Home » Open thread 4/16/24

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Open thread 4/16/24 — 27 Comments

  1. Irvin owes Fightin’ Camel Ceddy a steak dinner for that one! And ain’t the beer cold!

  2. My preference for Israel’s response to Iran’s stupidity and Biden’s perfidy would be something many of Neo’s readers will recognize: “rods from God.” A guided titanium rod the size and more or less shape of a telephone pole, de-orbited (it would have had to be in orbit long ago to provide the slightest cover) and guided to land precisely where the mullahs are meeting. Nothing nuclear, or even explosive, although the force of an inert object coming to earth from orbit would be stunning, to say the least.

    If by some poor chance, Israel doesn’t have several rods from god already in orbit, my second choice would be a repeat of the Stuxnet, but much more far-reaching.

    Great video, Neo!

  3. “…the beauty of baseball…”

    Indeed…
    …but sometimes…you wonder why a third baseman believes he also has to be play left field…
    https://www.mlb.com/news/rafael-devers-tyler-o-neill-collision
    Eminent domain?

    P.S. Not a happy event; but the funny thing about that video is that both fielders appear to be wearing the same number—42. In fact, the pitcher’s also wearing 42. Hold on—all the players seem to be wearing number 42. Is that how the Red Sox save money…? Or is it to confuse the opposing team? (If the latter, it would seem to have back-fired…)

    PPS. Actually EVERYONE’s wearing number 42. Jackie Robinson Day, it dawns on me….

  4. The scoundrel Mike Gallagher will resign this Friday, April 19, a date carefully chosen so that under Wisconsin law there can be no special election to replace him. That will leave his heavily Republican district unrepresented in Congress until next January. What is his motive? Here’s an article about this from his hometown Fox tv station. They say they have asked for interviews repeatedly, but have been refused. The article does say:“Multiple reports have said Gallagher has his next job lined up with Palantir, which builds advanced defense software for the U.S. and Allied military forces.” It looks like he was paid off by the Democrats. What a scum.

    https://wtaq.com/2024/04/04/still-no-insight-into-gallaghers-sudden-resignation/

  5. In case someone here hasn’t discovered the beauty of baseball, behold Cedric Mullins.

    Marvelous. Shades of the Say Hey Kid.

  6. F,

    And how does one guide such a rod without some sort of guidance motors? How does one prevent atmospheric burn up?

    I saw today that an Israeli spokesman said the response would be ” clever and directed, and lethal” . To me the operative word is “clever”.

  7. it should come with footnotes and a flow chart

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHvn8Rqpusc&t=768s

    then again the only similar film of it’s type brainstorm, some 30 years before, was probably two high concept plus it was clouded by Natalie Wood’s tragic death at the time of the premiere

    tenet wasn’t as complicated as this, although it was kind of bendy,

    when you have ambitious goals it’s ok to miss the mark, as it seems with coppolas latest arrival soon to appear in cannes without a distributor

  8. Some news on nuclear power

    Tokyo electric power company in Japan is restarting the world‘s largest Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture. 

    https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newstepco-begins-fuel-loading-at-kashiwazaki-kariwa-7-11687324

    In Michigan, the Palisades nuclear power plant will reopen with funding in part by the Biden administration

    https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2024/03/palisades-gets-15b-federal-loan-for-historic-nuclear-restart.html

    Meanwhile, Germany closed its nuclear power plants and opened dirty brown coal burning power plants
    “According to figures from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office, one-third of Germany’s electricity in 2022 was generated from coal. That represents an 8 percent increase compared to 2021. Meanwhile, the country’s use of nuclear-generated electricity fell by almost 50 percent during the same period.”

    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/7/19/23799448/germany-climate-change-nuclear-power-fukushima-carbon-emissions-coal-global-warming

  9. If you can’t deal with the truth, then…just…cancel it!

    (The Resistance is allowed to do anything it wants in the name of…whatever it believes, says, or feels at the moment: being victims, fighting for the Truth, defying racism, the Truth, morality, the Truth, decency, human rights, the Truth….)

    This will work for a time, especially if you have people in high places—along with a totally unscrupulous media—lying for you and with you…but Reality will at some point start closing in on all the lies and the “project” MUST collapse under the weight of its own pathetic—and dangerous—absurdity.

  10. Welcome to the dark side we have cookies
    sarc

    But you see how insidious they work on ncis after the 1000th episode they retconned the premier episode where al queda was at fault

    How about the bbc series about the abuses in their post office which were not mentioned on the bbc at the time

  11. I liked the Royal Ballet promotional clip for Swan Lake that you posted last week, but it made me wonder if it was like the sports highlight reels that look really exciting and make the actual games look boring.

    The conductor featured in the clip, Gavriel Heine, was the first US citizen to graduate from the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He may have been of Russian parentage since he started studying there at 17. He went on to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but severed offical and professional ties with Russia because of the current war.

  12. I haven’t watched “Saturday Night Live” in years. Sometimes just lately, I tune in for a few minutes at the beginning to see if they do a Biden sketch, but they never do. The internet is saying that the Beavis and Butt-Head sketch and the Washington’s Dream sketch are funny. They are. I laughed. Classic SNL. But after 50 years, classic SNL has also gotten tired.

  13. Physicsguy:

    you can google rods from god and learn information that is more accurate than what I can tell you. I don’t think the “rod” is guidance free, and I do not know how much energy it would impart to a target. My understanding is that would arrive with substantial energy — as in megatons. But without radioactive fallout and possibily with deniability. don’t take my word for it, though.

  14. F,

    I looked at several articles, none of which addressed my two main objections. One article did say accuracy would be a problem. How much energy? That’s easy, just use 1/2 mv^2. m would be the mass of whatever bit of the tungsten rod survives re-entry, v is the velocity on impact. Another article stated the rod itself could vaporize on impact without much damage to the target. Not an impressive idea to me, but that won’t stop the government from spending money on it.

  15. Techno Fog has a breakdown of the jurors—3 women & 3 men, and gives a brief description of each.

    Trump on Trial: The Jurors

    Jury selection has concluded in The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump. After a long voir dire, six jurors have been selected: three men and three women.

    All in all, this jury isn’t bad. Manhattan voting demographics put the odds of a Trump voter being on the jury at roughly 1/6. The jurors aren’t overtly political, a couple of them might lean conservative or even be Trump voters. One even described Trump as “fascinating.”

    That’s assuming they’re telling the truth. Jurors in politically-charged cases are notorious for hiding their beliefs for the sole purpose of getting on the jury. As we discussed last week, it happened to Roger Stone – his forewoman was a vocally anti-Trump on social media. She deceived the court about that fact and helped lead the effort to convict Stone.

    It’s probably safe to say that there won’t be an acquittal. Not a guarantee, but those are the unfortunate odds. Trump’s best bet is for a hung jury, for 1 or 2 jurors to resist the pressure to go along with others and vote guilty. Is there a juror, or are there multiple jurors, with the courage to stand alone? We’ll find out.

  16. Thought it was Swan Lake, not Goose Lake. Like Katanji Jackson Brown you can’t tell a goose from a swan without an ornithologist.

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