Friday - August 14, 2020

toldja so

As reliable as the coming dawn, the willfully stupid and the left biased media and “the experts” have once again yelled real loud to subvert the proper understanding of the law. And that noise will do the job.

I said it yesterday: This application of the Constitution will be ignored and denied by the media and everyone else. Because “birthers”. People are so terrified of being called a name that they are willing to ignore the law, the history of the law, and the true meaning and intent of the law. That’s beyond sad. It’s beyond cowardly. It’s apathetic, pathetic, and bathetic.

And here it is.

Trump slammed for not rejecting conspiracy theory Kamala Harris is ineligible for vice presidency
Biden campaign calls Trump comments ‘abhorrent’

That’s right; it’s a conspiracy theory. And he’s abhorrent. Because he referred to a statement made by somebody about the natural born issue, and then said he didn’t know if that was correct or not. So slam him for even implying that this could be a problem.

And then the lies come out by the bucketful. And the overwhelming noise of indignation and implicit raycis drown out the truth, once again. We are totally fucking doomed.

President Trump would not reject a conspiracy theory Thursday that Kamala Harris is ineligible to serve as vice president because her parents were born outside the United States.

Asked about the unfounded and widely refuted claims during a press briefing at the White House, Trump responded, “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements” before adding, “I have no idea if that’s right.”

Harris is a United States citizen born in California in 1964, making her eligible to serve as president or vice president under the Constitution. [ Fox you are wrong ]

However, a professor of law at Chapman University, John C. Eastman, wrote a piece for Newsweek this week after she was named to the Democratic ticket questioning whether Harris is a “natural born citizen” because her mother was born in India and her father was born in Jamaica.

[ Editor’s note: Some readers reacted strongly to this essay, seeing it as an attempt to ignite a racist conspiracy theory. ]
...
The fact that Senator Kamala Harris has just been named the vice presidential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some questioning her eligibility for the position. The 12th Amendment provides that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.” And Article II of the Constitution specifies that “[n]o person except a natural born citizen...shall be eligible to the office of President.” Her father was (and is) a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of Harris’ birth in 1964. That, according to these commentators, makes her not a “natural born citizen"—and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president.

Newsweek also ran a counter essay by noted lawyer Eugene Volokh. IMO, as its typical for greasy lawyers, and all lawyers are greasy because the law is merely a tool to them, and not something held sacrosanct, Volokh makes his counter from the wrong direction. He’s throwing shade and puffing smoke, and emphasizing aspects that have no real bearing. Argument by non sequitur. 

Some people have argued that Kamala Harris is ineligible to be vice president of the United States. The Constitution requires presidents and vice presidents to be “natural-born citizens”; Harris was born in the U.S., but her parents (who had come to the U.S. to study) weren’t U.S. citizens at the time. Does “natural-born citizen” include Harris, and others like her?

It does. “Natural-born citizen” was a familiar legal phrase to the Framers—an adaptation of the English term “natural-born subject.” Sir William Blackstone, an English treatise writer who (in Justice Scalia’s words) was “the Framers’ accepted authority on English law and the English Constitution,” explained:

Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king. ...The children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such.

It’s possible that “natural-born citizen” has since been broadened to include children of U.S. citizens born overseas (a 1790 Act of Congress specified that, “The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens").

He is wrong. It is not an adaptation of natural born subject, even though natural born citizen shares two of the three words with the other concept. Oh, and that 1790 Act was overturned in 1795, which he fails to mention. Even the best lawyer is a weasel dick. They argue for or against a topic. Searching for and declaring the actual truth has nothing to do with it.

What is a natural born citizen? It is someone born in this country whose parents are already citizens of this country. Period. Full stop. And that’s all there is to it.

I am a natural born citizen because I was born in this country and both my parents were born here as well, and their parents were citizens when they were born which thus made them natural born citizens. All my grandparents were born here too, although one of them might not have qualified as natural born because her parents came here from Germany, and I have no idea who things worked in the 1890s and I don’t know if they were naturalized citizens by the time granny popped out. But that was generations ago, so it isn’t germane.

