JW Insider

1 hour ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

I don't recall when Iraq's money was thrown away when script was changed. I don't recall when the Mexican's threw their old money away when they started using their new money. I don't recall American's throwing their old currency after new currency is printed. I believe the banks make the exchange.

That was my point, too. Further information from the Snopes article explains it this way:

One popular posting on Facebook was captioned, “This is a street in Venezuela. That’s money in the gutter. It’s worthless. Welcome to socialism.”:  . . .

Although hyperinflation has indeed caused the bolivar to become all but worthless, the caption on this viral photograph is a bit misleading. The money shown lying in the gutter in this picture is Venezuela’s old currency, the Bolívar Fuerte, which was replaced by a new form of currency, the Bolivar Soberano, in August 2018. When the Bolivar Soberano was introduced, Bolívar Fuerte currency in amounts less than 1,000 ceased to be legal tender, and Bolivar Fuerte currency in all amounts was completely withdrawn on 5 December 2018. . . .

The viral photograph was likely taken on 11 March 2019 and showed the aftermath of looting at a bank in the town of Merida. Local news outlet Maduradas.com compiled several other photographs of the incident and reported that the perpetrators had discarded the old money on the streets and even lit some of it on fire (translated via Google):

TERRIBLE! Hooded (vandals) sacked the bank Bicentenario in Merida and scattered bolivars of the old currency through the streets (+ Photos)

On Monday, March 11, hooded (vandals) sacked the Bicentenario bank agency on Avenue 3, Glorias Patrias, in the state of Merida.

The fact was confirmed by the deputy of the National Assembly Williams Dávila, as well as by the correspondent of El Nacional in the state of Mérida, Leonardo León.

Through the social network Twitter, they reported that citizens scattered piles of old money bills in the streets, which were then set on fire.

TWITTER:

Descifrando la Guerra @descifraguerra Replying to @descifraguerra  Ayer se produjo el saqueo de un banco bicentenario en la ciudad de Mérida, en las cercanías de la plaza Glorias Patrias. Los saqueadores incendiaron una pila de bolívares además de dejar muchos billetes por el suelo.

-------------- end of Twitter quote as seen as Snopes ------------

In short, the “money in gutters” image shown above captured an older and now invalid form of currency that was tossed aside after the looting of a bank, and not usable currency discarded by citizens because it had been made next to worthless due to “socialism.”

------------------end of Snopes.com quote------------------

Snopes is often wrong. But these pictures were already well known and understood in their original context on Twitter, and from various journalists on all sides of the Venezuela situation before Snopes picked up on it.

It was still related to Maduro, and is still related to money becoming worthless. It is still supportive of the idea that people will be throwing their money (even their gold) in the streets, because money is of no value as a savior in the day of Jehovah's fury. It shows how bad things can get. A major use of these pictures, however, was to create a lie that it was all based on Maduro's mismanagement and therefore could be blamed on socialism. The masked persons who came into the bank may very well have planned the propaganda photo-op for purposes of drumming up support from outside Venezuela for the opposition parties.

It reminds me of Russian authorities planting literature in JW KH's as a set-up to frame trouble. The opposition parties in Venezuela have been getting away with violence, riots, sabotage, even terrorism, hoping to create a big enough backlash from the government that will give the excuse for a "regime" change.

It also reminds me of how someone can take pictures of Bro. Morris in a liquor store to try to give the impression that all this must be for him and him alone, or that it must be for the purpose of allowing him to abuse alcohol over some period of time.

6 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

Therefore, you should read SNOPES again and a little closer, since the direct effect on Valenzuela money is due to its dictatorship, not just oil. Maduro has made the country’s currency worthless. Therefore, it’s dishonest to stipulate that currency on the street is there because it was not interchangeable.

The Snopes article got a little closer to the truth. It is worded in an unclear way, but I don't think it was being dishonest when it stipulated the following: "Hence the discarded money seen here was literally worthless not because it had no value, because it had been completely replaced by a newer currency and was no longer legal tender."

The article did admit that there were many factors, including Maduro. Part of it was definitely the lower oil prices (which hurt Saudi Arabia, too) and Maduro's optimistic claims in spite of outside interference. But most of it was sanctions that cut off Venezuela's ability to efficiently sell their oil.

