The General Discussion Thread

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[Publish Date updated to restore to front page]

Okay as an experiment here it is. Discuss your favourite generals here!

Well perhaps… Really this is simply the place to post news-items, fun-items or whatever takes your fancy. In short just post what you want here.

It’s just another wee experiment – comments welcome.

Squonk.

[Image: General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett (Stephen Fry)]

17,285 thoughts on “The General Discussion Thread”

  1. Space Weather Message Code: ALTK08
    Serial Number: 18
    Issue Time: 2015 Mar 17 1401 UTC

    ALERT: Geomagnetic K-index of 8
    Threshold Reached: 2015 Mar 17 1358 UTC
    Synoptic Period: 1200-1500 UTC

    Active Warning: Yes
    NOAA Scale: G4 – Severe

    NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at
    http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

    Potential Impacts: Area of impact primarily poleward of 45 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude.
    Induced Currents – Possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems may mistakenly trip out key assets from the power grid. Induced pipeline currents intensify.
    Spacecraft – Systems may experience surface charging; increased drag on low earth orbit satellites, and tracking and orientation problems may occur.
    Navigation – Satellite navigation (GPS) degraded or inoperable for hours.
    Radio – HF (high frequency) radio propagation sporadic or blacked out.
    Aurora – Aurora may be seen as low as Alabama and northern California.

  2. Fred 1:33 pm; true of course; probably rules out photographs. And maybe the brightness just from the Sun’s corona would overwhelm any aurora. But an amazing sky if not…

  4. Some clear sky is forecast for here this evening, and my view to the north is pretty dark. How far south might the aurora be visible?

  7. Phil, you’re welcome out at mine, of course, but I can’t offer you a lift as the car is still broken. A friend might be available, or you could bring a bike on the train I suppose; that’s certainly allowed on the service from Liverpool St. It’s ninety minutes walk to mine from either Chelmsford or Ingatestone.

    It’s still cloudy at present.

  9. I didn’t know you get to see them this far south. I can’t come now though Clark. Got to work in the morning.

  10. I took the dogs for a walk but being in Birmingham there is too much city light pollution. Venus lay low in the sky, I’m guessing NW. Otherwise a clear night. I think you need to be in the middle of nowhere to have a chance, probably about twenty kilometres north of Petersburg. I look forward to tomorrow’s photos.

  12. Phil,

    “I didn’t know you get to see them this far south”

    It depends; they come further south depending on intensity and conditions.

    There was one night back in the late ’90s or early ’00s. I was at a friend’s in Chelmsford. I think I took the vegetable scraps up to the compost heap at the end of the garden or something. The sky to the north-west was glowing a magenta colour. I looked at it for a bit, decided that someone must be using some sort of flood-light for working at night, and went back indoors. I saw it again later, and then later still it had gone.

    Next day on the news they said the aurora had been visible as far south as Kent.

    I can see Jupiter and a few stars directly overhead, but I can’t see clear sky to the north. The air is generally a bit murky.

  14. Good Question Fred.

    i think the Kp will Drop.. also there will be just possibly still too much light.. in the lower Clyde…you are a little father North… Me wonders… But Effin weather for Friday .

    Also Folks, MIND the EYES whilst Eclipse watching

    oops just realized i was on wrong page… and Clark had aready replyed much to my own thinking @ Fred

  15. Well I went and watched he sky for fifteen minutes or so just before midnight. I could see more stars than earlier but it was still murky, sill not clear looking north and I saw no aurora.

  17. Lancaster giving amber alert and met office forecasting clear skies from eight onwards.

  20. A good summary of the event. Sadly all I’ve seen is heavy cloud cover.

    http://www.solarham.net/march2015storm/index.htm

    On March 17, 2015, which also happens to be St. Patrick’s Day, the strongest geomagnetic storm of Solar Cycle 24 occurred following a coronal mass ejection (CME) impact. This page provides data and imagery regarding the event as it unfolded.

  21. When I was a child and I watched the birds in the garden, at first I thought blackbirds were rather unpleasant. The garden would be full of all different kinds of birds, but when a pair of blackbirds arrived the first thing they’d do was chase all the other birds away.

