What’s the Deal with Quakes in East Tennessee?

By Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/

There’s been a lot of agitation and media reports (some legit, some less so) on the series of earthquakes in East Tennessee, and how this means the New Madrid fault system is about to go off again, and all kinds of stuff like that. Sarah and our mutual friend Jim W. and I have been discussing it, and I’ve been answering questions on social media and whatnot, so a quick tag-up with Sarah resulted in me sitting down to write this, to hopefully spread a little more understanding and lay some fears to rest.

So here’s the deal. According to the USGS, on 12 December, a magnitude 4.4 quake occurred near Decatur, TN. Epicenter location was 35.614°N 84.740°W, and it was about 9km (about 5.6mi) deep. OHMIGOSH! We had an UNPRECEDENTED quake in East Tennessee and it’s still rumbling!

So here’s a list of the quakes in the immediate area since the 4.4 quake (including the 4.4).

But nobody even noticed that third quake! What’s up with that?

Well, it turns out that wasn’t all the quakes in the system, either. Here’s the rest of the quakes in the region for the last 30 days, as of 17 December, the time of this writing.

Now, these quakes are not all clustered immediately around Decatur. But they are all along the edge of the mountain range, within ~100 miles or less of Decatur. But there’s something else important about them. They’re all magnitude 3.0 or less.

Why is that important? A 3.0 is just on the threshold of something that humans can even FEEL. Anything smaller than a 3, humans generally don’t even notice, and it must be detected by seismograph systems. Even many 3s go unnoticed, depending on location, underlying rock strata, building structure, etc. (Often they are completely unnoticed by those standing on the ground. Sometimes even larger quakes are unnoticed by those standing directly on the ground. I can speak from personal experience on this.)

So there were quakes going on in the area for some time (and likely longer than the USGS’ website is showing, since I’d have to request access to their database to go back earlier than 30 days ago, and that’s not going to be a quick process), and nobody even noticed, BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T BIG ENOUGH TO FEEL. (This is actually pretty typical of the fault zones associated with the Reelfoot Rift, as well.)

Are there any Reelfoot Rift quakes in that same timeframe? Well, sure.

Note that the first two are squarely in the New Madrid Fault Zone, and the last is in the associated Wabash Valley Fault Zone.

OMIGOSH! They’re right! The East Tennessee quakes ARE setting off the New Madrid!

Well, no.

There were also quakes on the San Andreas, but nobody’s claiming the East Tennessee quakes affected IT. But it’s on the same tectonic plate! But there are no more structures connecting the New Madrid to the E.TN. faults than there are to the San Andreas.

Why?

Because the faults in the Appalachian orogenic zone are not only a long way away from the New Madrid system, they weren’t even created in the same era.

Many of the Appalachian faults are much, much older, and that’s one reason they’re largely inactive — the impetus to the original mountain-building/folding/faulting (this process is called “orogeny”) was the FORMATION of the Rodinia supercontinent (Appalachians 1.0, as some geologists waggishly make it, and they were likely huge) and the Grenville Orogeny, some 1,250,000,000-980,000,000 years before the present (YBP), due to the slamming together of tectonic plates. [Appalachians 1.0 are largely gone, eroded away by now.] The other sides of this orogeny — the other plates involved in the collision — include the Kibaran Orogeny in Africa (formed the Kibara Mountains in the Congo) and the Dalslandian or Sveconorwegian Orogeny in the northwestern (Nordic) part of Europe (now visible principally only as the Caledonian nappe system, which is a group of overthrust sheets).

The Reelfoot Rift, on the other hand, underlying the New Madrid and Wabash Valley fault systems, formed during the BREAKUP of Rodinia, some 750,000,000YBP. (For lots of information on this, I recommend my ebook, Rock and Roll, available for Kindle:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074SJ8ZPT

and Nook:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rock-and-roll-stephanie-osborn/1126973723?ean=2940158848162.)

The more recent orogeny (aka Appalachians 2.0), sometimes called the Appalachian or Alleghanian Orogeny, began during the formation of Pangaea, some 480,000,000YBP, again, due to the slamming together of tectonic plates. The resulting range likely reached heights comparable to the Himalayas! (By comparison, the Laramide Orogeny, which formed the Rockies, ran from roughly 80,000,000YBP to possibly as late as 35,000,000YBP, so they are MUCH younger and higher, due to having less time to erode.) Like the Grenville Orogeny, the other side of this collision formed the so-called Anti-Atlas Mountains of northwest Africa.

This makes the faults in East Tennessee thrust, or more properly, overthrust faults. A thrust fault is where the upper fault block (“hanging wall”) overrides the lower (“foot wall”). But the Free Dictionary defines “overthrust fault” as a geological term: “A low-angle thrust fault in which displacement is on the order of kilometers,” that is, a nearly-horizontal thrust fault.

Example thrust fault, Cactus Hills, Saskatchewan, Canada:

Note the roughly 45º angle of the fault.

Example overthrust fault, Glarus overthrust fault, Swiss Alps (red line denotes fault):

Note the virtually horizontal angle of the fault.

So. Between the faulting and the also-prevalent FOLDING of the Appalachian Mountains, if you stretched it all out, some scientists have estimated that Tennessee would be easily 1/3 to 1/2 again as long as it is.

Most importantly: Thrust faults, regardless of angle, are COMPRESSION faults.

But the Reelfoot Rift, the actual geological structure that causes both the New Madrid and Wabash Valley quake zones, is a TENSION/EXTENSION rift/aulacogen system. Upwelling in the mantle from a hotspot directly under the center of the Rodinia supercontinent (which insulated the mantle, CAUSING the hotspot), combined with the “conveyor belt” effect of the resulting convection, as the hot magma spread out, moved away, and sank back into the mantle, literally tore apart the overlying crust. (The Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen may have been associated with this same breakup, though other geologists speculate it may have formed during the breakup of Pannotia, another supercontinent, younger than Rodinia.)

So. This means that the two systems — the Appalachian fault systems and the New Madrid/Wabash Valley fault systems — have COMPLETELY different ‘modes,’ if you will, as well as different forms and times of origin. More, they are separated by some 300mi, with no real geological structures connecting them.

That said, it’s my personal theory that the tectonic plates do act (to a limited degree) as flat springs, which means that significant distortion at one side of the plate can produce stress at the opposite side; Jim and I have talked about this, and watched that stress ping back and forth from plate boundary to plate boundary in the form of very large quakes, for quite a few years now. So it’s just conceivable that stresses transferred from the shifting in East Tennessee (which is largely just rebounding from the last ice age, according to the geological studies I’ve read) could make themselves known in additional stresses on the multiple faults of the Reelfoot Rift.

But frankly, these East Tennessee quakes are NOT large, but pretty small quakes. Most of the quakes that are occurring are getting no attention whatsoever, because they are below the threshold of being felt. And even the largest, the 4.4, is generally considered a minor quake most places. I don’t really expect a whole lot of stress transfer from these. Translated, I don’t expect any increased New Madrid activity on their account.

So what’s causing them? Leftovers.

The rocks are most likely still slowly rebounding from ancient stresses, including the various continental collisions that created the mountains, as well as the dissolution of the giant ice sheets from the last ice age. (And those ice sheets are VERY heavy — yes, they even make the continents sag.) More, since all those ancient stresses are no longer being applied, that rebound is apt to be slowly tapering off with time.

Yes, the Decatur TN 4.4 quake was felt over a large area — for the same reason the big temblors on the New Madrid were felt from the Front Range of the Rockies, up and down the East Coast, up into Canada, and down into the Caribbean — the rocks in this region are cold and unbroken, and will transmit the quake energies long distances.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a true Big One is coming in East Tennessee, as there would be on the New Madrid or the San Andreas, because the stresses on those two systems still exist, but the stresses on the Appalachian faults are gone. And as I said, they aren’t likely to transfer any significant stress to the New Madrid.

