Category: Now for something completely different

Record-Sized Comet Seen Belching Jets From Surface as It Heads Our Way

An absolutely gigantic comet is currently barreling into the inner Solar System at full steam. And we mean that almost literally – astronomers have now detected big outbursts of carbon monoxide belching from its surface.

Comet C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is the largest Oort Cloud comet ever detected, spanning a whopping 137 kilometers (85 miles) wide. For reference, that’s almost 14 times bigger than the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

It’s a little unsettling that something that big is currently hurtling in our direction, but thankfully it won’t come any closer than the orbit of Saturn, when it reaches its closest approach on 29 January 2031.

Astronomers have now observed the comet using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, confirming its monster size and spotting molecular activity.

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Something, something, OODA Loop, something.

The fight over this will be interesting, and ugly, and I don’t see where Trump has anything to lose from it. – Glenn Reynolds

The Trillionaires of Mars

The first entity to establish a Mars colony will be the universe’s first trillionaire.

Lately, we’ve had a lot of puddlefish whining about how “we” shouldn’t go to Mars. Some of them actually think they get a vote, based on economic illiteracy and the delusion that SpaceX is somehow part of the US federal government. [Closed caption for the hard-of-thinking: it isn’t.]

But others just think they are giving good investment advice… SpaceX investors can do what they want, but Mars is a frozen wasteland full of nothing but near-vacuum and rocks.

So why would anyone want to go there?

Source: @cb_doge

Elon Musk likes to answer this question by pointing out that it’s not a good idea to store all humanity’s eggs in one basket. He’s right, but this kind of argument isn’t comprehensible to everyone, nor is it the full picture.

So now it’s the SF writer’s turn.

And therefore I present to you…

An Economic Roadmap for the Future of Humanity.

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Ukraine, in an Unlikely Attack on an Iconic Cultural Mainstay, Is Sending Drones Into Russia To Blow Up Its Vodka Distilleries.

In a blow to Russia, Ukraine used the cover of night yesterday to blast four large vodka distilleries. Video clips posted online purported to show alcohol tanks burning fiercely in Tula and Tambov, two Russian regions about 300 miles from eastern Ukraine.

In the largest attack to date on Russia’s alcohol industry, drones flew from Ukraine and set off the pre-dawn blazes. In President Putin’s wartime economy, alcohol distilleries produce vodka for drinking and ethanol for the military machine.

Russia is the world’s largest consumer of vodka — about 21 shots per adult per month, according to the World Population Review. This is about 70 percent more than Ukraine’s per capita consumption and almost five times American consumption.

In a nation where vodka sales average 600 million liters a year, it is unclear whether yesterday’s pyrotechnics will seriously dent Russia’s vodka industry. However, it is a psychological blow to an industry revered by the average Russian man.

In 988, Prince Volodomyr the Great rejected Islam because of Islam’s prohibition of drinking alcohol. Instead, he Christianized Kievan Rus. He is quoted as saying: “Drinking is the joy of all Rus. We cannot exist without its pleasure.”

Vodka was for Tsarist Russia what oil is for modern Russia. In the mid-19th century, vodka taxes accounted for up to 40 percent of government revenue. By 1911, 89 percent of all alcohol sold in Russia was vodka.

In the opening days of Nazi Germany’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, the Luftwaffe sought out and severely damaged Moscow’s Kristall, the Soviet Union’s largest distillery. During World War II, Red Army soldiers advanced through Eastern Europe fueled in part by daily rations of two shots of vodka.

This week, it is unlikely that Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s iconic cultural product will galvanize Russians to rally around their President’s war on Ukraine. More likely, it will simply become the latest indignity that Russians have to put up with as they seek to avoid getting dragged into his war.

Two years ago, a national draft order prompted about 1 million Russian men to leave the country. To avoid a repeat this fall, Mr. Putin is burning through oil earnings to buy soldiers. First-time signing bonuses have soared to $25,000, the equivalent of two year’s annual salary for workers outside big cities. Enlistment bonuses rise as hair-raising news from the war front filters back home.

For Russian soldiers, last month was the bloodiest month of the 31-month war, American and British officials say. Daily Russian casualties averaged 1,200 killed or severely wounded a day. Ukraine’s August 6 invasion of a chunk of Russia’s Kursk region has not sparked a surge in enlistments.

“This unprecedented Ukrainian occupation of Russian territory” has exposed what the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine editor, Peter Dickinson, calls “the limitations of the Kremlin war machine.” Mr. Dickinson made that observation two weeks ago in an essay titled “Putin doesn’t have enough troops to defeat Ukraine and defend Russia.”

