Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Reason.

“If I knew in 2020 what I know now, we would do a lot differently,” said Fauci in an interview on Monday. “The insidious nature of spread in the community would have been much more of an alarm, and there would have been much, much more stringent restrictions in the sense of very, very heavy encouragement of people to wear masks, physical distancing, what have you.”

He is a foul, loathsome little swine who looks more like a Ferengi instead of a pig.

What he’s saying out loud is that he would push more of the same that didn’t work to do anything positive for the health of America.

But the health of America was never the goal.  The subjugation of America was.  What he really means, but isn’t saying out loud, is that the subjugation didn’t work like they wanted it to, because people began to ignore them.  The science was so bad that even the most idiotic couldn’t ignore the fact that it’s unrelated to health.

Masking and distancing were school-child ideas, never worthy of serious consideration.  Not being taken seriously meant that their goals of mass population control was a failed experiment.

Queue up the next issue.

The title of the idiotic video at CNN is “Supreme Court further erodes the separation between church and state.”

The legacy media, and as for that matter, the cast majority of Americans, really lack any historical understanding of the nation or how and why it was founded.  Quoting R. J. Rushdoony:

“The establishments and settlements in the constituent states were definitely and specifically Christian.  In most states, single or plural establishments prevailed.  Where no church was established, Christianity as such was nonetheless firmly established.  There were religious requirements for citizenship and suffrage, religious oaths, laws prohibiting blasphemy, laws requiring a trinitarian faith, or a firm belief in the infallibility of Scripture, and laws barring unbelievers as witnesses in court.  Court decisions sometimes cited biblical law where civil law did not entirely fit the case.  In many areas, laws against unbelief were on the statute books.  A man could be imprisoned for atheism.”  Rushdoony, “The Nature of the American System.”

It’s absurd to claim that the constitution prohibits a prayer during a public event.  The very ones who signed the constitution were the ones who grew up in, and were part and parcel of, the political system Rushdoony just described.

But then, Americans don’t study history any more.  I made it through American History 101 at Clemson University without learning a single thing about American history.

Source.

Mark Burns in South Carolina, for example, was an early Trump supporter in 2016. He’s an evangelical minister, a conspiracy theorist and pastor at the Harvest Praise & Worship Center. He’s running for Congress in the state’s 4th congressional district, and his platform reads like a grab bag of right-wing ideas:

• Our right to bear arms is INHERENT, given to us by God almighty — NOT by any man;
• If we don’t fix these elections NOW, America will be lost. Without open, honest, transparent elections, no other issue matters;
• Life begins at conception;
• Marriage is defined as between one man and one woman;
• Critical Race Theory is Communist, anti-white Racism;
• Vaccine and mask mandates are medical tyranny, and have no place in America;
• The Pelosi budget opens the door wide open to full-blown communism.

A “grab bag” of right-wing ideas, you say?  It sounds like a reasonable list of things to run on to me.

The Salon writer is aghast at all of this.  Wonder what he would say if he found out I’m a Christian Reconstructionist and read R. J. Rushdoony?

Via WRSA, this discussion was seen.  A few quotes from it, and then some remarks.

he’s yet another member of team “let’s create a state powerful enough to give me everything i want without realizing that such a state is also powerful enough to take everything i have.”

(or worse, knows this full well but presumes that it is he and his who will be wielding the whip hand and doing the taking and determining “the collective good.”)

but his argument is far more revelatory than i suspect he realizes and in it we may see both his incomprehension and the nasty shark smile of a desire to dominate by violence.

note that he cites “society” and “democracy” but not the rights that prevent democracy from devolving into that most vicious and inescapable of tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority.

and one sees glimmers of how chris sees the exercise of political power’s manifestation: to threaten violence to demand that the state do things for you. and this is telling. for the true reason for an armed populace has nothing to do with that. it is, in fact, the precise obverse.

the purpose of an armed populace is to PREVENT the state from doing things to the people against their will.

So far so good, and we can’t find anything with which to disagree.

where chris and many others like him go awry is that they do not understand rights. rights established under free contract may be positive, but just societal rights are always negative.

they state: i possess agency and so long as i am peaceful and do not violate the rights of others to such agency and property i am to be left alone to do as i will. nothing more. (but certainly nothing less)

chris and other big statists like him seek to enshrine into society some set of “positive rights” such as a right to education or to healthcare or to housing.

such rights are always and inevitably antithetical to the actual liberty of a republic because a positive right demands that others perform services or cede property to you whether they wish to or not.

this violates their basic (negative) rights to personal agency.

