I had no idea the octopus was a symbol of antisemitism. Given that it is the only item, other than furniture, in the photo, I do not believe her claim of ignorance. Too bad she does not tell the truth and confess her ignorance about the climate.
It's entirely possible that Greta has no idea about some 1930-40's poster.
I get the impression her rich and elite-ish parents didn't homeschool her on the evils of the Socialist Movement and how many millions they murder. ( Understatement of 2023? )
Be a sick burn if it was a gift from Mommy who imagines herself as Elsa, She Wolf of the SS. You get the impression of real Stage Parents in that family, so few things would really surprise me.
However, in this case, I don't think Saint Greta is aware of any Octopus Iconography. The guy who POSED the picture probably did pick it for that reason, though. Leftist are really sick child exploiters and Greta is a prime example of that.
I point out that Eagles and Hawks have been very popular in Heraldry for THOUSANDS of years. Even before the word Heraldry was coined. Eagles on every side of any conflict in history.
The PURPOSE of heraldry, in the context of battle, is once you have a helmet on, even not full face, you can't tell people apart. So if you see some guy wailing away with an axe on somebody, you look to see what they are wearing to tell who you want to help.
In modern times, the last 3 centuries or so, Uniforms are how you tell. Blue vs. Gray, Khaki vs. Green, etc. Uniforms are issued to troops, ( or required to be purchased ) and the Officers wear fancier stuff so you know who you are supposed to listen to. Or shoot at. Marines are Famous for being the snipers in the fighting tops of warships and picking off officers to disrupt the battle. That's why the hats of officers have the gold braid. Combination Authority Sign and Bravery signaling.
But you go back before big uniformed standing armies, and the Baron, or King, or whatever lordly title for bossman, would call up the people who OWE him to fight wars. The entire Feudal system is just one version of Patronage and mutual support, common for thousands of years. So...
King Fred decides he wants to take King Harry's stuff, or vice versa, and Fred sends for Pete, who Fred set up as the mayor/leader/defender of a village. Pete owes Fred. Sends him taxes, and gets protection from, among other things, King Harry. So Pete grabs his kit, and a few loyal minions that have some usually less expensive kit, and the sturdy peasant guys who are willing to train a bit ( better than farming ) and have almost nothing in the way of gear. ( Often a spear made from an agricultural tool, and a club ) And they all ride & walk over to where King Pete is waiting.
Think Sheriff, Deputies and Posse. Or Knight, Squires, Men at arms, same thing.
None of these people are dressed exactly the same. That's a useless luxury for most of history. Standing Armies, sure, and the reasoning is the same.
If there's Thousands marching into each other to battle, then Uniforms are important. In small group actions, you look to heraldry, Pete has a snorting Boar embroidered on his stuff, his minions Boar heads, so they all look for the Boar. They get told who they're fighting for, if they didn't know. It's not uncommon to go over your side's images the whole trip to the battle, so you know who's the good guys. After all, last year that jerk Bobby fought for Harry, but he's with Fred this year, which is great, he's mean & tough. So you make sure not to attack Bobby's guys who wear a snake eating a crow. Memorize that!
You can see how it's easier when the numbers get bigger, to go Uniform in more ways than one. Logistics! The Romans were masters of that. You break a sword, you can get another that is the size you trained on, no problem, it's standardized.
And Uniforms are intimidating. Oh, crud, they all look the same and they all got good gear!
It wasn't until the last few hundred years, and the Western Civilization Enlightenment, that it became LAW that you wear a uniform to separate you from the population. To make you the target, and not innocents. It's a pretty high moral position in a brutal dirty business.
Naturally, the Bad Guys exploit hiding among the people... Or the Freedom Fighters, but in both cases under Modern Laws Of War, you get summarily executed for fighting deliberately out of uniform. Look at the American Revolution, where it starts with a revolt, but to be a legitimate fighting force Uniforms became not optional, but required. There's a reason they call them irregulars when it's local citizen militias involved, who might just have a strip of colored cloth on their arms to give them legal and proper place in a conflict.
Drag racing breaks the weakest link in the drive train and suspension.
On my new E-bicycle, I'm still quite timid and easing into the learning curve on both the motor kit, and the quick handling of a high performance bicycle. ( It's not your Grandma's beach cruiser )
I'm concerned about the mechanical bits and try to be gentle with a drive train expected to take about half the power I can now feed through it. Chain, derailleur, and eventually, possibly tires if I'm brave enough.