Unfortunately, Snopes left off some of the most important factors that became more obvious from undercover work, undercover videos, and recorded, published interviews with officials who have understood the factors that proved that much of the problem was intentionally aggravated by outside economic sabotage against Chavez and Maduro. The recent test of loyalties in Venezuela by the United States showed that a majority (even if a small majority) of people in Venezuela still preferred Maduro over Guaido. Otherwise the US would have been happy to send "5,000 troops to the Colombian border," and have Brazil readied to support a possible invasion from that border. The US often uses "humanitarian aid" as a ruse to provide weapons to an opposition party, while bragging about how the sanctions will produce a humanitarian crisis of hunger, sabotage of infrastructure etc. U.S.Aid and other "white hat" programs have been caught red-handed in such regime change attempts in many other places. Trump admitted in a couple tweets and a speech in Miami that he wanted their oil.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/29/how-trumps-venezuela-sanctions-could-undercut-his-iran-policy-pdvsa-maduro-guaido-oil/

The oil sanctions that U.S. President Donald Trump levied on Venezuela Monday represent Washington’s strongest effort yet to oust embattled leader Nicolás Maduro by starving his regime of funds. . . . The oil sanctions that U.S. President Donald Trump levied on Venezuela Monday represent Washington’s strongest effort yet to oust embattled leader Nicolás Maduro by starving his regime of funds. . . . Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. He said oil sanctions would be lifted if PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, were to pass control to Guaidó . . . . The U.S. measures, while stopping short of a full embargo on Venezuelan exports, are still a potentially devastating double whammy. They prohibit refiners in the United States, which imported about 580,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan oil over the last year, from buying any more crude from PDVSA. . . . The U.S. measures, which cap a steady, yearslong escalation of financial pressure on Maduro and his inner circle, sparked an angry response in Caracas. . . .[others] warned that Washington would have to be held responsible for inflicting more economic pain on a country already suffering food shortages, mass migration, and disease outbreaks.

This post will be moved to a more appropriate topic, but I thought it was interesting enough to post here for a bit.

21 minutes ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

Too bad, we can't zoom in to see the burrito is actually a bean burrito . . . Too bad some people just can't accept forensics. lol! 😁

Perhaps you can't zoom in, but I still can. Let me know if you want the rest. I can send it to you and you can perform forensics to your heart's content.

Sorry to disappoint you again Allen. On the original picture, you can still zoom in and see a couple grains of rice. Of course, past experience tells me that even this evidence might still not be enough for you. "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."

2 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

Drug dealers in the hood. Especially when aluminum foil is involved.

Hmmm. That might explain why that Chipotle burrito inside the foil was making me feel funny. 🤢

While naming this thread, I had left out another world "hotspot" that reveals a lot about how we in the so-called "West" will hear about "news" compared to other nations not allied with the "West."

Note that I wanted to provide some examples, not to take sides, but to point out some of the areas where hypocrisy is commonplace. It also shows how easy it is for people to begin to take sides without realizing they are being manipulated by propaganda. Unfortunately, it can also point out that some of the news sources that Americans widely trust are often eager to join in the propaganda.

A good example is the war against Yemen by Saudi Arabia. There is a clear video of a particular bombing in the last couple of days, next to a school with students watching from the schoolyard and the halls, balconies, and windows. (Anyone can find the video if they want.) And it is widely known and even admitted that the Saudis are leading this bombing with full support, aid, planes, refueling, bombs, logistics, and targets and even pilots in some cases being supplied by the United States.

So how does the NYT report a bombing the US "provides" for the Saudis when it kills several school-girls and other children? It's called a "large explosion at a warehouse." But it's also informative to note how a "source" is used by calling it a state-run news agency aligned with the internationally recognized government. (See more comments on this below the image.)

The "internationally recognized government" is actually a reference those who still support a president who illegally overstayed his term in office, fled to Saudi Arabia in 2015, and asked the Saudis to bomb his own people so as to delay any more numerous factions or parties from being able to take power. The Saudis were happy to bomb their old Shia enemies in Yemen. Yemen's people generally see this "recognized government" as a fake regime of an illegitimate president (Hadi) who has lived in Saudi Arabia for 4 years. Killing tens of thousands of civilians by bombings and killing millions through famine are the obvious primary targets of the US-UK-Saudi war against Yemen. The US and UK work with the Saudis because it helps them keep control and leverage over the flow of oil. 

