Andante From Piano Concerto No. 2 In F Major Op. 102
Dmitri Shostakovich
We reported last week how the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands Denise George filed a massive lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase in New York accusing the bank of ‘knowingly providing and pulling the levers through which [Epstein’s] recruiters and victims were paid.’ “Epstein Island,” more formally known as Little St. James Island is part of the U.S.V.I.
The lawsuit maintained that “human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts that Epstein maintained at JPMorgan.” //
But then came stunning news on Monday that the Attorney General had been fired by the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Albert Bryan, Jr. The governor’s spokesperson is refusing to say why she was fired, ‘I am not at liberty to discuss details on personnel matters.’ //
Coincidentally, on the same day that George filed the lawsuit, Joe Biden flew down to the Virgin Islands, to St. Croix, for vacation. He didn’t leave until Monday, the same day that it was announced the AG had been fired.
People couldn’t help but think of that instance where Joe Biden got the Ukrainian prosecutor fired who had raided the home of a Burisma official, given the coincidence.
My online tools for AFOLs have received a major overhaul and new functionalities.
My online tools for AFOLs have received a major overhaul and new functionalities.
I used to host a bunch of free tools for LEGO builders at tools.sariel.pl but each tool was developed independently of others, and some of them were created more than 10 years ago, and they didn’t age well. So now a major upgrade is available: version 2.0 overhauls all tools and adds a new one, bringing total number to 11.
An improved version of my 4-speed sequential transmission controlled remotely by a single motor: smaller, stronger and much more effective. Instructions available.
I'm a prolific LEGO Technic builder, and the goal of this website is to document my LEGO constructions, ideas and various achievements. I'm trying to share my work is such a way that it could inspire, or be developed further by other builders.
In addition to my website, you may also want to follow my Facebook page where building process of current projects is shown and where future ideas are discussed.
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As a conservative, running into other folks who seem well informed on Constitutional issues and who support common sense governmental polices and limited Federal power, is a pleasure. Finding out that they also believe whacked out conspiracy theories on no evidence, and yet they are not willing to publicly oppose those crimes despite believing that the crimes are a deadly threat to millions of Americans, is disheartening. We know that leftists are willing to engage in any tactic to try to implement their agenda, including discarding the Constitution, engaging in widespread violence in the streets, illegally censoring conservative thought, and stealing elections with voter fraud. What will it take to get many average conservatives to focus on those very real threats rather than wasting their time fretting about a non-existent global conspiracy to poison the world? //
Whereas left wingers get violent when they lose an election or a judicial decision, and take to the streets to push their demands, conservatives seem to see every defeat as a confirmation of the inevitability of defeat for conservative American values and policies. If Americans will not stand up and expose oppose a global conspiracy to kill us all, it would be a fool’s bet to assume that they will energetically and effectively oppose a corrupt Democrat party as it tries to impose socialism on this country. Conservatives should be better than that. //
EagleHasLanded
January 2, 2023 at 07:05
I have no idea what chemtrails or contrails are. I’m talking about the left and Democrats sowing confusion amongst the population in general and conservative specifically to hide their dirty deeds. Let’s stay focused on them. They are evil and are destroying our once great country.
As I’ve said before, no historical evidence indicates targeting a civilian population does anything but unify the targeted civilians against their attackers. Practically, this kind of operation will inevitably result in Ukraine targeting the Russian power grid and other targets inside of Russia //
Anton Gerashchenko
@Gerashchenko_en
·
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Engels airbase in Russia was attacked by a drone again last night.
It's a second attack on this airfield in a month. Airfield is located about 700km from 🇺🇦 border.
