Shaken Not Stirred

Martini Blogger, Traveler, Father, & Engineer celebrating the finer things in life!

“the elixir of quietude” E.B. White

[RonnieH @My_name_is_RonH]

For those like Elizabet Warren complaining about Elon Musk being a trillionaire...

- Elon employs over 155,000 people globally.
- He has reinvented the automotive business that has forced competition resulting in millions of tons of reduced CO2 emissions.
- He has created Starlink that now allows internet connectivity to anywhere in the world.
- He supplied Starlink to Ukraine days after Russia destroyed their internet capability.
- His Neuralink company is now helping those who are paralyzed to regain their abilities.
- His SpaceX company is economically and safely shuttling astronauts to the international space station for leading edge science work as well as placing satellites into space.
- He's promoted free speech on this X platform to all.
- His Boring company is efficiently boring tunnels under cities for utility and transportation relief.
- He is working directly and indirectly with NASA to establish a Moon base and advance onto other space objectives putting America first in the space race.
- He created PayPal that allows for a simple and secure internet payment method.
- He has made tens of thousands of millionaires out of his employees and retail investors.

All this and I'm sure more in the future. Yet, he lives simply, not extravagantly, works HARD everyday as an engineer and a business man. He has probably done more for the betterment of humanity than anyone in modern history. Plus, lets understand the "trillionaire" label is due to his assets, not money in the bank. So now tell us Elizabeth Warren what have YOU done for the world?

[Afghan Zoroastrian @AfgZoroastrian]

Japan and Germany were devastated during WW2.

Their children didn’t become terrorists.

Stop making excuses for your terrorists.

[A Gene Robinson @AlBuffalo2nite]

So let me get this straight…

The Ten Commandments are supposedly too controversial for many public schools.

A Bible verse on a classroom wall can trigger lawsuits.

Christian traditions are constantly challenged in the name of neutrality.

But a school can create a religious accommodation for a ceremonial blade because faith must be respected.

Either religious liberty matters or it doesn’t.

The American people are smart enough to notice when one faith seems to receive accommodations while another is told to sit quietly in the corner.

#AStoneGroove #SilentMajoritySpeaks

[BCM @Blatz4519]

@RealJamesWoods

[Bécquer 🇪🇸✒🔡 @GustavoAdolf_]

En 2017 la Gran Maestra de Ajedrez Anna Muzychuk 🇺🇦se negó a jugar en Arabia Saudita 🇸🇦y dijo:
- En unos días, perderé dos títulos mundiales, uno tras otro, porque decidí no ir a Arabia Saudita. Me niego a jugar con reglas especiales, a usar abaya, y a ser acompañada por un hombre para poder salir del hotel.
En solo 5 días podría haber ganado más dinero que en docenas de torneos. Al menos, me queda la satisfacción, de que desde entonces, no se ha vuelto a celebrar ningún campeonato internacional de ajedrez en ese país.
Futbolistas y tenistas deberían tomar ejemplo.

[Mars University @MarsUniversityX]

Elon Musk: "We should really accept no racism or sexism in any form, no matter what it’s called,

If 'wokism' means judging people by race, gender, or identity - that's racism

If DEI means giving advantages based on skin color - that's racism rebranded

We need a meritocracy - where people rise based on talent and hard work, not identity politics

And free speech only means something when people you disagree with are allowed to speak”

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Yes

And we don't mind if they prefer to eat with their hands

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

The Earth is greening at a rate never seen before in all recorded history, according to NASA satellite records from 1982–2023.

Global crop yields have risen 15–20% since 1960, almost entirely attributable to CO₂ fertilisation (Idso, 2013; IPCC AR6 WG1 Ch5). Famine deaths have plummeted over a time when the world's population doubled and CO₂ deserves much of the credit. We have increased CO₂ over the past century to thank for this explosion in plant life and available plant food from booming agriculture.

