Home » Open thread 11/10/23

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Open thread 11/10/23 — 43 Comments

  1. Turtler,

    On yesterday’s open thread you wrote about Germany’s social programs. I think the single most crucial factor for success in a society’s social program is the homogeneity of the society.

    My wife and I readily share everything. That also extends to our children. There is another circle of family members and friends, some neighbors… whom we interact with without keeping a balance sheet. My wife and I give money to our church without asking for an accounting of whom it goes to or expecting the recipients to pay us back if they have a windfall.

    This is human nature. The nations people laud as having generous social programs are also the most ethnically homogenous. Some of those nations have become more heterogenous and with that one sees an increase in complaints from those paying into the systems. This is also human nature.

  2. Looks like they are in fact moving to her. The birds better be careful, the FAA might ground them. I love this though because it shows HOW birds fly.

  3. Ever since Elon Musk bought “X” — previously Twitter — the far Left and Biden’s fascist regulatory state have been waging Jihad against him. But who will even cover this story?

    Musk and SpaceX has especially lacked media coverage. Space exploration historian (and friend of the Right), Robert Zimmerman, fills the gap in his report on the syndicated John Bachelor Radio show last month, listen to 2-7m at the link at the recorded audio bar here
    https://audioboom.com/posts/8383175-iss-a-new-leak-bob-zimmerman-behindtheblack-com

    Zimmerman calls out the many and growing numbers of lawsuits and Federal regulatory hassles Musk faces — that reverses Obama open but private policy on space — seeking to enforce Woke PC standards for Musk and only Musk, and decrying the far Left’s “full-court press” lawfare strategy Gulliver labor’s under.

    THIS needs to be a featured campaign issue. The far Left weaponising the Regulatory State and maliciously increasing SpaceX costs of doing business through relentless lawfare is not just counter-productive and wrong, but is also a synecdoche (or a small example of his greater malignance) for his evil lawless rule.

    Biden must be slammed and his regime’s policies of persecution reversed. And the far Left’s ever-expanding Weaponization must be excised so that Americans are free.

  4. This is purely conjecture on my part but it seems animals are becoming aware of the change in human/animal behavior. I have heard about and seen vids of too many animals actually coming up to humans for help and not just those that share land space with us like foxes with jars stuck on their heads. Things like a juvenile whale shark asking for help and guiding divers to a larger shark with nets tangled around it (also showing they’re smarter than just a big guppy).

    Along those lines, it looks like the geese understood the lack of danger. The reason geese fly in a chevron is the air turbulence from the leader makes it easier for the next and they shift lead periodically. At 04:20 you see several geese taking advantage of that and resting a touch.

    Just a vague conjecture on something I like to keep track of.

  5. I’m with Anne… leave the accordion on the ground. It doesn’t need to fly. And if you can’t fly without it, neither do you.

  6. This video is a tonic for my soul. Such beauty. Even without the birds, the landscapes are stunning.

    That sort of flying takes me way back to the 1950s and 60s when I was flying single engine, prop driven Navy carrier planes. We spent a lot of our time flying low – it was practice to avoid radar detection and because it was FUN. No birds to fly wing on, but much beauty to be immersed in.

    If I was 20 years younger, I’d be trying to get one of those ultra-light flying machines. I see they run about $16 to $20,000. As aircraft costs go, that’s quite reasonable.

    Well, the videos are free and it’s warmer sitting at my desk. Not a bad tradeoff for these old bones.

  7. Hey, Jimmy,
    “A suspect was arrested on Wednesday in connection with the Samantha Woll murder, but police have released no details about the suspect,…”
    That’s how they tell us the shooter was black without telling us he was black. My money is on his career as an aspiring rap artist, too. Next thing you know, his momma gonna come out and tell us what a good boy he was.

  8. A new poll indicates that 1 in 5 Democrats support Hamas. My guess is that most of that 20% are under the age of 30.

    Among those 18-24, essentially the college years for most, just 30% expressed support for Israel, while 17% backed Hamas and 53% responded “not sure.” The numbers for those 25-44 were a little higher for both Israel (46%) and Hamas (21%), while considerably lower for “not sure” (33%).

    The numbers change dramatically with advancing age.

    For those 45-64, 62% support Israel, with just 6% supporting Hamas. “Not sure” was 32%.

    Most pro-Israel of all are those over 65. Why? One reason may be that many remember the Six-Day War in 1967, a stunning victory for the tiny country against a coalition of Arab states, followed six years later by a victory in the Yom Kippur war against many of the same nations.