[ … ]

so here is the thought experiment:

if the rights of the individual are paramount, so must be the individual’s right to protect them.

to argue otherwise is to place the prerogatives of the state above the rights of the people.

and that is tyranny.

try to imagine a situation in which we the people fully cede a monopoly on the capability of effective defense against the state and still retain the ability to exercise our “right and duty” to “throw off such government and provide new guards for their future security.”

what real fundamental argument can one make that the state must have the power to subdue its people by violence and that the citizenry must be prevented from possessing the power to resist such predation?

try to imagine what such a state would look like and how you as a citizen could possibly trust it.

I take him to be a classic libertarian.  He says, “where chris and many others like him go awry is that they do not understand rights. rights established under free contract …”  And neither does the writer, I claim.

The contract is between the people.  Rights are not established in that contract.  Rights are recognized in the covenant, along with stipulations, blessings and curses.  Those curses (setting up a new system of government) are outlined in the very founding document of the country.

The writer makes some legitimate logical points when he observes that we should try to imagine what an all-powerful state would look like and why we should trust it.  However, he goes badly wrong when he says “what real fundamental argument can one make that the state must have the power to subdue its people by violence and that the citizenry must be prevented from possessing the power to resist such predation?”

That’s an easy answer.  The philosophical question of ‘The One and the Many” has been debated for as long as mankind has existed.  Recall the discussions of Parmenides, Socrates and Plato on the state, nature of reality, philosophers as kings, and other related topics.

The writer has no answer except to say that individual liberties are paramount.  We’re left with one side singing “nah nah nah nah boo boo, I’m right and your wrong, and this is my view.”  The other side repeats the song, and we’re back where we started.  Competing world and life views.

I am not a libertarian.  I am a Christian.  I honor the Lordship of Jesus, who is The Christ, the only sovereign of heaven and earth.  Individual liberties are not paramount.  The collective is not paramount.  Only the law-word of God is paramount.

Rights and duties come from the Almighty, and from nowhere else.  They come from God, and God alone.  He is the only sovereign and potentate.

I strongly recommend R. J. Rushdoony’s book “The One and the Many: Studies in the Philosophy of Order and Ultimacy.”  But in lieu of having this at your fingertips (you should order it), here he gives a very brief primer on his views of government.  Sphere authority.  Vocation, family, church, neighbors, etc., etc., with the state being only one of a number of governments over mankind, and not the ultimate authority.

He points out that the word sovereign is nowhere located in the founding documents, a statement that surprises the judges before whom he has testified as an expert witness in defense of home schooling, as the founders were studious to avoid it.

Two sovereigns cannot coexist.  If you want to listen to a 30 minute summary of Hegel, the roots of statism, the notion of the state as sovereign, the failure of the church, and proper government of man, you can do no better than this audio.  It will be the best 30 minutes you’ll spend this week.

That’s a promise.

The manifesto of the terrorist who killed people today contains the following:

– He did a chart of Jewish people and included me under “troll Jew.”

– Rejection of Christianity.

– An admission that he is is “authoritarian left wing.”

– Hybrid Nazi and “green nationalism.”

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 14, 2022

Okay got it.  “Green.”  “Authoritarian left wing.”  Anti-Christ.

I don’t worship the environment.  I do not believe in authoritarianism.  I’m not left wing.  I’m a Christian.

Don’t you try to pin this on my people.

Read Micah 7:3

Politics is a waste of time. Wicked reprobate politician A does such and such a sin against corrupt evil politician B? Why do Christians bother watching? We love our sin while reviling others. There’s a whole industry on TV around watching people so that we can tell ourselves; at least I’m not that bad. The person in the mirror is no less guilty before God.

Evil can’t cast out evil. Politicians will never solve what they purport to address because they use more sin to cover sin. It’s silly. Politics is like watching mindless morons walk around in circles bouncing off objects in their path. The problem is; they involve all of us in their nefarious plots.

War is the worst. There is always a conspiracy behind war. All wars have come with a raft of lies. Behind those lies are the lusts of the hearts of men as they desire to consume that which brings them the vainglory of money and power.