There's been a more than 18% increase in the global leaf area in 40 years, with the largest gains in India and China from CO₂ fertilisation. Warmer and more balmy temperatures are lengthening the growing seasons. These are features of rising levels of water vapour and cloud cover around the world. Every 100 ppm increase in CO₂ typically boosts plant growth by 25–50% in all non-water-limited conditions.

This analysis draws on 776 studies from 1993–2019, showing an ideal average CO₂ level of 550 ppm delivers a 38% increase in global biomass.

It's an astonishing windfall for life on earth from CO₂, a trace gas at 420 ppm (or 0.04%). It also has a secondary benefit for life by contributing to baseline levels of warmth around the planet, along with water vapour and other trace gases with similar properties, like methane (approx. 1.9 ppm or 0.00019%).

However, water vapour and cloud cover are the mainstays of rainfall and the entire hydrologic cycle, returning water as precipitation to rivers, lakes, and oceans (where 78% of rain ends up).

These are the reasons why commercial greenhouses pump CO₂ to 1,000–1,500 ppm deliberately. It ensures that crop yields jump by 20–70% depending on the crop. If 1000 ppm is good for tomatoes, why is 420 ppm an 'emergency' for the planet?

The science says 600–1,000 ppm of CO₂ plus 1–2°C extra warming hits the sweet spot for all terrestrial and marine life, including human civilisation. We should not be waging war on a trace gas that makes the planet greener.

Higher CO₂ is a net benefit to life on Earth.

[Rob Moore @robprogressive]

“Landlords shouldn’t make a profit.”

Right… So I invest hundreds of thousands into a property, take on all the risk…

…cover the repairs, taxes, & upkeep & I’m not supposed to earn anything in return on my investment?

I provide housing for people who can’t (or don’t want to) buy yet somehow I’m the villain?

How exactly do you expect homes to exist without someone paying the actual cost?

It’s not exploitation. It’s economics

Wake up you left hypocrites

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

No longer to be trusted at all

[Shaken Not Stirred @Shkn_Nt_Strrd]

@Soaringeagle45 🤣🤣🤣

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

We are told that hydrocarbons are a stain on history. But before fossil fuels, humanity was entirely at the mercy of a harsh world.

Life before modern energy was exactly as Thomas Hobbes described it: 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. Coal and oil are the core reasons modern civilisation exists at all. They ended the backbreaking human servitude and primitive toil, provided reliable warmth and built the physical infrastructure that protects humanity from the elements today.

When you see maps of Europe painted in apocalyptic blood-red, accompanied by insults for anyone who asks questions, you are looking at pure marketing - this is not science. Behind the panic dialogue lies a profound ignorance of deep geological time and human history.

The transition to modern energy didn't corrupt a pristine world; it lifted human hope out of subsistence poverty. It built modern medicine, sanitation and transport, and paradoxically made us vastly more resilient to a harsh world.

The irony runs deep. Carbon dioxide, now labeled a pollutant, was the foundation for the rise of life, the catalyst for oxygen production and blind architect of the miracle of photosynthesis. Without it, multicellular life would not exist.

Look at the actual data. For the vast majority of the Phanerozoic Eon (over the past 541 million years), Earth's average temperature sat between 18°C and 26°C. Today's global average is around 15°C. Geologically speaking, we live in a remarkably 'cool' era.

We are also still living in the Quaternary Ice Age, enjoying a brief, 11,700-year warm holiday climate known as an interglacial period. The roughly 1.4°C rise seen since 1850 was a natural recovery from the brutal icy depths of the Little Ice Age - not the ignition of a planet.

Yet, the institutional campaign of absolute climate panic—now roughly 38 years old—has successfully morphed a complex scientific inquiry into a massive, centralised economic torrent. The futility of fighting these natural cycles comes at an astronomical economic cost.

According to global consulting firms like McKinsey, the forced top-down transition to Net Zero is projected to cost $9.2 trillion every single year through to 2050. That is a staggering global total of $275 trillion.

This isn't about saving the planet. It's a massive, top-down redistribution of wealth away from sovereign nations and into an opaque, tangled bureaucratic web of managed funds. It is being driven by a self-serving activist hardcore within the UN.