  9. I don’t think they should fly so close to a flock like that. Imo.

    Noticed at the Walmart parking lot the other day that some birds in the black bird family were getting close to people looking for food. Seems people probably throw them bits of food regularly.

    My parents spoke of the feral chickens in Hawaii standing by the roads looking for food to be thrown from cars. In East Texas it is difficult to keep chickens safe from predators unless they are fully enclosed in wire 24/7. An exception might be if you have a yard with a dog that is friendly to chickens and keeps the other predators away and there are no nearby urban or rural forest for possums to live in.
    When my dad was alive, the road runners would come up relatively close to you when you were in the garden. His main garden area is now a goat pen, and we are not down in that area as much.

  10. Congress is coming up on another deadline to fund the government.

    Rep. Andy Biggs talks with Judge Napolitano about finishing the 2024 budget process, which no one seems to be talking about– other than the occasional hit piece asking ‘will the Republicans shut down the government?’.

    They also talk about Israel and Ukraine funding and how we often seem to be funding both sides of conflicts around the world.

    I assume Rep. Biggs is behind the new speaker– and he alludes to after never voting for a CR on principle, whether he might be forced to vote for one (if the CR give two deadlines to finishing the budget as a start to a more sane budgeting process). He did say he hopes they don’t do a single 2024 omnibus bill.

    Trigger warning. Biggs is not a fan of funding Ukraine. Interesting factoid. HUD Secretary Buttigieg was in Ukraine working establishing a US infrastructure advisor to Ukraine.

    Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) : Will the feds shut down again soon?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=helJkegS4Fc

  11. Just saw a report in the DM that the FBI seized Eric Adams cell phone and ipad just a week or so after they went after his campaign financier. I’m very surprised by this with the FBI investigating a Democrat and the mayor of NYC. Seems very out of the norm for the climate today.

  12. That’s how they tell us the shooter was black without telling us he was black.

    Either that or his name was Muhammad. But it wasn’t a hate crime.

  13. The birds video was glorious.

    I can’t help but wonder how much trouble and expense it would be to put together a microlight of mine own…

    Without going too misty-poo, I don’t believe life is entirely a struggle of eat or be eaten.

    We like to get along … when we can.

  14. The lead goose expends almost twice the energy of those who can fly a wingtip aside and behind. Each wingtip creates a counter-rotating vortex on its down-sweep that creates associated energy loss by letting the compressed air underneath to escape. But the other side of the vortex uplifts the next bird. Something I learned while studying the theory of airfoils. And this is why some commercial planes have vertical tips that serve to block the vortex rotation and increase lift.

    And when the lead goose gets tired, it drops back and another takes its lead so it can rest. Mutual advantage by cooperation.

    Confessions of a nerd…

  15. huxley, possibly. For best effect, the bird would need to remain slightly behind and to the side of the microlight’s vortices. However, did you notice in the video that at times the bird closest to the microlight was not flapping its wings but soaring instead?

    Birds are extremely sensitive to air currents, so I suspect it was indeed taking advantage of the microlight. Out in the midwest where I live, I can scarcely feel the local effects of thermals unless I see dust-devils stirring the ground on a hot summer day. Yet see how eagles, hawks, and other soaring birds can find and get lifted up by thermals just by the tiny pressure differences on their wings, allowing them to circle higher and higher without effort. Now there’s true Engineering!

  16. More and more, perps like this are what we are facing.*

    The incentives to move out of big cities, and to pick your neighborhood very wisely keep getting stronger all the time.

    It is also time to mandate that a violent criminal who has been judged as “incompetent to stand trial” should not just be released back into the general population–there quite likely to carry on his violent criminal career, and to harm or kill even more innocent civilians–he should be sent to a mental hospital and, if possible, kept there.

    P.S. How many times, now, have we seen someone who has been released from jail or a mental institution because he was supposedly “not competent to stand trial” or supposedly “no longer a danger to society,” only to have that person go out and commit some violent crime, or kill again?

    Enough is enough.

    * See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/horror-tennessee-college-student-fatally-shot-head-man/

  17. However, did you notice in the video that at times the bird closest to the microlight was not flapping its wings but soaring instead?

    Bill K:

    I did!

    I knew about drafting from running — not that I ever made practical use of the knowledge.
    _______________

    Bird: Sure, you can touch me if I get to relax and take a break from flapping my wings.