The parallels with Venezuela, for example, should be obvious, where the "West" decided to recognize an illegitimate elitist president hoping that a civil war would put him in power, giving power to a person who had already expressed willingness to work with the West and the IMF on how oil would be controlled. The hypocritical talk about famine and shortages and corruption in Venezuela are obvious when one compares the US treatment of Venezuela with the treatment of Brazil and Columbia. In fact, in all the worry about how Venezuela was on the brink of famine, the US talked about how trade sanctions would teach them a lesson by creating real famine that might help produce a quicker "solution" to the regime change. 

4 hours ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/venezuela-money-in-gutter/

Thanks for including this link. No one should minimize the real problems in Venezuela, but many of the particular pictures are being distributed by persons who are trying to create a lie, and then hoping they will be further redistributed (as planned) by people who don't know it is based on a lie. Here's what your source (snopes) said:

The money shown lying in the gutter in this picture is Venezuela’s old currency, the Bolívar Fuerte, which was replaced by a new form of currency, the Bolivar Soberano, in August 2018. When the Bolivar Soberano was introduced, Bolívar Fuerte currency in amounts less than 1,000 ceased to be legal tender, and Bolivar Fuerte currency in all amounts was completely withdrawn on 5 December 2018. Hence the discarded money seen here was literally worthless not because it had no value, because it had been completely replaced by a newer currency and was no longer legal tender.

It reminds me of the plot of the comedy "Millions" (2004) when the Bank of England is about to move from the British Pound to the Euro and the bank is shipping the old money from banks for destruction and replacement. (Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen the move, and want to, the following hidden paragraph may spoil it for you.)

This has actually happened to large amounts of currency in several countries, including the United States in the 1860s, the Deutschmark in Germany in the 1940's. On a similar note, thousands of dollars of older paper bills are destroyed by the Federal Reserve daily to keep newer currencies in circulation.

Similar to Venezuela, Brazil ran through hyperinflation in recent decades (unrelated to socialism) and replaced many paper currencies one right after another:

Hyperinflation in Brazil was a fourteen-year period of three-to-four-digit annual inflation rates from 1980 until 1994.^[1] It coincided with the period of economic crisis and political turmoil triggered by the 1970s energy crisis during the Brazilian military dictatorship until the conclusion of the main processes of the democratic transition in the country in the late-1980s/early 1990s.

The republic went through several short-lived currencies, including the cruzado, cruzado novo, cruzeiro, and cruzeiro real, before introducing the Brazilian real in 1994 which proved to be a stable currency.

21 minutes ago, Outta Here said:

All complied with I am sure?  😊

Whoops!

Also not fake. I printed all these myself, and accidentally printed so many I use them as tissues and throw them into paper bags to toss out. Point being that it's not impossible to create propaganda, especially when there's a measure of truth in it.

On 5/14/2016 at 6:27 PM, The Librarian said:

(as one of the "Nethinim" in 1992 and reportedly even wrote that article while serving in the writing dept.)

Gene Smalley was the much more likely writer of the "Nethinim" article. Also, note that Bro Morris was not even invited to Bethel until 10 years after that article was written.

On 4/4/2019 at 6:18 PM, BillyTheKid46 said:

It’s like a former Bethel member giving up insinuations and then, say, but really, I don’t know the reason why they were dismissed, it’s my assumption they were for that reason. That’s hilarious.

I referred specifically to a period of time from mid 1976 to mid-1977 when I saw drunkenness and saw persons getting in trouble for drunkenness. During that time the reasons for weekly dismissals were announced by Knorr from "morning worship" which included Knorr's comments every weekday morning after the day's text and comments. He often went into great detail about the exact reasons that persons were dismissed, and it was almost always for theft or some kind of immorality. Persons were dismissed every week, but during that time there was never an announcement of someone being dismissed for drunkenness.

It was after mid-1977 that announcements about the reasons for dismissals stopped, and this is why we could not assume to know the reasons for dismissals from that point on.

In any case it's still true then, that I saw drunkenness and misuse of alcohol by younger members at Bethel, but never heard of a case where a person was dismissed for it. I cannot say it didn't happen. Yet I did know persons who got away with repeated drunkenness who were never dismissed.

