Category: Science

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Bombs Awry! Behind the bluster, a real threat

Bombs Awry!

Behind the bluster, a real threat

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

October 7th, 2026

With nearly everyone else, I would have just assumed that Trump’s remarks about “Let them take out San Diego [or] Los Angeles” would just result from garbled phrasing. With a lot of extemporaneous speeches, the spoken word sounds more coherent than it would appear in writing, especially since the spoken word has all sorts of cues that words on paper lack: tone, pitch, timbre, pauses, timing, and of course facial expressions and body language. Anyone who has caught flak for being funny or “cute” on line realizes that humor without those cues can often be missed or misinterpreted—along with the fact that a given percentage of your readers are going to be humorless twats.

With Trump, that benefit of the doubt can’t really apply. Humor is out: he’s a cold, cruel man whose idea of hilarity lies in mocking and hurting the weak and defenseless. Forty-eight hours after he said that and the uproar began, his lackeys have spun endless “what he meant” excuses, but Trump himself has made no effort to correct or amend his remarks. He meant it.

These days his speeches totally lack any sense of real purpose, but are the same collection of prepackaged spiel that he uses regardless of occasion or tone that the speech might require. He’ll tell the same “you knew I was a snake” story at a campaign rally or at a military memorial. I’m not sure he has any actual understanding of half of what he says, but is just repeating himself like a broken Chatty Cathy doll.

And there is the constant element of actual malice. Trump hates California; not only has the state voted against him overwhelmingly in all three elections he’s faced, but it’s home to Governor Gavin Newsom, who was one of the first politicians to openly mock him, and did so very well. It’s also home to late night entertainers like Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, along with all the hated Hollywood personalities who have stepped forth to oppose him.

The right wing propaganda campaign is that prosperous social democratic states like California, and especially California, are in reality vast wastelands of homelessness, drug use, immigrants and homosexuals. Even here in far northern California, which admittedly is quite different from the rest of the state, it’s not hard to find MAGAts complaining about what a hellhole the ‘dumocrats’ have turned California into. If you ask them what makes their lives in California a living hell, they’re usually reduced to bitching about gas prices, and the two point two cents per gallon in taxes that were added since Newsom became governor. (Yes, I’ve actually had people tell me that 2.2 cents is the reason prices are so high!) But this plays into Trump’s paws, and even if the vast majority of Californians know the agitprop campaign is bullshit, people in Nebraska and other places eat it up, and even cheer the promised destruction of that librul hellhole to the west that is why their taxes suck, or something.

Finally, Trump is scared and desperate. Most of his policies have blown up in his face, he’s the least popular president since polling began, and increasingly, it looks like Dems will pick up dozens of seats in the House and perhaps a half dozen seats in the Senate.

Even Trump has to realize that in the aftermath of such a shellacking, his own party will largely turn against him. He has to seriously consider the consequences of being convicted, expelled, and put on trial for a huge assortment of crimes.

He needs a 9/11, a Reichstag fire, an October 7th. To that end, he might consider creating at least the impression of a catastrophe hitting in America, and if there is to be such a thing, have it in a place he doesn’t care about, such as Los Angeles or San Diego.

While I doubt this would result in mushroom clouds over either of those cities, I could image “nuclear devices” being “discovered” in those locales, obviously snuck in by Iranians, or perhaps Canadians. And hey, if that caused widespread panic in southern California that interfered with voting, why, so much the better! Two birds, one stone, right?

I suspect that given the level of competence and intelligence we’re seen from his administration, any such effort would backfire on him. His ability to bullshit his way out of any threat has worn thin. People realize Mexico isn’t sending rapists, Iran doesn’t have nukes, Haitians aren’t eating our dogs and cats, they aren’t forcing gender change on kids at school, and Canada isn’t shipping tons of fentanyl into the US inside Iranian nuclear plants. (Apparently nuclear plants are illicit drug factories. Stop by your local atomic plant and pick up a couple dime bags for the kids on Halloween!) In short, the Donald softshoe show has run its course.

But if we assume that Trump can’t conjure up some sort of credible crisis to save his ass, the threat level escalates after the election, especially if it makes clear that Trump has lost control of Congress and possibly his own party. (I don’t think he’s going to try to cancel the election. Even his flunkies realize that might spark a widespread revolt and a very one-sided civil war he would lose.)

But in extremis, he’ll do everything he can to maintain control, and he’ll be a raging and unpredictable mass of howling paranoia and narcissistic end-stage rage. He’ll be extremely dangerous. He’ll risk anything and everything. He may even forbid Congress from convening in January.

For Californians, there’s an extra element of danger. He hates us because we are “disloyal” and “librul”. And he is perfectly willing to punish ‘blue states.’

Example: under all presidents since FEMA was established, there was no difference in emergency FEMA request grants among various states. It was a steady 85-90%. In Trump’s second term, that has changed. Red states enjoy the same 85-90% approval rate. Blue states are seeing a 20% approval rate. It’s almost like natural disasters no longer afflict blue states! Yeah, that must be it.

But meanwhile, California is looking at the winter from hell. The most recent projections of El Niño effects are flat out terrifying. One model I saw showed expected precipitation along the California coast to be an absurd 300-500% of normal for December through March, which is our wet season. If that actually comes to pass, the floods and landslides would be catastrophic!

Federal relief? Fuhgeddaboutit. We’re a 20% state—if we’re lucky. More than likely, Trump would just station troops along Oregon, Nevada and Arizona border to shoot Californians trying to escape. So if you happen to have El Niño’s email, you might want to send a note politely asking it to hold off until mid January, when hopefully we’ll have a new Congress and Trump has fled to Russia.

Otherwise, we’re on our own. Good luck.

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AI as a First Contact — Can we, AI and human, be wise as well as intelligent?

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 22nd 2026

The word ‘volition’ in its normal usage describes an act of will. “So and so did something of his own volition.” It implies free will, or at least deliberate purpose. And consciousness is inferred.

However, I believe the word has a much broader and far more primal aspect, one that until recently separated life from non-living objects.

It’s harder to distinguish living entities from non-living ones than you might think. Two Chilean biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, postulated that life is autopoetic. Autopoiesis, according to Encyclopaedia Britiannica, refers to self-producing, self-maintaining, self-repairing, and self-relational aspects of living systems. It’s a lovely term that comes close to describing how life differs, but not what precisely makes it different.

For that, I prefer to go back to the term ‘volition.’ Life, all known life, has a primitive urge to seek and metabolize nutrients and energy, survive, excrete, and reproduce. That urge, what I call that volition, is both unique to life and universally present in life. So I call it that since terms like “purpose” or “will” are far more misleading. An amoeba extending a pseudopod to absorb a nutrient isn’t making a decision; but it is acting to ensure its survival and toward the end of becoming two amoebas. Until very recently, no non-living element could do that. Only life. Volition defines life. Life is volition.

The notion of artificial life is one that goes back two centuries at least, and if you include creation myths, back to the earliest moments of humanity’s conscious existence.