It seems we go through this every presidential election cycle. I think what is needed is a SCOTUS decision. And that will never happen, because an honest decision, true to original intent would also torpedo the anchor baby concept that’s been around for 4 decades now. And probably squash the legality of dual citizenship too. And we do not have brave, honest, true Americans on the Supreme Court who are willing or able to make bold, proper decisions. Without the slightest doubt in my mind, this should be a 5 minute, 9-0 decision, made for clarification purposes alone - not delayed forever until some case with standing worms it’s way upwards.

I’m going to add this to my list of life truths:

•  Sulfur is properly spelled sulphur.


•   Eohippus is the Dawn Horse. No other taxonomy name is correct. There is no relation to the rock hyrax, so putting the original horse in the order Hyracotherium was a mistake.

•  The big long dinosaur was a brontosaurus

•  A shark is not a fish, dammit, it is an elasmobranch. Real fish have scales, gill pumps, and a swim bladder. Creating a new intermediate order called “bony fishes” to include both is cheating, especially if you don’t also include dolphins who, by that redefinition should also be fish. Fish who are mammals. No, this is wrong.

•  Ok, I now grudgingly nearly accept that Pluto is not an actual planet, “merely” a dwarf planet or planetoid, because somebody either moved the definition goalposts or because science has advanced enough to go there and find out how big the thing actually is. Pluto 1473 miles across, 2/3 the size of our moon. Mercury still counts as a planet. Mercury is 1516 miles across, a whopping big 43 miles larger. Oh puh-lease. So my grudgingly is very grudgingly. OTOH, given that Pluto has 5 moons, one moon called Chiron which is half the size of Pluto, perhaps it should be called a double planet or a multi-planet.


•  A natural born citizen is someone who is born within the desmenses of a country and both of whose parents are already citizens of that country.

I got so worked up about this yesterday I went out an bought a copy of Law of Nations, and while I was at the digital bookstore I got a copy of the writings of John Locke.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/14/2020 at 10:43 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •  
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   Thursday - August 13, 2020

Of course she isn’t, but you’re uninformed and intellectually lazy so she’ll get away with it

Here we should be going again with the natural born citizen thing. And just like Obama, Kamala Harris does not qualify as such.  Not that most anyone else can understand the concept, or knows that it is very important to care about this and why. So should be going won’t even get off the ground. This will not even be brought up in passing, much less discussed, debated, and ruled on. It. Does. Not. Exist. Because ... raycis!!!

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

14th Amendment, Section 1, 1868

It is abundantly clear that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” means exclusively subject to the jurisdiction thereof, which means not in any way beholden to the whims or powers of a foreign government. This was clearly understood by all until fairly recently.

Yes, she was born in the USA. Neither of her parents were citizens at the time. This makes her an anchor baby. According the the 14th Amendment, anchor babies are not citizens. This isn’t a “strict” reading of the amendment, it is a plain reading thereof. Original intent is easy to find in the Congressional Record of the day. The only “reason” that they are considered such these days is due to a single footnote in the 5-4 1982 SCOTUS decision Plyer v. Doe, added to the majority opinion by Justice Brennan:

“no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”

This weakening of the meaning of jurisdiction within the 14th - that it sees the term as meaning subject to the laws of this nation, and not solely subject to those laws (ie not being also subject to the laws of some other country, as is the legal situation of illegal immigrants) - was a part of the Plyer case, which dealt with Texas’s claim that school funding should not be granted to illegal immigrant children. And of course, Brennan’s footnote comment overlooks that such illegals have no right to be here at all.

Right.

Harris’ parents were a citizen of India and a citizen of Jamaica. While she herself was born in California, and shortly thereafter went to Canada, where she spent nearly all her formative years, she qualifies as a citizen by the anchor baby misconception. Being a citizen does not make you a natural born citizen.

The entire concept of natural born citizen comes from a French book called The Laws of Nations, which was written in 1758 and is the only book or exterior document referenced in the US Constitution. It was used extensively by the Framers, far more than the code of English Common Law, which they strongly felt did not apply to the USA, although they borrowed large parts of it ... as our own law.  Anyway, in The Laws of Nations it says:

“Les naturels, ou indigenes, sont ceux qui sont nes dans le pays, de parens citoyens”

A direct translation is “The natural, or indigenous, are those who are born in the country, of parents who are citizens”.

