ESCARGOT

 It makes you wonder who the first person was to look at a snail and think: I'll eat that.

the Ol'Buzzard

WARNING! THE CHRISTIANS ARE COMING AND THEY ARE NOT VERY NICE PEOPLE.

 

the Ol'Buzzard

I AM SOME DISGUSTED WITH THE HUMAN RACE

 

 

Yesterday I posted about the fusion breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.  It is truly a breakthrough that could change the future of the human race.   The problem is that I am old and I have seen too much of the human race; a façade of civilization to cover up the most base instinct buried in our DNA.

 

We must step back and realize that the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is the government entity responsible for all of our nuclear weapons.   Almost all of the technology we enjoy today came as spinoffs of weapon development.

 

Look at the world.  Women are publicly beaten by the morality police and there are religious beheadings throughout the Moslim world; The Uighurs in China are forced into labor camps; There are gulags in North Korea and Russia; school girls are kidnapped in Nigeria by Boko Haram and forced into marriages; Untouchables still exist as an underclass in India; Russia is bombing the civilian population of Ukraine; China has the largest navy in the world and is threatening Taiwan; North Korea is developing long-range missiles that could reach the United States carrying nuclear warheads; The United States, one of the most warlike nations ever to exist, invaded Iraq to replace Saddam Hussein and ended up destroying the country and killings thousands-of-times more people than the despot replaced…  

Look at our history and look at the atrocities man commits in the name of politics, religion, and ego.   From the first mythical family when Cain killed Able, mankind has shown itself the most violent and destructive animal to ever inhabit the earth.

 

 

The invention of a clean, eco-friendly, unlimited power source has the potential to change the world for the better; but that would be disregarding who we are.  

 

These are the things the Ol’Buzzard thinks of when he can only sleep five or six hours a night.

the Ol’Buzzard

THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE

 

 

 

Show me the people who control the money, the land and the weapons

and I will show you the people in charge

George Carlin

 

 

Put on your headphones 

the Ol'Buzzard

A REBOOT FOR CIVILIZATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT

 

A major scientific achievement that could change civilization as we know it has just occurred; but has been lost in the noise of political unrest, holiday mania, and air travel disruption.

It has happened in December 2022 the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory using lasers successfully created a controlled thermonuclear fusion. 

We have been able to produce nuclear fusion since the mid-1940s with the advent of the Hydrogen bomb.  What we haven’t been able to do was control the fusion process.

   

Fusion results when you bring two elements together under extreme pressure and temperature and form a new element releasing energy in the process.

Example:

Protons have a like charge – let’s call it a positive charge – they repel each other.

By increasing the temperature and pressure you can force those two protons together; finally to a point where a new force (the strong nuclear force) overcomes the repelling forces and combines the two protons into a new element nucleus.  

This new nucleus has less mass than the sum of the original mass of the two protons.  

The difference of that mass is released as energy.

Under controlled conditions the explosion that comes out also creates an implosion toward the center; under high temperature and pressure, the Lawrence Livermore lab was able to sustain the explosion – energy release. 

After the successfully controlled fusion, the Laboratory found that energy output was fifty percent higher than the energy imputed from the lasers: more energy out than was put in.

 

The conclusion to this is that fusion is an energy source that could produce electricity cheaper than oil, coal, or gas and with a zero carbon footprint.  Portable fusion sources could eventually replace batteries in electric vehicles.

Wars are fought and countries are held hostage over fossil fuel energy sources.  

Controlled thermos nuclear fusion could be a reboot for the environment and the human race. 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

MY YEAR AGING UNGRACEFULLY

 

2022 has been an uncomfortable year for me.   I am a year older moving toward my mid-eighties and beginning to feel my mortality.  I have had a couple of heart flair-ups and ended up in intensive care for two days.   I look in the mirror and barely recognize the old man looking back at me.

 

It brings to mind the book Fool, by one of my favorite authors Christopher Moore.   It is the story of King Lear as told by his Court Jester.

 

“Goneril went to her father and took his hand, ‘Yes father you are old.  Very old.  Really, really, extraordinarily, mind-bogglingly –‘

 

She turned to me for a clue.

 

‘Dog fuckingly’, I suggested.

 

‘- Dog-fuckingly old; said the duchess.   You are feebly, incontinently, desiccatedly, smelling-of boiled-cabbagely old.  You are brain–rottingly, balls-draggingly –‘

 

‘I'm fucking old!’ said Lear.”