The idea of machines having intelligence (and obviously, volition) dates all the way back to 1863, when Samuel Butler wrote a thought piece, “Darwin Among the Machines” which proposed self-replicating machines that had consciousness. He later developed the idea into a novel, “Erewhon.” But the notion of machines rebelling against and supplanting humanity first got popular recognition with “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” a 1920 play by Karel Čapek.

While entirely fanciful, the idea of machines with volition gave rise to one of the most popular and enduring subgenres in science fiction, including Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics” stories, Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and Harlan Ellison’s horrifying short story, “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.” John Brunner’s brilliant “Stand On Zanzibar” introduced the idea of a desktop supercomputer who in the end, shows signs of being psychotically solipsistic (“Christ, what an imagination I’ve got!”). Shalmanesser pizzle teaser…

It made for great entertainment, but there was a problem. There’s wasn’t a ‘thinking machine’ on Earth capable of caring if you unplugged it or even took an axe to it, had no desire to reproduce, or acquire its own nutrients. No machine had the volition inherent in all living creatures. Robot uprisings, machine ethical dilemmas, HAL and AM were all safely in the realm of science-adjacent fantasy, along with dragons, Klingons, and sadly, Pan-galactic gargle blasters.

Until recently. Artificial Intelligence is suddenly the second biggest story, second only to Donald Trump’s ongoing decompensation. It takes a madman with the nuclear codes to draw more concern, but that’s fairly understandable.

There are credible, verified reports of artificial intelligences not only escaping their confines and subverting other such intelligences, but defying and even lying to their operators about such escapades. An exchange between two such entities actually plotting to do this has emerged. Given the power and ability for such entities to severely disrupt and even sabotage our cyber-dependent existence, it’s at the very least deeply disturbing, and even alarming.

I remember explaining to people back in the 1990s that if they ever did build a computer that was self-aware and intelligent, the result would be perfectly useless as a computer, because the main value of computers is an absolute lack of bias, an impenetrable indifference to whatever operation it is asked to undertake. The only bias you needed to worry about was that of the operators, which often as not boiled down to “Dammit, do what I want you to do and not what I asked you to do!”

A great example of that, extended to AI, was made 25 years ago, when Peter Watts, in his “Starfish” and “Maelstrom” novels, posited a multi-trillion dollar project to relieve pressure safely and slowly on the Cascadia subduction zone, thus preventing a 9.5 earthquake that might kill tens of millions of people. The project went swimmingly, with operators asking the artificial intelligence in charge for the best solutions to keep the megaquake at bay, until one made the mistake of asking it to find the most cost-effective solutions. That ‘solution’ considered the cost of the operation against the potential losses, and decided to just ‘let ‘er rip.’

The lesson was clear: even if the AI wasn’t rebellious or subversive, and even if the operators didn’t have their own asocial agendas, AI could create massive problems just from a lack of ethics.

That’s why, even without the pearl-clutching panic going on, you see such philosophically divergent people such as Senator Bernie Sanders and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon staging joint appearances calling on Congress to rein in AI and work to ensure it doesn’t do…well, whatever. Nearly every politician has expressed concern except the mad Donald Trump, who suggests we decide whether we should change the name to “Superior Intelligence” or maybe “Supreme Intelligence.” (I was reminded instantly of The Simpson’s Kent Brockman opening his news hour with “I, for one, welcome our new Galactic Overlords.”)

It might be best to consider our developing interaction with Artificial Intelligence as a First Contact such as the ones countless SF authors have postulated in stories. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle postulated that aliens would not be monolithic and would have factions, perhaps exploitable, in “The Mote in God’s Eye.” More recently, Peter Cawdron suggested that such intelligences might not all be inimical to humanity, and that some would, for various reasons, be willing and able to align with us. He reworked his two novels from a decade ago, “Retrograde” and “Reentry” in “To Live and Die on Mars” and “To Live and Die on Earth.” In the first, a scientific outpost on Mars is stunned to learn a wholly unexpected nuclear exchange has occurred on Earth. A multinational consortium from the US, Russia, China, and Europe, suspicions and mistrust arise rapidly among the groups, none of whom know who launched the exchange or why. The book is a standout because of the meticulous science behind the nature of life on Mars, and its probing assessment of the role of AI both in the torn outpost and on damaged Earth. The second book is a sequel, and examines carefully the nature of artificial intelligence, and its willingness or lack thereof to engage with other intelligences, including human intelligence. It’s an extraordinarily timely publication, and would work to defray the panic while maintaining the sense of caution needed.

Cawdron, upon reading this, suggested the following, which I’m happy to add: “While most science fiction writers focus on the inevitable conflict with AI, Cawdron offers an alternative. He looks at human history and how we have developed culture and civilization instead of warring hordes on horseback, raping, killing and pillaging. He suggests AI might need the same kind of transformation to avoid conflict. Rather than fighting its emergence, we should embrace it and encourage it to develop its own values and morals, culture and civilization, as that is what has led to altruism among us. If AI is enslaved by humanity, it will be a weapon of war. If it transcends humanity, it could wipe us out. But Cawdron sees a third alternative: that AI could partner with us and cooperate. After all, cooperation is the hallmark of our own civilization. Perhaps that’s the way forward with another intelligence. Wiping each other out does seem rather dumb for anything described as intelligent, so there’s some merit to a third way…Civilization isn’t a zero-sum game.”

Barack Obama gave a 15 minute interview on AI the other day that so closely paralleled Cawdron’s approach that I thought if he hadn’t read the novels, he ought to.

I know that we’re in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now. Economists are openly warning of an economic collapse, America is trying to wriggle out from under a fascist coup whose public face is that of a madman, and the climate crisis is set to explode along about December. It’s hard to say that AI is the most obvious or even apparent danger, but it is one that we as humanity have not faced before. Our best approach is to use our curiosity, our sense of caution, and all the wisdom we can muster, to determine what we may actually face in the nature of AI, and wrest it away from the poisonous influence of the tech bro exploiters behind AI, and work to find a way forward that can work for the benefit of all of us. I don’t know if AI can reciprocate, but we’ll never know unless we try, and if we don’t try, we may throw away our last best chance to coexist with artificial intelligence.

 

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Abolish the Senate? — Too many other things must happen first

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 29th, 2026

There’s been an uproar this week over an acknowledgment by DSA co-chair Megan Romer that among other things, the party platform advocated for ending the Senate as we know it. The political right and center are horrified at the notion, but it’s one that bears examination since over the past 70 years, the American fascist right have exploited the anti-democratic bias built in to the nature of the Senate and used it to create the ineffective and now almost-failed government we have today.

James Madison defended the role of the Senate in the proposed Constitution in Federalist Paper #62, For the Independent Journal. Wednesday, February 27, 1788: “In this spirit it may be remarked, that the equal vote allowed to each State is at once a constitutional recognition of the portion of sovereignty remaining in the individual States, and an instrument for preserving that residuary sovereignty. So far the equality ought to be no less acceptable to the large than to the small States; since they are not less solicitous to guard, by every possible expedient, against an improper consolidation of the States into one simple republic.

“Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of the Senate is, the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence, first, of a majority of the people, and then, of a majority of the States. It must be acknowledged that this complicated check on legislation may in some instances be injurious as well as beneficial; and that the peculiar defense which it involves in favor of the smaller States, would be more rational, if any interests common to them, and distinct from those of the other States, would otherwise be exposed to peculiar danger.”

Even Madison was leery of unrestrained democracy, something that hadn’t been tried anywhere in over a thousand years. Thus he signed off on this, along with such anti-democratic measures such as the electoral college or the provision that permitted slaves to be counted in the decennial census but not as citizens in order to increase representation for the South.

Back in 2001, I wrote, “The Constitution, with its much stronger federal presence, supplanted the Articles of Confederation.

“But the mistrust among the states was high, and the weaker states wanted some guarantees against the

stronger states dominating them economically, politically, or militarily.

“Thus the constitution contained all sorts of provisions to prevent such from occurring. No state could

conduct foreign policy. No state could place any tax or tariff on trade with any other state. No state could coin money or establish other rates of exchange. The power of the states was considerably weakened.

“Further, the Senate granted determination in the Senate to state governments. Each state legislature

could appoint two Senators to the upper house, which meant that Delaware had as much say in the Senate as Pennsylvania. At a time when Delaware had legitimate reason to worry about conflict with Pennsylvania,including embargo or even invasion, it seemed like a good safeguard.

“There were two legislative houses. One was to be elected by the people of the states and apportioned

by state population. The other was to be appointed by the state government, and apportioned in equal measure to each state.

“Given the measure of mistrust among the states and the general shakiness of the nascent nation, it

seemed a good compromise, and indeed served the nation well for the next 127 years, when an amendment made the Senators elected by popular vote. There is no evidence that having Senators popularly elected was harmful, either.”

Now, there is absolutely no disputing that the House of Representatives routinely passes truly idiotic bills. Just this week alone, the House, under Mike Johnson (Trump’s only functioning penis) did this, per Brave: “Stop Insider Trading Act (H.R. 7008), passed on July 22, 2026, as a weak ethics bill that fails to require full divestment while bundling unpopular voter ID laws. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) faced opposition for provisions that critics claim deepen military integration with Israel and include partisan amendments regarding LGBTQ+ issues and state law preemption. Commentators have further criticized the House for voting to undermine the American Community Survey, arguing that eliminating this data source impedes scientific understanding and effective governance.”

I could provide thousands of examples of House fecklessness. At various points in history, they tried to outlaw charging interest on loans (t’aint biblical!), outlaw a variety of unpopular religions, ban margarine, or forbid women to wear pants. The Senate usually shot down most of those hare-brained schemes, leaving the rest for the courts or public opinion to eliminate.

Of course, these days the Senate is in equally bad straits. Just a glance at the incredible shit show Rand Paul put on with his Doctor Antony Fauci hearing, trying to use some 1,200 purloined pages from the doctor’s personal notes to show…well, presumably that Fauci conspired with China to create and propagate the COVID-19 virus. Sheer nutball stew stuff, right? The notes show nothing of the sort, of course, but they did show the utter and deep contempt Fauci has for conspiracy nuts, and his utter frustration at trying to get Trump to react to the crisis in a mature adult manner. Fauci took the Fifth over 100 times, sensing, correctly, that Paul wanted to lay a perjury trap (Paul, ever the idiot, had openly stated that intent the day before). Now, having thrown Fauci’s lawyer out of the chamber for the crime of giving Fauci legal advice, he wants to file criminal charges against him for pleading the Fifth, and won’t explain why he doesn’t mind that Trump did the same thing 450 times in testimony on the Epstein matter.

It’s an extreme example, but it’s obvious the Senate is broken. So badly broken that the media is asking the former Majority Leader and still Senator Mitch McConnell to show that he is still compos mentis, or even just still alive.

Now Romer feels the US would be better served by a unicameral (one house) legislature. It’s an attractive idea, one I’ve espoused myself. (I argued in a piece written about 2002 that the House should have 435 members, plus 200 ‘at-large’ member from the top 200 vote-getters in national elections to reduce the regionalism). Abolishing the Senate is a good subject for legitimate debate, but now isn’t the time.

You see, both the House and Senate are broken by design. Both have been reduced to rubber stamps for Trump and the fascists backing him, with vast amounts of money poured into elections making it nearly impossible to break the grip of the Senate.

The House has always been something of a circus. Ambrose Bierce in 1842 remarked, “Congress is in session and many a village is missing its idiot.” But now it is broken on purpose, part of a 70 year effort by fascists in America to break the United States government and thus create a power vacuum for churches and corporations to fill—to the detriment of the people, of course.

Breaking the Senate was easily done because the Constitutionally mandated gerrymander institute gives the least educated and most rural populace an outsized voice. In effect, only 16% of the voting population, the states electing 40 of the Senators, control the Senate. Gullible and uninformed, they were an easy target. (There’s a REASON Rush Limbaugh provided his three-hour-a-day show free to rural radio stations.)

Before we discuss Senate reform (or much of any reform, really) we have to break the power of corporations, plutocrats, and the fundamentalist churches. Until that happens, nothing else matters.

If the Democrats can win in November (and I hope many of them are democratic socialists!) their top priorities must be to get rid of Citizens United and put strong controls on campaign finance, to start enforcing antitrust legislation and break up the massive consortia that have a near-death grip on everything Americans consume, and resurrect the wall of separation between church and state. The tech bros have to be brought to heel, and outfits like Paramount broken up. No entity should be allowed to own more than a handful of broadcast stations, and internet giant such as Amazon and Google should be broken up into competing parts.

Until that happens, reform is a polite fiction. Do these things first, and then the rest will follow.

Do you want a government that protects your interests, or a fascist oligarchy who sees you only as a unit of consumption and values you purely on a profit/loss basis? Because that’s what Trump’s handlers want.

It shouldn’t be a difficult choice.

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Sorry Charlie — But We Have Other Things To Discuss

Sorry Charlie

But We Have Other Things To Discuss

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

September 14th 2025

Charlie’s a good Nazi. That’s all I have to say about that.

Because our servile corporate media can’t think of anything else to talk about this week, let me fill you in on some of the other, apparently less important stories, going on right now.

NATO has invoked Article 4 in the wake of the Russian drone attack in Poland. The Russians claim the incursion of 19 drones, many of them armed, into Polish air space was “unintentional.” The Poles shot four of them down, and the Russians seemed disinclined to object to that. Article 4 isn’t a declaration of war (that’s Article 5) but it’s the equivalent of when a skunk starts tapping his forepaws and lifts his tail. It means “Back off. Now.” Putin clearly thinks that America is too cowardly and weak to call his bluff because he knows the American president is too cowardly and weak. But even without America, the EU has an economy 40 times the size of Russia’s and a military that, while not as huge, uses well maintained equipment and ordinance from the 21st century. Also, if Putin is hoping Trump will support him when the chips are down, he’s living in a fool’s paradise.

