The story... Judge Engoron assessed $454M for a bond, based on a long correct legal proceeding. An appeals court (seems to have) spent a few hours to write two pages to reduce that to $175M with NO explanation.
Some of the plebes are a little upset.
In steps a professional, a man of refined intellect, of experience, and humor:
The discussion in this 7-minute video will clarify why a NY Court (5 judges) all decided to side with the criminal.
Vladimir Putin has found he cannot defeat Ukraine, and now there are attacks within Russia which show he has great difficulty defending the people there. The conclusion that he "might do anything" is manifest in the Middle-East. His friends, the Iranians, and their friends, Hamas, IS, and others, are acting as powerfully as they can to distract America.
We know Putin and Iran prefer to act through intermediaries, but Donald Trump and Hamas have been defanged, so they moved on to other ways of attacking America (or our ally Israel). Sadly, we must also consider the U.S. politics involved.
As long as Donald Trump is destroyed politically and financially, the threat within America is muted. Even the craziness in Texas is not a huge problem. In Ukraine, the Russian military has been pushed back and is hardly a roaring fire. In Israel, Hamas has been severely damaged, perhaps (and hopefully) permanently. Iran remains Putin's last obvious chance to hurt America.
Today, they attacked a base and killed several soldiers, with others injured. A key question is whether we focus on the militia groups or on Iran proper. It's a military question in part. Can our military find and deal with the militia groups which have been using drones to attack us? If they can do that, then action against Iran can be delayed. We can give our military a period of time to prove their abilities vis-à-vis the militia groups. If that isn't sufficient, then Iran awaits. Assessments and plans should already exist in some part, and they should be completed. We need to be ready to act at a moment's notice.
One caveat or reminder: we need to be goal-based, and not focused on any particular technique(s). It may be lawyers in court or financial sanctions or support for Israel and Ukraine or strong political speech or direct attacks on Iran. Those choices are all subservient to the goals.
The Right has been arguing that organized Diversity in universities is bad. Recently they managed to oust the president of Harvard, their first black woman who had been in the job about 6 months. Why did this happen? And, why is it important?
Small passage from the article:
Rufo's campaign against Gay was made far more relevant by an alliance with billionaire donors who became obsessed with removing her long before the plagiarism was discovered. They promised to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in donations unless she was fired, threats that continued to add up through the end of the year.
Ken Griffin, one of the most actively outraged Harvard donors, is one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party.
Les Wexner, another conservative donor, disgraced founder of Victoria Secret, and a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein, also pulled his checkbook.
Len Blavatnik, a close associate of Vladimir Putin, did so just before Christmas. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was among the most vocal in calling for Gay's ouster, and even though he's a registered Democrat, he also took up Rufo's charge against DEI.
End of passage.
When they say it isn't about money, it's about money. When they say it's about eliminating "diversity", it's about money.
When the supporters of the South's rebellion said it wasn't about "slavery" it was about "slavery" and the money made from it.
Now that the Right has this "taste of blood" they know they can succeed, and they will do it again.
I have to add a couple of details which are not in the article, but which relate.
1. Ken Griffin is of one of the very most important hedge funds on Wall St. and is a huge criminal. Republican, hating regulation.
2. Les Wexner is key to revealing the full story of Jeffrey Epstein. Republican, hating revelations.
3. Blavatnik, close associate of Putin, probably wants to hurt the Democrats a lot.
The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy of which Hillary warned us is about MONEY.
I saw this YouTube video and it occurred to me that this is the absolute best time of the year for a Philly Cheesesteak. If you make them as this video directs, you get a sandwich you can eat on the run or at the game.
Make a Philly Cheesesteak at Home
Enjoy!
Where We Stand: the Problem Continues
Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2022
Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/co2-emissions-in-2022
Our Recent Efforts
I think we've been moving federal government policies in the right direction, but it's been slow. With the IRA there is more assistance for EVs, reduced taxes for energy-saving appliances and use of photo-electric cells in solar panels and for wind energy. These will all gradually replace carbon-based energy systems.
Clearly, we've been addressing the Transportation Sector with efforts to assist EVs. We've been trying to address the Power Sector by pushing along Wind and Solar Power production, improvements to the grid, and promotion of large-scale batteries. We've addressed the Buildings Sector (for quite a long time) by promoting energy-conservation in construction materials and techniques and with the HVAC systems. Furthermore, we've done similar things for the residential construction industry, though standards for construction have largely remained local. Still, electricity production by power plants using coal remains a huge problem. The improved price-comparison for energy sources favors wind and solar, so we must promote that. Some other sources such as tidal power may eventually be part of the picture, but its adoption has been slow due to technical issues.
Source: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf
Grid-Scale Energy Expected to Grow
Texas Power-Grid Battery-Storage Growing
A related issue is the location of the materials used in the latest battery technologies.
Source: https://www.isi.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/isi/dokumente/cct/2023/abt-roadmap.pdf
We might include more nuclear if the latest technologies there prove to be safe, cost-efficient, and reliable. We don't want to start something like that and then have to do a turn-around because of failures.
Those can supplant carbon-based fuel for energy sources. Still, there are other issues. Not all countries are able to do these things to help protect the entire planet. Growing poorer countries won't want to do it. Even China has mixed feelings about limiting growth, so they do some Renewable Energy things, but they still burn coal. There are also some other sources of CO2. The making of concrete is one of the worst because we use so much concrete in our modern world. Can we make it without so much production of CO2? I have hardly discussed his part of our project to rid ourselves of too much CO2.
What's Next
Ars Technica Article: Renewable energy is now cheap—what’s next?
“A decade ago, our present renewable energy situation was unimaginable.
Most projections had wind and solar as niche players on the electric
grid due to their relatively high cost. In the US, the reality is
anything but. Combined, wind and solar have now passed coal; throw in
hydro, and they've passed nuclear, too. In most areas of the country,
they're now far and away the cheapest means to generate electricity; the
same holds true for most locations around the world.
Despite the
changed economics, most countries have fallen behind on their climate
pledges, and fossil fuels aren't being pushed off the grid fast enough
to get us back on track. While the entire globe is suffering the
consequences of climate change, the factors that are keeping renewables
from reaching their full potential vary from country to country. What
should we be doing to get past these roadblocks?”
In that article it's made clear we have to put our technologies to work and for that we have to consider government policies (sticks & carrots) to encourage it and government projects where it can be enforced. Let's lean our shoulder into this and begin pushing known technologies that are already cost-effective!
One of the most essential will be the use of batteries to store all kinds of energy for use overnight and during times when we aren't getting new energy from wind or solar sources. Not having it ready to go on a very large scale can hold up greater development and use of our existing price-effective technologies. Let's push what we've got and work to eliminate barriers to completion of the picture.
Other Issues
It's time to start looking more at eliminating, reducing, replacing, ways to do things that produce too much CO2.