While there was an 1797 update to the english version of the book, which clarified that line to read “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.”

This is a rather strict definition. To be a natural born citizen, you need to be born here and both your parents need to be citizens when you are born. Not just born here, and not with just one parent a citizen, regardless of where you were born.

Later extensions to the concept allowed “here” to include territories of the country (eg Guam and Puerto Rico), areas controlled by the country (eg military bases), land considered part of the country that was in other countries (eg consulates and embassies), and things controlled by the government of the country (eg military aircraft and ships that happen to be outside the confines of the country at the moment of birth). This is how John McCain, born at a military base in another country, was deemed a valid candidate.

[ “naturels” is the masculine form of the word, “naturelles” is the feminine form. French is so sexist, but both words mean the same thing. ]

Merely being born to two citizen parents is insufficient. Merely being born within our country is insufficient. This is a precise and sharply focused concept, and about the only time it every applies is when someone is considering running for President or Vice President, although it should probably apply to any elected representative who could possibly be in the chain of succession.

This application of the Constitution will be ignored and denied by the media and everyone else. Because “birthers”. People are so terrified of being called a name that they are willing to ignore the law, the history of the law, and the true meaning and intent of the law. That’s beyond sad. It’s beyond cowardly. It’s apathetic, pathetic, and bathetic.




Read more if you want, in great detail with clear explanations of case law over the years, plus how we’ve now been lead astray, when and by whom:

http://www.conservativehq.com/article/30722-kamala-harris-anchor-baby-not-%E2%80%98natural-born-citizen%E2%80%99-united-states

https://www.dagnyintel.com/post/kamala-harris-is-not-eligible-to-be-president-the-natural-born-citizen-requirement

https://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/urgent-historical-breakthrough-proof-chester-arthur-concealed-he-was-a-british-subject-at-birth/

Posted by Drew458     on 08/13/2020 at 11:25 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists •  
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   Wednesday - August 12, 2020

Walter White Moved To Holland?

Dutch police have uncovered what they described as the biggest cocaine laboratory ever discovered in the Netherlands, leading to the arrest of 17 suspects from Colombia, Turkey and the Netherlands.

The drug lab was hidden at a former horse riding school in Nijeveen, some 75 miles from Amsterdam, police said in a statement Tuesday.

Police raided the riding school on Friday, discovering tens of thousands of liters of chemicals and 220 pounds of crack cocaine. Sleeping quarters and recreation areas were also found at the site.
The facility was equipped to produce up to 440 pounds of cocaine a day, officials said.

The facility was equipped to produce up to 440 pounds of cocaine a day, officials said. (Politie Landelijke Eenheid)

“This is the largest cocaine laboratory ever found in the Netherlands,” police chief Andre van Rijn said in the statement.

Van Rijn said the lab was equipped to produce 330-440 pounds (150-200 kilograms) of cocaine a day, with a street value of $5.3-9.4 million (4.5-8 million euros).

Posted by Drew458     on 08/12/2020 at 11:29 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime •  
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TLH? Typical Leftist Hypocrites

This sounds like it could be one of those urban legends.

How Dare You!!

An anonymous poster on Reddit’s “Am I the A--h---” subreddit said he started a meat-eating club at his job in response to a coworker’s vegan-only club.

He claimed that one of his colleagues started a vegan dinner club exclusively for their coworkers following a vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian diet. Other coworkers “will not be able to join the club,” the poster said the group’s “statement of purpose” read.

In response, the poster claimed that he and some other meat-eating coworkers started a burger and steak club to go out and try new restaurants each week. They only allowed meat-eaters to join. However, members of the vegan club filed a complaint with the company’s human resources department.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/12/2020 at 11:20 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life • Food •  
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   Tuesday - August 11, 2020

Biden Picks Kamala Harris For VP

I can’t. I just can’t.

