting mode (Loxleo)

12/13/24:

 

To be continued on the second blog.

 

12/12/24:

 

What might be done with Artemis II?

 

Indeed, what is to become of the SLS now that Trump is coming back into office?

 

This post is about something that isn't entirely inconceivable, as it had been previously researched.  It may be considered too ambitious, even at this stage of SpaceX's advanced rocketry. It would also seem that in situ resourcing on the moon could be considered too ambitious.

 

But if goals like these are too ambitious, then how is landing on Mars any less so? Just asking question is all.

 

Quick update:  Perhaps no less ambitious than this.

  11/22/24:

 

Here's a kind of brainstorming session, which will combine a few concepts into a plausible way to harvest gases at the edge of space. This is called Loxleo ( liquid oxygen at low earth orbit --- don't you love these acronyms?).

 

I've done this before, and as before this will include a speculation alert.

 

The elements include the use of Parkins concept in his doctoral thesis in order to get a high ISP propulsion with a lot of delta-v, saving a lot of fuel. The energy will be supplied by the use of solar panels posted at GEO. There would have to be an array of these panels, which would include all of the necessary hardware to beam the microwave energy down to an orbiting aeroshell that is on the edge of space, in very low orbit. The solar panels at the edge of space comes from a concept in the book Mining The Sky. The author, John S. Lewis suggested that this was a way to get the space program on a paying basis. You could manufacture the solar panels on the moon, and send them back to GEO in order to make some money for the lunar base.

 

As could be seen on those spectacular videos of Starship's re-entries, there's plenty of atmosphere that could be gathered up. It is also creating a lot of friction on the Starship, which causes it to lose velocity. If you add a gas harvester, it will create even more drag. In order to keep the Starship up in space, you need to fire up some sort of engine that will keep up the delta-v at orbital levels. So the microwave energy is beamed down from GEO, and it heats up an aeroshell. From there, cold gases are injected to cool down the aeroshell, as the Parkins concept showed. The gases would be ejected out a nozzle, thus creating thrust. The ISP that might be achievable could be comparable to a nuclear thermal rocket. More than twice that of the best chemical engines.

 

The Loxleo concept itself was an idea that orginated back in the sixties. ( or possibly sooner) That concept included nuclear thermal engines to keep the vehicle up to orbital speed. The concept's weakness was in how to get energy to the thruster. A nuclear reactor in orbit tended to make people nervous.

 

Perhaps the harvested gases themselves could supply some, or perhaps all of the reaction mass that will provide the thrust. The trick would be to harvest it faster than it would be used up! It just won't do to end up with less mass than what you started with. The atmosphere consists of oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. The argon is only about 1% of the atmosphere, so you may have to mix some nitrogen in there with it. The most valuable resource could well be the oxygen. Hence the name, "loxleo". You'd want to keep all of that you could gather. Argon, by the way, is a noble gas--which means it doesn't react with other elements very easily or at all.

 

The advantage of loxleo is to reduce the number of launches from the deep gravity well of Earth. Oxygen would provide as much as 80% of the reaction mass to run the Raptor engines. In order to refill the Starship, it will be necessary to launch multiple times from the ground. The advantage should be obvious if you could make loxleo work. It is in situ resourcing, which is better than bringing everything you need from home.

Begun, the Biden hangover has

The GOP in Congress should've known better and got control over the spending. If revenues aren't increasing, then spending MUST not continue apace. But they did it anyway.

https://t.co/AP0B1ilHc2 -- Economy not as good as we were told, in other words, Biden lied again. Revenues the same as 3 years ago! The only growth was in government!

— BootsandOil (@BootsandO6892) December 12, 2024