New Book Says Trump Really Mean To Generals

A forthcoming book by a Washington Post reporter is fully dedicated - unsurprisingly - to attacking the current President. Vox Day provides of snippet of some DailyBeast coverage of the new book.

The president reportedly called Afghanistan a “loser war,” and told his military leaders: “You’re all losers... You don’t know how to win anymore... I want to win... We don’t win any wars anymore... We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we’re not winning anymore.” It’s reported that Trump was so angry at this point that he wasn’t breathing properly.

In his most incendiary comment, Trump—a man who, remember, managed to get out of military duty in Vietnam due to a supposed bone-spur problem—is said to have told the assembled forces, “I wouldn’t go to war with you people... You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

The comment reportedly left the room dumbfounded. Tillerson was “visibly seething,” and decided to speak up. The secretary of state said, “No, that’s just wrong... Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.” When the meeting ended soon afterward, Tillerson reportedly stood with a small group of confidants and said, “He’s a fucking moron.”

One senior official summed up the meeting: “We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct... They were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views.”

It's always amusing when they try to appeal to red-state America with their TDS. Flyover country loves muh military more than anything, right? Supposedly, Trump's brusque handling of the generals should dampen his support among his red-blooded base. What they don't realize is that most Americans' hatred for the Washington Post is stronger than their loyalty to Washington's armies. This book won't move the needle at all and, if it did, it will only serve to lower the military's approval rating.

How is he wrong? The liberals, who only a decade or so ago were holding anti-war rallies across the globe, are now attempting to humiliate the president for not understanding the virtues of perpetual warfare. The portion that Vox quoted is not even the most condescending aspect of the article.

The book states that the meeting took place six months into Trump’s presidency after his generals became concerned about “gaping holes” in Trump’s knowledge of America’s key alliances. The idea was to bring Trump to the Pentagon’s Situation Room, where military leaders, so the plan went, would give him a crash course on who America’s allies were, why they were worth keeping on side, and where on earth they were located.

The account states Trump repeatedly interrupted the lesson after apparently being triggered by a word or phrase uttered by the military leaders. One example given is that he heard the word “base” during the lesson, which sparked him into launching a tirade about how “crazy” and “stupid” it was that the U.S. paid to build and maintain bases overseas.

Because of the rabid anti-Trump coloring of the Washington Post and the DailyBeast, it's impossible to tell what the actual attitude of the generals was but, if they were even a fraction as condescending as his described here, then it's no wonder he grew angry with the proceedings. One can imagine about how the meeting went. "And if you look at this spot on the pretty map, Mr President, this is where the Kurds live. The Kurds are a key asset to US interests because blah blah blah."

It's hard for the Washington Post elites to understand that most Trump supporters have served in the military or have close friends & family who have. The rank-and-file somewhat despise the general staff. It's well understood that there is some strange magic in getting promoted to general, which somehow involves passing over all the highly competent and charismatic Colonels & Lt Colonels and picking slimy, weaselly careerists. Vox calls them "mediocre perfumed princes," which errs on the side of being polite. These people really are self-appointed royalty who are largely disconnected from their troops and their missions.

The worst story I heard had to do with human remains (HR) flights, which I heard from someone who was directly involved. Every so often, the Air Force was tasked with sending a cargo plane to gather the bodies of deceased servicemen to return them to the US for burial. A general had planned to travel within theater for a golf trip, but his personal jet went down for maintenance. There were no other similar planes available, so he ordered that a cargo jet tasked with HR duty be re-assigned for his use. This caused quite a stir in the office responsible for processing those requests. Ultimately, the shop lead - a master sergeant - dismissed the request. It's unheard of for an enlisted man to contradict a general, but in this case the general's request was too much for any of the people tasked with carrying it out to stomach. They were shocked that a general would so callously display that dead soldiers and airmen were less important than his golf outing.

Those are the same generals that the Washington Post just can't believe the president would treat harshly. They're the same strategists who have implemented the current strategy of subverting whichever faction seems to be the strongest. That's why they can't ever leave, because the region was de-stabilized when Hussein was ousted and order has only been maintained by constant outside intervention. There are now Americans old enough to vote who were born after the Afghanistan war started. What we don't need is another anti-Trump harangue but a book titled something like How To Win A War In Under Two Decades and provide a copy to every general in the country.

The Inverse Of Vice

It is often assumed that virtue is the opposite of vice, in the way that good is the opposite of bad. That comparison does not hold, because good/bad is an abstract polarity that may not actually exist in nature. A character attribute becomes a virtue when it exists in the correct proportions rather than in some extreme. The opposite of ice-cold bath water is not tepid, but scalding-hot. The balance is somewhere in the middle, and depends on context. If a bully is hurling insults, it may be virtuous to ignore him; if he is hurling stones, then no good will come of ignoring it.