So do what you need to do to stabilize your homes (psst — brick/masonry chimneys are especially vulnerable) and their furnishings against falling over in case there’s a few more minor shakes, then consider it the interesting geological event it is, and move on.

~~~

Check out Stephanie’s latest Division One novel, book 9 of the series, Head Games, now available for preorder in print and ebook, coming in January 2019:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L5ZMQFY?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

BN: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/head-games-stephanie-osborn/1129706755?ean=2940161305140

Two galaxies will go to war—if Fox can’t save Chairbeing Entiyti from assassins.

While Alpha One handles a Nazi zombie apocalypse, an assassin squad catches the Galactic Coalition President by surprise, leaving him at death’s door. Director Fox rushes to his old friend’s side, leaving Echo in charge of the Division.

But when the belligerent Persis Federation arrives from the Andromeda Galaxy, the Ennead orders Alpha One on the tricky first-contact mission, hoping to avert intergalactic war. Unfortunately, the Persan premier chooses Omega as his newest concubine, leaving Echo trapped between love and morality, and duty and orders.

On Earth, Ennead member Ordik Adita co-opts the Division directorship, revamping standard procedures, and enforcing his rule with an iron fist. A coup seems in progress.

The question is…how big is it?

Books in the Division One series, to date:

1) Alpha and Omega

2) A Small Medium At Large

3) A Very UnCONventional Christmas

4) Tour de Force

5) Trojan Horse

6) Texas Rangers

7) Definition and Alignment

8) Phantoms

9) Head Games

With more on the way!

First, before I forget, I have planned a Christmas extravaganza for those of you who are missing some Hoyt ebooks, including but not limited to 99c and free books.  Today, Death of a musketeer is up for free.

We woke up too early to take older son to the airport, headed to spend Christmas with lovely fiance and her family.  It’s his first Christmas away from us, but we’re not the primary family now, and we don’t expect them tied to our apron strings as they move on into their own family/circle.

Perhaps it was that, or perhaps I’m just maudlin, because it’s Christmas season and I miss long-dead relatives (maybe that’s why people used to tell ghost stories at Christmas?) and there’s no way to go back to the village of my childhood, except in my (obviously imperfect) memory.

The picture above is obviously not the village, but pretty close to the view of my classroom window in the 9th grade.

You see, we were a gifted class when the school was quite literally forbidden from grouping by ability (ah, revolutions.)  They could have argued they didn’t.  7th grade, they grouped us by name. Eighth grade we magically found ourselves in a form composed to top students (took us about zero minutes to find out what the other such form was.  Grades are posted in public by form. It wasn’t hard.)Keep in mind though they had a back up excuse.  We were also ALL troublemakers of the “but I read a book where–” or “But that’s not Egyptian religion at all. You’re porting in assumptions from Christianity” (Yes, that was me.) Or “But the history of the Black Plague tells us.”  Or even “But that’s not how evolution works.”

Still the school was obviously unsure about how they could pass that off, so they put us in weird places.  In eighth grade we were first in a street level classroom in the old earl’s palace (and if you think that’s not too bad, consider all girl’s school, and windows opening to a busy sidewalk.  They kept the shutters closed, and the lights on all the time.) and then, because I guess too conspicuous we were moved to a secret room (don’t ask. You had to go through the back of a closet and along the choir loft of the disused baroque chapel.  In case you guys wonder at all the secret passageways in my books.)  This is where we locked a freaking-out newby science teacher in the closet.  NOT MY DOING, I SWEAR, though I was annoyed enough with her to approve.  And then in the stables, ground floor, another all artificial light classroom. Also weird shape and cramped.)  But they really outdid themselves with 9th grade.  They put us in tiny room in new building.  I don’t even know why tiny room was there.  I later stayed in a similar room when I worked in a hotel in Germany.  It was obviously used — in that case — for low paid staff, and it’s the type of room that Victorians gave maids.  Don’t know why it was in a building from the sixties, unless it was force of habit.

Picture in your mind walking down a LONG attic crammed with broken desks, old globes and other decommissioned stuff.  Also all the utilities for the school, so you’re ducking electrical stuff and ducts for water. At the very end, there’s a door.  Open it.

There’s a room maybe 15 by 15 with a teacher’s desk up front, and a blackboard.  To get to the teacher’s desk you have to walk sideways past desks crammed so closely anyone wishing to go to the bathroom had to either empty the whole row OR (what we usually did) walk atop people’s desks.

Ah, but they let us pick our desks.  I was by the one window.  (Which means I died in place rather than go to the bathroom.) But ah, the view.  And because we were an afternoon form, with classes from 2 pm to 8, I got to see the lights in Porto come on.  And because we were five stories up, I could see all the way to the river.

The road that ran along the river used to be, before highways, one of the routes to the airport.  And since I was going to grow up, move to Denver, and be a writer, it was very cheering to look out at the route of escape.

Was it so bad then?  Well, yes. For various reasons.  In many ways, it was the best time I’d had up till then, and the place I felt most “normal” until adulthood.  But it was still… well… my teens.  Everyone’s teens are bad for different reasons.

The only nostalgia I have for those years is that view.  Because I was stuck in that window seat and frankly, mostly, writing novels.  I dreamed up the world of Darkships in that window seat, and another one (Winter Prince, yes, it’s coming) and drew plans for houses and spaceships, and wrote seven or eight 40k word (hey writing longhand is slow) novels that year.  I miss the inventiveness and the way I could move wholly into my imaginary worlds and not come out.  Yes, it was dysfunctional. But it was also sweet and relaxing.

There are things I miss about Porto, most of which probably are no longer there or not the way I remember them: I miss the old shops that everyone had forgotten, particularly the old book shops with forgotten corners where leather-bound books were priced at early 20th century prices.  Also, lingerie stores with pre-war (WWI. No, I have no explanation, except the shop was the bottom floor of someone’s house, and they only opened when they felt like it. Which wasn’t often) silk lace stockings. And stores with hand made clay figurines.  I wish, in retrospect, I’d bought a ton of those before it all became “caters to German and Scandinavian Tourists, Penises as people” stores.
I miss roasting chestnuts.  I miss rainy days washing down the granite facades. I miss the art supply store I used to frequent.  And I miss being young.

But mostly what I miss, the place that triggers tears is the village.

They’d object to my calling it a village, btw.  In Portugal village or “land” (Terra) means an isolated village somewhere in the mountains.  And by population I think we were a town.  But the only way to convey “everyone knows everyone” and “we’ve been here generations” is to call it a village, and I’m a writer, I use shorthand.

The problem is the village I miss is the village in my mind.  I miss walking up the street of tall buildings, just about two inches from the throughfare which reeked of Rome, past all the people I knew, and the little black dog who’d rush to the gates to be petted. (Nero. Of course.  Portuguese name their dogs after less than good Roman Emperors and their children after good ones.  Except Caligula. No one names their anything Caligula.  Well, maybe a rooster if you’re going to chop him soon.)

I want to go in the side gate at grandma’s and walk around the water tank and through the gate, then the little path past grandad’s workshop, and into the patio that was my childhood everything — unexplored jungle, other world, palace — and into grandma’s kitchen.  She’ll be frying doughnuts, of course, and I’ll sit and sample them while I tell her how things have been.  Until she finishes and gets out the good teaset and the bought cookies which I started rating around high school.  I want to sit and hear her talking of the village acquaintances (most of whom, like actors, I could never keep straight) and let the cats and dogs come to me.  I want to walk down the backyard and jump the back wall, and go exploring in the woods with dad, like we did when I was very young.  I want to go with my brother and watch the oxen draw water to water the crops next door.

I want just one more Christmas at grandma’s house, with all of us together, and the nativity where Joseph is missing because my cousin Natalia broke him before I was born so he was “out gathering wood” and the little Christmas tree because dad objected to cutting trees so we cut a branch, and grandad complaining about the vegetables or the cod fish, then going out the door to meet his cronies at the tavern, with grandma running after him to wipe the little bit of olive oil on his chin.

I want to put my shoe on the stove and wait for the doll or the crayons, or the book then spend the day enjoying it.

See, what I mean? I’m getting old and maudlin.  The fact I can’t even visit the SIGHTS makes it worse.

But in a way I’m happy those memories are strong and tear-inducing.  It’s good to have a place to be from, a place you can visit in your dreams.

I’d never have stayed in the village my whole life.  I didn’t fit in that well. And my dreams drew me forth.  And, no, I don’t expect it to remain preserved under glass for me to visit. (Though a business that builds VRs of people’s memories so they can visit those would probably make a killing. When the tech is there, of course.)

Lands and places belong not to people but to times.  My great-grandmother’s village was completely different from mine, and her grandmother’s even more so.  We live in space in layers, through time, and the places we love exist only in that slice of time.

