Animals and aircraft: a sometimes dubious mixture

 

Courtesy of an e-mail from Eaton Rapids Joe, I was led to this account of a massive pig airlift operation.

Business pard's son flies 747's for Atlas Air. Latest load was around 900 pigs from Cincinnati, stop over in Anchorage. A reverse thruster had stuck, so they had to transfer those pigs to another 747. I figure the big plane can haul around 4 double decker, 18 wheeler (pot) loads of pigs. That's a pot load max of around 50K pounds or so, times 4, still under a 747 max load of 250-300K pounds. They were able to open the 747 nose and side doors to give those pigs some air while the new plane was being readied.

I googled Philippine pig problem and found out they have African Swine Fever Virus, which is contagious and deadly. So the govt is importing 32,000 breeding age pigs from USA and Europe, placing them in ASFV free areas. That virus kills pigs, but does not infect humans. Don't ya know those big planes stank after hauling all those pigs. Bud said the pigs were stomping, were actually shaking the plane. Big plane, but lots of stomping pigs. (Stomping, mad pigs.... would make a great Antifa demonstration).

. . .

Wonder what a "pig ticket" for a half the way around the world trip would cost. And times 900.... And ultimately 32,000 pigs.... Only a govt could afford that, for sure not pig farmers.

There's more at the link, particularly comments from other interested readers.  My favorite:  "Ha! In the Philippines they'll offload 900 pigs and haul them off on three motorbikes, two garongs and a jeepney."  Friends who've been there assure me that's more likely than not . . .

The story reminded me of one of the more "interesting" freight problems involved in flying the Hump, the air transportation of men, machines and equipment from India to China during the Second World War.  I wrote about it at some length several years ago.  One of the most difficult tasks was to fly mules and donkeys to China for use as pack animals, which were essential in the heavily forested terrain of Burma and nearby areas.  The Hump loadmasters would cram anything up to a dozen into C-46 or C-47 transports, and fly them all the way to China.  The trouble was, their urine would seep through the aluminum floor plates and corrode the control cables that ran from the cockpit to the tail.  The problem was discovered one day when a C-47 pilot taxied out to the runway in China, to take off for a return flight to India, and discovered that the rudder would no longer answer to his control inputs.  Subsequent inspection revealed that all the planes used for those animal cargoes were in just as parlous a condition, requiring major overhauls and the replacement of many control cables and surfaces before they could go back to work.

Of course, domesticated (or semi-domesticated) livestock is manageable as cargo.  Wild animals . . . not so much.  One of my favorite episodes was Operation Crocodile in South Africa in 1970.  Conservationist Ian Player was trying to rescue a number of Nile crocodiles from an estuary threatened by severe drought.  He appealed to the South African Air Force, which made available one of its then-new Super Frelon helicopters.

Hilarity - and a great deal of bad language - ensued.  The game rangers and their assistants had to capture, then immobilize the crocodiles, one after another, and load them into cargo nets (a process in which the animals proved to be less than cooperative).  The helicopter would then hover overhead (producing violent protests from the crocodiles, who didn't want anything to do with this strange bird), hook up the net, and airlift the croc to a safer place several miles up-river.  Once there, it was lowered to the ground, the net was removed, and the ropes and tape and other immobilizing bits and pieces were taken off.  This had to be done very carefully, always being prepared for some very high-speed maneuvers to get away from the by now extremely annoyed crocodile.  Video footage of proceedings was very popular with everyone except those immediately involved!

Africa, of course, is a very strange place, and its animals and aviation have their own stories to tell.  One of the worst is, I assure you, absolutely true.  People sometimes accuse me of making it up, so I'll let you read the news report at the link to prove that no, I'm not.

Peter

I had no idea these things existed

 

I've heard of machines that deploy barbed or razor wire, making it easy to set up fences, obstacles, etc.  However, I'd never heard of a machine that got rid of those fences, even decades after they'd been strung.

A wire winder mounted on a skid steer can roll up a half-mile of old fence in about two minutes, a task that would probably take a half-day to accomplish by hand, said John Graves, director of conservation and resource management for the Sheridan Community Land Trust.

“It’s pretty darn cool,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “To sit there in the cab of the skid steer and watch that wire come in, it’s great.”

The importance of removing old barbed wire and woven-wire fences can’t be overstated, said Steve Martin, Wyoming director of the North American Pronghorn Association.

Old fences can block pronghorn from reaching thousands of acres of habitat in the Red Desert and other places in Wyoming and Montana, Martin told Cowboy State Daily.

There are countless miles of fence that must be removed and replaced with wildlife-friendly fencing, he said.

. . .

“Unlike deer and elk, pronghorn will rarely, if ever, jump a fence. They want to crawl under it,” he said.

So woven-wire fences are particularly hard on pronghorn, he said, because there’s no way to get underneath them.

Researchers from the University of Wyoming concluded that fences trapped pronghorn in areas of the Red Desert during the harsh 2022-2023 winter, and many of them died.

Recent upgrades to wildlife-friendly fences in the Red Desert opened up about 10,000 acres to pronghorn, Martin said.

There's more at the link.  Here's a brief video clip of the wire winder at work.

That's pretty ingenious.  I wonder who came up with the idea?  It's just another addition to the huge variety of tools and equipment that can be hung onto or off of skid-steer machines.  I saw one around here that had more than a dozen different attachments arranged in a long row at one side of the yard.  The driver could simply drive up to a gap in the row, drop the attachment he'd been using into the open space, drive to the next gizmo he needed, connect it up, and away he went.  It can't have taken more than a minute or two per attachment.  That's productivity for you!

Peter

I smell a large, hairy, stinking rat...

 

Guess what?

The woman suspected of trying to blow up a Ukrainian tycoon in Monaco has been found shot dead near Kyiv.

Anastasiia Berezovska, 39, was named as the prime suspect in the attack on Vadym Iermolaiev, a Ukrainian property magnate, at the end of last month.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said on Tuesday that her body had been found overnight near the Ukrainian capital with gunshot wounds to the head and pistol casings nearby after an international search.

The SBU added that an acting officer from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) had confessed to killing Ms Berezovska with the assistance of a former law enforcement officer, and that he had acted on his own initiative without informing superiors.

There's more at the link.

So . . . the "official" story is that the alleged perpetrator of a bomb attack on a self-exiled Ukrainian oligarch (who appears to have a great deal of money at his disposal, suggesting possible probable underworld activity) is herself dead under mysterious circumstances, with "an acting officer from Ukraine's military intelligence agency" confessing to her murder.