I have never seen a member of the Governing Body drunk. I never even suspected it. One of several persons who claimed that he had seen such a thing, had his own issues with alcohol in my opinion. The only member of the Governing Body I knew well was Bert Schroeder. (I saw and worked near Sydlik, Gangas and Swingle on a daily basis but never got to know them very well.) He hosted a Gilead party in his room after every graduation. Invariably, there were some very talented persons in the Gilead class musically, and a great Flamenco style Spanish guitarist at the very first "Gilead party" I attended in the Fall of 1976. Brother Schroeder served alcohol in his room, but I don't recall him drinking at all, not that it would have been a problem if he did. Everyone else also drank moderately. This was very early and memorable in my Bethel years, and it was the first Bethel "party" I attended.

But among younger Bethelites, alcohol seemed to me to be a bigger problem than I had expected. In 1978, I went to Europe for about 6 weeks, part of it with the Schroeders, and part of it to work at the Athens branch, and part of it to attend various international conventions and visit and stay at 8 European branch offices - not in any official capacity of course, just as a free hotel room. Just before the trip, my brother had just sent me a 5-gallon bottle of Seagrams 7, which I had not opened and I asked my three roommates not to open while I was gone. It was empty when I came back.

Several young brothers at Bethel had lamps that were made from these 5 gallon whiskey bottles, and I gave away the empty bottle to a brother who wanted to make a lamp out of it. Who knows? It might have been passed down to someone who is still there.

48 minutes ago, Witness said:

Somehow these two quotes must have a connection.

Nothing specific enough to be of interest to anyone looking for gossip. I think most people know that young Bethelites got in all sorts of trouble. For a few months under Knorr, there seemed to be someone sent home for 'conduct unbecoming a Bethelite' every week, sometimes two or three on the same day, and sometimes more than once in the same week. But this was when Knorr was handling the "morning worship" every day in 1976 and a bit of 1977. After Knorr was too sick, the daily text "morning worship" rotated and I never remember anyone else announcing dismissals, except maybe Milton Henschel when he wanted to make a point about the specific type of misconduct. Knorr was always very specific and it became counsel for the rest of the family, even if it took the form of a long rant that could even make you late for work.

So what I meant was that I never remember Knorr berating anyone for drunkenness or dismissing anyone for it. The dismissals that came afterward were not announced to the whole family so I have no idea what most of them were for, unless there was a clear rumor to go with it.

Back in those years almost everyone could still drink at age 19, and there were only a few 18 year olds on construction and painting crews mostly. It wasn't until 1984 that all states went to 21. But there was a time when it was easier to buy liquor in NJ (and they moved the age down from 19 to 18 in 1980). Some Bethelites would take trips from NY to NJ to stock up and then bring it back to share (or resell) to others.

Drinking was much more common than I expected, but I am not trying to give the impression that there was rampant drunkenness. It's just that you could tell that some young brothers were away from their families for the first time, had a measure of independence and privacy at Bethel, and there were several obvious mistakes made. The parties in some rooms made worldly neighbors complain from a couple of the buildings nestled in between apartments that the Society did not own. I knew a Bethelite who got in trouble for this, but he was not sent home.

The rumor about "higher-ups" is not directly related, but it was related to the "gifts" of prime cut steaks that were sent periodically from Watchtower Farms to Brooklyn. These were never served to the Bethel family, but I knew one of the cooks who was sworn to secrecy about who got them and how often. There are always perks in any organization for those at a certain level of responsibility, and this was not a "Governing Body" thing. It was more of a long time seniority thing, which will necessarily (sometimes) overlap. Since these steaks were served semi-privately as specially cooked meals, they could be served with alcohol, but some brothers were said to have already served themselves alcohol before coming down to get their meal. Certain brothers became known for this behavior, even to the point of using very foul language to the cooks and waiters. If you want to keep a secret the last thing you want to do is curse out a cook or a waiter.

Anyway, the basic idea, which I could not say because I don't know, was that Knorr knew that some high-seniority people had been known to misbehave in this area, and it might have produced some leniency when younger ones had this trouble.

37 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I know nothing of this liquor store picture/video, and am embarrassed to comment in a topic with this name.

I just watched the video from the last post. Very creepy. Seems it should be illegal to post a video like this. GB TMZ. Easily misinterpreted, too.

8 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

In Knorr's time, he being the one to funnel vendor business here and there, some of those vendors would lavish gifts on him. I've been told (anecdotal evidence - @JW Insider will know things like this) that he had given him (I think by a paper manufacturer) a Cadillac or two, which mostly just sat there in the Bethel garage. . . .  I appeal to JWI for facts. . . .