This turns out to be a significant problem in general. People - who mostly prefer virtue to vice - are nevertheless led to one vice in the course of rejecting another. This turns out to be an acute problem in liberal democracy. It takes a certain threshold of sophistication to understand that virtues are proportional rather than extremal, that history is cyclical rather than linear, and that cause/effect dynamics are probabilistic rather than deterministic. The voting public is not up to that level of sophistication, as can be evidenced by the political messaging.

The moral dilemma is that the quest for virtue is apt to lead to vice. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I always thought that meant that people are lazy, in the way that the gyms are always busy for a few weeks after New Year's resolutions are declared, and then thin out. But that's not right. Hell is the domain of real vice, not half-assed virtues. Few people are motivated by calls to be evil, but may with great enthusiasm take on anti-vice crusades which have the effect of injecting great energy into the cause of the opposing vice. Good intentions, misapplied, are far more dangerous than neutrality or even evil intentions.

How does evil take hold in people, who are generally good? By inversion. We know that the left is inverted. They reject the West as evil, and so seek its opposite. Of course they are misguided, as Western civilization has given more good to the world than probably all other civilizations combined. But the West is a collection of people, and thus flawed. Many of our opponents these days are working in reaction to the horrors of the two World Wars. Obviously there was no virtue in sending Europe's young men off to a pointless meat-grinder. So they have sought the opposite of that vice, which has lead to the fervent adoption of anti-nationalism and the rejection of traditional European identities of any sort. It's the reason that Hitler has replaced Satan, and Nazis the forces of evil. It's why they avow that Europeans have no culture, because to acknowledge that would lead invariably to the suggestion that those cultures are worth fighting for.

Perhaps it could be argued that the West became too Puritanical. The reaction has been militant atheism. This blog practically obsesses over what a disaster materialism has been for us. The West without a doubt was - and still is - overly imperial. The reaction to that has been to open up our own borders to the world. Invade the world, invite the world. Vice, vice. The inverse of vice is more vice, and those two opposing vices do not cancel each other out. Perhaps you think the old West was too disenfranchising to women. Maybe it was. The opposite has been the emerging matriarchy of today. Sweden boasts that they are the world's first feminist government. They are now under existential threat due to the immigration of foreigners and their own anemic birth rates. It's not nice or fair to tell women they can't vote, or probably even ideal, as they possess a great deal of social acuity, attention to detail, and risk aversion that men often lack. And yet, Sweden was never destroyed by chauvinism or militarism or empire, but a few decades of feminism may ruin the nation entirely.

A similar dynamic is seen with the historical oppression of homosexuality. Whatever your thoughts on that, it should be clear that the answer should not be the sexualization and castration of schoolchildren. That's the problem with the inverse of vice, is there is no proportionality. Slight & perceived vices are countered by extreme & actual vices. Extremism is always reactionary. This is why we must have a positive identity. We must have a firm understanding of the virtues we strive for, rather than the vices we oppose. If the virtue is not clear, then the reaction will lead surely from one vice to another. Ever since the West abandoned Christ - the ideal embodiment of virtue - we have reeled from one vice to the next. The young men of Europe were crushed between the gears of opposing ideologies that rose to fill the vacuum left by God - just as Nietzsche predicted. We'll never get to a good place by walking backwards. We must face fully towards the light to have any hope of getting to a better place.

Farmers Rejecting Modern Machinery

After serving a few years overseas in the military, the cars being driven in America seemed quite conspicuous. Our vehicles are big, shiny, and expensive. Even in other rich countries, such as Japan and Western Europe, the cars are simpler, smaller, and boxier. It was quite clear that, compared to other countries, we spend a lot of money on vehicles, for little gain in practicality (and probably a loss). I returned around the time of the Great Recession. For two years I had heard endlessly about the tough times, people out of work, kicked out of their homes, etc. I was then surprised to see the highways not just full of $50,000 trucks and SUVs, but numerous toys as well: RVs, sport cars, powerboats, motorcycles, and the like. There were even trikes!

I see something similar these days whenever I drive through the countryside. The farm equipment is very expensive. Farmers like to leave their tracked Cat tractors and half million dollar John Deere combines out for people to see. Such vehicles are many times more expensive than the shiny passenger vehicles driving by, and could be traded for two or maybe three decent homes in the area. I always wonder if such monstrous modern machines are worth the investment. I assume the farmers have done their numbers, although there is reason to wonder if they actually haven't and the pricey machines are not economical.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that many farmers now believe they are poor investments, and are instead buying up 40-year-old machinery.