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” James 4:1-3

We have suspicions about why the church at Jerusalem was lusting for war, but that’s another topic. Almighty God got His vengeance and His glory against all parties involved when He ended the Old Covenant and brought in the New Covenant. Amen.

But, even today, how much more do men desire warfare? Men want wars because they lust for sins all day long. Some men don’t even care what’s at the root of a conflict; they just want to make war. None of this is of God.

Every manner of lie is told to convince the sinner, and all men are sinners, that war is good. Jesus said that the devil couldn’t tear down his own kingdom to bring about good (Luke 11:18). Even if the evil that resides in men wanted to cast out sin with all the fiber of its being, it can’t, and waring for good is absurd.

We’ll finally have the war to end all wars they proclaim. They said that having nukes would end all wars, yet the world has been at war since their first use. Governments will tell you anything to make you feel good about evil. They tell us that we’re the good guys and our cause is just. Are we? Is it? They’ll tell you anything as long as those in power can consume the spoils of war upon their lusts.

There is no good thing behind war. There is just self-defense and just defense for self-preservation in protecting hearth and home. The rest is a grave evil.

“All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of thy mouth.” Psalm 138:4

How do the kings of the earth turn to God that they no longer lust after wars? When they hear the word of God. How can the false prophets at the king’s table in America speak the truth when they are false? Our leaders are surrounded by false prophets and other “yes” men while chasing after the approval of the Oligarchs. How can they do any good thing at all? How can the rulers of this world hear the Gospel when Christians themselves lust after wars?

Dispensationalists love “wars and rumors of wars.” It’s disgusting. Preachers say it’s the end, Gog and Magog; the rapture is upon us because the State-run media said so, and you better crosscheck your Scofield bible with the newspaper headlines or live in darkness. They’re being lied to by State Propagandists masquerading as preachers. They abuse the name of our Saviour that they may also consume the money of the war machine upon their lusts. (Matthew 15:4).

American Christians wax sorrowful over abortion then foam at the mouth to bomb foreign lands for some “great good.” How can you be pro-life and pro-war? God sees your lies. The major denominations in America are organs of the State. The American Church seeks government to solve the country’s “social issues” as though they never heard of sin. Apparently, they don’t know what sin is and don’t know Him, the propitiation for it. American Christians are blinded.

All you can do is set your heart toward God, knowing your eternal station while serving Christ in faith. Christians waste countless hours on politics when they should be spreading the Gospel and building Christian communities.

“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” Isaiah 53:10

The pleasure of God for you prospers at the hand of Christ. The Lord Jesus was put to grief, an offering once for all, that having been raised from the grave, the Prince of Peace might rule and reign. Being made the seed of Christ, born again, brings salvation and rest. Not war, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to bring sinners to repentance.

A number of years ago, new fuel assemblies cost on the order of $750,000.  Today I suspect it’s more like $1 Million.  That’s for fairly low enrichment UO2 (5% or less), a 15×15 or 17×17 assembly.  Tomorrow’s microreactor designs will have up to 20% or even higher enrichment.

Now, the larger reactors need somewhere on the order of 70 – 80 feed assemblies to operate for a full cycle of 1.5 years.  The rest are reloaded assemblies, once- or twice-burned.  The smaller reactors won’t need quite that many.

There are still 93 operating reactors in the U.S., supplying a major portion of electricity for Americans.  If you can’t do the math yourself, this represents a staggering monetary gain for people who own the mineral rights to Uranium mines, who can get it out of the ground, and who can enrich it to the required (and future required) enrichments of U-235.

Remember that I told you this war in Ukraine was being fought over energy?

Yes, perhaps you do.  Now go and read these two articles, and when you’re finished, re-read them.  Study them.

ZeroHedge, “Uranium Stocks Soar After U.S. Signals Aid For Nuclear Power.”

Wired, “The Nuclear Reactors of the Future Have a Russia Problem.”

Now, go do what I said.  Read them again.  Don’t comment if you didn’t.  And also recall the WSJ article I previously linked when I told you this war is about energy.  I’m sure by now it’s behind a paywall, but if readers request it, I have the full commentary and I’ll put it up in another post.

Your rulers have sold you down the river, boy.  Sold you down the river, boy.  Sold you down the river.