I’m glad I had the time and place I had to grow up in, even the unpleasant parts in my teens, because it made me who I am.  Who would I be otherwise? Who knows. But it wouldn’t be me.  And I’ve made peace with me, cracks and all.

There are roots in that old village that no longer exists, places that still nurture me and feed me.  Like the roots in that classroom, and the imaginary worlds I created then branch throughout all of my writing now.

Come with me past the broken furniture, the dodgy plumbing. Duck, or you’ll hit your head on that pipe.  Come look out the window with me: See those lights in the distance? Many futures live there.  And I’m going to write them all.

Come with me.

Look, I’m not a masochist.  I hate pain.  No, I mean I really hate pain, particularly emotional pain.  Not that I’m fond of physical pain, but it’s easier to just lean back and endure than emotional pain.  Also ibuprofen does bloody nothing for emotional pain.

But I figured out when I was giving birth to younger son that there is a purpose to pain, a purpose to effort and struggle.  You see, without it babies wouldn’t be so incredibly important to mothers.  No, really.  I think if you could have a kid with absolutely no, or very little pain, you’d not value them so highly.  (Yes, I explained this to the doctors WHILE I WAS GIVING BIRTH.  I’M A BIT NUTS.)

When I was young and stupid I created a gengeeniered human subspecies (you’ll see) who give birth with next to no pain.  Since a lot of them are nomadic, at least I worked it through fine that they’d do things like forget the baby hanging from a tree cradle.  (Yes, even at 14 I got that, but it took me another 14 years to formulate it while conscious.)

Anyway, recently pour raisons, I’ve been thinking a lot about this.  Pain sucks. But it seems to be needed for humans.  Maybe for all animals (there are certain cats that are going to experience pain if peeing in the family room continues.  There’s this mat that gives you a shock if you pee on it. I’m just mad enough to try it.)

Heinlein said humans thrive on strife.

Look, I’d feel better with less of it, particularly less economic strife, as Dan put it last night “We drive straight at the wall, and more often than not we miraculously get through.”  And if we don’t, it usually resolves in a few months. Because when I get scared I work stupid-hard and that usually pays off.  Because …. well, because it usually does.

But I was wondering if that’s a problem with not just a lot of kids, but a lot of people these days.

People don’t seem to have a sense of proportion.

If you’ve never been told “no” the first time you’re smacked hurts harder and you need safe spaces and protection from harsh opinions that don’t agree with yours.

Maybe it’s because you’re an emotional bubble-boy.

We were talking this weekend about how I found out it IS actually possible to throw up from being excessively upset.  It took me till 56 for something to hit me that hard that I did it.

We know someone we always assumed fake throwing up when upset to control her kids.  But maybe that’s not true. Maybe she just gets upset at any sign at all of opposition.  Being an only child of older parents and the sole survivor past infancy of (I think) six kids, perhaps she simply was never told no, and being told by her kids that they don’t want to follow her plans for their life is so upsetting that it causes a physical reaction.

… and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s why people want to eliminate all suffering and strife, because they perceive even a little bit as the worst thing ever.

I’ll leave as an exercise for the class whether or not the pampered ones’ desire for socialism and communism with their atrocious track records is innocent, or their subconscious trying to bring strife into their lives to correct the lack.

I think by historical standards, all of us are incredibly pampered and have experienced next to no pain.  Is this actually destroying us and civilization?

I don’t think we should do stuff to bring more pain into the world, but is it something we actually need? Is the lack of pain, or at least of strife destroying generations and making us think that we could make heaven on Earth if we just tried?

Of course that last solves the problem handily, but it might also send humanity into the long night for a while.

The question is, how do we get around it?

My only vision for this is going to space, forming new colonies, and giving kids something to work towards and dream about, something other than this involuted need to end all pain and strife.

We could do worse.

First the announcement.

The Great 2018 Book Sale is officially closed.  I’ll process whichever of you emailed before today, as well as those who sent checks, BUT… lessons learned:

1- Packaging about 15 orders takes me one and a half days, one of them with son’s help.

2- Mailing costs way more than I remembered.  How much more? WAY more.  For 8 or so it’s $40 first class. Media mail couldn’t be selected for a bunch of them for other reasons.  For Canada 3 books START at $37.  (Yes, I’ll be talking with some of you, because it’s probably saner to refund your payment, unless you REALLY desperately want those books.)

3 – I think this is best done piecemeal, slower and with shipping built in.

So, at some point, in the next 3 weeks or so, there will be a tab with paperbooks for sale and prices and shipping.  They will be signed (OF COURSE) but there will be a two week or so leeway for shipping them.  (i.e. no last minute orders.)  They will include indie editions.  Every two weeks the son will pull them, get me to sign them, package them and mail them, so it impacts minimally on my time.

And that’s it.

Sunday Book Promo

FROM HOLLY LISLE: Tales from The Longview (6 Book Series).

MEET THE LONGVIEW – An Ancient Spaceship Resurrected To Transport Conspiracy

Inhabited by a crew of misfits fleeing nightmare pasts, with a cargo of Condemned slated to die at the hands of the highest bidders, and with a passenger roster made up exclusively of people NOT who they claim to be, The Longview serves the hidden agenda of an eccentric recluse bent on playing puppetmaster to all of Settled Space.

Author’s note: This story was previously published as ENTER THE DEATH CIRCUS.

EPISODE 1: When love is crime, who will save the guilty?

After falling in love and fathering a child, a young criminal refuses to voluntarily throw himself into a lake of fire to gain his community’s forgiveness. So he’s sentenced to death and sold to the owner of a spaceship that buys criminals like him. But the ship and its crew are not quite what they appear to be.

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Stamme: Shikari Book Three.

Shikhari’s secrets hide in the stars and under the ground…

Auriga “Rigi” Bernardi faces adulthood with relief and trepidation – trepidation because her mother has Great Plans for Rigi’s introduction to society. A plague among the native Staré proves yet another legend true and threatens Staré society until Rigi inadvertently averts a cultural disaster. At the same time, the Crown Navy records communication signals coming from the wrong quadrant of space. Could the two be related? If so, than the ancient death that struck from the stars threatens not only the Staré but the humans of Shikhari as well.

Add in an off-world academic with too many theories and too few manners, and Rigi begins to suspect that adulthood and courtship are not quite as advertised.

Then the giant birds arrive…

FROM RAY ZACEK:  Appalling Stories 2: More Appalling Tales of Social Injustice.

First, I love you guys.  Second, be very patient with me.  Unless you indicated you need the books urgently, and included the money for first class or express shipping, it’s gonna be a week or so to mail.  Mostly because … well, the son who is supposed to be doing the packing and shipping could only give it three hours this week, which means…. never mind.  Going slightly nuts.  This is precisely the type of thing I suck at, so please be patient.  They’re making me use a spreadsheet.  (Cries.)

Please don’t order books that don’t exist: None of the DST series were ever in hardcover, for instance.  (They will be, IF rights revert, but not yet.)  And there’s no mass market paperback of Darkship Revenge.  They never printed one.

Also Night Shifters is a weird, weird shape, halfway between mmpb and tpb.

It is, however very thick, containing two books: Draw One In The Dark and Gentleman Takes a Chance.  So I’m charging $10 for it.

Please, don’t pay until I tell you “Yeah, I got that book.”  Please pay once you say you will.  Nothing will ship until I get payment, either paypal or check.

Um… I think that’s it.

New Deal, Same as the Old Deal by Thomas Kendall

I read Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal“. It was a heck of an experience. I daresay I’ve characterized a brand new psychological phenomenon on the basis of same. Here, quick. Look at the image below.

Figure 1: A tale of two stupids.

Okay, now I know this will come as a huge shock, but believe it or not, both of the two words pictured above are the word “stupid”. I appreciate that one is green. Being green does not magically remove the fact that it is, in fact, the word “stupid”. It’s almost like associating something with the concept “green”, in general, in no way alters the fundamental nature of the thing in question. Are we good on this concept?

I have to conclude that this is all but a magical optical illusion to ¡Ocasio’s! supporters because wow, does their golden girl ever seem to enjoy sloshing ¡verde! over her 2-second thought seizures and calling it a policy proposal (BTW, did anyone else notice she cribbed Jeb! Bush’s schtick? Because she definitely did. I mean she took it South of the border—or maybe she just liked the kismet of starting even her logo with something that’s been arranged top-down— but it’s still the same damned thing.). This is so dumb, I’ve invented the Ocasio-Cortez drinking game. Every time she proposes something that would utterly destroy some fundamental part of the US—the economy, civil liberties, the well-being of the citizenry, whatever—take a shot. You’ll find it makes it easier to read her other policy proposals, since she, like  ¡Bernie!, is something of a one-note person and she sings in the key of Bolshevik. Just don’t get too hammered to vote against her and anything like her, that’s all I ask.

