OPEN MICROPHONE DAY
Of course, it is.
It’s Festivus, a fake holiday like Quanzaa—a day for airing grievances and feats of strength. You can open up in the comments below and tell the world how this blog has disappointed you in 2024.
If you’d like, you can make predictions for 2025. It’s going to be an interesting year.
Bullet Points:
** “Electricity demand is rising so quickly in the United States that even Exxon Mobil, the country’s largest oil and gas company, plans to enter the power business. Exxon is designing a massive natural gas-fueled plant to supply electricity to data centers. The company says the plant will be fitted with technology that can capture more than 90 percent of the complex’s carbon dioxide emissions, the leading cause of climate change. The project, which is in the early stages of development, would be the first time that Exxon built a power plant that did not supply electricity to its operations.”
** Between now and the first of the year, I’ll attend to the blog, but if I miss a few posts, that’s just how the cookie crumbles. They are the holidays, after all.
** Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president of Iran, wrote on social media shortly before the Assad government collapsed that the fall of the regime “would be one of the most significant events in the history of the Middle East.” Abtahi added that “resistance in the region would be left without support. Israel would become the dominant force.”
** There are only two people you need to make proud of you – the 8-year-old version of you and the 80-year-old version. If you can do that, you’ve done well.
** Some of you will gather with family and friends over the two weeks. Some of them will drive electric cars and will be lefties/commies/econuts. You might mention to them that the T on the back of their vehicles stands for TRUMP, according to Elon Musk (dark MAGA)
** Lt. Governor Dan Patrick says Texas will TRY to purchase all the border wall construction materials being auctioned by DHS. He will then donate them to President Trump.
** Are you ready for the holidays? Here’s a thought.
Movie Suggestion
I watched Burn After Reading (again) recently. It’s a dry, stupid comedy, but it’s also funny – possibly because I’m also dry and silly.
Faced with a demotion due to a drinking problem, Osborne Cox angrily quits his job as a CIA analyst and decides to write a memoir. Upon telling his wife Katie, she surreptitiously files for divorce and continues an existing affair with Harry Pfarrer, a married U.S. Marshal with paranoid tendencies. At the instruction of her lawyer, Katie delivers a copy of her husband’s digital financial records and other personal files, unknowingly including a rough draft of Osborne’s memoir. The lawyer’s assistant copies the files onto a CD-R, which she accidentally leaves on the locker room floor of Hardbodies, a local gym. The disc falls into the hands of personal trainer Chad Feldheimer and his coworker Linda Litzke, who mistakenly believe it contains sensitive government information.
Bitcoin
(zerohedge) Just a couple of days ago, I wrote a piece reminding readers that, despite looking at Bitcoin more favorably over the last year or so, it remains an unprecedented and opaque area of markets where risk could rear its head quickly, unexpectedly, and before chaos in broader equity and bond markets.
Collectively worth about $3 trillion now, cryptocurrency is like catnip for risk takers right now, I wrote. Then, I looked at the question of quantum computing. (continued)
In Mexico
Check this out from Lauren Villagran at USA Today:
Marta Castillo is angry about immigration. There are too many migrants in her town, she said, and they don’t speak the language.
“We’ve been invaded,” she said, standing outside a restaurant where she works. “I changed my opinion (about them), because I live in a place where we didn’t see any of this. But now everywhere there are people who aren’t from here.”
Castillo is Mexican. She lives in Mexico. Like a growing number of her fellow citizens, she has become increasingly negative about the migrants who have poured into her community — despite living in a country where millions of people have ties to someone who migrated to the United States.
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, he is demanding Mexico do more to crack down on the tens of thousands of migrants in Mexico who are headed for the U.S. border. He may find support in an unlikely corner — among Mexicans themselves.
It wasn’t long ago that most Mexicans could say they had family or a friend who had gone to “El Norte” to work or escape violence and insecurity. But the changing demographics of migration — first the rise in the number of Central Americans, then Haitians, then Venezuelans, then people from all over the globe — has hardened some Mexicans’ views.