Cost-conscious farmers are looking for bargains, and tractors from that era are well-built and totally functional, and aren’t as complicated or expensive to repair as more recent models that run on sophisticated software.

This past summer I put out an article called Maintenance Free Means Unmaintainable. This was in the context of windows, as I was looking to replace my 50-year-old wooden windows with modern, more efficient windows. The tipoff came in the form of door-to-door window salesmen, who were aggressive - which meant there were juicy profit margins to be had. It didn't take a lot of number crunching to realize that the plastic replacement windows - with their 20-year lifespans - would never recoup their costs in energy savings before being tossed into a landfill. Not only are the old wooden windows more economical, they are more environmentally conscious. (The major upside to modern windows is that they are easier to clean. That may be a perk to lazy people, but not to me. Because I'm very lazy and rarely clean windows anyway.)

My old storm windows - particularly those on the southern exposure, were in very rough shape. Exposed wood, cracked glass, and sections where the glazing had decayed to nothing at all... plus some shoddy maintenance by the previous owners. After watching a handful of YouTube videos and a trip (or five) to the hardware store, I was able to strip the windows, replace broken glass, sand, glaze, and re-paint all of them by hand - for the total cost of probably a couple hundred bucks and lots of hours in the garage. I'm now trained in home window maintenance and can handle most common problems that will arise. On the other hand, what would I have done if one of the new fancy windows cracked and leaked out all the argon gas? I could do nothing. Perhaps hire a window technician to take a look at it but, even then, it may turn out that the whole sash must be thrown into a landfill and replaced with a new one. A similar trend occurs in modern farming.

There are some good things about the software in newer machines, said Peterson. The dealer will get a warning if something is about to break and can contact the farmer ahead of time to nip the problem in the bud. But if something does break, the farmer is powerless, stuck in the field waiting for a service truck from the dealership to come out to their farm and charge up to $150 per hour for labor.

The trend across the board is towards products that are either completely unmaintainable, or at least unmaintainable to the owner. It's not just the money spent on technicians, but the loss of control over the operation. The farmer finds himself at the mercy of the technician. Hopefully he gets out here soon. Hopefully he's not an idiot. The only justification for the massive machinery is that planting & harvesting windows can be short. The longer it takes, the more the risk of a change in the weather. Not only is his equipment liable to break down right when he needs it most, by everyone else's will too... and they'll all need a technician. A few days' delay could risk the kind of disaster that the pricey machines were supposed to prevent anyway.

If I have a modern-window problem in the house, I must hope that there is a competent repairman in the area who charges a fair rate and isn't booked out for half the summer. Then I must still dedicate time to the task by being available to supervise the operation - probably taking off work to do so, at a time that may not be ideal. On the other hand, I can repair wooden storm windows at my leisure, on nights & weekends when the garage temperature is bearable. Having control of the operation is an even bigger benefit than the money saved on parts & labor.

There is also a pride of ownership aspect that doesn't come with hiring out the work. It is far more gratifying to have labored to provide a home for the family, rather than only writing a check. I get more satisfaction now gazing at the house I've spent so many hours on, even than if a professional had come and done more quality work (which is often not the case, in my experience). The farmers feel a similar motivation in their operations.

“That goes against the pride of ownership, plus your lifetime of skills you’ve built up being able to fix things,” Peterson said.

The major perks of farming are the independence and self-reliance that comes with the job. Not one farmer out there wants to have to tell his wife that harvesting is on hold until the kid from the dealership can come bail him out with a firmware upgrade. He wants to say he's going to go do some impromptu welding, or rewire a switch, or anything but wait for a kid with an iPad.

We should take a note from the farmers in Minnesota. There is a hefty, invisible cost of unmaintainable products, and most new products these days are less maintainable than the old ones.

NASA News #3 Cosmic Makeovers and Speed Limits

Ethan's blog was boring this week, but there's an abundance of NASA material following the holiday season lull. I've picked three and given more substantial (and technical) treatments than normal.

NASA's Great Observatories Help Astronomers Build a 3D Visualization of an Exploded Star (link)

The headline is not a lie, as the multi-spectrum image of the nebula is phenomenal.

Of special interest are the core x-ray emissions, shown here in isolation.

In the electric universe (EU) world, this is a canonical plasma torus. In the mainstream viewpoint, it is unexpected and must be explained. In their view, the central star is the source of power for the whole structure and, since the system pulsates at 30 beats per second, the star is assumed to be a pulsar - a rapidly spinning neutron star.

