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Howard Skillington's avatar

Talk about a learning curve: Trump I was a babe in the woods, but Trump II is the Alpha Grizzly Bear. While the glass of milk is still far from full - I hate most of his foreign policy, and his energy policy is a fantasy - I am thrilled at the comprehensive ferocity of his attack on The Blob.

Team Trump has to have anticipated from the start that colossal forces would be arrayed to impede him at every step, and their strategy is exactly what is required: Shock and Awe. Knock them off their feet so hard that they can’t figure out what hit them. And who even dared hope that Bobby and Tulsi may actually be confirmed.

The great mistake would have been a Truth and Reconciliation approach, ending in a big group hug, as if these bastards actually had good intentions that went astray. What we need is Truth and Retribution: you purposely tried to destroy this nation, we do not forgive, and we damned sure won’t forget.

For far too long the Donkeys and the Elephants have been symbiotes, sharing the same agenda when it comes to the big issues, and when it comes to the biggest ones – serving corporate interests and perpetuating endless wars - it appears that they will continue to be on the same team.

But their bifurcation on divisive social issues finally led to the nation’s Mass Formation Psychosis, and half of our fellow citizens are now convulsing from the shock therapy being administered. We should all re-watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, as inspiration for the task that lies before us.

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astera's avatar

"Shock and Awe", yes, exactly.

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JohnAZ's avatar

Howard, I am calling you out on your first comment. You hate his foreign and energy policies. Other than Israel, what would you suggest to trump if you had his ear?

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Howard Skillington's avatar

I am reluctant to condemn Israel geocide against the Palestinians on this forum. Taken on its face, I also disregard any proposed settlement in Ukraine that tries to pretend that Russia has not won the war. That said, I recognize the fact that Mr. Trump is a master of misdirection, and that his current position on Ukraine may be tactical, to avert neocon criticism, while actually working something out with Mr. Putin. As for energy, pretending that we are Saudi America and can achieve long-term energy independence is ludicrous. Trump's position nine years ago was to end NATO and normalize relations with Russia, in which case we could benefit from Russia's gas via a rebuilt Nordstream pipeline. If that is still the president's hidden agenda, then I totally approve.

Let me add that it's stupid for Trump to hope to destroy BRICS. BRICS is the future, whether we like it or not. He may as well declare that gravity is outlawed.

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Lugh's avatar

Imagine the Founding Fathers saying, I'm reluctant to speak against Britain on cobblestones laid by Tories. Or if paper makers weren't for the Revolution, then the Declaration of Independence couldn't have been written.

But yes, these Trump Cultists are nuts. Ordinary people lose the plot very easily. It's like taking candy from a baby.

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Strange Bedfellow's avatar

This time, I used (among the usual other ingredients) four eggs and two 500 ml (four cups) containers of cottage cheese-- no sour cream, yogurt or lemon. It's not bad, but a touch too eggy. So what I'm going to do next time is use the 2 containers of cottage cheese, but use only 3 eggs. In retrospect, it's what I should have done in the first place, since the recipe normally calls for 4 eggs with that amount of cheese (if not cottage) plus a cup (250 ml) of sour cream (I used yogurt).

So, in sum, cut out the yogurt entirely and only use 3 eggs.

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Lugh's avatar

What are you trying to make? My recipe: Just pour in a cup of sugar, 2 "containers" of "cottage" cheese, four eggs, half a bag of flour, mix, and bake for 45 minutes at 451.

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Blackbird's avatar

Half a bag of flour? "Cottage" cheese? What are YOU trying to make?

Do you cook at Harry and the Natives in Hobe Sound? Their much-acclaimed key lime pie tastes like it is made of drywall.

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Strange Bedfellow's avatar

Oh ya, that's right; cheesecake. They normally call for a tablespoon of flour, but I generally omit that and it turns out a touch creamier/smoother. You're right about the cup of sugar, but if I only use 3 eggs next time, I suppose I should reduce the sugar a little bit. So thanks to you, I'll do that!

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Howard Skillington's avatar

No way. You need to use five eggs and a cup and a half of cottage cheese.

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Strange Bedfellow's avatar

All too often, when I listen to others and do things based on their recommendations, things go awry.

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Grant's avatar

Nuclear power. I know you never asked me. Still. Peak oil is real, and Trumps energy super power chit chat is nonsense examined carefully.

The yanks need to carefully engage Canada and particularly Alberta and ensure the tarsands oil flows south in a reliable way. To tide you yanks over until you get enough nucs operating.

I hate nucs, one slip and thats it for God knows what radius... but the alternative is fairy tales of oil forever, which is NOT going to happen.

Peak production of oil and related is thereabouts now. We can frack some more here and there and stretch a couple more decades of a bumpy plateau of production, after that its nucs and electricity. Facts count.

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Super Callous Fragile Mystic's avatar

Peak Oil is always just around the corner. Surely we’ve emptied every oil reservoir 3 times over, yes? Oil is not a fossil fuel, it’s produced by the Magma and continuously replenishes.

“Deep‐seated abiogenic origin of petroleum: From geological assessment to physical theory”

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2008RG000270

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Grant's avatar

In the real world of petroleum engineering we find oil by looking in sedimentary formations, and this entire field of human endeavour, with endless and decades long impetus and effort, would be interested yet bored by the abiotic oil theory, where the earth has a creamy nuogat centre of oil, just bubbling up...... hahahaha.

I think one example of oil adjacent to basal rock has been found, in all of oil exploration ever. My brother is a petroleum geologist, we have had many and many a discussion. If reservoirs refill, and why that might be (it is debatable) it is certainly far too slow a process to help with our dilemma.

And I should say, whereas my brother sneers at the idea of abiotic oil I am not so sure. I note Titan is awash in methane and ethane, I note blobs of what appear to be 'hydrocarbons' have been spotted in interstellar space, light years across.

But in the real world of accessing the stuff, whatever its origin, we got the cleverest folk on the planet trying to figure XYZ to get more of it. And we are reaching limits on that extraction rate. Nucs or go back to horse and buggy, that is the short term (50 year) horizon.

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Super Callous Fragile Mystic's avatar

If you aren’t even trying to understand the mechanism, and instead throw out crazed analogies (“creamy nougat of oil”) then perhaps you aren’t the expert truth-seeker and are just another tool.

Nukes are our long term solution, but we don’t need to worry about Peak Oil. If oil somehow becomes scarce, the price climbs, and those thousands of marginal producing fields become economical. There, I solved Peak Oil for you.

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Howard Skillington's avatar

More oil is constantly produced by credulous nitwits, who post stuff like this online.

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