Vincent J. Curtis
24 July 2019
If you want to know who Joseph Mifsud is, check out my blog posting of December 31, 2017, entitled "How the Russian Inquiry Really Began."
It is located under the December 2017 postings of the blogspot.
You could have read it all here first, folks!
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Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Friday, July 19, 2019
America: Love it, or Leave it
Vincent J. Curtis
19 July 2019
The sentiment: ‘America; love it or leave it’ has been around since the founding of the country, even before the establishment of the Republic. Southern Ontario – Quebec as it was known in 1784 – was settled by British Empire Loyalists. The Loyalists were Americans who disagreed with the American Revolution and supported Britain. When the revolution succeeded, the Loyalist left America. However much they may have loved their homes, they left America on account of political differences.
And let’s not forget the Mohawks. They left their traditional grounds in present-day New York State and moved onto the Haldimand Tract in 1785 for the same reason as the Loyalists. The land they left was arguably more theirs than the colonists’.
Later came the American Civil War, in which the slave states seceded from the Union in order to protect their ‘peculiar institution.’
The sentiment of ‘love America or leave it’ has a long history.
But the high dudgeon presently in the media over a chant at a Trump rally has more to do with current politics than seriously considered views. Lots of people hate Trump, and emotion colours our perception of things. People who hate Trump naturally want to find ill in anything he does.
Those who follow these rallies will have noticed a prevalence of three beat chants, such as “U-S-A”, “Four-more-years,” and “Lock-her-up”. A recent one has been a play upon a Democratic contender: “First, you have the Boot, and then ‘edge-edge. Boot-edge-edge” The crowds love participating in a Trump rally, which is why he routinely speaks before 25,000 in a hockey arena with several thousand more watching on giant screens outside. It was entirely predictable that Trump would talk about “The Squad”, as the four freshmen Democratic congresswomen call themselves: Alexandrea Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Presseley. (“Is she related to Elvis?” Trump playfully asked.) It was also entirely predictable, and it was predicted by one observer, that the crowd would boo and take up some chant at their mention. In this case, it was “send-her-back” while Trump was speaking of Ilhan Omar, a refugee from Somalia.
These chants are playful things that add to the festivity of a Trump rally. People expect to chant, and look for opportunities to do so. Again, Trump haters are going to get all serious about how wicked such sentiments are. But the spirit in which these sentiments are expressed are not as hard-edged as the Trump haters express their hatred of Trump.
On the merits of the chant, however, there is some seriousness to it. Ilhan Omar owes America a lot, and she doesn’t show it. She expresses no love for the country that took her in and afforded her a good life. Omar’s family fled the civil war in Somalia and resided in a camp in Ethiopia. America accepted her and a bunch more Somalian refugees and gave them a home in Minnesota. Safe and nourished in America, she attended good American schools, where she got a real education - not like she would have got in Somalia. She was elected first to the Minnesota State legislature, and then to Congress. Her words, actions, and traditional Somali headgear betray the ultimate aim of her politics, and it isn’t to make America great again.
Given her evident disdain for the country that has given her a good life and success, her absence of gratitude, her failure to recognize any of the good qualities of the country that took her in, it is only natural that the ire of American nativists would get raised a little bit at her prospect. Therein lies the edge to the chant, “send-her-back.” Native-born Americans love America as it is. There are literally thousands of people at the Mexican border who also love America as she is, and would love to replace Ilhan Omar as a citizen. There is plenty of reason to think that Omar is seriously in the wrong. There are good reasons to ask why she stays, but we know why.
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Sunday, July 14, 2019
How Cleaner Fuel Standards Actually Work
Vincent J. Curtis
11 July 2019
The Liberal government, as a means of reducing Canadian CO2 emissions, is proposing to impose something like California’s ‘cleaner fuel’ standards on Canadian motorists. This can’t possibly work for the stated purpose of reducing CO2 emissions.
The key element of the standard is the adulteration of motor fuel with oxygenated components, like ethanol. Canada already includes ethanol to the extent of 10 percent in motor fuel, so perhaps Trudeau plans to increase the requirement to 15 percent.
One reason why increasing the amount of ethanol, or adding some other oxygenated adulterant, to gasoline won’t work to reduce CO2 is that you have to manufacture the adulterant.
To make ethanol, you have to plant corn, grow corn, harvest corn, ferment corn, separate and purify the ethanol, dispose of the waste, and then transport the ethanol to market. All this takes fossil fuel. Whatever CO2 might be saved coming out of the tailpipe of a car is more than made up in CO2 emissions from having to make the ethanol in the first place.
But it is far from clear that oxygenates in fuel even reduce CO2 output from the tailpipe. Substituting an oxygen for a carbon in the fuel reduces the energy content of the fuel. So to get the same amount of power from the engine, you need to burn slightly more fuel – and putting out the same amount of CO2.
There are well-known ways of reducing CO2 emissions from fuels. One method is to use natural gas or propane as the fuel. These have a higher ratio of hydrogen to carbon than gasoline does, and so will produce less CO2 per unit of power.
