JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does more good than harm.
140
CO2 is harmless.
90
A foolish thing to say without context.
Many labs and other work places have CO2 detector alarms (not low O2 alarms which are generally for situations where asphyxiating gases like nitrogen might accumulate).
They are not placed there by woke lefty climate extremists.
Here is an article advertising an alarm in an interesting context.
https://www.msr-electronic.de/en/2021/06/10/msr-electronic-installs-co2-gas-warning-system-for-gin-distillery-near-graz/
121
“other work places have CO2 detector alarms”. Just ask at your local hotel, tavern, watering hole, bulk frozen goods etc. They know where the CO2 meter is, and how the alarm sounds.
30
Except in places where CO2 can occur at above, say 0.5%… eg leaking CCS, a burst sack of natural CO2 (as occurred once.)
Atmospheric CO2 is totally harmless.
That means it is totally harmless at any increased level of atmospheric CO2 that the world is ever likely to experience.
On the other hand, if atmospheric CO2 ever drops below around 300ppm, the world will be in a whole heap of trouble, just from inadequate food supplies.
And if it drops much below 180ppm, say goodbye to all life on the planet.
Fortunately, the oceans hold most of free CO2, so, so long as temperatures don’t drop too much and suck the CO2 from the atmosphere, Earth life should be ok.
40
“A foolish thing to say without context.”
We forgive you.
100
‘A foolish thing to say without context.’
Ted understood perfectly, you need to broaden your horizons.
40
Yep Gee Aye, we’ve come some way in gas detecting equipment.
I started work in an underground coal mine with a mining safety lamp. (Metropolitan Colliery, AIS/BHP Australia)
Back then only Managers, Deputies and Mine safety workers were given a safety lamp.
I was regulary required to enter and survey the old workings (dating from the 1880’s), that were not ventilated with positive pressure.
In the Metropolitan Colliery, There are approx 40 km of old tunnels. Some flooded, some semi crushed, many old roof falls, that you would have to climb over.
It was not a safe place. No breathing apparatus. No transport. No communications.
Your safety lamp was your best friend. You were trained in using it.
You would look at the flame to determine different safe gas levels. That was it. That was the cutting edge technology.
Here are 2 of many examples one could find.
Flaring of the flame and a possible change in colour of its corona, could indicate high levels of flammable gases like methane.
A sustained low flame could indicate a lower level of oxygen. Due to O2 being displaced by non flammable gases. eg CO2.
etc, etc.
It always amazed me that this technology was used for near 200 years.
It wasn’t perfect, yet it worked… I’m still here.
50
Can you tell the protester causing a traffic jam in Adelaide that we are orders of magnitude less than the levels required to set off the alarms.
70
A incorrect thing to say, even with context. Carbon dioxide is not classed as an asphyxiant gas due to its increasing toxicity at levels above 3% in air.
30
Yes, GA, when using highly compressed gases in industrial processes, you need safety alarms.
But that is not the atmosphere…
Have you got one in your bedroom… it can reach 2000ppm CO2 in winter with windows closed.
… methane sensor also required./s
20
We installed CO alarms in our house. Because they were available. So far as I know our house doesn’t use or produce CO.
How they tell the difference I know not. Perhaps they react to both.
10
Low CO2 kills plants then the animals that depend on plants.
Biological processes on land and in the oceans thrived to the point where CO2 was so depleted the plant life starved itself.
As humans release some of the bound CO2 we can see plant live increasing to rebalance.
100
Carbon dioxide shows absolutely no impact from human or even geological activities. Especially the lockdown of thousands of aircraft, millions of cars, trucks, buses, trains. Or 340,000 giant windmills.
It’s amazing that people speculate that a 50% increase over 250 years has produced sudden warming. In fact no one believes that CO2 can produce significant warming, so they invented water vapour assisted feedback. Which is disproven.
There is absolutely no reason to believe CO2 is man made. Or that it causes (tiny) warming. Or that this moving of an average makes the slightest difference to anything.
190
Actually the world canary in the cage for temperature is the Northern ice sheet at the North Pole. The average temperature there is 0C. If it had warmed, there would be no ice.
And I have read that if the average changes by 1C, the Artic changes by 4-5C.
So there is no evidence, no logic, no science and it’s all a lie. And more CO2 in the air is highly desirable for all life on earth.
140
And finally you can accurately measure old CO2 because it is not radioactive. If old CO2 was 1/3 of CO2 the radioactivity would be down 1/3. In fact it is unchanged for thousands of years. Accurately measured it was 2.0+/-0.15% in 1958 and only 3.0% today.
But who needs facts when you are passing Nett Zero laws to ban carbon dioxide and everything which outputs carbon dioxide. They also need to ban population growth as the extra 7 billion people since 1900 added another 21 billion tons a year to CO2 emissions.
We need to get rid of the humans. They are the entire problem. And the earth will be saved. But for whom?
130
Bring back the dinosaurs! They lasted 150 million years and didn’t have a single thermometer! And lots and lots of carbon dioxide. So much so that the old vegetation they left from a glorious existence has dragged humans out of abject poverty, short brutal lives. A mere 0.1Million years of modern humans and we never thank the dinosaurs. Or learn from them. Don’t worry about CO2.
And the only reason Polar bears still exist is that they keep away from us. We humans historically have wiped out thousands of species long before the industrial revolution. There used to be tigers in Africa. And giant marsupials in Australia. And horses in the Americas.
111
Plenty of dinosaurs around if you know where to look or listen.
21
GA’s trying to be mysterious. What she is talking about is birds.
