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Tuesday, September 26, 2017

September 26, 2017 -- A Quick Run Around the Web

"'CO2 Overestimated 50%' | The Authors Respond"--Suspicious Observers (4-1/2 min.). More discussion on the top climate scientists having overestimated the impact of CO2.


          Technically, the traditional white potato contains all the essential amino acids you need to build proteins, repair cells, and fight diseases. And eating just five of them a day would get you there. However, if you sustained on white potatoes alone, you would eventually run into vitamin and mineral deficiencies. That's where sweet potatoes come in. Including these orangey ones in the mix—technically, they belong to a different taxonomic family than white potatoes—increases the likelihood that the potato consumer will get their recommended daily dose of Vitamin A, the organic compound in carrots that your mom told you could make you see in the dark, and Vitamin E. No one on a diet of sweet potatoes and white potatoes would get scurvy, a famously horrible disease that happens due to a lack of Vitamin C and causes the victim’s teeth to fall out.
              Even with this combo, you'll still need to eat a lot of spuds before you intake the right levels of everything. Consuming five potatoes would give you all the essential amino acids you need to build proteins, repair cells, and fight diseases. But unless you ate 34 sweet potatoes a day, or 84 white potatoes, you would eventually run into a calcium deficiency. You would also need 25 white potatoes a day to get the recommended amount of protein. Soybeans have more protein and calcium—but they don’t have any Vitamin E or beta-carotene.
      Also:
               For all of 2016, Andrew Taylor ate only potatoes. There were a few caveats: He ate both white potatoes and sweet ones, and sometimes mixed in soymilk, tomato sauce, salt and herbs. He also took B12 supplements. 
          Throw in some eggs (including grinding the shells up to consume for calcium) and you might have everything you need.
          • "What’s the difference between AKs produced in different countries?"--The Firearms Blog. Kalashnikov Concern answers a few questions about its licensing and what it means as far as quality and meeting specifications.
          • "Your survival depends on water"--Backwoods Home Magazine. Discussion of water, including problems in a grid-down/post-disaster situation, treating water, and ideas on conserving water. The author also gives some instructions on using bleach to disinfect water (note that this doesn't remove chemicals or minerals that might be in the water):
            Amounts of bleach for different containers:
            • quart bottle: 4 drops of bleach
            • 2-liter soda bottle: 10 drops of bleach
            • 1-gallon jug: 16 drops of bleach (... tsp.)
            • 2-gallon cooler: 32 drops of bleach (¼ tsp.)
            • 5-gallon bottle: 1 teaspoon of bleach
              Unlike old-time iodine water purification (tasted awful and didn’t kill some organisms), chlorine dioxide tablets and water treatment drops effectively remove the worst viruses and bacteria without leaving an unpleasant aftertaste. Chlorine dioxide tablets and liquid drops are highly effective and affordable " on average, they cost between 50 and 75 cents. Vacuum-sealed tablets are shelf-stable for four years, making them an excellent choice for emergency storage. Chlorine dioxide kills giardia in 30 minutes and the more stubborn cryptosporidium in four hours. Potable Aqua, Aquamira, and Katadyn MicroPur are a few of brands that manufacture water purification tablets and chlorine dioxide drops. One pack of 30 tablets usually costs less than $15.
                         On the grand Spenglerian curve of civilizations, Trump is not our analogue for Augustus (all of the interenet’s talk of “the God-Emperor” aside). He is not our Julius Caesar. He is unlikely to be our Sulla. But (whether or not he ends up being physically assassinated), he just might be our Gracchae – the first of a series of populist reformers who take on a powerful and entrenched system, with both sides using increasing levels of force, until finally that system topples, keeping Plato’s perfect record of being right on these matters intact. This toppling of the system may come in the form of a single authoritarian figure taking power in Washington, or in the breakup of the republic into smaller entities that will have mixed fates (some will find good authoritarian leaders and survive; others will collapse), but either way, inevitability is catching up to the current system.
                             It is worth here noting that the Spenglerian curve that the West is on has always run more quickly than that which the Greco-Roman civilization traveled, meaning that what took a hundred years to happen for them may take a considerably shorter time for us. So if you haven’t bought one of those AR-15s already, now might be a good time. I don’t know when you might need it, but I now believe that day will come a lot sooner than I believed it would back in 1994.
                    On the other hand, as I've noted before, Spengler believed that the West would reach the age of Caesarism about the year 2000. 
                              Several of North Korea’s most important nuclear weapons development sites and ballistic missile test facilities are located in its northeastern quadrant. Aircraft flying east of North Korea and north of the DMZ could quickly strike those facilities.
                                The flight path [of the September 23 show of force] was the key diplomatic message. The U.S. and its allies have weapons that can approach and attack those facilities from any direction (examples include cruise missiles and drone-delivered munitions). However, the facilities in the northeast are definitely vulnerable to an attack from the sea, particularly with air and sea delivered stand-off weapons.
                          He goes on to note:
                                    North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs may have advanced beyond the point where economic strangulation can halt them, no matter how total the embargo.
                                      If that’s the case, then the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience” failed utterly, and Bill Clinton’s 1994 Agreed Framework was its hideous forerunner.
                                        If North Korea’s weapons programs are beyond the reach of economic strangulation, then it is possible the Kim regime believes it has outfoxed Beijing as well as Washington. Beijing has stepped into a war trap. Keep paying us off, China, Kim Jong Un says, or I’ll start The Big One.
                                  But, as Bay continues, the show of force has rattled Kim Jong Un enough that he has threatened to shoot down U.S. aircraft outside North Korean airspace, which would be an act of war. Bay believes a rattled Kim Jong Un is a weak Kim Jong Un, which may encourage more moderate elements in North Korea to intervene. I would note, however, that North Korea has attacked South Korean ships in the past, and shelled South Korean villages, without any significant reprisal, so Kim may be under the impression that he could get away with doing the same against an American aircraft.
                                             Almost 620,000 gay and bisexual men in the United States were living with HIV in 2014, and 100,000 of these men were not even aware of their infection. 
                                                These men are 100 times more likely to have anal cancer than HIV-negative men who exclusively have sex with women. 
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