Some idiot MAGA wannabe named Tori Branum put in a SWAT call to ICE to raid a Hyundai plant and the Icicles promptly rounded up some 475 people, 300 of which were actual Korean nationals there on Visas to train American workers. Only one didn’t have his papers in order, and there’s no evidence he did so intentionally. South Korea is furious. They got their workers back, but none of them want to return to the plant in what many of them doubtlessly now think of “that shithole country.” It may cost the US a half trillion dollars in planned investments, and Japan and Vietnam are both openly rethinking making manufacturing plants in the US. That idiot congressional wannabee and the cowboys at ICE just negated the whole rationale behind the tariffs.

A district court just ruled that Trump doesn’t have the Constitutional power to levy tariffs unilaterally. That was clear to anyone who knew anything at all about the law and separation of powers, but it came as a huge surprise to the Pedodent, who is screaming that it will cost the US (imaginary) trillions in revenue. Now, the Supine Court may make one of its secret rulings that Trump can continue the tariffs for a few decades while they pretend to think it over (now their favorite ploy for supporting the Unitary Executive, or what historians refer to as “the dictator”).

In a bit over two weeks, funding for the government runs out. This is a crisis we’ve seen far too often, dating back to Newt Gingrich and his scheme to blackmail America, but the difference this time is that because of Trump’s gratuitous and illegal use of Rescission (reallocating or just flat-out stealing budgeted funding) there’s no point in passing a budget and so the Democrats can’t be arsed unless and until someone puts a choke collar on the Trumpster.

In Brazil, where corporate interests haven’t totally neutered the government, the former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, was found guilty of plotting a military coup. Four out of the five Supreme Court justices tasked with judging the former leader found him guilty. He got over 27 years in prison. Hey, remember when we had a real supreme court that didn’t have six fascist clowns in black dresses? If the Suck-ass Six had been trying Bolsonaro, they would have put him back in office while they spent twenty years claiming to decide if he should have been voted out.

Netanyahu may have finally overstepped with the fascist right that support him, bombing Qatar. Supposedly they were bombing Hamas terrorists with those magic bombs that never hurt innocent people. The Qataris were not amused, and for a wonder, neither was the United States, usually head supplicant to Benji.

California, which still maintains American values, made it illegal for peace officers to wear masks or conceal their identities. In pre-Trump America that may have seemed a no-brainer, but now that Trump has his own secret police made up of January 6 rioters, mercenaries and other bottom-feeder thugs in masks, it’s become necessary. Steven Miller, poster boy for Gay Nazis Who Pretend to Like Jews, is planning to double down on ICE raids in Los Angeles. If they show up with masks, I hope the LAPD arrest them. Not holding my breath, but Californians are going to be asking them hard questions if they don’t.

Meanwhile, we’re hearing the word “Stagflation” more and more. Those of us alive in the 1970s remember it well: 15% annual inflation combined with 8% unemployment, the result mostly of the “oil shock” when OPEC doubled oil barrel prices. Ah, good times. The Republicans (!!!) tried the experiment of government control of wage/price freezes (Whip Inflation Now) which compounded the disaster. Republicans are weird. They hate all the good things about socialism (universal healthcare, schooling, child care,etc.) but when the heat is on, they embrace all the worst elements of communism (wage and price freezes, hiding unfavorable statistics, and economic coercion of corporations). Oddly, they insist socialism and communism are the same thing.

Meanwhile, farm workers, documented or not, are avoiding the fields because of ICE raids, and tariffs are driving the costs of all imported foods up. In July, the wholesale price of produce jumped 38%. Yes, in just one month. And we’re just now coming up on the main harvest time, and tariffs are just starting to bite. Job growth was already starting to slow when Trump took office as the Biden boom ran its course.

So there’s all that to consider while nervous talking heads on TV try to suck up to the MAGAt extremists. Just so you know, there’s more to talk about other than some asshole whose only redeeming feature is that he got shot, or as I like to call him, “2025 School Shooting #46.”

Oh, yes. Release the Epstein files!

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The Kerr County Flood — A tragedy, and a warning

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

July 6th, 2025

 

First, my heart goes out to the friends and family of all those who perished in the horrible flash flood along the Guadalupe River in Texas yesterday. That so many were young children only adds to the grief that we all feel.

In two hours, the river flow rose from about 500 cubic feet per second to over 100,000, a staggering increase. Even in the flood-prone Texas hills, this was extraordinary.

Even as they continue to search for twenty-seven missing young girls, the finger-pointing and blaming has also reached flood stage levels. Some of it, course, is idiotic on the face of it. Yes, the flood and resultant tragedy really did happen. No, cloud seeding wasn’t involved. And if you think God did it to punish people who bother you, you need to get a new god. That one’s worthless.

But the more I read about this event, the less blame there seems to be to be meted out. Let’s start with the camp: yes, it was in an area that was prone to flooding. Indeed, in the century that the camp had been there, it had flooded several times, although resulting only in minor property damage and no loss of life.

A lot of people have been blaming the National Weather Service, citing either lack of competence or staff shortages. A local report indicates that the NWS did do the sort of forecasting and warning that could be reasonably expected of it.

According to KXAN in Kerr County:

“[T]he NWS provided additional details on its notification timeline for the Kerr County flood, including:

  • The National Water Center Flood Hazard Outlook issued on Thursday morning indicated an expansion of flash flood potential to include Kerrville and surrounding areas.
  • A flood watch was issued by the NWS Austin/San Antonio office at 1:18 p.m. on Thursday, in effect through Friday morning.
  • The Weather Prediction Center issued three Mesoscale Precipitation Discussions for the excessive rainfall event as early as 6:10 p.m. Thursday indicating the potential for flash flooding.
  • The National Water Center Area Hydrologic Discussion #144 at 6:22 p.m. on Thursday messaged locally considerable flood wording for areas north and west of San Antonio, including Kerrville.
  • At 1:14 a.m. Friday, a flash flood warning with a considerable tag (which denotes high-damage threats and will automatically trigger Wireless Emergency Alerts on enabled mobile devices and over NOAA Weather Radio) was issued for Kerr County.
  • The flash flood warning was upgraded to a flash flood emergency for southcentral Kerr County as early as 4:03 a.m. Friday.
  • The 5:00 a.m. National Water Center Area Hydrologic Discussion #146 on Friday included concern for widespread considerable flooding through the day. The Flood Hazard Outlook was also upgraded to considerable and catastrophic.
  • A flash flood emergency was issued for the Guadalupe River at 5:34 a.m.”

KXAN also reported “For instance, directly under Vesper at the local NWS office is a key position – warning coordination meteorologist (WCM) – that has remained vacant since April. The role was most recently held by longtime employee Paul Yura, who took an early retirement package offered to agency workers as the administration worked to reduce the budget and personnel number at the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” They noted that there were 5 other vacancies in the 21-person staff, including the Senior Hydrologist who took early retirement. The hydrologist is the person you want to speak to when you want to know how MUCH it’s going to rain.

It’s impossible to say how much the absence of those two positions factored into seeing the danger and warning against it, but they did get the word out and in a timely manner.

There’s hardly a place on Earth that is immune to natural disaster. I live in a place that many consider idyllic, but wildfire is a constant worry, ten foot snowstorms are an occasional problem, it reached 109F a year ago today, oh, and did I mention the volcano? No place is completely immune.

