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Messages - DuncanDoenitz

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1
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: February 05, 2025, 07:02:32 PM »
Since the President is clearly above the powers of other branches a more accurate statement is that he provides the permission for his actions. The President is the check against the other branches, not vice-versa. You guys have that backwards.

Another example is the recent "TikTok ban". It was passed legally by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court. TikTok went offline for a while and then it was brought back online by internet telecommunication companies after declarations from Trump. Trump issued statements and an EO that he will put the orders for the TikTok ban on pause and not uphold it, demonstrating that he is above those powers and can simply ignore the orders.

The best Congress can do is impeach him and give him that label, but whether they have the power to actually forcefully remove him against his will is in debate since it has never been done and the President has an encompassing enforcement power that nullifies other branches. In fact, the article I posted a couple of posts back says that he can overturn or overthrow Congress in his official capacity without fear of arrest. It is interesting to speculate about the limits of the President's vast power, but it is nonetheless very clear that he is incredibly powerful in likeness to a king.


As a UK citizen it's not my speciallist subject, but the Supreme Court seems to believe that the Judicial Branch determines what powers the President can employ. 

https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/constitutional.aspx#:~:text=When%20the%20Supreme%20Court%20rules,legislative%20action%20can%20be%20taken.

Quote:

"The complex role of the Supreme Court in this system derives from its authority to invalidate legislation or executive actions which, in the Court’s considered judgment, conflict with the Constitution. This power of "judicial review" has given the Court a crucial responsibility in assuring individual rights, as well as in maintaining a "living Constitution" whose broad provisions are continually applied to complicated new situations".  (My bold). 

Fully agree on the concept that a constitutionally-powerful president can make all the difference to national success e.g. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Lukashenko, Saddam, Mugabe. 

Of course, to quote another powerful president, Mao Zedong, real power comes from the barrel of a gun, so if you can get enoough guns on-message the Supreme Court can go suck.  But that would be Insurrection, wouldn't it? 


2
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: February 04, 2025, 12:31:09 AM »
Isn't it basically the same in all of the (what we refer to as Western) democracies?  USA, UK, Germany, France etc. 

All have 3 branches of government;

Legislature; (Parliament, Congress, Bundestag etc).  A large elected assembly which, on behalf of the People, decides what laws and constitutional changes are necessary. 

Executive; A smaller body of elected or co-opted individuals who make day-to-day decisions and decide what measures are to be taken to better promote the country's prosperity, security and well-being.  The Executive is generally a Cabinet, with varying amounts of emphasis placed on the power of its leader, President or Prime Minister.  The rule governing all Executive branches is that all their power comes from The Parliament or Congress, and they must act within existing laws and National Constitution.  If they can't do this, they might propose legislation which must then be passed by the Legislature before they can execute it.   

Judiciary; independant of the other 2 branches determines whether the law is being obeyed. 

Presumably, in the case of Trump's Executive Orders concerning DEI, Tarrifs and whatnot, he must already have that power through existing legislation or the Constitution.  Where he comes unstuck is when he tries to give things which are not his to give, such as the birthright thing (14th Amdt?) when the Judiciary steps on the brake pedal. 

Regarding the UK Crown's loss of power, Tom is having a laugh; it's just a National 1000-year Lifecycle thing.  The European nations went through the whole power/colonisation thing hundreds of years ago.  Africa, Indian subcontinent, Far East and America itself were undeveloped, disorganised and easy pickings for Europe to invade, colonise, subjugate and expoilt; that's where the money came from, Officer. 

A few hundred years later, the Age of Reason and our benevolent Empires release the, now cultivated, savages to make their own decisions, elect their own parliaments and get on with life.  Are we less powerful?  We're certainly less wealthy, now we are spreading the goodness and the money was never really ours anyway. 

The problem with the USA, and Trump in particular is that they came late to the game.  Whilst everyone else is letting their colonies fly free, Trump is still in the mindset of 15th Century Europe and trying to colonise Mexico, Canada and Greenland. 

3
Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is Mars rotating faster?
« on: February 01, 2025, 09:36:22 PM »
I think sandokhan may be making the mistake of interpreting the movement of surface features in a linear manner, as on a disc, rather than on a rotating 3-dimensional orb, and assessing the angles accordingly? 