Another method is to increase compression ratios in engines. In Europe, where gasoline costs $5 to $6 per litre, cars use small, high compression engines and 98 octane fuel to maximize efficiency. And greater efficiency means less CO2 output per distance travelled. But if you travel more because fuel costs you less, then those benefits to CO2 emissions are lost.
The Europeans also use diesel engines in cars much more than in North America. The reason those fuel-efficient diesel cars are not sold in North America is to protect the North American car companies. They don’t make those engines in North America. The excuse for keeping them out is the allegation that these diesels are too “sooty” for North American air quality standards. Diesels do produce soot, but if the aim is to reduce CO2 emissions, the prohibition against cleaner diesel engines needs to be relaxed.
Yet another method of reducing tailpipe CO2 emissions is to use hybrid engines or out-and-out electric engines. Apart from the high capital costs of these engines, the problem here arises from how the batteries get recharged. If, in the case of hybrids, they get recharged by idling the car in the driveway, then the only benefit of CO2 reduction comes from driving a lower powered car. If the electric car is recharged from power produced by a coal-burning power plant, then the CO2 reduction benefit is also illusory.
There are no free lunches when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions from the tailpipe. What you seem to gain at one point is lost elsewhere. And anti-smog air quality standards, such as those pertaining to NOx emissions, can get lost in the shuffle.
The only way out is to force a reduction in the distance driven by Canadians. Higher taxes on fuel are an obvious way of doing this, but raising taxes for the sake of climate change is not popular. This is why Trudeau is trying to back-door an effective tax increase though the higher costs of a “cleaner fuel” standard, and why Andrew Scheer is calling the cost effect of such a standard a tax.
The use of fossil fuels is essential to the running of the Canadian economy and to feeding her people. Addressing climate might be important, but it is only one important thing among many.
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11 July 2019
The Liberal government, as a means of reducing Canadian CO2 emissions, is proposing to impose something like California’s ‘cleaner fuel’ standards on Canadian motorists. This can’t possibly work for the stated purpose of reducing CO2 emissions.
The key element of the standard is the adulteration of motor fuel with oxygenated components, like ethanol. Canada already includes ethanol to the extent of 10 percent in motor fuel, so perhaps Trudeau plans to increase the requirement to 15 percent.
One reason why increasing the amount of ethanol, or adding some other oxygenated adulterant, to gasoline won’t work to reduce CO2 is that you have to manufacture the adulterant.
To make ethanol, you have to plant corn, grow corn, harvest corn, ferment corn, separate and purify the ethanol, dispose of the waste, and then transport the ethanol to market. All this takes fossil fuel. Whatever CO2 might be saved coming out of the tailpipe of a car is more than made up in CO2 emissions from having to make the ethanol in the first place.
But it is far from clear that oxygenates in fuel even reduce CO2 output from the tailpipe. Substituting an oxygen for a carbon in the fuel reduces the energy content of the fuel. So to get the same amount of power from the engine, you need to burn slightly more fuel – and putting out the same amount of CO2.
There are well-known ways of reducing CO2 emissions from fuels. One method is to use natural gas or propane as the fuel. These have a higher ratio of hydrogen to carbon than gasoline does, and so will produce less CO2 per unit of power.
Another method is to increase compression ratios in engines. In Europe, where gasoline costs $5 to $6 per litre, cars use small, high compression engines and 98 octane fuel to maximize efficiency. And greater efficiency means less CO2 output per distance travelled. But if you travel more because fuel costs you less, then those benefits to CO2 emissions are lost.
The Europeans also use diesel engines in cars much more than in North America. The reason those fuel-efficient diesel cars are not sold in North America is to protect the North American car companies. They don’t make those engines in North America. The excuse for keeping them out is the allegation that these diesels are too “sooty” for North American air quality standards. Diesels do produce soot, but if the aim is to reduce CO2 emissions, the prohibition against cleaner diesel engines needs to be relaxed.
Yet another method of reducing tailpipe CO2 emissions is to use hybrid engines or out-and-out electric engines. Apart from the high capital costs of these engines, the problem here arises from how the batteries get recharged. If, in the case of hybrids, they get recharged by idling the car in the driveway, then the only benefit of CO2 reduction comes from driving a lower powered car. If the electric car is recharged from power produced by a coal-burning power plant, then the CO2 reduction benefit is also illusory.
There are no free lunches when it comes to reducing CO2 emissions from the tailpipe. What you seem to gain at one point is lost elsewhere. And anti-smog air quality standards, such as those pertaining to NOx emissions, can get lost in the shuffle.
The only way out is to force a reduction in the distance driven by Canadians. Higher taxes on fuel are an obvious way of doing this, but raising taxes for the sake of climate change is not popular. This is why Trudeau is trying to back-door an effective tax increase though the higher costs of a “cleaner fuel” standard, and why Andrew Scheer is calling the cost effect of such a standard a tax.
The use of fossil fuels is essential to the running of the Canadian economy and to feeding her people. Addressing climate might be important, but it is only one important thing among many.