This means 🇷🇺 air defense systems are not that good - no radars picked up the drone and it wasn't shot down. //
For obvious reasons, the Russians aren’t talking about damage to aircraft and facilities. I think there is one metric we can rely upon. The Russian missile attacks on the Ukrainian power grid have been, for the most part, happening on Monday nights. This attack on Engels was on Sunday, and the next Russian missile attack took place Thursday. The same pattern followed the last strike on Engels airbase. //
Since then, real and imagined experts have had vigorous discussions. This is way outside my area of expertise, but I will make three observations. First, they are effective. Second, the Ukrainians are building or modifying them one at a time. Third, Russian air traffic control really stinks. //
Russia is acquiring suicide drones from Iran, and there have been reports, covered in these updates, that Iran is transferring short-range ballistic missiles to Russia. So the question of how Iran is getting paid has now been answered.
Viktor Kovalenko
·
Dec 25, 2022
@MrKovalenko
·
Soon Russia will transfer a squadron of 24 newest fighter jets Su-35 to Iran as payment for thousands of loitering munitions, drones used to attack #Ukraine, reports Israeli 12 TV channel quoting sources in western intelligence. https://news.israelinfo.co.il/107863
Yngvar
@UXMarksTheSpot
·
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What the hell have russians been buying? Cost of a Su-35 is around $43m (Google tells me). 24 of them are worth $1 Billion. A Shahed-136 drone costs $20K. From what I've read, the biggest number of drones purchased was quoted as about 1500 which is $30m. What's the discrepancy??
6:23 PM · Dec 25, 2022
The Iranians received these aircraft before frontline Russian Air Force units did. That, in my opinion, tells you what you need to know about how short Russia is in cash and how much they need Iran’s weapons. //
Outside of the long-occupied areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, the areas are riddled with informers and special operations elements. Ukraine not only has a formidable electronic warfare capability, it has access to resources from all of NATO to track cell phone locations. As attrition reduces institutional knowledge, expect to see more reports of headquarters targeted by rockets and artillery.
Raise a toast to an incredible 19th-century Missouri scientist when you pop that bottle of fine French bubbly on New Year’s Eve.
His name is Charles Valentine Riley.
He was an entomologist. He studied bugs. And he saved the Champagne industry.
Riley raced to the aid of shattered European winemakers during an agricultural tragedy that’s gone down in history as the Great French Wine Blight.
Winemaking in France is rooted deep in the soil — and deep in the soul.
The soul of France was torn apart in the 1860s when its vineyards were invaded by a voracious pest called grape phylloxera.
The microscopic aphid feasted on the roots of French grapevines for decades to follow. //
The insect reduced “vast areas of vineyard to what one winegrower described as rows of bare wooden stumps — resembling huge graveyards,” write authors Don and Petie Kladstrup in their 2001 book, “Wine and War.”
Phylloxera caused billions in economic damage, with an immeasurable impact on French culture and national identity. Almost every vineyard in France was invaded by phylloxera by the end of the 19th century. //
He had discovered that grapevines in his state were immune to the ravages of phylloxera. With his leadership, millions of rootstock from the United States — including 10 million from Missouri alone — were shipped to France in the late 1800s.
The native European vines were grafted to the robust, bug-resistant American roots.
The French wine industry slowly rebounded, then battled through two world wars to a full recovery on the strength of American rootstock. //
Americans consume more French wine than any people on the planet but the French. //
Missouri at the time had a robust and internationally renowned wine industry. Its gorgeous wine grapes sprouted from vines that were first planted just a few decades earlier by German immigrants.
Missouri’s celebrated Stone Hill Winery was the third-largest winemaker in the world in the 1870s. It produced about 1.3 million gallons of wine annually at its peak — the equivalent of 6.6 million standard 750-milliliter bottles. //
The desperate French government offered a 300,000-franc award to anyone who could solve the crisis.
The answer lay in Missouri.
Phylloxera was native to the United States — which is why American vines were resistant to their ravages. The pests were unintentionally shipped to Europe in trans-Atlantic trade.
Riley traveled to Europe three times over the next several years to convince scientists and officials of the hope found for the French wine industry in American vines. //
Riley never got the 300,000-franc prize.
But he went on to a distinguished career in international entomology.
He was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor by France, its highest honor in service to the nation.