It's worth keeping in mind that every aspect of neutron stars is either theoretical or unknown. The only reason they exist is because scientists could offer no other explanation for rapid oscillations of powerful light sources other than some rapidly spinning star. Everything from that point on is conjecture. They reckon that any object which rotated many times per second must be very compact and dense, thus they proposed it was made of neutronium - a substance of pure neutrons which were chosen to avoid the problems with rapidly spinning and mutually repulsive charged particles like protons. There are problems with neutrons too. For instance, they are known to be quite unstable outside of a balanced atomic nucleus. It is assumed that they act differently when compressed under intense gravity.

The other problem with neutron stars - besides the flights of theoretical fantasy and the suspension of reasonable skepticism - is that all aspects of them are refuted by observations. For one, neutron stars exhibit copious amounts of synchrotron radiation, which is emitted by high-velocity particles when they are accelerated by a magnetic field. Thus, cosmologists state that pulsars have the strongest known magnetic fields in the universe, which are caused by the spinning neutron star - but they have no idea how. Also, pulsars are observed to "glitch" and shift pulsating frequencies. The Crab Nebula's most significant glitch was a noticeable increase in frequency that persisted for two days, before returning to the normal rate.

The theory that the central star powers the whole nebula is refuted by evidence. For instance, several years ago a study on Crab Nebula gamma rays showed that they were emitted some distance away from the central star. This observation is actually congruent with the X-ray image shown above, since most of the x-rays come from the plasma torus and jets.

With all that background, the NASA statements can be read with some level of amusement.

This neutron star is the super-dense collapsed core of an exploded star and is now a pulsar that rotates at a blistering rate of 30 times per second. A disk of X-ray-emitting material, spewing jets of high-energy particles perpendicular to the disk, surrounds the pulsar. The infrared light in this image shows synchrotron radiation, formed from streams of charged particles spiraling around the pulsar's strong magnetic fields. The visible light is emission from oxygen that has been heated by higher-energy (ultraviolet and X-ray) synchrotron radiation. The delicate tendrils seen in visible light form what astronomers call a "cage" around the rich tapestry of synchrotron radiation, which in turn encompasses the energetic fury of the X-ray disk and jets. These multiwavelength interconnected structures illustrate that the pulsar is the main energy source for the emission seen by all three telescopes.

Somehow, the existence of "tendrils" - their term for plasma filaments - are proof that the nebula is powered by a central neutron star.

These nested structures are particular to the Crab Nebula. They reveal that the nebula is not a classic supernova remnant as once commonly thought. Instead, the system is better classified as a pulsar wind nebula. A traditional supernova remnant consists of a blast wave, and debris from the supernova that has been heated to millions of degrees. In a pulsar wind nebula, the system's inner region consists of lower-temperature gas that is heated up to thousands of degrees by the high-energy synchrotron radiation.

In all likelihood, the Crab Nebula is not so different from other supernovae. Even this description hints at the problems of those, such as the outer "debris" being heated to millions of degrees by collision with interstellar gases (which is asinine, since the thin plasmas don't behave like normal gases). In their model of a pulsar wind nebula, the synchrotron radiation heats up the system and causes secondary emissions. But the synchrotron radiation is already a secondary effect of the neutron star's magnetic field. This all amounts to what I call Backdoor EU, as the nebula is the result of magnetic fields and electric currents in either case, but the neutron star comes with all sorts of added complexity, since they are always striving to explain observed electric effects as having a basis in conventional, gravity-driven dynamics (but they get very unconventional anyway).

"It is truly via the multiwavelength structure that you can more cleanly comprehend that it's a pulsar wind nebula," Summers said. "This is an important learning objective. You can understand the energy from the pulsar at the core moving out to the synchrotron cloud, and then further out to the filaments of the cage."

Synchrotron cloud is a way of not saying magnetic field. The term pulsar wind nebula should be interpreted as an inadvertent admission that the mainstream models of supernovae and pulsars are failed. The wind nebula is a way to take the EU explanation but wrap it in conventional terms. Under EU, the plasma torus & jets, the synchrotron radiation, and the pulsating are all easily understood. If you've ever had the pleasure of sitting under a flickering fluorescent light, then you've experienced a pulsating plasma.

What this articles exemplifies is very good astronomy coupled with very bad science. The visualization of the nebula from several advanced observation platforms is an incredible application of technology. It may seem wasteful then that the results are shoe-horned into a false understanding of the cosmos, but eventually the dam will have to burst.

Astronomers Spot Distant Galaxy Group Driving Ancient Cosmic Makeover (link)

An international team of astronomers funded in part by NASA has found the farthest galaxy group identified to date. Called EGS77, the trio of galaxies dates to a time when the universe was only 680 million years old, or less than 5% of its current age of 13.8 billion years.

More significantly, observations show the galaxies are participants in a sweeping cosmic makeover called reionization. The era began when light from the first stars changed the nature of hydrogen throughout the universe in a manner akin to a frozen lake melting in the spring. This transformed the dark, light-quenching early cosmos into the one we see around us today.