40
Plenty of amoebas, too.
00
As for horses, the Greens want them gone. They want to erase their only uses in modern society and presume people will keep horses as household pets. I am continually amazed how naive and unthinking Greens are. The lastest push is to get rid of farmers and miners and manufacturers and trains and planes and cars. But they still think they will live well and go on holidays to Bali?
150
TdeF:
“I am continually amazed how naive and unthinking Greens are…..”
NO! A thousand times NO!
They are trained, dedicated political operatives with a ruthless quest.
That “HOLY TASK” is to “right-size” the human population.
Per comedienne, Irma Bombeck:
“Well may we say the grass is greener over the septic tanks, but it it GREENEST (NOTE!), over the MASS GRAVES”.
They are “eco-nazis and they want everyone else dead or enslaved; A DEATH CULT.
If you get my drift.
30
Some are. Most aren’t. I wasn’t.
20
Is this a serious comment or are you testing the skeptics to correct you?
How are you coping with the news about oxygen’s lack of flammability?
23
What does that comment even mean ? !
10
Apart from the spike at the 2015 El Nino (all gone now), the Arctic hasn’t warmed this century..
https://ibb.co/TWQT6zd
And is probably around the same temperature now as it was in the 1930s,40s.
https://ibb.co/HgWkkBQ (UAH No Pol spliced onto Hansen’s Arctic graph)
https://ibb.co/tPj3NGv (Measured temperatures from around the Arctic)
30
Ted, your statement infers that CO2 does some harm.
This is manifestly untrue.
Increased atmospheric CO2 is purely beneficial to all life on Earth.
Please reword your statement to remove the word “harm”, because there isn’t any.
120
It’s a concessional figure of speech, but you are right. I do not know of any harm the tiny CO2 gas does. Especially when if it was gone, all life on earth would be gone.
CO2 is the exact opposite of pollution but the Greens and the catastrophists now call it pollution. And carbon pollution. Like sodium pollution. And hydrogen pollution. And oxygen pollution. And water pollution.
And the same ignorant people are happy with the idea that nuclear energy has no emissions. That beggars belief.
90
Power rationing plan for Germany, human folly knows no bounds.
https://notrickszone.com/2023/05/16/germanys-federal-network-agency-plans-to-ration-electricity-as-electric-power-crisis-heightens/
80
Politicians only. Don’t worry, the Transgenders will save us. If they are not wiped out by Climate Change.
70
Nothing to see here…
Just that covid mRNA “vaccines” might make you go blind.
Don’t expect it to be reported in the Lamestream media or medical “authorities” to take notice, or care, however.
It was even reported in the now-fully-woke journal, Nature.
Video: https://youtu.be/TNW5Re8G420
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41541-023-00661-7/
Covid vaccine pushers: Isn’t it time for your seventh “jab”?
130
I’m sure all those folk who get their regular retinal injection treatment for macular degeneration were properly informed about the increased risk from mRNA or viral-vector mRNA vaccines.
Sure I am.
110
I look forward to your post on this again tomorrow. Just like I enjoy all TdeF’s repeated CO2 confusion.
321
No doubt you would prefer people not to know various “inconvenient truths”. I guess that’s why the Left are so heavily into censorship and cancelling people.
Would you prefer people continue to remain misled that covid vaccines are perfectly safe and properly tested?
And TdeF has no confusion about CO2. You picked on a point that wasn’t contextually relevant. I think we all know that he was referring to an open atmosphere, not an enclosed space.
170
That wasn’t TdeF. He did though follow up with his usual nonsense.
17
Now. What comments do you have on the paper to which I referred?
10
Oh dear, seems GA still doesn’t comprehend the basic facts on CO2… and has nothing but baseless innuendo and snark as a response.
30
I can understand that TdeF’s facts on CO2 confuse you, GA.
But that is YOUR problem to fix, not his. !
Try comprehension and understanding, as a first step.
20
If it’s repeated, then you should be able to dignify your aspersion with a few examples.
Even one example would save your comment from just being an unsubstantiated slur.
110
Done before. It just means the unsupported assertions will flood the thread. None of us need that.
17
Yep GA, you need to stop your unsupported innuendo and snark, and back up your empty comments with something meaningful.
20
‘None of us need that.’
Its best to have a colourful debate at a higher level, our side is ready for the battle ahead. You are not taking climate change seriously, it is the most important issue of our time.
10
Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) is a very under-recognised Indian scientist. Among numerous achievements, in 1894 he produced an apparatus that generated 5mm millimetre waves or 60GHz and produced apparatuses still used in microwave technology today such as waveguides, semiconductor detectors, horn antennas and polarisers. Sir Neville Mott said he was 60 years ahead of his time. An amazing man.
110
I reckon waveguides are white man’s magic. So simple but you need to think a bit before they make sense.
30
So are magnetrons. Very clever devices.
30
.
Nigel Farage on the Durham report. He covers some very disturbing, but not surprising, issues.
(4.5m video)
60
… that the FBI and the CIA, on behalf of elite corporate and military interests, run a political protection racket which gives them enormous leverage over elected officials, including Presidents.
A summary on the Techno Fog substack.
90
So the DS social club brings forth one of its’ own (sufficiently obscure) to ‘investigate’ what was already easily put together by anyone with even basic jigsaw puzzle abilities.
“Oh look”, we investigated ourselves, confessed to OUR* Priests, and absolution was granted.
*(Officially ordained by OUR Democracy.)
It wasn’t criminal sedition, only MAGA Walmart peasants do that, we only engaged in bureaucratic overenthusiasm.
