The Mueller Report, What Does It Mean…Anyone?

• 675 days
• $25.2 million
• 34 indictments (26 against Russian Nationals)
• Total collusion indictments: 0

As Glenn Greenwald – hardly a supporter of President Trump - has pointed out, had there been any there there it would have been acted on long ago.

It appears that the only crime the Mueller team has been able to prove President Trump is guilty of was winning an election that he wasn’t supposed to. So once again there will be no fireworks, no popping of champagne corks and no victory party in the Democratic camp tonight. The last time they had so much rain on their celebratory parade was November 20, 2016.

So in regards to the much anticipated Mueller Report there is very little to be said, and perhaps it was said best by Emily Litella:

And now, here’s  Ferris Bueller’s HS Economics teacher to summarize today’s lesson:

“In 2016, the Deep State controlled Department of Justice, in an effort to undermine the administration of…Anyone? Anyone?…Donald Trump, launched the…Anyone? Anyone? The Russian collusion investigation, which, anyone? Indicted or cleared?…Cleared the President. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effect? It did not work, and the Deep State sank deeper into their corruption and judicial overreach.”

Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? Fake News. Anyone know what this is? It’s when news is presented in a way that slants facts or makes them up out of whole cloth. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what  President Trump called this in 2017? Anyone? Something-h-u-n-t. “Witch Hunt.”

(With apologies to Ben Stein and the creators of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)

Fueling America: the Oceans Aren’t Just For Fish Anymore

Do you remember the stories about cars running on water? The general storyline ran something like this: somebody invented a car that ran on water and GM squelched it to maintain their market share of the combustion engine – and our dependence on expensive fossil fuel instead of cheap, clean, renewable water. The urban legend began before the age of the internet, but has been greatly enhanced since then to include tales of assassinations and nefarious suppression of technologies that would save the planet. It also provided some actual scientific explanations of how water can be converted to energy, like this from Popular Mechanics:

There is energy in water. Chemically, it's locked up in the atomic bonds between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms. When the hydrogen and oxygen combine, whether it's in a fuel cell, internal combustion engine running on hydrogen, or a jury-rigged pickup truck with an electrolysis cell in the bed, there's energy left over in the form of heat or electrons. That's converted to mechanical energy by the pistons and crankshaft or electrical motors to move the vehicle.

Unfortunately PM editors also pointed out the constraints of harnessing that energy:

Problem: It takes exactly the same amount of energy to pry those hydrogen and oxygen atoms apart inside the electrolysis cell as you get back when they recombine inside the fuel cell. The laws of thermodynamics haven't changed, in spite of any hype you read on some blog or news aggregator. Subtract the losses to heat in the engine and alternator and electrolysis cell, and you're losing energy, not gaining it--period. 

There are those pesky “laws of thermodynamics” again, screwing with the energy do-gooders of the world.

And then the Thermodynamic Fairies screw everything up

But finally, good news for the Green New World Order people: Rejoice! Your prayers to Gaia have been answered, sort of:

Scientists at Stanford report that they have overcome one of the biggest hurdles to converting the oceans to a renewable energy farm:

A team of scientists at Stanford have figured out a way to make hydrogen fuel out of saltwater. The discovery could open up the world's oceans as a potential source of energy. Researchers view electrolysis, or the act of splitting water into hydrogen and gas, as a promising new source of renewable energy. But it comes with many roadblocks; a major one being that only purified water can be used in electrolysis. Seawater tends to corrode water-splitting systems.

The Stanford team is on the verge of licking that corrosive problem as well:

The Stanford team layered nickel-iron hydroxide and nickel sulfide on top of a nickel foam core, essentially creating a barrier that would slow down the decay of the underlying metal. By acting as a conductor, the nickel foam transports energy from the power source and the nickel-iron hydroxide sparks the electrolysis.

What happens without the nickel coating? The water-splitting device lasts roughly 12 hours, unable to withstand seawater corrosion. But with the nickel layer, the device can keep going for more than a thousand hours.

While researchers concede we’re a long way from harnessing the oceans as a “sustainable” energy source, and the results have not been replicated outside Stanford’s research labs, scientists are hopeful that their discovery will finally pave the way for hydrogen fuel – and cars that really do run on water.

So there you have it: Clean, renewable, CO2 free hydrogen to fuel all our energy needs! Zero carbon air flight, just like AOC wants. What could possibly go wrong?

This Is Your Last Warning

‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’

Appendix

THE PRINCIPLES OF NEWSPEAK

Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism…It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later.

Wow, I’m so old that I remember when “1984” was just a book, and a fictional one at that.