Those first two paragraphs of the NASA article make the claims. For a more technical analysis, we'll look at the referenced article (pdf).

We obtained deep NB [narrow band] imaging observations of the Extended Groth Strip (EGS) field (RA14:19:16 DEC +52:52:13), as part of the DAWN survey. This is a uniquely deep survey given its sensitivity as well as area coverage, with a primary objective of identifying galaxies at redshift z = 7.7.

The study was setup explicitly to find z = 7.7 galaxies. The narrow band observations were calibrated to detect a wavelength that is equivalent to a know UV emission line of hydrogen that has been redshifted into infrared. They also considered other observations of the candidate galaxies in visible and near-infrared spectra.

The data reduction was primarily done using the NEWFIRM science data reduction pipeline. However, for generating the final stack of all the images produced by the pipeline (sky subtracted, cosmic rays cleaned, re-projected) we used our own scripts to remove bad frames that were visually inspected in order to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio of astronomical objects.

This is vague and questionable. What scripts were used, and what data was considered to be bad? Would an independent researcher be able to duplicate their findings given the same data?

Each of our candidates had to satisfy all of the following criteria: 1) 5σ detection in the NB filter, 2) 3σ significant narrowband excess (compared to the F125W image), and 3) non-detection (< 2σ) in the individual optical images (F606W, F814W). Criteria 1 & 2 ensure real emission line sources while criterion 3 eliminates most low-redshift sources.

To clarify the criteria 1) the signal in the target wavelength must be very strong, 2) if the signal is much stronger than the near-IR signal, it must indicate emissions lines, and 3) if visible light is not detected, it is proof of a high-redshift source.

The second and third criteria both depend on assumptions. There are objects in the sky that shine brightly in infrared only, such as CW Leo, which is interpreted to be a highly obscured red dwarf star located right here in our own galaxy.

To measure the photometric redshifts, we made use of spectral energy distribution (SEDs) templates. We obtained the best-fit SEDs using EAZY which provides photometric redshift probability distribution p(z) by finding the best-fitting combination of redshifted galaxy spectral templates to the observed photometry.

The most abused word in all of astrophysics is measurement. Here they say the redshift is measured, which is not true. They have used modeling software to determine redshift probabilities based on the data. The data is a strong signal at a wavelength of a strong emission line of hydrogen as it would be observed at a redshift of 7.7, and several weak & null signals. The result then is a redshift of 7.7, as would obviously be the result for such a setup. What else would be possible? This all amounts to data laundering. A few photometric data points have been transformed into a spectral signal model, from which a redshift has been "measured." If CW Leo was much dimmer, it may well be assigned a 7.7 redshift by this method.

The paper goes on to provide direct spectrographic data which seems to confirm the redshift, and some other analysis. If the spectrographic data is sound, why bother with the faulty probability modeling at all? Why not go straight to the spectrograph for candidates that fit their criteria? I suspect the authors felt compelled to make some novel contributions besides simply matching a finding in one project with data from another.

Famous Black Hole Has Jet Pushing Cosmic Speed Limit (link)

For years, astronomers have observed radiation from a jet of high energy particles – powered by the black hole – blasting out of the center of M87. They have studied the jet in radio, optical, and X-ray light, including with Chandra. And now by using Chandra observations, researchers have seen that sections of the jet are moving at nearly the speed of light.

Anytime cosmologists talk about observations pushing theoretical limits, there is almost certainly an error. In this case, the limits have actually been broken, and are explained away as an illusion of general relativity. Further, the cosmic speed limit is said to have been broken (or nearly so) by the infamous M87 black hole. It's always fun to watch them explain why black holes are the opposite of black - emitting copious amounts of the most powerful types of radiation - and the opposite of holes - pushing matter away at the highest possible velocities. As usual, they take time to explain the basic premises of why black holes are neither black nor holes.

When matter gets close enough to a black hole, it enters into a swirling pattern called an accretion disk. Some material from the inner part of the accretion disk falls onto the black hole and some of it is redirected away from the black hole in the form of narrow beams, or jets, of material along magnetic field lines. Because this infall process is irregular, the jets are made of clumps or knots that can sometimes be identified with Chandra and other telescopes.

There are no magnetic field lines in nature. Saying that particles are accelerated along magnetic field lines shows that they are grasping to explain the unexpectedly coherent jets which extend millions of light years into the cosmos.

By observing the changes in the jets over time, they estimated their velocities and came up with some surprising numbers.

