SorellaLaBefana
SorellaLaBefana's JournalFirst Dog on The Moon: Nails it Again
with Raccoons of The Resistance
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/25/how-did-we-end-up-in-a-world-where-trump-wanders-about-doing-whatever-he-wants-and-nobody-is-shocked
And the Grauniad needs our help:
Nonetheless, the far-right forces that threaten democracy have not been vanquished. Trump’s announcement of his third run for the presidency heralds a new season of inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation. Abortion rights have been wiped out in much of the country. The supreme court is enforcing its own agenda – often in opposition to public opinion. It would be a mistake to unnecessarily amplify Trump’s campaign; it would also be a mistake to ignore it entirely.
Grauniad? Amusing histroy of The Guardian newspaper
Trolling For Good
Posting just in case you've not yet come across these marvelous artworks in unexpected settings
[link:https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/danish-artist-hides-enormous-trolls-deep-in-western-australia-look/|]
Mag 5.3 Texas earthquake yesterday. YAWN. What is interesting, if not amusing, is the reporting
[link:https://weather.com/news/news/2022-11-16-texas-earthquake-el-paso-menton-pecos|]
...quake was centered near the town of Mentone, and was felt as far away as El Paso, about 170 miles to the west, according to the El Paso Times.
Mentone is in Loving County, which in 2021 had a population of 57 people...
Velasco [UT El Paso professor] said the (sic) thinks deep water injections for fracking may have caused the earthquake even though it occurred along a fault line....
There was a previous 5.0 quake in 2020. Velasco went on to say:
"Research had shown that that earthquake in 2020 was likely the result of deep water injection which is a byproduct of fracking, but not fracking itself," Velasco told the station. “Right now what’s going on is that there is a large volume of water that had been injected in west Texas and that seems to be the root cause of some of these earthquakes in west Texas."
Doublethink and Doublespeak are alive and well here in the Lone Star!
This was the only article I found which actually used the F-word. Certainly, none of the Texas papers did. But note what was so bizarrely stated: the earthquake was "... likely the result of deep water injection which is a byproduct of fracking, but not fracking itself"
Really? Webster's defines fracking as "the injection of fluid into shale beds at high pressure in order to free up petroleum resources"
You might hope that a UT professor would know this? Hook'em Horns!
Leonardo Da Vinci's Bridge(s)
A group at MIT has built a scale model of the (rejected) bridge design which Leonardo Da Vinci proposed to bridge the Golden Horn about 500 years ago.
The MIT folk point out how many advanced design features it had, and postulate that had it been built it would have changed civil engineering. A variant of such a bridge was built by the Norwegians in 2001
[link:https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/snow-and-davinci-bridge-picture-id959344070?k=20&m=959344070&s=170667a&w=0&h=XYd6S-gPkG1GMnnKFGBKWybMkdrlCnH-1Ugn7CIOsRA=|]
They make no mention of several other of Da Vinci's bridge designs which, it seems to this non-engineer, are also astounding.
One was a bridge which was self-supporting during construction, and which several people have built
Another was for a parabolic swing bridge
[link:
|]
Brilliant, was our Leo!
Astounding Finnish Sand Battery (Should have posted this HERE!)
But posted in Science. Suppose it works in either place.
...The Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery. Fully enclosed in a 7m (23ft)-high steel container, the battery con-sists of 100 tonnes of low-grade builders' sand, two district heating pipes and a fan. The sand becomes a battery after it is heated up to 600C using electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels in Finland, brought by Vatajankoski, the owners of the power plant.
The renewable energy powers a resistance heater which heats up the air inside the sand. Inside the battery, this hot air is circulated by a fan around the sand through heat exchange pipes.
Thick insulation surrounds the sand, keeping the temperature inside the battery at 600C (1,112F), even when it is freezing outside. "We don't want to lose any heat; the average winter temperature is below 0C (32F) in Kankanpää," says Ville Kivioja, lead scientist at Polar Night Energy, who monitors the battery's performance online...