Seven in 10 Mexicans believe migrant flows into their country are “excessive,” according to a survey by the nonprofit Oxfam Mexico published in 2023. More than half of respondents said they believe migration has a negative or no positive impact on the economy or culture, and 40% say migration in Mexico should be limited or prohibited.
People from all over the globe — that’s the difference.
My conversations with Mexican friends confirm that this article is correct. They sympathize with people looking for a better life but resent the chaotic caravans that bring hundreds of people. The situation becomes more confusing when they speak a different language or come from other cultures, such as Haiti.
What if Nobody Cared About Wind Energy!
Denmark just held an offshore wind lease sale, and no one has bid. The Danish Energy Agency put three North Sea offshore wind farms out to tender as part of a six-gigawatt (GW) capacity plan.
The plan involved six offshore sites.
Three wind farms followed the three North Sea wind farms in Danish coastal waters. They would be located in Hesselø, Kattegat, and Kriegers Flak II. The bid deadline for these three wind farms is April 1, 2025.
The six wind farm sites could hold 6 GW of capacity, but the winners could install as many wind turbines as possible, enabling capacity to reach 10 GW or more. Currently, Denmark has 2.7 GW of offshore wind capacity.
The lack of bids prompted Lars Aagard, the Danish minister for climate, energy, and utilities, to ask the Danish Energy Agency to speak with the companies in the market to understand why they failed to bid.
The surprising outcome of the sale came despite several companies having expressed interest during the initial marketing of the sale. “This is a very disappointing result. The circumstances for offshore wind in Europe have changed significantly in a relatively short time, including large price and interest rate increases,” said Aagard. When Aagard talks about a “large price” increase, he means that the cost of building wind farms has increased. This means developers would need higher electricity prices or greater subsidies to consider the projects.
The Danish offshore wind tender’s lack of subsidies may have contributed to the lack of bidders. High electricity prices without subsidies are lethal for project economics. Bidders were supposed to participate by paying the government a fixed payment for 30 years for the right to the lease. The government would also own 20% of the leases, making it a minority party in each project.
Given the changing economics of offshore wind, without healthy subsidies, developers know that the cost of their electricity will be high, risking rejection by utility buyers, i.e., a failed project. The only way to secure the necessary subsidy is for bidders to shock the government by not participating in the tender. That is the new reality of offshore wind in Europe.”
***
Nothing Seems to Change
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries warned House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday that he would need support from the opposing party to fund the federal government after Congress unveiled a massive spending bill. The stopgap measure, which faces a floor vote on Friday, includes a one-year extension on the annual “farm bill” and over $100 billion for disaster aid. If passed, it would keep the government funded through March 14.
Jeffries predicted on Tuesday that dozens of Johnson’s party members would oppose the massive 1,547-paged proposal, and he said he should focus on uniting moderate Republicans and appealing to some House Democrats. “One of the things that we know very clearly is that House Democrats will be needed to pass government funding,” Jeffries said, per Politico. “That has been the case in this Congress. It will continue to be the case, even in the next Congress.”
***
You can have a glass of Madeira on Madeira if you’d like one.
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago located in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 520 kilometers (320 miles) off the coast of Morocco and around 860 kilometers (534 miles) from mainland Portugal. Known as the “Island of Eternal Spring,” Madeira is celebrated for its mild climate, lush green landscapes, and dramatic volcanic terrain.
The main island of Madeira is inhabited by a population of over 250,000, most of whom reside in the capital city, Funchal. The local culture reflects Portuguese traditions and island influences, as seen in its music, crafts, and famous Madeira wine. The island is also renowned for its terraced agriculture, particularly banana plantations and vineyards. If you’re looking for a destination less visited and have enough of a balance on your credit cards, this may be the destination you’ve been looking for. In the capital, Funchal, you can find exclusive restaurants where dinner for two people and wine can cost up to 100-150 euros.
