Thursday, October 19, 2023

Fact Check: Could there be another Holocaust?

Watch this compelling speech by Columbia Professor Shai Davidai.  Yes, there are Nazis among us, but they no longer organize in beer halls:
  
 


Sunday, October 8, 2023

Fact Check: The Hamas Attack on Israel 10/7/23 was Barack Hussein Obama's Dream Come True


[REPOSTED FROM 5/1/18 TO REMIND EVERYONE WHY IRAN AND HAMAS ARE KILLING ISRAELIS WITH IMPUNITY ON 10/7/23]


Now that Israel has obtained Iran's secret nuke plans and U.S. intelligence has confirmed their legitimacy, we know with certainty that Barack Obama's fake "nuke deal" with Iran was an atomic bomb of deception and duplicity.

Remember this was the deal where Barack Obama plus five other countries, which desperately wanted to resume trade with Iran, lifted sanctions on Iran, flew billions of dollars in cash on secret planes to Tehran, all in return for Iran's vague promise to put off their nuclear weapons program for... a whole decade.

Here's what I wrote at the time on, 4/2/15:      

__________________________________________________

"Great liars are also great magicians." 


Barack Obama wants you to believe he is negotiating with Iran about nukes.  Pick up a paper, watch a news show, listen to the radio, wherever you are in the world, you will be told about an historic negotiation going on with the P5+1 talks, and it's all about Iran's nuclear program.

Truth is, these talks are nothing more than cover for lifting sanctions on Iran, many of which were preemptively lifted before the talks started.  The talks are Kabuki theatre, a magic trick, to distract you from seeing what's really going on.  This is a trade deal with the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism - a rogue nation bent on bringing about nuclear armageddon, wiping Israel off the map, and achieving regional Shiite hegemony.

If you have any doubts about whether or not this is about nukes, I advise you to read Dan Henninger's piece in The Wall Street Journal, "Why the Iran Deal is Irrelevant" from 4/2.   Mr Henninger chronicles the parallels between North Korea and Iran and the pursuit of nukes.  Iran cannot be stopped by talking.  Everyone knows this.  Talking had zero effect on North Korea over three presidencies.  Sanctions, and the perception that force is an option, are the only way to prevent a rogue nation from acquiring nukes.

Not only has Obama lifted sanctions and taken the threat of force off the table, he is guaranteeing Iran the right to spin centrifuges, enrich uranium, and follow through on their promise to nuke Israel off the map.  This trade deal does nothing but make Iran richer and accelerate their ability to achieve these goals.

Barack Hussein Obama, peace be upon him, apparently shares these goals.

(Incidentally, the quote at the top is often credited to Adolf Hitler.) 



Friday, July 28, 2023

Fact Check: The Truth About Global Warming [UPDATED]



A Socratic Guide To The Burning Question Of Our Time


Intro I

There's an old Jewish joke that goes something like this:

No matter what Shlomo did in bed, his wife could never achieve an orgasm. 
Since by Jewish law a wife is entitled to sexual pleasure, they decide to consult their Rabbi. 
The Rabbi listens to their story, strokes his beard, and makes the following suggestion: "Hire a strapping young man. While the two of you are making love, have the young man wave a towel over you. That will get God's attention and he will provide an orgasm."

They go home and follow the Rabbi's advice. They hire a handsome young man and he waves a towel over them as they make love. It does not help and the wife is still unsatisfied. Perplexed, they go back to the Rabbi.

"Okay,' he says to the husband, "Try it reversed. Have the young man make love to your wife and you wave the towel over them."

Once again, they follow the Rabbi's advice. They go home and hire the same strapping young man.

The young man gets into bed with the wife and the husband waves the towel. The young man gets to work with great enthusiasm and soon she has an enormous, room-shaking, ear-splitting, screaming orgasm.

The husband smiles, looks at the young man and says to him triumphantly, "See that, you schmuck? THAT'S how you wave a towel!"

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Intro II

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.


Michael Crichton, author of "Jurassic Park", "Andromeda Strain", "Westworld", and numerous other works of fiction and non-fiction. Crichton also held a medical degree from Harvard.
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A Brief History of the Theory of Global Warming (aka Climate Change)


It all began back in the 1700s when some rock stars - no, not that kind of rock star, geologists actually - were traipsing around Europe and noticed that some of the boulders in the valleys matched the rocks on distant peaks.  The only plausible explanation for how those boulders traveled so far was that they must have been carried by ice.  This idea was fleshed-out a few decades later by a scientist studying skeletons and frozen remains of large mammals in Siberia.  Thus was born the idea of The  Great Ice Age.  But that opened up a whole new can-o-worms; if ice once covered the Earth, what melted the ice?

In 1824, around the same time these ideas were percolating, a scientist named Joseph Fourier figured out that Earth would be much colder without its atmosphere.  Air was trapping heat from the sun and keeping us warm, he said.  Fourier had discovered the greenhouse effect.

Building on Fourier's work, other scientists found that about 70% of the greenhouse effect was due to water vapor, 20% was due to carbon dioxide (CO2), and the final 10% was due to methane, ozone, and other gasses.  A theory developed that maybe changes in the atmosphere had ended The Great Ice Age.

Water vapor was dismissed as a cause because excess water condenses and falls-out as precipitation.  CO2, methane, and ozone do not cycle as quickly, so the theory of melting ice focused primarily on CO2, which while only .04% of the atmosphere, accounts for 20% of the warming effect.

Two things were going on at the same time as all this.  One was the industrial revolution and the burning of coal in newly invented steam engines.  The other was the observation that the existing glaciers were continuing to melt!   Could they be related and tied back to changes in CO2?