I am still under my own self-imposed gag order with respect to joining in discussions of anything controversial that might affect anyone's view of Witness doctrine and Watchtower practices, past and present.

Also, I have not listened to Lloyd Evans for more than 5 minutes, total. I heard he did a fair job on the Montana CSA trial, but I have only read the court documents. I know nothing of this liquor store picture/video, and am embarrassed to comment in a topic with this name. I go into a liquor store almost weekly myself because the owner lets me take about 30 strong cardboard boxes every Saturday night or Sunday morning. Once every month or so, I'll feel bad about taking advantage, so I buy a bottle of wine. I need the boxes because I'm in the middle of culling out literally thousands of books from my shelves and storage, and other things from my garage and basement, that I've been donating and tossing. Hundreds of these books were given to my wife when she was the school district's Director of Second Languages, ESL, and Curriculum. They lavished sets of books on her because she made decisions that would mean tens of thousands of dollars for these vendors. I have no direct knowledge of Knorr's gifts or offers from vendors, if any, but I've heard about similar rumors.

Drinking stories were always rampant at Bethel. There were always stories of higher-ups getting drunk, but this was likely fueled by younger Bethelites who were looking for excuses for their own behavior. The cooks who worked an after-dinner late shift only available to "higher ups" had the most consistent stories, but I still saw signs of exaggeration. But I have seen young Bethelites get drunk, and it was shameful and embarrassing. (For some 19 and 20 year olds, Bethel would have been their first real experience with alcohol.) I have seen housekeepers gathering liquor bottles from rooms and the sum total would have surprised anyone. I was sometimes surprised that people were periodically sent home for stealing and immorality, but never (that I knew of) for excessive drinking.

This does not mean that excessive drinking was ever condoned. I heard plenty of good scriptural counsel against excessive drinking from the Bethel "morning worship" following the discussion of the day's text. 

11 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The more clouds you have in the daytime the cooler it is.  The more clouds you have in the night time, the warmer it is.

Therefore, water vapor is not a very effective greenhouse gas after all. Methane and CO2, however, are proven greenhouse gases through experimentation, working predictive modeling, working historical modeling, and current experience.

10 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The most methane produced on Earth is by Volcanoes

Volcanoes produce very little methane. Perhaps you meant carbon dioxide. But this is junk science that makes the claim that Volcanoes produce more carbon dioxide than people.

Evidence suggests that humans and human activities produce about 60 to 90 times more carbon dioxide than all the world's volcanoes:

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/which-emits-more-carbon-dioxide-volcanoes-or-human-activities

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-MMtHoaAsYYJ:https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d

[cached version since SA is currently offline from my location.]

SA goes for 100 times:

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors.

And of course, there is also the fact that the particulates in especially large volcanic eruptions can actually promote temporary global cooling:

Furthermore, some scientists believe that spectacular volcanic eruptions, like that of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991, actually lead to short-term global cooling, not warming, as sulfur dioxide (SO2), ash and other particles in the air and stratosphere reflect some solar energy instead of letting it into Earth’s atmosphere. SO2, which converts to sulfuric acid aerosol when it hits the stratosphere, can linger there for as long as seven years and can exercise a cooling effect long after a volcanic eruption has taken place.

6 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

There is nothing we can do except watch ..... 

I agree, so far, with everything else in that last post except this claim that there is nothing we can do but watch. I think that, as Witnesses, we should have faith that these problems will be completely resolved by the end of the thousand year reign. I don't think it is the responsibility of Witnesses to be climate activists, but we should be aware of the science and do our best to understand it ourselves, or find trustworthy sources to inform us on the topic. I'm sure you feel this is what you have done.

It is difficult to be fully informed on our own, and this is true of most subjects. Fortunately, my son graduated with his degree in physics and he teaches physics and math. He also stays in contact with classmates (former roommates) who have already gone on to work in areas of physics that have a bearing on the topic.

I still need to do a lot more work on the claims about water vapor being the only greenhouse gas that has any significance. From what I have seen so far, this has been a common claim of those who deny the consensus of climate scientists. However . . .