Translation:  Ukraine was known as (and probably still is) one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.  I'm betting that the oligarch in question wasn't sharing enough of his profits with his intelligence agency partners;  or, possibly, they wanted in on his criminal network and he wouldn't let them.  They decided to rub him out in retaliation.  Their chosen emissary wasn't efficient enough to accomplish that, although her bomb did severely injure him.  When she was identified in the news media, somebody decided to close her mouth permanently so that she wouldn't give away incriminating (and possibly lucrative) secrets.  A "fall guy" is going to take the blame for her murder, probably because he, too, wasn't sharing enough of the profits from his own illicit activities.

I suspect my impromptu translation is far more accurate than all the news reports now spreading about the incident.  Watch to see which (if any) of the oligarch's activities are taken over by "new" Ukrainian bosses, and figure out to whom they are loyal, if not to him.  I strongly suspect a takeover bid by corrupt Ukrainian intelligence people is under way.

Peter

The growing relationship between sound and healing

 

For thousands of years, shamanistic medicine has included music (usually in fairly primitive forms, such as drumming or a shuffling dance rhythm) in its repertoire of healing techniques.  It now appears that perhaps music - or, rather, sound waves - may indeed have an integral role to play in healing.  Ted Gioia tells us more.

Every month, some remarkable new property of sonic healing gets validated by research or clinical practice. And the developments of the last few days are especially exciting.

Consider the recent news from MIT, where researchers eliminated 50% of the brain plaque associated with Alzheimer’s. And they did it with 40 Hz soundwaves—no surgery or drugs were necessary. The procedure is completely non-invasive.

And look at this brand new study, which reveals the potential to counter inflammation and reduce joint pain with low-intensity ultrasound. Body tissue magically starts to repair itself—with potential for use in everything from treating arthritis to recovering from injuries.

And check out this article, published just yesterday, which describes a significant improvement in motor skills among Parkinson’s patients—all because of ultrasound.

But I’m especially excited by the recent announcement from San Francisco research lab Midjourney. They have developed a new scanning technology involving ultrasound—and it sounds like science fiction. “We’re building a bold new kind of machine to reimagine the foundations of healthcare and our relationships to our bodies,” the company boasts.

It doesn’t even feel like a medical procedure—more like a visit to the health spa. In fact, that’s what the company will call its diagnostic centers: Spas.

It starts by stepping into a shallow pool of golden light. You then begin to descend into the water. Your body passes through a ring of underwater sensors, each acting like a dolphin, using its echolocation. The sensors send ultrasonic sound waves through your body from every angle. With enough waves, and enough angles, we form an image of what’s happening inside your body.

The goal is for this process to take no more than 60 seconds.

You go into the water, you come out of the water, and you’re done.

The result is “a 3D map of your body, down to a fraction of a millimeter.” But here’s the payoff:

We think it's completely possible that with enough early imaging in the future, the world could avoid 30% of all deaths and 50% of all healthcare costs.

There's more at the link.

As a musician, Ted is particularly excited by the potential mingling of his field and that of medicine.  He goes into a lot of background detail about it, which should be of particular interest to other musicians, but also to us less tuneful folk who merely want to get better in health terms.  I was particularly intrigued to learn that Midjourney, previously known as an AI-assisted graphics program, was now moving in an entirely new and (as far as I know) unrelated direction.

Recommended reading.

Peter

Stories that developed during my absence

 

I've been following a number of stories in recent days, and some others popped up during my absence at LibertyCon.  I thought I'd put them all into a single post here, so you can decide which ones you'd like to investigate further.  Click the title to be taken to the post/article concerned.

1.  The Commies Mount An Across the Board Push: DSA targets local elections around the nation in a well-planned strategy.

Instapundit author Glenn Reynolds points out that "The DSA and its allies have targeted local elections because they can mobilize a small but decisive number of voters in low-turnout elections".  This thinly-disguised extreme Socialist/Communist movement is trying to take over the Democratic Party from the inside, working its way upward through the ranks.  It's a timely warning, IMHO.

2.  Income needed to afford a median-priced home has nearly doubled since 2020, report finds.

It's no wonder younger people today complain that they simply can't afford a home of their own.  The cost of the latter has almost doubled in six years, but salaries certainly haven't followed suit.  I'd hoped for a "price dividend" as illegal aliens were deported (or deported themselves), but their absence from the housing market hasn't yet made much of a difference.  Can things find a new balance?

3.  Everest hospital scrambles for antivenom as snakes migrate to high ground.

"Experts said venomous snakes, including king cobras, were heading up the mountains as the climate warmed, threatening tourists and climbers."  That's a new and unexpected danger in the Himalayas, which have been relatively snake-free until now due to their extremely cold ambient temperature.

4.  Try Not to Crack a Rib Laughing.

"Police say 41-year-old Leonard “Lil Riblet” Barksdale allegedly hopped a privacy fence in Southeast Memphis around 2:13 AM after spotting what he reportedly described as '“a lightly supervised gas grill'. According to neighbors, Lil Riblet moved through the backyard 'with the confidence of a man who’s never once considered consequences.' That confidence lasted approximately four seconds. Because waiting in the yard was Memphiszilla… a pit bull described by witnesses as 'Built like a refrigerator with childhood trauma'."

5.  AI helped diagnose 18 children whose rare diseases had stumped doctors.

"OpenAI’s o3 Deep Research model helped clarify 18 diagnoses for children who had struggled to find causes for their illnesses and symptoms. 'It’s a total game changer,' said one of the study’s lead researchers, Catherine Brownstein, the scientific director of the genetic investigations arm of the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research at Boston Children’s Hospital."

6.  Pokémon Go Scans Quietly Trained the Navigation Tech Now Headed Into Military Drones.

"Hundreds of millions of Pokémon Go players spent years filming the streets, parks, and buildings around them to earn in-game rewards. Those roughly 30 billion environmental scans are now owned by Niantic Spatial, and they helped train a camera-based navigation model that a U.S. defense contractor is preparing to put into drones and other military robots. Most of the players had no idea."

I hope you found them as interesting as I did.

Peter

Third version lucky?

 

As I write these words, SpaceX is planning to launch the 12th Starship mission today.

SpaceX's Starship Version 3 is finally about to make its debut with a suborbital launch from Starbase, Texas.

The mission, dubbed Starship Flight 12, is the 12th test flight of SpaceX's integrated Starship-Super Heavy rocket, but the first flight of this new generation of the launch vehicle.

Because of all the changes and upgrades made to both stages of the two-stage rocket, SpaceX will not attempt to catch either the Starship upper stage (Ship 39) or the Super Heavy booster (Booster 19).

There's so much information to absorb, I couldn't summarize it in a brief blog post.  Therefore, here's a 15-minute video describing how we got to today's launch, and what the company expects from it.

