What IS Hopium Anyway?

Based on some of the reactions to my post of two weeks ago, it became apparent that some people misconstrue where I’m coming from.

When I condemn hopium, am I condemning any and all hope? NO. It’s true that hopium is hope, but not all hope is hopium. So when I condemn hopium, I am not condemning hope as such only false and unfounded hope.

In fact, I wasn’t even dumping on all hopium two weeks ago. I was talking specifically of the kind that implies that at some date in the near future, all will suddenly become well, and more specifically, the speculation that names a date. (This is, by the way, something that Q never did, and I am aware of that yet I got criticized on that point as if I were going after Q for naming dates.)

A perfect example, someone posted a thing from John Solomon claiming the long-awaited indictments would be coming out in 4-6 weeks. That means, before the end of April. I have a couple of questions in all earnest to anyone who pays any attention to John Solomon.

1. How many times has he promised the indictments would be coming in just a few weeks?
2. How many times has he been right?
3. Given the answers to 1 and 2, why in blazes is anyone still paying attention to this guy?

Or for that matter to ANY prognostication about a specific date?

I’m thinking we may finally have broken ourselves of that particular habit. Because I don’t see too much of it any more. Good.

And now to clear up a misunderstanding I did my fair share to contribute to.

I had heard others here refer to Marica’s as a place with a lot of hopium, and (my mistake!) I assumed that they meant it included this sort of date-specific stuff. Having misunderstood them, I took them at what I thought was their word. (And I probably shouldn’t have trusted them at all, much less expected them to mean the same thing by hopium as I do.)

So when I said later on that they really needed to get off the hopium, I meant the date specific stuff. And when I went over there later, and picked a random page off that day’s daily…I found no date specific stuff! So I was wrong about that, not that one would necessarily be able to tell, since *I* failed to define my terms. Regardless, it was factually wrong and I apologize.

Not that there isn’t hopium of other types, there, and here.

The emphasis over there is quite a bit different. They’re Deplorable over there, of course, but a lot of the content is about peoples’ personal lives, their other hobbies, their current difficulties, and so on. It may or may not be more your cup of tea than this place (which is 90% politics); if you think you need a change of pace, go have a look-see over there.

OK, one other thing to get out of the way. Someone (either there or here, I do not remember) seemed puzzled that I could say that I believe something is happening, when I clearly don’t believe the “movie set” and “Trump is really in charge” interpretations of today’s events. Am I contradicting myself or backing off from that?

No, because that word something could literally mean a trillion different things, and I don’t believe it means either of the two things I mention above. Trump is doing something, but I doubt it’s a countercoup; more likely he’s doing a bunch of stuff behind the scenes to discredit a lot of bad actors, and trying (quietly) to fix the fraud issues and trying to defeat the worse-than-useless dogpuke RINOs. A lot more mundane than what many are thinking, but it’s all important stuff that has to happen one way or another.

Justice Must Be Done.

The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.

Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.

Lawyer Appeasement Section

OK now for the fine print.

This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines,  here, with an addendum on 20191110.

We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.

And remember Wheatie’s Rules:

1. No food fights
2. No running with scissors.
3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone.
4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns.
5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded.
5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty.
6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.
7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire.
8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.

(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)

Spot Prices

Last week:

Gold $1728.90
Silver $26.03
Platinum $1207.00
Palladium $2426.00
Rhodium $22,000.00

This week, 3PM Mountain Time, markets have closed for the weekend.

Gold $1746.90
Silver $26.33
Platinum $1198.00
Palladium $2688.00
Rhodium $29,000.00

Just when I thought Rhodium might start returning to sane levels…it jumped right back up again. Iridium, too, is going bonkers, in the realm of $5000. It’s a congener of rhodium. (That’s a fancy word meaning “in the same classification group as.” In chemistry, specifically, it means it’s in the same column of the periodic table, which tends to govern chemical properties.)