Nature enthusiasts are drawn to Madeira for its Levadas, ancient irrigation channels that double as scenic hiking trails through forests, mountains, and valleys. The Laurisilva forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site, showcases the island’s rich biodiversity. Madeira’s coastline features dramatic cliffs, pebble beaches, and natural pools formed by volcanic activity. The climate is very humid, with an average relative humidity of over 70%. Some people like the humidity, while others are bothered by it. If you’re staying in your suite at Les Suites at Cliff Bay Portobay with an attractive lady, there’s no reason to get dressed.
The archipelago also includes smaller islands, such as Porto Santo, famous for its golden sandy beaches.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
Identify the Vehicle
3
4
5
6
Parting Shot
End
1 is Dassault Aviation MD311
2 is Junkers Ju252
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Dassault MD 311 Flamant
2. Junkers Ju 252
Identify the Vehicle:
3. Hetzer TD
4. M2A2 or M2A3 light tank
5. M3 Lee
6. M5A1 Stuart
Excellent
From the camera’s angle, that cockpit area of the Ju-252 sure looks like a prototype of a C-130 with an engine stuck on.
Burn After Reading
I’ve long been a fan of the Coen brothers, but I couldn’t finish watching that.
I meant to add, “but I will try again….”
Ed, you mean “the Coen sisters”…weird cross-dressing dudes (who are not attractive), but made pretty decent movies.
Are you thinking of the Wachowskis? As far as I know the Coens are normal guys. (And I applaud them for not having any of the usual key words in the biographical section of their Wiki entry.)
—
As for “Burn,” now that Brad Pitt has aged out of the pretty boy and the action hunk roles, maybe he can flex his comedic acting muscles. I enjoyed his obnoxious idiot in “Burn”. (Same for Hugh Grant’s skeazeball in “The Gentlemen.”)
Ahhh, I was. Oy! Okay, things get real after 64 orbits. How could I have gotten those mixed up? “Brother, Where Art My Brain…musta gotten assimilated by The Matrix?”
I trust you guys have seen Miller’s Crossing.
No…been on my watchlist forever. Dec. 26th for sure.
“One of the things that we know very clearly is that House Democrats will be needed to pass government funding,”
And then Trump spoke up and saved the day.
#5 makes me wonder “who cut the cheese?”
Heh…now I can’t unsee that Ed.
“100 billion for disaster aid.” Channel some of this to deport illegals. The greatest disaster is the southern invasion of our sovereign border!
Put FEMA on the shelf until new leadership proves itself efficient.
Can funds be distributed for emergency/ rebuilding to NGO’s that have a proven productivity record such as in Carolina?
You have to be cautious with NGOs. Many of them are laundries for the Democrat Party
How do we know it’s for disaster relief in North Carolina, say, instead of Angola? The aid that Biden was just promising two weeks ago.
And maybe I don’t pay close enough attention but the king of the crooked charities appears to be Catholic Charities.
I was living in Nebraska when Tornado Alley cut loose with several at once. After watching events unfold: The worst group was the Red Cross. The one that did the most good was the Church of Christ Disaster Relief group headquartered in Tennessee. People I know were part of the local volunteer group working with them to help distribute supplies. I have also heard a lot of good things about the Graham group Samaritan’s Purse out of North Carolina.
Convoy of Hope is no slouch.
These are how charity should be run.
Speaking of Festivus, I watched “Red One” on prime last night & enjoyed it.
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The leading cause of climate change are the Earth’s cycles.
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I just sent my Representative an email urging her to fix the continuing resolution before it’s passed.
~~
Tank #5 is “The Haunted Tank” from the comics back in the 60’s…
Has the House ever passed a clean CR? I’m serious. How long has it been? $100 billion in extra spending that will VANISH as soon as the ink is dry. How much will go back into DNC coffers to compensate for the $1.52 billion that the Ho blew?
The Haunted Tank was an M3 Stuart. Jeb Stuart haunted it.
That supposedly is an M3 Stuart (from an image search https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M3-lee-camp-polk.jpg“.