And Fox’s headline ... OMG ... “Biden taps Kamala Harris as running mate”. Heels up!

Kamala Harris, the politically shrewd California senator with a law enforcement background that has caused some tensions with the progressive left, was announced Tuesday as Joe Biden’s running mate.

She makes history as the first Black woman to serve as a major political party’s VP pick. The Biden campaign said Biden and Harris will deliver remarks together on Wednesday in Wilmington, Delaware.

“I’ve decided that Kamala Harris is the best person to help me take this fight to Donald Trump and Mike Pence and then to lead this nation starting in January 2021,” Biden said in an email to supporters.

Biden also tweeted: “I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate.”

He added: “Back when Kamala was Attorney General, she worked closely with Beau. I watched as they took on the big banks, lifted up working people, and protected women and kids from abuse. I was proud then, and I’m proud now to have her as my partner in this campaign.”

The Trump campaign also released a statement from Katrina Pierson, a Trump 2020 senior adviser, that said: “In her failed attempt at running for president, Kamala Harris gleefully embraced the left’s radical manifesto, calling for trillions of dollars in new taxes and backing Bernie Sanders’ government takeover of health care. She is proof that Joe Biden is an empty shell being filled with the extreme agenda of the radicals on the left.”

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of you. Politico made the call at the beginning of the month, and many others had figured out that from Biden’s limited field of choices, seeing how his search was utterly sexist and racist in demanding a black woman, this one was the least atrocious of a stupefyingly horrible bunch. 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/11/2020 at 03:56 PM   
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Feral Child Killers

The Little White Kid Next Door

A five-year-old boy is dead after a Wilson, North Carolina, man reportedly ran up to the child while he was playing in a neighborhood street and fatally shot the child in the head. According to a report from WRAL-TV, the shooting took place on Sunday.

Cannon Hinnant was playing outside his father’s house on the dusky summer evening when their neighbor — 25-year-old Darius N. Sessoms — charged Cannon, produced a handgun, and shot him in the head.

The child’s seven-year-old and eight-year-old siblings witnessed the murder.

First responders came to the scene and transported the little boy to Wilson Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Doris Labrant, a neighbor, said she witnessed Sessoms running up to Cannon, putting the gun to his head, and firing the weapon before fleeing the scene into his own home.
...
Authorities took Sessoms into custody on Monday night and charged him with first-degree murder.

“5 yr old Cannon Hinnant was executed in front of his sisters for accidentally riding a bike on his neighbors lawn,” producer and director Robby Starbuck posted. “There’s no pain our justice system can impose on his killer Darius Sessoms that‘ll equate to justice. CNN & MSNBC haven’t even covered it.”

Posted by Drew458     on 08/11/2020 at 01:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Racism and race relations •  
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   Monday - August 10, 2020

Gohmert (R-TX) Much Improved

About 9 days ago, Texas Rep Louie Gohmert released the news that he had a ‘rona. And he’d been wearing a mask.

He got on HCQ, with the zinc, with the zithromycin antibiotic, with the B, C, D vitamins. And he got at least one nebulizer treatment, with a steroid (probably budesonide).

And he’s hella better. In just a couple days.

Here he is, talking about it in detail, along with some other things. Like the “Resistance” to HCQ +Zn, because OrangeManBad. And because Big Profit for Big Pharma.

“It’s a legitimate real virus that needs to be taken seriously ... that’s killing people ... I don’t think we can rely very well on the numbers that we’re getting, but no question, it’s legitimate ... “

Gosh, I wish he was my rep. This guy says a lot of the things I say.

Of course, this is yet another of those “merely anecdotal” situations.

I personally believe that a shotgun approach is the key to this damn virus. If each piece can take a nibble out of it, enough pieces might chew up the whole thing.

Know what I’d like to see? An honest trial to test which nebulizer treatment works best. Hydrogen peroxide, budesonide, heparin, or others. All seem to work to some extent. Which one works the best, or the fastest? 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/10/2020 at 12:40 PM   
Filed Under: • pandemic and epidemic diseases •  
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Still Here

No, nothing to blog about today, sorry.