What’s causing the PGMs other than platinum to go up while platinum is in the dumpster (relatively speaking)? (And the PGMs are: Platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium.)

According to one analysis I read, it’s platinum being in the dumpster that is causing all of these problems! (And I can’t verify this, but it makes sense.)

The other PGMs are not mined in their own right; they are quite rare and specifically going after them is uneconomical. Since they do appear with platinum, they are a byproduct of platinum mining. So production of them halts when platinum production halts, and resumes again once someone starts mining platinum.

And platinum was produced a lot back in 2008-2009, to the point where it became a glut on the market. And it is still a glut on the market. Then Covid came along and killed what little platinum production was still going on. The analysts expect this to continue to be a factor until 2024-25.

If they are correct, it’s still a good time to get into PGMs, however, I at least really can’t afford to do so. On the other hand if rhodium, for instance, were to hit $100,000 or more it might just force a restart of platinum mining!

Watch your tailpipes. Your catalytic converter has about $400 in rhodium in it (which as you might imagine, is not much). There is a rash of practitioners of socialist economics thieves sawing off tailpipes on certain model cars now.

Ruthenium

We have five precious metals to go, having done silver, rhodium, platinum, and rhenium already.

Rhenium is very difficult to find in bar form, and so is this week’s metal, ruthenium. (Even rhodium is showing iup in bar form at Kitco, PAMP is making bars now.) Ruthenium is one of the “platinum group metals,” that block of six metals tucked in under iron/cobalt/nickel. If you find a nugget of one of these metals, the others will be in that nugget as impurities.

(It’s important not to confuse the two names even though they’re very similar. Rhenium and ruthenium are different things, even if the only difference in spelling is the “ut.” It’s of the “ut”most importance not to let this confuse you.)

Ruthenium’s density is 12.45, which makes it a bit heavier than lead. But do not use it for bullets; the bad guys are barely worth the regular cost of ammo. And it would probably wreck your rifling, being a lot harder than lead (even jacketed lead). Besides, you’re going to have a very difficult time casting it! It melts at 4,233 F (2607K, 2334 C), which is pretty darned hot–about like the filament in an incandescent bulb (2400K), but other precious metals would shrug even that amount of heat off (e.g, rhenium, which melts at 5767F or 3459K). To give you another notion as to how hot this is, iron melts at 2800 F, 1811K.

Ruthenium was, in fact, the last of the PGMs to be discovered, in 1844, by Karl Ernst Klaus. Don’t let that name fool you. He had German/Baltic ancestry, but he was born in the Russian Empire (and indeed, many Russian scientists had very Germanic names, at the time). He named the element ruthenium, after Ruthenia, the Latin term for Russia.

It appears that Klaus discovered ruthenium while going through the residue left over when refining raw platinum for the Russian platinum ruble coinage that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. And indeed the timing is right, the series was produced between 1828-1845.

Ruthenium has some catalytic uses (like rhodium, platinum, palladium and iridium), but not to as great an extent, so its spot price seems to be roughly $385-400 depending on exactly where you look. It seems to be slowly climbing. But even so, it’s by far the cheapest of the PGMs…if you can find it in bar form. It usually trades as “sponge” which is to say loose powder.

Obligatory PSAs and Reminders

China is Lower than Whale Shit

Remember Hong Kong!!!

中国是个混蛋 !!!
Zhōngguò shì gè hùndàn !!!
China is asshoe !!!

China is in the White House

Since Wednesday, January 20 at Noon EST, the bought-and-paid for His Fraudulency Joseph Biden has been in the White House. It’s as good as having China in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden is Asshoe

China is in the White House, because Joe Biden is in the White House, and Joe Biden is identically equal to China. China is Asshoe. Therefore, Joe Biden is Asshoe.

But of course the much more important thing to realize:

Joe Biden Didn’t Win

乔*拜登没赢 !!!
Qiáo Bài dēng méi yíng !!!
Joe Biden didn’t win !!!