Here's wishing success to SpaceX, and to the entire team involved in this project.

Peter

The early days of drone warfare

 

CDR Salamander noted yesterday that the Iranian Shahed-136 drone was based, at least in part, on a joint US-West German development from the 1980's.  He quotes Wikipedia's description.

In the early 1980s, the United States and West Germany began developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to detect and engage enemy radar systems. The aircraft was also intended to mimic larger aircraft, acting as a decoy to divert enemy fire from manned aircraft. On the German side, Dornier, and later its successor company DASA, was working on the project for the German Air Force.

During the project’s development, a workable seeker head could not be developed, limiting its suitability for the intended anti-radar mission. This, along with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, led to the project’s eventual termination. Following the end of the project, details of the system’s design were sold to Israel, which would develop its own IAI Harpy.

There's more at the link.

That's true, of course, but there was an additional drone being developed at the same time that was also sold to Israel.  It was a South African project known as the Kentron ARD-10 Lark.  The following image and report date from the early 1990's.

At the time, South Africa was becoming increasingly sophisticated in its use of the relatively primitive unmanned aerial vehicles of the time.  I had some peripheral involvement in the electronics being developed for them.  An account of the period includes the following:

Various use must have been made during the following years after 1983, however the next open mention was during the 1987-88 raids into Angola (Operations Modular/Hooper/Packer) in which extensive use was made of UAV's for surveillance, reconnaissance, artillery spotting and more interestingly to lure Soviet SAM batteries out of hiding so that our long range G-5/6 guns could hit them. Two Kentron Seeker systems were lost to the last mentioned tactic, although it was apparently more than worth it - many expensive SAM-8/9/13 were fired attempting to shoot the Seeker's down, in doing so not only did they waste valuable ammunition - but also revealed their positions and many of their Soviet SAM sites were then promptly destroyed by G-5/6 artillery fire (apparently one Seeker survived between 16-17 SAM-8 missiles being fired at it before it was finally shot down).

The latter engagements were during 1987/88.  As a direct result of those engagements, the ARD-10 was developed as a more advanced surveillance and reconnaissance platform, with particular emphasis on forcing enemy radars and air defense ordnance to reveal their position.  However, during the same period South Africa embarked on the process that was to lead to democratic elections in 1994, and the ARD-10 was one of many military projects (including the Carver strike fighter) that were canceled due to the peace conference and the end of the Border War.  Its design was sold to Israel for a relative pittance, probably at about the same time that the US-West German project found the same destination.  There seems little doubt that both of those designs were used as input to Israel's Harpy drone, shown below.

It achieved wide international sales and was prominent in a number of smaller wars.  It was later developed into the much more sophisticated Harop drone, shown below, which in modern versions is pretty much state-of-the-art in its field.  It became prominent due to its success in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. 

Information available about the Kentron ARD-10, Dornier DAR, and Israeli Harpy drones was undoubtedly studied in Iran, and that country's subsequent Shahed 136 bears an unmistakeable resemblance to them all.  All of those aircraft are relatively backward and primitive compared to modern designs;  but then, for a simple strike drone that can be bought cheaply in large numbers and launched in "swarms" to overwhelm enemy defenses, one doesn't need great sophistication.

Russia manufactures the Shahed 136 under license as the Geran-2, and has apparently developed a jet-propelled version of the drone that flies much faster and higher.  This will be harder to intercept, and if its cost can be kept low enough to afford mass production, may make air defense's job much more difficult.  As long as the cost to intercept the drone can be kept higher than the cost to build and operate the drone, the attacker will have an economic advantage.  We'll have to see whether that remains the case as drone technology advances.  If "stealthy" attack drones can be made cheaply enough (something I'm sure many nations are working on), they may pose a grave threat to almost all air defense systems.

Peter

Are we looking at a world-changing series of events?

 

I haven't posted much by Peter Zeihan in recent months, because much of his work has disappeared behind a paywall.  I know many readers disagree with his perspective on geopolitics and economics, but I think he brings out a demographic emphasis that many other analysts lack.

In this video interview, about an hour and twenty minutes long, he postulates that many things that we've taken for granted, or assumed to be true, are not certain any longer.  Change is accelerating, and our perspectives need to take that into account.  If you want to look for specific issues, this is how the video breaks down:

0:00 Is China Really on the Brink?
6:19 Has China Been Lying About Their Data?
11:08 Can AI Save Us From Population Decline?
17:21 Can We Survive Demographic Collapse?
25:19 How Politics is Impacting Population Data
34:23 The Future of Global Energy
41:03 Are Electric Vehicles Truly Sustainable?
51:24 Where the Green Movement is Really Headed
01:03:40 How Technology is Impacting Modern Warfare
01:08:40 Could China Ignite the Next Global Conflict?
01:15:09 The Power Alliances Reshaping the World
01:18:50 Where to Find Peter

The video loaded correctly when I tested this before publishing this post.  If it doesn't (as sometimes happens), you can find it on YouTube.  Highly recommended - in particular, the second segment mentioned above.

Do you agree with his points?  If you don't, where do you think he's going wrong?  Let us know in Comments, and let's discuss.

Peter

The state and "Cheddarisation"

 

The word "Cheddarisation" threw me when I saw it in the title of an article at Off-Guardian, but having read it, it makes sense.

Once, Britain was a landscape of cheese. There were hundreds of distinct regional varieties, each rooted in a particular place and shaped by local conditions and practices.

These cheeses were not interchangeable. They reflected differences in soil, pasture, climate and animal breeds. Their characteristics shifted with the seasons. They were products of specific environments and the knowledge of those who worked within them. But that diversity has largely disappeared.

Today, most cheese available through mainstream supply chains is standardised. It is consistent in taste, texture and appearance, regardless of where it is produced. Variation has been minimised with predictability the defining feature.

The turning point came during the Second World War. Faced with the challenge of feeding a population under rationing, the British government intervened in food production through the Ministry of Food. One of its key decisions was to consolidate cheese-making into a single, standardised form: Cheddar.

The rationale was practical. Cheddar was durable, transportable and relatively straightforward to produce at scale. In wartime conditions, these qualities made it suitable for centralised distribution. Efficiency took precedence over diversity.

. . .

What occurred in the British dairy sector can be understood as an early example of a wider process: the replacement of complex, localised systems with simplified, standardised ones. For the purposes of clarity, this process might be described as cheddarisation.

Cheddarisation is not confined to cheese. It refers to a more general pattern in which diversity is reduced in favour of uniformity, and local variation is treated as an obstacle to efficiency. Systems are reorganised so that outputs can be standardised, scaled and controlled ... Once a system is simplified enough to be managed from a central desk, the people within that system lose their ability to act outside of it.