Along came a Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius, who in 1898 calculated the hypothetical climate change that would result if atmospheric CO2 was cut in half.  He calculated that the Earth would be glaciated...as it was during The Great Ice Age!  He also calculated that if CO2 doubled, we'd have melting ice and ...global warming!  So, the "modern" CO2 theory of global warming dates back to the calculations Arrhenius did 120 years ago in an attempt to explain the onset and demise of The Great Ice Age.   

Meanwhile, we've been burning progressively more carbon fuels like coal, oil, and gas in the last 120 years.  Finally, in 1960, an American scientist named David Keeling began measuring CO2 levels at an observatory in Hawaii.  What he discovered was that CO2 was trending up at an alarming rate!  

So with Keeling showing CO2 skyrocketing, Arrhenius' saying we are going to fry if CO2 rises, and glaciers continuing to melt, that eventually leads to Al Gore, Kyoto, Paris, The UN IPCC, and a scientific "consensus" saying global warming is an "existential threat". (Meaning, the end is nigh!)

In 2009, the U.S. government under Barack Obama officially declared that CO2 emissions endangered life on Earth.  Whole generations now believe we are doomed.  Some have even stopped having children thinking there is no future.   

All from a gas that humans exhale, that plants inhale, that makes up only .04% of our atmosphere, and that formed the basis of a theory developed in the 1800s to try and explain the The Great Ice Age!

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Pop Quiz:

So, what really ended The Great Ice Age?
A. CO2
B. Mr. Milankovitch

Since this whole CO2 inquiry began as an attempt to explain The Great Ice Age, one of the first questions to ask is, was the premise right?  Have we learned anything new since Fourier, Arrhenius, Keeling, et al?  Do we now know what caused and ended The Great Ice Age?

You are probably certain it was CO2.  After all, you've been told for years that CO2  drives climate.  Since the 1800s and Arrhenius we've believed that changes in CO2 can have dramatic effects.  We still believe CO2 is melting glaciers today.  It's "settled science" after all.

Except, that's not what happened.  It turns out, Mr. Milankovitch did it.  (Yup, our climate has been hacked by the Russians! Actually, he was Serbian, just sounds Russian.)  Milutin Milankovitch was a scientist who figured out in the 1920s that the Earth has a cyclical relationship to the sun.  It tilts. It wobbles. It's orbit changes.  Some cycles take 100,000 years to complete.  Some take 41,000 years.  Some take 23,000 years.  The effect of all this is rather dramatic... ta da... climate change!

MILANKOVITCH CYCLES



Of course, Milankovitch was instantly dismissed as a kook.  Even today as I'm typing this, his name is unrecognized by the spell-check gremlins in my computer.  Fourier, Arrhenius, and Keeling, however, are spell-check VIPs.

Until 1998, Milankovitch got no respect.  But then a funny thing happened down in Antarctica.  Scientists drilled an ice core at a place called Vostok (more Russians!) that gave them a 420,000 year climate history, and voila, there were major ice ages and warmings every 100,000 years.  There were also shorter cycles in between.  Milankovitch could no longer be dismissed, except of course by spell-check.

           



Then in 2000 another Antarctic ice core was obtained at Dome C that goes back 800,000 years.  Again it confirmed Milankovitch.  The Great Ice Age now had a plausible explanation.  The Earth's relationship to the sun caused major climate change - global coolings and global warmings - going back as far as we can see.

Dome C Temperature Estimates


If major climate change happens at least every 100,000 years, as Milankovitch theorized, and the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, then there have been 45,000 of those alone.  The Great Ice Age was just the latest in a countless series of coolings and warmings!

Another name that should get mentioned at this point is Eddy, as in John A. Eddy.   Eddy was one of the most recent astronomers to study the cyclical output of the sun.  He published a groundbreaking study in 1976 and named the most recent solar minimums and maximums.   While Milankovitch cycles play out over tens of thousands of years, solar cycles can be as short as 11 years.  They are also closely correlated with...ta da...climate change!

Here are some of the solar minimums and maximums from recent Earth history that resulted in major global warmings and mini-ice ages:



You can see why glaciers are melting today by looking at the right side of the solar activity graph. We are also near a peak in the Milankovitch cycle.  Something would be horribly wrong if glaciers were NOT melting today!

So between Milankovitch's orbital cycles and Eddy's solar cycles, these are the bases for ice ages and their demise.  These are the bases for perpetual climate change.  In addition, one-time events like volcanoes and asteroids can also produce dramatic and sudden climate swings.

[UPDATE 7/31/23:  In addition to volcanoes and asteroids, undersea volcanoes and exothermic releases must be considered.  We are currently experiencing a dramatic and sudden rise in ocean temps which largely occurred over a 4 week period beginning in March, 2023.  The theory is that heat from the Earth's core did this.  An ocean cannot be rapidly heated from above due to marginally hotter air. But an exothermic release from the Earth's core (as hot as the surface of the sun!) could do that.  This theory has been brilliantly fleshed-out over a few years in a post on theethicalskeptic.com website.  https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/02/16/the-climate-change-alternative-we-ignore-to-our-peril/ 

Moreover, in January, 2022, the largest undersea volcano ever recorded erupted and sent unprecedented amounts of water vapor into the stratosphere.  As we know, 70% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor, and the amount from this undersea release is expected to take years if not decades to cycle through.  Unknown is the thermal footprint this had on deep Pacific Ocean temps because our measurements are largely based on surface temps.   https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere ]


So, CO2 did not cause either The Great Ice Age or any of the many tens of thousands of cyclical coolings and warmings that preceded it.  It's the fluctuating sun and our wonky orbit that cause climate change.

(A newer ice core at Allan Hills, Antarctica claims to go back over 1.2 million years, and it also confirms Milankovitch.)