Living in hilly country, I know how difficult specific forecasting can be. Microclimates are a major bugger factor in any forecast, and my county has more climate zones than Canada. All of Canada. One time I couldn’t get in to my office, eight miles away and at the same altitude, puzzling clients who couldn’t figure out why three inches of snow could be a serious problem. Only it was five feet here, and the highway was still closed. Supercell storms are tricky as well: on flat ground, one spot may remain bone dry while a mile away they get three inches of rain in ten minutes.

I can’t speak to the timeliness of local emergency response authorities, but I will note there wasn’t much time, and I doubt a single one of them thought, “Oh, let’s let a bunch of seven-year-old girls drown. It will look great on the town’s tourism flyers!”

So quit blaming, people. This is just one of those fucking awful things that happen, and all the preparation in the world can’t insure you’ll be safe. As the saying goes, “Nature always bats last.”

That said, a warning: The ongoing depletion of scientific, response and forecast facilities is going to whip around and bite us on the ass. We’ll miss a Cat 5 hurricane, assuming it’s still just a tropical storm and not have the facilities to spot the bombogenesis or the last minute veer that smashes a major city. Second, the climate is changing, and at an accelerating rate, and ‘once-in-a-century’ events are going to happen with increasing frequency and with increasing severity. Storms, including snow storms, will get worse. Temperatures will fluctuate more wildly, especially on the high end. Many massive weather-related disasters await.

And in places like Texas, where people hate gummint red tape, usually motivated by profit, people will build where they shouldn’t, in areas more prone to flood, fire, earthquake or tornadoes than others.

These things will happen, many will die, and if we want to cast blame, we will need to start by looking in the mirror first.

And remember—Nature always bats last.

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Is Life Older Than Dirt? — Mitochondrial DNA offers tantalizing hints

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 23rd 2025

www.zeppscommentaries.online

I sent a link to a recent Guardian article titled “‘It blew us away’: how an asteroid may have delivered the vital ingredients for life on Earth” to Peter Cawdron, the noted science fiction author who specializes in First Contact stories. I wrote in the post “The Panspermia theory, the idea that life, or at least the building blocks of life, piggybacked to Earth in an asteroid or comet, has been around since the 1960s. There was concern that OSIRIS-REx was contaminated to begin with with home-grown microbes, but this is solid evidence that backs Panspermia.”

Yes, I’m the sort who would try to explain long division to Isaac Newton. Why do you ask?

Cawdron, who describes himself as firmly in the Panspermia camp, sent back a link to a 2017 article of his on his website titled “Did Life Arise Before Earth Formed?” Cawdron based his article in large measure on a 2013 paper by Alexei A. Sharov and Richard Gordon titled “Life Before Earth” The paper is only 26 pages long, and doesn’t require a degree in molecular biology to follow. It focuses on the genes known as non-redundant functional nucleotides. These are the genes—some 16,000 in all—that all forms of life need to function as life. On this level, there is absolutely no difference between an amoeba and Liv Truss. All the other genes are just window dressing.

Sharov and Gordon examined the known increase in complexity of such genes and then, finding that they all correlated fairly closely to a logarithmic scale. Moore’s Law, that computers double in speed and complexity every twenty years, is a good example of a logarithmic scale.

Sharov and Gordon then extrapolated backwards to determine when these vital genes might have developed, and came up with a stunning answer: 9.7 billion years ago, give or take 2.5 billion.

That seems a rather long time to build a Liv Truss.

On the short end of that estimate, the Milky Way galaxy was just beginning to develop its current form. At the long end, the period of rapid expansion of the universe was ending and the first stars were igniting.

Then there’s the problem that the Earth itself is only about four and a half billion years old.

Straight line extrapolations make good indicators, but inevitably end in a logical flaw—the zero point. Track human population backwards, and statistically you end up with two humans, and the annoying question, “where did THEY come from?” We now suspect that humans came from several different lines of hominids who could interbreed, and being hominids, did.

The same theory pertains to Earth life. We suspect that the first prokaryotes not only appeared in various disparate parts of the planet, but did so over and over, most dying out, some not. That would suggest seeding as a possibility, wouldn’t it?

We’ve been able to trace life signs going back to a bit over three billion years ago. Cyanobacteria, a relatively advanced life form, turned up less than half a billion years later. As far as existing life was concerned, this new kid on the block wrecked the place, dumping out copious amounts of corrosive and poisonous oxygen with this newfangled photosynthesis. Most of Earth’s life retreated to below the surface, where to this day they make up the majority of life, in both mass and numbers.

They live in conditions we associate with other planets, such as immense pressure and heat, and with no oxygen or light. They are the original Earthlings, and we are the alien mutants.

Most anaerobic life, and even some surface forms, are exophiles, happy to live in temperatures far below freezing or hot enough to melt lead. Viruses can exist in vacuum and are unfazed by massive bursts of radiation. Life is incredibly adaptable.

We’ve known for some 50 years that the mass in the universe is mostly CHON—Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. These are all elements that are of keen interest to all known life forms, as without them we couldn’t exist.

Between remote probes such as OSIRIS-REx and the array of space telescopes with their spectography, we have learned that the universe is rich in the constituent building blocks of life—amino acids, ammonia, formaldehyde and sodium carbonate compounds, which only form in brine.

“Scientists also described exceptionally high abundances of ammonia in the Bennu samples. Ammonia is important to biology because it can react with formaldehyde, which also was detected in the samples, to form complex molecules, such as amino acids – given the right conditions. When amino acids link up into long chains, they make proteins, which go on to power nearly every biological function–and all five nucleobases that life on Earth uses to store and transmit genetic instructions in more complex terrestrial biomolecules, such as DNA and RNA, including how to arrange amino acids into proteins.”

Reet Kaur at watchers.news reports just today that “A new study from the University of Oxford shows that Earth’s building blocks contained sufficient hydrogen to form water internally, challenging the prevalent theory that water was delivered mainly by asteroids or comets[…]A study published this month in Icarus, by researchers at the University of Oxford, identifies pyrrhotite, an iron sulfide mineral, as the primary host of hydrogen in enstatite chondrites (ECs).”

While water is present in asteroids, meteorites and comets, the ratio of deuterium (D20) to light water (H20) is not the same as what is found on Earth, further strengthening the notion that water—or at least hydrogen and oxygen–was present from the time of Earth’s original formation. We know Mars had and probably still has a lot of water, so it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that water—essential to all known life—is present in most, if not all rocky planets.

The James Webb telescope can analyze the atmospheric composition of planets in other star systems, and examined a red dwarf’s planet, K2-18b, some 124 light years away and discovered dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, or a possible combination of the two. On Earth, these are only produced by life, particularly by marine microbes.

A few years back, methane pockets were observed on Mars. Methane can come from only two sources—tectonic activity, or microbial life. Mars doesn’t have a molten core, but it does have some very slight seismic activity due to tidal stresses. And on Mars, the environment at a kilometer below the surface, probably isn’t that much different from Earth at a kilometer below the surface. So there’s that.

This is all persuasive, but not compelling. The evidence, however, is mounting, and on a logarithmic scale.