Eronen says that with currently available technology the process of converting heat back into electricity only has an efficiency rate of 30%. But he doesn't view that as a major issue. "In a cold country like Finland we're dumping 70% of the heat that remains after conversion on the district heating networks that needs a supply of heat almost all the time," he says.
BBC News
Astounding Finnish Sand Battery
...The Vatajankoski power plant is home to the world's first commercial-scale sand battery. Fully enclosed in a 7m (23ft)-high steel container, the battery con-sists of 100 tonnes of low-grade builders' sand, two district heating pipes and a fan. The sand becomes a battery after it is heated up to 600C using electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels in Finland, brought by Vatajankoski, the owners of the power plant.
The renewable energy powers a resistance heater which heats up the air inside the sand. Inside the battery, this hot air is circulated by a fan around the sand through heat exchange pipes.
Thick insulation surrounds the sand, keeping the temperature inside the battery at 600C (1,112F), even when it is freezing outside. "We don't want to lose any heat; the average winter temperature is below 0C (32F) in Kankanpää," says Ville Kivioja, lead scientist at Polar Night Energy, who monitors the battery's per-formance online...
Eronen says that with currently available technology the process of converting heat back into electricity only has an efficiency rate of 30%. But he doesn't view that as a major issue. "In a cold country like Finland we're dumping 70% of the heat that remains after conversion on the district heating networks that needs a supply of heat almost all the time," he says.
From the BBC
This is one of the few truly innovative ideas to appear on how energy can be stored with a low adverse environmental impact.
Beer Hall Putsch: Let us hope Hitler's failure on this day foretells that of his student 93 years on
Because, unlike Hitler, Trump will only get one shot at establishing a dictatorship
Please vote.
I waited in line for 1.5 hours, and feel it time well spent though I am in a Red-Red state where HR has no chance: We still need to stand up for her, and for democracy.
Shocking moment a Tennessee police officer chokes unresisting college student until he is UNCONSCIOU
Source: Mail (UK)
A photographer on the scene took a series of photos of a deputy choking a student into unconsciousness
The student did not resist arrest, says the photographer
He was complying with officers when the officer began to choke him
Two other officers were behind the student, handcuffing him
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2614386/Tennessee-police-photographed-choking-unresisting-college-student-passes-out.html
Have seen nothing in US news about this.
Hypnotically Peaceful, endlessly Fascinating.
Dear All,
Look closely, and you can see the mountain passes.
Peace.
http://hint.fm/wind/
New Afghanistan law to silence victims of violence against women
Source: Manchester Guardian
A new Afghan law will allow men to attack their wives, children and sisters without fear of judicial punishment, undoing years of slow progress in tackling violence in a country blighted by so-called "honour" killings, forced marriage and vicious domestic abuse.
The small but significant change to Afghanistan's criminal prosecution code bans relatives of an accused person from testifying against them. Most violence against women in Afghanistan is within the family, so the law – passed by parliament but awaiting the signature of the president, Hamid Karzai – will effectively silence victims as well as most potential witnesses to their suffering.
"It is a travesty this is happening," said Manizha Naderi, director of the charity and campaign group Women for Afghan Women. "It will make it impossible to prosecute cases of violence against women … The most vulnerable people won't get justice now."
<snip>
"Honour" killings by fathers and brothers who disapprove of a woman's behaviour would be almost impossible to punish. Forced marriage and the sale or trading of daughters to end feuds or settle debt would also be largely beyond the control of the law in a country where the prosecution of abuse is already rare.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/afghanistan-law-victims-violence-women
Some mornings, I wonder what century I have awoken in.
I fear that this will only give additional encouragement to the right-wing forces within our own country which seek to destroy the human rights of women.
שלום
Profile Information
Member since: Tue Dec 24, 2013, 09:33 AMNumber of posts: 162