Luckily I have advice from a bike mechanic with the same kit on his commuter machine, who advised me to keep power levels below about 750 watts ( displayed ) and cruise under 500. He overheated his at speed going up a steep hill and melted the Chinesium grease out of the gearbox on the motor. Says he was probably drawing about 1400 watts and had to rebuild the gearbox with fresh premium grease.
And I appreciate the advice! It would be Easy to overheat the motor/gearbox because there's no heat sensor, or any other indicators of abuse, except the power display on the control panel. You don't get physical signs you're pushing it too hard.
It's the same for cars, it would be useless information overload to display every sensor's input to the driver. You might like to know, sometimes, the temperature of the Left front wheel bearing, but how often? The engineers have to decide in software and hardware what sensors are needed to keep everything running well, and provide useful safety data to the computer actually running the drivetrain, and the human factors guys choose what to throw up on your dashboard/display. ( from the installed sensors )
I've been watching the evolution of the Glass Cockpit in home built airplanes. Going from round dial "steam gauges" to multifunction color touch screens. Because of regulatory inertia, the instrument companies, like Garmin, test new ideas on the home built market, ( which in the U.S. produces more, and far more advanced, light airplanes than Piper or Cessna, today. ) before offering the well tested and refined product to the commercial market. With a much higher price because of paperwork regs and documentation.
Everybody that can afford to, installs 2 screens, so one can be dedicated to engine sensors and maybe radio controls, while the main screen in front of the pilot can display navigation and attitude information, uncluttered by, for example, a multi-bar graph of individual cylinder head temperatures.
The engines are still typically manually operated, with mixture controls etc. Mechanical fuel injection and carburetors still dominates the market, as electronic fuel & ignition systems are increasing in popularity. ( and, again, are beta tested in home built sport planes before General Aviation gets them. )
I've seen modern versions of Cub replicas with better displays than the Airbus I rode in this summer. I helped a buddy design the Glass Cockpit in his WW1 Fokker D.VII replica with a cartoon version of the 1917 dash printed on a Velcro attached panel to cover the anachronistic systems while on display at airshows.
But the prize for funny anachronism in aviation goes to my friend's hang glider tow plane, which Only has RPM, Altitude, and EGT gauges, all mounted in a row on a tube by the seat of an open air flying machine... And a full color GPS tablet strapped to his leg to navigate through the Air traffic control system.
I've considered Strava to measure my hill climbs on my bicycle, have you any feedback?
I've also got a classic pith ball variometer (VSI) in a box somewhere, I used for years with a school lunch box Thermos flask duct taped in the wing & the tubing routed through the control bar to the vario Velcro patched to the bar. No batteries, and just plug in & stick on.
I've also tried a locally produced "stick of gum" sized circuit board ionization beeper, where you fasten one on each wing tip, and when the static charge changed it made noise, so you could tell which way a thermal was, & turn into it quicker. It worked pretty good, but 3 beeping gizmos got annoying when I also had an electronic micro vario going on my helmet strap.
Airline security used to freak out because I kept my Expensive and delicate vario in carry on luggage. Battery removed, of course. After the first time the TSA guy picked it up and hit the switch to turn it on and it started beeping. They also get rather huffy if you try to bring a parachute as carry on.
My Lady Knight & Archaeologist friend has a great story about getting her suit of armor and gear through security at JFK.
Canadian customs is also a challenge to bring armor through. Logical, they don't want unregulated sales of expensive sporting gear ( Armor can be Very Expensive ) so SOP is to pack hockey gloves, and pads on top of the steel parts, instantly recognized common stuff for Canadian customs, and they let it pass, even if they also strip the car looking for drugs. Damhik.
Thanks, I might try that. Kinda curious if it will work on elevators.
I've carried various VSIs on elevators as a prank. People react funny when someone is intently looking at a strange box with switches and dials & it starts making noise when the elevator starts moving. Especially the varios that beep faster as vertical movement increases. Worse, from the view of mundane observers, the typical vario works from air pressure difference, and in an elevator shaft, air is compressed by the movement of the car, independent of the pressure change with elevation.
So if you're standing outside, and lift the instrument from waist to head height, it will beep only when moving. They can be very sensitive. But in an elevator shaft, the beeps change & even keep going after the car stops at a floor & only stops when the doors open.
The first time I took a vario for an elevator ride, it was with full awareness of this phenomenon, and I was curious what readings I got. Useless in practice, sure, nobody flies sailplanes in an elevator. But I was curious about air pressure changes, and the reactions of people to a frantically beeping box that trailed off it's cries and goes silent after the pressure change stops, ( something human senses can't detect well, which is why we build these things ) was amusing to a "smart alec" like me.
