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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Very major power outage in Spain, Portugal, France. Could be due to atmospheric conditions, a cyber attack or did they just run out of power?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14656089/Panic-blackout-Spain-indoors-queues-form-food-petrol-restore-power.html
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Or too much solar/wind?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14655733/How-huge-Spain-blackout-struck-days-grid-ran-entirely-green-power-time.html
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Coming to Australia under Labor Blackout Bowen/Greeens/TEALs
Blackout Chaos
Could renewable energy be to blame for huge Spain blackout? How outage struck days after country’s grid ran entirely on green power for the first time
The shocking blackouts, which struck around 12.35pm CEST, have impacted millions of people with almost all of Spain and Portugal affected as the Iberian Peninsula’s power grid was cut off from the wider European grid (ENTSO-E). Parts of France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands also suffered outages, according to the most recent reports.
Analysts have suggested that the Spanish grid operator’s reliance on renewable energy sources to supply the majority of the nation’s electricity could have led to the blackout.
Traditional generators, like coal and hydroelectric plants or gas turbines, are connected directly to the grid via heavy spinning machines. When turned on, these massive machines are in constant motion and the inertia created by their weight and momentum acts like a shock absorber, helping to insulate the grid against a sudden disturbance – for example, in the event of a transmission failure.
Solar and wind power do not provide the natural inertia generated by these so-called ‘spinning machines’, leaving the grid more vulnerable to disruptions and subsequent oscillations in the electrical frequency.
An increase in reliance on solar, wind and other ‘low inertia’ power sources is the subject of concern for the European power network.
A report by ENTSO-E in 2022 warned that ‘a reduction in total system inertia significantly affects the capability to provide instantly matching balancing power’ when a disruption occurs.
and
FREQUENCY STABILITY IN LONG-TERM SCENARIOS AND RELEVANT REQUIREMENTS
3 December 2021
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All of Europe appears to have been seconds away a continent-wide blackout.
The grid frequency across continental Europe plunged to 49.85 hertz — just a hair above the red-line collapse threshold.
The normal operating frequency for Europe’s power grid is 50.00 Hz, kept with an extremely tight margin of ±0.1 Hz.
Anything outside ±0.2 Hz triggers major emergency actions.
If the frequency had fallen just another 0.3 Hz — below 49.5 Hz — Europe could have suffered a system-wide cascading blackout.
At that threshold, automatic protective relays disconnect major power plants, and collapse accelerates.
And it’s disturbingly easy to imagine multiple scenarios where that could have occurred.
Renewables don’t risk blackouts, said the media.
But they did and they do.
The physics are simple.
And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it’s clear that too little “inertia” due to excess solar resulted in system collapse.
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The Telegraph
Blackout risk ‘made worse by net zero’
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6 Days After Celebrating ‘100% Renewable Power’, Spain Blames “Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon” For Nation’s Largest Blackout In History
Over-Reliance On Renewables Behind Catastrophic Blackouts in Spain
Excess solar resulted in too little “inertia,” making the whole system vulnerable
This wasn’t just a Spanish blackout. It shook the entire European grid.
None of this should have been a surprise. The underlying physics had been understood for years, and the specific vulnerabilities had been spelled out repeatedly in technical warnings that policymakers ignored.
As countries replaced heavy, spinning plants with lightweight, inverter-based generation, the grid became faster, lighter, and far more sensitive to disruptions. That basic physical reality was spelled out in public warnings as far back as 2017.
Although political leaders promised that renewable energy would provide stable, affordable power, in practice, Spain grew more reliant on the remaining nuclear and natural gas plants to sustain inertia — even as the government pushes them to close.
Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024.
Coal plants closed. Nuclear units retired.
On many spring days by 2025, Spain’s midday solar generation exceeded its total afternoon demand, leading to frequent negative electricity prices.
The system was being pushed to the limit.
And today, at 12:35 pm, it broke.
Spain’s blackout wasn’t just a technical failure. It was a political and strategic failure.
Unless Spain rapidly invests in synthetic inertia, maintains and expands its nuclear fleet, or adds some other new form of heavy rotating generation, the risk of future blackouts will only grow worse.
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Update (1126ET): Portugal’s grid operator, REN (Rede Eléctrica Nacional), claimed that the massive power outage affecting Portugal and Spain was sparked by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” specifically “extreme temperature variations” in the Spanish electricity grid.