I thought they looked like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Stuart_tankfest_2023.JPG/450px-Stuart_tankfest_2023.JPG
It’s a Continuing Corruption bill. It got torpedoed due to the Liz Cheney bail out provision and the congressional pay raise, which multiple congressional staffers and brown nosers insisted was ‘only’ 4 %. Got locked out of X for “unusual activity ” to boot. Apparently complaining directly to lefty leaders will at least get them to “do something “.
Wow, where to start….let me wade into the Open Mic fray (hoping the mic’s power doesn’t cut off mid-bloviation and I forget what I was supposed to say by my handlers)…
***
2024 may be the quintessential ‘double-edged sword’ year…a lot of crazy on one edge but a couple of bright spots (lemons/lemonade) in the past month and a half on the other (altho 2 weeks remain so one never knows). 2025, by all appearances, is looking more hopeful…praying APDJT makes it to Jan 20 and the criminals who wished/worked for his demise are thwarted, and those needing a proper comeuppance get their just do.
***
Wind- Denmark (Vestas-central) may be a cool place (I enjoyed visits there), but this idiocy is their own fault (same thing with Germany’s impending collapse). For grins MrsPaulM was looking at real estate in Montana in an area we like, came across a 320acre parcel with a cabin and stream for a “good” price. First question from me: “What’s wrong with it?”, she flips thru the pictures and comes to the wideview shot…shows two dozen or more stupid Adult Pinwheels on the ridge directly in the mountain view of the property, about a mile off. Yeah, no…wouldn’t live in a beautiful spot fully ruined by the “clean” energy morons (who are getting wealthy by government appropriation takings). None starter for me.
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BUT – as only Sheridan can do to activist-grade false spew-age – this from Landman covers THE ONE acceptable use for these monstrosities, but also eviscerates every [not] green argument for them as a primary power source (“alternative vs. clean”)…they are net-negative: https://www.tiktok.com/@landmanpplus/video/7443932966599888174
– Best comment: “This speech should be shown in schools, bro spits more truth in 3min than 5 year high school history lessons.”
***
““I changed my opinion (about them), because I live in a place where we didn’t see any of this.” …or until your daughter comes home from school having been attacked in the bathroom by a male ID’g as a girl. These people are all for the whacked social justice things until it’s their ox getting gored…as in: shows up on their doorstep.
***
Bitcoin is the A.I. of currency, looks real but it’s fake…let alone can disappear with a single keystroke.
***
Brilliant in yer face move by Texas LtGov Patrick, gives the naysayers nowhere to to go.
***
Parting Shot: While humorously true there is something fishy about this goombah; highly intelligent/educated yet he made it easy to be found. Then again 32% of Gen-X’ers agree with what he did, murder in the street against someone they have some beef. Can’t fix the demented.
***
Enjoy your Christmas/Holiday time with family…it’s precious.
>murder in the street against someone they have some beef
—
Maybe so, but I don’t think it’s about Brian Thompson the individual at all. I’m mortally certain 95%+ of the population had no idea who he was. It’s what he represents that had people smiling quietly over his getting shot in the street. A good friend (cardiologist, natch) wrote me: “Feel bad for his family but I guess if you made half a billion dollars by screwing patients and doctors in vulnerable moments I honestly don’t have a lot of sympathy .” I agree.
—
I’m not arguing that Thompson personally screwed everyone (though he kinda did) and deserved to be killed. The point is that the system is broken, openly corrupt, and inefficient to boot. If some villain was scraping 15% off the top, but most people got decent medical care and coverage, most of us would be content. The problem is that the worst exploiters presume to lecture us as if they were wise and pure, and we’re ungrateful little snot-nosed mentally-deficient children. Top off that hypocritical, sanctimonious, condescension with claims of Them being the victims and WE the oppressors, and it’s no wonder people are happy one of them was gunned down on the street in Manhattan. The wonder is that more of them haven’t been headshot randomly, or kidnapped and tortured to death on a web livestream. (Not that I have strong feelings about this. 😃)
X2…excellent clarifications. The “system” (not only healthcare & insurance) needs DOGE-level cleaning out and straightening up, it’s a mess because the money-makers/grubbers/K-Street Criminals have gotten too big for their “product offering/screw the little guy over” britches. Insurance needs to be – at best – the middle of the healthcare ladder, make them perform for the customer, not the other way around.