There's more at the link.

Off-Guardian offers a number of articles about what it calls "the anti-human agenda", of which the above article is one example.  Categories include:

War on Food

War on Money

Climate Change

Health Tyranny

There are many interesting discussions under each heading.  Recommended reading.

Peter

I see prison inmates are as determined as ever to "beat the system" - even if it kills them

 

I wasn't surprised to read this article the other day.

When guards at the Cook County Correctional Facility found 57-year-old inmate Thomas Diskin dead, slumped around his cell’s toilet in January 2023, investigators were left scratching their heads: There was no evidence of foul play or a fall that could’ve killed the prisoner.

The only thing out of the norm? Tiny strips of singed paper littered around his cell. 

“I said, ‘We need to test this and find out what’s going on with it,’” Cook County Sheriff’s Office chief of staff Brad Curry recalled about that moment, referring to the paper shreds. 

Eventually, a Pennsylvania lab would confirm that the strips were soaked in a synthetic cannabinoid called Pinaca, which proved lethal when Diskin smoked the paper.

Before authorities could stop it, other inmates were dropping dead under eerily similar circumstances. 

. . .

Guards ... began inspecting every single piece of mail that came into the lockup, looking for stains and discoloration that could indicate synthetic drugs on it, and ramped up random cell searches and surveillance.

But the strips of drug-soaked paper were sometimes so tiny, guards wouldn’t find them — and not even drug-trained police K-9s were able to sniff out the new synthetic cannabinoid they contained, Curry explained. 

. . .

When the mailroom got too hot with scrutiny, smugglers began dousing legal documents in drugs to make it look like they came straight from the courthouse.

They even put it on pages of thick books that came to the prison packaged as if they’d been sent straight from Amazon or a local bookstore. 

Just one 8×11 piece of paper full of the drugs could run up to $10,000 — a price tag apparently high enough to turn the heads of several money-hungry staffers — who ended up in cuffs for smuggling it to inmates, according to Curry.

There's more at the link.

Drug dealers have a huge financial incentive to get drugs into prisons, because security precautions make it much harder to get them to their customers.  Prices are thus often five to ten times more than "on the street", and sometimes - such as during a prolonged security lockdown - a lot more than that.

When I worked as a prison chaplain, one of our biggest headaches was the misuse of religious services materials by inmates and dealers trying to smuggle drugs inside through the chapel.  Bibles with certain pages soaked in drug solutions, then dried out;  "incense" that was nothing but (often very highly concentrated) drug powder;  bottles of liquid drug concentrate concealed inside statues or within niches carved out of crosses before they were assembled;  the list was endless, and was always expanding.  Many of us said that if the inmates we supervised would put one-tenth as much effort into hard, honest work as they did into illegal activities, they'd all be millionaires.  We had to institute a policy that religious goods could only be sent direct from the supplier (whom we had to approve beforehand) to the prison, without going through any other person, even the inmate's family.  That was the only way we could keep the problem within manageable proportions.

Even that wasn't foolproof, because some suppliers are not what they appear to be at first glance.  One of my favorite examples was the group of Rastafarian inmates who persuaded a relatively new prison staffer that they wanted to order some "holy oil of anointing" for their religious ceremonies.  She authorized the purchase, and a few days later happened to innocently mention it to a senior corrections officer.  He beetled his brows at her and issued special instructions to the Receiving Department.  When the "holy oil" arrived, it was sequestered until it could be tested.  Needless to say, it was high-test cannabis oil - doubtless of deep religious significance to Rastafarians, but not exactly in line with prison security regulations.  Police at the place of origin were tipped off, and they proceeded to take a deep and abiding interest in the supplier (to his subsequent profound unhappiness).

So, this most recent episode, as reported above, doesn't surprise me at all.  "Criminals gonna criminal", as I've heard more than one corrections officer put it;  and behind bars, they have all the time in the world to figure out new ways to "stick it to the man" and get around, over, under or through security precautions and procedures.  If they succeed, for a time their reputation in the prison will soar.  If they fail, the other inmates will have a good laugh at their expense - then everyone will try even harder to get away with it next time.

Prison work is anything but boring.  (Those who've read my memoir of prison ministry will recall Sam the Sex God, who had no need of illicit drugs to earn an automatic entry into the "anything but boring" category!)

Peter

So much for "unbreakable" codes...

 

Elon Musk dropped a bomb on the cryptocurrency market when he highlighted the impact of Google's recent announcement about the impact of quantum computing.

Elon Musk has added his voice to fears sparked by Google dramatically bringing forward its quantum computing timeline, putting almost $500 billion worth of bitcoin at risk.

"On the plus side, if you forgot the password to your wallet, it will be accessible in the future," Musk posted to X alongside a “conversation” with Musk’s Grok chatbot that said post-quantum migration for cryptocurrencies “is urgent now.”

Musk was responding to venture capitalist Max Reiff who summarized Google’s research as, “basically saying: ‘We’ve cut the quantum resources needed to break bitcoin’s encryption by 20x. We can now break it. We can prove it. We’re just not going to tell you how. We’ve slowed down research to give crypto a chance. You have until 2029 to figure out a solution. Good luck.’”

. . .

Earlier this week, Google’s Quantum AI team warned in a paper that the number of qubits required to break the cryptography protecting bitcoin and ethereum wallets is potentially as much as 20-fold lower than previous estimates.

“We’re setting a timeline for post-quantum cryptography migration to 2029,” Google’s vice president of security engineering Heather Adkins wrote in a blog post. "Quantum computers will pose a significant threat to current cryptographic standards, and specifically to encryption and digital signatures."

Venture capitalist Nic Carter, who has been sounding the alarm on quantum computing’s threat to crypto since last year, compared the quantum threat to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret U.S. government program that led to the development of nuclear weapons.

There's more at the link.

This is serious enough when it comes to cryptocurrency - any cryptocurrency.  There are no pieces of paper changing hands in cryptocurrency transactions.  It's all done electronically, with one's cryptocurrency holdings being held in an electronic "wallet" with a passcode to access them.  Until now, that passcode has been considered very secure in the face of current decoding/decryption technology.  However, quantum computers can tackle the decryption problem many orders of magnitude faster than present computers.  Once they're on the market, much that is cryptologically "secure" today will no longer be so.

Now, apply that to any other codes, cyphers, etc.  Literally any secret message at all will be subject to cryptological analysis and attack.  Top secret military signals, inter-bank communications about economic activity, diplomatic messages - any and all of them that use current encryption technology will be vulnerable.  Many believe that major actors in the field are already storing every encrypted message they can intercept, even if they can't read them, because when they can read them (with the aid of quantum computers) in a few years' time, they'll be a gold mine of historical information that can be used to analyze current events and predict future decisions.  Even so-called "one-time pad" or OTP encryption - seen until now as the only truly unbreakable code, provided that all requirements for their creation and use are strictly observed - won't be as secure if quantum computers can identify any failure to meet one or more requirements, and use that weakness to break into the code.  (However, quantum key distribution and other new technologies may step up to make the OTP even more secure.)