The researchers used Chandra observations from 2012 and 2017 to track the motion of two X-ray knots located within the jet about 900 and 2,500 light years away from the black hole. The X-ray data show motion with apparent speeds of 6.3 times the speed of light for the X-ray knot closer to the black hole and 2.4 times the speed of light for the other.

Anyone's initial reaction to such a statement would be that something is wrong with the measurements. However, NASA has explained the aberration as an artifact of general relativity.

“One of the unbreakable laws of physics is that nothing can move faster than the speed of light,” said co-author Brad Snios, also of the CfA. “We haven’t broken physics, but we have found an example of an amazing phenomenon called superluminal motion.”

Superluminal motion occurs when objects are traveling close to the speed of light along a direction that is close to our line of sight. The jet travels almost as quickly towards us as the light it generates, giving the illusion that the jet’s motion is much more rapid than the speed of light. In the case of M87, the jet is pointing close to our direction, resulting in these exotic apparent speeds. 

That's a lot of complexity, when other factors could be at play. For one, the galaxy may be closer than believed, with a larger angle of jets. Or, it may just be that the image analysis is junk, which I believe to be the case. The NASA article links to related paper (pdf).

Chandra HRC-I observations were examined for evidence of proper motion in the jet of M87. Any changes are expected to be subtle at the resolution of Chandra as movement at the speed of light over a 5 yr time span in M87 would produce a shift of only ∼ 0.02′′. In the difference map (Figure 1, bottom left), the outward shift of a knot with constant brightness would produce positive residuals (blue) at its outer margin and negative residuals (red) at its inner margin. These features can be seen in the difference image of Knot D, providing clear evidence that it has moved outward along the axis of the jet. No other knot shows such clear evidence of movement, although this may be attributed in part to significant changes in brightness, such as those seen in HST-1 and Knot A.

Assuming that the motion of the knots is equal in velocity to the movement of the particles (which is questionable), then those motions would be very "subtle" over 5 years at the resolutions provided by Chandra. So what we see is the normal process, where signals are massaged out of noisy data by statistical methods, and then those outcomes trumpeted as actual data. In this case, only one of the knots - Knot D - was observed to have clearly drifted in the expected direction, thus it was used for the analysis. (Some people would call that cherry-picking the data.) The knot nearest the galactic center, HST-1, was analyzed using statistical modeling techniques.

The proper motion results from Section 4 provide two equally probable interpretations of the system. The first interpretation is that the measurements are due to motion of the X-ray knots, while the second assumes that brightening and/or fading of substructure within the knots gives the appearance of motion at Chandra’s resolution.

Supposedly this is resolved by comparing to archival Hubble imagery and showing that the knot drifts were congruent in both datasets. What question that is supposed to answer is beyond me, but it does raise another: what is the point of the x-ray imagery then, if it merely confirms what was already observed by Hubble?

Interestingly, the conclusions section takes on an assumption we challenged earlier.

Our determination of the minimum magnetic field strength from the synchrotron cooling model relies on the same electron population being responsible for the X-ray emission at both observing epochs, requiring the knot material to move at relativistic speeds between the observations. This is noteworthy because it implies that the speeds of the jet knots reflect bulk relativistic motion of jet plasma, not just of a disturbance, such as a wave or shock front in the jet. To avoid this conclusion, the jet plasma emitting at the initial knot position would have to cool even faster than assumed, requiring a substantially greater magnetic field. Since the required field strength would then be larger than the equipartition value, this seems unlikely. The simplest conclusion is that the motion of the jet knots directly reflects the bulk speed of the jet plasma

Suddenly they're worried about simplest conclusions! The trend these days is that the scientists are perpetually being shown to have underestimated the effects of magnetic and electric fields. The simplest conclusion is actually that the estimates of equipartition values (performed in 2005) are not accurate. The insistence that knot velocities and particle velocities must be the same is not sound. There's no reason why they can't be an artifact of the larger plasma sheath structures, rather than the individual particles themselves (except their need to validate the black-hole accretion theory). For instance, the northern lights put on mesmerizing displays of dancing wisps of glowing and pulsating atmospheric plasmas. No one believes that the observed movements reflect the velocities of the inbound particles. It's understood that they are an artifact of the electric circuit as a whole.

Also significant is what is missing from the paper. Despite the bold headlines of a cosmic speed limit being "pushed," and the PI claiming, “Our work gives the strongest evidence yet that particles in M87's jet are actually traveling at close to the cosmic speed limit”, there is never a calculation for a near-c value. The calculations are for greater-than-c values, and it's just assumed that they are really near-c and the math would work out of anyone bothered to do it. While the results - if accurate - are evidence of relativistic jets, that much has been known since the mid 1950s when the synchrotron radiation was measured. The results here don't seem to offer any refinement on what is known about them.

We'll finish by analyzing how they finished.