 SUBSCRIBE

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Pop quiz:
Still, within the Milankovitch and Eddy cycles, we know that:
A. CO2 drives climate change 
B. Climate drives CO2 change
Just because Arrhenius et al were wrong about The Great Ice Age doesn't mean they are also wrong about what will happen if we add massive amounts of CO2 to our atmosphere.  According to the CO2 theory of global warming, as CO2 increases, so will temperatures.
    That's why you are probably certain that CO2 still drives climate change.  A consensus of scientists, academics, politicians, and celebrities have been telling you for years that higher CO2 concentrations will cause the Earth to get hotter.  As we burn more and more fossil fuels, that releases more CO2 into the air.  CO2 is a greenhouse gas, ergo the Earth gets hotter.  It's simple.

    Except, that's not what happens.  Along with temperature records going back 800,000 years, we also got CO2 records for the same time span.

    Here's the CO2 and temperature record from the Dome C ice core: 

    Dome C Temperature and CO2 for 800,000 Years (Red = CO2, Blue = Temps)




    At first glance temperature and CO2 appear to be closely correlated.  One might even conclude that Arrhenius was right and that CO2 caused the ice ages.      

    But when zooming in on this graph, something interesting is revealed; CO2 trails temperature by 1200 years, + or - 700 years!  

    Climate Change (blue) precedes CO2 Change by 1200, + or - 700 Years


    CO2 and the other atmospheric gasses behave somewhat like water vapor, except over a longer timeframe.  We know that hotter air can retain water vapor in greater concentrations than colder air.  There is also a water cycle that is constantly moving water from vapor, to precipitation, to ground, to sea, and then back to vapor.  CO2 has a similar cycle, just not as quick. (See Henry's Law)  

    A number of datasets from ice and sediment cores confirm this finding.  The hotter it gets on Earth, the more CO2 can be found in the atmosphere.  Contrary to what you've been told, CO2 does not drive climate.  Climate drives CO2!  The alleged cause is actually an effect.
             
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    Pop Quiz:
    Still, pumping CO2 into the atmosphere is a new thing, and that's what makes this an existential threat!
    A. True
    B. False 
    As everyone since Keeling knows, CO2 levels are in-fact rising.  And who can forget Al Gore on the scissor lift in his movie showing CO2 going literally off the chart?  And as everyone knows since Arrhenius, more CO2 makes Earth hotter, right?

    Except, that's not what's happening.  Yes, we are in a warm period due to both Milankovitch and Eddy, and accordingly, CO2 is rising.  That's to be expected.  But the question remains: is this time different because we are burning fossil fuels?  Can CO2 work both ways?  Can it both be driven by temperature and also drive temperatures up?

    If greenhouse gasses both increase as temperatures go up, and then cause even more warming, why is the greenhouse effect not a runaway reaction? According to Arrhenius and modern global warming theory, the greenhouse effect should create a feedback loop.  Why isn't that visible in the ice core data? 

    The answer has to do with the light spectrum and each gasses' role in trapping radiation in the troposphere.  

       

    At the affected upgoing wavelengths, which are the ones involved in global warming, CO2 is already absorbing 100% of the radiation it is capable of absorbing.  Adding more CO2 into the atmosphere can not trap more than 100% of the affected radiation!  This is why the greenhouse effect is not a runaway reaction or a feedback loop.  It's a self-limiting reaction.

    In the 1800s, when Arrhenius was doing his calculations, the instruments for measuring the light spectrum this accurately did not exist. (Then again, neither did antibiotics, airplanes, Model T Fords, transistors...)

    Additionally, as CO2 increases, the CO2 cycle speeds up.  Here's an example of how the biosphere absorbs CO2 at faster rates:



    So, adding more CO2 into the atmosphere will not effect climate, and any CO2 increases will just grow the biosphere.  
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    Pop Quiz:
    Still, there is a scientific consensus that says CO2 is uniquely warming our planet, and no one can prove otherwise.     
    A.  True
    B.  False

    Anyone who's taken a middle school science class knows the value of a control group.  Luckily, scientists have the ability to track temperature and CO2 on some of the other bodies around Earth.  Venus, Mars, and the Moon are particularly close to us and have yielded some interesting data.  If global warming theory is right, temperatures on those bodies should be un-correlated to Earth temps because they are free from the effects of industrialization!

    Except, that's not what's happening.  In an odd coincidence both Mars and the Moon are warming!  (Of course, it's still man's fault!)  Milankovitch is particularly relevant to the Moon, because as goes the Earth, so goes the Moon.  Eddy is particularly relevant to Mars, because as goes the Sun, so goes Mars.

    But there's more.

    In our solar system, only Venus, Earth, and Mars have atmospheres with CO2. Of the three, Venus is closest to the sun, has a dense atmosphere, is very hot, and has about 200,000 times the CO2 concentration of Earth.  Mars is furthest from the sun, has a very light atmosphere, is quite cold, and  still has about 14 times the CO2 concentration of Earth!  It appears that distance from the sun is what primarily drives climate on these three planets, not CO2. _________________________________________________________________________________


    Pop Quiz:

    Still, we know that global warming is true because all the predictions have been right!
    A. True
    B. False

    Real science can accurately predict the future.  If a cannon ball with a known mass, is fired from a cannon with a known amount of force, at a known trajectory, etc., science can predict exactly where it will land.  That's how science works.

    If global warming science is real and quantifiable, scientists would be able to similarly predict the future of climate.

