Putin’s Nukes in Space Are Back to Scare Us Again - The New York Times

By William J. Broad
William J. Broad since the 1980s has been writing about military combat in space, including nuclear detonations, as detailed in his books “Star Warriors” and “Teller’s War.”

March 6, 2024, 9:11 a.m. ET
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan was considering what became known as “Star Wars,” a plan to shield America from Soviet missiles by deploying up to thousands of weapons in space. At the same time, as a young science writer, I was reporting on how the rays from a single nuclear detonation in orbit could wipe out whole fleets of battle stations and laser death rays. “Star Wars: Pentagon Lunacy,” read one of the headlines.

Decades later, Mr. Reagan and the Soviet Union are gone, but anxiety over a high-altitude nuclear blast lives on, brought back most recently by the ostensible war aims of the Russian president Vladimir V. Putin. Last month, American spy agencies told Congress, as well as foreign allies, that Mr. Putin might deploy and use an atom bomb in space that could disable thousands of satellites. Not only military and civilian communication links would presumably be at risk, but also satellites that spy, track the weather, beam broadcasts, empower cellphone maps, form internet connections ...

The pert tone in which this is written ignores the fact that today's nuclear weapons, no matter who they're deployed by, can end civilization. Not only by a single nuclear blast, but with radiation that poisons land and water so land is not safely arable and water, rather than being life-supporting, is life-taking. This is especially life and civilization threatening as #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm continues to reduce earth's life-supporting resources.

Carl Sagan said it best, "The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/science/space-nuclear-bomb-putin.html

Dengue cases in Peru are surging, fueled by mosquitoes and high temperatures brought by El Niño

Globally, emergency resources torn among:

• Newly initiated climate catastrophes
• Residual medical, environment and food production, processing and distribution effects
• Transportation snags
• Other emergency events driven by war, disease, and random issues

can bring civilization to its knees. No amount of money (held by billionaires) or or personal food and medical resources held by catastrophe preppers will overcome this spiral once it starts.

#AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

https://apnews.com/article/peru-piura-denge-epidemic-mosquitoes-el-nino-377507e8ced020f770d8fd9f36925321

"'Signs' of Our Times:" Exponentially increasing milestones in #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

The “signs” keep accumulating ever faster. They are not signs. They are the thing!

“But” :

• Obama wore a tan suit.
• Michelle’s arms showed in a dress.
• Obama and Dems provided healthcare to millions of previously uninsured, thus taking away precious funding from Exxon exploration for new petro sources, and new gaming of government, and tax laws.
• Biden’s son’s business.
• Biden’s impeachment.
• Israel needs more weapons.
• We need to sell and deploy more weapons in the Middle East.
• Scientists exaggerate and lie.
• Exxon claims they are a leader in clean energy.
• NIMBY: 'Build no more nuclear reactors'.
• NIMBY: 'Store no nuclear waste in my vastly uninhabited state.'.
• When it comes to risks other than climate change, we must have absolutist principles.
• We must control women's bodies; otherwise, they will abort or use birth control. We must pull out all stops to maintain and grow a population that is already unsustainable. Sustainability is a myth anyway. More folderol from the same scientists that promote a "theory" of climate change. We have this on good authority -- the world's largest child rape organization.
• Public transportation is for effete, intellectual Europeans.
• We can't tax religion because it does so much to improve civilization.
• Massive liberal (but invisible) forces are railroading Trump. (It’s Bloomberg’s and Soros’ money at work.) [Why, they're so invisible, they can't win a fucking election.]
• Wealthy people already pay an unfair amount of taxes.
• Fox News wouldn't lie to us, and they think it's no big deal.
• …
• Jewish Space Lasers.

Net

Civilization is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic (earth as a civilization-habitable platform). In brief, believing in, or alibiing with, "end-times" is creating end-times. (Alibing includes using fundamentalist beliefs as a beard for fascist control of government.)