Original 1954 Penguin edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, left, 2013 edition, right

You might have heard that Jordan Peterson had accepted a visiting fellowship to Cambridge, the elite British university. If not, never mind, as they rescinded the offer less than 48 hours after it was made due to alleged “hatemongering” on Professor Peterson’s part.

“[Cambridge] is an inclusive environment and we expect all our staff and visitors to uphold our principles. There is no place here for anyone who cannot,” a spokesperson for the university said.

Whereas by “inclusive” they mean the opposite this would automatically make the list of finalists in this year’s “most ironically non self-aware statement.”  What a great homage to Newspeak, more so as they didn’t do it intentionally.

Critics maintain that Mr. Peterson, a University of Toronto professor, is “transphobic” because he said that he would not be coerced by future laws to use state-mandated language.

His commentary — a warning on the linguistic and legal seeds of totalitarianism — came during a 2016 debate over Canada’s “C-16 bill.”  – Washington Times 

I should note here that just calling the truth “hate” doesn’t make it so. Not yet; although I understand legislatures around the world are already busily trying to make it so.

I would like to offer kudos to Jordan Peterson for teaching the entire Cambridge community, or at least any still open to learning, the first principle of totalitarianism without ever having stepped a foot on campus.

Nobody can say they weren’t warned.

We Just Need More Current

‘Tis Spring, and something is rotten in the Deep State Department.

Specifically, disloyal elements within the Deep State attempting to pervert the course of President Trump’s administration, such as this:

…a bid by some elements of the Trump administration to keep the Iran nuclear deal on life support via a package of waivers exempting Tehran and its allies from new sanctions spearheaded by President Donald Trump, according to multiple conversations with top congressional officials both on and off the record.

A debate has been raging inside the Trump administration for months over how far it will go to sanction the Iranian regime. While President Donald Trump has promised a “maximum pressure” campaign to choke off Tehran’s resources, the State and Treasury Departments have advocated in favor of waivers permitting Iran to continue sensitive nuclear work as well as its lucrative oil trade.

And more disturbingly, this:

Someone in State Department likely involved in bid to take down Trump.

Fox News’ chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge believes a claim by Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows of a coordinated effort to hurt President Trump — including “sitting ambassadors,” the FBI and the Department of Justice — also likely involves someone in the State Department.

“I think the congressman is referring to someone within the State Department based on my reporting,” Herridge said Tuesday on Fox News Radio’s “Brian Kilmeade Show.” “Because we have a pretty good sense now from these transcripts that have been revealed and then also records that were unsealed at the end last week in the defamation suit with BuzzFeed that … the government network was being pulsed with the dossier in the final months of the campaign and then during the transition period. And that it was coming at the FBI and Justice Department through many different lanes or many different avenues, and the objective was to lend it credibility.”

Herridge added, “My recollection is there is a tie into the State Department, so we’ll see exactly who Congressman Meadows is referring to … but that is where I think it’s going.”

As Rep. Mark Meadows told Hannity Monday:

“It's additional information that is coming out that will show not only was there no collusion, but there was a coordinated effort to take this president down. We talk about the 'Deep State.' There are players now, even ambassadors, that are sitting ambassadors that were involved in part of this with the FBI-DOJ.”

But despite the ongoing efforts of the seditious Deep State, the course of natural events cannot be stopped. At exactly 5:58 p.m. ET this evening the 2019 vernal equinox will occur and bring the first day of spring to the Northern Hemisphere.

And it matters not how many witches,

warlocks

and assorted druids

resist it will not change the natural course of events. The climate will continue to change like clockwork, 4 times a year, and Donald Trump will still be President.

But if you still oppose everything that Donald Trump does and stands for feel free to follow your animal instincts and take to the streets to bay at tonight’s super moon. We understand that you are driven by the teachings of that great druid, Al Sharpton, who instructed his followers to “resist you much.”

As our own Janice the Elder would have told us, Resistance Is Not Futile:

We will unwind and rewire the Deep State eventually. We just need more current.

Growing Up By Proxy

Helicopter parenting, the practice of hovering anxiously near one’s children, monitoring their every activity, is so 20th century. Some affluent mothers and fathers now are more like snowplows: machines chugging ahead, clearing any obstacles in their child’s path to success, so they don’t have to encounter failure, frustration or lost opportunities. – NYT

Snowplowing, more appropriately known as bulldozing, is a large reason why millennials, and now the GenZ cohort, are having trouble in life and at work.

A third of millennials fail to even make it through their three-month probation periods. It appears when left to their own devices as young adults a great many of them fail to make the cut.

‘Of the reasons for failing, 62 per cent is poor performance, 50 per cent is absence, 25 per cent is lateness and 30 per cent is gross misconduct.’ 