    Except that's not what has happened.  In fact, every single dire prediction has been proven wrong.  100% wrong.  Here's a brief summary of what the experts have predicted:

    • Global famine by the year 2000 - Dr. Paul Ehrlich, Nobel Prize recipient, Professor 
    • Entire nations wiped out by 1999 - Noel Brown, U.N. Environmental Director
    • Ice caps will melt away and oceans will rise causing massive flooding by 2014 - Al Gore, VPOTUS, global warming evangelist
    • End of snow in England by 2015 - Dr. David Viner,  climate scientist at The University of East Anglia
    • Increased tornadoes and hurricanes - James Hanson, professor of climate at Columbia University & the high priest of global warming, and The U.N. IPCC
    • New Ice Age in Europe - Dr. Paul Ehrlich
    • Sub-Saharan Africa drying up - U.N. and World Bank
    • Massive flooding in China and India - Asian Development Bank and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
    • Polar Bear extinction - National Geographic, The New York Times, Guardian, among many.
    • Drastic Temperature Increases - James Hanson
    • The Earth will be in a “True Planetary Emergency” by 2016 unless greenhouse gasses are reduced - Al Gore
      None of those predictions came true.  Not one.  And that is just a tiny sampling.   


      And here are some of the bad predictions from just this past year!

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      Pop Quiz:

      Still, we are under an existential threat because the Earth is progressively getting:
      A: Hotter 
      B: Colder 
      You are probably certain that the Earth is getting hotter.  The name global warming itself describes the danger.  You are probably familiar with the apocryphal "hockey stick" graph featured in "An Inconvenient Truth":



      Except, that's not what's happening in the long run:
        




      The Earth is actually getting cooler! 

      Five million years is not much when you consider the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.  That would take 900 - five million year graphs!  So, here's another graph estimating 65 million years of global climate change, still only a fraction of Earth's life.  Again, it clearly shows Earth is cooling.  

          
      The existential threat is that we will eventually freeze, not bake!

               SUBSCRIBE
      _________________________________________________________________________________

      Pop quiz:
      Still, in the 200,000 year history of mankind:
      A. It has never been this hot
      B. It's been much hotter before 

      No doubt you are sure it's never been this hot.  It says so on the "hockey stick" graph.  And just consider the melting glaciers!

      Yet, we know that 1100 years ago, when the Vikings first went to Iceland, there were no glaciers there.  Today, glaciers cover much of Iceland.  Similarly, Vikings settled on Greenland around the same time and successfully farmed there for 500 years.  But they abandoned Greenland in the mid 15th century, presumably because it got too cold.  Those two events are known as the Medieval Warm Period and The Little Ice Age. Curiously, you won't find either of those events on Al Gore's graph.

      Here's a graph that shows 10,000 years of climate change from ice cores on Greenland:





      And here's a map of glacial retreat in Glacier Bay, Alaska going back 2 1/2 centuries.  As you can see, glaciers have been in retreat since long before your SUV!





      We have enough data to know that this warm period is nothing new.   It's been hotter than this many times before, even in man's brief 200,000 year history.

      _________________________________________________________________________________

      You are still free to believe in the CO2 theory of global warming.  Heck, you are free to believe in anything you want, including Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy!  But any serious person who looks into global warming must reflect long and hard before blindly waving a towel for the consensus.

      _________________________________________________________________________________

      I was the founder of Kindzone.com, one of the first companies to test market retail carbon credits.  I've been closely following the science and consensus of global warming for over 20 years.

      Ron Reich   

      Sunday, May 21, 2023

      Fact Check: Durham Was a Coverup


      The Durham Report dropped last week, conveniently AFTER the statute of limitations expired on any crimes committed by the Democrat perpetrators.  The perps include Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and just about every member of the IC in the Obama and Biden administrations.  None can be charged, indicted, or held accountable due to the 5 year statute.  This was the purpose of the Durham affair; to run out the clock and tie it all up in an "investigation".  

      I wrote about this Coup d'Etat 6 years ago and tied it back to Perkins Coie, the preferred Democrat lawfare front.  Here's what I wrote in October of 2017.  (Note the last 3 items on the list.  The Russia/Ukraine war was part of the plan!):    
      _____________________________________________________________________________________

      11/25/17
      Almost everything that has happened in the last two years to damage Donald Trump stemmed from the infamous "dossier".  You remember, the one that triggered the whole Trump/Russia/Collusion meme?  Now we know it was a Hillary Clinton / DNC concoction.  According to The Washington Post, Marc Elias, counsel to the Clinton's and the DNC, paid for the "dossier".  It was then used as the basis for the investigations of the Trump campaign and transition by Barack Obama and his entire intelligence apparatus.  Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, et al all used a phony concocted dossier as their basis for wiretapping, unmasking, investigating, and sabotaging the Trump campaign and administration.

      It was a conspiracy and a full-blown coup d'etat led by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  Here's a partial list of the events that have stemmed from the dirty "dossier":

      The whole Russia/Collusion/Trump meme
      FISA warrants for Trump associates
      Massive (illegal) unmasking of private citizens
      Firing of Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, and others
      Recusal of Jeff Sessions
      The firing of James Comey
      Appointment of Independent Counsel Robert Mueller by Rod Rosenstein
      Buy-in from Obama's entire Intelligence Community, CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.
      Ongoing Senate and House investigations
      Stalling of the Trump agenda in Congress
      Calls for Trump's impeachment
      Calls for war on Russia
      Expelling of Russian diplomats
      U.S. Troops deployed near Russia by Obama

      The other part of all this, of course, was the assessment that the DNC and John Podesta email hacks were the work of the Russians and Vladimir Putin himself.  This assessment came from none other than the Obama FBI under James Comey.  But the FBI famously didn't do their own assessment because the DNC refused them access to their servers.  The assessment came instead from a private company called Crowdstrike.  Crowdstrike is a Google funded company, and Google parent chairman Eric Schmidt was a key player on the Hillary Clinton campaign

      Andrew McCarthy at National Review notes that the same law firm that funded the dossier also retained Crowdstrike.  And all of it was conveniently done behind a wall of attorney client privilege.  What are the odds this same firm is involved in Uranium One

      This all looks like corruption and abuse of power unprecedented in our lifetimes.  Not funny. 