Water vapor is a completely different kind of greenhouse gas that doesn't trap heat in the same way as methane and CO₂. Besides, even though it does trap heat to some extent, it also releases it, cools it, dissipates it, and because clouds are white, it even manages to reflect a lot of solar heat back out away from the earth. There may be a lot of water vapor, but within our current atmosphere, it has surprisingly little effect on the question of why we are seeing a rise global warming and the melting of polar ice. (Except to the extent that water vapor protects us from runaway effects of those greenhouse gases that are much more efficient at trapping heat.)

But I also see another point worth mentioning, I think. Climate science consensus deniers (yes, it's a prejudicial term, but you know what I mean) they have written as if this is something that climate scientists have ignored, as if it's something brand new to them that they have never factored in. I found that implication (or explicit claim in one case) to be totally without basis. So far I haven't seen any treatments of climate change by "consensus" climate scientists who have in any way ignored the actual "numbers" and effects of water vapor. But I will admit to needing a bit more of my own research on this topic.

20 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Mankind does not possess the ability to affect climate change ... one way or another.  Not to cause it. Not to change it. Not to stop it.

I think it can be misleading to look at the ability of the atmosphere to absorb billions of tons of elements in the form of gases and particulates outside of the "normal" levels of Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Dihydrogen Monoxide 😉, Methane, Ozone, etc. But the theory of global warming is really about "tipping points." It's not "linear." The atmosphere can absorb tons of "pollutants, but only up to a certain point when new effects can be measured.

It's also an attempt to explain why we have been able to measure the gasses trapped in ice for thousands of years based on deep core samples and see a very stable rise and fall in "greenhouse gases" up until the last few decades. These are evidently natural cycles. You can think of distortion, interference or spikes in an otherwise smooth sine wave on an oscilloscope. These "spikes" could be from oceanic or volcanic disruptions over the last thousands of years, and we can't really correlate these with global temperatures since there was no one there to measure prior to the last few decades. So the threshold line is theoretically arbitrary. Still, if we could hypothesize a "tipping point" threshold line, it's easy to see that spikes that occur below the threshold line would be meaningless. But to test the theory we would want to watch for possible additional effects over the line. But now we have a new spike that hasn't abated, and it's 10 times taller than the last spike on the chart below (not shown).

Why a huge spike now? Is there more volcanic activity now? NO. Is there more methane and CO2  released now? YES. So this is where and why we would start looking for cause and effect.

It's not fully analogous, but some TV Science channel once ran a special about how you could kill the Sun with a chunk of iron. Completely false, but it turns out that there are stars of certain sizes that would not survive an influx of iron. More accurately, stars fuse hydrogen to helium -- and the core of the star, through real alchemy, can "fuse" elements all the way up to iron, but no further. If it starts trying to fuse iron, it means its energy will quickly be lost and the star will quickly collapse. The point is that it might be surprising that a star (depending on mass/gravity) that has a certain level of iron in it could be fine, but just a tiny bit more and the whole star just collapses.

41 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

You told @Srecko Sostar and @JW Insider that Americans were split 50/50 on climate change.

Americans in the United States are close enough to 50/50. But to be fair, you weren't speaking about Americans. I only responded to your claim about "the world."

On 3/22/2019 at 4:11 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

The world splits down the middle on climate change.

Measuring stats from Gallup-style surveys can be very misleading, too, especially on a topic that varies so much by demographic (education, age and political ideology). 17 year old HS students in rural areas will have a different outlook than 18 year old college students in cities. Lack of worry can be a positive measure among some and a negative outlook of total despair among others. 

57 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

For me, that is statements of the WT that they are now devoting multiple times the resources that they one did to disaster relief.

It's to be expected, in my opinion too, but it does not necessarily follow that these additional resources are due to climate change. There might have been a decision to devote more resources due to several other factors. And if funds for these purposes were to run out, it would also not follow that climate change disasters had diminished. 

15 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

But technically .... I did race against Paul Newman.

Reminds me that we did pre-assembly work for the JW summer conventions in Springfield, Illinois almost every year from 1971 to 1976. It was on the racetrack and we started setting up 1.5 to 2 weeks before the actual assembly to prepare signs and wiring for our own sound system, special electrical and "sewer" lines from a cafeteria kitchen area carved out of the parking lot, etc. 

Got to stay overnight a few times as "security guards" during the days leading up to the assembly when they still had a few races scheduled. We got to attend a race for free and I saw both Bobby Unser and Al Unser in the same race, not from the stands or announcer's box, but from our own sound system booth, right up against the edge of the racetrack. I had not followed racing but this was just a couple years after Bobby Unser had set a 195 mph record at Indy.