Jimmy Carter made reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel into something usable again in reactors illegal (He wanted to be a shining beacon to the world, on what I don’t know).  We have no capability to do that today.

Hillary Clinton approved the sale of the mineral rights (Uranium) near the Malheur Preserve to Putin through a Canadian shell company called Uranium One.  She did that as secretary of state, an odd change of positions for the state department.  Right about that time, a very large donation was made to the Clinton Foundation.  That was what the standoff with the Bundy crowd was all about.  FedGov wanted the land there, so they approved a managed burn on a farm and then arrested the farmer and took his land for being “guilty” of arson.  Bundy’s crowd knew that.  Bet you didn’t hear that part of the story, did you?

We haven’t pursued nuclear in America in a very long time.  It was too woke and in vogue to fund solar power.  CEOs flocked to that because it was funded by subsidies and tax relief.  The environmentalists are getting sour on solar, and they will get even more sour when they learn about the toxicants, contaminants and other bad things in the panels and batteries necessary to make it all work (much less the huge pits necessary to dispose of them).  You’re going to see a lot of “Not in my back yard” coming up with those panels and batteries.  Electric cars are a fiction and fantasy – there isn’t enough electricity to power them all up.

We’ve waited far too long to start nuclear, and we haven’t ensured a reliable supply of Uranium to power reactors for the foreseeable future, not for the existing reactors nor the upcoming microreactors (and also consider the needs of the nuclear Navy).  I know what the articles above say about having some in reserve.  It’s price will skyrocket.  Mark my words, write it down today that I told you so.

Electricity is going to get a lot more expensive.  A lot.  Prepare now, and blame your rulers.

Oh, and one more time: This war is being fought over energy, no matter what the other pretexts are.

Disagreeable Malcontent (DM): I noticed you haven’t posted much on the geopolitical aspects of the conflict.

HPS: And that bothers you?

DM: Yes, I want you to agree with me or else you’re a Nazi just like Putin said.

HPS: Oh, I see.  He said that about me?  He’s been paying attention to me?

DM: So let’s get started.  Do you agree that Putin is the savior of Christianity and all of the West?

HPS: No.  Putin is an assassin who came to power by killing, arson, and terrorist threats.  He has bastard children from a woman who wasn’t his wife, has never sent me Christmas cards, doesn’t care about me, has never met me, doesn’t care about the West, and isn’t a Christian and isn’t defending Christianity.  Besides, Christianity already has a savior.  And beyond that, Christianity isn’t a code of conduct.  It’s a salvific relationship with the Son of God.  Putin is not in that group.

DM: Huh?

HPS: Study the history of the church.  After the death and resurrection of Jesus, who is The Christ, Christians were being slaughtered in vast coliseums by Nero, and then by other emperors.  By the year 325 AD (Anno Domini), Christianity had so taken the Roman empire that Constantine was calling for a church council to settle the doctrine of the trinity.  In 325 they decided against Arius and for Athanasius, and declared Arius a heretic as they should have.  When it looks the most bleak, when Christians are under attack, and when believers pray, trust and obey His law, God uses that to conquer the world.  He is even now calling His people back to Himself and will use that to expand and grow His church.  God doesn’t need Putin for that.  He is the only sovereign.  Jesus Christ is the only savior, the only way to the Father, the perfect lamb of God who takes the sins of His people on Himself and saves them.  There is no other savior.

DM: You mean you want George Soros to win?

HPS: Um … what?

DM: Soros overthrew the last president of Ukraine and helped to install someone else, the current president, for oil, gas, and alignment with the West rather than Putin.

HPS: I don’t doubt it one bit.

DM: So by not admitting that Putin is the destroyer of the wicked, you align yourself with the wicked.

HPS: Have you ever taken a course in formal (classical) or modal logic?

DM: No and I don’t have to in order to know that you’re a Nazi because you don’t love Putin.

HPS: You keep saying that word.  Putin said he was going to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, without any metrics, without explaining what that means to him, and without any idea on how to get it done.  Likewise, one of the Russian billionaires called Putin a Nazi.  Apparently, no one knows what that word really means.  So I think you’re a Nazi.

DM: Am not.  You’re a Nazi.

HPS: No, you’re a Nazi.

DM: Am not am not am not am not … (covers his ears with his hands).

HPS: See what I mean?  You sound like a second grader.

DM: So you don’t think Ukraine needs to be saved from Soros by Putin?