Atlantic Ocean is headed for a tipping point − once melting glaciers shut down the Gulf Stream, we would see extreme climate change within decades

https://theconversation.com/atlantic-ocean-is-headed-for-a-tipping-point-once-melting-glaciers-shut-down-the-gulf-stream-we-would-see-extreme-climate-change-within-decades-study-shows-222834

Emergency declared in San Diego as wettest January day on record brings widespread flooding

If CA goes glub, glub either due to flooding, drought, industrial water or land pollution spewed by extreme storms, the US goes glub, glub. CA is the heartbeat of the US economy. And, remember, ill-effects are amplified by any of the above directly impacting emergency resources.

#AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

I just don't think that political leaders, of any stripe, are, at all, facing the issues of climate change.

https://www.aol.com/news/emergency-declared-san-diego-wettest-042251677.html

Securing Earth

In the US, we only know how to maintain a strong economy by growing it. A weak economy leads to disaster, which many on the left fail to acknowledge. Growing the economy, however, has led to exponential waste -- in earth resources, including loss of carbon capture, health of citizens, availability of clean water, and arable land, etc.

One of the things that makes me beyond pessimistic about resolving #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm, is that it can't be solved without understanding how to (a) minimize economic and population growth, while providing jobs, (b) repopulating carbon capture, globally, and (c) drastically reducing carbon emissions. All of this has a learning curve, and the longer we take to learn, the greater the hurdles to solution.
The following have nothing to do with solution and only distracts attention from the real issues:

• Would-be immigrants at the border.
• War.
• Jewish Space Lasers.
• Hunter Biden toilet habits, or whatever.

In brief, we have not even started to learn, much less do.

Water Bottle Cults

"The boss" had me look for a large plastic water bottle as a gift for a family member. As per usual, I did a web search. Who knew that there was such variety of plastic water bottles? They differ by:

• Size: 16-128+ (4L) oz.
• Shape: More variety than you would ever imagine.
• Water delivery mechanism: integrated plastic straw, gravity nipple, or either
• Color/pattern
• Volume metric, or not, along the side of the bottle, including some with time points given and motivational icons at each volume tick
• Leakproofness
• Carrying implementation: shoulder strap, waist belt, top handle
• Drinking handles for the larger sizes
• Accompanying cleaning implements offered: bottle brush, straw brush
• Alleged plastic product health safety
• Motif

By far, motif was the most bizarre. There were various lifestyle choices here including:

• Military/Macho: Khaki, Camo, Canteen waist belt
• Valley Girl Be Thee: Pink, Fuchsia, and cutesy-wootsy Japanese-anime-meets-Walt-Disney patterns
• Water Is My Life: carry bag with room for keys, cell-phone, wallet (a Coleman lantern, and propane stove? ;-))

On Amazon, some of these motifs came with multiple videos to reinforce the implied lifestyle.

Now, that civilization has reached its zenith, we can all be sanguine about #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm./s

YES!

But, it's not profits over the environment; it's inertia of energy habits, and birthrates over survival of civilization.

POGO: I have met the enemy and it is us.

Why don't the Dems do something?

• GOPers
• Al Gore

#AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

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reshare from @Al Jazeera (unofficial)

Will the world continue to prioritise profits over the environment?

As world leaders gather for COP28, young people are left to bear the brunt of the lack of action by those in control.#ShowTypes #Climate #ClimateCrisis

Will the world continue to prioritise profits over the environment?

Civilization Failing in the Face of Climate Change, v2

Attention: johnehummel@diasp.org

Is Civilization Failure the Reason that No Other Society in the Universe Has Contacted Us?

And also, why we continue our global trajectory into #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm?

One of the things I’ve learned in science and engineering is that (a) some problems are tenable, (b) some problems are not, and (c) some “problems” are not problems (in either the social, personal, nor humanity sense).

(d) Life elsewhere in the universe is beyond my ken, and I view the problem as both (b) and (c).

Why (b) and (c)? | Other Civilizations in the Cosmos?