I recall on the old Top Gear tv show, the host bought an AMG Mercedes super car. When the car started ordering the owner to take it in for service, he deliberately ignored it. Joked on tv that as a British subject he didn't have to obey a German car, and he'd take it in for scheduled service when he darn well wanted to.
One day he gets home from work and the Mercedes is gone. It had called the dealer and Informed on it's owner, and ordered the dealer that it be taken in for service, which the dealer dutifully obeyed.
( hey, the Car said it was ok... )
I've owned German and Japanese cars. My Toyota politely asked for service and assumed I will be a good citizen and do so. It does get frantically insistent when you don't use your seat belt. The VW ordered me to take it in for service, and would shorten the interval between demands until it continuously displays my orders.
I don't know what either tells the manufacturer, the NTSB, or the NSA.
The net zero mantra is fundamentally dishonest and scientific Lysenkoism. You can't get good engineering results from impossible goals and political pressure to deny failure.
I'll get back to impossible goals.
The Soviets were infamous for repeated mass starvation events in the wake of Big Scientific Socialist farming reforms.
There's a horrifying analogy of the Yellowstone Park eco-disaster involving Elk, enlightened new theories of eco-systems, government refusal to admit error ... CYA, though I have to admit American Bureaucrats didn't get sent to Siberian Labor camps for reporting problems. ( come to think of it, Wyoming... )
Today's ESG, aka Eco-tyranny-fearmongering, Racism, and Totalitarianism. Is unsustainable by it's very nature. It's a destructive machine to Cloward-Piven anything you apply it to.
Yeah, I used Cloward-Piven as a verb. Get over it or study it and explain why I shouldn't.
Re: impossible goals.
Ironically, this is the bright side of eco-exploitation policies.
While you can't legislate engineering, you can sometimes push a little. The cleaner automobiles EPA push that gave us 1970s smog pumps and lousy cars in the 80s, did get Detroit, etc. to invest in fuel injection systems that evolved to the ones today where further improvement is really not needed for pollution control. But there was also pressure from consumers for better economy with the Carter administration, the rise of OPEC and a massive rise in energy costs.
Since most of the technology to improve auto pollution was already in existence, that advance had a head start that rechargeable battery chemistry didn't.
But there's money to be made from a better battery, even without Big Government Pressure.
Heck, I'll buy some. Give me high end Tesla performance and range in a cheap work van format, and I'm getting the loan.
Not so much, apparently for wind and solar. A few percentage points of improvement helps, but they have watts per square meter limits and intermittent operation. Period.
I was warned against taking Pseudoephedrine containing Cold medicine by my Doctor years ago, for medical reasons, high blood pressure. The good news is my Pharmacist warned me that it's basically not available off the shelf, so don't worry about it.
Oh, you can still get Pseudoephedrine, it's just more paperwork than Heroin. No chance of accidental doses in normal life.
I don't take any otc cold meds. They're all symptom blockers.
And having a plugged up nose kills the virus faster, with higher temperatures from no airflow.
So your cold lasts longer if you take cold meds.
Sells more cold meds that way. ( just a coincidence, I'm sure )
That said, the old Pseudoephedrine stuff worked great at reliving symptoms and giving a little speed boost to offset fatigue, at the cost of cardiac stress and potential long term kidney damage. TANSTAAFL.
Decent retrospective, time will tell on predictions.
I'm still gathering data on my E-bike range, which, so far, means I run out of gas before the "wide slice toaster" sized battery does. I'm working on that, after all, my reason for getting a boosted pedal power machine is to get back in shape after being a cripple for way too long.
It wasn't that long ago I had to stop & sit down before going the length of a large shopping mall. Pain, not cardio endurance, and unwillingness to do enough dope to not care about the grinding bones in my knees.
But that also hammered my endurance and leg power, so now I'm trying to recover some.
It's working. Not fast, but real.
Re: cold meds.
That's a personal choice. Ditto hayfever/allergy meds. The one that worked for me, got banned. ( an antihistamine & methamphetamine mix? Don't quote me. It's not on the market anymore )
If a med works for you, great, I won't proselytize natural blah blah.
I keep Benadryl in the cabinet for allergies, it's a lifesaver! If you've got a bad allergic reaction? Absolutely! ( check with your physician before taking anything and don't take crazy advice from internet fans )
There's a few chemicals out there my body really dislikes, Hellcat brand degreaser they used at Burger King to clean the filters over the fry vats shuts my breathing off in seconds. Drugs can save lives!