But I’ve been to everybody else’s blog, leaving comments here and there.

Also, I’ve been looking, once again, at soundproofing materials. I don’t think I have a project here, and it would be very small one if I did. I just find the field interesting, how you can make a room or a machine much quieter through acoustic treatments. Sometimes it’s absorptive materials, sometimes it’s mass loading, plus all the research into shaped surfaces that break up reflections, and the multi-density viso-elastic materials. You can even get sound mitigating PAINT. Plus the usual quiet curtains, acoustic carpet pads, and stuffing the walls with fireproof rockwool insulation, and using thicker or decoupled wallboard. You can even get special wallboard with acoustic decoupling built right in. 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/10/2020 at 10:09 AM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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   Friday - August 07, 2020

A Dark Ending

My sister in law’s sister in law’s body was discovered this evening. She killed herself by alcoholism. It took at least 20 years. It was well hidden; I didn’t even know she was a drinker until two years ago. I guess she had it under control for a long time, but the last year or so really spiraled downwards, and not by accident.

Everybody was willing to help her, to get her help, to talk, to anything. And she rejected all of it. The worst kind of morning after effects were no epiphany. As far as I know, and I’m an outsider here, she went down the path into darkness knowingly.

It’s very sad, and right now I’m very conflicted.

A lot of the time, life sucks. It’s not just you. It sucks for every one of us. Careers end. Jobs stop. Money issues. Legal problems, sometimes very bad ones. Relationships turn bad. But we persevere. We get knocked down, but we get up again. And sometimes if a hand up is offered, you take it. You don’t resent people for trying. They’re not doing it out of pity or contempt. There is no shame involved. They’re doing it out of love, because that’s what family is. Friendships too. No matter what.

So if you are sinking down, you don’t have to drown alone. Hell, you can even reach out to this blog, and comment by the paragraph. It’s happened before. And we will stand by you.

Goodbye LJ. I wish I’d known you better. I wish I could have helped. I wish I’d known earlier. I wish I’d ... anything.

I probably shouldn’t post this. 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/07/2020 at 09:56 PM   
Filed Under: • Passing on, Death and Disaster •  
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Ospreys are up, is Trump in town?

And then I spotted a small dark spot moving through the clouds. It came out again, and yup, it was an Osprey, the unusual dual tailed tilt rotor boxy little aircraft that the Marines usually fly. Even far enough away so that it looked 1/4” long, I could still see the giant propellers spinning around. Pretty cool.

The only time I ever see or hear one of these things is when President Trump is visiting his place over in Bedminster, about 15 miles east of us.

Let’s check ...

BEDMINSTER, NJ — President Donald Trump is coming back to Bedminster for the second time in three weeks.

According to the President’s itinerary, he was set to arrive at Morristown Municipal Airport Thursday evening at around 9 p.m. after a day that was to include three separate stops in Ohio, including one at the Whirlpool Corp. manufacturing plant.

Trump was just in Bedminster the weekend of July 24-26. He was returning to Trump National Golf Club Thursday night, but it was not clear whether his stay would last the entire weekend, or whether it would include any tours of storm damage in the wake of the remnants of Tropical Storm Isaias.

Trump is expected in New Jersey this weekend. Temporary flight restrictions have been announced for Thursday through Sunday for Morristown, where Air Force One lands, and for Bedminster, which usually foreshadow a presidential visit.

Heh, this is more fun than bridge spotting. Easier too; all I have to do is listen.

 *   cultural reference if you’re too young to know this line. Scroll down a bit. 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/07/2020 at 11:45 AM   
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Makes Me Wonder

Gotta wonder where that Arctic warming is coming from, eh?

Russia has several thousand nuclear objects dumped on its Arctic sea floor. Now, the most dangerous will be removed
The country’s nuclear energy company will over the next 8 years lift two submarines and four reactor compartments from the sea bottom of the Barents and Kara Seas.

These objects are not environmentally safe, a representative of Rosatom made clear as he this week presented a clean-up plan for the north Russian waters.