• Distances are too far to communicate given even the most advanced understandings of communications.
• Distances too far for communications are orders of magnitude too far for travel.
• Marshaling the needed resources for any significant colonization of say a moon of Jupiter is beyond our foreseeable means. And, it’s not clear that would buy us (earth) anything.
• Man has evolved with earth. Any other environment, therefore, will likely be missing key “ingredients” to supporting human and earth life.
• The probabilities and claims of suitable planets are grossly optimistic, and completely colored by the need to garner funding.
• If the planets are unsuitable and improbable for “us” they are improbable and unsuitable to any life form that would communicate with or visit with/by us.
• Too many nerds having read science fiction, and been impressed with things that have come true in these FICTIONAL stories, now believe that all we have to do is imagine something and it can happen.

I believe Carver Mead’s dictum: 'listen to the technology'. You can only make a technology do what it’s capable of. You cannot impose your will on technology. One of the things that has held Europeans back WRT technology is their insistence on what they expect from technology with little or contrary evidence to support their demands.

If you want to look at why civilization fails, my guess is that Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition has clues. (I have not read it.)

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What Will It Take to Survive #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm?

My guess is that if the US, Germany and Japan developed strict implementation plans for the abandonment of fossil fuels, AND FOLLOWED THEM, that China would go along in some way. Each of these three nations would have to get the buy-in and programs for the mass of voters, and the mass of businesses and institutions. This, in the case of the US, would take the equivalent of FDR’s fireside chats, a prez of FDR’s charisma, and an electorate ready to listen. The closest we have come was Obama.

Earth: RIP!

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Personal

BTW, we have a 49 year old daughter and a 20 year old grandson. Both are EEs. Our daughter is an analog EE and is in great demand by defense contractors. She works for BAE. My grandson is in a joint robotics, EE, ME/BS, MS program and already, is in great demand by both the defense and civilian sectors. They’ve got as good a chance of anybody to survive, since their skills will be of increasing importance: war or disasters.

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Epilogue

The issue is that the world must agree. What is the only way the world has ever agreed on anything?

Hint: it happened twice, and the second time was largely due to unresolved issues from the first time.

This time, however, the solution (thermonuclear world war) is at least equal to the problem (climate change).

Greta Thunberg. Go Greta Go!

Addressing #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg
• https://diaspora.koehn.com/posts/297ef8c02f2a013c76e4543d7eeced27

Burning Man revelers begin exodus after flooding left tens of thousands stranded in Nevada desert

#AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

https://apnews.com/article/burning-man-flooding-nevada-stranded-0726190c9f8378935e2a3cce7f154785

Climate Issue Government Leaders Aren't Addressing: Livestock Farming

The world is not meaningfully addressing any element of #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm! :-| Why single out Elsie and Porky?

Livestock is mentioned in only three agreements, and the only action each of them proposes is "management". Nowhere is there a word about reduction. It's as though nuclear non-proliferation negotiators had decided not to talk about bombs. You cannot address an issue if you will not discuss it. The call to stop farming animals should be as familiar as the call to leave fossil fuels in the ground. But it is seldom heard.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/22/11/13/1937226/the-climate-issue-government-leaders-arent-addressing-livestock-farming?sdsrc=popbyskid

Moving troops and gear over an endless sea: How the Air Force is rethinking mobility in the Pacific

Curious as to why fuel is going up?

1. Covid. Pent up demand following ...
2. Huge military exercises.
3. Petro companies trying to render Dems toothless to stop anything being done about #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm.

Seven allied air forces, along with 3,000 airmen and 70 mobility aircraft, train to solve the logistic challenges of a war in the Pacific.

https://www.militarytimes.com/video/2023/08/21/moving-troops-and-gear-over-an-endless-sea-how-the-air-force-is-rethinking-mobility-in-the-pacific/

Scientists sound alarm: Dangerous heat will soon affect 2 billion people

As the world has gotten hotter, more people are exposed to dangerously high temperatures each year. Recent findings published in Nature Sustainability show that without policy changes, the world will heat up enough by the end of the century that more than 2 billion people will live in life-threatening hot climates, as Science Hub reported.

#AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-sounding-alarm-dangerous-problem-123000792.html

Biden sends military to help with Hawaii wildfires

As #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm reeks ever greater havoc on forests, people, real estate, food and water supplies, the military will be called in for an ever greater role.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-navy/2023/08/09/coast-guard-rescues-people-trying-to-escape-hawaii-wildfires/

Maui wildfires: At least 6 killed in wildfires that devastated parts of the Hawaiian island, official says

A wildfire tore through the heart of Maui on Wednesday with alarming speed and ferocity, destroying dozens of homes and businesses in a historic tourist town, killing at least six people and injuring at least two dozen others, and forcing panicked residents to jump into the ocean to flee the flames.

When there's nobody left to buy products and services from the billionaires, because of fire, drought, flood, no food. no potable water and homelessness how does that benefit anyone?

#AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm <- we either address it, or it will "address" civilization out of existence.

#AbortGOPers

https://apnews.com/article/hawaii-wildfire-maui-dora-winds-ec23c16abfbeb6ba689f1a98263720db

Re: The "Modern Economy"

• Interest Rates
  • Interest rates are not high against a long-term historical perspective. Only, against an astonishing period in which the Fed has made (borrowing) money free (near zero interest rates).
  • The cause of the recent financial assets value drop (stocks, bonds, housing), has been the reassertion of actually meaningful interest rates. And, the Fed has been loath to do even this because of all the whining from Wall Street, and real estate companies -- agents, landlords, servicers (e.g., title companies), and fear of recession.
• Housing
  • The aging population, the shrinkage of the middle class (Chinaization), and now rising interest rates have lead to less turnover in housing.
  • Older people who own or rent see no advantage in moving or selling, snd they’re living longer while younger people are less able to afford homes, thereby decreasing demand and price.
  • Moreover, many landlords would rather stick with a family that has paid its bills over decades than one that because of the other conditions might be iffy. Apartments rented at a higher rate that are frequently vacant are not a money-maker.
• Labor Big reasons for a labor shortage, even in the midst of significant inflation (thus spurring inflation, further):
  • Our ageing population is retiring at a faster rate -- more people are retiring than ever before, because of ageing
  • Some people are retiring early before their pension fund is discontinued or is going bankrupt
  • Many people retired early because of ill-treatment during the pandemic (e.g., medical workers).
  • Birthrates are lower, and immigration has been squeezed, thus retarding the replacement pool.
  • College has gotten astronomically more expensive. thus barring qualification of those who cannot afford college degrees.
  • One big effect of the labor shortage is that some skilled workers have gone independent and become contractors, they charge twice or more what they would have earned as an employee(including benefits), thus also increasing inflation. For example, this is a rampant issue in hospitals WRT RNs.
• Inertia
  • These are ongoing problems that are slowly being adjusted to as we ignore the principal threat to democracy, the republic, and eventually civilization -- #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm
  • These are not Biden's nor the Democrats fault, but without a clear majority they cannot fix them. Moreover, the biggest first step of a fix IMHO would be a fair, rigid progressive income tax rate schedule, which I don't think they have the gumption for.
  • Bernie did, but he's too old, now, and his window of opportunity is passed.
  • Whatever the issues, Trump, DeSantis, the GOPers, fundamentalist or chauvinistic (i.e., most, if not all) religion, and aging white male brains will only make them all worse (said, the aging white male).

IFFs -- Identified flying fucks -- focus on UFOs

Because why deal with factual issues like #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm, #DeterioratingPublicSchools, #USGunInsanity, #SociopathicSupremeCourt, and #CivilRights when you can pursue some dick-head's fantasy of an issue.

Lawmakers request UFO select committee after whistleblower testimony

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/07/28/lawmakers-request-ufo-select-committee-after-whistleblower-testimony/

Government Regulation of High Tech

It seems to me that the hysteria surrounding AI (which continues to baffle me), is being used to establish draconian regulation of high tech.

Oh, why should I worry. #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm will change everything!

Tales of Florida Governance – Outside the Beltway

Between Dis-Antics and #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm, Floor-o-Duh go glub, glub.

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/tales-of-florida-governance/

#AcceleratingUSStupidity #AcceleratingGlobalClimateCataclysm

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reshare from @Kevin O&#39;Brien