Mr. Dickinson contended that “while many continue to view the Russian military as an irresistible force with virtually limitless supplies of men and machines, it is now increasingly apparent that in reality, Putin’s attempt to conquer Ukraine has left his army dangerously overstretched and unable to defend Russia.”

In response to this shortage of warriors, Russia is training and equipping as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers to fight against Ukraine. Ukrainian officials say these units will go to Russia’s Kursk region to join the fight to expel Ukrainian soldiers from Kursk, the first invasion of Russia by a foreign power since World War II. In simple English, this means that the Kremlin is paying foreign mercenaries to liberate Russian soil because Russians will not fight for it.

So About Those Oceans That Were Just About to Boil Away…

It seems like only last year [it was only last year, Steve —Editor] that we were all going to die because the oceans were literally figuratively boiling away. I’m not sure whether it was the massive amounts of steam that were supposed to kill us or the resulting Sharknado. I just know that whatever the oceans are doing, it’s a VERY BAD THING, even though the Great Barrier Reef seems to love it. Seriously, the GBR is in better shape than it’s been in for years.

But now, “surface ocean temperatures are plunging rapidly around the world with scientists reported to be puzzled at the speed of the recent decline, according to Chris Morrison at The Daily Sceptic this week. “Less puzzlement was to be found when the oceans were ‘boiling’ during the last two years,” Morrison dryly noted.

When things are getting worse, climate scientists enjoy the certainty of knowing exactly what’s going on and why. When the trend lines improve, it’s a much less newsworthy mystery.

“Until recently, the surface sea temperature (SST) graph below showing measurements up the Arctic and down to Antarctica was rarely out of the public prints… This year the temperature shown by the black line flatlined until April compared with the substantial rise in orange for 2023. It then fell more sharply than last year and is now 0.2°C lower.”

You can play with the interactive chart here if you like.

For whatever reason, ocean temps are up a full degree Celsius or so since the mid-’80s but 2024 is showing cooling like we’ve never seen before. Then again, if our data only goes back to the mid-’80s, how much do we really know about oceans that are billions of years old, and surround continents that slowly drift around?

As I wrote way back in 2014, before we start panicking, a few questions need to be answered in this order:

  • Is whatever is going on detrimental or beneficial to the human habitat?
  • Do we understand the how and the why?
  • Do we have the technical means and know-how to make things better instead of worse?

We’re still iffy on big parts of the first question, but we have a lot of people in Washington and other places telling us that we need to tax and regulate as though we have perfect answers to all three.

Let’s go back to the Great Barrier Reef for a moment. In 2016 the GBR was pronounced dead at the ripe old age of 25 million, but by 2022 parts of it showed the highest coral cover in 36 years. Last year the panic mongers had to admit that “the truth is complex.” This would be a great time for climate scientists to admit that on the Rumsfeld Epistemological Scale when it comes to how our planet works, we still have a great many unknown unknowns. But don’t hold your breath.

The only certain thing for sure, as Lyle Lovett once sang, is that whatever is going on, it’s the worst thing ever and it’s because of something you did, comrade.

You can also be sure that the freezing oceans will be what kills us next.

I have a solution. Not that I didn’t already know it, but when I visited friends in Fort Yukon Alaska, they had the solution for ‘invading wildlife’ as well. Large Caliber Rifles.

How invasion of enormous wild beasts has left shocked residents in idyllic Wyoming mountain towns fearing for their lives: ‘I do a lot of praying.’

Residents of idyllic mountain towns have been left looking over their shoulder after the population of grizzly bears soared.

Since being put on the Endangered Species List in 1975 when there were just 700 of them patrolling the lower 48 states, grizzlies have made a comeback.

Places including towns, farms and ranches across the Northern Rockies where they hadn’t been seen in more than a century are reporting sightings.

Biologists say they believe the population has now climbed to at least 2,000, and the bears now regularly roam outside Glacier and Yellowstone National Park.

Cecil and Bridget Gallagher, who live in Clark, Wyoming, just outside Cody, harvest sweet corn on their farm, which they say now provides them with an adrenaline rush.  Since being put on the Endangered Species List in 1975 when there were just 700 of them patrolling the lower 48 states, grizzlies have made a comeback. The animals started showing up near their ranch around a decade ago, causing them to put up an electric face.

Since then, the bears have managed to come into the cornfields, with four being trapped by state game managers last year.

With harvest looming, the Gallaghers say they fear for themselves and their kids walking through the fields as they try to generate enough noise to ward off bears.