In the period between the late 1960s to the late 1980s, about 18 thousand radioactive objects were dumped to sea in the remote northern waters. Most of them represent little environmental risk. But some are increasingly seen as a hazard to Arctic ecosystems.

“Rosatom over the next eight years intend to lift from the bottom of Russian Arctic waters the six objects that are most dangerous with regard to radioactive pollution,” the company spokesperson told news agency TASS.
Two entire subs

On the list of objects are the reactors from submarines “K-11”, “K-19” and “K-140”, as well as spent nuclear fuel from the reactor that served icebreaker “Lenin”.

In addition, two entire submarines will be lifted, the “K-27” from the Kara Sea and “K-159” from the Barents Sea. While the former was deliberately dumped by Soviet authorities in 1982, the latter sunk during a towing operation in 2003.

The “K-27” is located on 33 meter depths east of archipelago Novaya Zemlya. It has by experts been described as a possible radioactive “time-bomb”. The “K-159” is located on 200 meter depths off the coast of the Kola Peninsula.

now all they need is for somebody else to pay for the cleanup

The lifting operation of the hazardous nuclear wastes will not only be technically difficult, but also very expensive.

A recent report made for Rosatom and the European Commission evaluated the costs of lifting the six most dangerous objects to €278 million. That includes bringing them safely to a yard for decommissioning and long-term storage.

The operation with the “K-159” is alone estimated to cost €57,5 millions. The lifting the “K-27”, transporting to a shipyard for decommissioning and long-term storage in Saida Bay, will come at a price of €47,7 millions, the report reads.
International cooperation

Hardly, Russia’s increasingly cash-strapped treasury will not have €278 millions for the cleanup.

Previously, a number of countries have granted billions to Post-Soviet Russian efforts to cope with nuclear wastes.

The greatest amount Global Warming has been along the Russian Arctic coast. Golly, do you think there could be a connection?

Oh BTW, it’s been an imperative that the K-159 and K-27 be immediately raised from the seabed ... for more than 6 years now. That’s after years of empty promises. The ships have been there for decades.

[ May 2014, MURMANSK ]– It is of critical importance that two sunken derelict Russian nuclear submarines, one of which was scuttled as radioactive trash and the other of which sank in rough weather on its way to decommissioning, be raised from the floor of the Kara Sea, scholars from Moscow’s Kurchatov Institute said Friday.

The two subs in question – the K-159 and the K-27 – lay on the ocean floor, the first at the entrance to Kola Bay and the second in the shallows surrounding the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, a former nuclear bomb testing range during Soviet times, as well as something of a dumping ground for Cold War legacy nuclear waste.

Both have also been the subject of long-time promises by Russian officials that they will indeed be raised.

According to Alexei Kazennov, a researcher with Moscow’s respected Kurchatov institute, the K-159, which sank in August 2003 under tow to decommissioning at the Nerpa shipyard – in more than 200 meters of water, taking with it 800 kilograms of highly enriched uranium fuel and claiming the lives all nine sailors aboard – is currently emitting one and a half times as much radioactivity as dozens of other radiological hazards dumped at sea over time by the Soviet and Russian navies.

The K-27 submarine, was scuttled in 50 meters of water in Stepovogo Bay of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago in the Kara Sea in 1981 after a serious reactor accident that killed nine. Its reactors contain 90 kilograms of uranium-235.
...
It is worth bearing in mind that the K-159 sunk while under tow across a major ship-trafficking waterway as well as one populated by fisheries.
...
Large-scale dumping of radioactive waste and nuclear fuel was at its height between 1965 and 1972. Some 17,000 tons of solid radioactive waste are estimated to have been purposely sunk in its waters, in addition to the K-27, and the 907 nuclear submarine, which has two reactors on board. Other solid radioactive waste in the region includes biological shielding assemblies from the Lenin nuclear icebreaker, whose location has not yet been determined. Another piece of unaccounted-for nuclear trash under the sea is the port-side reactor of the 421 nuclear submarine.