It is your fault peasants, for ‘electing’ an unapproved outsider.
(Only ’cause we thought OUR girl had it in the bag and we weren’t minding the soup, but we fixed that in 2020.)
John Durham is the model modern DS citizen. No fool.
Called upon for a delicate mission.
A mission only the most savvy Deep Stater could pull off.
He can now retire to his dacha in Northern Virginia and have coffee on his veranda with a vista of the Blue Ridge mountains. (If you’ve never been, it’s really nice.)
Knowing he will not hear banjos. They started chasing those squatters out in 1792.
https://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/baez/png/copper_kettle-joan-baez.png
And secure in the safety of his person and his pets.
He can meet his buddy John Brennan for a round of golf and a little reminiscing on the 19th hole.
As for me, I will sit in poverty, reveling in righteous indignation and unforgiving contemptuous pity for the John Durhams of this world … and the unwavering opinion that the greatest POTUS since George Washington himself, was a bombastic TV game show personality. (Can’t get much more American than that.)
And hoping there is truth and justice in the afterlife.
Good for me.
I’ll pick up my banjo and play.
https://youtu.be/UDfAdHBtK_Q
20
A paragraph from “The Parasitic Mind” by Dr. Gad Saad:
“Beyond being purveyors of anti-science (postmodernism) and science denialism (biophobia), universities serve as patient zero for a broad range of other dreadfully bad ideas and movements. In the immortal words of George Orwell, ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.’ The proliferation of many of these bad ideas has yielded reward mechanisms in academia that are upside down. The herd mindset is rewarded. Innovative thinkers are chastised. ‘Stay in your lane’ academics are rewarded. Outspoken academics are punished. Hyper-specialization is rewarded. Broad synthetic thinking is scorned. Every quality that adheres to leftist tenets or progressivism is rewarded. Those who believe in equality of outcomes receive top-paying administrative jobs. Those who believe in meritocracy are frowned upon. If they go unchecked, parasitic idea pathogens, spawned by universities, eventually start to infect every aspect of our society.”
100
Actuaries Institute of Australia has a digital magazine producing reports based on the latest releases of Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
They are cool, calm and collected when faced with mass deaths they associate with Covid-19 in the latest assessment of figures for January 2023.
The vaccines are working despite the apparent correlation with the excess deaths and the below trend results from 2020 prior to the vaccine.
If I was looking at these results I would be raising the insurance risk for those Nannas going to a Day Care Centre. Centres shut in 2020 – no excess deaths. Centres re-open in late 2021, full throttle in 2022 – many excess deaths. Now that is a correlation if you care to ignore the other Elephant in the room.
40
Meanwhile back in Wuhan
Emergency Hospitals to treat the pandemic closed 10th March 2020. The dancing excavators and empty hospitals were probably the opening act to our dancing nurses and empty hospitals.
And the last patients walked away?
This hospital made available more beds in a month in 2020 than people who died from Covid-19 (according to the Actuaries working group using ABS figures) in Australia in January 2023.
Did the Hospitals close because everyone died? or were the excess deaths in China similar to Australia in 2020?
I am beginning to wonder about our mathematics teaching when the Actuaries who claim excellence in the craft are apparently having problems with 1 + 1.
00
Red meat is not a health risk. New study slams years of shoddy research
Studies have been linking red meat consumption to health problems like heart disease, stroke, and cancer for years, but these invariably suffer from methodological limitations. In an unprecedented effort, health scientists at the University of Washington scrutinized decades of research on red meat consumption and its links to various health outcomes, introducing a new way to assess health risks in the process. They only found weak evidence that unprocessed red meat consumption is linked to colorectal cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, and ischemic heart disease, and no link at all between eating red meat and stroke.
The IHME scientists had been observing the shoddy nature of health science for decades. Each year, hundreds of frankly lazy studies are published that simply attempt to find an observational link between some action — eating a food for example — and a health outcome, like death or disease. In the end, owing to sloppy methods, varying subject populations, and inconsistent statistical measures, everything, especially different foods, seems to be both associated and not associated with cancer. How is the lay public supposed to interpret this mess?
And so, the researchers came up with the burden of proof risk function, a novel statistical method to quantitatively “evaluate and summarize evidence of risk across different risk-outcome pairs.” Using the function, any researcher can evaluate published data for a certain health risk, then, using the function, compute a single number that translates to a one- through five-star rating system.
“A one-star rating indicates that there may be no true association between the behavior or condition and the health outcome. Two stars indicates the behavior or condition is at least associated with a 0-15% change in the likelihood of a health outcome, while three stars indicates at least a 15-50% change, four stars indicates at least a 50-85% change, and five stars indicates a more than 85% change.”
https://bigthink.com/health/red-meat-cancer-not-health-risk/
Red meat rules! Butter, eggs, bacon too!
And a giant middle finger to the WEF. 😁
100
It is said that in ancient language vegan means incompetent hunter.
110
I’ll repeat the obvious response to this. Since the vegan is alive, they are a competent forager who has not needed to hunt.
01
‘Alive’ is a temporary state. Especially for the vegan.
10
Sponging off the rest of the society.
Typical. !
00
Google unveils plan to use AI to completely destroy journalism
Google has unveiled its plan of using artificial intelligence (AI) to completely destroy journalism – by means of a new bot integrated with its flagship search engine.
A May 12 article published on Futurism expounded on the tech giant’s new AI-powered search interface called Search Generative Experience (SGE). The interface included a feature called AI Snapshot, which the piece described as “an enormous top-of-the-page summarization feature” made using the AI’s large language model (LLM).