British media outlet LBC News provided more color on REN’s claim:
Portugal’s grid operator, REN (Rede Eletrica Nacional) claimed interruptions to the country’s power supply were the result of a “fault in the Spanish electricity grid”.
They said this was related to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”, namely “extreme temperature variations”.
Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration'”.
“These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
Spain has yet to respond to the claim.
REN added that normalisation of the system could take up to a week.
Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration'”.
Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little dispatchable spinning generation, and therefore no much inertia.
Solar PV/thermal + wind: ~78%
Nuclear: 11.5%
Co-generation: 5%
Gas-fired: ~3% (less than 1GW)
Snapshot at 12.30pm local time (outage was 12.35pm)
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This is such a fascinating graph. A frequency drop of 0.15Hz was enough to take down Spain and Portugal.
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How many language translations did that story come through to get to us?
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Hydrolisation of the world ocean at the time of negative electricity prices will save this Planet.
97% of all scientists agree water level is rising catastrophically fast but we still have time before the election on 3rd of May !
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Relative Sea Level Trend
Sydney, Fort Denison 1 & 2, Australia
The relative sea level trend is 0.8 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence
interval of +/- 0.1 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from
1886 to 2022 which is equivalent to a change of 0.26 feet in 100 years.
Data for 1886- May 1914 are based on monthly mean tide levels plus a 1.7 mm correction
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It is obvious that Vladimir Putin has again caused chaos with his laptop. More people would have believed this than the excuse that atmospheric conditions caused the largest blackout in history.
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We shouldn’t use weather dependant electricity or other inefficient energy sources.
Sails, windmills, animal and human power became obsolete as soon as a commercially viable steam engine was invented by Newcomen in 1712.
(They used to teach that sort of thing in achools, back in the day. In grade 6, I recall converting my billy cart into a model of Stephenson’s Rocket for a homework assignment about early steam engines.)
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FWIW – Chiefio on that
“Iberian Power Outage”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/iberian-power-outage/
And comments
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Are our skies being deliberately tampered with to slow down warming?
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/what-are-they-doing-to-our-skies-part-one-2/
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Shame on all of us sceptics who are apparently intimidating journalists about climate change
https://dailysceptic.org/todays-update/
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They Lied To Us About Iraq’s WMDs, But They’ve Taken It To Another Level With Ukraine’; Hitchens
by Tyler Durden Tuesday, Apr 29, 2025
Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Daily Mail,
In my trade I have long grown used to the way governments lie and get others to lie for them.
It is what they do.
But I have seldom seen such a cloud of lies as we face now.
Hardly anyone in this country knows the truth about Ukraine.
There has been nothing like it since we were all lied to about the Iraq invasion, with bilge about fictional ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. The liars were caught out.
And they learned from it. They learned to lie more skillfully.
We have never had a debate about the Ukraine crisis which started from the beginning. Did anyone in power ever tell you truthfully how, when or why this war began? No. Did anyone in power explain why Britain, crime blighted, decrepit, rubbish-strewn, rat-infested, broke Britain, had to get involved in it? Never.
You have just been fed propaganda rubbish about ‘democracy’, freedom and an invented Russian menace. Here are some of the lies you have repeatedly been told.
The war, they say, was not provoked. Seldom in history has a war been more provoked.
I am always accused, when I say that, of making excuses for Putin. I am not.
I think he was stupid as well as wrong to be provoked. Wise men ignore provocations. But to claim he was not provoked is just to lie.
And then there is the claim that this is about democracy and freedom. It isn’t. The more the West claims to care for these things, the less it does to help them.
Some examples:
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The following link is a useful summary of:
https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/strengthening-russias-influence-in-international-affairs-part-ii-russia-and-its-neighbors-a-sphere-of-influence-or-a-declining-relationship/
Russia is having problems keeping its “adopted” national children in check. Many have fled and have no intention of returning. Others have been coerced into staying close, while Ukraine has openly defied its “father”, allowing “The Russian World” to be enacted…
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I hope that Russia lives but Russkii Mir dies in my time.
20 years ago Putin had good chances to unite two slavic brothers, but a KGB man is a KGB man to his death.
The difference between British and Russian Empires can not be more stark.
English and Celtic people managed to build worldwide civilisation despite their obvious differences.
Russians and Ukrainians are twins born by one mother, one happens to be physically larger and that is it !
Well, one is entitled to ask – is bigger one better, like – more clever or more successful or happier ?
The answer is obvious to me – everyone who can runs away from Russia.
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So do I Vladimir.