Fear has been hijacked to replace physics, fracturing global stability for an outrageous multi-trillion-dollar quest for power.

[Galactic Zoo @TonyMarrese]

Remember, don’t die of sun exposure today.

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

And where are all the moderate Islamists who say this man is not speaking for them ?

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

International bureaucracies are retreating from their formerly 'iron-clad' fixation on immediate global climate collapse.

As their worst-case computer models evaporate under the weight of real-world data, the goalposts are shifting. Realising they can no longer defend the rigid targets used to drive public anxiety, institutions like the IPCC are quietly pivoting to 'overshoot' mode to manage the damage.

This retreat is happening because empirical data from NASA satellites is telling a vastly different story of planetary resilience. The Sahara Desert, of all places, has shrunk by roughly 8% since the 1980s. This isn't a computer model simulation, it's the visible reality captured by NASA’s AVHRR and MODIS satellite instruments.

Satellite data reveals that 25% to 50% of Earth’s vegetated lands have shown significant greening. This is an expansion of biomass equivalent to twice the continental United States. Carbon dioxide fertilisation is responsible for roughly 70% of this growth.

Higher atmospheric CO₂ is also allowing marginal plants to use water more efficiently. Leaf pores (stomata) don't need to stay open as long to take in carbon, drastically cutting water loss and boosting natural drought resistance. This biological efficiency is allowing vegetation to march back into the world’s most hostile environments.

Green cover has been actively reclaiming the arid fringes of the Sahel (the Sahara’s southern edge), the Middle East and Australian Outback. An 8% reduction in the Sahara's desert expanse means over 700,000 square kilometres of formerly barren sand wastes have transitioned to green cover.

With CO₂ now hovering around 430 ppm, nature is using this extra airborne fuel to thrive in regions once completely inhospitable.

Centralised policy platforms remain focused on worst-case scenarios and economic penalties. But the biosphere is quietly demonstrating a profound, measurable benefit from higher CO₂. Earth is becoming greener and more water-efficient - where it matters most.

No one expected this.

[𝐃𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇 @pr0ud_americans]

Colbert signing off for the last time tonight made me realize: the last late-night host I actually looked forward to was Jay Leno. Straight laughs, killer monologues, no lectures — just pure entertainment with zero agenda.

Late-night didn’t die because America changed. It died when it stopped being funny and became the nightly sermon.

Should we have more Leno and Carson-type late-night shows again?

[Jak @Jakcoin]

@theobjectivist No more words needed

[A Soldier's Whisper @SoldiersWhisper]

It was November 1967 in Vietnam. Gary Wetzel was a helicopter door gunner. His job was brutally simple to protect the aircraft and the soldiers below.

As Wetzel’s helicopter flew into heavy enemy fire, an RPG slammed into the aircraft. The blast ripped through the cabin. Metal tore into his body. One of his arms was almost completely destroyed. Medics rushed toward him. The Pilots prepared emergency evacuation. Most men would have prayed to survive.
Wetzel pushed them away.
“No,” he said. Leave me.”
Then he grabbed his machine gun with his remaining hand and kept firing.

For more than thirty minutes, Gary Wetzel stayed in the open doorway of that helicopter while barely conscious. But enemy forces were closing in on American troops below, and if the helicopter pulled away too early, soldiers on the ground would be trapped.
So Wetzel stayed.

He fired continuously and stopped enemy positions buying time for wounded soldiers to escape alive.
Pilots begged him to stop. Medics pleaded with him to let go. Only after the last troops were safely out did his body finally collapse. Doctors later said he should never have survived his injuries. He lost his arm permanently. He lost years of health. But dozens of soldiers made it home because he refused to abandon them.

Gary Wetzel later received the Medal of Honor. When people called him a hero, he gave the simplest answer possible.
“I was just doing my job.”

#Military #Hero #MetalOfHonor

[Happy Granddadddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd @PlotWeaver]

@taroinagaki025 Two nuclear weapons could not destroy Japan.

Immigration?
That just might mean the end of your country.