Another story. My brother and I both had guard duty at Bloomington, MN in pre-assembly work and we snuck into the Vikings locker and found a covered hot tub in the middle of the floor. We opened it and it was full of room-temperature, unopened bottles of champagne in lukewarm water. About 100 bottles or more. My brother said they had just lost the division championship game earlier that year that, otherwise, would have qualified them for the Super Bowl. No celebration, I guess.

To begin however I think it's useful to address some of what happened with Russia-gate:

Here's a Tweet to begin with which I found on Jimmy Dore's Twitter feed: ( https://twitter.com/search?q=jimmy dore&src=typd&lang=en )

Ben Norton‏Verified account @BenjaminNorton Mar 24

Fake news has been a part of US and international politics since, for example:

• the supposed Boston Massacre as prelude to the Revolutionary War
• the supposed killing of Thornton on "American" soil in 1846 as prelude to the US war with Mexico to take more of Texas. (Lincoln disputed it, famously saying: "Show me the spot.")
• the supposed invasion of Germany by Poland per Hitler as a prelude to the second world war 1939
• the Lavon Affair in Egypt in 1954 where Israeli terrorists bombed allies in hopes that others would be blamed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavon_Affair
• the supposedly unprovoked attack on the USS Maddox by Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin as a prelude to US open involvement in the Vietnam War
• Reagan's negotiation for the delay of the release of American hostages by Iran so that Carter would not be credited for their release
• Supposed tons of active WMD's held by Saddam Hussein as a prelude to the invasion of Iraq
• etc., etc., etc.

I realize that this could be discussed in the wider forum, not just under the Jehovah's Witnesses section of the forum. But I am also interested in whether a conversation on these topics might take a turn toward the way some beliefs can be skewed or strengthened by prophetic and eschatological interpretations.

But my main point is that I believe there is an obvious connection and common theme among the "fake news" episodes we are seeing now, such as Russia-gate propaganda, WMD propaganda,  and a trend that started to escalate fake news. I propose that this trend escalated not so much under Reagan (arms-for-hostages, Iran-Contra), but even more so under Bill Clinton and the Yugoslav/Serbian/Milosevic era when fake news began to actually work much more successfully with wider international coordination.

I'll keep this going . . .

About a dozen GRAMMY-winning artists and producers. Attended a couple Grammy Awards with meetings throughout the "Grammy week" that precede the live Sunday broadcast, meeting various artists and songwriters, and attended one "afterparty." I never got up the nerve to "meet" the most famous artists, but did meet several of the most famous producers and record label owners. [Names removed on purpose.]

I once worked at the headquarters of a religious organization/publisher where Michael Jackson and most of his entire family toured in 1976. Also never "met" any of them but did say hello when they passed near my desk. I did briefly meet a performing artist named George Benson (singer/guitarist) at the same headquarters in 1979.

Similarly, in an IT job with an international financial services company that I kept from 1987 to 2015, I "met" technical leaders like Steve Jobs, Steve Chase, Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, and other CEOs, etc.,  who sometimes gave the opening addresses at trade shows and seminars I attended at NYC's Jacob Javitz, San Francisco, Boston, San Diego and Las Vegas convention centers, etc. I heard Richard Branson speak in San Diego, but I never actually talked to any of these people for more than 5 seconds. Most of them, none at all.  

Donald Trump. From 1983-1987. Worked for Arthur D Little, a consulting firm out of Cambridge/Boston, for a few years, and worked the "Trump" account for the Trump Organization, also through RSA (NYC Landlord's Association) representing Fred/Donald Trump, the Harry/Leona Helmsley, Samuel LeFrak, Peter Kalikow, etc. (Kalikow bought the NYPost from Murdoch). I met Fred and Donald Trump, and Kalikow, and at least a dozen NYC landlords who were much wealthier than the Trumps, but whose names are not so well known. 

I gave two data analysis presentations over those years with Trump in the boardroom. He asked legitimate questions and although already known for an ego in the media, on these occasions he did not come across the way he is now portrayed (and the way he portrays himself).

The job developed from a college internship with the Bureau of Labor Statistics where I ran SQL and SPSSx queries on huge US Census Bureau datasets, and DHCR datasets. (NYC Department of Housing).