The preference for the synchrotron cooling model together with the agreement in positions and speeds between the X-ray and optical/UV emission provide a strong case that the observed knot speeds reflect the relativistic speed of the jet plasma, not just of a disturbance propagating along the jet.

No, this is not a strong case at all. This paper has taken weak signals, cherry-picked data where it fit expectations, and applied statistical modeling where it didn't. The argument for particle speeds equaling knot speed is based on estimates of magnetic field strength made a decade and a half ago. Most importantly, there is nothing in the paper about particles being determined to be moving near the speed of light, and yet that is the headline that NASA promoted. That is, even if the paper wasn't junk, the NASA headline would still be a lie.

There Are No Open Communities

One of Z's best posts yet was Open And Closed from earlier this week. It begins with the main thesis.

Communities, by definition are closed.

Of all the lies being promoted in the Disinformation Era, the myth of openness is probably the most dangerous; the one that will cause the most pain in the long run. For all our technological achievements, modern western society is not very sophisticated, as it has forgotten what the Greeks called logos - which embodies an understanding of limits and proportions. Virtues taken to the extreme are vices. Too much of a good thing is always a bad thing. Farmers want rain, but not too much. You want the bath water to be hot, but not too hot. A society can be either too open, or too closed. Ideally it should be open enough to prevent stagnation, but not open to invasion or abuse. The ten million Swedes in Sweden can let in ten million Arabs and still be Sweden. The society must be closed enough to maintain itself, in the way cells close themselves off with cell membranes, but allow for the passage of necessary materials. In nature, there is no equivalent of an open society.

Openness in modern society is not a virtue; not only because it is applied without limit, but because it is applied selectively, which means it deployed as a weapon. In the US, there are multitudes of communities permitted for all races but one. When students at the University of Illinois attempted to for a white student's association - similar to the many dozens of racial organizations that already existed - it sparked national outrage and they backed down. The LGBTQP pantheon of celebrated sexual identities is difficult to track, as new identities are constantly created in Gender Studies' PhD dissertations. The reason for the unwieldy list is that it is promoted as a whitelist, but is really a blacklist. It could simply be called the AF - or Anti-Family - alliance. LGBTQP is open to all forms of sexuality except traditional family values, which means LGBTQP is actually a closed community.

Similarly, all colleges and corporations have organizations that explicitly promote the careers of women. Male equivalents are not tolerated...there many not be any at all. Under rule of Equality, Girls Scouts is a community for girls, but Boy Scouts is not a community for boys.

Most alarming is that white countries are not permitted, but all other races and ethnicities are permitted a homeland. There is no great outcry that China is a Chinese country or Saudi Arabia is Arabian. They say America is a melting pot on stolen land, but that is a lie because European countries are not allowed an ethnic heritage either. Brexit was widely denounced as racist because many leave votes were motivated by immigration reform. The rule is that no white communities are allowed, anywhere, in any context. England is not for the English, America is not for the Americans. The single exception to the rule depends on whether Jews are classified as whites or as Semites. In the future, whites wishing to organize should pick a particular ethnicity. For instance, the University does have one white RSO, which is a Polish club. Thus, the white students should have attempted to register an English club, or German club, with the understanding that it is an RSO for Americans, other Anglos, and perhaps Germanics at large.

The 72-Hour Rule

The rule of thumb is that, if the world is up in a hysteria about something Trump did, give it about three days before joining the chorus. The response to the Soleimani assassination has interestingly muddled. We're used to hear the mainstream media operate on a common frequency, often co-ordinating on the verbiage of their headlines and whatnot. Following the strike, responses ranged from a refusal to condemn but vague questioning of Trump's ability to handle the situation, to full-on renunciations of American imperialism. The narrative now seems to be that Trump should have informed Congress before authorizing the strike. Of course, that would not actually be possible, as the Democrats would leak the top secret information in whatever way would derail Trump's decision.

It's not particularly instructive to over-analyze the mainstream media response, since we know they'll simply report in whatever way they believe will be most damaging to the president. Let's look at someone more on our side of things. The Economic Collapse blog (linked on sidebar) is prone to hyperbole and doom scenarios. Let's look at the headlines that unfolded in the course of about a week.

• Iran, It’s Your Move – Trump’s Takedown Of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani Is Likely To Start A Global War
• Iran Vows Revenge Against The United States, And The Phrase “World War 3” Is Now Trending…
• Why Is Iran Flying A Blood Red Flag Over A Famous Mosque That Is Directly Associated With The Mahdi?
• Americans Are Debating About Whether We Will Go To War With Iran, But The Iranians Say The War Has Already Started
• Welcome To World War 3 – Just Pray That You Will Be Able To Survive It
• Everybody In America Should Stand Up And Applaud President Trump, Because He Just Changed The Course Of History

Doom, doom, doom...Trump's a savior! That last one begins,

If someone else had been in the White House, this crisis could have easily turned out much differently.  Sadly, most Americans have no idea that we were literally on the brink of the beginning of World War 3 this week.

