Some visitors

 Here are the turkeys:

And bobcat

16 Years

 I started this blog some 16 years ago. I have seen many changes and events over that period:

I started with the economy in 2008. It was the banking collapse. Our Government poured trillions to stop the problem. A simple and avoidable problem. It was the making of the Government allowing loans on inflated real estate with the lack of ability to repay. Rolling up junk into bigger piles of junk until it collapsed.

Then there was Obamacare. By itself just added costs for healthcare for those unable to afford it. But as usual excess costs. But the real problem is it opened the gates for those seeking nationalized healthcare. A possible disaster but it raised its head.

Then we got the plague, COVID, just five years ago. It demonstrated the gross incompetence and political corruptness of our Government. We still do not have an effective vaccine nor an effective therapeutic nor do we really know its transmission path. Men with beards wearing masks are oxymorons! Physicians doing so a worse than reckless.

Now we are in the era of massive social change. Some of the most absurd demands by small segments in attempts to dominate all others.

It is interesting to watch this change, yet some time frightening.

Simple Trigonometry

 In an article on The Hill, a former Jan 6 Panel member asserts and alleges:

 ... a former military pilot, said Sunday that all of the mysterious drone sightings he has seen video of have been airplanes. “Honestly, every video I’ve seen — and I’ve spent the last couple of days looking at every one of these videos — every video I have seen on Twitter, on the internet, are all airplanes. They’re literally all airplanes,” ...  “Some of them will show an airplane that’s kind of stable out there and says that’s a drone, and actually, it’s an airplane flying towards you at 30,000 feet. And I can see the lighting on it.”“If any of these pictures that they have shown are actual drones, these drones then are complying with FAA lighting requirements: a green on the right, a red on the left with a strobe,”

 OK I am not a pilot, I have however designed and deployed various identification and tracking systems over the years. I also did well in Trigonometry. So my NJ sighting was at 1.5 km and at an angle they yielded about 400 ft elevation. Low angle. Namely tangent of angle equals elevation divided by distance. Thus this was no flight into Newark nor one into Morristown airport. You see I am on the flight paths of both! In addition one can track all arriving and departing EWR flight real time on line. I even track by radio from FAA flight control.

So the above statement is in my opinion baseless. Do I believe this person or my lying eyes, and trig table!

Vaccines

 In a recent note in Science they discussed the facts that COVID vaccines have limited effectiveness as compared to other vaccines. They note:

Neither vaccinations nor immunity from infections seem to thwart SARS-CoV-2 for long. The frequency of new infections within a few months of a previous bout or a shot is one of COVID-19’s most vexing puzzles. Now, scientists have learned that a little-known type of immune cell in the bone marrow may play a major role in this failure. The study, which appeared last month in Nature Medicine, found that people who received repeated doses of vaccine, and in some cases also became infected with SARS-CoV-2, largely failed to make special antibody-producing cells called long-lived plasma cells (LLPCs). “That’s really, really interesting,” says Mark Slifka, an immunologist at the Oregon Health & Science University who was not involved with the work. The study authors say their finding may indicate a way to make better COVID-19 vaccines: by altering how they present the spike surface protein of SARS-CoV-2 to a person’s immune cells. Durability is an age-old bugaboo of vaccine designers. Some vaccines, particularly ones made from weakened versions of viruses, can protect people for decades, even life. Yet others lose effectiveness within months. “We really haven’t overcome this challenge,” says Akiko Iwasaki, a Yale University immunologist who is developing a nasal COVID-19 vaccine she hopes can be given often enough to get around the durability problem.

 My 1944 smallpox immunity still works as does my 1953 polio. However my mRNA COVID kind of lasts six months at best. The observation noted above about immune cell surface proteins, receptors, has merit. However the flu shots last about six months. Perhaps the mutation rate of single stranded mRNA viruses is at fault.

One suspects dramatic changes in vaccines now that we have a window to their operations.

Drones

 OK, I live in Morris County NJ, home of the drones. So last night I went out to see if there were any. Well in no time I picked up 2 on my high quality binoculars. One was about 1 km away at about 500 ft. Blinking red, green, clearly a drone. It was on the Chatham/Florham Park border following the high power distribution lines. Track it for 5 min. Can't miss these things. 

They are on the approach to Morristown Airport thus creating a clear and present danger to aircraft. So much for the fools at the FAA and DoT. They are threats to that at least. Also they are large. What if they fall...NJ is densest population state and they would take out quite a few people.

Now our State officials and our Federal officials seem clueless! No surprise here, these are the same folks who did COVID management.

Hopefully the new Administration feels more akin with people instead of just handing out pardons.

Another Reason to Avoid the UK

 

I recall back a few years when I tired to do a tour at Buckingham Palace, I had a free morning, I was triple searched. Afterall I am Irish, by ancestry, and also by citizenship. Now as the NY Times notes, besides your passport you need a new approval. Specifically:

Travelers from the United States, Canada and dozens of other countries who do not require visas to enter the United Kingdom will soon need to apply for digital authorization in order to visit or transit through the country. The electronic travel authorization, called ETA and linked to a traveler’s passport, costs 10 pounds, or around $13, and lasts two years. The requirement was introduced about a year ago for nationals of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and four other Gulf nations and will extend to more than 40 visa-exempt countries starting Jan. 8. It will eventually apply to all visa-exempt travelers wishing to visit the United Kingdom, including those from the European Union.

Many times I transited London. I really never liked the UK, and I suspect I would dislike it even more today. But this added issue makes it unbearable. I ended up transiting via Frankfurt, the Germans are more efficient and much less abusive, if one can image such. Paris is great but transit is tough. Copenhagen is nice but small. 

One wonders why they did this. In the US I could see, we have already too many rules and Government employees. Perhaps it may get a bit better.