“I never care about fiction or storybooks. What I like to read about are facts and statistics of any kind. If they are only facts about the raising of radishes, they interest me.”
Mark Twain, from an interview with Rudyard Kipling, 1889
"At 6 minutes past 7, yesterday evening, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.
With the long strain gone, I am in a sort of physical collapse to-day, but it will be gone to-morrow. I judged that this end of the book would be hard work, and it turned out so. I have never done any work before that cost so much thinking and weighing and measuring and cramming, or so much cautious and painstaking execution. For I wanted the wholeRouen trial in, if it could be got in in such a way that the reader’s interest would not flag - in fact I wanted the reader’s interest to increase; and so I stuck to it with that determination in view - with the result that I have left nothing out but unimportant repetitions. Although it is mere history - history pure and simple - history stripped naked of flowers, embroideries, coloring, exaggerations, inventions - the family agree that I have succeeded. It was a perilous thing to try in a tale, but I never believed it a doubtful one - provided I struck strictly to business, and didn’t weaken and give up; or didn’t get lazy and skimp the work. The first two-thirds of the book were easy; for I only needed to keep my historical road straight; therefore I used for reference only one French history and one English one - and shoveled in as much fancy-work and invention on both sides of the historical road as I pleased. But on the last third I have constantly used five French sources and Five English ones, and I think no telling historical nugget in any of them has escaped me.
Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing - it was written for love."
Mark Twain, in a letter to Henry H. Rogers, January 29, 1895
I just found the two quotes above in the Oxford Companion to Mark Twain, by Gregg Camfield.
The following is a reprint of one of my hardest-hitting articles, “The greatest act of State-sponsored environmental terrorism in history”, from just about a year ago, on November 4, 2021.
The most heinous act of State-sponsored environmental terrorism in history
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 4, 2021
“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
― From “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.”, by Clayborne Carson, 1998
THE GREATEST ACT OF STATE-SPONSORED ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISM IN HISTORY
In August 2014 I wrote “In the original ‘Rocky’ movie, Rocky Balboa is training in the meat locker, and Paulie, who works there and let him in, says ‘you’re breaking the ribs’. That’s what I’m going for, here.”
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(Sylvester Stallone as “Rocky”, in the meat locker, in “Rocky”, 1976)
For those late to the party, this is what was known in the old days as “hard-hitting journalism”.
The Columbia river sockeye salmon run increased 183%, or nearly tripled, from 2008 to 2014, from 213,600 to 605,860.
One of the main reasons that the Columbia river sockeye salmon run increased 183%, or nearly tripled, from 2008 to 2014, from 213,600 to 605,860 is that exponentially increasing rainfall led to the inability of the folks running the dams on the salmon rivers to artificially lower water levels on those rivers at key points during the year, to heat up the water and damage salmon reproduction levels. By 2014, rainfall levels we so high that the folks running the dams had to let the excess water go by the dams, or watch the dams burst.
But don’t take my word for it. Havre, Montana’s October daily snowfall record increased 72% from 2008 to 2017, from 8.6 inches to 14.8 inches.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here.
In 1913, the Fraser river salmon run was 39 million fish. That year, the Canadian National Railroad perpetrated one of the most heinous acts of State-sponsored environmental terrorism in history. Phys.org said “in 1913, disaster struck at the aptly-named Hell’s Gate, 200 kilometers (124 miles) northeast of Vancouver. After a railroad construction crew sent a rockslide crashing into Hell’s Gate, more than 38 million salmon battered themselves to death against the barrier; only about two percent of the run made it through, according to the fisheries department.”
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(Immediately above, the Canadian National Railroad’s intentional act of State-sponsored environmental terrorism in 1913, in which the Fraser River was basically dammed with debris at the precise moment that it would do the most damage to the salmon run. Take a moment and think about how many dynamite charges were required to lay down that level of rubble into the river.)
In 1954, the State College of Washington, Pullman’s William B. Merriam wrote “Conservation of the Fraser River Sockeye Salmon”.
In it, he said “It has been customary to assign this alarming decline to a rock slide at Hell’s Gate on the Fraser River. During the building of the Canadian National Railroad through the Fraser canyon in 2013 debris from a major slide was dumped into the river at the narrow Hell’s Gate passage. The stoppage was so complete that most of the escapement of that year’s peak was cut off from the spawning lakes and streams of the upper basin. It is not entirely fair to assign any single cause to the decline of salmon runs on the Fraser River. The problem is quite complex and an understanding of it and the solutions to it require careful analysis.”