“Google has unveiled its vision for how it will incorporate AI into search,” tweeted James Vincent, also from the Verge. “The quick answer: It’s going to gobble up the open web and then summarize, rewrite [or] regurgitate it – pick the adjective that reflects your level of disquiet – in a shiny Google [user interface].”
Alex Donaldson, owner of the gaming news outlet RPG Site, warned in a tweet: “If this actually works and is implemented in a firm way, this is literally the end of the business model for vast swathes of digital media.”
http://www.stationgossip.com/2023/05/google-unveils-plan-to-use-ai-to.html
Pseudo-AI… 😎
50
Journalism has already destroyed itself. No need of any help from Goolag. And Goolag is already at the point where its search results can’t be trusted with the truth anyway.
120
ummm.. someone has to write the stuff so that the glorified mouthy search engine can find it !
Or will it just “make stuff up” like many journalists seem to.
It will still be nothing more that “garbage in -> garbage out”.
30
I wonder how long before one the those US House Committees requires ChatGPT to submit to its telling enquiries.
00
Monkeypox Outbreak Reported In Chicago – Nearly 70% Of Infected Were Already Vaccinated Against The Disease
Monkeypox has returned with a vengeance as an outbreak of the disease is reported in Chicago. The disease now appears to be affecting men who were injected with the vaccine for it.
In a May 9 update, the Chicago Department of Public Health recorded 12 confirmed and one probable case of the virus between April 17 and May 5. Nine of the 13 total infections, or nearly 70 percent, were in men vaccinated against the disease.
http://www.womensystems.com/2023/05/monkeypox-outbreak-reported-in-chicago.html
But at least your Covid vaxxes work. 😆
100
Target Introduces Trans Clothing Line for Infants
Retail giant Target has launched a new LGBTQ clothing collection that includes trans clothes for infants.
According to reports, Target is now extending its existing adult LGBTQ-themed products to target infants.
But it gets worse, of course. Go to “Pride Kids’ & Baby Clothing.” These include “Pride Baby Bien Proud Bodysuit – Light Mint Green,” or the same pattern for older kids, “Pride Baby ‘Be Kind’ Jumper Romper – Black,” “Pride Baby ‘Always Proud’ Bibs,” and “Pride Baby ‘It Takes All Kinds’ Bodysuit – Blue.” Or, alternatively, perhaps, Target could have a bodysuit for babies saying, “My parents are woke idiots.”
https://pjmedia.com/culture/catherinesalgado/2023/05/10/lgbtqinfant-target-releases-lgbtq-clothes-for-babies-kids-n1694283
Woke Culture Is ‘Systematically Destroying Our Children’s Souls’ Tory MP Warns
She said: ‘That hope is sadly diminishing in so many of our young people today, because liberal individualism has proven to be completely powerless to resist the cultural Marxism that is systematically destroying our children’s souls.
‘When culture, schools and universities openly teach that our country is racist, our heroes are villains, humanity is killing the Earth, you are what you desire, diversity is theology, boundaries are tyranny and self-restraint is oppression, is it any wonder that mental health conditions, self-harm and suicide, and epidemic levels of anxiety and confusion characterise the emerging generation?’
She added: ‘We must end the indoctrination of our children with destructive and narcissistic ideologies, instead protecting childhood, training children in the timeless virtues and teaching them how to love our country.’
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12084755/Tory-MP-Miriam-Dates-suggests-woke-culture-driving-children-self-harm-suicide.html
Even elephants know how to protect their offspring from predators, so why don’t humans?:
https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_run744Pvyk1w5pr9j.mp4
80
“‘When culture, schools and universities openly teach that our country is racist, our heroes are villains, humanity is killing the Earth, you are what you desire, diversity is theology, boundaries are tyranny and self-restraint is oppression, is it any wonder that mental health conditions, self-harm and suicide, and epidemic levels of anxiety and confusion characterise the emerging generation?’”
Best argument ever for getting Govt right out of education! No public money for pre-schools, primary schools, high schools or universities!
Let there be a range of schools set up by the private sector and the charities, teaching what the parents feel their child needs.I’m sure there will be some brief periods when you could find a Woke Marxist school if you wanted one.
20
New York City Could Be Sinking Under The Weight of Its Skyscrapers
New York is sinking, and its skyscrapers are bringing it down. That’s the finding of a new study that modeled the geology beneath the city compared to satellite data showing its footprint is collapsing into Earth.
Technically called subsidence, this gradual settling or sudden sinking of Earth’s surface occurs when soft sediments shift, or loads bearing down on the ground push it deeper still. There are many causes, but the weight of cities themselves is rarely studied.
New York is sinking at a rate of 1-2 millimeters per year, the study found, under the weight of its sky-high buildings. A few millimeters might not sound like much, but some parts of the city are subsiding much faster, on par with the fastest observed rates at which tectonic plates rebound when glaciers melt.
New York is certainly not alone in its subsidence. A quarter of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, could be underwater by 2050, with parts of the city sinking by almost 11 centimeters a year due to groundwater extraction. More than 30 million Jakarta residents are now reckoning with the prospect of relocating the city or doubling down on climate action, such as opting for electric buses.
New York, by comparison, ranks third in its exposure to future flooding. Much of lower Manhattan lies only 1 and 2 meters above current sea levels. Hurricanes in 2012 (Sandy) and 2021 (Ida) also showed how quickly the mostly paved city could be flooded by water.
“New York is emblematic of growing coastal cities all over the world that are observed to be subsiding, meaning there is a shared global challenge of mitigation against a growing inundation hazard,” the researchers conclude.