The apparent distance travelled is, of course, proportional to the Sin of the angle rotated.  For instance, starting from the centre of the apparent disc, the first 30 degrees of rotation will move the point by Sin 30 = 0.5, or halfway to the edge.  In the case of 45 degrees the distance travelled will be Sin 45, or 0.7; almost 3/4 the distance centre-to-edge. 

The concept that winged angels and cosmic rays are accelerating planetary rotation speeds (which go unnoticed by mainstream science and millions of amateur astronomers), I would assess as somewhere between pseudo-science, alchemy and equine-poop. 

4
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: February 01, 2025, 06:35:49 PM »
He, She, They, It.  Does it matter? 

Only if you're a bigot I suppose. 

(Close Enough). 

5
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: February 01, 2025, 04:36:39 PM »

I am unsure of what tape you were listening to "visual separation."

ETA: The helicopter pilot was not a "he."



"Visual separation" is an established avoidance procedure when one pilot is in visual contact with potentially conflicting traffic.  This procedure was (possibly erroneously) accepted in this case. 

"The helicopter pilot was not a "he"".  That statement is a lie, and you should be shamed appropriately. 

The crew consisted of a crewman in the cabin, and 2 pilots in the cockpit, one of whom would be the aircraft commander; one pilot was male and the other female.  In 2-pilot operation, at any given time, one of the pilots acts as "Pilot Flying" (PF), the other is "Pilot Monitoring" (PM); these 2 roles swop about during the flight according to the tactical nature of the operation and the experience/training/continuity required by the 2 pilots.  Whoever is PF at any given time is not necessarily known to anyone outside the aircraft, and is in any case immaterial.  Until a cockpit voice recording becomes available, the sex of "the pilot" operating the controls is therefore unknown. 

Whoever is PF, either pilot can speak with ATC, and both are responsible for following their instructions or stating an inability to comply. 

6
Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026
« on: January 19, 2025, 09:53:10 AM »
You aren't reading your chart correctly Tom, it's travelling South across Greenland, then East. 

Jesus, check the timings for direction of travel; North Pole 17.00 UTC, South of Iceland 18.00 UTC, etc.  The Event begins in Northern Russia and ends in the Mediterranean. 

(edit; clarifying the zone of North to South travel)

7
Flat Earth Investigations / Re: Solar Eclipse of Aug 12, 2026
« on: January 18, 2025, 05:35:06 PM »
. The gif you posted does not appear to match the image in Tom's post.


Tom just chose to post the predominently north-south element of the track as it passes through Orangeland Greenland 

8
Technology & Information / Re: Autonomous weapons systems
« on: January 18, 2025, 12:20:34 PM »
Someone still needs to put the batteries in, charge it up, switch it on or whatever. 

Or not. 

9
Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump
« on: January 06, 2025, 09:18:52 AM »
"Many of the people there already speak Russian, so it wouldn't be much of a culture shock".

Guess there'd be little problem having the USA absorbed into Mexico then, since "many of them already speak Spanish".  Or more logically, England. 

Welcome back; we've missed you. 

10
Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment
« on: December 17, 2024, 11:30:55 PM »
Pete's intervention has merit and, if it is a scam, I take my aluminum hat off to them for enterprise. 

On that basis, I'm temporarily suspending the eat-the-hat thing.  It's currently marinading in a red-wine reduction pending further debate and a concensus. 

11
Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment
« on: December 17, 2024, 04:52:28 PM »


Take the wind chill thing up with their own website and the NWS windchill calculator.


Can't comment on the weather when they did the video, but METAR currently (17 Dec, 16.30 UTC) for the Union Glacier runway (ICAO code SCGC) is temperature -8C and wind of 5 knots.  That gives a wind-chill of -13C (that's got to be in the plus-fahrenheits); comfortably in the NWS chart for at least 30 minutes exposure before risking frostbite.  But you do the math. 

I certainly don't see a problem with removing gloves and facewear in order to operate equipment and narrate a 15-minute video in those conditions.

12
Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment
« on: December 17, 2024, 02:40:35 PM »

You cannot travel south of the 60th without a permit.


Why?  South of 60deg includes ocean.  Need a permit for the ocean; from whom?  And it's an organised trip, check their website. 

Weather.  Look at the video; what makes you think there's a windchill?  Specifically look at the video around 5.54, see the idle blades on the drone hanging loose, not flying out at 90 degrees.  I think you live in the northern States, you know very well that there are calm sunny days when you can stand around in casual clothing in sub-zero temperature. 

And why didn't they just suit-up if that would support the intended illusion?  They could have done the whole mime-walking-into-wind thing for additional effect. 

