A Feigenbaum tree of chaotic behavior?

The above chart is a summary of various hurricane models predicting the future course of Hurricane Rafeal. I got it from an article at Watts Up With That by Kip Hansen, whose cv appears to be a Chaologist, or someone who studies chaos theory. The black spot above Cuba is the 24-hour point for the storm, and the diverging lines thereafter are predictions of its future course by the models.

As you can see, nobody knows. Why it seems almost … chaotic.

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Election oddity

Paper ballots are considered the gold standard of vote counting. Three states in the U.S. use them, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington. Other states claim to use them, but they are not reliable. Some just issue receipts repeating what the voter intended, but offering no guarantee that is what is recorded. Quite a few states offer nothing, just a smile and thank you to the voter, no assurance at all that the vote was even recorded, much less counted.

In the three states mentioned, voters hand-enter their choices on ballots, and the ballots are then run through optical scanners to tally the vote. It is not fool proof, as the scanning software can be corrupt, but the ballots are stored under lock and key for at least 22 months for recounts and perhaps study or statistical sampling. I think that 22 months storage is the law.

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Now it can be told

I am winding down now on my second pass through Frances Stonor Saunders’ The Cultural Cold War, befuddled at how new the book seems new to me even as I read it well in 2019 and even took notes.

My original impressions were of how the art world was affected, with the likes of Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol replacing real artists. Warhol is not mentioned, oddly. Could it be that he is left out due to his transparent nature? His work was hardly worthy of  mention in the circles of real art, yet he stole the show in the 60s and 70s, Wikipedia now calling him “…one of the most important artists of the 20th century.”

(Warhol became prominent due to an obviously staged event, a shooting by a feminist who advocated the elimination of men, Valerie Solanas. Sometimes it takes a fake major event to garner headlines and usher a fake, a charlatan into the public consciousness.)

In Saunders’ tract, Warhol should be as prominent as Pollock or Georgia O’Keefe, but is absent. Odd.

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Jimi Hendrix/Cornel West revisited

Someone linked to this post that I wrote in 2016 this week, and I reread it. I liked what I wrote eight years ago, and stand by it. I think that musician Jimi Hendrix faked his death in 1970 at age 27, and later down the road reappeared as philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual Cornell West.  He has made frequent appearances on Real Time with Bill Maher, appropriate, as Maher was once known as Welsh musician Pete Ham, who faked his death in 1975. You decide. I left the comments intact underneath, 59 of them, all useful.

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See Addendum below on dental comparisons.

for-openingOne of the “zombies” we discovered some time ago was Jimi Hendrix/Cornell West. This particular assertion has created doubt, even within our group of writers here. At least part of that doubt comes from rookie caliber work – I was new at this and easily satisfied once it was established in my head that I had found a match. Consequently, others did not see what I saw, and naturally thought I had reached. I’ve got a lot more experience now, and can maybe do a better job here.

I have redone the Hendrix/West match not with the idea that I needed to prove I was right, but from scratch and letting the photos talk to me. They either convey a match or they do not.

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The Mighty Wurlitzer, Again

I wrote using the title above before, and then became engrossed in other pursuits, mostly having to do with cutting up logs, hauling them up a hill behind our house, splitting the logs and then stacking them. It takes hours and offers so little payback! All that results is a stack of wood for the winter and a savings of perhaps $300, but then, I could pay that $300 and then have the wood dumped in our driveway. I would still have to haul it and stack it.

Why bother do it myself? I have a sense that the amount of work involved is making my sore aching body somehow better.

Enough of that. I want to recount four experiences I have had on this blog with my face splitting experiments. Many years back I learned that human beings develop in many ways, some permanent. One of those permanent ways is the shape of our skulls, which are finalized in our late teens or early twenties.  It does not change thereafter. ( I can recall one person whose head was deformed by ALS so that photo comparisons of him, young and old, could not be done: Stephen Hawking.)

I thought that if I could develop a means by which I could compare faces of supposedly different (or dead) people, or people at different ages, I could uncover a mystery or two. Just as an example, another blogger used humor, splitting my face and placing it next to that of John Candy, claiming we were the same person, by my technique, anyway. 

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The Mighty Wurlitzer

A couple of anecdotes that hopefully, at the end, will tie into this piece, which is based on my reading of Frances Stonor Saunders The Cultural Cold War. They may seem detached, and if you are reading this, I have decided they are useful. Or maybe just interesting.