    Then one day I realised why they chase off all the other birds. To catch the worms they hop silently across the lawn and then stop, cock their head and listen for the worms. I thought they were just selfish but they’re not. They need the silence.

  23. Node, thanks for that.

    Awful quiet here. Can’t we have an insult war?

    There were some buskers in town; they invited me to their gig tonight. They’re called Drop Dead Fred. Maybe I should suggest “Fuck Off and Die” as a title for one of their numbers. They’re playing at the Asylum. But the last bus has already run, so I’d have to cycle, and I’m already knackered from shopping.

    http://www.killick1.plus.com/pictures/drop-dead-fred-1.jpg
    http://www.killick1.plus.com/pictures/drop-dead-fred-2.jpg

  25. Clark, your observation of the blackbirds charmed me. There is one I see almost as regularly as my friendly robin, who follows me and the dogs when we take a particular walk. The wren I don’t see quite as often.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/127161425@N07/15966860906/

    It is cupboard-love of course. I shall stop feeding them now because nature provides plenty until the winter comes round again. Yes, blackbirds are very good at locating worms.

  26. Insult wars are a harbinger of tactical war of the limb-shattering nature, clark, as you imply in your comment. Can you highlight the history of cm and comments. My experience is limited to late 2011. Much water undrr the bridge since then.

  27. John, the blackbirds are funny to watch. Hop, hop hop, stop. Head to one side – stock still. No, nothing there. Hop, hop. Head to one side. Still. Twitch of the head. Pounce!

    I saw your reply to me at Craig’s. I haven’t undergone any conversion. I suspected the “Pilger pattern” had been implemented in Ukraine, but I needed the right evidence. I believe Craig’s articles about the many murdered Russian journalists. I think it’s quite well known. What I called the “RT angle” is more than just RT. Killing journalists brings much of the media into line; note how little variation there is across Russian media, and how many websites repeat very similar perspectives.

    So I regard Resident Dissident as right about Russian media, but even if I didn’t there would be no point in presenting him with articles that follow the RT angle because he’s already dismissed that. That’s why I got so annoyed with you; your approach to RD was making a lot of noise but it was never going to catch any worms. Frankly, I was trying to chase you off to get a bit of quiet to work in.

    See, all the time that people are posting RT-type links, RD will respond to those, plucking the low-hanging fruit, all the stuff that’s easy to dismiss. I needed to give him links that would be more challenging. The Pilger article was too long, too dilute. The Parry articles (thanks to Macky) are excellent. Parry has the right contacts, asks the right questions, and keeps his articles tightly focussed, right on target. It’s the opposite of, as you put it “Parry’s pulpit”. It’s not received wisdom or argument from authority. It’s proper evidence, and it exposes the personal linkages in the Neocon power structure.

    John, I know I’ve disagreed with you a lot but it isn’t from any hostility on my part. I’m trying to help you be a more effective activist. When I called you gullible I’m not trying to put you down. I’m trying to show you a fault that weakens your ability to influence people.

    For example “chemtrails”. I’ve seen all sorts of sites proclaiming the dangers of “chemtrails”, but when I went looking for actual evidence there’s hardly anything. There is certainly nothing to suggest that the vast majority of aircraft trails are anything but normal vapour trails. So people see you attributing super-cyclones to “chemtrails”, which are known to be non-existent, but completely omitting global warming which predicted the increase in the severity of tropical storms, they think “Oh this John Goss can be ignored, he’ll believe any old rubbish”.

    John, please try not to take my criticisms personally. I don’t intend them to be personal, but there’s just no way of criticising that doesn’t feel personal. Oh I get annoyed sometimes, but what underlies it is practical, not personal.

  28. Ben, rather than me writing a long description laced with my own subjectivity, go back and read some of the old articles and their comment threads. Threads around the time of Craig’s Missing You post might be appropriate. Find it by using the site’s search box.

    I’ve more to write, but I’m exhausted. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

  31. Things didn’t look hopeful 8:30 this morning then there was a break in the clouds that lasted well past totality. We got a good view in Caithness.