Generally I tough out colds with extra water and tea and hot showers with extra rest. Hayfever I ignore, mostly, but that's because I prefer the runny nose and itchy eyes to the side effects of the meds I've tried. There might be something awesome I haven't, and I certainly don't mock anyone who choses differently.
It's a complex problem with easy, wrong, authoritarian totalitarian "answers".
That not only can't solve the imaginary "problem", they actively increase human suffering and wreck industrial civilization, by design, according to plan.
The organization that wrote the plan changed it's name when the Empire it worked to prop up collapsed. But they have succeeded beyond the wildest dreams at the core goals, using lies and useful idiots. A purpose built cult, that has become a State Religion to prop up the willing Aristocracy wannabes in Republics, and there's no better example of it's success than German industrial collapse and death counts from freezing to death in Europe.
Which may hit record levels this winter as Putin's propaganda machine tells Europe to give up or freeze. With the obligatory bellicose threats of mass murder of civilians.
Ironically, while the KGB/Green Party success in deindustrializing the Soviets's Enemies is quite the rolling blackout accomplishment, the real winner has been the CCP.
The factories making consumer products that closed in the West, were replaced by massive investment in China and other Pacific poor countries.
And the CCP, like Putin, Knows that the climate cult is a scam, and while lying about "going Green" has gone full steam ahead on building the power generation capacity to charge electric vehicles, unlike Europe and America.
The vehicles that the Chinese Subjects will drive will, of course, be integrated into the Social Credit system.
You can scam and horde some fuel for a "primitive, sinful", fossil fuel vehicle, and drive only concerned about the massive surveillance state. But your Socially Responsible electric vehicle won't let you if your Masters order it Not to.
It's not that customers don't want Electric cars, it's just they don't want to spend Tesla money on a Chevy that gets recalled for burning their house down, or a Ford that can't tow the bass boat to the lake.
I don't speak for Mercedes buyers. That the luxury car is marketed with a service plan that costs more than most cars I've ever owned ( or 3 of them ) because the company Knows their cars Will Break makes some sense. That the cars ( and The BMW competitor ) are German Overengineered Mechanic's Nightmares that cost stupid hours @ $125-$250 to fix anything, ( to change a fuel filter you remove all engine accessories plus strip The intake system... Kind of Stupid ) does make me question intent by the company and sanity of the buyers. And even They can't sell cars with far fewer moving parts.
Plus... German mandated biodegradable plant based vegan wiring insulation, delicious to rodents, and starting to rot from the moment it's built into the insanely complex wiring harness, Might not inspire long term confidence in an I-BMW that costs more than my house.
The Classic trailer trip taken locally is snowmobiling at Old Forge. Typically the local snowfall, while cumulative, is massive, 50-150 inches, and snow piles in parking lots that finally melt their brine away into the rivers by April, the decent snowmobile snow is just Jan-Mar, and often melts to mud trails between blizzards with major power failure.
So locals who snowmobile often trailer their toys to the Adirondack mountains. Deep, persistent, higher altitude, snow pack.
Now I Love riding my bikes in the Hills. Local glacier made terrain is typically under 1500' vertical, and full of seasonal roads in rolling hills covered in forest and farms.
The Mountains are more spectacular, more than twice as high, and full of twisty roads with limited passing often for tens or hundreds of miles. ( stuck behind a towed travel trailer for hours is normal )
I look forward to reports from the Adirondack mountains on Electric pickups.
Yes, the battery and electric motor don't care about air density, unlike an ICE, but it's bEast coast under a mile high mountains, not the Rockies. And it's Cold in winter with charging stations pretty far apart on twisty roads.
And I'm betting electric pickup buyers use their trucks mostly for picking up home and yard improvement stuff, and towing the trailer on vacation.
Investment based on government subsidies and not profitable business, might be short term decent, but apparently the smart guys see the end of the Gravy train.
The Nightmare Scenario for the Greenie Billionaires is someone like Vivek getting into the White House and enforcing the First Amendment, pointing out that it's illegal to tithe people for a religion they don't belong to. I'm actually concerned about assassination, and I'm serious about it.
It's not just slippery slope analogy here, the Greenie Billionaires can see better than I can that we're into Avalanche conditions with a very rotten base under pressure of megatons of accumulation.
Putin's War and pipeline sabotage, Iran's proxy wars and threats to sink tankers. China's massive demand and creeping conquest of off shore islands. (gas fields ) OPEC lowering production and preparing for a repeat of the 1973 boycott.