Bridget told the outlet: ‘I do a lot of praying. We start picking sweet corn next week. Saw our first set of bear tracks around the field a couple days ago. Luck’s job begins again.’

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The day was really quite beautiful, so I sat down and had a cold beer.
The drink facilitated some deep thinking.

My wife walked by and asked me what I was doing,
and I said, “Nothing.”
The reason I said “Nothing” instead of saying “Just thinking” is because she then would have asked, “About what?”
At that point I would have had to explain that men are deep thinkers about various topics, which would lead to other questions.

Finally I pondered an age old question:
Is giving birth more painful than getting kicked in the nuts?

Women always maintain that giving birth is way more painful than a guy getting kicked in the nuts, but how could they know?
Well, after another beer, and some more heavy deductive thinking, I have come up with an answer to that question.

Getting kicked in the nuts is more painful than having a baby, and even though I obviously couldn’t really know, here is the reason for my conclusion:
A year or so after giving birth, a woman will often say,
“It might be nice to have another child.”
But you never hear a guy say,
“You know, I think I would like another kick in the nuts.”

I rest my case.

Time for another beer. Then, maybe a nap.

-Unknown Author

Sorting for Stupidity?
Thoughts on the state of the federal government.

Is the federal government sorting for stupidity?

I had this thought when I was out for beers with an old friend, who’s a former Senior Executive Service bureaucrat with the federal government.  He was remarking that in the old days of Washington, say up through the 1960s or maybe the 1970s, being a senior federal bureaucrat was a plum job, and often even paid more than working in the private sector.

That was also a time when Washington, D.C. was a comparatively sleepy town where a senior civil servant’s salary was plenty to allow a nice house in the suburbs and meals at the best restaurants (such as they were) that Washington had to offer.

Now, however, you can make much more money outside the government, trying to influence it, than you can make inside the government, trying to do your job.  The result is a steady movement of the smartest people out of government.  That of course tends to mean that the people who remain are, well, not the smartest. (There are plenty of exceptions on both sides of this, of course, but  the overall impact is as described.)

The reason why it’s so lucrative to influence the federal bureaucracy now is that the federal bureaucracy is sweeping and powerful.  You would be a fool – as Microsoft learned in the 1980s and 1990s when it bragged about not having a DC office – not to try to influence it, if only out of self-protection.  Back when the federal government was much smaller, say in the 1940s, 1950s, and even the 1960s, there was less call to influence it, and so the opportunities for people to earn big salaries by moving from administrating to lobbying were much less.  But that changed.

This happened in the early 1970s, during the Nixon Administration.  Despite (because of?) Nixon’s conservative reputation, his administration saw an explosion of federal regulatory power, to the point where those years are known among scholars of administrative law as the “regulatory explosion.”  New agencies like the EPA and OSHA were created, new statutes  like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, OSHA Act, etc., were passed, and existing agencies were given – or simply assumed – much farther-reaching powers.

As Jonathan Rauch notes in his classic book, Demosclerosis, in 1929 the federal government made up about three percent of the U.S. economy.  Now it’s closer to twenty-five percent.

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I don’t have any idea if this is reliable or not, but it does appear;
“There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear”

Multiple US military whistleblowers reveal how a disc-shaped UFO intercepted nuclear missile and disabled it with ‘laser-beams’ in mid-air over California.

The US military is in possession of a video of a UFO apparently disabling a nuclear warhead during a routine test, according to multiple former officials.

They claim the video in question captured a saucer-shaped craft circling the unarmed, dummy warhead shortly after it detached from the Atlas missile booster, then shooting four beams of light at the warhead, disabling it.

Retired US Air Force officers Lieutenant Bob Jacobs and Major Florenze Mansmann claim to have viewed the recording of the 1964 encounter before the tape went missing.

The former officials were part of a team responsible for capturing video of missile test launches in California with telescopic photography and videography equipment.

Two days later, after they screened the video, they claim that two plain-clothed CIA agents confiscated the footage and swore them to secrecy.

The incredible account is part of a pattern that some UFO experts have identified, where UFOs seem to interfere with nuclear weapons.

Retired Air Force Major Florenze Mansmann claimed he saw a flying saucer disable a dummy nuclear warhead during a missile test. He was ordered not to breathe a word of what he had seen

Retired Air Force Major Florenze Mansmann claimed he saw a flying saucer disable a dummy nuclear warhead during a missile test. He was ordered not to breathe a word of what he had seen

The alleged incident occurred nearly six decades ago, on September 15, 1964, but it has more recently come into public knowledge due to author Robert Hastings investigating it.

Luis Elizondo acknowledged the existence of the video and claimed he has seen it, according to a February 10 post by Hastings on The UFO Chronicles website.