 

Like King Lear I fucking old, I’ll stipulate that.

As exposed in my blog, like most old men I am full of advice, mainly because I am too old to go out and set a bad example. 

the Ol’Buzzard

AN AFTERTHOUGHT OF THE WEATHER EXPERIENCED THIS WEEK

 

 

On Sunday the 19^th (Dec 2020) the temperature was 32 degrees (0 Celsius) and and Maine had two feet of wet snow drop in a twenty-four-hour period.

 

This past Saturday (Dec 24^th) here in western Maine we had three inches of snow, changing to rain that lasted 24 hours.  During the rainy period, the temperatures went up to 50 degrees (10 C).   Within three hours after the rain ceased our temperatures dropped to 14 degrees (-10 C).

   

Our world here in western Maine froze.

 

On the Maine coast, torrential rain accompanied by winds gusting to 70 mph, coincided with record-high ocean tides resulting in coastal flooding.

 

In a state with 1.3 million people, we had 130,000 homes without power.

 

I know everyone across the U.S. experienced abnormal weather patterns this week, some much worse than ours.

 

 

Only the most ardent climate deniers detached from reality may deny that the earth’s climate is changing.

 

With the ocean warming by degrees every year, I can only imagine what the future world will look like by the end of this century. 

the Ol'Buzzard

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

 

the Ol'Buzzard

A MATTER OF PRESPECTIVE

 

How MAGA republicans continue to view 

Donald Trump

How some Republicans are starting to view Donald Trump

The emperor has no clothes!

the Ol'Buzzard

SWITCHED ON BACH

 Bach with synthesizers: Cantata 29

Best listened with headphones, if you have them. 

the Ol'Buzzard

TRUMP TRADING CARDS

Trump is now offering digital Trading Cards for the low price for only $99 each. 

Super Trump

 Trump the Cowboy.

Trump the Fighter pilot.

Not bad for a man who dodged the draft:

 Bone Spurs!

I understand that there are 45 of these cards.  What a great Christmas present!  

And the profits all to to Donald Trump.   

But this one is not included - but should be.

Anyway, you can not be an actual MAGA Republican if you don't buy these cards.

They will go quick, so order while the supplies last.

You can order your cards here:

CollectTrumpCards | Donald Trump Digital Trading Card NFTs

This isn't a scam.  He is offering these cards because he loves you?

I don't actually understand digital trading cards.   I hear they are not actual physical cards, but that you receive them through your e-mail?

the Ol'Buzzard

THE PAST STAYS WITH US.

 

When I was in Navy boot camp in 1959 our Company Commander was an old salty first-class Boatswains Mate.  One of his most used expressions was,  ‘Fuck me silly with a Handy Billy.’   The Handy Billy, also known as the P50, was a gas-powered water pump used for firefighting aboard Navy ships.   Today, when I fuck something up my go-to explicative is still ‘Fuck Me Silly’.  

I don't remember his name, but he made an impression

They call it a crow; but look at the beak.  Its got to be a buzzard

The Ol'Buzzard

TECHNOPHOBE

 

I am one of the holdouts in a soon-to-be-extinct generation.  I have resisted the bionic implanting of a cell phone onto the list of my anatomical necessary organs.

 

I have owned a flip phone but never turned it on unless I was away from home and found it necessary to make a call – which was seldom.

 

However, two weeks ago after my phone quit working, I was notified by Verizon that my flip phone would no longer be supported and that I would have to purchase an upgrade.

  

I called Verizon and after fifteen minutes of navigating through six recorded menus, I was finally able to speak to a human.   I canceled my Verizon subscription.

 

I had seen the advertisement for a Lively Jitterbug smartphone in a senior publication.  I gave them a call and immediately had a representative on the line.   For five dollars more than I was paying Verizon, I got their smartphone with numerous apps including a calendar, GPS, internet, and unlimited text and phone usage; and the phone operates on the Verizon network.  

 

The phone was a breeze to set up and came with an extensive manual.  I had a question and called their tech line.  The phone was answered by a real person on the third ring.  I have got to admit I am impressed.

 

I still don’t plan to turn the phone on unless I am away from home and need to make a telephone call, but the apps will come in handy. 

 

The Ol’Buzzard reluctantly enters the techno-communication century.