If Google's prediction is correct, a great deal that is now secret won't be for much longer.  That might be catastrophic in many ways.  On the other hand, James Howells might be happy at last!  He's the man who threw away a computer hard drive containing the key to a cryptocurrency wallet containing (he claims) about US $700 million in Bitcoin.  If he can recall the address of the wallet, the new quantum decryption technology might let him reclaim its contents . . . but only if someone else doesn't remember his story and get there ahead of him, locating the wallet, decrypting its key, and making off with the Bitcoin first!

Peter

About those "donut" spare tires and wheels...

 

It seems that a lot of motorists never think much about the space-saver spare tires fitted to many modern vehicles, and abuse them far beyond their design limits when they use them.  I learned that when I went to a local tire dealer to replace my twelve-year-old donut tire, which was showing signs of oxidization as the rubber perished.

According to the dealer, any tire is supposed to be replaced after nine to ten years on the wheel, including donut spare tires.  The problem is that so many spare tires are mounted underneath the vehicle, where they're hard to see, that they don't even get their pressure topped up, much less inspected for wear.  People seem to forget they exist.  The assistant dealing with my car said that he's had several incidents where vehicle owners had a flat and tried to put on their spare, only to find it was as flat as a pancake.  To make matters worse, some of them then tried to repair their spare tires using cans of tire sealant refill, sold at many auto dealers and supermarkets.  Trouble is, those cans are designed to pressurize full-size tires, not a donut spare with its much smaller internal volume;  so they inflate the latter too much, which - given perished rubber or weak spots - can rupture again almost immediately.

Another problem is that regular car wheels are manufactured, reinforced and stressed to handle forces such as acceleration, cornering, minor bumps and potholes, etc.  On the other hand, donut spare wheels are produced by simply stamping the wheel out of sheet metal.  They're not designed for extreme use.  The vehicle manufacturers warn buyers about that, recommending a maximum speed of 50 mph and maximum distance of not more than 50 miles.  In other words, the donut spare is designed to get the vehicle to a place where it can be repaired, and no further.  However, many drivers seem to regard them as interchangeable with the "main" wheels and tires, using them for days and weeks on end, and running at normal highway speeds.  Inevitably, many donut spares that are abused in that fashion will fail on the wheel, and perhaps cause a serious accident in the process.  Apparently some drivers have even tried to sue the donut spare manufacturer, on the grounds that the wheel and/or tire "failed" or "was defective".  When the facts emerge, and it becomes clear that the spare was abused far beyond its recommended limits, the lawsuit inevitably fails, leaving the luckless motorist to pay the defendant's legal fees.

The final problem I learned about from the dealer was that some (not all) manufacturers may make a given model of vehicle for ten years or more.  They'll order spare wheels and tires in bulk from a supplier, hundreds or thousands at a time, but donut spares are not ordered to a specific wheel and/or tire measurement.  Instead, the overall dimensions of the spare will be specified.  That means a larger wheel diameter with a smaller tire may fit those dimension, or a smaller wheel diameter with a larger tire.  The only common factor will be the spacing and size of the holes for the lug nuts.  It's up to the supplier to send an order that meets the overall dimensions.  The next order, or one from a different supplier, may meet the same overall dimensions, but with different wheel and tire diameters, widths, etc.  Therefore, when ordering a replacement donut spare tire, it's essential to note the measurement of one's existing tire and order an exact size match.  Otherwise, a tire that may be used by some vehicles of that model might be supplied - but it may not fit your specific vehicle's spare wheel.  Tricky!

As you can tell, I learned a lot.  The dealer has ordered my new spare tire, and it'll be here within a couple of days.  I'm looking forward to being a bit better equipped, for safety's sake.

Peter

Will the Iran conflict draw in other nations? It's beginning to look likely...

 

We've heard rumors that Kurds in other Middle Eastern nations - Iraq, Syria and even possibly Turkey - may support Iranian Kurds if they stage an uprising to make their enclave independent of Iran.  Some fear that's a pipe dream that will never materialize (see, for example, this article from the Daily Telegraph).  Others think there's more to it.  In particular, Larry Lambert (who blogs at Virtual Mirage) has been to Iraqi Kurdistan recently, and is an adviser to its leaders (see his detailed background article for more information).  In a comment to a recent article by Lawdog, he had this to say.

I've been to Kurdistan, spoken with the Barzanis within the year, and worked there, so there is credibility to the extent that my observations are valid. I didn't travel to Iran to meet with the Iranian Kurds. As you point out, all of the Kurdish regions in Syria, Turkey, Barzani and Talibani in Iraq, and the Kurds in Iran have different political bents and different tribal affiliations. Some are hardcore opium growers and marketers, some have more oil, and in all cases, they are "Assyrians" culturally, which separates them from Arabs and Persians. Israel gets along with the Kurds more than just in an enemy of my enemy framework.

I'm certain that the Trump Administration promised the Kurds their "freedom" in exchange for "boots on the ground." Having run with them recently, that is the promise that would turn the trick. The US forces recently withdrawn from Syria were redeployed to Erbil to backfill for the Peshmerga who had deployed. The huge base in Erbil rarely makes the news, but it is significant, and the just-opened US Consulate in Erbil is the largest in the world.

. . .

... an open US recognition of a Kurdish state as free and independent will drop a turd in the punch.

There's more at the link.

So, it appears to be more than a remote possibility that Iranian Kurds, probably supported to a certain extent by Kurds from across the Middle East, may indeed rise up against the Iranian government.  What makes this even more likely are developments in Azerbaijan, on Iran's northern border.  The BBC reports:

Azerbaijan has said it is pulling its diplomatic staff out of Iran after it accused Iran of launching four drones across the border into the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan ... Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev condemned the "act of terror", demanding an explanation and apology from Tehran.

On Friday he went further, announcing the withdrawal of staff from Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran and consulate in Tabriz "for their own safety", and state media said the military had been placed on maximum combat readiness.

Aliyev also touched on Iran's ethnic Azerbaijani population on Thursday - a sensitive subject for Tehran ... his anger went beyond words, saying that "independent Azerbaijan is a place of hope for Azerbaijanis living in Iran".

Baku has long avoided this line because of how sensitive it is for Tehran.

Iran is home to an estimated 20-25 million ethnic Azeris, who make up its largest minority group and are concentrated in the north-west along the Azerbaijan border.