      [UPDATE]  As suspected, Perkins Coie, the law firm involved in the dossier and Crowdstrike, is also involved in Uranium One.  At a minimum, Uranium One's trademark was handled by Perkins Coie

      This is who is listed as "Correspondent" for the trademark:
      PATCHEN M. HAGGERTY 
      PERKINS COIE LLP 
      1201 3RD AVE STE 4900 
      SEATTLE WA 98101-3099

      Indeed, all roads lead to Perkins Coie when it comes to Clinton/Obama/Democrat/Russia collusion.     

      Friday, March 17, 2023

      Fact Check: Why Are Whales Beaching in NJ?


      As you may have heard, several whales have recently beached themselves in and around NJ.  Experts are baffled by this trend.  We like whales.  They're awesome.  So we want to know why this is happening.

      One theory is that this is related to wind farm construction.  The claim is that high tech sonar is being used to prepare for large scale proposed wind farms off the NJ coast.  According to this theory, sonar is disorienting the whales and they are beaching themselves, or surfacing and getting hit by ships.  

      This makes a certain amount of sense since whales are known to use a type of sonar to "see" in deep water, find prey, and communicate.  They are also known to flee from some kinds of manmade sonar.        

      On the other hand, beached whales have been happening for all of recorded history!  Sometimes they occur for observable reasons: disease, starvation, injury, old age.  But mostly the reasons are unknown.   

      The question is, are these recent strandings (beachings) part of the normal background, are they possibly due to sonar, or are they spiking because of something else?   

      I believe it's the sun!

      No, I'm not suggesting whales are sunning themselves on the beaches of NJ.  I am, however, suggesting that whales are being disoriented due to solar magnetic activity and geomagnetic storms.

      Here's the gist of it:  Whales use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate long distances.  At least that's the current thinking.  Meanwhile, the sun has a powerful and dynamic influence on Earth's magnetic field.  There seems to be a correlation between solar magnetic influence and whale strandings.  

      There are two times in the roughly 11 year solar cycle (technically half cycle) when this correlation appears to be strongest;  around both solar minimums and solar maximums.  Solar minimums are when the sun's magnetic field is at its strongest and that seems to correlate with more beached whales. Then, around solar maximums, the sun's magnetic field weakens, but solar flares and giant explosions (Coronal Mass Ejections, CMEs), etc. create powerful geomagnetic storms that again correlate with beached whales.  

      The correlation can be seen in the following graphs:  


      The above graph shows two things worth noting:
        
      1.  The solar minimum occurred in 2019.  Around the minimum is roughly the period when whale strandings peak on this graph.  

      2.  We are very early in 2023 and are on pace to exceed the other years, which is to be expected since we just had a very active solar period and are heading into a solar maximum. 

      Meanwhile on the West coast, a similar dynamic is playing out:  


       The above graph again shows two things worth noting:  

      1.  A similar pattern to the East Coast centered around the time of solar minimum.  (this graph shows both months and years, highlighting the seasonality of whale migration.)  

      2.  This graph includes UMEs from 1999 and 2000 (UMEs are Unusual Mortality Events) Both years were heading into solar maximums during active cycles.

      (Both graphs are c/o NOAA Fisheries:  

      Here's what happens with the sun's overall magnetic field during minimums and maximums:  



      In the above graph, the A panel and the C panel show the inverse relationship between solar cycles and  magnetic field strength.  When the A panel (solar activity) is at minimum, the C panel (magnetic strength) is at maximum, and vice versa. 

      (Graph is C/O https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2022.886670/full  "Deciphering Solar Magnetic Activity: The Solar Cycle Clock" ) 

      Speaking of solar maximums, the largest solar geomagnetic storm in recorded history happened in 1859 and is known as the Carrington Event.  It occurred just as we were heading into a solar maximum.  The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, were visible as far south as Hawaii and Mexico.  The drawing at the top is of a beached whale in Long Island, NY, 1859.  Hmm.  

      Now, if you're one of those, "correlation is not causation" types,  I get it.  I'm one too.  To be clear, I'm not presenting this as the be-all, end-all on this subject.  It's just some correlations and a theory.
             
      That said, there are other solar/whale experts who also point to solar involvement, though they seem to be focused on geomagnetic storms.  My addition to this theory is that there is also a correlation with solar minimums when the sun's magnetic field strength is at its highest.

      To recap:  there are two times in the roughly 11 year solar cycle that correspond to spikes in whale beachings.  The first is at minimum when the solar magnetic field is strongest, and the second is around the solar maximum when sun spots, solar flares, and CMEs create geomagnetic storms.   

      So you may be asking, why is a blogger who writes mostly about politics and the economy writing about whales and the sun?

      I became an amateur sun watcher after writing about global warming in 2019.  That piece is the most read thing on this blog.  If you're interested you can read it here:  Fact Check: The Truth About Global Warming

      What I learned during my climate research is that the sun and stars are truly the most amazing objects around.  And we are just in the early stages of understanding them.  The first satellite devoted to the sun went up in the late 1970s.  Prior to satellites, we were limited in what we could observe from Earth's surface and from balloons.  Now we have dozens of satellites looking at all sorts of solar phenomena.  

      And there's a lot to look at.  The sun is constantly spewing out atomic mass, radiation, protons, electrons, x-rays, charged plasma, magnetic fields, light, energy, heat, and on and on.  