Where to begin?

In the link above, parts 1-5 are mostly just the stuff to establish a committee to pursue this tragicomedy. I’d just call out from that portion that, A) just remember she wants all this crap in 10 years, and B) that’s starting from March 2020. If the timing seems suspicious, the Washington Free Beacon agrees. “It is entirely possible that Ocasio-Cortez knows her proposal is both light on details and pie-in-the-sky; recent reporting indicates that the real goal of the committee would be to produce a campaign document for Democrats, rather than an actual policy proposal.” Remember that. It’s totally possible they’re going to want to hang their campaign against Trump on this. This is the strong card in their deck, they think.

Part 6 is where the meat is. And I am going to quote some highlights of this. Right away, ¡Ocasio! isn’t screwing around. 6-A lists the policy objectives.

“i-Dramatically expand existing renewable power sources and deploy new production capacity with the goal of meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources”

Ha ha! How reasonable! Take a shot.

First, as the Washington Free Beacon points out above, this isn’t even remotely feasible. No, not even with a lot of ¡dineros!, because money (please sit down as I reveal this shocking message) does not magically turn the impossible into the possible. That’s why Trump hasn’t been giving addresses from the back of a golden dragon for the last two years, metal though that would be. And why no Uncle Sam of Oz can possibly give ¡Ocasio! the brain she so desperately needs, but I digress. Second, as The American Thinker points out, first, this would destroy millions of jobs. We’re not even talking oil and gas jobs. We’re talking “jobs that require electricity”, so unless we’re planning to power to global victory on the back of the Amish population, we’ve got a problem. Second, since our global competitors would not be following us down this particular path to perdition, we’d pretty much instantly fall so far behind economically if we tried to do this it wouldn’t even be funny. That’s assuming we even make it to the end of this green-tinted acid trip. My guess is we’d get invaded by one or more of our opponents while we were busy giving them a hand-engraved opportunity by shooting ourselves in the foot. But hey, maybe that’s the point. How long has the bug-eyed Bolshy been colluding with ¡Russia!? That’s what we really need to know right now. Oh, and by the way, in case you missed this part of it: last I checked, “renewable” sources means exclusively things there’s basically an infinite supply of. So this doesn’t just nix coal, gas, and oil. It nixes nuclear too. In case you felt it wasn’t impossible enough.

“ii. building a national, energy-efficient, “smart” grid;”

Take a shot. This would be stupidly expensive, of course, but hey, clearly we’re in the land of play money. And as the Washington free beacon points out above, it’s also incompatible with (i), since 100% renewable energy sources wouldn’t make any production peaks to level the supply troughs anywhere else. But more to the point, the problem with a national system that dynamically reroutes power to where it’s most needed is that it’s A) almost certainly run by a computer, and B) since it functions at the interstate level by definition, it’s in the jurisdiction of the federal government. So beyond the fact that we can’t afford it, and it wouldn’t work, there’s this nice cherry on top—it would likely give the feds the ability to shut down power to any area of the country they felt was, ahem, uncooperative. Whee!

“iii. upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety”

¡Aye caramba! Just so we understand how retarded that is, I had to look this up for scale. In 2017 the United States had about 136 million housing units. The mean square footage of a house in 2017 was about 2500 square feet (rounding down). I’ll tell you why I’m telling you that in a moment. In 2012 there were a mere 5.6 million commercial buildings. Since the same site goes on to note that these had 87 billion square feet of floor space, my Windows calculator shows that the average floor space of a commercial building is about 15,500 square feet. So, in those terms, since we know the square footage of a house, we can infer that a commercial building is a little over 6 times larger. Which means that, yes, to make our math easier, we’re just gonna assume that museums, warehouses, and factories, have the same ceiling height as your house. If some helpful in the comments wants to explain how much I underestimated by, fine. Speaking of fudge, being totally fair, about 5% of that 5.6 million was noted to be in lodging, which would overlap the housing units. But also being fair, in 2012 the report showed a “14% increase in the number of buildings and a 21% increase in floorspace since 2003”. Given that we gave Obama the boot two years ago— to the relief of the average businessman, I would bet— we’ve probably kept on growing. So we’ll take the number as is. I’ll update if someone can give solid evidence we’ve grown less than that in 6 years.

So—how much do you think upgrading every residential and industrial building would cost? Just from an order of magnitude perspective, I’m thinking $1,000 is probably a bit conservative. $100,000 might be too high—might, though it depends on how you define “state of the art” energy efficiency. Heck, it depends on how you define “state of the art” comfort. Maybe she wants to make every house in the projects look like a penthouse in Dubai. Who the Hell knows? Trying to make sense out of her “plans” is like discussing philosophy with a schizophrenic. I’m just doing my best, here. And therefore I’m assuming she’s taken the more “realistic” path, and defined “comfort” the way socialists usually do—tiresome discomfort compensated by the smug knowledge that you, personally, are saving the planet. So let’s say that this costs about 10,000 bucks for an average home. That estimate— which, frankly, for a full remodel of an average 2,500 square foot home to state-of-the-art anything is still probably small— would put the cost of this project at 1.36 trillion dollars. Oh, plus another 336 billion dollars if we assume renovating commercial buildings costs only about 6 times as much, per building, as private homes. Or, for convenient reference, a bit more than the 1.688 trillion the government is expected to make in personal income taxes. Again, by fairly conservative estimates. This could be way higher.

That’s ignoring that this is going to essentially force on you the lifestyle those “green” friends of yours always have. You know. The glamorous world of appliances that don’t work. And heating and air conditioning that neither effectively heat, nor condition the air, so that they’re constantly adding and removing layers like mutant onions. And rooftop solar panels that can charge a whole D-Cell battery on a sunny day and cost as much as a family car to replace if you get a hailstorm. Not that you’ll pay for that, you loyal party member, you. Well, not directly. We’ll take the money, take it for an office tour amongst the bureaucrats who will nab a bunch of it, then give it back to you in a smaller quantity, and require you to purchase a specific thing with it. ¡Arriba!

All that—and that’s one bullet point. Jesus.

Take a shot.

“iv. eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries, including by investing in local-scale agriculture in communities across the country;

1. eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from, repairing and improving transportation and other infrastructure, and upgrading water infrastructure to ensure universal access to clean water;”

Oh, my dear and fluffy lord.

Okay, um. Take—I dunno, 5 or 6 shots. She didn’t even say “balancing”, remember. This isn’t even about net carbon. She said “eliminating”. That means factories largely get the nix, but we knew that anyway because we haven’t had the power for them since (i). Interpreted literally, this also essentially means no livestock. Certainly no cows, those being a big source of greenhouse emissions, but probably no animals at all since pretty much all carbon-based things with digestive tracts emit greenhouse gases. And her “solution”—is the most Millennial thing I have ever read in my life, and I appreciate the irony of my saying that (I know, I know. A Millennial appreciate irony? It’ll never ‘appen!). “Local-scale agriculture” is a phrase used by someone who drinks hydroponically farmed wheatgrass in her smoothie in the morning and wonders why the world can’t share her ecstasy. So, at best, she wants to break up giant agriculture conglomerates, which means the efficiency of these mass farming operations, and the R and D they invest in improving crop yield, go out the window. Which actually might lead to starvation if we really did that, but damn it, it’s organic, locally grown starvation. At worst—and it fits the wording just as well—she wants us to roll over to subsistence farming. Which we’ll do by ourselves, actually, if she gets a crack at running the economy, methinks. But I doubt that the people in Chicago and Brooklyn will find that lifestyle change as convenient. Self correcting problem?

Oh, but shit, son. I forgot all about bullet point 2, electric boogaloo. Now, it’s difficult to tell from the wording whether she means to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from transportation infrastructure, plus other infrastructure, or whether she means to include transportation in general in the infrastructure from which we will eliminate greenhouse gases. Socialists have a funny idea about ownership—see: defining tax cuts as “tax expenditures”— and that makes it tricky when we talk about transportation, since most transportation is privately owned. The things that come to mind immediately when I think “transportation infrastructure”—highways, airports—don’t really release a lot of greenhouse gasses. You might have noticed how concrete is very green in that respect. She may also mean Tesla buses, and all-electric trains. Since pretty much all the places where that’s economically feasible are already using that technology, you can guess the implications. “♪ socialist choo-choo, won’t you choo choo me—nowhere at all because of union strikes, leading ultimately to me to having to walk—home! ♫”. I’ll work on making it scan. If it actually becomes law I’ll have lots of time while I’m waiting. But then again—in the same document that wants us to meet “100% of the national power demand through renewable sources”— I cannot bring myself to rule out that this falls in the same area as turning the housing projects into mini-millionaire’s row. So this could also mean electric cars for everybody. Oh. And basically no airplanes. The battery-pack-weight-to-power-produced ratio is ¡muy grande!. Dagny Taggart, call your office.