HPS: Ukraine, like Russia, like America, needs to be saved by Jesus Christ.  The outcome of the war won’t matter in the least to the advancement of His kingdom, nor the need for the only savior.

DM: So you actually hope Zelensky wins?

HPS: I don’t hope any leader “wins” anything.  I generally despise all world leaders.

DM: Then who do you want to win?

HPS: The pipefitters, welders, roofers, mechanics and electricians of Ukraine, who did nothing to warrant this, didn’t ask for it, many of whom have lost their homes, livelihoods and places of work, and maybe the lives of loved ones.  I hope they win.  The common man.  I identify with the common man.  Rooting for wicked world leaders in light of the suffering of the victims of war is loathsome, nasty and despicable to me.

DM: But you know that NATO was a threat to Russia and that’s why Putin attacked, right?

HPS: Oh, I thought it was to de-Nazify Ukraine.

DM: Yea, that too, or whatever else he said.

HPS: Yea, well, maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but that’s not the reason for the war.

DM: Okay smart guy, tell me the real reason.

HPS: Well, I’m being patient with your disrespect, but I’ll go ahead.  Everything else is a pretext.  The war is being fought over energy.

DM: ENERGY?

HPS: When Russia attacked the nuclear plant, in an odd change of tune for Russia who has thus far mostly refrained from dancing in public (and for good reason, they haven’t had much to dance about), they went to social media and gleefully claimed that they now “own” the plant.  A lot of people have forgotten all about the standoff at the Malheur Preserve and why it happened.  Farmers were being driven off their land on trumped up charges of fire, when the fire was actually an approved, managed burn.  The FedGov wanted that land.  Do you recall the reason they wanted it?  Uranium.  As part of her authority as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had arranged the sale of a lot of land for which Putin wanted mineral rights.  She had arranged the sale through a Canadian shell company called Uranium One.  She did all of that for a significant donation to the Clinton Foundation.  With his “ownership” (theft) of the nuclear plant, Putin can also confiscate the spent nuclear fuel and reprocess it for use again (Jimmy Carter stupidly outlawed that for the U.S.).  This means money, money, and more money.  Putin wants to control the bulk of the world’s Uranium supply.  His actions demonstrate that.  The oil and gas pipelines are the other huge source of revenue.  This war is being fought over energy.

DM: But Zelensky made his agreements on energy with the West!

HPS: Well, I didn’t say he was a wise or good leader.  I don’t know what was best in that situation.  What’s best is whatever serves the interests of the Ukrainian people.  Given that he is a world leader, I have my doubts that will happen.  As for nuclear energy, Ukraine was about to make a deal with Westinghouse for the AP1000 reactor.  Putin knew that.  I know something about that reactor design.  I also know an awful lot about the RBMK-1000.  It would have been unwise in the superlative for Zelensky to have sided with Russia and ordered an RBMK-1000.  It’s not a safe reactor design.  On that issue, he made the best decision and I support that.

DM: Smart men have observed that history dictates that Ukraine be a buffer state between East and West.  It’s geography man, you can’t deny geography.

HPS: That sounds to me like people who aren’t Ukranian and who don’t live there deciding the fate of people who do live there.  Why should I pay them any attention?  What if Ukrainians don’t want that?  I guess they could either flee or fight.  I wouldn’t blame them for either choice.  But I won’t decide for Ukraine what kind of state they should be – that would be wrong.  That’s their decision.

DM: You’ve said that attacking a nuclear power plant was stupid.  The fire was in an office.  Do you now retract what you said?

HPS: Where did you get your engineering degree from?

DM: Just answer the question.

HPS: Attacking the nuclear power plant was stupid, and did not comport with just war doctrine because of its potential for harm to innocent life and long term harm to the environment.  Fires can spread.  The administration building is appurtenant to the auxiliary building, which is in proximity to the reactor building.  The reactor building is similar to a “Butler Building,” not the hard containment shell designs common here in America.  Furthermore, fires can spread from unit to unit.  This is a multiple unit site.  A fire could potentially take out MCC (motor control centers), power distribution panels, essential power supply load centers or switchgear, or plant power supply (e.g., D/Gs), rendering the ultimate heat sink unavailable for cooling of the core or SFP (spent fuel pool).  In America we have design criteria for fires in 10 CFR 50 Appendix R and NFPA-805.  Russian reactors are not designed to those criteria.  They are very susceptible to fires.  For the unmotivated and ignorant among us, that has nothing whatsoever to do with fire hoses.  It has to do with fire separation criteria, such as not having redundant trains of essential equipment in the same fire zone or allowing essential equipment to be susceptible to a common mode failure.  Attacking the nuclear plant was stupid and ill-conceived.  And go get an engineering degree and nuclear experience before asking anything else about this.  It’s making me tired to explain this to someone who is so totally and abjectly ignorant.