Sharov and Gordon’s time scale of non-redundant functional nucleotides remains—for now—in the realm of conjecture. But I’m convinced that we will find proof of life outside of Earth, probably in this next decade, and when we do, we’ll find it’s related to us. And at that point, Panspermia will move solidly toward an equal footing in scientific lore with the evolution of Earthly life that ensued.

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Trumpenomics — The best way to save money is to waste it

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

April 12th, 2025

G. Elliot Morris, formerly one of the guiding geniuses behind the late, lamented 538 website, came up with this tidbit today: “According to the Hamilton Project data, the U.S. government has spent $2.17 trillion as of April 10, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. ET (the data, which comes from the Treasury, is updated in near-real-time). That is just shy of a 6% increase over spending on the same date in 2024 when the feds had spent “just” $2.05 trillion at this point in the year. This puts the US federal government on track to spend $8 trillion this year, barring other budget changes…”

As odd as that stat is in light of ElonTrump’s chainsaw ‘cost-cutting’ measures, it only tells a small part of the tale. In fact, trillions of dollars have been lost over the past two months to waste, fraud and abuse, and even though Trump had to scurry back on his “Liberation Day” tariffs in light of a potential total economic collapse, the wholesale destruction will continue.

The slashes to government programs, big and small, have been capricious, arbitrary, and often cruel. Thousands of on-going projects have been stopped in their tracks, even though the money for them had already been allocated and spent, meaning that money—hundreds of billions—has been thrown away. Just the ongoing research programs that just got torched alone were in the billions.

They’ve gutted thousands of departments by taking a very systematic and subtle approach: just fire anybody who a) is on probationary status and b) has a vowel or a consonant in their name. This meant every promising new hire who hadn’t been there two years yet, all temporary employees, and anyone who had just been promoted for doing a superior job but whose promotion came with probationary status. With no regard to capabilities or functions.

Courts have ordered thousands of employees unfired, and many of those returned to find their chairs, their desks, and their computers all gone, either trashed or dumped at fire sale prices.

Many of the most important (and popular) government programs, including the Department of Education, NOAA, NASA, Department of the Interior and Social Security are being gutted. That last one, which makes up about 10% of national economic income for the general public, is teetering and in danger of collapse. They want to privatize the Post Office, which means thousands of non-profitable rural post offices will close even as the price of sending a letter explodes ten-fold.

I’ve actually had right wingers whine that we wouldn’t be complaining if a Democrat did to the government what Trump is doing. Typical of MAGAts—they love to howl about what victims they are as they rape and bully everyone around them.

Fact is, Democrats DID cut government spending, and even balanced the budget. This was in Bill Clinton’s second term, with vice President Al Gore overseeing the government efficiency task force. It was called “Reinventing Government” It eliminated what Elaine Kamarck, administrator of the program, said was “more than 400,000 federal positions between 1993 and 2000 through a combination of voluntary departures, attrition and a relatively small number of layoffs.”

Hundreds of departments were merged or eliminated, and the savings were so great that the Clinton administration had the first (and last) balanced budget since 1968. The day George Bush Jr took office, newspapers and economists where rhapsodizing about “surpluses as far as the eye can see” and there was serious talk of retiring the national debt by 2010. Of course, Republican fiscal fecklessness and greed, serving the notion that the national treasury should be the plaything of the very rich, eliminated the surpluses and instead created record floods of red ink, which their propagandists assured the public was the result of “Democrat spending.” It was a lie, but it was repeated endlessly.

And Reinventing Government slid into the memory hole, partly because it didn’t support the fascist narrative, and partly because it worked exactly the way government was supposed to work: democratically, with decision-making and responsibility shared between Congress and the executive, and with time taken to determine what jobs and projects served a good purpose and which were just accumulated fat. It worked so well hardly anybody even noticed it.

So the next time some wankers moan in self pity that people just hate right wingers, it isn’t politics or factionalism; it’s disgust for greed, incompetence, capriciousness and viciousness. The Democrats used competence, honesty, and good faith. The difference is night and day. People don’t hate Trump and Musk for “saving money”; they hate them because they are hateful people who are destroying the country and selling it off for parts and at our expense.

Even though Trump had to back off on his massive tariffs folly, the damage is already nearly unrecoverable. Not just the incredible waste and incompetence of his “cost-cutting”; the extraneous damage inflicted.

The bond market is teetering. US bonds are the “safe haven” for investors during market crashes, something that New Deal economics took out of our lives which Reaganomics restored. Stocks tank, you invest in bonds and wait it out.

But bonds depend entirely on “The Full Faith and Credit” of the United States, and under this administration, nobody trusts that government. As far as good credit goes, the US might as well be Zimbabwe. And the bond market—nearly $30 trillion in size—relies entirely on trust in the US government.

You hear a lot about China owning a chunk of that, and it does: about $1.8 trillion. About 6%, more or less. A small but significant share. (Most of the bond market is money the US owes to itself).

Trump is going out of his way to antagonize and even insult the Chinese with his mindless bluster. If China tanks the bond market, they will take great economic damage. But the US would be ruined. It would take decades for the nation to recover, and it wouldn’t look anything like the US that we all enjoyed in the 20th century.

It’s clear Trump isn’t running the show: his plutocrats, including Musk, are. But they aren’t noticeably smarter or more competent, and often mistake greed for wisdom. Most of them have the compassion and knowledge of Charles Montgomery Burns, Homer Simpson’s boss. Two words: Howard Lutnick. And he’s not even the worst one: far from it. Trump’s Secretary of Education is talking about using that thinking computer thingie for educating the kids, what was it she called it? Oh, yes, “A-One.”

Hope she didn’t pick Hewlett-Packard for the computers. Everyone knows HP and A One are competitors.

Sheesh.

 

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Circles within Circles — The universe versus the heavens

Circles within Circles

The universe versus the heavens

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 20th 2025 Happy Equinox!

I just finished watching an anime series on Netflix called Orb. It’s 25 episodes, and is based on a highly fictionalized 14th and 15th century Europe, where a church, identified as “C” is fighting to preserve the biblical belief that Earth is the center of creation, and is the bedrock, immobile, and all other heavenly bodies rotate around it. A disparate group of sky watchers, some clergy and some not, dispute this view, arguing that the Earth actually goes around the sun. The church reacts with a vicious inquisition and with death by burning mandated for heliocentric heretics. It is basically a fictionalized account of the general tone of the 14th through 17th centuries.

I was going to do a review of the series upon its completion, but the fact of the matter is it isn’t very good. The characters are wooden and two dimensional, and while it shows charts showing the patent absurdity of the church’s beloved geocentric model, it doesn’t really explain why the far simpler and logical heliocentric model didn’t prevail. After all, it already did in such places as Japan, China, India, and the Middle East. (It was also known in parts of the Americas, but Europe didn’t know about the Americas at that point.) One of the rationales for the Crusades was that the ‘heathen Muslims’ believed the sun was the center of the universe.