A 2022 study of 99 coastal cities around the world:
Subsidence in Coastal Cities Throughout the World Observed by InSAR:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022GL098477
Oh dear! I said before that the sea levels aren’t rising, the land is sinking. Well now…
90
I would be surprised. The area was under 1km of ice just 11,000 years ago. And the land underneath is still springing back. Or at least that is true in Scotland and Scandinavia. Stockholm had to be moved 1,000 years ago as it was out of the water.
And because there is a lot of rock under Manhattan, not silt.
The Empire State building for example weight 365,000 tons. But it’s almost empty. Rock weights 2 to 2.5 tons per cubic meter, so this is 180,000 cubic metres. Over an acre of 4,000 square metres this is about 45 metres tall. A small hill. And likely that much dirt was removed to build the foundations, so no nett gain in weight.
My point is that the entire weight of all those skyscrapers means very little compared to the dirt on which they sit, or the dirt removed for all those underground tunnels.
A lot of the current wave of prediction of Armageddon from the Ozone hole to Nitrogen to Carbon dioxide to Global Warming and Climate change is based on an incredible new idea that what humans do affects the planet.
Sadly, it’s not true. We are of no consequence. Even Mt St Helen’s explosion was the same as 1600 Hiroshima bombs. And it’s all settled down.
And it’s hard to appreciate that all of the trees in the world started as two zero weight gases, CO2 and H2O. Or that we are made from the same stuff. Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and tiny bits of a few other atoms. And all our cars and buildings weigh nothing. We have an ant’s view of the universe. It’s all very big.
160
Enormous quantities of concrete were pumped underneath Mexico City years ago to stabilise it.
40
Every city is sited for a reason. And the swamp was their defence. And it remains the world’s largest city not on water. 9 million people in a high valley at 2,240 metres.
22
I’m sure this subject has been discussed before. I thought Manhattan Island was solid granite.
10
FWIW – a couple of looks at the Ukraine situation
“Analyzing Kofman-Lee’s Urgent New Op-Ed”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/analysis-of-kofman-lees-urgent-new
20
another ian,
simplicius76 writes detailed & interesting assessments
In this day & age of American Perfidity – Look at Durham Report and thinking about Hunter & Joe 10% Biden in Ukraine, Romania & China
who do you believe?
As one commenter on blog said – it is interesting that Zelensky has not been in Ukraine since drone attack on Kremlin
2 different views on one topic
Patriot Leaves Skeptics Wordless, Russians Embarassed, and Kiev Littered With Pieces of Putin’s Wonder Weapons
Besides Americans can’t spell- Embarrassed
Patriot missile base in Kiev destroyed by hypersonic strike – Moscow
The air defense system was hit by a Kinzhal rocket, the Russian Defense Ministry has said
I personally believe the Russians ahead of the Americans any day
Meanwhile CNN – US assessing potential damage of Patriot missile defense system following Russian attack near Kyiv
Natasha Bertrand Oren Liebermann
50
I think the only war crime here would be if Shoigu shorted Raytheon ahead of time.
BREAKING: France describes the Russian missile barrage of Kyiv as a war crime
From the Comments
– I thought they were intercepted
– Destroying Patriot missile systems is now a war crime according to the international “rules based” order
– Why? UA shot down everything and even few more
– But I heard they shot down all the missiles? (confused)
30
Patriot missile performance is very likely overestimated. You only ever hear about the successes, not the misses.
30
I understand a US Patriot Missile System recently accounted for a Russian Hypersonic missile (in a MAD kind of way).
00
O-O
In the spirit of Mad Magazine’s “Complete the Ad”
“I thought they were intercepted” – by the target?
20
Americans lie in the expectation that you will believe them, the Russians don’t even pretend – their lies are so ludicrous, it is just a way of showing contempt for their enemies.
The physical evidence that hypersonic missiles were successfully downed is undeniable, that doesn’t mean defense systems weren’t also hit successfully.
20
Anatomy of MIM-104 Patriot Destruction + Primer on Kinzhal Hypersonic Missile
SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER
18 MAY 2023
Let’s break down in depth exactly what happened on the night of the Patriot attack and catch up on the known facts and speculations. Here’s what is known so far:
It should be stated that there are certain positions Russia already knows are likely, and are prefigured into their search matrices. For instance, Mim-104 Patriot system is an extremely complex and large system, you can’t just set it up anywhere, like in the middle of an apartment building courtyard or something like that. These systems not only require a lot of room but also, since they are much less mobile than drivable units like Gepards and such, they are preferably situated somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of civilian ‘eyes’ in the area, so that no one films or rats them out, whether accidentally or not.
This leaves only a few real, solid choices where you can put such a system. And they are almost always put in airports, as an example. It comes as no surprise then that during the attacks on 5/16, word now has it that two of the Patriots were located at Zhuliany airport in Kiev and one at or near the Zoo, as per the following from Rybar:
About the destruction of the Patriot air defense system in Kyiv
Last night, the Russian Armed Forces destroyed at least one launcher of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system in Kyiv. Rybar’s team managed to establish the exact location of the anti-aircraft battery. In total, there were three launchers in the positional area at the Zhuliany airport, where the “Kinzal” hit.
Coordinates: 50.404161, 30.443186
Another place where the work of the Ukrainian air defense was noticed was the vicinity of the Kyiv zoo, where the fragments of the fired missiles fell. The complex itself worked in close proximity to the Kyiv Polytechnic University named after Sikorsky.