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AutoDesk sent me the New Year renewal…a single seat went up last year (no upgrade, I use what I need) and agai this year (for a basically unchanged product) while last year they removed the unsupported allowance if one liked…meaning it required registration, that is, no HDD standalone if you cared less about ongoing updates/support vs. getting the work done with what you have, which is where I am at this point. (My very old version of SolidWorks is on the HDD, still perfectly operational after zero updates.)
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AutoCAD LT renewal this year is also more money for a rental, and they cut the multi-year discount from 10% to 5%…seemingly making up for this “wonderful robust best ever” economy where the Little People (aka We The People) get screwed because – as no one in government seems to know after a Century- corporations don’t pay taxes, passing costs onto the customer. Maybe I can find a registration hack.
I liked when Dassault had their A-cad clone for $100 a year.
I wonder if they still do.
Good question.
Log me as one Texan (native) who will gladly accept a reasonable and temporary state tax hike to support Patrick’s idea of buying the deteriorating/rusting border wall material. With the proviso that, it will be donated it to Pres. Trump and all of the legal citizens of the United States”AND” that particular section be named the Joe Biden Memorial Border Wall.
Helluva tax write-off for every Texan resident…as it should be. (based on actual bought cost not fire sale dollars)
As a Texan, I second that emotion, er, motion
Juan
Crypto has the added advantage over most investment scams of being blatantly
illegal, for extra risk of beyond-total-loss of investment.
*
But then, I also hate cellphones.
*
– Kle.
Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum Pardo should grant amnesty to all those illegal immigrants. It’s the only fair thing to do!
I second that motion also, with one proviso
the amnesty must NOT apply to demonrats supporters or any that voted/supported abandoning American borders.
Should Mexicans not like the remaining offenders,
deport them to haiti, cooba and el salvador’s panopticon
😉
Juan
Wind energy is like the wind. It might be there, or not, but when the cost to build, maintain, and repair the monstrosities required to garnish energy from such a flakey source, I don’t see where any profit making investor would venture into the debacle without a guarantee of cost reimbursement from the public…and I don’t think the public is willing to absorb the costs.
Texas doesn’t need to buy what has already been bought. Texas has already spent too much dealing with the invaders allowed by the Biden Administration. Placing a $1000 bounty (dead or alive) on the coyotes helping them cross is a better way to spend the money. Then again, a few free-range snipers allowed to practice their skills along the border would cut the crossings to a minimum. I know this sounds severe, but I doubt anyone that is a victim, or has a family member as a victim, of the crimes by these invaders would have any compassion, or disagree.
“** There are only two people you need to make proud of you – the 8-year-old version of you and the 80-year-old version. If you can do that, you’ve done well”.
Since I am 80, that is something to ponder. If he had known the phrase then, the 8 year old would say, “F**k it, don’t mean shit”. The 80 year old? “Winners do what losers won’t”. Only me lives rent free in my head.
Don’t we all? Me, I am occasionally that “legend in my own mind”…often followed by some injury or chagrined moment.
When my Calmer Half spotted Rainwater in the local liquor mart, several bottles followed us home, and there was much enthusing on the volcanic nature and interesting sights of Madiera. He failed to mention the humidity when invoking it as one of the lovely places in the world he wanted to show to me… I shall heed your warning, and should opportunity arise, pack accordingly. Thank you!
What? No Syrian Panther Piss? Although that is illegal on most worlds.
Why do people act like Bitcoin is the only crypto-using currency-type thing which humans will ever invent? The biggest risk for Bitcoin is Bitcoin 2.0. The week someone invents a better cryptocurrency, with better privacy, and with a mint mark so a coin can be valued by physical objects which back it, the value of old Bitcoin will vanish. Current Bitcoin is a way to transfer numeric counts in a ledger from one id to another; it is not a store of value.