Sadder still educators say GenZ college students are uniquely bad at dating. Dating, for crying out loud! Sure it’s always been stressful, but a stress that teaches you how to cope with rejection and failure: two things no parent today wants their kid to experience.

Welcome to Gen Z dating. Educators say the current generation in college is uniquely bad at romance. Online dating has created a (false) feeling of an endless buffet of romantic choices. And mobile technology—which this generation has never lived without—has been a security blanket of sorts that has kept them from developing solid in-person communication skills.

Experts say that members of Gen Z, born starting in about 1997, also show a striking lack of resiliency. Micromanaged by parents, teachers and coaches since they started school, they’re more sheltered and less independent than previous generations.

So it’s not just parents anymore. There’s an entire fleet of bulldozers out there, prepping the ground for youngsters before they’re allowed to take their first step into the real world; a team of enablers willing to scorch the earth if necessary to pave the way.

No matter how well-intentioned, removing all obstacles in order to provide short term protection results in psychologically fragile children who don’t know how to survive as they’ve never been required to develop coping mechanisms, never been left to their own devices to work through a problem. Children whose entire lives are surrounded by bulldozers will never learn how to successfully navigate a bump in the road, regardless of it’s size. They won’t know how to decide whether to plow through it or maneuver around it. Is this not obvious?  It doesn’t end well, you either end up with a young adult who cannot cope at all or a complete ignoramus who thinks they know it all, and believes that anything that goes wrong is somebody else’s fault.

“Here I am in my very important House hearing wearing my ‘I’m 29 years old and know way more than you old farts ever will’ face.”

“Whereof One Cannot Speak, Thereof One Must Be Silent.”

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Titled “Shibboleth” this 2007 art installation by Doris Salcedo took the form of a 548-foot long, meandering crack in the floor of the Tate Gallery, a hairline crack at one end which expanded to a few inches of width and two feet of depth at the other.

Behold the Left’s newest shibboleth: One cannot accuse a Muslim of being anti-Semitic because that defines you as Islamaphobic. And if you don’t believe me just ask poor Chelsea Clinton who was bullied into an apology for calling out Omar’s anti-Semitism.

“This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world,” NYU senior Leen Dweik, who is Muslim, told Clinton at the vigil.

“I’m so sorry that you feel that way, certainly it was never my intention, I do believe words matter,” Clinton responded.

Yes Chels, words do matter. Don’t let people twist yours. Her sin, according to the new standard of bigotry? This:

Following Omar’s tweet that “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,” which reinforced the antisemitic trope that Jews have money and use it to run the world, Clinton tweeted: “We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in antisemitism.” - JP

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) was designated as the spokesmouth for the Islamic arm of the Democratic party:

“(Omar was) being targeted just like many civil rights icons before us who spoke out about oppressive policies.”

In other words: STFU. Tlaib’s take on the Omar affair explains succinctly why the Democratic House couldn’t see its way clear to pass a simple resolution condemning anti-Semitism: they couldn’t find a way to do so without being accused of being Islamophobic.

People have been confounded by Wittgenstein’s philosophy for over 100 years now, but I think we can now definitively say that what he meant when he said “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” was “if you don’t agree with me, STFU.”

Coming up tomorrow: What perils lurk when helicopter parents morph into bulldozer parents.

Where Is Our St. Patrick?

I feel like it’s “spring ahead” Sunday all over again. Which is to say I overslept…and I never oversleep! So here I am an hour late. I’m just  going to wish everyone a Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Originally intended to celebrate the fact that St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century, and later drove all the snakes out, it is now nothing more than another excuse to overindulge in whatever you choose to overindulge in.

My choice is this fine Irish soda bread that Raj made yesterday…loaded with “sultanas.”

Although I would like to note the “mass” protest held yesterday in Washington D.C. against President Trump, this time under the guise of “Hands Off Venezuela” 

From Argentina to South Africa, Malaysia to Peru, New Zealand to Canada and the U.S., supporters of the Bolivarian revolution marched together as part of the World in Solidarity with Venezuela Day this weekend. – Telesur

Actually the protest was organized worldwide so you’ll see protestors in various countries carrying identical signs in different languages all demanding “Hands off Venezuela” that were provided compliments of whatever local Communist group could afford to print them. U.S. protests were augmented with signs directed solely at President Trump reading “NO COUP! NO MILITARY! NO SANCTIONS!” - evidently unaware that their hero, Barack Hussein Obama, was the U.S. President who first imposed the sanctions.

If the snakes in our midst have their way they will one day strike this St. Patrick’s day message from Ronaldus Magnus from the American lexicon (leprechaun?): 

On the basis that it is too Christian, too white, too rooted in Western Civilization. Sigh. Where is our St. Patrick?