Coordinates: 50.452699, 30.459805
As for the airfield “Zhulyany”, footage from the surveillance camera got into the Network. In the video, you can clearly see the launches of 32 missiles (a total of 16 for each launcher), as well as the work of barreled anti-aircraft artillery – apparently, the Patriots were covered by the Gepard.
After the ammunition load was used up, an explosion was heard: the Russian “Kinzal” managed to hit the positional area, despite “Patriots” and one “Gepard”.
One was destroyed, the second was seriously damaged, but survived. The third launcher escaped damage.
Two installations stood side by side, and the third – behind the building. The Russian “Kinzal” flew between the installations, but closer to the first: there was a detonation of the fuel.
Pieces of the first installation and pieces of soil / asphalt riddled the second.
Why the third installation in Zhuliany was not involved and did not participate in repulsing the strike (or, at least, its launches were not caught on video) is a question to which we have no answer.
The above appears to confirm a large Patriot setup in the airport added between May 2nd and May 16th.
A quick primer on the system: the basic unit of a Patriot system is a ‘battery’ which is said to consist of up to 8 launchers. These launchers can have 4 missiles each, although there are newer ones with 8 and 16 missiles like that pictured below. Ukraine was said to have received 2 batteries of Patriots total, one from Germany and another from the U.S., but it is uncertain if they’re both deployed in Kiev or even both deployed at all.
It’s almost universally recognized now that the Patriot system fired 32 missiles in the videos seen on May 16. This corresponds to either a full battery of 8 launchers firing all 4 of their missiles (8 x 4 = 32), however there’s now evidence that they in fact had two of the 16-count launchers, and fired off both of them, which I describe a little further below.
Next: how do we know for certain they were Patriots that fired that 32 missile salvo? Firstly, we know it’s all one missile type as the salvo came from the same place on video, which appeared to be at least 2-3 separate launchers positioned relatively close to each other.
Secondly, the Patriot famously fires its missiles at an inclined angle as can be seen below:
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Now that we’ve covered the rudiments of the Patriot, let’s return to the attack. Apart from the Pentagon confirming at least a partial hit, and Russian MOD confirming full destruction, how do we know the Patriot was hit? This is only for those who haven’t followed the events at all, but the following video shows the arrivals: Video Link.
This is a truncated version of a longer video which shows many Patriot missiles firing from that location. But at the 0:30 second mark you can see two massive hits land exactly where the missiles were firing from. After the first hit, you can even see what appears to be two random missiles shoot out, likely ammo cooking off and shooting away violently in the fashion we’ve seen many times before when Russian strikes have hit Ukrainian MLRS units, etc.
Some have even attempted to geolocate the camera location:
Not long after the strikes, at around the 1:30 mark you can see thick dark smoke rising in two separate spots exactly over where the launchers had been firing from, indicating the likely destruction of both launchers and/or radar systems.
A separate video was published from a different location where a shocked male voice is heard stating on camera that the explosions happened right where the AD was firing from, confirming that there appeared to be a direct hit.
Most likely, Russia utilizes all three of the previously stated methods to monitor Kiev during the attack. There are likely even other more obscure methods we don’t know about, such as HUMINT on the ground assets, even hacking into Kiev street cameras or watching open source ones.
There’s truth to this as it was announced soon after the May 16th strikes that Kiev was ordering the closure of most of its street cameras.
It is very likely that Russia also has some moles on the ground in standby mode, reporting locations of AD missile launches, not to mention communications interceptions (rather than radar wave/signal interceptions) from other airborne and satellite assets which could clue them in to the sites.
These methods all work in unison in identifying the location of the missile batteries. What comes next is the following:
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Recall earlier how I mentioned that Rybar was collecting anonymous insider info from Ukraine regarding the attacks. It’s impossible to say how accurate any of these ‘insider’ feeds are, but it’s worth noting anyway:
Inside
Our source in the OP said that the Patriot system was damaged, 2 Patriot Launching Station -3 and a Patriot Radar Set were destroyed. 5 soldiers were killed, of which two were foreign instructors, all Western air defense systems are supplied to Ukraine with technical personnel who help our specialists use the anti-aircraft system.
According to unconfirmed reports, the Pentagon has banned Ukraine from using the MIM-104 Patriot air defense system until the American side receives all the information about the circumstances of the recent missile attack on the American air defense battery. Washington sent a special team to Ukraine to assess the state of the affected Patriot air defense system and the reasons for the destruction of the air defense battery by Russian missiles.
Another:
According to reliable data, on May 16, as a result of a strike by the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system in Kiev, a multifunctional radar station was hit and completely destroyed, as well as 5 launchers of the PATRIOT anti-aircraft missile system manufactured by the USA – Russian Ministry of Defense
And now there’s a rumor that NATO has launched urgent meetings because these strikes have just exposed the U.S./NATO’s most powerful strategic defense systems, which bodes very badly for NATO’s security. This is the first time in history that the U.S. now has absolute proof that Russian systems can penetrate the most advanced U.S. defenses. Recall, that reportedly Ukraine was armed with the latest Pac-3 missiles, not the older Pac-2s, etc. This has dire consequences for all European security as it proves that Russian missiles can now penetrate any NATO base in Poland and elsewhere with full impunity. In fact, these are the types of tectonic moments that create entire generational doctrinal shifts and change the calculus of defense postures entirely.
An urgent meeting was held in NATO on the state of the air defense/PRO systems that protect the main military bases and logistics hubs located on the soil of Poland and Slovakia
Turkish well-informed sources note that the meeting was initiated after 🇷🇺 Russian H-47M2 “Kinzhal” hypersonic air-to-surface missiles penetrated the air defense/PRO zone of the city of 🇺🇦Kiev and regardless of the large number of interceptor missiles fired , destroyed the MIM-104(F) Patriot units that participated in combat operations.
