Another impediment to human life in orbit, and on the moon or Mars

 

Space conditions hamper sperm's ability to navigate toward egg...

 

 ... Sperm in microgravity still move, they just cannot find their way. The function that appears to be disrupted is navigation, the ability to orient and move with purpose toward a destination. ... 

The dumbasses at Fox don't know the meaning of decimates, showcase an NSC liar THIS MORNING who says U.S. Navy escorted ships through Hormuz yesterday when they did not

To be fair, they're just repeating what our ignoramus in chief says.

 

The critics ignore that Kristi Noem's DHS ad campaign was all Trump's idea and that she was saying so already in February 2025

 

Noem Everything a Cabinet Member Not Supposed To Be

R.T. Beckwith, MS Now

 

... made herself the star of a $220 million ad campaign that followed a no-bid contract ... 

 

 

'Self-Serving Glory Hound' Kristi Noem Got What She Deserved

Rich Lowry, NY Post

 

... Self-dealing played a direct role in Noem’s defenestration.

The department approved a $220 million contract — funneled in part through firms run by Noem and Lewandowski allies — for an ad campaign encouraging illegal immigrants to go home. 

The ad starred — who else? — Kristi Noem, on horseback and in chaps.

The implicit message was that if illegal immigrants didn’t leave on their own, she’d immediately form a posse and run them over the border. 

It was a production worthy of a spaghetti Western, or — more to the point, given her political ambitions — a commercial for a 2028 presidential campaign. 

Noem couldn’t defend the sketchy spending decisions, or the blatantly self-glorifying ad, or much of anything else in the brutal back-to-back House and Senate hearings that precipitated her doom. 

She’d already been taken down a notch after the Minneapolis ICE operation went sideways. ...

 

https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-dhs-secretary-kristi-noem-describes-ad-campaign/5195580

Let me fix that for you: Incompetent U.S. military under cowboy Pete Hegseth shoots down our own Border Protection drone in Texas BY accident

Why do Reuters and CNBC bend over backwards to obscure who did what to whom? 

U.S. military shoots down government drone in Texas accident, Reuters sources say

The U.S. military shot down a government drone with a laser-based anti-drone system, an accident that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to bar flights on Thursday in an area around Fort Hancock, Texas, congressional aides told Reuters.

Congressional aides told Reuters the Pentagon used the high-energy laser system to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone near the Mexican border, in an area that often has incursions from Mexican drones used by drug cartels.

The Pentagon, Federal Aviation Administration and Customs and Border Protection issued a statement saying the military used a “counter-unmanned aircraft system ... to mitigate a seemingly threatening unmanned aerial system operating within military airspace.” ...

CBP deployed the laser technology this month to reportedly take down four suspected cartel drones, despite warnings from the FAA that the technology had not been deemed safe to use in the same vicinity as commercial flights, an aide told Reuters, adding agencies told them the laser had never before been deployed domestically.

Two weeks ago the military used this laser, and missed!

US military used laser to take down Border Protection drone, lawmakers say

 

 

Gold had hit a record high of $5,594.82 on Thursday January 29th, silver hit a record high of $121.64 also on Thursday, and platinum hit its record high on Monday at $2,918.80

 -- Reuters

Spot gold to $5,591.61, spot silver to $119.34

 -- Reuters 10:42pm EST

Spot gold hit a peak of $5,181.84 per ounce as of 03:57 p.m. EST today, silver hit a record high $117.69 on Monday

 -- Reuters

Gold to $5110.50, silver to $110.11

 

Donald Trump says, When you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election

 

When you think of it, he shouldn't even be president one minute longer. 

 

... “It's some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don't win the midterms,” Trump said. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn't even have an election.”

 

Story. 

Gold hits record high of $4,641.40/oz, silver at $92.23

 

China may have been buying up to 80% of Venezuelan oil exports, but that amounts to just 4% of China's imported supply

 Ample oil supply shields China from impact of Venezuela disruption, for now

 

Gold and silver smash nominal price records to start Christmas week 2025: Gold to $4,426.66 and silver to $69.44

New nominal record high for silver today at $67.20

 

Gold and silver at 6:59 AM today

 

Trump says inflation has stopped in last night's speech, but what stopped was their collection of the inflation data

 Do you remember when COVID hit and Trump said we should just stop testing to make it go away?

Trump on coronavirus: ‘If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any’

 

So fast forward to today where we get another chart crime, this one for the consumer price index which omits the month of October, and another dose of skepticism about the Trump Regime's honesty about government data.

 

They warned us they would do this, too, even though during the first Trump Regime they collected both the employment and the inflation data during the 2018-2019 government shutdown.

 

This is all deliberate obfuscation. 

 

... Because the October CPI was canceled, Thursday’s report did not have all the usual data points of a typical CPI release. The BLS said it was unable to retroactively collect the October data, but did use some “nonsurvey data sources” to make the index calculations.

Economists may be hesitant to read too much into this report as the start of a downward trend in inflation because of the lack of October comparison data in the release. ...

More here. 

 

 

Silver climbed to a fresh record high of $55.33 per ounce on Friday

 CNBC/Reuters.

One nutball era takes over where one left off: Trump's big ugly bill had no money in it to replenish the Strategic Oil Reserve gutted by Joe Biden, at a time when WTI is half the price it was in 2022

 US seeks 1 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve

... The previous administration of former President Joe Biden sold record amounts of oil from the SPR, including a 180-million-barrel sale after Russia, one of the world's top oil producers, invaded Ukraine in 2022. The reserve, which has about a 700-million-barrel capacity, is now holding nearly 409 million barrels. ...

 

Trump's tax and spending bill included about $171 million for the SPR oil purchases and maintenance, much less than the $1.3 billion that had originally been in the legislation. Buying more oil for the SPR will likely require the passage of new legislation. ...

 

Buying a million barrels is a drop in the bucket. Maintenance costs are eating up most of the $171 million. Joe Biden reduced the reserve by 244 million barrels during his tenure.

 

A reserve of 600 million barrels would run the country for only 30 days in a real emergency, max. 

 

We are governed by imbeciles, who think we currently have about 50 national emergencies. 

 

 

 

Gold hit another new record at $4,116.77, silver touched a record $52.12

 Reuters, ten hours ago.

Updated:

 

Gold vs. SPX

SPX 1999-2025

  1,469.25 12-31-1999

   6,753.72 10-8-2025 close

   +359% 

 

GOLD 1999-2025

 

   278.88 average 1999 price per Kitco

   Spot gold was steady at $4,038.59 per ounce at 1226 GMT 

   +1348%

 

Open and shut case, right?

 

Well, not so fast. 

 

With dividend reinvestment SPX returned approximately 712% over the period, not just the 359% increase in the price level. 

 

$279 invested in SPX in 1999 would yield approximately $2,267 by now vs. $4,038 for gold, which yields nothing over time beyond the increase in its price. Plus you have to pay to protect your gold from thieves.

 

Still, the gold outcome has been about 78% better, but that's only thanks to the recent dramatic rise in the gold price since 2023 when gold was still in the neighborhood of $1,940 an ounce, after averaging just a little over $1,800 in 2022.

 

Although I expect gold to continue to rise, a stock market reset would most likely trigger a big self-off in gold as stock and other speculators raise cash to cover their debts.

 

As always, diversification is key to surviving as an investor. And more important than that is being able to cover your debts if you won't live without debt. 

  

Spot gold cruises past $4,000 per ounce, silver on the cusp of making a new all time high