13
Flat Earth Community / Re: The Final Experiment
« on: December 17, 2024, 12:50:40 PM »
Warmer than who previously thought?  The Wiki? 

Sun's been shining since September and, judging by their dress and demeanour, there's little wind-chill at the mo. 


14
Flat Earth Theory / Re: Photo from Plane Proves the Earth Is Round
« on: November 29, 2024, 01:58:09 PM »
Thanks Ron.  In no way am I advocating this experiment as a means of determining Earth's form, I'm just pointing out a further fallacy in the rather simplistic concept that amateur photography through an airliner window can add anything robust to the debate. 

15
Flat Earth Theory / Re: Photo from Plane Proves the Earth Is Round
« on: November 29, 2024, 09:20:09 AM »
As for the pictures out of the window of an airplane...The solution is to take a series of pictures.  Start at something like 10,000 feet and then 20,000 and so on up to the max cruising altitude.  Then you can compare all the pictures when you get home.  If there's a little more curvature in the max altitude picture than the one at 10,000 feet you can use that for your proof and the aircraft window factor would be compensated for.  It would be difficult to conclusively show much curvature below 40 or 50 thousand feet.  Most airliners don't usually get that high very often.  There are pictures out there from military aircraft that do show curvature, but they don't usually show the series of pictures and that gives the flat earthers a little wiggle room and they shout, 'aircraft window distortion every time'.


Good starting point Ron, but 2 considerations;

1.  You'd need a mechanism to ensure that your camera is in precisely the same position and centre-of-image for each exposure, and ensure that your camera (phone, whatever) is using precisely the same focal length. 

2.  The focal length of the aircraft window is not constant.  If you've never seen an aircraft undergoing a pressurisation test on the ground, you'd be surprised at how much the windows bulge and distort.  The higher the pressure differential, the greater the distortion. 

And just another point on Everette's suggestion about the shape of the wing as a reference.  It's a non-starter.  There is no way that a passenger (or even the pilot, for that matter) can know the present curvature of the wing.  The wing is constantly flexing due to normal acceleration ("g") and as the auto flight control system moves the ailerons and spoilers for gust alleviation. 

16
Flat Earth Theory / Re: Photo from Plane Proves the Earth Is Round
« on: November 27, 2024, 07:49:55 PM »
It does not match my expectations.  At cruising height, and this range, I would expect the horizon to appear flat; the amount of curvature of the globe-Earth would be imperceptible; any curvature that can be perceived is due to optical effects of the camera lens and the aircraft window. 

And the wing actually is curved (trust me, I'm an aircraft engineer).  The fact that you cannot identify that curvature supports my case. 

And I'm also a roundy btw. 

17
Flat Earth Theory / Re: Photo from Plane Proves the Earth Is Round
« on: November 27, 2024, 03:41:25 PM »
Fact of the matter is, you cannot determine whether the earth is a sphere by observations at the height you claim. Furthermore, the lens distorts the image.

Exactly thus. 

18
OK.  Just wondering how you judge the bearing; compass, local geo features? 

Must admit I've not used this website before and, unlike yesterday, the weather was not suitable for observation.  I might do a comparison next time the weather's clear and come back with what I see!  Compare notes.

19
I think you're just misreading the chart my friend. 

The icon beside Lake Michigan is just showing the chosen location of the observer (LaPorte Indiana) as stated in the chart header.  It doesn't provide an icon for the actual Moon position. 

The table of data relates to observations from that place; moonset time, current azimuth and elevation, etc.  So at the time stated, from LaPorte, the moon would be visible just above the horizon to the WNW. 

20
Not sure what you're saying, or seeing here. 

Assuming the time-stamp is within about an hour for both charts (La Porte IN, UTC -5).  The Sun/Moon position chart is showing the moon roughly mid-Pacific.  The mid-Pacific (let's say the International Date Line) is about 90deg west of Indiana, which is going to put the Moon's apparent elevation roundabout the horizon, which corresponds with the Moonset Chart; 5 deg. 

It's on a similar latitude but, because your eye-line is following more-or-less a Great Circle, that is going to appear to be north from due west, hence moon direction of 297deg seems plausible. 

By a coincidence it was a bright sunny day here in my UK town and around 11.00am (UTC) the mrs pointed out that the moon was still visible.  It was roughly 20deg above a prominent local mountain which is NNW from here.  (edit; sorry, WNW, about 300deg).

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