Elizondo says he was the former director of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) program to study UFOs, and he has been involved in several high-profile leaks of military footage purporting to show UFOs.

Graphic re-creation of what happened in the 1964 video when a UFO allegedly intercepted the Atlas rocket over the Pacific Ocean

 Graphic re-creation of what happened in the 1964 video when a UFO allegedly intercepted the Atlas rocket over the Pacific Ocean

An unnamed source revealed to Hastings that Elizondo confirmed the details of the event in internal interviews.

Back in the 1960s, Jacobs was in charge of a military telescopic photography site in Big Sur, California, which captured the video as the missile traveled several thousand miles per hour in its planned flight path over the Pacific Ocean.

At the time, Mansmann was the chief photographic imagery analyst at Vandenberg Air Force Base – now called Vandenberg Space Force Base – in Santa Barbara County, California.

The Cold War was progressing apace, including lots of black ops programs testing sophisticated and secret military hardware. Some UFO skeptics have claimed that reports of UFOs provided cover for these programs.

Lieutenant Bob Jacobs, at the middle and bottom, pictured with his crew. Jacobs reported his sighting in the press in 1982 but was ridiculed and threatened for his claims

Lieutenant Bob Jacobs, at the middle and bottom, pictured with his crew. Jacobs reported his sighting in the press in 1982 but was ridiculed and threatened for his claims

The craft inadvertently caught on film was domed and disc-shaped, according to Jacobs and Mansmann.

It was a ‘classic disc, the center seemed to be a raised bubble…the entire lower saucer shape was glowing and seemed to be rotating slowly,’ according to a letter Mansmann wrote about the incident in 1983.

‘At the point of beam release…the object turned like an object required to be in a position to fire from a platform…but again this could be my own assumption from being in aerial combat.’

Forty years later, a US Senate investigator told Hastings that Elizondo had confirmed this description in an official interview last year.

‘During that briefing, the former AATIP director confirmed the existence of the video, the details regarding what it showed, and the location of a copy of it in AATIP’s workspaces,’ Hastings wrote in the new post.

Despite Mansmann telling Jacobs not to discuss what they had seen, Jacobs began to talk about the event in 1982, thinking enough time had passed since the event that he could speak freely about what he saw.

But his claims were dismissed by skeptics, and he was even subjected to harassment and anonymous death threats.

Hastings’ new report appears to match up with Elizondo’s recollection of the video.

Luis Elizondo, former director of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) told a Senate investigator that he had seen the 1964 video

Luis Elizondo, former director of the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) told a Senate investigator that he had seen the 1964 video

When investigators went to look for the DVD recording of the video, where Elizondo had told them it was, it was not there, Hastings reported.

And although the recording is missing and the story of Elizondo viewing the recording comes secondhand from an investigator, Hastings reported that he has additional evidence to support it:

‘On November 10, 2023, a highly-reliable source – who I am not at liberty to identify – told me that UAP [unidentified anomalous phenomena] whistleblower David Grusch has privately confirmed that Elizondo also told him about having screened the Big Sur film, and that it did indeed capture an amazing, UFO-related, dummy warhead-interference event.’

It seems that the video may have been lost when the Pentagon destroyed Elizondo’s files and emails, Hastings wrote. This would have occurred in 2017 after he resigned as AATIP director, which he claimed was in protest of the Pentagon covering up UFO matters.

‘This highly unusual move by the Pentagon is in direct violation of a legal Preservation Order that was mandated based on Elizondo’s other duties at the time,’ Hastings wrote. ‘The order requires all of Elizondo’s electronic and hard copy files to be preserved indefinitely, including email and correspondence.’

Beyond the video, there is some limited evidence supporting the story.

A declassified but unreleased set of radar data of the September 15, 1964 event apparently confirmed that an unidentified aerial object was observed near the dummy warhead during the missile test, a source told Hastings.

The analysis of the radar data at the time suggested that the unidentified object could have been debris. It’s also possible that it was ‘chaff,’ metallic objects meant to confuse radar to prevent enemies from pinpointing the exact location of a warhead.

‘So, perhaps the mysterious target tracked on radar near the warhead was merely the chaff,’ Hastings wrote. ‘On the other hand, it may have indeed been the actual UFO, whose presence the author of the radar data report would probably not have known about, given the incident’s Top Secret status.’

Kansas Will No Longer Allow Residents To Change Gender On Birth Certificates.

Kansas will no longer allow people to change the gender on their birth certificate after Republicans passed a law enshrining the biological definition of woman into law.