  32. Yeah, rubbish here near Chelmsford, too. I’ve known heavy cloud to make it go darker than that. I couldn’t even say when maximum occultation occurred.

    Lucky bastards in Scotland. I wish I’d been up at Mills Observatory.

  34. I don’t mind long descriptions clark…that’s called communication. Took a look at Miss You and lament the absence of arsalan angrysoba MJ et al. Even the St Louis guy seems self moderated and the lack of acrimony is apparent. Good flow on comments and I didn’t wince, but I’m getting too descriptive.

  36. i Liked your Reflection shot John… Kool, a shame for the others Down south with Cloud… The cloud-play in much of Scotland did help lots of folk for fotos, i got a couple in between cloud cover –

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/115454618@N06/16877189125/

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/115454618@N06/16877189105/in/photostream/

    And over on Skye, Danny MacAskill was out chasing the Eclipse on the Mountains…. with the bike of course 🙂 a stunning shot of him in here –

    http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/bike/stories/1331712140518/danny-macaskill-eclipse-jump

    Have a peaceful weekend all.

  37. Nice photos Brian. How did you take the second? So dark!

    Yes that Brian MacGaskill shot is incredible. Obviously you need a massive zoom for that. I guess special filter lenses too. My kit only cost £600 so I’m quite pleased with what I’ve achieved in a few months. I think that is the art of photographic technique. Anybody can take a shot of an eclipse. But I think there needs to be something more in the shot. I’ll try and come up with something better for the next eclipse.

    Have a good weekend Brian.

  39. Aye John, for the MacAskill shot they used a 1000m lens, and a HUGE flash, amazing stuff.

    and yep doing well in just a few months.

    P.s there wil be another super kool conjunction Later in the year, July i think, or August…Consisting of a young Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Venus, a good one to keep in mind. 🙂

  40. Clark, if you are not responding to my post on CM, how about James Bamford giving an alibi about William King Harvey being behind all the Nixon-driven killings when he discussed the establishment of NSA’s Special Collection Service? (pp.477-9)

    Bamford conveniently skipped over the period when Harvey was assassinating his domestic enemies until his belated efforts to kill Castro were revealed to the Church Committee.

  41. Trowbridge, I don’t know nearly enough about such matters to make any useful comment, and I’ve no idea why you seem upset with me at Craig’s.

  42. I’m not upset with you either here or on CM’s blog.

    Just responding to your offer to have a chat.

    To continue a possible chat here, it seems that Bamford’s false explanation of NSA’s creation of its SCS came in handy when it murdered John P. Wheeler – the leaker who complained about NSA taking over the military’s cyber command, NSA using the virus Stuxnet to destroy Iran’s centrifuge program, and the testing of poison gas on birds around America’s Mississippi to wipe out Tehran’s testing of nuclear weapons capability in a tunnel near Hosseinabad, resulting in the use of a satellite laser to destroy it by an earthquake – which led conveniently to the passage of the new START treaty.

    With no one speaking about SCS’s killing capacity, getting rid of Wheeler was easy work.

    Only became difficult when his body fell out of a dumpster on the way to the Wilmington landfill.

    Without that, NSA would have ultimately claimed that the traitor had escaped to some enemy power, apparently Iran.

  43. Trowbridge, I apologise; I took “yeah sure” in its commonly used cynical sense. I think I’ve been getting a bit jaded at Craig’s what with the preponderance of animosity there recently.

    I followed the Stuxnet story on Ralph Langner’s blog from shortly after the malware was detected, and as its function was revealed, but my interest was from a computer security and program disassembly viewpoint, so entirely public domain.

    I looked up John P. Wheeler and SCS; I see that there’s a Wikipedia page about each. There’s nothing about Wheeler’s whistle-blowing on Wikipedia so if you’ve any mainstream sources for that I’ll edit them in – eventually:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_P._Wheeler_III#Death
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Collection_Service

    “The Special Collection Service (SCS) is a highly classified joint U.S. Central Intelligence Agency-National Security Agency program charged with inserting eavesdropping equipment in difficult-to-reach places, such as foreign embassies, communications centers, and foreign government installations. Established in the late 1970s and headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland”

    And that’s as far as I’ve got (I’m too tired to do much today). How did “…the testing of poison gas on birds around America’s Mississippi […] wipe out Tehran’s testing of nuclear weapons capability in a tunnel near Hosseinabad”? And as yet I don’t believe it possible to cause earthquakes with lasers, especially orbital ones where power availability is rather limited, but you’re welcome to present evidence to try to change my mind.