“vi. funding massive investment in the drawdown of greenhouse gases”

I’m just going to say this. None of the multi-trillion dollar bullet points up until now warranted the disclaimer that they would take massive investment.

Just let that sink in.

Invest in a massive shot.

“Vii. making “green” technology, industry, expertise, products and services a major export of the United States, with the aim of becoming the undisputed international leader in helping other countries transition to completely greenhouse gas neutral economies and bringing about a global Green New Deal.”

Apart from being roughly as coherent a plan as this, it’s hard to even guess the expense or impact of this because neither I, nor anybody else, has any idea what it looks like. I can say that if Solyndra taught us anything, it’s that putting tons of taxpayer money into green companies that couldn’t get private investment because they weren’t economically feasible otherwise is really great. Just the best. But that’s just because my personal fetish is messy corporate bankruptcy. I have a bespoke bootleg blueray of “Big Beautiful Bankrupt Boondoggle Booties” in my sock drawer. I also enjoy alliteration.

Look, the issue here is that government doesn’t make things. It directs, it controls, and it makes stuff that facilitates things being made. In the second category, the public usually invents it, and the government facilitates making it on a grand scale if—like roads or electricity—we can generally agree that pretty much everyone needs and wants it (that’s assuming certain basic preconditions, like that the project doesn’t involve nationalizing the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of private workers, reducing them to effective slavery, but oh, we’ll get to that). Almost by definition, massive “investments” into things that aren’t profitable right now means using money inefficiently (which is why I use quote marks—it’s just hard for me to call something we basically know will lose money an investment. It’s like how using a flamethrower on my lawn is hard to define as watering.). Ask Trabant owners what it’s like when the government decides it’s going to invent things instead of wait for the market to figure out what’s efficient and economically feasible. You get a 2-stroke car with 26 horsepower, cotton body panels, and a 10 year waiting list because they can’t even produce it reliably. Or, at the more successful end of the scale, you get the Apollo program. Which may look photogenic, but as public transport goes, the average Joe may as well plan to swim to the moon—and that may explain why the moon has so few job offers.

Also, not to rain on her parade, but isn’t “bringing about a global Green New Deal” cultural imperialism? What if other countries don’t want to be green? No, better yet, look at the Paris Accord. China and India don’t want to be green. Sounds like she needs to check her privilege.

“B. The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in the transformation.”

We’ve gotten as far as section 6 B! B stands for bullshit, as you’ll soon see. “Historic” is certainly a good choice of words. A country actually trying this would be history. Also, try this fun experiment at home—substitute “Great Leap Forward” for “Green New Deal”, and “China” for “the United States”. Spooky, no? So, which eggs will be going into the societal omelet at ¡Ocasio’s! Marxist Diner?

“i. provide all members of our society, across all regions and all communities, the opportunity, training and education to be a full and equal participant in the transition, including through a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one

1. diversify local and regional economies, with a particular focus on communities where the fossil fuel industry holds significant control over the labor market, to ensure workers have the necessary tools, opportunities, and economic assistance to succeed during the energy transition; “

Ooh. The 370 million egg omelet comes with jobs. Jobs ¡con carne!. “Diversify” is Spanish for “destroy”, I assume. So sorry, but you’re not “diversifying” a market you committed to removing in its entirety in your first bullet point in section A. Take a diverse shot. Also, we’re using monopoly money again. In 2015 about 1,390,000 people were working in oil and gas. All of them would be unemployed now. She’s up front about that. Add that to the roughly 6 million unemployed people now. At a 15 dollar minimum wage, assuming 8 hour workdays, 5 days a week, 50 weeks of the year (2 weeks of vacation), that’s 30 K per job. So at minimum, call that, oh, a mere 221 billion dollars of expenses per year. This is assuming that the fact that we no longer have sufficient electricity for anything, and are living under a government that has precipitously increased its power to that of the USSR in its heyday, does not increase unemployment relative to the best-performing US economy in decades, which is what we currently have under Trump. Of course, if you don’t want a living wage, I guess you don’t have to be a full and equal participant in the transition. Not that that sounds like a veiled threat of any kind. Nosiree.

We’re going to have to skip ahead a bit, because at this point things become dense and almost content-free at the same time. Let me give you some Cliff’s notes on the next few.

B-iii—Muh Unions

B-iv— “low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities” need some sweet greenifying before the big bad oil pisses off the sea goddess and she eats whole coastlines in her rage.

B-v—Muh Indians

B-vi— Oh, crap, okay, this one I can’t just gloss.

“vi. mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth (including, without limitation, ensuring that federal and other investment will be equitably distributed to historically impoverished, low income, deindustrialized or other marginalized communities in such a way that builds wealth and ownership at the community level);”

Huh. So, she wants to “mitigate” “inequalities in income and wealth”, by “equitably” distributing federal and “other investment” (I’m gonna say, if the investment doesn’t get to distribute itself, it’s all federal investment), to the “historically impoverished”. Given that by this point in the document the federal government is the pre-eminent master and funder of basically everything, I think that’s just communism at this point. No, seriously. If the government has all-but-intentionally destroyed the whole support structure of its current economy down to the roots, and is replacing said collapsed economy with massive dump-trucks of money from one big central garage, which it is using to “mitigate” “inequalities”— really that’s just her using a thesaurus to sell us on redistributing the wealth. She either steals the money from rich people or she runs it up on the credit card, devalues the currency into worthlessness, and steals it from everybody. Although in that case, poor people are more likely to starve. Partially because it’s harder for them to run away.

Take a shot. From your neighbor’s liquor cabinet.

“vii. include additional measures such as basic income programs, universal health care programs and any others as the select committee may deem appropriate to promote economic security, labor market flexibility and entrepreneurism”

¡Muy caliente! I’m sorry, apparently the legislation wasn’t bloated enough. You know what I love about basic income programs? How green they are. They’re environmentally friendly! Certainly not a flimsy excuse for cramming maximum quantities of socialism down our throats. Reason being, if, as many Soviet citizens found, you disagree with them too loudly, the government composts you. Or enslaves you. Hi, doctors! I’m sorry, did you feel you had a right to practice your skills for a fair amount of money? Oh, you poor dears. Uncle Sam owns you now. You will treat any and all for as long as we tell you! Greenly! And ah, what is a little government pork without a blank check to the pig farm thrown in for good measure? Because in ten seconds, she couldn’t think of every pony she wants daddy to buy her, but damn it, she knows she’s going to want a diversified set of indigenous gender-equitable free-range LGBTQRSUVOMGWTFBBQ ponies at some unspecified date. Given that the nation was founded explicitly on hard limits on government power, apart from anything else, this effectively writes the 9th and 10th amendment out of existence. Making it—let me look up the technical legal terms, here— “illegal as balls”. Take two shots, and any others as you may deem appropriate to promote not choking socialists.

“viii—deeply involve national and local labor unions to take a leadership role in the process of job training and worker deployment.”

Unionize ¡todo!. Take a shot, but only if your union boss approved it.

And finally—because by now there might be a single vertebrae somewhere at the base of your spine that hasn’t had a chill through it, may I present section C, which I assume was Ocasio-Cortez’s grade in macroeconomics (I kid, of course. Her teacher was probably a communist. Most of them are, these days. She got an A, which was immediately divided up and redistributed to someone who was failing. Unless they were Republican, of course, because otherwise it wouldn’t be equitable.).

“The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that innovative public and other financing structures are a crucial component in achieving and furthering the goals and guidelines relating to social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative and public ownership set forth in paragraphs (2)(A)(i) and (6)(B).”

“Innovative”. “Innovative” financing structures. She literally wrote this. This isn’t me pulling your leg. So at this point I’m sure you want to know, what kind of innovation? Because when I think of innovative financing, for some reason the image of burly Italian men in pinstriped suits and sunglasses begins forming in my mind. Well, I’m glad you asked. Here’s your outline:

“The Plan (and the draft legislation) shall, accordingly, ensure that the majority of financing of the Plan shall be accomplished by the federal government, using a combination of”—

A- “the Federal Reserve” – because the Fed hasn’t caused enough problems already.

B-“A new public bank or system of regional and specialized public banks” – Well, that certainly is innovative. Who needs one giant institution causing economic roller coasters when you can put it through mitosis? Double, double, money bubble. Because realistically, the Fed might not print money quickly or conveniently enough for ¡Ocasio!-Cortez’s tastes.

C-“Public venture funds” – which we wish to emphasize will be totally voluntary and in no way coerced from people at gunpoint.

D-“Such other vehicles or structures that the select committee deems appropriate”— love me some blank checks. What other vehicles or structures? Doth the “T” word wait in the wings? Ah, damn, I forgot. If Obamacare taught us anything, it’s that there are no taxes unless it’s convenient. Or I should say, perhaps you’ll have to pay your green “penalty” for being insufficiently environmentally friendly.

Whew. ¡Aye aye aye! Well, that was fun!

Now, I want you to remember what I said at the start. On the basis of the timing, there’s even odds they plan to use this as a campaign document in 2020. Just look back over that, and really take that in. There are even odds that this is the future of the Democratic party. You like what you see? This is why we need to pay more attention to ¡Ocasio!. You’re wrong if you think of her as a lone nut. She’s not. She’s version 2.0 of what I personally think the Democrats barely knew they had market for until Bernie almost de-throned the queen at her own coronation. If you think the fact that she is laughably extremist is a check against her getting shunted into the fast lane, you’re dead wrong. The Democrats took exactly the wrong lessons from 2016, and worse, they’re applying them. They want extremists. We may not all be socialists now, but the Democrats? Don’t be so sure.

And she’s just their type. She’s certifiably ethnic, and female, and young. Basically, if she starts identifying as a man, she’ll be  their wet-dream. She’s also stupider than a hammer full of nitroglycerine, which party elders may flatter themselves makes her easier to direct, though I think she may even be too dumb to take direction. She’s already butting heads with Pelosi. Our best-case scenario is that Pelosi, out of self-interest, takes her down a peg or ninety. But don’t bet that it will be so simple. Some feel, like PJ O’Rourke, that “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Ignorance, and a Bad Haircut”. I usually agree, but I don’t have that kind of faith on this. I think people miss that true believers like her are exactly what the Left grooms Millennials to be. They’ve asked for this in spades. What went around is coming around.

And being more serious for a moment, that’s the bad news I’m really here to deliver. I’m sorry, but ¡Ocasio! isn’t an anomaly. It’s true what people say—if only Millenials voted, Hillary still wouldn’t be president, but Bernie Sanders would be. ¡Ocasio! is the leading wave of a group of people who have been pissing me off all my life because I’ve had to go to school with them. And the only thing that’s different about her versus them is that she’s more famous. They’re true believers. They’ve never heard anything different, and now, thanks to social media and extremely stilted mainstream media, they’re still not hearing anything more meaningful than #OrangeManBad. They’re either shielded from the economy by their parents or in at the bottom, so economic improvements mean little to them. And Pelosi can politic all she likes, but she’d best make the most of it. Unless she takes the Clinton-esque step of actually killing the idiot, ¡Ocasio! is only going to become a bigger problem, because she’s the vanguard. I would guess that the reinforcements will start arriving probably by the end of Trump’s second term, assuming we can stop the cheating enough to get one. And if we don’t have a good head start on picking ¡Ocasio! apart by then, she’s going to be the elder statesman of the (H/T to a friend) “kindercaucus”, and being used as a punching bag by her party’s seniors will be a badge of honor. And dumb as she is, trust me, she knows it. Hell, she’s almost counting on it, I think.

So pay attention. And take some friendly advice— stop her before she grows.

All of you kids under forty — who definitely should get off my lawn, btw — have no idea what it was like to grow up — to quote Queen — waiting for the hammer to fall.

Seriously, the sane assumption, the assumption anyone with any knowledge of the world made was that we, born in the sixties, would never get to grow up.  Or if we grew up, it would be in a bombed out wasteland.

Even in tiny and relatively unimportant Portugal, though we expected we wouldn’t catch a bomb, (unless it went way off course) we thought the coasts would be so thoroughly poisoned we’d all die.  (There is reason to think this was bullshit, but I’m glad we never got to test it.)

Then there was nuclear winter (also likely complete bullshit.)

Even our entertainment, hard in the pockets of the disarmament mafia (unilateral disarmament is also known as surrender, kids, remember that.) talked about how it was unconscionable to build up arsenals to fight a war that would kill the species and the world.

Even sane authors like Heinlein thought that after we had nukes there was no way we didn’t use them.

Well… we didn’t use them.  Now knowing “Russian Technology” there was a good chance they couldn’t use them with any effectiveness.

Also judging from cities that were nuked, even if it had happened it was probably never going to be the end of the world.

But we grew up in fear of it, and many of the people who are now hard left first surrendered because they were hard core cowards, no matter how they pretty that up in their minds.  They wanted to be the last eaten, when the Soviets came.

I want them to contemplate my middle fingers.

To paraphrase Heinlein: It’s always better to be a live lion.  It’s often easier too. (Than being a live lamb.)

And it turns out that peace really came through superior firepower.

Don’t let the kids forget it.  And if they have, remind them.

Live free or die is not a cry of defiance. Looking at the death toll of communism, it is simply a law of nature.

Stay free.

Well… perhaps not so great, but it is helping me cut down on the clutter around here.

I know I promised an update Tuesday night, but here’s the thing: living as an almost hermit, it seems like if I go out and meet anyone at all, even half a dozen people, I catch SOMETHING.

Also this still being my house and my family, we’re… in a perpetual state of chaos.

I have found some of Night Shifters (which honestly is not my main cache, which I’d guess is still in boxes.)  I also found some of Darkship Renegades, which I thought I was out of.

So I’m still low on some books, but to the best of my ability here is what I have right now:

So, these are the books we have at least some number of:

Shifter series:

Which is an omnibus consisting of Draw One In The Dark and Gentleman Takes a Chance. Mass Market Paperback, but THICK. Price above.

Gentleman Takes a Chance, the second of the Shifter’s books.  Hard cover (tpb price).

Third of the Shifter’s Series. Trade Paper Back.

First of the Darkship Books. Prometheus Award Winner. Trade Paperback.

Second of the Darkship books, trade paperback.

Third of the Darkship Thieves Saga, first of the subseries on the Earth Revolution.  Both Trade Paperback and Mass Market Paperback.  (I’d prefer if the mmpb is part of an order of tpb, just for shipping, really.)

Fourth in the Darkship Saga, second in subseries on Earth revolution.  Trade paperback.

Fifth in Darkship Thieves saga.  Trade Paper Back.

Other books I have:

I have a couple TPBs of Witchfinder, let’s call that $17 just because it’s heavy and thick.

I have mass market paperbacks of the last two of the refinishing mysteries but none of the first (which should be available TPB on Amazon from Goldport Press.)

So, that’s A French Polished Murder and a Fatal Stain.

I probably have mass markets of the entire DST series, but only ones I’ve found so far is for Darkship Renegades and A Few Good Men.

Mass Market Paperbacks are $5 each, but if you’re only ordering mmpbs, would you kick in an extra $2 or $3? Shipping is going to eat all the profit on those, and I still have to take time to package and sign.  (Son might or might not be able to help tomorrow.)

I have hard cover, Ace edition All Night Awake (Second of the Shakespeare books.)  I MIGHT have the rest of that series, but it will take ransaking the pile of 40 boxes.  So… might or might not happen in the next few days.

IF YOU NEED THE BOOKS FOR CHRISTMAS, YOU’LL HAVE TO PAY SHIPPING FOR EXPRESS (At this point I don’t guarantee first class will get there in time.)

So, real post later, but for now this is the ongoing sale stuff.

BEFORE YOU SEND ME ANY MONEY, EMAIL ME AT GOLDPORT PRESS AT GMAIL DOT COM.  Because some of these are limited, and I get a dozen orders in, and the last people will get nothing.

The Latest on the Double-Dynamo Solar Model, and Dr. Zharkova’s Predictions of a Grand Minimum By Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/

A couple of weeks back, Michael Z. Williamson tagged me on Facebook with a link to a poorly-explained article (http://electroverse.net/professor-valentina-zharkova-breaks-her-silence-and-confirms-super-grand-solar-minimum/?fbclid=IwAR17eDkqZclMhetyoIZFrfgryD2tV4uxzpxbzq2-VWNVZEuU9Wi4PpDL13w ) discussing Dr. Valentina Zharkova’s latest presentation for the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a more balanced climate-discussion group. Unfortunately, there were many misconceptions in the original report, and it was confusing and frightening a great many people (e.g. the report claimed that she said the next extended minimum would run 400 years instead of about 30). So here’s a link to JUST her presentation: https://www.thegwpf.org/professor-valentina-zharkova-the-solar-magnetic-field-and-the-terrestrial-climate/ As a consequence of all the confusion, however, I made an offer to dig through her most recent work and try to properly explain what Zharkova was proposing. This is essentially that explanation.