      And the sun is by no means constant.  It is incredibly dynamic, temperamental, and alive.  It's hard to overstate its impact.  It is the source of all life.  It is likely the source of all things non-living too.  If there's a God, the first item on the agenda had to be to create the sun and stars, for without them, nothing else could exist.

      When the sun sneezes, the Earth catches cold.  Here's some fun facts about the scale of it all:  If the sun was a basketball on first base in Fenway Park, the Earth would be a tiny pea on home plate.  That basketball is so massive and powerful it is responsible for everything that happens in the entire Boston area.  The nearest star would be another basketball... in Honolulu.  The sun amounts to 99.86% of all the mass in our solar system.  Yeah, those giant planets Jupiter and Saturn combined with all the small ones like Earth together amount to a measly .0014 of the total mass in our solar system!  

      In conclusion:  Could the sun mess with whales and cause them to beach in NJ?  I argue, yes.  Is this correlation proof?  No.  Could sonar still be the cause?  Possibly, but I see no evidence for that at all.  

      (For the record, I'm not a fan of offshore wind farms.  Not because of what they might do to marine life, but because I've lived on the coast long enough to know that salt water and electricity make a bad combo. That, plus the dubious economics.)      

      P.S. If you want to become an amateur sun watcher, here are some good sites to help you get started:

      Tuesday, November 8, 2022

      Fact Check: Predictions are Hard. Especially about the Future.

      As the sun rises on election day 2022, here are some bold predictions.  And some explanations:

      Yes, there will be a red wave in the House. Nothing can stop that from happening.  But the Senate is another story.  Statewide races are much easier to steal, and that's what will happen. There's just too much at stake.  And the cost of stealing elections is zero.  

      No one is in prison for election fraud in America.  Several hundred, however, are in prison for pointing it out.  Two of the most prominent voices, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, just spent a week in solitary confinement for making a movie, "2000 Mules", about one small piece of the election fraud in 2020.  They were finally released after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found no basis for their imprisonment.

      Anytime the upside of cheating is measured in trillion$ and the downside is measured in zero$, there will be fraud.  But it goes much deeper.  A Republican Senate would mean that the entire corrupt Democrat machine could be exposed.  Not that a Democrat DOJ will do anything about it, but public hearings will be embarrassing.  The Biden family corruption, the lab-leak cover-up, the election fraud in 2020, the vaccine fraud, the early treatment hoaxes, the spying on Trump, CIA and FBI corruption, Jeffrey Epstein's codefendants, etc., all of it will be center stage.  And impeachments are tried in the Senate.  

      Then there is the Supreme Court. Democrats have shown repeatedly they will resort to depraved measures to keep control of the high court.  Why would stealing elections be off the table if publicly smearing Brett Kavanaugh as a serial rapist was not? The path to the Court goes through the Senate.  Sure, let the people have the House, but the Senate must stay with The Party.  This is not negotiable.

      I predict there will be a huge discrepancy between the House red wave momentum and the Senate's.  This will come from the same Democrat strongholds that went statistically whacko for Biden in 2020.  The reasons will be the same: ballot stuffing, ballot harvesting, software anomalies, mysterious delays, no voter ID, no signature verification, one-party ballot adjudication, no chain of custody, no citizenship requirement, no ability to audit, no way to reconcile envelopes and ballots, no bi-partisan observers, courts unwilling to get involved, and massive intimidation by the civil rights division of the politicized DOJ.

      By the way, you can always tell who the election fraud phonies are.  When they win, it's always the cleanest election in history.  But when they lose it's crooked from top to bottom.  As for me, I've been writing about election fraud for several cycles, both win and lose.  (see links at the end)    

      One other prediction: if Democrats fail to steal the Senate, there will be riots.

      Now for some explanations: 

      The first thing to know about politics in America is that Calvin Coolidge is dead; the business of America is...government.  We crossed the rubicon about a half century ago.  Government is now so big it essentially elects itself.  

      In 1910, Total Govt Spending was under 10% of National Income.  Today it is well over 100%.  That's only possible through massive borrowing and printing, and it's why we have such high inflation.  Government has taken over. (Total Govt Spending includes federal, state, local, and The Federal Reserve)

      So what, who cares if government takes over?  It's a Democracy and that's what the people want, right?  The problem is, we have become a one party country.  Yes, I know it doesn't seem like it, but it's true.  The Democrats, aka the party of government, have ruled Washington for the last 112 years.  Yes, there have been Republican presidents and congresses, but the last time the GOP had a super majority in the senate was 1910.  You need a super majority in the senate to be in full control.  Democrats have had super majorities for about 15 of the last 112 years.  But the way it works in the senate, things lean even more to the Democrats.  For the entirety of that 112 year span, Democrats have had the power to blast the Republican agenda to bits through the filibuster!  

      The result of Democrat control in Washington has been the unchecked growth of government in the last 112 years.  Government is now so big it self-perpetuates.  

      So how can this election be leaning GOP?  The answer is that people vote according to their sensitivity to incompetent government.  When times are good people feel insulated from reckless government, and will trade freedom for perceived security.  When times are bad, they feel the trade is no longer worth it. The more exposed you are to bad government, the more you will vote with the party of limited government.  

      To be clear; Republicans as a group are no better at governing than Democrats, but they do adhere more to our founding principles of limited government.  In bad times, with incompetent government, less is better.

      And there are several issues currently signaling bad times: food, energy, crime, education, and war.  Food and energy are tied in with inflation which is squeezing American budgets and raising interest rates.  Crime is unchecked in Democrat strongholds where the police have been sidelined and the courts neutered.  We are fighting a futile and deadly proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.  And education is a mess since many governors and teachers unions closed schools and forced kids to stay home.

      These issues have flipped many suburban women who turned out for Joe Biden.  They're also flipping minority voters who have always voted for the party of big government.