DM: Did you see the article at SWJ where a writer (JAG) justified the attack?

HPS: Yes.  His argument was basically that since the plant wasn’t destroyed and there was no release of radioactivity, the attack didn’t violate the laws of war.  So basically it all boiled down to a post facto determination that since nothing really, really bad happened, it was all okay.  There was no consideration of the fact that really bad things could have happened.  But then, this is the sort of crap I’ve come to expect from SWJ.

DM: Since you brought up the idea of just war doctrine, did you see that the Patriarch of The Russian Orthodox Church justified the war?

HPS: Yes, I saw that.  Be careful, though.  There is no doctrine of just war in the Russian (Eastern) Orthodox Church.  The differences between me, as a Calvinist and of the reformed tradition, and the Eastern Church, don’t stop with the doctrine of the trinity or even other doctrinal differences.  The Eastern church has no doctrine of just war because they have always seen the church as subservient to the state.  How do you think the Eastern Church has survived all of these years under Russian/Soviet rule?  The idea extends to the body of Christ too.  Not just the leaders, but the entirety of the church, the body of believers, should have nothing to say about proper and Godly governance in politics.  They see the church as subservient to the state.  The Roman Catholic Church has always seen the state as subservient to the church, thus they have always wanted to ordain rulers with their approval.  Only the reformed tradition sees sphere authority, with every sphere answerable to the Almighty.  Family, Church and State, all accountable to God and His laws, with the people of God teaching proper doctrine in all spheres, family, church and state, demanding obedience to the law of God (thinkers like Gary North would add Economics as a Sphere, but I disagree and see that as subsumed by family, church and state).  As for the “Patriarch,” I don’t care what he thinks.  Neither does God.  Oh, and by the way, I reject his Disney costumes, his gems and jewels and accoutrements, his wild and unseemly and fatuous getups, his puerile and pretentious clothing and crowns, as part of his station.  It won’t save him from his sins, and what he does, even when administering the sacraments, is no more spiritual than when a farmer plows his field for his family.  This is part of my reformed tradition, to see the common task as done for God’s glory and as a spiritual service.  I would sooner be around the farmer than the Patriarch, or for that matter, any “church leader” in the West.

DM: This has been a weird conversation.

HPS: Good.  Maybe it will cause you to think a bit more before trying to force me into decisions I needn’t make or pigeon hole me into geopolitical categories that don’t describe me in the least.  Don’t be dumb.

DM: Would you agree that Russia has tried to limit casualties?

HPS: By shooting at apartment buildings and hospitals?

DM: You’re just listening to fake news and propaganda.  Okay then, would you agree that Putin is a military genius and that the war is going swimmingly for Russia?

HPS: Only an idiot would claim such a thing.  They have lost more than 400 tanks now, and many aircraft and APCs, apparently cannot logistically support an army further than 90 miles from its own border, have no field hospitals and are having to transport their wounded and dead to Belarus to be cared for or incinerated because they have no refrigeration.  Mothers won’t even get to bury a body back in Russia.  If you lose support at home, the war is over.  Their tires are dry rotting, their tanks lack reactive armor, the APCs are death traps, they are having to rely on untrained conscripts who don’t want to be there and don’t know why they’re there, and they’re having to beg the Syrians for help.  How could anyone call that good for Russia?

DM: Well, do you think Putin has accomplished some of his goals?

HPS: Only if the goal was to rocket Ukraine to rubble and make even deeper enemies right on his own border.  And force NATO to think about re-arming.  Poland wants more jets, and Germany has just doubled its defense budget.  Seems like a pretty dumb move to me, but hey, I’m not the savior of Christianity and all of the West.

DM: Okay well as I said this has been a strange interview.  I can’t seem to get you to take a geopolitical stance and become a cheerleader for anybody.  Do you have any parting words for us?