  45. macky/ clark/ fur fuck sake…. you two are NEVER going to out Find Peace / happiness,,,aint that Priveladge…Bluebells
    ….though we all want peace….Fuck the establishment .or two

  46. Quite right to complain, Clark, about the connection between the killing of the birds and the earthquake. Wheeler, who knew all kinds of things that the Air Force was up to, complained about the testing of phosgene on the birds, forcing the Pentagon to use its airborne laser satellite to get rid of Iran’s underground nuclear test site east of Hosseinabad rather than spraying it with phosgene.

    Your inability to see that lasers can cause convenient earthquakes on land and at sea continues to baffle me.

    Even former DCI and SoD Robert Gates, not a man noted for his genius, complimented Danny Stillman for suggesting that they be used on Iran to keep it onside during the lead up to the First Gulf War, and the Pentagon has been using them ever since when the circumstances call for keeping someone onside in a surprise, covert way.

    It’s not a question of creating an earthquake from scratch but taking advantage of some openings on its surface or on the seabed to cause such increasing shaking that an earthquake ultimately occurs.

    And Wheeler was the victim of a SCS hit – what James Bamford conveniently failed to admit about it in his book, Body of Secrets – which the government has done noting to solve, as his widow, Kathleen Klyce, has repeatedly claimed.

  47. Trowbridge, I’ve worked with theatrical lasers a bit. From memory, the most powerful one I encountered ran on a three-phase supply drawing twenty kilowatt to produce a four watt beam – so not what you’d call efficient. It was water-cooled; I called it the most expensive kettle I’d ever heard of. At the Astoria in London in a cold winter in the ’80s the cooling outlet pipe wouldn’t reach the drain so they just left it hanging out the back window. After the gig the loading zone / guest car-park was like a skating rink – wall to wall ice.

    I’ve heard of chemical lasers tried experimentally as energy-beam weapons, but these needed huge tanks of, er, fluorine? Hydrofluoric acid? I forget. Not good orbital technology, anyway. I’d have though that the way to do energy beam weapons from orbit would be by focussing sunlight.

    But how would a laser initiate an earthquake anyway? The stress-points are well beneath the surface, plus under a huge depth of water if under the sea-floor.

    But these objections are theoretical. If you have evidence I’ll look at it.

  48. Should get out of the theatre and into the real world.

    100-kilowatt solid-state laser beam weapons are in use on America’s satellites, Boeing X-37-B spy planes, and its special attack submarines, especially the USS Jimmy Carter and the USS Connecticut.

    These weapons solve the problems of air space and sea depths by repeatedly or constantly hitting the place to be opened up.

    For their ability to cause earthquakes, look at what former SoD Robert Gates said about Danny Stillman’s ability to adapt new scientific advances to solve apparently intractable problems on the back of the dust jacket to his and Thomas Reed’s The Nuclear Express.

  49. Equally baffled by the failure again to mention sabotage as a possible cause of today’s German Wings crash in the French Alps.

    The so-called experts go on and on about possible mechanical, pilot and weather possibilities for the crash.

    Really interested in the Basque nationalists (PNV) being on the plane. They played a key role in the republicans losing the Spanish Civil War, as I recall, and this could be republican payback, especially since they were visiting Germany.

    As Anthony Beevor wrote in The Battle for Spain, “It was this dishonoring of the articles of surrender which the Basque ETA guerrillas advanced in later years as a reason why the Republic of Euzkadi was still at war with the Franquist state.” (p. 265)

    With everyone paranoid about Muslim terrorism, it would be an ideal time for ETA to resume hostilities.

  50. Still no serious discussion of the likelihood of someone’s sabotage, though they all admit that something unprecedented happened when it reached cruising altitude!

    Looks like the Sukhoi sabotage to me, though who did it is debatable.

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