      And if you want to know why election fraud is all of a sudden a big issue in America, it's because Democrats used the courts to change the way we do elections.  This was largely illegal because it bypassed the state legislatures that are constitutionally in charge of elections.  And, this effort preceded the pandemic by years.  It had nothing to do with covid!  But it got a huge boost when members of both parties got cold feet over in-person voting.  

      Here's a summary of what happened in the lead-up to 2020:  


                 

      And here're some older pieces of mine on election fraud in reverse chronological order:

      We've Got Voter Fraud All Wrong

      You Can See Voter Fraud From Space

      Obama Urges Illegals to Vote

      Obama's 50 Year Plan

      Corruption in NJ - 2009


      (Hat tip to Yogi Berra for the title of this piece.)

                



           

        


      Tuesday, August 2, 2022

      Fact Check: Did Joe Biden Kill Zawahiri?

      Yesterday, Joe Biden announced that a U.S. counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan killed Al Qaeda #1 Ayman al-Zawahiri.  That's great news.

      But something in his announcement seemed reminiscent of Barack Obama's 2001 announcement when a U.S. counterterrorism operation in Pakistan killed Osama bin-Laden.  

      Here is my reaction to that earlier announcement.  I think it applies to today as well.




           

      Friday, June 10, 2022

      Fact Check: The Truth About January 6th

       


      If you want to really know why there was a protest at the Capital 1/6/21, watch video above.  And if you really want to know why the protest turned into a riot, read this piece I wrote about Charlottesville.  Same play, same playbook, same result.

      The first law of elections is: 

      "It is not the citizen's job to prove election fraud, rather it is the state's job to prove a clean and auditable election." 
      The reason there was a protest that turned ugly on 1/6/21 was because the states failed miserably and broke the first law of elections.  Without that you don't have elections, and without elections you don't have a democratic republic.


      Tuesday, May 24, 2022

      Fact Check: The Truth About School Shootings [UPDATED]

      19 Children, 3 Adults Killed in School Shooting in Uvalde, TX
      (Headline today)

      Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.  That pretty much describes our approach to mass shootings.  How's it working so far?

      Here’s a radical but eminently logical proposal to finally stop the kind of mass shootings that just happened in Texas:  Vote Republican!

      I know. I know. You think Republicans ARE the problem!  Heck, they’re the NRA party, right?  How can Republicans possibly fix this?  And don't Republicans run Texas, where this happened?  Bear with me and I’ll explain...   

      The first thing to know is that Democrats have had either total control, filibuster control, or veto proof control of the federal government for the last 110 years.  That's right.  Despite what you've heard, this has been a one party country for over a century.  The last time Republicans had the Presidency, the House, and a super majority in the Senate was in 1909... when Theodore Roosevelt was President! Democrats have had complete control or filibuster control for the entirety of that time.  For about 25 years they had complete control, and for the remaining 85 years they had filibuster or veto control.  The last time Democrats had absolute complete control was waaay, waaay, back during the ...Obama Administration! What did they do to stop mass shootings in 110 years?  Nothing. At least nothing effective.

      A fair question would be, OK, what if Republicans could get the kind of control Democrats have had, what would they do differently?  Here's a hint, and then some specifics:

      The Democrat voting coalition is made-up largely of groups who are on some level dependent on the federal government.  Among them are the poor, minorities, the sick, the oligarchs, union members, government employees, social liberals, and single parent families. These groups look to the Federal Government for protection and  money, and therefore Democrats accrue power by maximizing their numbers.  Democrats want you poor, vulnerable, dependent, and afraid;  they have NO interest in solving problems that would prevent this.     

      The Republican voting coalition is largely made-up of individuals who seek independence from the federal government.  Among them are people of faith, much of the middle class, small and mid-sized business people, social conservatives, and nuclear families.  These groups look to the federal government for freedom and independence, and therefore Republicans accrue power by maximizing their numbers.  Republicans want you prosperous, secure, independent, and unafraid; they have EVERY interest in solving problems to promote this.           

      Now, who do you suppose wants people to live in fear of someone getting into a school, or mall, or concert, and committing mass murder?  Could that be why Democrats did nothing when they had the power for 25 of the last 110 years?  Could that be why an NRA supported bill since 2007 that would prevent dangerous homicidal maniacs from obtaining guns has never been passed?  Could that be why every time there is legislation to screen these people, Democrats insert a poison pill to kill it?  Could that be why Democrats torpedoed their own "Fix NICS" bill in 2018? (NICS is the database of gun purchases and background checks)  Could that be why Democrats have done nothing to find the SSRI, drug, gaming, and mental health connection between young people and mass shootings?  (SSRIs are the Prozac type drugs that treat mental illness and correlate with mass shootings)  And who do you think passed the laws that allowed Nikolas Cruz and so many others to escape the criminal justice system entirely?  Why do you suppose no one is ever held accountable for the failures when murderers are red-flagged, but not stopped?

      But the biggest factor connecting all gun violence, black and white, is the breakdown of the family.  Of the 27 worst mass shootings in America, 26 of them were committed by men who grew up without fathers.  The same holds true for the weekly violence in the inner cities across America. Democrat policies since 1909 have grown the government ten fold, made people dependent, and shrunk the family accordingly.  The most effective buy-back program to stop this madness would be a buy-back program for fathers not guns!    
            
      Democrats have one solution: gut the Bill of Rights.  But would that solve anything?  According to Democrats themselves, banning assault weapons for a decade did nothing.  They ended their own ban under Bill Clinton.  Mass shootings happen all the time in countries without a 2nd amendment.  Some countries just use bombs and vehicles for mass murder.  The problem is not the tool, but the conditions that breed mass murderers.  And we are breeding them.  