The Islamic Republic has consistently regarded their identity and political affiliations as issues of utmost sensitivity. Tehran views any notion of Azerbaijani identity extending beyond its borders as a potential challenge to internal unity.

Aliyev has rarely spoken about Iranian Azeris in such explicitly aspirational terms and doing so now appears to be a calculated move.

. . .

[Iranian Azeris] are also a politically significant community. This week the exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has been urging Iranian Azerbaijanis, among other ethnic minorities, to rise up against the regime.

. . .

Despite their shared Shia Muslim identity, Iran and Azerbaijan have grown apart politically, and tensions worsened after Azerbaijan's military victories in the 2020 and 2023 Karabakh wars, which were helped by Turkish and Israeli-made weapons.

Iran views Baku's close defence partnership with Israel as a serious threat.

Iranian officials and media have repeatedly accused Azerbaijan of helping Israeli intelligence operate along Iran's northern frontier - claims Azerbaijan denies.

Azerbaijan's ties with Israel extend beyond security. Israel relies heavily on Azerbaijani oil, and the two countries maintain close political and intelligence co-operation.

For Tehran, this collaboration is at the centre of its suspicion.

Azerbaijan, for its part, has long resented Iran's political and military support for neighbouring Armenia, seeing it as direct interference in a conflict central to its own security.

That history of mistrust is an important backdrop to Thursday's escalation, shaping how Baku interprets every move coming from Tehran.

. . .

Aliyev's decision to talk openly of Azerbaijan being a "place of hope" for Iranian Azeris introduces a new and potentially unpredictable element.

Aliyev has pointed out to Tehran that he was the sole foreign leader to visit any Iranian embassy to express condolences following the killing of Khamenei, and that he personally responded to a request to help evacuate Iranian embassy staff from Lebanon.

Now, he says, Iran has repaid those gestures with drone strikes on Azerbaijani territory, something he views as a deep betrayal.

Again, more at the link.

The Associated Press added more details.

President Ilham Aliyev accused Iran of carrying out “a groundless act of terror and aggression,” and said his military has been told to prepare and implement retaliatory measures. The Caspian Sea nation halted truck traffic across the nearly 700-kilometer (over 400-mile) border with Iran.

. . .

[Aliyev] said Azerbaijan’s military has been instructed “to prepare and implement retaliatory measures.”

The Defense Ministry vowed that Iran’s “attacks will not go unanswered,” adding it was preparing the “necessary response” to protect “the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country, ensure the safety of civilians and civilian infrastructure.” It didn’t elaborate.

Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan “is not participating in operations against Iran -– neither previously nor this time -– and will not do so.”

He added: “We have neither interest in conducting any operations against neighboring countries, nor does our policy allow it.”

More at the link.

I need hardly point out that "not participating in operations against Iran" doesn't exactly square with the Azerbaijani military's being "instructed to prepare and implement retaliatory measures".  Cognitive dissonance, much?

Furthermore, if Iranian Kurds rise up against the government, consider what Iranian Azeris might do.  After all, many of their ethnic leaders have been oppressed by the Iranian government, including imprisonment, harassment, censorship and other measures.  Regardless of what the Azerbaijan government does, perhaps some Iranian Azeris might be inspired by a Kurdish uprising to launch one of their own;  and if they do, can Azerbaijan - which regards itself as the homeland and leader of all Azeris - stand idly by and do nothing, thereby potentially threatening its self-proclaimed ethnic leadership?

Finally, note that US Vice-President Vance is currently visiting both Armenia and Azerbaijan, two nations that recently fought a war with each other and are still at daggers drawn.  If the threat of renewed hostilities between them can be negotiated away, or at least reduced, that will allow Azerbaijan to focus its attention - and its military - elsewhere . . . towards Iran, perhaps?  Might Vice-President Vance be discussing that matter in suitably diplomatic language?

So, the US appears to be encouraging an uprising by Iran's Kurds, and Azerbaijan is making nice with Israel and the USA - both allied with each other against Iran - in the face of Iranian terrorism and suppression of its large Azeri population.  If both subsets of Iran's people were to rise up and support each other, probably - almost certainly - with military support from the USA and Israel, what would this mean to Iran?  It would become a three-sided onslaught against that nation.  Could the current regime there survive that?

I'm speculating, of course:  but if one looks at the news articles and commentary above, and reads between the lines, and puts two and two together, the picture that emerges is one that should make the Iranian government very worried indeed.  At least, that's the way I see it.

Peter

Ukraine's rapid weapons development example is spreading fast

 

Ukraine has become well-known for its innovations in drone warfare, particularly its ability to design, develop, test and produce new models in a few months.  This means Ukraine can counter Russian innovation very quickly, forcing Russia to keep on developing replacements.  The old weapons cycle of replacing equipment every year or two is now - in some cases quite literally - replacing them every month or two.

It looks like American manufacturers are beginning to get the message.  Case in point:  a prototype of a new lightweight assault drone that was developed and built from scratch in 71 days.

U.S. Defense technology firms Divergent Technologies and Mach Industries unveiled a new autonomous strike aircraft prototype in Los Angeles on February 17.

The aircraft, called Venom, moved from concept to flight readiness in just 71 days, or about 10 weeks. The companies say the rapid timeline shows how digital manufacturing and modular engineering can shrink development cycles that traditionally take years.

The prototype was built as a flight demonstration platform. It is designed to prove that defense hardware can go from initial design to operational prototype much faster using software-driven engineering and advanced production systems.

. . .

Instead of building wings, fuselage sections, skins, and control surfaces as separate multi-part assemblies, it produced large monolithic structures. That reduced overall part counts and simplified production workflows. Fewer parts mean fewer fasteners, fewer failure points, and faster assembly.

According to the companies, this process compresses production timelines while maintaining structural integrity. The goal is to create aerospace-grade hardware at a pace closer to software development cycles.

There's more at the link.

This gets even more interesting when we recall that over the past few years, the US military has developed containerized additive manufacturing (so-called "3D printing") facilities that can be deployed along with military units, including infantry or armor brigades, naval ships, etc.  Furthermore, with modern high-bandwidth satellite communications facilities, detailed design and manufacturing blueprints and instructions can be distributed from the manufacturer to those field units, built and tested under operational conditions, and feedback and suggested improvements sent back to the manufacturer, in literally hours or days.  The advent of modern AI systems means that the process can be sped up by an unknown, but undoubtedly significant factor, meaning that the "loop" of design-build-test-evaluate-redesign can be drastically shortened.  Given an adequate basic design, the ten-week process described above might be reduced to no more than two or three weeks.  One side can have a counter to a new enemy technique or weapon almost before the latter has been fully deployed.