The next nations in line for the “Russkii Mir” treatment are the Baltic States of Estonia (20.9% ethnic Russian) and Latvia (23.4% ethnic Russian).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Russians_in_post-Soviet_states
If the USA vacillates on NATO, then sadly these two vibrant west-aligned nations are in deep jeopardy. Russian sea-ports on the ice-free Baltic Sea is a Russian dream.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Baltic_states
Please… not again.
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mmmm and Australia is still a penal colony, America is still a slave colony, everything is forever and unchanging. Nobody should deal with anyone because of myriad invasions, massacres and misdeeds throughout history.
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AI fails spectacularly at running a company… Lack of coordination, planning, and communication proves AI’s workplace autonomy is far off
A team of researchers built a fake tech company, staffed entirely by AI workers from Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic.
The result? Total chaos.
The best AI agent barely finished 24% of its tasks, needed nearly 30 steps, and cost $6 per assignment just to get simple jobs done.
Google’s AI needed 40 steps to complete anything and still got it right only 11% of the time.
Amazon’s AI barely managed 1.7% success – making it the worst “employee” ever hired.
https://citizenwatchreport.com/ai-fails-spectacularly-at-running-a-company-chaos-ensues-as-bots-crash-workplace-tasks/
The solution? Dumb ’em down to mirror the typical inept office grunt.
/sarc
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In regard to the DDOS attack on this site, there should be mandatory minimum prison sentences plus severe financial penalties for such crimes.
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I’m not aware of anybody ever actually being caught and charged, much less convicted. When the attack is coming from China, Korea or similar, the perps are pretty much out of reach AFAIK.
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https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/law-enforcement-shuts-down-27-ddos-booters-ahead-of-annual-christmas-attacks
China, India and NK don’t give a fig though.
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When the UK political prisoner Tommy Robinson is hopefully soon released from jail for publishing his “Silenced” documentary, which no one has ever refuted a single word of, he will be still liable to be returned to prison immediately and indefinitely if he does not remove it.
He could be a political prisoner for life.
It’s hosted on X, among other places. Elon Musk said he will never remove it from X.
Also, it’s removal is not even possible by Tommy because it’s been posted by many other people on X and elsewhere. It’s removal is beyond his control.
The “Silenced” documentary is here (one of many locations): https://x.com/DaebritzNeu/status/1850874716040364427
Jeff Taylor discusses the case in the following 9.5 minute video:
https://youtu.be/lLLJ0Kz2O8A
I wonder if Australia’s e Safety Kommissar will be seeking to censor it?
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FWIW – sounds like progress
“Updates On the Collapse of The Climate Scam”
From THE MANHATTAN CONTRARIAN
Francis Menton
On April 14 I recorded a podcast with Tom Nelson. He has since posted a slightly edited version on his YouTube site. Go to this link if you would like to watch it — about an hour long. The main subject is the sordid history of EPA’s Endangerment Finding and efforts of people including myself to get it rescinded.
The good news on the Endangerment Finding front is that EPA under new Administrator Lee Zeldin is very much on the job of eliminating the EF. Of course, once it has been rescinded it will face a blizzard of legal challenges. I hope and expect that Zeldin and his team are up to the job of carrying out a rescission that will stick. I offered my suggestions for how to do a rescission that will stand up to challenge in this post from January 26.”
More at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/28/updates-on-the-collapse-of-the-climate-scam/
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FWIW – a reminder to voters in USA
“Canada’s federal election is today: electing a Parliament that will choose the Prime Minister.
They use paper ballots that are hand-counted. Yet the results will be fully available shortly after polls close.
The US’s “inability” to count all votes until weeks pass is a choice.”
https://x.com/ggreenwald/status/1916886404464083015
Via https://instapundit.com/716868/#disqus_thread
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255 years ago today, on 29th April, 1770, Captain Cook sailed into Botany Bay on the Endeavour. ToM
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If only there’d been an airport there back then, Cook and his crew could’ve flown… unless the baggage handlers were on strike again.
And to think the Endeavour was a refurbished collier: beautiful irony.