The atmosphere with the meetings was assessed as alarming, which led to a series of conclusions that foresee the immediate undertaking of specific measures, with the aim of further strengthening the capacities of PVO/PRO in these areas.
The SBU has launched an unprecedented campaign in the wake of these strikes to capture all people who were recording the arrivals. They’ve already captured half a dozen such bloggers:
This coupled with the fact that the SBU has already started taking offline all street cameras, desperately trying to keep any future arrivals from being recorded:
In Ukraine, they want to ban the broadcast from webcams during rocket attacks – so that no one sees the arrivals and the work of the air defense.
The operation of street cameras installed everywhere can be regulated so that the enemy cannot use them to track the work of air defense. This was stated by the speaker of the Ukraine Air Force Yuri Ignat on the air of radio НВ.
“Such cameras work all over the world, broadcast online on Youtube channels. But in our situation, when there is martial law in the country, I think that certain adjustments will be made with the military administrations. When there is an air defense operation, when there is a threat of information leakage, I think that the bodies of military administrations will adjust in order to somehow prevent the enemy from being able to observe the combat operation of our air defense systems online,” Ignat explained.
He said that it is also necessary to “work” with those private institutions and entrepreneurs who have also installed street cameras.
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Russia got a good ROI on that raid if this is true –
“Tax-Payer Funded $1.1 Billion U.S. Patriot Missile System in Ukraine “Likely Damaged” After Massive Russian Attack (VIDEO)”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/05/tax-payer-funded-1-1-billion-u-s-patriot-missile-system-in-ukraine-likely-damaged-after-massive-russian-attack/
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A patriot battery is not a single item, it is multiple pieces of kit spread over an area maybe a sq km or more. One launch component was damaged, not destroyed. Not a lot to show for a $10 mil missile.
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not mentioning of course that they fired 30+ $5m dollar Patriots and got the battery damaged to an extent that we cant possibly know at this distance
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Ukraine pays the price for its use of depleted Uranium missiles
UK sends DU weapons to Ukraine to shoot at the Russians. When the Russians complain about the health effects of the particles, the UK says, no problem, all quite safe. The Russians drop a missile on the place where these munitions are stored, in Western Ukraine between Kiev and Lviv. There is a MASSIVE explosion and all the Uranium is converted into particles, but the wind is blowing from the South East and the radioactive plume travels north west to Poland, Germany and the Baltic States. Their citizens will then have to hope that the UK’s advice about the health effects was correct.
Radiation spikes in the air appeared in eastern Poland Bismuth levels in the air in Lublin were spiked 6-7 times yesterday by instrumentation. Bismuth is the decay product of depleted uranium used in munitions. Poles wrote in comments that the radiation threat came from the Khmelnitsky region, where a “geranium” strike on the morning of 13 May destroyed the 649th aircraft depot.
A major radiation spike as shown:
https://imgbox.com/eT46HoZv
Russia is getting sick of this nonsense by the west, and it’s the west that is paying the price as this shows.
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Who sent DU to Ukraine? Not the US.
The Abrams tanks in US service have DU armour plates but Ukraine will not be getting them. They will either have to wait for new export models to come off the line or others, such as Australia’s will be sent now to be replaced as new export models are made.
Du is almost inert so could not cause a spike in radioactivity. Best stop believing Russia.
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“Du is almost inert so could not cause a spike in radioactivity.”
“The U remaining is “depleted” of about 40 percent of its radioactivity, but retains the same chemical toxicity as natural uranium.”
https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/depleted_uranium/
So DU has 60% of the activity of the refined uranium metal they started with. 40% of it has been taken for nuclear reactors.
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Meh- “taken by nuclear reactors” Must proof-read first!
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Wednesday fun: are you talking to a human or a chatbot?
AI21 Labs, the Israeli artificial intelligence company, has used the the latest advances to create a two-minute game version of what became known as the Turing Test.
Users have to decide whether they’ve been chatting with another user or with an AI bot.
https://www.humanornot.ai/
Didn’t fool me. 😎
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JC II – just throw the “N” word in and the Bot promptly loses the diodes in its left leg!
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Harking back to the thread on peer review…
Crick & Watson were not peer reviewed before publication of their paper on DNA, nor was Einstein for the majority of his work. the real “peer review” of their work has been ongoing ever since.
Some concept of peer review should exist, but only in the sense of putting work or ideas out there, ready to be freely criticised and discussed. I recently had an argument with a PhD student who was adamant that nothing was legitimate unless it was peer reviewed, so, in the case of conference papers, they are not “peer reviewed”, thus, in his mind, they are worthless.
To me, it doesn’t matter, you get the paper out there, and people will read it, comment, and use it, or dismiss it. There’s no real need for anything before publication except proof-reading and advice on structure, presentation, etc.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with someone publishing a “junk” paper describing a whole heap of experiments and results to show that the sky is in fact a solid object put in place by aliens. The key is discussion, and the ability to refute claims.
Now, the general feeling seems to be that if it has been published, it must be correct and trustworthy, and, in reality, there is no reason why this should be the case.
The original problem with “peer review” was that it was all about personalities, and status. If you were not part of the right crowd, you’d never get your ideas out there, no matter how robust and legitimate they may be.
The current system of peer review is essentially no different, as whatever the lofty goals were originally, it has devolved to the sorry state of affairs we see now.