The state’s health department was compelled to follow the law after Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sued to stop state agencies from allowing people who say they are transgender to be able to change the gender on public documents.

After a legal back and forth, Kobach won in court, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said on Friday that it could “no longer process gender identity amendments to birth certificates.”

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Just 12% of Americans — mostly men — are eating half of our beef supply.

Where’s the beef? In America, it’s getting scarfed up by a small minority of people.

A new study reveals that 50% of the beef consumed in any given day goes to just 12% of the US population.

And this heavy consumption of beef has significant health impacts on those Americans who are eating half of our steaks, meatballs, weiners and hamburgers.

Current US Department of Agriculture guidelines suggest eating four ounces per day of meat, poultry, and eggs for those consuming 2200 calories per day. But the study reveals some Americans are far exceeding that amount.

The USDA reports Americans overall consumed a whopping 30 billion pounds of beef in 2021, which equals almost 60 pounds per person per year.

The researchers were “surprised” such a small percentage of people consume such an outsized proportion of beef, study author Dr. Diego Rose, nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, said in a news release.

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Four Mississippi alligator hunters break state record with catch

According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP), four hunters harvested a male alligator in the West Central Alligator Hunting Zone on Saturday, August 26.

The alligator measured 14 feet and three inches long, with a belly girth of 66 inches and a tail girth of 46.5 inches. Officials said the gator weighted 802.5 lbs.

Don’t Throw Away Those Silica Gel Packets! Here Are 14 Smart Ways to Reuse Them.

Those tiny little packs of dessicant that come in your new pack of shoes or your vitamins have many uses around your home. Anywhere that moisture is a problem, silica gel packets can help alleviate the issue. Keep them stored in an airtight container away from pets and children (they are a choking hazard) and whip them out in the following scenarios.

Around the Kitchen
  • Keep vitamins from moisture damage. (It’s good to just keep those silica packs that come in the vitamin containers; save them once the vitamins are finished.)
  • Keep dry food and pet food fresh and crispy with a silica gel pack taped to the lid of your storage container.
  • Put a few silica gel packs in the bottom of your clothes hamper to absorb moisture from clothes or damp towels.
  • A pack of silica gel will help dry out wet shoes or boots.

Around the House

  • Reduce condensation on windows by setting a silica gel pack on the window sill. (Remember to keep them away from children and pets)
  • Help dry out a non-water-resistant cell phone by putting it in a sealed bag with several silica gel packs.
  • Protect important documents and photos from moisture with a silica gel pack inside the box or file cabinet.
  • Boxes of paper memories — like old papers, photos or notebooks — in storage? Silica gel packs stored in the same container will adsorb moisture.
  • Store silica gel packs with your tools to help prevent rust damage.
  • Store some in your medicine cabinet if you keep medication in there. The silica gel packs will help keep humidity down.
  • Keep razors from moisture damage by storing them in a sealed container with a silica gel pack.
  • Placing a few silica gel packs between your dashboard and windshield in the car will help keep fogging to a minimum.

When You Travel

  • Keep luggage dry while it’s in storage by tossing a silica gel pack in each suitcase.
  • Toss a few silica gel packs in a Ziploc bag if you can’t dry your bathing suit before packing it.

Bonus Tip: To “reactivate” silica gel packs that are saturated with moisture, place them on a baking sheet in a 200 degree oven away from the heating element for two hours.

Chicago Group Asks Gang Members Not to Shoot People Between 9:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m.

Native Sons, a group from Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, is asking that gang members pledge to cease fire from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. daily so no one lives in fear of being shot while going about their day-to-day activities.

The push for the cease-fire is being called “The People’s Ordinance,” CWBChicago reported.

Native Sons’ co-founder, Tatiana Atkins, said:

Under this ordinance, we ask that people stop associating with and glorifying ‘shooters,’ stop glorifying ‘switches,’ and stop wearing those ski masks everywhere which perpetuates you as some ‘opp.’ When those who live a certain lifestyle try to hang with ‘regular’ class citizens, they put everyone at risk.…

At the end of the day, five-year-olds are being killed by gun violence, 14-year-olds are being killed by gun violence, 78-year-olds are being killed by gun violence, pregnant women are being killed by gun violence, young boys with bright futures are being killed by gun violence, fathers are being killed by gun violence, and this shouldn’t be happening.

Atkins hopes that gang members will adopt the cease-fire and that parents will react by making sure they have their children home and inside as 9:00 p.m. approaches.

Breitbart News reported at least 23 people were shot over the weekend in Chicago, three of them fatally.

Over 370 people have been killed in Chicago thus far in 2023.