Funniest thing during this period happened when I saw a RFP in the NYT for some data analysis project the city needed run on the DHCR database. RSA also owned data on every rental property in NYC. I made a proposal that I could do this for $20,000 which would pay for the access to the databases and the time on a mainframe (actually a mid-size Honeywell, not technically a mainframe). If done right this should have left a couple thousand for myself. On checking with the landlord's association for permission/access, I was told that the contract was already theirs and that it was for somewhere north of a million dollars. But I was hired to do the same work at $20 an hour which quickly turned into my first full-time job after college.

13 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

https://www.foxnews.com/science/fastest-thinning-greenland-glacier-threw-nasa-scientists-for-a-loop-its-actually-growing?cmpid=NL_SciTech

News outlets, even those who support global warming (climate change) science, have contributed to the belief that we should not trust 99 scientists out of 100 by so often giving nearly 50 percent of their coverage to the nay-sayer instead of only 1 percent. And some news outlets, appealing to older conservative audiences, like FoxNews, will focus only on the 1 percent, as if only 1 of the 99 is telling the truth and the other 99 must have a hidden agenda. And it's still mostly non-scientists who write the news and decide how to "position" "dramatize" or politicize these various reports. 

This is also the case of a Greenland glacier that had been rapidly thinning for 20 years but has spent the last 3 years slowing down and therefore actually getting thicker in parts. Some news outlets have pointed to the anomaly as if it might create doubt about the general pattern. Of course, the report about this glacier came from the same scientists that their audience is supposed to always mistrust. So the focus is on how this anomaly surprised "the scientists" as if they were dumbfounded about how they could have been so wrong.

Since we are being taught to only trust news outlets instead of science outlets, how about this one from Forbes? https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/03/26/the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-greenlands-jakobshavn-glacier-slowing-and-gaining-mass/#153ea8922179

But even before reading this much better article in Forbes one should read carefully the claims made in the FoxNews version:

The glacier — known as Jakobshavn, which sits on Greenland's west coast — is still contributing to sea level rise, but it's losing less ice than expected. . . .

But this crisp change won't last forever. Once the NAO climate pattern flips back, the Jakobshavn will likely start melting faster and thinning again, the researchers said.

"Jakobshavn is getting a temporary break from this climate pattern," Josh Willis, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the principal investigator of OMG, said in the statement. "But in the long run, the oceans are warming. And seeing the oceans have such a huge impact on the glaciers is bad news for Greenland's ice sheet."

The FoxNews article admits that the glacier lost 500 feet in height (think of a 50 story building) but gained back 100 feet largely through snow accumulation.

Between 2003 and 2016, its thickness (from top to bottom) dwindled by 500 feet (152 meters).

But in 2016, the waters flowing from Greenland's southern tip to its western side cooled by more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit . . .

In all, Jakobshavn grew about 100 feet (30 m) taller between 2016 and 2017, the researchers found. But, as mentioned, the glacier is still contributing to ocean level rise worldwide, as it's still losing more ice to the ocean than it is gaining from snow accumulation, the researchers said.

The Forbes article is better in that it avoids the sensationalism of only focusing on the quotes of scientists who were surprised at the anomaly, and also quotes scientists who claimed to realize that this type of thing is expected. (There are always going to be 'exceptions that prove the rule.')

The more important surprise is a more dangerous one, in that it shows just how sensitive glaciers are to water temperatures, and therefore this is worse news than expected. The Forbes article adds: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2019/03/26/the-good-bad-and-ugly-of-greenlands-jakobshavn-glacier-slowing-and-gaining-mass/#153ea8922179

Bad news is, if glaciers are this sensitive to the ocean, we’ll be revising sea level rise projections upwards [a]gain soon.

He's right and that's ugly.

The article points out that this glacier alone contributed 1 mm to this 90 mm rise since 1995. Also:

It is important to remember that oceans are also not the only driver of Greenland's melt. A 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science is a stark reminder that Greenland is melting four times faster than expected. The OMG tends to focus on ocean process, but other scientists studying Greenland's climate highlight other key factors too (atmospheric warming and more humid atmosphere, more liquid water clouds, darkening surface from earlier melt). While "the pause" is "relatively" good news and a good lesson on the role of regional variability within a dynamic climate system , it must not be overplayed or spun to some narrative that climate change is not happening or has reversed.

Wow.