  18. }}} Looks like they are in fact moving to her. The birds better be careful, the FAA might ground them. I love this though because it shows HOW birds fly.

    I’m thinking this is in France — that castle down below does not seem likely to be North American. I could easily be wrong.

    I find it rather interesting that the birds don’t feel threatened by it… It strikes me as a freaking massive aerial predator might be after them.

    I note that, if you look close, ca. 58/59 seconds, the bird in-frame drops a load in flight, LOLZ.

  19. }}} WTH? an ACCORDION? again I have to ask the same question: WHY?

    Yeah, I was wondering about that, too. Meant to mention it in the previous entry. 😛

  20. OBH-
    Because it’s impossible to track a bird in flight, they, unlike mammals, reptiles (and marsupials), never had to develop cloacal control. When the results of a birds digestive process reaches the end of the pipe, out it comes.

    Which is why I’ll never walk around with a parrot on my shoulder.

  21. The post at Sarah Hoyt’s blog today is by premier-commenter Foxfier, and addresses the long-standing tradition of Pallywood’s fauxtography (borrowed that word from Prof. Jacobson).
    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/11/10/faked-photographs-a-conspiracy-theory-a-guest-post-by-foxfier/

    If you are interested in the topic, read all of the posts linked therein.

    I was familiar with the exploits of Mr. Green Hat and the al Durah hoax from 2006 (was it really that long ago?), and there were several more frauds that I had missed.
    A blogger named zombietime did an outstanding job of forensic analysis that destroyed the claims of a purported attack by Israel on two ambulances (spoiler: they didn’t do it), as well as posting a “primer” on recognizing the different types of photo manipulation.

    https://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/
    “A comprehensive overview of the four types of photo fraud committed by Reuters, August, 2006”

    None of today’s “journalism” by the same militants/terrorists they are supposedly “reporting” on is new to the Western media, who have been publishing lies about Israel (and other things) for decades.

  22. I was not familiar with the anonymous photo-journalist zombie, who was active on-line from 2003 to 2017, and who published a column at PJMedia by-lined “Zombie” during part of that time period (last post dated 2011).

    Not too surprisingly, the animosity of the US Left to the Jews is not new.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20111016004227/http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/10/13/more-anti-semitism-at-occupy-los-angeles

    Bonus from a link in the comments to that post.
    http://proisraelctu.blogspot.com/2011/09/leftist-morons-pali-thugs-at-israel.html

  23. Yes, one of life’s rules is ‘however beautiful they are, don’t touch ladies on the butt’ . . .

  24. Totally agree the birds should not be touched! They don’t need distractions, & some may be more nervous than others, regarding the aircraft.
    Doesn’t seem safe to fly the aircraft so close. Interference can be risky to the entire Chevron.

  25. Thanks, Neo, for great link. I had seen something similar a few years ago; and recalled that in the 80s there was a small boom in Ultra-Lights, but then also lots of accidents & deaths.

    The top comment on the YouTube link explains the aero, and supports touching the birds, a bit:
    “As an aeronautical engineer who has researched flow near propellers, I find the part of this video where the bird is gliding near to the pilot, and allowing him to touch his/her body to be absolutely fantastic. This is because the bird is taking advantage of the air-flow ahead of the propeller. This air-flow is being accelerated ahead of the propeller (to a speed above the general airspeed) and by it, but somehow the bird which has stopped flapping its wings and is taking advantage of the faster air-flows here. I would imagine that the opposite should be the case, because the greater speed airflow creates more aerodynamic drag, not less. Ain’t nature wonderful!”

    I recall multiple 70s analyses about how, mathematically, bees can’t fly. Then they found, thru studying why frisbees fly so well, that there is a tiny bit more lift on the edges – so with more accurate math, including chaos theory, they’ve created more accurate models about bee flight. [Note: don’t play indoor frisbee after a few years of not playing — high risk of injury, like my Achilles tendon.]

    It doesn’t look like the birds mind being touched – but do like resting when they can. The French regions they’re flying above are gorgeous.

    There is a series of French murder mysteries with different investigators that occur in various different cities, dubbed into Slovak for we Slovak speakers in Slovakia. Each seems about 10-20% a great tourist advert for the lovely area, with interesting history and sights and likely a very nice visit. We’ve seen maybe 10 of them, all make France look great. Haven’t visited in decades, tho my wife speaks French well.

  26. It’s not like they would make a delicious entree on the Thaksgiving dinner table, for cryin’ out loud.

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