According to the Kurchatov Institute, the biological shields are the most radioactive of waste items sunk in the Kara Sea, second only to spent nuclear fuel. The activity of a caisson with such a biological screen in 2012 measured 1196.7 terebequerel, or 32.4 kilocurie, which is some 30 percent of the entire activity of radioactive waste submerged in the Kara Sea.

How do you say “We’ll get right on it, someday, maybe” in Russian?

Posted by Drew458     on 08/07/2020 at 08:39 AM   
Filed Under: • Environment • Russia •  
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   Thursday - August 06, 2020

Bowling Shut Down

Well, so much for bowling tonight. We ate dinner early for once, almost finishing off the fantastic brined chicken I’d grilled up yesterday, so we were able to leave at the right time for once.

Got up there with hardly any traffic, arrived 10 minutes before practice was scheduled to start. Got the balls out of the trunk and walked across the parking lot, took one step up the front steps, and the place went dark. Total power failure.

Large parts of NJ are still without power from the big terrible storm Tuesday. Out here in the stick we’ve mostly avoided it, but “mostly” is a relative term. Thousands are without power, but not us. Our power was out for 6 minutes during the peak of the storm. But the utility guys are out doing their repairs, testing and rerouting as necessary. So I guess some areas get shut off for a while. Because.

So we sat on the front steps as more people arrived, and we all hung out, chatting and seeing what would happen. Almost nobody was wearing a mask, so I guess we’ll all be dead tomorrow. The alley folks kept coming outside to give us updates, while some of us made calls and checked the news. Most of Warren County was out, from the Pennsylvania border all the way east to Morris County. Some spots were still on. Chuck called his wife, found out that his house had power, and asked her if she could bring over all his extension cords to power the place. He lives 5 miles away ... nobody has that many extension cords. Wise guy! Actually, it was pretty good socialization, everybody has something to say about the storm, and the masks and the rules and our wonderful much loved governor. Plus we all blamed Mary for the outage, as she made meatloaf tonight. The last time she made meatloaf hurricane Sandy hit and their house was without power for a week and a half.