While tensions were high and war was certainly possible, there were many indications that the various involved factions were posturing and war was not the likely outcome. The first hint came immediately after the event, when Iran pledged to take the matter before the UN. That is not an indication of a side determined to plunge into a very costly - perhaps regime-ending - war. Then the event was condemned by the Iraqi Parliament - in a non-binding resolution in which the Sunnis and Kurds abstained. Not quite the strong reaction the media was making it out to be. Then, when Iran sent a volley of missiles towards bases hosting US troops, many were certain that it was the beginning of a hot war. But the missiles caused little damage and no casualties (similar to Trump's missile attacks on Syria a couple years ago).

The posturing is as follows:

• Trump was determined not to have his Benghazi moment, and established a red line that US embassies are to be left alone
• The Iraqi Shia were compelled to show an effort to rebuke US attacks on Iran
• The Iranians could not offer a meek non-response. Their leadership can sell their phony military response being a strong enough show of strength to cause the Great Satan to back down in its aggression

The result is a scenario where all sides can achieve their goals without war, which no one actually desires. Trump didn't pull back the US from the brink of war, because we were never at the brink of war.

Also, very interesting to note, is that Israel broke ranks, declaring that the US would be alone if war broke out with Iran. That is a curious development, and I don't currently know what to make of it.

The RIP Of Habeas Corpus

Martin Armstrong reports that Julian Assange is being left to waste away in solitary confinement, with the intention that he will never be publicly tried.

The US prosecutors are conspiring with the British to ensure that Julian Assange never goes to trial and what is taking place is the collapse of civility and Justice which has become sheer vengeance and political prosecution. The British will not allow independent doctors to visit Assange meanwhile they have been keeping him like Jeffrey Epstein in solitary confinement. This is where they keep people who are really political enemies of the states who will never be given a fair trial.

Rulers don't clamor for power to put themselves on trial, and do not subject themselves to the rule of law any more than is necessary. (In a corrupt system, that means hardly at all.) The principle applies to the system more so than individuals; it does not mean that dissidents are always tried, for example. In a fair trial, the prosecution is exposed for public scrutiny as much as the defendant. If the government makes someone out to be a public enemy for decades and then imprisons him for years, they better have a case to make. Otherwise the tyranny is exposed, the illusion of justice fades.

The government wants to imprison Assange and make an example of him. They don't want to drag him to court to charge him with first-degree journalism, and they absolutely do not want him put under oath to testify in regards to Russiagate. Instead, they'll maneuver to detain him indefinitely, with no opportunity for defense. Habeas corpus, the bedrock of the Anglo legal tradition, is no more.

Other examples abound. A Navy Seal team was raided bin Laden's compound with orders to kill. A public trial of 9/11 was never going to happen. Similar was the recent assassination of the Iranian general. Nabbing him was not an option; not necessarily because of technical limitations, but because putting a foreign military leader on trial for interfering with America's imperial projects is not possible when the official line is still that we went to Iraq to liberate its people, who now hold sovereign domain over their territory.

If Epstein really was a Mossad agent running a blackmail ring in America, then that dirty laundry was certainly never going to air. Hillary Clinton evaded the courts too, and Comey made a mockery of the justice system in the process by detailing all the reasons she should be prosecuted before announcing that no reasonable prosecutor would take up the case. He was right: no reasonable lawyer would dare violate the edict that the rulers don't go to trial. No one associated with FISAgate - which was treasonous - has been charged or even terribly inconvenienced. They won't be tried because the people in charge don't want a play-by-play court transcripts of how the Democrats and their federal allies were able to fabricate intel and then launder it to the point that a high-ranking Senator was passing it directly to the director of the FBI and an elected president was subjected to a special counsel shakedown has his first term. If you are ever tempted to commit a crime, choose one such that its revelation will embarrass the ruling class. You'll skate.

It's the reason the Democrats ramrodded an impeachment vote through the House only to freeze stiff at the reality of passing it on to the Senate for a trial. It will never go to trial because that would be a disaster for these enemies of truth. They are trying to leverage the illusion of pending legal proceedings to gain access to Trump's records (and the classified findings of the Mueller report) to gain something damaging to use in the upcoming election. They are (once again) using the federal justice system to execute their opposition research for them. The desperation must be high to risk the one outcome that the corrupt rulers avoid at all cost: to be subjected to a public trial - even as prosecutors.