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FWIW
“A HUGE Win for the Make America Healthy Again Movement”
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/04/28/a-huge-win-for-the-make-america-healthy-again-movement-n4939314
And fight back –
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/fooddyes.png?w=876
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FWIW – one way of answering
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/unknown-copy-8.png?w=560
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FWIW – more covid scene
“The Great Spillover Hoax”
“Why precisely were Anthony Fauci and his cohorts so anxious to blame SARS-CoV-2 on bats and later pangolins in wet markets? It was not just to deflect attention from the possibility that the novel virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan doing gain-of-function research. There was a larger point: to reinforce a very important narrative concerning zoonotic spillovers. ”
More at
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/great-spillover-hoax
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And – Canada
“Blacklock’s- Vax Injury Fund Over Budget
Compensation for victims of Covid vaccines is expected to go over budget, says a Department of Health memo. The document is dated only days after new figures showed more than $16 million was paid to date to families of patients medically certified to have suffered death or injury after taking a government-approved shot.”
https://www.blacklocks.ca/vax-injury-fund-over-budget/
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2025/04/28/safe-and-effective-205/
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There was a discussion about peer review and pal review on here over the weekend, one of our resident Leftists and Jo taking sides. I think this example of the WHO echo-chamber explains it quite well in terms of the Covid19 scam.
” What they find is a typical game of citation roulette: this guy cites this guy who cites this guy who cites that guy, and so on in spinning circles of authoritative-seeming apparatus but fully lacking in any real substance. They write: “We see a pattern of assertive statements of rapidly rising disease risk with anthropogenic impacts on ecology driving it. These are cited heavily, resting largely on opinion, which is a poor substitute for evidence. More concerningly, there is a consistent trend of misrepresenting cited papers.””
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The opinion polls seem to indicate a Labor win next Saturday, but I wonder just whose opinions they represent.
People of my age and experience (retired) have seen it all before many times and there is no doubt in my mind that the majority of Australians are fed up with what Labor has done these last 3 years.
When I get a phone call to take part in a poll I refuse to do so as I know exactly how I will vote and I’m sure many other conservative types do the same and refuse to take part.
This means that the poll results are distorted in favour of the woke, trendy young voters who want to go with the Labor ‘vibe’ and are eager to take part in the process.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual results are the opposite of what the polls and the media are foisting on us.
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Latest Kunstler – looking at lawfare
“Where Things Stand
“When the truth comes out, do not ask me how I knew. Ask yourself why you didn’t.” — “The Researcher” on X”
https://www.kunstler.com/p/where-things-stand
And
“Now You Know
“Being mean or telling the truth is indistinguishable to far too many people.” —Mike Thompson on X”
https://www.kunstler.com/p/now-you-know
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Excerpt from College Fix, July 5th, 2016 by Peter van Voorhis at UC Irvine.
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Hooray,
I have my old avatar back
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I am waiting in a long queue to vote!
The AEC official said it has been really busy since the polls opened last week.
I picked up some of the how to vote cards. I was really disappointed to see that Family First, who are fielding a local candidate here, put the Libs second on their Senate ticket instead of preferencing the other minor freedom friendly parties.
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I have my postal vote ballots here, ready to post.
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We stopped at a regional early voting centre today but the queue was out the door and 50mtrs down the street.
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Did Jo get some “free” publicity?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/leftism-killing-chocolate
Jo Nova, one of Australia’s top real science writers (as opposed to the faux, leftist science writers),
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Breaking: 31,000 passwords of Australia’s top 4 banks stolen and being traded
More than 31,000 passwords belonging to Australian customers of the Big Four banks are being shared amongst cyber criminals online, often for free, the ABC can reveal.
Despite the anti-fraud protections in place at those banks, cybersecurity experts warn victims could “definitely” lose money as a result.
An investigation by cyber intelligence researchers has shown credentials belonging to at least 14,000 Commbank customers, 7,000 ANZ customers, 5,000 NAB and 4,000 Westpac customers are available on the messaging platform Telegram and the dark web.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-29/australian-bank-customers-passwords-stolen-by-malware-hackers/105196976
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Small maker raises prices to counter tariffs, gets zero sales
https://youtu.be/Ri_ERbaTtgk?si=trw1pPomXy2hLUkM
In theory, tariffs are applied to the importer (China pays indirectly not directly like some people think) but in reality everyone in the supply chain increases their margins to compensate thereby making goods unaffordable.
Notice how a lot of items in the supermarkets here almost sell out but only when the scummy 50% off sales happen?
It’s the only time people can afford to buy them now!
Bring manufacturing back to Oz promised by your favourite polly party?
Pure delusion.
Now we see why.
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Some bad news…
Looks like Canada has drunk the Kool-Ade yet again and sentences themselves to net-zero insanity under Carney. Not clear if it’ll be a majority or minority government yet, though.