HPS: I side with the pipefitters, welders, roofers, mechanics and electricians of Ukraine.  I don’t side with world leaders.  Ever.  In anything.  I don’t need another savior.  I have the perfect savior, and He is all I need.  As I’ve said before, “The desire to control others is the signal pathology of the wicked.”  The common man wants the controllers to leave him alone, and so do I.  The common man won’t be saved by Putin, Zelensky, Soros, Biden, or any sinful man.  He will be saved only by the perfect lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus, who is The Christ.  Only he can take away sin.  Our bodies will all perish – but that’s not the end.  It’s only the beginning.  God is even now controlling the hearts of the rulers to bring about His will.  See Isaiah 46:9-10.  Stop panicking.  Have faith.  Prepare yourself and your family.  This has become distracting for you, and most of the world.

News from Florida.

Florida’s Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said on Monday that the state would be the first in the US to recommend that healthy children not receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

“The Florida Department of Health is going to be the first state to formally recommend against the COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children,” Ladapo said.

Ladapo announced the move at an event held by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis titled “The Curtain Close on Covid Theater.” The name of the panel appeared to be a reference to a press event last week where DeSantis snapped at several high-schoolers standing behind him, criticizing them for wearing masks and participating in “COVID theater.”

Good.  It should have been done a long, long time ago.  But at least one state and governor has the balls to do it.

Now.  How about open carry and constitutional carry, DeSantis?  Give me some more read meat.

On fire with tracer rounds flying around.

2:40 AM — Zaporizhska nuclear power plant. More small arms fire & RPG shots. Building is definitely on fire pic.twitter.com/hSMGHcmW3E

— Hugo Kaaman (@HKaaman) March 4, 2022

I have earned a living as a nuclear engineer for 43 years doing everything from systems engineering to reactor engineering and particle transport and radiation shielding and activation calculations.  I can’t even begin to tell you how idiotic, ignorant, stupid, vulgar, unwise, wrongheaded, witless, irresponsible, lamebrained, and knuckleheaded this move was.

Only an uneducated nitwit, a lunkheaded fool and crackpot would order such a thing or even participate in it.

Now let’s be clear.  Commercial reactors don’t explode like nuclear weapons.  They just don’t.  American made nuclear reactors must be designed with an overall negative power coefficient by the Code of Federal Regulations.

Not so for Russian designed reactors.  I developed and presented training years ago to the Department of Energy safety analysis engineers on Chernobyl.  The problem with that accident is that the reactor design could (and did) have an overall positive power coefficient because of its positive void coefficient (here is the stipulation – assuming that the electronic controls work, this has been accounted for by automatic reactor control).  The precursor to the accident was that an electrical engineer bypassed that automatic protection circuitry for the purpose of a test and plant management let him do it without a documented safety analysis.

Even then it didn’t explode.  It was a steam explosion, not a nuclear explosion.  Nonetheless, the core melted and the radiological source term caused a problem for an awful lot of people.  Today I would gladly take a walk around the exterior of the plant.  Then, not so much.

Even if the reactor was shut down upon the assault by Russian forces, there is still core cooling to consider, as well as thousands of metric tonnes of spent fuel in the pools.  A SRO (Senior Reactor Operator) and RO, along with equipment operators, must be on shift 24 hours per day.

Nuclear reactors (especially as designed and built in America) are inherently safe, clean and efficient, and produce carbon free power.  America will go nuclear or suffer life without power, because solar cannot even begin to compete with nuclear in terms of powering industry.  Russian reactors are inherently safe too, mostly, that is, until some dunderhead goes shooting at safety systems and kills plant operators.  That’s why nuclear power plants have the most intensive security of virtually any place on earth.  I’ve seen it first hand.

But the security wouldn’t be able to stop an assault like this.

I … just … can’t … even … begin … to … tell … you … how … stupid … this … is!  Well, stupid or wicked.  Words fail me.

But, Putin … and Russia’s military apparatus.  So there.  You can sign me up for being highly pissed at Putin and his military apparatchiks.  While the responsible ones among us are trying to convince people of the rightful need for nuclear, they have to go and muddle this up, even if it’s only because of wrongheaded thinking by people who don’t understand the physics of nuclear energy and are frightened because of that.  Even if the plant is under control right now, the psychology of this is damaging.