IMAGO DEI, MEANING OF LIFE, WHAT AM I?, WHAT IS HUMAN? //
Jesus was once asked what the greatest commandment in the law was. His response was deeply revealing about the purpose of human existence. He said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves.(7) Notice that the greatest thing a human being can possibly do, and the highest priority a person ought ever to have, is to love God with a love that is not a product of physics, but is supernatural (heart, soul, and mind). He has already demonstrated his love for us in the greatest way possible.(8) But for love to be ‘real’ and meaningful, we must have the ability to accept or reject it. Thus, free will was given to us, despite our proclivity or tendency to badly misuse our freedom of choice.
At least three studies have found that people infected with omicron still have virus levels high enough to be contagious more than five days after their symptoms began.
If leftists can rig elections, they certainly can rig a constitutional convention. That would be a major disaster. //
Article V says Congress shall call a convention requested by two-thirds of the states. It’s unclear what the role of all 50 states would be, but they are of course blue as well as red. This means that liberal activists will have full access to any constitutional convention.
So if the Con-Con process started tomorrow, who would Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer select as delegates? Pelosi could exclude Republican choices, as with her January 6 committee, or trade her speaker’s gavel for the Con-Con chairmanship.
Conservative Con-Con promoters will not control who attends, what issues are discussed, or what constitutional amendments ultimately are approved. The convention will make all decisions and conservatives will not be able to guarantee the outcome. //
Conservatives who blithely assume that only conservatives would be empowered to participate in a Con-Con, and that ratification procedures would block unwanted results, should read Mollie Hemingway’s book, “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” //
Most leaders of the Article V Con-Con movement have no personal experience with the dynamics of political conventions, much less contested conventions. Key decisions are made months before a national convention begins, and decisive motions often are passed without warning with a gavel crack on a voice vote.
As reported in “Rigged,” courts are useless when fast-moving political events override internal organizational rules and even established law. Several book chapters end with regret, with statements like, “Republicans later learned…” and “The court ruled in Trump’s favor, but it was too late.” //
Federal spending is unrestrained, but our Constitution is not the problem. It would make more sense for state lawmakers to return federal subsidies to the U.S. Treasury than to bet the Constitution in a reckless gamble they are likely to lose. ///
Article V Convention is the "get rich quick" scheme of lazy conservatives who don't want too do the hard work or wait for the results of hard work of transforming the culture.
Christopher Ingraham @_cingraham
·
The latest data on happiness from the General Social Survey is truly something else. Nothing remotely like it in the past five decades of polling. https://thewhyaxis.substack.com/p/new-data-shows-americans-more-miserable
11:05 AM · Jan 28, 2022
Americans are also having fewer children than ever before, with the nation’s birth rate falling for the sixth consecutive year in 2020 to its lowest ever. Just 3.6 million babies were born, according to CDC statistics, down from 3.7 million the year before.
There are a lot of reasons why Americans aren’t having more children. Marriage is declining so rapidly that married people will soon be the minority. Faith, the bedrock of a moral society that incentivizes children (and empirically raises levels of happiness) has deteriorated so much that church membership has already dropped below 50 percent, according to Gallup. Americans aren’t even having as much sex, or even engaging in masturbation which signals a lack of interest. //
A happy population is one that flourishes with procreation, so enamored by its miracle that it chooses to pay it forward with pride so that future generations may experience the same gift. That no matter its trials, life is worth living, and it’s worth bestowing onto others.
Instead, life’s rejection of the unborn out of spite for an allegedly evil and crumbling civilization is a signal of deep-seated anguish on the rise today.
In February of 2011 we started posting free nonfiction we at Baen thought might be of interest to our readers. The first article was "The Size of it All" by Les Johnson, a Baen author and space scientist. As new nonfiction is made available, it will be posted on the main page, then added to this book (to save the Baen Barflies the trouble of doing it themselves). This is our compilation of nonfiction for 2020.
As is usual with such copyrighted material from Baen, the contents may be copied and shared but NOT sold. All commercial rights are reserved to Baen Books.
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