      There was a time in America when every household had a gun, every kid could shoot, dynamite was sold in general stores, fathers were common, and mass murders were rare.

      Democrats will never fix this problem because the incentives are for them to keep people afraid, vulnerable, and dependent.  Give Republicans the Presidency, the House, and over sixty votes in the Senate for the first time in 110 years and this problem gets fixed pronto, along with many others.  Or, keep voting Democrat and watch more innocent people die.  Your choice. 

      [UPDATE: And here's Ted Cruz confronting Democrats who filibustered his gun bill, Grassley/Cruz, which would have prevented almost every one of these recent mass shootings:]



      Thursday, May 12, 2022

      Fact Check: The Truth About Baby Formula [UPDATED]


      There's a lot of news about the baby formula shortage, but very little information as to "why".  I think I know why, and if I'm right, it's also why you're not hearing about it.

      I have no special insight into the baby formula industry, but I've seen this movie before.  This exact movie.  

      You see, in 2014 I wrote a piece tying together several seemingly unrelated odd events at notable companies:  There was a SWAT style raid at a guitar factory, a large OTC painkiller plant was raided and shuttered, a fully built airplane factory was not allowed to open, and the U.S. government blocked the world's largest car manufacturer from selling certain models.  

      I traced all those cases to labor unions, or rather the conspicuous lack thereof.

      It looked to me like Barack Obama was weaponizing the U.S. government to advance his pro-union agenda.  These companies were standing in his way, if not literally, symbolically.

      I believe this is why moms can't feed their babies.  It has nothing to do with supply chains, covid, Ukraine, etc.  It's all about punishing a company that prefers to work directly with its employees rather than through an adversarial third party.

      For background, here's an excerpt from my 2014 piece:

      Labor unions are Obama’s largest support system.  Unions supplied billions in the last three election cycles, practically all of it to Democrats.  More importantly, unions supplied the boots-on-the-ground and the muscle for Obama’s vaunted ground-game. The labor union agenda is Obama’s agenda according to Obama himself. The most frequent visitors to the oval office are labor union bosses and labor union lobbyists...  

      These corporate/union bullying cases are similar to the IRS scandal in that government agencies were selectively targeting opponents of Obama’s political agenda.  But, there are significant differences too.  The IRS scandals broke because the targeted parties, non-profits and individuals, made a big stink.  In these corporate cases, the targets are for-profit corporations who will never make a stink.  Unlike individuals and non-profit groups, corporations have a huge incentive to keep quiet when being targeted by their government.  Corporations answer to their shareholders, and shareholders care about one thing only - share value.  Confronting abusive government is never a shareholder priority.  Corporations are also easily painted as villains.  When corporations get unjustly targeted by governments, they usually suck it up, pay the fines, settle the lawsuits, and quietly get back to work. 

      Now back to the baby formula case today:

      About 3 months ago, the U.S. FDA shuttered the largest baby formula plant in the country, an Abbott Labs plant in Sturgis, MI.  The reasons for the plant closure was that there was a whistleblower who alleged sloppy hygiene at the plant, and subsequently there were a pair of fatalities from bacterial contamination allegedly tied to the plant. 

      Scary stuff indeed!  But further investigation revealed no such contaminants in samples of formula at the plant.  And none were found in any of the formula recalled from store shelves.  In fact, The FDA did not find any bacteria that were an exact match anywhere at the site.  If those children were killed by bacteria, there is no evidence whatsoever tying it to Abbott Labs.

      Yet, the plant remains closed as of today.     

      All of this seemed familiar to me.  In fact, not just familiar, but exactly like what had happened with Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol plants.

      Again, I'll direct you to the piece I wrote in 2014 which has all the details, but here's a brief summary:

      • 1980s - 7 people die from cyanide tainted Tylenol.  
      • All products are recalled, the plant is shut, and J&J has a devastating PR nightmare on its hands.
      • None of the recalled product is contaminated, and no cyanide is ever found at the plant.
      • The case remains unsolved, but the contamination was traced to the Tylenol distribution network around Chicage, IL.
      • At the time The Teamsters ran all distribution for Tylenol in Chicago, while J&J was known to prefer non-union employees. 
      • After the deaths, J&J took all distribution in-house and away from the Teamsters.
      Fast forward to 2011:
      • The U.S. govt, under Barack Obama, raids 3 J&J/McNeil/Tylenol plants, shuts one down, and forces several recalls claiming faulty products, bad hygiene, bacteria, odors, etc.
      • No one has been sickened, injured, or killed by any of these allegedly faulty products.  
      • J&J loses billions, gets heavily fined, undergoes a management shakeup, and the nation goes through a protracted shortage of brand name Tylenol.  
      This is a mirror image of the events that have led to the baby formula shortage today.  And just like J&J, Abbott Labs is considered one of the country's best employers.  This usually means a preference for treating employees as individuals, which is anathema to unions.  

      Please read the full story from 2014.  This all has the unmistakable odor of an Obama/Democrat/Union operation. 

      (You might be saying, "Hey Undiepundit, are you implying that unions killed two babies to hurt Abbott Labs?"  No, I would never say that without verification.  In fact I tried very hard to get a statement from union headquarters, but unfortunately Jimmy Hoffa has yet to return my call.)

      As if the union hit wasn't enough, Democrats also hate Abbott Labs for their deal with Donald Trump.  Recall that Abbott Labs was featured at a White House press conference in the middle of the pandemic where the President unveiled Abbott's new rapid test machine.  He then went ahead and contracted with Abbott for $750,000,000 worth of the machines which rocketed Abbott's stock.  


              (Notice how ABC mistakes Trump's FDA commissioner for his Treasury Secy.  LOL)