First, we had a man come to our house recently to clean our wood stove. It’s a long and tedious process that requires that he walk up onto our steep-peaked roof and use various tools which only make sense in light of chimney sweeping. While he was working I asked if he would mind my looking on, as there is always much to learn about the machines and devices in a home and how they work. We talked about a wide range of subjects, including music* and the sign business. While he set the ladder for the roof ascent, I mentioned that my Dad had been in the sign business, and my Mom insisted that he take me with him on summer trips to various Montana outposts. My job was to hold the ladder. I could have been filling shopping bags with Styrofoam for all the help I gave him.

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About those contrails

A while back the subject of contrails (versus chemtrails) came up here, and I knew I had linked to an article on the subject and written a post. But I could not find it anywhere, nor could I find the piece I had linked to. c’est la vie. I know now that the reason I could not find the post was because the word “chemtrail” is not used in it. I searched for “contrail” a couple of days ago, and it popped up, top of the list. Clifford E. Carnicom is the man brought to us by Oregon Matt, and he does not use the term “chemtrail.” He does not want to be lumped with the chemtrail conspiracy crowd, and so goes with “aerosols” and “aerosol crimes”. Contrails, clouds and aerosols are three quite different phenomena. (Note how “conspiracy” is an effective thought control device, its intended purpose, to prevent thinking on any given subject.)

In the comments below from the original post, Oregon Matt links us to an hour-forty-minute video by Carnicom, which I had started watching in 2021 and then lost it along with the post. I will finish watching this weekend. Yippee! It looks riveting. I will reproduce that video at the end of this piece.

Here’s another link, a paper by J. Marvin Herndon, Raymond D. Hoisington and Mark Whiteside called Chemtrails are not Contrails: Radiometric Evidence, published in the Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International, and brought to us by commenter Riccardowa. It is right on target with Carnicom.

https://journaljgeesi.com/index.php/JGEESI/article/view/476/952

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The original:

This post comes to us courtesy of our friend Oregon Matt. It is about contrails. There is math involved, some intimidating formulas presented, but the kind of formulas where all of us who took high school math could solve by inserting values. It’s not terribly difficult, but I don’t expect anyone to go running to the link by Clifford E. Carnicom just to see the formulas.

A little background about me. I have long operated on the assumption that contrails depend on the amount of moisture in the sky. If there’s a lot, then we see long tails behind jets flying over, and if the air is dry the contrails dissipate right away. Also, I assume that in addition to water vapor, the stuff coming out of the end of jet planes also contains nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and other invisible stuff. But according to Carnicom, what we see is virtually 100% water vapor.

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Mathisian? That’s a word?

I have been debating whether or not to link to a critique of the work of Miles Mathis, and have decided to go ahead with it. For one, the tone is respectful, and for another, I don’t have to, nor do I want to participate. I am not going to print the piece here, but rather just link to it with the warning that it is over 7,000 words long. I don’t think too many people want to take on a large reading project without warning. Right, Petra? TimR? (I bring up those two names not to belittle them, but rather because they strike me as two people who would indeed dive in)

As to my own participation, I once allowed a piece to be run here that was not only critical, but disrespectful in the extreme, even hurtful of the man’s feelings. I deeply regret that. When the author left here I took the piece down and I contacted MM, told him what I had done, and also that I could not undo what I had done. I didn’t apologize, as that seemed a bit obsequious, and what good would it do? Done was done. I only decided for myself that I would lay off criticism of MM, permanently. I had not earned the right.

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The Pauline conversion

I was reading this morning the book mentioned in an earlier post, The Cultural Cold War, by Frances Stoner Saunders. I came upon two revelations, one from within the book, the other from without.

First, I stumbled upon the phrase  in CCW, “Pauline Conversion”, and am embarrassed to admit that having been raised Catholic to the nth degree, I did not know what it meant. Who is this “Pauline” I wondered? Is she some goddess of history who has a statue somewhere, like Joan of Arc?

No, stupid. It is who we Catholics called “St. Paul”, aka Paul of Tarsus, a contemporary of the apostles of Jesus and tormentor of Christians, who one day riding a horse was struck by a bolt of light, and thereafter converted to being a follower of Jesus.

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On re-reading the Cultural Cold War

I first read The Cultural Cold War  in 2019. Written by Frances Stonor Saunders, it was highly recommended to his readers by Miles Mathis. I gave my copy away. It is one of those books that should be kept on hand for reference. Saunders is surprisingly (to me) young to have published such a book. She would have been 33 when it was first published in 1999. I am rereading the 2013 edition. (Saunders is currently 58.)

I am only 30 pages into the book. I ordered it while we were in Europe, as the only reading I did over there was of the beach variety, Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin, and The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware. I started reading another book by Ware, The Lying Game, but opted not to finish it as I felt it was going to be very dark and depressing. After exposure to those three books, I longed for substance, not looking down my nose by any means, but rather preferring nonfiction over popular fiction.

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