We're only at the start of this revolutionizing of at least some military development and manufacturing processes.  It's going to become much more widespread, very quickly - and in the process it will solve a number of problems that have plagued armed forces for literally centuries.  Want an example?  Try the under-development Red Wolf cruise missile, small enough to be fired from Marine Corps helicopters and modified agricultural aircraft, enabling those platforms to reach out several hundred miles with pinpoint accuracy.  Variations on that theme are being developed right now using similar technology, and should cost considerably less than currently-deployed equivalents.

Who knows where this will end up?

Peter

A long overdue update to legacy computer software?

 

Way back when, in the 1970's and 1980's, I programmed computers in COBOL (among other languages).  COBOL, or Common Business Oriented Language, ruled the commercial computing world back then, with millions upon millions of lines of code written every year.  Many of the older, so-called "legacy" systems that are the computing backbone of large businesses were written back then, and have been maintained and updated (with greater and greater difficulty) ever since.

I'll give you a brief example.  In the early 1980's I wrote the so-called "price book" program for a big oil company in South Africa.  This program calculated the current price for every single product they sold - something like 4,000 different items, at the time.  I wanted to make it modular, with a separate program for every major group of products, to simplify maintenance and reduce the amount of time it would take to update the thing.  I was told that would not be acceptable:  I had to write a single monolithic program, calling in sub-programs and sub-routines whenever needed for specific product groups.  I did as instructed, and produced a program with several thousand lines of code.  I had to file detailed work flow diagrams for each major product section, showing which routines were called from outside and which of those routines served multiple product sections, so that a modification to one of the latter might affect one or more of the others (all of which cross-references had to be tested after every modification).  I warned at the time that this might become a maintenance nightmare, due to its sheer size and the number of modifications and updates that might be required.  I was told to shut up and get on with the job.  I obeyed orders.

When last I checked, some years ago, that price book program had ballooned in size to well over double the original length, and a team of three programmers were kept busy doing nothing but maintenance updates.  So many of the latter came in that one programmer would be finalizing an update and putting it into production, another would be midway through implementing another, and a third programmer would be picking an urgent change order out of the incoming pile to start yet another update.  The various additions, edits, alterations and mutations had added so many odd lines and sections to the coding that my original flow charts were almost unusable.

That's COBOL for you.  It was a very strong, stable business computing language, but it was clunky and maintenance-intensive.  Trouble is, very few people use COBOL today.  The old farts like myself who remember it are mostly retired and dying off, and the youngsters today want to use the "cool stuff" like C++ and other fancy tools.  I'm informed that a skilled, experienced COBOL programmer can almost write his own ticket in data processing today, just to keep the legacy systems running.  I know one formerly retired COBOL senior programmer who was tempted back to work with a package of well over $150K per year.  He smiles all the way to the bank.

That being the case, Anthropic claims to have developed an AI system that can update legacy COBOL systems, convert them into modern coding languages, and replace the old systems with the new.  This means it will have to read and understand COBOL (not always an easy task with rambling, much-modified legacy coding), break it down into more understandable chunks, rewrite each chunk in modern computer languages, test them for accuracy, produce easy-to-understand flow charts or other technical documentation for each of them, and gradually replace all that clunky stuff with modern software.

That ability is very long overdue.  If it works (and I'll want to see lots of evidence of that before trusting its output), mainframe computer manufacturers such as IBM may be drastically affected, because modern codes and languages can run efficiently on much smaller computers.  Modern computer hardware is being optimized for such use:  see heterogeneous computing for more information.  The Apple computer with its M-series chip that I'm using to write this article is just one example.

If you'd told me all those years ago that the COBOL code I was writing would still be in production use over half a century later, I'd have laughed at you.  Guess COBOL and corporate inertia are having the last laugh . . .

Peter

How many infractions? Let me count the ways...

 

From Bill Melugin on X:

DHS announces the ICE arrest of a Liberian illegal alien who they say was working as a Minnesota corrections officer while also being AWOL from the PA National Guard, all while masquerading as a U.S. citizen despite having no legal status in the U.S.

There's more at the link.

I'm tempted to call it American enterprise at its finest, except that there's nothing American about him.  I'd love to follow his paper trails in those various organizations, to see precisely how they all came to let him slip through the cracks.

Peter

Corruption at the top of the health care industry

 

Yesterday we looked at how vaccine manufacturers may be vulnerable to lawsuits, even perhaps criminal charges, following the publication of the Medicare billing database last weekend.  That's not the only example of potential high-level corruption coming out of the COVID debacle.

Eaton Rapids Joe reminds us:

Slowly, ever so slowly, it is starting to leak out that scientists and researchers knew back in 2020 before the vaccines were released that aspirin was the Covid super-drug. Yes, plain, old, garden-variety, low-dose aspirin.

If fact, they knew back in 2007 that aspirin was THE GO TO drug for SARS. SARS is also a corona virus and is a kissing-cousin to Covid-19. 

. . .

The "problem" is that aspirin is a commodity with very, very low profit margins. 

The other "problem" was that emergency certification of vaccines are not allowed if there are other approved therapies. Powerful people had patents for modified-RNA based vaccines. It was in their economic best-interest to squash alternative therapies. It is also likely that they enjoyed basking in the glory of being called "Savior".

This is one of the reasons why I have a very low level of trust in the Deep State. 

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

There's more to it than just aspirin.  The health authorities also cracked down heavily on the prescribing and dispensing of ivermectin (IVM) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat COVID.  In fact, they tried to prevent them being distributed at all, withdrawing stocks and sequestering them - despite both drugs being proven, effective remedies for COVID-like diseases for many years.

As Eaton Rapids Joe points out, the problem was that emergency certification of COVID vaccines was only permissible if there were no other approved, effective treatments.  Given the money to be made from the vaccines, the solution was simple:  remove other effective treatments from the market.  That way, emergency certification could be (and was) given - and the vaccine manufacturers, health authorities, and other beneficiaries earned literally billions of dollars.  The fact that thousands died or suffered ongoing health problems from the vaccines bothered them not at all.

I knew about this at first hand, because I was born and raised in Africa, where IVM and HCQ have been in daily use by millions of people for decades.  The developers of IVM were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2015, and both it and HCQ are on the World Health Organization's Model List of Essential Medicines.  IVM is a remedy for many parasites and fungal infections, while HCQ was developed as an anti-malarial drug;  but both have proven effective against congestive diseases such as SARS or COVID.  In addition, HCQ has proven effective against certain forms of arthritis (I use it to treat spinal arthritis).