After 45 minutes, 8 o’clock, the boss man came out and said he had no idea if or when the juice would flow again. So we’re all going to post bowl at some point the coming week. If we can. Assuming there’s power then. As we drove home, we saw that parts of Washington had power, about a mile south of the bowling alley. Meh, what can you do? Everybody else probably waited longer and the power came back on. Sorry, we can’t stay there to 11pm when some of us have to be at work before 8.

~~~~ !!! !!! ~~~~

So we came home, ate a little more of that awesome chicken, had a drink and watched a little TV. I’ve got a biga going in the kitchen, as we’re going to auntie’s final pool party Saturday (they’re moving) and she asked us (me) to make a few dozen rolls for the sausage and peppers she’ll be making. I’m the only non-Italian in the bunch, so I’m making some real old school Italian bread dough to make the rolls from. And that means a biga.

A biga is kind of like young sourdough, only made with commercial yeast. Flour, water, and a pinch or yeast, mix it up and let is sit around for 12-16 hours, or fridge it for a day or so. Even commercial yeast will excrete alcohol, acetic acid, and lactic acid, which are the flavors that put the sour in sourdough. It just goes a lot faster, and you get a great breediing up of the good strong commercial yeast. Add the whole thing to a bunch of other flour and water, and it makes flavorful bread pretty quick.

Actually, an Italian biga is almost exactly the same as a Polish poolish, exact the poolish uses a wetter, 100% hydration pre-dough. So a poolish is even faster, but you have to watch it closely and use when it’s just ripe. A biga is only 50-60% hydration, so the thick dough matures slowly. Yeast likes the wet. A biga probably gives you a bit more flavor too, but both are pretty easy ways to make tasty bread with commercial yeast.

Italian bread is the same as French bread, except you add a little olive oil and a touch of sugar. The sugar also kicks the yeast into high gear. Sourdough, poolish, and biga are called preferments, because they are dough that is pre fermented. Which means that the rise time for the whole dough, once you add in the biga, is a good bit faster than the typical 2 1/2 hours. Way faster than sourdough’s 6 - 12 hours.

I’m going to make up a tiny batch of plain dough tomorrow at the same hydration rate, to see how much I need to make a 6” long roll. That’s enough for 2 sausages and some onions and peppers. When I have that dough weight, I can figure out how much dough I’ll need to make 2-3 dozen rolls. I’m making enough biga for a double recipe, but I can spread it out to a triple recipe if necessary. I want a rather soft bread, not a crusty loaf. A smaller crumb would be Ok too. Taste and strength are what I’m looking for. ( Ever try using Wonder bread for a sausage & pepper sammich? It lasts about 3 seconds. )

She’s promised to help, so that should be fun. I think I can make about a dozen rolls per bake. And we’ll make the rolls the night before, so we won’t have to get up before dawn to bake for an afternoon pool party we have to drive 2 hours to get to. Saturday morning is for sleeping late.

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chicken brine: your typical brine of kosher salt and water, half a cup of salt to 3 quarts water. Slice up a few lemons, smash 5 gloves of garlic, rough chop half an onion, and then add a bunch of dried herbs, a tbl each rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, allspice, and a big handful of peppercorns. Bring to a boil it in a big pot, let it cool, stick a chicken in it, cover, then 18 hours in the fridge. Rinse, pat dry, and then put the uncovered chicken back in the fridge for 2 hours. Get it out, cook it on the grill using offset heat, 400F for a bit over an hour, flipping it a couple times. Super brown, crispy skin, juicy as all get out, and doesn’t need any seasoning at all. Mmm, mmm, good. Next time I’ll use a bit less salt and toss in a bullion cube instead. Moar chiken flava!!

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Have a drink! While I am partial to Manhattans, made the old way with rye whiskey and cold red vermouth (not in an ice shaker, maybe add 1 or 2 ice cubes to the glass), sometimes something lighter and sweeter hits the spot. I don’t have a name for it, but a measure of golden rum and a measure of Kahlua over rocks tastes pretty good and it still packs a punch. A touch sweeter than a Black Russian, but made with booze that actually has flavor. 

Posted by Drew458     on 08/06/2020 at 08:58 PM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging • Bread • Climate-Weather • Family • Food •  
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Just Buggin

I saw a couple of these around the patio yesterday and today. Don’t know if they got blown in by the big storm, knocked out of the trees by all the rain, or if their eggs were in that cheap mulch we laid down in June. Same mulch is now sprouting mushrooms too.

Anyway, the Brown Prionid is pretty much harmless to people. And quite common. They live in rotting wood.

But it is a heck of a big bug, as long and thick as your pinky finger. With big scaly twitchy bug legs, and it runs real fast. eeewwwrrrghh.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/06/2020 at 11:12 AM   
Filed Under: • Animals •  
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“A Throwback To The Dark Old Days”

Mail Voting = Corruption And Fraud

Most developed countries, especially in Europe, ban mail-in voting to fight vast fraud and vote buying that had threatened the integrity of their elections, according to an exhaustive review of voting rules and histories in over 30 major nations.

In the European Union, 63% have put a ban on mailing in ballots except for citizens living overseas. Another 22% have imposed a ban even for those overseas. And most of those that allow mail-in ballots require some form of photo ID to get one, according to the report from the Crime Prevention Research Center shared with Secrets.

“These countries have learned the hard way about what happens when mail-in ballots aren’t secured. They have also discovered how hard it is to detect vote buying when both those buying and selling the votes have an incentive to hide the exchange,” said author John R. Lott, the center’s president.

While politicians in the United States have been debating the pros and cons of mail-in voting due to concerns of spreading COVID-19 at the polls and new reports of postal service and vote counting issues, Lott, whose center is known for its gun research, built a voting database of the European Union and the larger Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

Those countries, said Lott, are typically held up by Democrats as a model to follow.

“Liberals and progressives often try to model the U.S. on Western European countries in many ways, but you never hear them arguing that we should adopt their voting rules. There is a reason for that. Banning mail-in voting or requiring people to use photo IDs to obtain a mail-in ballot is quite common in developed countries, especially in Europe,” he said in the report.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/06/2020 at 11:11 AM   
Filed Under: • No Shit, Sherlock •  
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