The other problem is that a lot of research is now generally so complex or time consuming that one cannot just reproduce it on a whim, even if all the data has been provided.
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I’ve reckoned for a while that one could maximise one’s citation index by being the author of just above junk papers that you managed to get “peer reviewed” and published.
You would be cited by your legitimate critics and pick up a heap outside your subject from people who heard about it and “me too” cited it – maybe critically.
Cook’s “97” might be a test case.
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Arguably the most important scientific analysis so far in human history in an 8 page memo:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/history5n/FPmemo.pdf
And not peer reviewed or published till well after the events it inspired. The two escapes from Nazi Europe who penned it were not permitted to work on the more security sensitive Radar work at Marc Oliphant’s Birmingham lab so they put their minds to a nuclear weapon that everyone else deemed impossible.
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Look what the Uniparty did in the last year of the Morrison regime.
SEE LINK FOR REST
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It’s called arse-covering.
Public servants and politicians generally only know about how to look after their own positions and mostly know nothing about their portfolio or their area of responsibility. Any actual work they do, or anything they put their signature to, could lead to a kick up the arse or worse, being thrown under the bus, so it’s much safer to proactively deflect the blame by hiring a consultant. Bingo! Responsibility and liability shifted!
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People are offended when told the Coalition is more left leaning than ALP. Is this not proof that that the Coalition too, cannot be trusted with spending. The Luddites in the Coalition are even more hooked on spending. So much so that they actually “ farm out “ decision making & political activities that they appear not to be qualified to carry out themselves.
Maybe it was a consultant that told PM Morrison to sign up to “Net Zero”.
God knows what else was decided by some or other unelected hack!
We are in deep trouble folks. Maybe we too can “ hire a hack “ to help solve problems brought on by hired help!!
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Just looking at the total wind energy around the SW of WA over the past week. Every single day the total wind energy has gone missing, usually for at least 4 hours, in some cases 8 hours. Every single day. And drops down to less than 5% quite often. So coal energy has to step up to supply power, especially at night. Every single evening.
How could any sane govt consider shutting down Australia’s newest and reliable coal station that is significantly keeping the power on every day, and plan to rely on renewables that are clearly unreliable.
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WA Coal generation appears to be up to 500MW tonight. Most in quite a while… Is winter finally here in WA?
The wind fades most afternoons. Might get a better balance if more towers were located in the southern part of the state. The Albany wind farms seem to keep the owners happy…
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“What I Learned about What Exxon Knew”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/05/17/what-i-learned-about-what-exxon-knew/
Conclusions –
“VII. In which a summary finding of Exxon-Knewism is rendered.
Exxon’s climate models did not foretell future temperature.
Exxon’s scientists knew Exxon’s climate models did not foretell future temperature.
Exxon’s managers knew Exxon’s scientists knew Exxon’s climate models did not foretell future temperature.
Exxon corporately made a good-faith effort to understand CO2-climate connections.
Exxon management funded independent research into CO2-climate connections.
Exxon didn’t know.
Exxon managers and scientists knew that Exxon didn’t know.
Geoffrey Supran, Stefan Rahmstorf and Naomi Oreskes view all climate models as truth-machines.
No matter the plain evidence, Geoffrey Supran, Stefan Rahmstorf and Naomi Oreskes do not know that Exxon did not know. At best.
Supran, Rahmstorf, Oreskes (2023) is wrong in every important particular.”
And
“VIII. In which judgments are made and conclusions are drawn.
Supran, Rahmstorf, Oreskes (2023) Figure 1b is minimally a soaring monument to careless tendency.
The S-R-O (2023) Exxon Knew indictment dismally failed its evidentiary hearing.
Supran, Rahmstorf, Oreskes (2023) passed the conscious muster with editors and reviewers of Science Magazine.
S-R-O (2023) is akin to a journalistic show-trial.
Science Magazine, in prosecuting the indictment, is administratively akin to Andrey Vyshinsky.
Such is the culture now in possession of establishment journals.”
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How do you know?
“AI, Fakes, And You”
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=248814
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FWIW
“Talk is cheap. Where’s the action?”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/05/talk-is-cheap-wheres-action.html
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A fair statement IMO
“Not an antivaxxer, just a very cautious vaxxer.”
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Some vaccine developments in here
https://open.substack.com/pub/coffeeandcovid/p/bail-and-sail-wednesday-may-17-2023?r=1vxw0k&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
And some “patriotic stuff”
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“cast your mind all the way back to last week, when the Ukrainians triumphantly claimed to have shot down a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile — using a Patriot battery. When you combine last week’s story with yesterday’s story, it begins to look a lot like the Russians are playing a game of cat and mouse, testing the Patriot batteries using different strategies to try to figure out how best to defeat the American missile defense system.
And if the Russians DO figure out how to beat the Patriot system, we’re going to have much bigger problems on our hands than Ukraine. I sure hope our generals can spare a moment from trading makeup tips, and consider whether it is a good idea or not to continue dumping our highest tech into the Proxy War for the Russians and anybody else to toy with. Maybe we should stop trying to find out who has the stiffest missiles.”
Sounds reasonable, but if you didn’t have a minor war going on with a proxy you’d pushed into it, how are you going to get real-world testing of your weapons?
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“One Flu Out Of The Wuhan Nest”
“On Wednesday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) office unveiled a chilling 328-page report on the origins of COVID-19, following an extensive 18-month investigation.”
https://youtu.be/tsfDX0X04sw
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2023/05/17/one-flu-out-of-the-wuhan-nest-91/#comments
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