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Monday, July 8, 2019
Did Blasey Ford Lie to Congress?
Vincent J. Curtis
8 July 2019
In the course of her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee evaluating the fitness of then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh for elevation to the Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford specifically denied knowing about or involvement in the use of hypnosis to change memory. Shortly after her testimony and after Kavanaugh’s confirmation was voted out of committee, there sprang rumors that she had in fact co-authored a paper on the very subject of the use of hypnosis to change, and even create, “memories.”
The paper involving therapeutic uses of hypnosis (involving the creation of artificial situations) co-authored by Christine M. Blasey:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jclp.20496
Rachael’s Mitchell’s official report on Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony and allegations:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4952137/Rachel-Mitchell-s-analysis.pdf
The fact that Ford remembered distinctly that it was Kavanaugh who allegedly groped her in the manner she described, and of a witness to that event, but nothing else – not the year, not even how she got home, could be signs that the alleged memory was implanted by hypnosis. She recollects no details because they don’t exist and weren’t implanted. Ford appeared to sincerely believe what she was saying to the committee, and she would be sincere if a false memory had been implanted by hypnosis. She sincerely believes a false memory implanted into her sub-conscious.
On the Left, there are many people who are willing to be kamikazes for the sake of a higher good, and her testimony before congress may have been Ford’s kamikaze run.
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Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Operation Windsor (4/5 July 1944)
Vincent J. Curtis
3 May 2019
In the pursuit to Mons, the Canadian Corps employed an embryonic form of blitzkrieg. Infantry and tanks, supported by artillery, would advance in the morning. The tanks were mechanically unreliable and walking speed slow, but the crews would try, best as they could, to crush German machine gun nests and pillboxes. Overhead, allied aircraft would bomb and strafe exposed German positions in the rear. The advance would go for 7,000 yards and then stall, having moved beyond range of supporting artillery and being well within range of German guns.
The Germans learned from defeat, but had the Canadian commanders of World War II upped their game? It seems not. Hans von Luck, in his book Panzer Commander, described the British tactical method in Operation Goodwood (18/19 July 1944): “As almost always with the British, they carried out their tank attacks unaccompanied by infantry, as a result, they were unable to eliminate at once any little anti-tank nests that were lying well camouflaged in woodland or behind hedges. The main attack broke down under our defensive fire.”
Let’s return to our hero of last month, Lieutenant William F. McCormick, 1st Hussars. In an article published in the Waterloo Region Record on June 8, 2011, McCormick recounted the events of June 11, 1944. “Ordered into action, McCormick arrives to a terrible scene: a field of Sherman tanks burning quietly with no enemy in sight…An order crackles over the radio: Advance. The order is repeated, Advance. Then a new request, “Who will volunteer to advance?” McCormick orders his tanks onto the battlefield…McCormick spies enemy soldiers sitting calmly by their trenches. They look like they’re watching a sports event… He opens fire on them and advances into the wheat field. Wham! The tank to the left of him is hit…Wham! A shell explodes into the tank on his right. McCormick thinks the fire is coming from his right flank. Before he can find a target, a shell explodes into his tank…[The 12th SS] destroyed 37 tanks and damaged 13 others.” No infantry screen for the tanks there, either. New methods were needed in a hurry.
Operation Windsor was conducted to capture Carpiquet village and airfield, both D-Day objectives that McCormick himself had in his grasp. Carpiquet stood between the Canadian 3rd Division and Caen. Major General Rod Keller turned the planning over to Brigadier K.G. Blackader commander of the 8th Canadian infantry brigade (Queens’ Own Rifles, Chaudière, North Shores). The 8th would be reinforced with an attached battalion (the Royal Winnipeg Rifles) and the 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade. (Fort Garry Horse, Sherbrooke Fusiliers, Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa, elements of 79th Armoured Div).
The plan was for a set-piece battle. The infantry would advance behind a creeping barrage, supported by tanks on both flanks. In the air, two squadrons of Hawker Typhoons would provide tactical air support.
Proceeding north to south: a diversionary attack by the Sherbrooke Fusiliers was made against Francqueville. The main attack against Carpiquet village was made by the North Shores and Chaudière. The Queen’s Own were to pass through and take the airport control buildings. The RWR supported by Fort Garry Horse would seize the airfield hangers south of the village. The approach by the RWR did not go well. Infantry were subjected to unsuppressed German mortar fire as they advanced across open ground towards the airfield and took fire also from the south bank of the Odon River. Late in the day, the depleted RWR reached the airfield hangers but were unable to dislodge the German defenders. The Fort Garry Horse encountered a battlegroup of Panther tanks and were “overwhelmed.” The RWR were ordered to withdraw under cover of darkness, leaving the airfield in German hands.
Next day, the Germans made three counter-attacks against Carpiquet village, and were repulsed with heavy losses.
Two more battalions behind the RWR would have taken the airfield. But it was clear that new combined arms methods were needed, and new methods for the timely suppression of enemy defensive fires had to be learned.
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