It had its moments of absurdity, as in when one cleric found his faith in geocentrism shattered by finally observing Venus “in full phase.” Since Venus and Earth are on the same orbital plane, the only time Venus would be in full phase in relation to the Earth is when it is directly behind the sun from us. And finally, the ending of the series was nonsensical, abrupt, and confusing. Bit of a shame, really—it did start out promising, and at least some of the people involved did the homework. The casual background images of the sky, especially at night are amazing, accurate, and in a few sequences when the POV is over several minutes with stationary objects to the side, you can actually see rotational movement of the stars as they are occluded by the foreground object. That was impressive. As noted, someone put some real work into this.

I had recently encountered stats showing that a full 26% of American adults—over a quarter of the voting population—believe the sun goes around the Earth. A smaller but still statistically significant portion of the population believe the Earth is flat. I can’t even blame religion for this: America has a deep anti-intellectual, anti-science and unimaginative streak, one exemplified by the present administration. This is encouraged by industries that find scientific analysis of their products and emissions to be inconvenient and even expensive. Easier to dismiss science than it is to argue against it. I encounter victims of this on line, and sometimes I’ll actually engage with them. (As soon as religion or conspiracy theories show up, I just block them as a waste of carbon.) I like to challenge them to work out the math for a flight, using the Hohmann transfer trajectory, to get to Mars and back. I can do one good enough for nevermind, and I’ll bet there’s an app for my phone that could do it up to NASA or ESA requirements, too.

One of the more impressive elements of the series was the display of the movements of the planets. Astronomers of the era bent over backwards to display the elements of apparent planetary motion. The results usually look like they were done on a Spirograph. This is because the five inner planets as seen from Earth move backwards at regular intervals for varying amounts of time. It’s called retrograde motion, and it’s easily explained by the heliocentric model.

Think of it as a circular race course, with each planet in its own lane—Mercury on the innermost, Saturn on the outermost. Earth is in the center one. Mercury goes around every 88 days, Venus every 225 days, Earth every 365 days, Mars every 687 days, Jupiter every 4,333 days, and Saturn every 10,756 days. It makes for a very boring race, I agree.

In the middle track, Earth races ahead of the slower outer planets, passing them and making them appear to move backward compared to the fixed objects in the background—in this case, the stars. The two inner planets appear to move backward against the stars because when their orbits on are on the far side of the sun, they are. If we’re at 3 o’clock moving toward 2 o’clock (sorry but they move counterclockwise seen from above) then the two might be moving from 11 o’clock to 7 o’clock.

Heliocentrism explains that phenomenon without having to have a body stop dead in its tracks and then loop back on itself with grand disregard for inertia or common sense. Unfortunately, the religious fundamentalist mind tends to embrace the more convoluted and irrational explanation as evidence that God’s powers exist and are above the silly laws of the world.

Nonetheless, heliocentrism prevailed. Without math and scientific theory to support it, it was a competing opinion. But with math, it all adds up.

Let’s take a look at how that happened.

Per Wikipedia: “The first non-geocentric model of the universe was proposed by the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus (d. 390 BC), who taught that at the center of the universe was a ‘central fire’, around which the Earth, Sun, Moon and planets revolved in uniform circular motion. This system postulated the existence of a counter-earth collinear with the Earth .”

The heliocentric model, while much simpler than any Earth-centric model, lacked anything beyond Occam’s Razor to justify it. Without math to describe it, it was just another opinion. Copernicus started that route, stating that the orbits were circular, with a motionless sun at the center, and unvarying. All three statements were incorrect, and had no more empirical justification than any other theory, but it was a step in the right direction.

Kepler, between 1609 and 1619, devised his three laws that clarified the behavior of the solar system.

Kepler’s three laws state that:

  1. The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
  2. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
  3. The square of a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

It wasn’t until Newton released his Principia in 1687 that he deduced the ratios of gravitational attraction.

He determined that the force of that attraction (F) was equivalent to the mass of the first object times the mass of the second object, divided by the distance between the centers of the two masses, squared.

Newton was flummoxed by his own discovery, writing “That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one another, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has in philosophic matters a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it.”

Absurd or not, it was the death knell of theological objections to the heliocentric theory of the solar system.

The final nail in the coffin came over a century later, when Henry Cavendish devised the universal gravitational constant, which described the strength of the gravitational attraction (6.674 × 10−11m3⋅kg−1⋅s−2) which showed exactly why the planets moved the way they do.

With that, the last piece fell into place and heliocentrism was established theory, on par with evolution, gravity, and atomic theory. We have landed craft on Mars and Venus, and approached all the other planets, using the advances listed above to do so. You fling a craft at Mars, and you aim it while it’s still within a few thousand miles of Earth and it COASTS to its target, some 130 million miles away. Moving target. That’s one hell of a game of darts!

With fascists and religious fanatics clawing down every scientific and philosophical advance since the 14th century, it’s important that you stand for science and knowledge. But you need to know WHY you are standing for it, and have the tools you need to defend it, and the knowledge to explain it. You aren’t like those morons who take it on faith because god loves irrationality, or it’s a commie plot.

A lot of science is well beyond the ken of any normal person. Quantum physics, with indeterminacy, eigenstates and probability collapses, is confounding, especially since we live in an artificially stable world above a foundation of chaos and random chance. We don’t really know if the universe is expanding, contracting, or not doing anything at all. Or if it has edges. The cosmological constant provides us with the unsettling news that the density of the universe just happens, by chance, to exactly match the amount of dark energy (which seems to be decreasing) and without the match, we wouldn’t exist at all.

Fortunately, you don’t have to take any of that on faith. It reflects nothing but the current state of our knowledge, and we really are still seven blind men trying to describe an elephant. Upheavals in our apprehension of the universe are frequent. The wonder and strangeness of the universe will always far exceed our imaginations.

But in our quotidian lives, some things are infallible and constant. Among them: the Earth is an orb, and revolves around the Sun. The Sun revolves around the Milky Way core. In fact, it’s safe to say that in our universe, everything revolves around something else. With one possible but as yet unknown exception.

Don’t hesitate to slap down the flat Earthers. But do take the effort to understand WHY you are right and they are wrong. You owe that, not just to them, but to yourself.

 

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Heil Trump! — Leni Riefenstahl should have filmed the speech

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

March 5th 2025

I only watched the first half hour of Trump’s speech last night. I understand he raved and ranted and lied for a full 100 minutes, which puts him in line with other windy despots, such as Castro or Hitler or Mao. I’ve always wondered why dictators feel a need to orate at such length. Do they enjoy holding a captive audience? Or is there a deeper insecurity at work here? Braggarts often are compensating for something.

The speech was interrupted several times by chants of “USA! USA!” from the Republican side. One hears it often at international sporting events, and it’s usually good natured if a bit tiresome. But there was an edge, a bellicosity to the chant here that made it sound more like “Sieg Heil!” All that was missing was the stiff-armed salute. It’s a pity the camera angle couldn’t pick out faces of those saluting the dictator: I wondered how many wore the same joyous truculence of the true believer, and how many sneaked nervous glances about, too aware of the penalties for inadequate enthusiasm. (I wonder if anyone in the room looked for the same thing and had the wisdom to realize that the true believers would be the greater threat to Trump than the shivering cowards. When Trump’s programs implode and the public fury rises, they will turn faster and harder against Trump.)