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“Oh Canada”
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The word is Carneyage…
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NASA GISS looks like a scam.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/28/updates-on-the-collapse-of-the-climate-scam/
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How does ‘carbon’ or its offspring ‘climate change’ know which day of the year – or season – it is: like clockwork, snow flurries will commence falling on the Southern Alps tomorrow night then BOOM! 1st of May, Thursday, “heavy snow to 700m” will greet high country farmers as yet another brutal southerly slams the country, dropping the mercury and painting the hills ‘white’ with global warming powder ❄️
It’s as if ‘carbon’ has a dastardly wicked sense of humour which mocks/derides man-made models of Forever Heat And Boiling Oceans or FHABO™️ and insists on following some outdated ancient seasonal ‘cyclic’ phenomenon as if that was ‘science’.
Thankfully I’m up north, a long way from any snow, enjoying the Newcastle Storm semi-tropical low dragging moist air down from Tonga & the Cook Islands: odd how ‘carbon’ makes warm AND cold happen at the same time, which is why bankers need to tax it until it obeys them and does what it’s told… now that’s THE SCIENCE©️©️©️.
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It is never wise to make predictions about the weather – so here goes.
2025 SH monsoon season down on average. SH autumn to have above average sunlight; up by 0.4W/m^2, which is against the longer trend. But freezing days through late winter to September equinox up by 1%. Precipitation average but more as snow due to slight increase in freezing days.
Late spring and early summer average.
NH also near average apart from fewer cooling days already history. The NH monsoon will also be slightly down on average.
The upward trend in the NH spring and early summer sunlight will be off and on over the coming years. If Trump does not end the Climate Scam™ then the 2030s will be a grand time for the scammers. All but three years in the 2030s will have above average sunlight with 2034 and 2038 being second and first place since 1850. Both should also produce well above average snowfall in the NH. SH precipitation is in slow decline but offset to some degree by reducing solar intensity.
All this is based on daily data for the declination of Earth equatorial plane to the sun and distance to the sun. There is broad misunderstanding about the influence of recession. But it is far more significant than any claims made for CO2. For example, April 10th 2037 at 60N will have 8W/m^2 more sunlight than it had in 1912. It is no wonder the summer of 1912 in the NH was a miserable period.
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Rick, have you come across Kevin Long at thelongview.com.au I’m not sure exactly what he uses apart from planetary alignments for his long-range forecasts.
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FWIW
“How the NAFTA/USMCA 2025 Review Underpins President Trump Remarks on Canada
April 28, 2025 | Sundance | 77 Comments”
“Only President Trump could get the Canadians to vote for an exit to the USMCA, and he did it brilliantly.”
More at
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/04/28/how-the-nafta-usmca-2016-review-underpins-president-trump-remarks-on-canada/#more-271464
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The problems of Govt..
“The Pentagon appears to have changed its mind about mass-producing.. the new M10 Booker light tank. Alex Miller, the Army’s chief technology officer, tells.. the tank fell victim to a long process of changing requirements – the program was so slow that it was obsolete by the time it was completed .
▪️The M10 Booker began as an idea back in 2013, ..since then, the light airborne vehicle has evolved into a 42-ton tank that weighs as much as the early Soviet T-72s.
▪️It turned out that this “light” tank.. could not cross 8 of the 11 bridges at the Fort Campbell military base where it was put into service, because they were simply not designed for its weight.
▪️Another problem was the impossibility of transporting two M10 Bookers at once inside the C-17 Globemaster III transporter , which was supposed to be one of the key advantages over the heavier and larger M1A2 Abrams, which is already approaching 70 tons. Also, the requirements for the possibility of autonomous control were canceled.
For our part, we note that Alex Miller is an active lobbyist for the M1E3 Abrams program – a new lightweight modification of the Abrams, designed to replace the current “heavy” tanks of the US Army in the future based on the experience of the war in Ukraine. It is expected that the new Abrams should become a third lighter, more mobile and more economical.”
So, what do we think will happen to the ‘lightweight’ version of the 70ton Abrams by the time the various committees have all met and submitted their wish-lists.. Then the politicians fight over who’s constituency will produce what parts, where the budget is coming from and who’s name gets put on the paperwork..
Its a wonder anything at all gets produced! ..not thinking of our nuclear submarines of course…
https://t-me.translate.goog/s/milinfolive?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-GB
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Asylum in USA for free-speaking UK citizens?
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/kitten-corner-pressing-questions
Australians may soon need to take notice, as Canadians now.
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