Dr. Zharkova et al. are responsible for the new double-dynamo model of solar activity that came out in 2015. That basic model alone was excellently done, replicating some 97% of what was seen in the actual solar cycle data. Unfortunately, it failed at that remaining 3%, and that included a good many of the extended minima in recorded solar history. In the intervening couple of years, it seems she has been hard at work expanding on the model. Here’s one of the intervening papers, where her team adds onto the original model (which I’d said at the time needed doing, to more adequately pick up on the extended minima): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316950696_On_a_role_of_quadruple_component_of_magnetic_field_in_defining_solar_activity_in_grand_cycles?fbclid=IwAR0ny1-gtT78Y8tZXEUdXU7HiiKyoNTT3_NgvIiar4Ud1VkQ_T3ft64jL5s

Now Dr. Zharkova has come out with more information and an enhanced solar dynamo model. Her team proposed the aforementioned double-dynamo solar model back in 2015, a model which contained one dynamo in the upper layers of the Sun, and another in the deeper layers. Each one of these was a basic magnetic dipole, but we knew at the time it was not a perfect fit to observations, and I remember discussions in which I said it was good, but there would be more components needed before the model would adequately ‘predict’ all the known extended solar minima. Zharkova has now done so, by incorporating an additional quadrupole magnetic component, likely arising out of the Coriolis-affected convection currents within the Sun, which would generate a kind of toroidal (doughnut-shaped) structure in the convection zone. This updated model now predicts extended minima rather well, and it is becoming obvious that there are several periodicities of variability, which sometimes ‘interfere’ constructively, and sometimes destructively, generating ‘beat’ modes. It is during the destructive interference that the extended minima occur.

There have been many periodicities suggested over the years, but Zharkova’s research confirms what appear to be three principal periods. They are as follows:

• The standard magnetic cycle = ~22 yrs;
• The Gleissberg cycle = ~90-110 yrs, avg. 100 yrs;
• The ‘Grand’ cycle = ~350-400 yrs.

(NOTE: the typical 11-year sunspot cycle is actually only half of the full cycle; sunspots are magnetic and usually dipolar in nature. They often occur in pairs, with one spot the north pole, the other the south; even when only a single spot occurs, one side will be N, the other S. The polarity is reversed in the southern hemisphere relative to the northern, and at the end of a single sunspot cycle, the sunspot polarity – as well as that of the whole Sun – flips, often in a very convoluted fashion. It therefore takes two full sunspot cycles before the magnetic field is back in the same orientation, and thus the true period is 22 years.)

As for a quick explanation of quadrupoles, it’s a hard concept to grasp for anybody, even people trained in the subject. But FWIW, let’s try this, by way of building an image for you:

The Earth’s magnetic field is a dipole — two poles, N/S. This is because Earth is largely a rigid body. You got a semi-solid nickel-iron core that’s already magnetized and rotating, so you get a dipole, and that’s just sorta the way it falls out — hard and fast and simple. Big bar magnet.

The Sun, on the other hand, is a big ball of plasma, rotating on its axis. Now ‘plasma’ is just a fancy way of saying ‘ionized gas.’ Which means that it is effectively a current, since it’s rotating. And currents generate magnetic fields.

BUT, because it’s NOT a rigid body, each one of those gas particles follows Kepler’s Laws of orbital motion independently of all the other gas particles, resulting in something scientists call “differential rotation.” This means that the particles deep inside don’t rotate at the same speed as those near the “surface,” and the particles near the poles don’t rotate at the same speed as those near the equator.

This in turn means that those magnetic fields get all hosed up pretty quick. In fact, a simple way of explaining a sunspot is that they’re “snarls” in the magnetic field lines that have gradually worked their way to the surface.

So if you think of all those snarled lines of magnetic force, and realize that one end of each line is a N pole and the other end of each line is a S pole, then you can have a lotta ends, and a lotta poles.

Anyway, here’s a link to the Wikipedia article, which has some relatively easy-to-grasp images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrupole#Magnetic_quadrupole

So. Back to the overall solar model. Two dipole dynamos, and a quadrupole toroidal component.

This means that we have two slightly out-of-phase dipole dynamos, with periods around 22 years (but they do not have the SAME periods, which means that they slowly move in and out of phase over time, like windshield wiper blades that are out of synch), PLUS a quadrupole wave arising from the inner dipole dynamo (and the Coriolis’ed convection current gyres coming from it) generating a roughly 100-year periodicity. Combining the beat effect from these three results in the ‘Grand’ period of ~350-400 yrs.

Zharkova’s model is supported not only by sunspot numbers and solar activity, but by other solar-studies fields: magnetohydrodynamics and helioseismology. In fact, the resulting data plots from these fields are so close to Zharkova’s model predictions, that the model could as well be based on either of those. So this model is not functioning in isolation from related science, but is in fact harmonizing quite well with it.

The Dalton extended minimum (1790-1830) is evidently an example of a Gleissberg minimum, while the deep and protracted Maunder minimum (1645-1715) was the previous ‘Grand’ minimum. It has been roughly 350 years since the onset of the Maunder minimum, and a bit over 200 years since the Dalton minimum began. Zharkova et al. also noted a moderate Gleissberg minimum in the earliest part of the 20^th century, as well, so the periodicity for that cycle seems to be holding.

The gist of the matter is that all three main cycles are entering minimum phase, beginning with the end of this current solar cycle (Cycle 24). Cycle 25 will be even lower than 24, with 26 being very nearly flat-lined. Cycle 27 will begin to show a few signs of life, then there will be a gradual rise to full activity over several more solar cycles, even as the last three cycles have slowly decreased in levels. This means that the bottom of the extended, or ‘Grand’ minimum (to use Zharkova’s terminology), should run from ~2020 to ~2053. (NO, it will NOT last 400 years like some are reporting – that is the overall length of the Grand cycle, not the predicted length of the minimum.)

In terms of atmospheric interaction, certainly the majority of the solar radiation peaks in the visible range, and that changes little, and the atmosphere is largely transparent to it. Once it strikes a solid object, however, the photon’s energy is absorbed, and later re-radiated as infrared (IR), which the atmosphere largely blocks (at least in certain frequency windows), so it does not all radiate off into space at night. This is why things like rocks and masonry tend to feel warmer at night, and what helps drive the trade winds along shorelines – the temperature differential arising from the differing light absorption/IR re-radiation of water versus land.

But it turns out that, unlike visible light, higher-energy photons have a fairly strong correlation with the solar cycle; this includes ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray, most notably extreme UV or EUV, which borders the X-ray regime. Much of this photonic radiation is generated in the inner solar corona, because the corona’s activity strongly follows overall solar activity; much of the rest is produced during solar flares – which are PART OF solar activity. More, unlike visible light, this frequency regime is ENTIRELY absorbed in the upper atmosphere (exosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere). So during high solar activity, the EUV and X-ray radiation hitting Earth has 100% of its energy injected into the atmosphere. During low solar activity, there is considerably less energy from this high-frequency regime being injected into the atmosphere – according to NASA research I dug up in the course of researching her papers and presentation, it may completely bottom out – as in, essentially zero energy from EUV etc.

But that isn’t the only way this might affect Earth’s atmosphere. It turns out that the solar wind/corona effects shield the inner solar system from cosmic rays, which are very high energy particles coming in from cosmological sources, such as supernovae, quasars, pulsars, etc. As solar activity diminishes, the solar wind decreases in effect, and the cosmic ray flux (‘flux’ is a measure of number of units per square area, e.g. number of cosmic ray particles per square meter) increases. BUT we know that cosmic rays tend to hit atmosphere and ‘cascade’ – generate a shower of particles, rather like a branching domino effect – and this, in turn, tends to create condensation nuclei around which clouds can form. (In fact, our first cosmic ray detectors were so-called ‘cloud chambers’ where the formation of condensation clouds depicts the track of the particle.) As a result, increasing cosmic ray fluxes are apt to generate increased cloud cover; increased cloud cover will then block visible light from reaching Earth’s surface and adding energy to the overall system. And cosmic ray flux can vary by as much as 50% with solar variation.

Well, then. So. What effects are being seen as a result of these two items?

Well, the undeniable INCREASE in cosmic ray flux has been followed for some years. And it’s pretty much worldwide. (http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=28&month=01&year=2016)

And the outer layers of the atmosphere have already cooled, according to researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center. (http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=28&month=09&year=2018&fbclid=IwAR2reJ3fcqgouxL5Fp82hf2u_LpcDEEC99vqQisuumYik_MCZC8SAGO18Og) (Original journal article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324366650_Thermosphere_climate_indexes_Percentile_ranges_and_adjectival_descriptors?fbclid=IwAR3S_u10rOWfPqvAms-Ikf8zKJUECYn1je06Kg_7iXQi9HGiVpI5QNmYQ7o) According to Langley researchers, we are on the verge of seeing “a Space Age record” for a cold thermosphere (though possibly they don’t expect it to be connected to the rest of the atmosphere, according to some reports?).