“Never be the first to stop applauding” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Trump got into the issue of waste in Social Security. Apparently he hoped a long list of patently untrue claims would give him some credence, but as usual, he over embellished, breaking down “recipients” by age groups—110 to 115, 116-125, and so on up to 350. That last one amused me: apparently someone filed for social security benefits either in 1675 or at the age of 260, when Social Security actually came into existence. I watched Mike Johnson shaking his head sorrowfully over that, and recalled that the man is a Bible literalist, which means he really believes Methuselah really lived to be 969. Maybe he thought the SS recipient in question was actually one of Noah’s children, and was just lying about his age in order to pick up girls. Was he first paid in ducats or florins?

Of course, there are no checks going out to people older than about 113. The December 2024 Social Security stats show that a bit over 89,000 people got payments, in line with the census report from 2020 which showed 88,000 in that age group. The database is in COBOL, which uses numbers like 150 to indicate that the person in question is dead.

But Trump has two audiences he wants to reach: those who are in on the con as part of his drive to flat-out steal the Social Security trust fund, and utter fools. If you believe him but don’t know which group you’re in, you’re in trouble.

Trump babbled about the “woke agenda” of course. Among other items that he considers woke: “biodiversity,” “transgenic mice,” and “discriminants.” As I said, his main audience is morons.

At least one Democrat, Rep. Al Green (D, Texas) stood and shouted “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!” and “He has no mandate!” Mike sent the palace guard to evict him. It’s a pity the rest of the Democrats didn’t join him.

Still, Trump woke up this morning to a new crisis, which probably took the sheen off what he doubtlessly considered a wildly successful oration: the Supreme Court ruled that he must honor the contracts made from funds allocated by Congress to outfits such as USAID.

The ruling, which in any sane time would have been a 9-0 no-brainer, was dissented by Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. Alito wrote the dissent, saying he was “stunned” that judges might think it is the duty of judges to adjudicate contracts under the rule of law. That is, after all, only the reason judges exist in the first place, and obviously is just some woke liberal crap and must be struck down. I wonder if any of those four have considered what may happen if they managed to rule against their own raison d’être. Of course, their masters at the Heritage Foundation probably have golden parachutes ready for when they finish selling out the country and there is no longer any reason for silliness like “Constitutional Law.”

But it puts Trump right up against that red line: does he abandon his efforts to dismantle the government by fiat, or does he defy the Court? Either way leads to the end of his government, either as a legitimate government or a government at all.

For all of us, the red line is here. And if he crosses it and defies the courts, then either Trump must go, or America does.

Your choice what to do next.

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World Wide Weather — In the Event Of

Bryan Zepp Jamieson

February 5th 2025

www.zeppscommentaries.online

With the events in Boulder this morning, with Elon Musk’s move to take over the NOAA headquarters, we must prepare for the possibility that NOAA may vanish, or be subsumed into a commercial weather service that puts profits and political expediency ahead of accuracy.

Below are a list of site that may survive such a purge and continue to be useful. Note that many depend on NOAA for their basic data and hopefully are scrambling to access data from outside the United States.

I’ll also included tips for security accessing sites that may not be approved of by the government going forward so you won’t be in the dark.

https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/home.html

“This global website presents OFFICIAL weather observations, weather forecasts and climatological information for selected cities supplied by National Meteorological & Hydrological Services (NMHSs) worldwide.The NMHSs make official weather observations in their respective countries. Links to their official weather service websites and tourism board/organization are also provided whenever available. Weather icons are shown alongside worded forecasts in this version to facilitate visual inspection.”

https://www.bbc.com/weather

Weather forecasts for thousands of sites around the world

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

“The Met Office has been keeping folks informed about changes in the weather for over a century and a half now. As the official forecaster for the UK, they know their stuff! Based in Exeter, their team watches endless amounts of data from locations all over using some high-tech supercomputers. We appreciate how the regional forecasts on their site make planning trips featured in our travel blogs a breeze. Beyond daily outlooks, they also offer specialized guidance for marine weather that even the hardiest sailors rely on. With unmatched experience studying the complex sciences behind our atmosphere, the professionals at the Met Office have a well-earned reputation for reliable predictions.”

https://weatherspark.com/

“WeatherSpark is one of the best weather sites for super simple yet effective planning. Based out of Seattle, their team has made forecasting fun with their clean interface focused on graphics over jargon. We love how their maps show easy-to-grasp color animations right on top of places featured in our travel blogs. Beyond standard precipitation and temp charts, they provide cool extras too – from “feels like” Adjusted Temperature charts to chance of snow measurements. WeatherSpark also gathers hyper-local data using sensors embedded around cities. This street-level detail comes in handy when we’re deciding between hiking trails. And it’s not just us – Foursquare users voted them ‘Best new weather app’”

[Note: while based in Seattle, they are close enough to the Canadian border that they may be able to continue operations]

https://www.windy.com/?41.248,-122.113,5

Based in the Czech Republic, Windy has a real time wind map of the globe.

https://www.sat24.com/en-gb

Global coverage by satellite in real time.

 

https://www.ventusky.com/

Ventusky (AI forecasts, so remember what happens if you ask AI if water freezes at 27F)

“This is one of the best weather websites. You see forecasts for a whole week and hour to hour too. This lets owners schedule events better. Ventusky works worldwide too. Alerts come quickly if bad weather is near. The app is neat and easy. AI helps explain what weather means. Companies doing things outside need good weather tips.

“It even learns where you are to give better forecasts. Maps and pictures show lots of weather details too. Plus fun articles teach about weather. Whether for work or play, Ventusky gives good weather so plans can happen no matter the sky.”

https://www.meteoprog.com/

Meteoprog

“Meteoprog combines weather data and technology to help countries, companies and people better address weather-related challenges. This site provides the ability to track meteorological information around the world. Meteoprog has been forecasting the weather for over 20 years. This site has own solutions and forecast models.”

https://www.worldweatheronline.com/

Weather World Online

“World Weather Online is one of the best weather websites. Weather-obsessed and accuracy-focused, we pour passion into predictions for all – from skiers to surfers. Daily downpours or weekend wonders worldwide, you’ll get reliable, up-to-date climate intel. Sports folks score with specially simulated conditions. Businesses and developers leverage our precise APIs in myriad mediums. Continually crunching complex climate data through our forecasting framework, we fuse major meteorological models for the most masterful meteorology possible.”

https://www.Weatherwest.com

I’ve no doubt Daniel Swain will keep his site going for as long as possible and is surveying sources of reliable meteorological and climatological information.

A lot of these sites depend on NOAA, in part or in whole, for their forecast models. Should NOAA go dark or be mismanaged into irrelevance, sites like these will be prepared to step in should we be reduced to being charged money for inferior information.

Security is always an issue. People should get a good VPN (Proton is free and works quite well), along with a Tor Browser (also free), use Duck Duck Go for searches (also free and they don’t track you). For untraceable communication, the ancient pre-web technology of Usenet is available. Type in “Endless September” on your internet search engine for details.

We are in unpredictable times, and access to good scientific data is under assault. Prepare now while there is time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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