In July 2014, critfc.org said “2014 Columbia River Sockeye Run Sets a Record”. Where the propagandist has done what little they could to hedge by saying that the run didn’t “set the record”, but rather merely “sets a record”. As a bonus, they redacted the word “salmon” under the false guise of familiarity, to make the subject far less searchable. That’s an example of the propaganda technique known as “compartmentalization”.
The salmon count at the Bonneville dam decreased by 7.6% from 1945 to 1995, from 9,500 to 8,774.
The salmon count at the Bonneville dam increased 6,805% from 1995 to 2014, from 8,774 to 605,860.
The Columbia river sockeye salmon record from 2010 was 385,525, 80% larger than the previous record of 213,600 sockeye set just two years previously, in 2008.
The words “mystery”, “baffled” and “puzzled” are memes, used, among numerous similar variants, whenever anyone in the wholly-controlled-and-coopted Political, Academic, Scientific and Media establishments wants to lie about, well, basically anything. That’s why a phys.org article from September 2010 said “Since mid-August, in a torrent expected to last through early October, sockeye have plunged and leapt up Alaskan streams, massed through the mouth of the mighty Fraser River in Vancouver, and filled Oregon and Washington waterways. ‘We don’t know why for certain,’ said Barry Rosenberger, a manager with Canada’s federal fisheries department.”
Barry Rosenberger, a manager with Canada’s fisheries department, said “we don’t know why for certain” the Columbia river chinook salmon run increased 81% from 2008 to 2010.
The words “mystery”, “baffled” and “puzzled” are memes, used, among numerous similar variants, whenever anyone in the wholly-controlled-and-coopted Political, Academic, Scientific and Media establishments wants to lie about, well, basically anything. That’s why, in October 2010, crosscut.com’s Daniel Jack Chasan widened his eyes to simulate honesty and explained “The mystery of Canada’s huge 2010 salmon runs”.
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(Daniel Jack Chasan, who said it was a “mystery” why the Columbia river chinook salmon run increased 81% from 2008 to 2010)
The words “mystery”, “baffled” and “puzzled” are memes, used, among numerous similar variants, whenever anyone in the wholly-controlled-and-coopted Political, Academic, Scientific and Media establishments wants to lie about, well, basically anything. That’s why Daniel goes on to say “On both sides of the border, commercial fishing has reaped a bonanza. But no one really knows why or how to respond, though there are clues about the need for restraint.”
The Columbia river sockeye salmon record from 2012 was 516,000, 25% larger than the previous record of 385,525 sockeye set just two years previously, in 2010.
An nwcouncil.org article by John Harrison from July 2014 says “2014 Columbia River Sockeye Salmon Run Sets A Record”.
The subhead reads “The 2014 sockeye run in the Columbia River is the largest since fish-counting began at the dam in 1938.”
I’m sure you noticed that “sets a record” and “largest” are both hedging generalities, put forward to blunt any specific insight into the speed or magnitude of the great positive change I’m documenting here.
The article goes on to say “By July 21, 605,860 fish had passed the dam on their way to spawn in British Columbia, north-central Washington, and Idaho. The previous record was 516,000 in 2012. Next year’s run could be even bigger, based on the number of jacks in this year’s return. Jacks are a predictor of the next season’s run size.”
The author provided the numbers, but carefully hedged by omitting the far more impactful percentage increase between them. So, I had to do the math to learn that the largest Columbia river sockeye salmon run in history, in 2014, was 605,860 fish, 17% more than the previous record of 516,000 set just two years previously in 2012.
Such records are usually broken by tiny margins.
The article goes on to say “Biologists had expected a much more modest return. The preseason forecast called for 347,100 sockeye crossing Bonneville.”
Where John Harrison, the propagandist from nwcouncil.com did what little he could to hedge by calling the largest salmon run in modern history “immodest”.
He doesn’t offer any suggestion as to why the only-generally-referenced “Biologists”, who love them some salmon like it’s their job, underestimated the 2014 Columbia river sockeye salmon run by one…hundred…percent.
That’s because the folks in charge are not your friends, and are lying to you about basically everything, including year-over-year sockeye salmon numbers on the Columbia river.
Jeff Miller, Libertyville, IL, October 26, 2022
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