So far, Zharkova appears to be batting 1.000.

According to her research of the correlation with the Maunder minimum (the previous Grand minimum), temperatures dropped by about 0.1%, or about 1.3°C, or some 2.34°F. Granted, the Maunder minimum lasted about 70-80 years, as opposed to the estimated 30-some-odd that Zharkova is predicting, so it might not be THAT deep a delta. But if it really drops a significant amount (and remember, we’ve had that annoying ‘warming plateau’ going on through the last couple of solar cycles, which cycles have been steadily decreasing in activity; certain groups want really bad for THAT to go away), then it WILL still be noticeable. And possibly unpleasant.

There’s one other factor that she looks at in her presentation, that isn’t related to the dynamos inside the Sun but DOES affect the solar irradiance (power per unit area coming from the Sun). The irradiance is following the Zharkova team’s curves, regardless of what the human civilization does – it’s falling out completely separately. And it is varying.

NOTE: solar irradiance used to be called the ‘solar constant.’ But astronomers discovered it was NOT constant, and stopped using the term. Climate models often still use it, however, and do not take into account the variability of the solar irradiance, which is small, but distinct and measurable. Instead, they use a fixed value – a true constant. So of course their models do not have any effects of solar variability.

That ‘other factor’ which affects solar irradiance is what might be termed ‘barycentric wobble,’ and appears to be one of the things confusing many of the reporters, who are interpreting it as a change in orbit of either the Earth or the Sun…when it is neither.

See, one of the ways we look for exoplanets in other stellar systems is to look for the very small wobble in proper motion (aka movement through the galaxy) of the star, which is caused by the gravitational tug of the orbiting planet(s). And our planets do the same thing to the Sun. (The barycenter is the effective center of mass of two co-orbiting objects – a binary system – and it is the point about which those objects orbit, no matter how big the objects. The barycenter itself remains essentially stationary relative to the objects, however; in the case of a translating system, the barycenter travels in a straight line, with the objects orbiting around it.) In the case of most of the inner planets, the barycenter lies deep inside the Sun. But Jupiter is massive enough that the barycenter lies roughly 50,000km (~31,000mi) above the photosphere, and the other gas giant planets would have barycenters with the Sun that are substantially displaced from the center of the Sun, too. So the Sun has a reasonably-sized ‘wobble,’ and this movement can bring it marginally closer to Earth at certain points in the orbit.

As a consequence, if in orbiting the barycenter, the Sun moves closer to Earth’s perihelion (closest approach to the Sun in our elliptical orbit), then we would expect to be ever so slightly warmer near perihelion, and cooler near aphelion (farthest distance from the Sun in orbit). It so happens that the perihelion occurs about 2 weeks after the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice, and aphelion occurs about 2 weeks after the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice. This would mean that the Northern Hemisphere’s summers would be marginally warmer than ‘normal,’ and likewise the Southern Hemisphere’s winters would be marginally less cold. Six months later, the Northern Hemisphere’s winters would be slightly cooler, and the Southern Hemisphere’s summers would also be slightly less hot. Then, as the wobble finishes its cycle, the Sun would move away from the perihelion region and closer to the aphelion region, and the opposite would occur. And this is all a function of orbital mechanics, and has nothing to do at all with anything humanity may or may not do. It is not a large factor, and it is vastly outweighed by the overall magnetic cycle variability (it’s something like only 0.05 times the magnetic cycle variability effects), but it is there, and it is apparently showing up in the irradiance data.

This is NOT, let me reiterate, a change in Earth’s orbit, nor is it a change in the Sun’s motion – this has been going on ever since the solar system has been here. But we are only now getting good enough with our observations and modeling to observe its effects and take them into account.

Zharkova indicates she is not done with the dynamo model; she intends to continue refining it, adding terms to the mathematical model as needed as she and her team explore additional non-visible light regimes (notably X-ray, gamma ray, infrared, microwave, and radio). This will likely result in an excellent solar activity predictive tool. It all makes a great deal of sense to me, and it is the first time that a model has ever accurately predicted such long-range activity. I plan on catching up on her publications to this point, and keeping an eye out for future papers updating the model; I fully expect that she is onto something very important. I’m looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

(For background information on solar activity and its variability, which is the basis of this little guest blog, let me recommend an ebook I wrote a couple of years ago, called The Weather Out There Is Frightful: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008JA00D0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 )

~ Stephanie Osborn

http://www.stephanie-osborn.com/

The other day husband and I were in front of the computer that’s used as a TV, and he was looking at trailers (I think I was writing, but I might have been painting something.)   After about the third “science fiction” movie trailer, my husband said “Do they realize all these futures are essentially Maoist?  They all dress alike, they’re addressed by their rank in society, they have completely scripted lives?”

And I realized he’s right and it’s not just the dystopias, even.  In all imagined SF futures, STILL, everyone dresses alike and is some kind of cog in a big machine.

Okay, I give Star Trek a pass, as what we’re seeing is more or less the military in this society.  (Or perhaps the Peace Corps. Or yes. I never figured it out, fully.) But even then you have a feeling private citizens live pretty similar lives.

Why?

Well, movies are downstream from written SF and also tend to ossify more, because after a while viewers look for a certain “look” in SF/F (which is why even I in sf/f covers use the full body-suit thing because in people’s minds THAT is science fiction.

And when I started reading science fiction the “citizen 54, report” type of SF was normal — and please keep in mind that I read very bad European (mostly French) science fiction that my friends were reading (one of which I’m sure was a science fiction romance, as the only even vaguely original scenes were the sex scenes.  Which means at fourteen I was both bored AND bewildered and wondered why my otherwise sensible friend like this.  In retrospect, I think Mr. Hormone had just called on her earlier than on me.  I mean, the main character had a robot who–  never mind.) as well as Argonauta, which was mostly US sf, a lot of it alas award winners, which even then meant a lot of it was … odd.

A lot of it seemed to be based on the idea that Brave New World was inevitable, so, therefore, we could only write variations of it.

The idea that in the future we were all addressed by rank and number was so built into those books that this was the default setting.  you were — even outside the military — engineer 459 or architect 890 or whatever.

It was tied in with the overpopulation idea.  My brother with whom I discussed this, said of course in the future some number would be part of your name (if not your full name.) Just because there would be so many of you, and a computer would need to administer everything.

Oh, and I can’t emphasize that enough.  In the seventies and even early eighties, mostly because people believed the lies from the Soviet Union, it was assumed as a default that of COURSE central control and administration was not only more efficient, but the future that waited us all.  The future was vaguely human ants working and living for the good of the colony, administered by the best people and of course computers.

Remember that a lot of people on both sides of the isle grew up with this idea, and that science fiction ideas shape even “mundane” society.  A lot of the internationalists f*cking up the world are doing so under the assumption that the one-world-government administered by “smart people” and computers is not only inevitable, but the best possible in an imperfect world. They refuse to see the true results of central control because they can’t. Their entire life narrative would collapse.  That “people want to be part of something greater” means they’re invested heart and soul in bringing this about because the books and movies they read and saw as kids sold it to them.

Me? I’d probably have wandered off sf if I hadn’t found Simak — yes, depressing, but his people were people — and Heinlein who didn’t sing in THAT choir.

But in truth, we’ve moved past that narrative, and even the supposedly non dystopias set in “everyone wears same clothes and is directed by voices from the wall” world feel vaguely creepy and scary now.

Because that dream was a nightmare, and thank heavens we’ve awakened from it.

However the future will be, it won’t be Maoist.  Sure, there will be disgusting periods in future history — as there were in the past — but whatever lies in future for us long term is not the “perfect” centralized state, with or without computers.

I’m an individual, not a number.  And so, gentle reader, are you.

For which I’m very glad.

(UPDATE ON THE GREAT BOOK SALE: New list tomorrow, probably close to noon.  Sorry, I’m combating either a bug or my thyroid going low again (yes, I AM having tests) and last night I was too tired to box.  I also need to do a more careful turn-over on the library to figure out if I can locate that series of Night Shifters. I will, probably, in the process, find other things, like probably older books/copies.)