Don't be fooled by claims that neither has been proved to be effective against COVID.  That propaganda was hurriedly poured out in torrents by the medical industry during the COVID scare, because they didn't want to upset the money rolling in from their new vaccines.  I'll give you the clearest possible evidence that both worked.  Where are the reports of massive COVID infections and mortalities in Africa?  Even at the height of the scare, there were no such reports, because COVID never spread wildly in Africa.  Why not?  My opinion is that it's because so many Africans - millions of them - were already taking IVM and/or HCQ on a regular basis to treat common infections and diseases on that continent.  They had already built up a "pre-resistance" to COVID because of that, and so did not succumb to it.  Effectively, COVID was stopped before it could get a foothold.  That's my opinion, of course, but I know at first hand how effective those drugs were (and still are) in Africa.  I took them myself for many years.  If there's another explanation, let's hear it.  I'm waiting.

I still keep supplies of IVM and HCQ on hand, because they still work against a wide variety of congestive diseases, viruses, etc.  My wife and I have both felt the beginnings of the current flu bug, or whatever it is, during the past few weeks.  We have a simple solution:  the moment we feel the crud coming on, we take one tablet of IVM and one of HCQ right away, and then alternate them daily until the problem is past.  Neither of us developed full-blown crud, and neither of us felt (light) symptoms for more than 24-48 hours.  We've been doing that for a long time.  I know that "correlation is not causation", but after years of using both drugs in Africa, I'm in no doubt about how useful they are.

There you have it, friends.  If you can't get your hands on IVM or HCQ locally (and the US medical establishment is still pretty firmly against them, for obvious reasons) then I suggest you consider other means of doing so.  Some go to Mexico and patronize local pharmacies, who have no such reservations and don't even require prescriptions.  Some buy online from pharmacies in other countries, which is illegal under US law, so I'm not going to recommend you do that.  Of course not.  IVM can be had in veterinary form in this country (derided by the authorities as "horse dewormer" - but what horse dewormer has won a Nobel Prize?).  The horse dewormer version still works on humans.

Thanks to Eaton Rapids Joe for mentioning aspirin and COVID.  It's a worthwhile reminder.

Peter

Not just an open-source treasure hunt, but a COVID vaccine problem supersource

 

By now I'm sure readers are aware that last weekend, the Department of Health and Human Services released an open-source 11GB file containing every single Medicare claim from 2018 to 2024 - not individual patient diagnoses and private information, but every charge claimed against Medicare for every procedure by every provider.  It's a gold mine of information that may lead to literal gold mines for those who find evidence of fraud and abuse in the data.  As Jeff Childers pointed out:

This is clearly not just a DOGE project. It is a coordinated effort across the Trump Administration. For example, timed with the release of the data, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a related new program. Not only have they open-sourced the research, but they have gamified it. Bessent said Treasury was setting up a website for people to report Medicare fraud— and they’ll get up to 30% of whatever’s fined and recovered.

If the $1 trillion fraud estimate is even half right, the government just turned fraud detection into the world’s largest treasure hunt. Some kid in a bedroom with a laptop, a chatbot, and a case of energy drinks might make more money this year than most hedge fund managers. Dog the Bounty Hunter: Fraud Edition is coming soon, to a laptop near you.

Social media quickly began lighting up across the board. Within hours of the data release, citizen analysts had started flagging facilities billing for physically impossible numbers of procedures, clinics with addresses at residential apartments diagnosing hundreds of children with autism per month, and at least one provider that seems to have performed more Medicaid services than there are actual humans in its zip code.

However, the biggest aspect of this data treasure trove might be the unveiling, at long last, of the problems caused by COVID vaccines.

While most folks were off and running hunting for fraud bounties, the covid warriors instantly saw the other, riper fruit hanging higher up in the HHS data’s branches ... And now they have AI to help crunch the numbers, build spreadsheets, put up websites, and suggest, “Would you like me to draft the lawsuit?”

Since the agency was birthed by progressive geniuses in the Carter Administration, HHS has diligently protected the privacy of Big Pharma by keeping a death-grip on Americans’ health data. Even though, during the exact same period, we got fatter by the minute, our health got worse and worse, and we spent more and more trillions on healthcare. It’s none of your business because privacy. Science! Trust the experts! Shut up!

Now, taking the corporate media, pharma, and the political establishment completely by surprise, the data is suddenly out there. The VAERS data looked awful, but they wriggled out of that trap by sneering that the adverse event-reporting system —the system they created— was unreliable. But now we have a second data set— and it includes vaccination records.

What happens when the HHS data confirms the VAERS data? What will they say then?

I don’t say this lightly: this historic HHS data release could be even bigger than the Epstein files.

There's more at the link.

I think he's spot on.  Anyone and everyone who's been affected by problems after receiving the COVID vaccine, or who's lost a relative or friend to vaccine-related issues, can now find out for certain whether there's any correlation between that vaccination and subsequent medical issues, as revealed by what care was billed, when, and for how long.  With that information on hand, lawsuits for medical negligence and/or malfeasance of any kind by the vaccine manufacturers become more than just a theoretical possibility.  They become almost a certainty.

Cue the vaccine manufacturers suddenly lobbying Congress to pass a law granting them retroactive immunity from lawsuits over negligence and malfeasance - immunity they do not have under the existing vaccine legislation.

I wonder how many ambulance chasers lawyers are suddenly rubbing their hands together with glee as they cue up their legal AI systems and turn them loose on the new data?

Peter

The recoil must have been spectacular!!!

 

I've known of the Colt 1855 Sidehammer revolver shotgun for years.  It was used (in the rifle version) by some sharpshooter units early in the Civil War, and sold reasonably well on the frontier and out West.  What I didn't know is that some unknown pioneer or trooper decided he wanted his Sidehammer to be somewhat more portable and accessible.  Well, "portable" is relative for a gun well over a foot long and weighing more than 6 pounds . . . but I'd say he succeeded.

If he tried to fire that beast one-handed from the back of a galloping horse, I suspect it would have been really hard to hold onto it.  The recoil must have been pretty snappy, to put it mildly!  Nevertheless, given the opportunity to modify a modern replica Sidehammer into that configuration, I'd kinda like to try it.  Typical 10ga. shotguns of the period used up to 1.5 to 2 drams of powder behind up to 1.5 ounces of lead shot.  The Sidehammer's chambers were shorter than sporting guns, so I daresay it wouldn't have used the top end of those ranges, but even so, I suspect it had a real kick on both ends.

Peter

More useful information about your home in extreme cold

 

Karl Denninger has written extensively about the effect of extreme cold on your home's plumbing, heating problems, and related issues.  His article is too long to excerpt here, so click over to his place and read it for yourself.  Very interesting and useful information.

Stay warm, friends.

Peter