Links 2/9/2023

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1. Toshiro_Mifune February 9, 2023 at 7:03 am

   How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
   Wow. Big news, from Hersh no less. Surely the NYT will be covering this with the attention it deserves. Let’s just head on over and check the headlines ….. Hmmmm….. odd. Not a mention on the front page. Why would they do that? It couldn’t be that they’re trying to bury it… could it?
   1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 7:43 am

      Nothing on the news here in Oz. Instead they put up a bs story of how Putin was directly responsible for supplying the missile that shot down MH17 but gee willikers, the guy has immunity because he is the leader of a country. Somebody in comments termed this “chaff” and I think that that is a perfect description for this type of story.
   2. Stephen February 9, 2023 at 7:48 am

      From Lambert: “Nothing on the front pages of the Times or WaPo. Odd!

      The ending in “Three Days of the Condor” comes to mind.
      1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 8:00 am

         Have never forgotten the end of that movie either, even though it has not been on TV for decades. Funny that. For those who have not seen it-

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5oHT6ojvIs (1:37 mins)
         1. Ignacio February 9, 2023 at 9:16 am

            One of our favourites (Mrs and Mr at home). Recently shown in a Spanish public channel. Concur with Stephen.
            1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 9:28 am

               In looking for that clip, I came across another from the same film which made me chuckle. Remember how US Vice President Pence refused to get into a car with the Secret Service during the January 6th riots? Well…..

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evfQ5QCRyeo (38 secs)

               Damn, that was a great film that.
               1. Stephen February 9, 2023 at 10:03 am

                  I used to think it was pure fiction….was very naive then.
      2. digi_owl February 9, 2023 at 11:01 am

         Looks like the “spy balloon” will be acting as distraction from this…
   3. jo6pac February 9, 2023 at 7:50 am

      I don’t see anything at npr & pbs either. I can’t imagine why? I’m sure they’re doing some fact checking;-)
   4. ChrisFromGA February 9, 2023 at 8:53 am

      One angle I haven’t heard about pipeline sabotage is the amount of methane it must have spewed into the atmosphere.

      Surely this “side effect” of the operation must have been known to Blinken, Biden, and the other blob members. Methane has a very strong greenhouse effect, much greater than CO2, albeit it flushes out of the atmosphere more quickly.

      Making this a global crime against the environment. Impossible to prove it, but deaths may have resulted in the extreme weather (and more extreme weather to come.)
      1. anon in so cal February 9, 2023 at 10:34 am

         The methane release was discussed. Blinken, Biden, and the blob don’t give a rats about climate change.

         https://twitter.com/ciais_philippe/status/1575223280453419009?s=20&t=d2Wh6vsKA4a1BGDQDCMALQ

         Plus, fracking, liquifying, transporting natural gas from the US to the EU releases massive quantities of greenhouse gases.

         “If U.S. LNG exports increase as projected, this industry alone will generate 130 to 213 million metric tons of new greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States by 2030, equal to the annual emissions of 28 to 45 million fossil fuel-powered cars and enough to reverse the 1 percent per year decline in total U.S. GHG emissions measured during the past decade.

         As this report shows, exporting LNG would undercut the goal of holding warming at or below 1.5° Celsius. It will also have devastating effects on frontline communities. The United States should instead prioritize clean energy investments, both at home and abroad.”

         https://www.nrdc.org/resources/sailing-nowhere-liquefied-natural-gas-not-effective-climate-strategy
   5. pjay February 9, 2023 at 10:37 am

      Hey, to be fair, Business Insider covered it. Here’s their headline:

      – ‘The claim by a discredited journalist that the US secretly blew up the Nord Stream pipeline is proving a gift to Putin’

      Seems some “discredited journalist” is a Putin puppet. Nothing new here.

      https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-embraces-hersh-claims-biden-blew-up-nord-stream-2-2023-2

      The story is actually worth reading for its laugh-inducing unintended humor – as most of these stories are today.
      1. fresno dan February 9, 2023 at 3:03 pm

         pjay
         Uh, it was Hersh who reported the US blew up Nord stream, i.e., the credible (and incredible) journalist The discredited journalists (rumor mongers -Russiagate) are at the NYT and WP…
         1. wilroncanada February 10, 2023 at 2:46 pm

            Response by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry: We have been contacted by this US media giant, ‘The Inciter,’ and have responded that the story is nonsense. As to our alleged involvement, we are looking for the allegator, to justly punish him justly, demanding he cross-country ski the length of the country while dragging 100 barrels of oil to port.
   6. Aumua February 9, 2023 at 4:08 pm

      the problem is that Hirsch is preaching to the choir here. While you and I may have little doubt that some version of this is exactly what happened, if he wants to convince the average Joe and/or force the mainstream media to pay attention, he’s going to have to come with more than “my single unnamed source said this is how it happened”. He’s giving them more than they need to keep ignoring this.
2. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 7:24 am

   We were promised smaller nuclear reactors. Where are they? MIT Technology Review

   This article is basically a press release for NuScale. There is nothing new about NuScale – they are basically the same as the mini reactors powering nuclear subs around the world – they are small, compact light water cooled systems. The reason why all commercial nuclear reactors are very big is because they are more efficient that way – it is the only way they can come close to being cost effective (that, and dodgy accounting). NuScales reactors are, like all small water cooled reactors, very inefficient – their claimed advantages are all around the arguable advantages of modular design, which is another way of saying they hope to get the cost down if someone orders thousands of them. Plus, they generate even more waste per MW than conventional reactors according to a Stanford report outlined in New Scientist last year.

   Also, the claim that each one sits on a small site of 65 acres – this is about half the size of the UK’s Magnox reactors of the 1960’s, which were far more powerful and sat on sites of around 100-150 acres. I recently walked around one (Holyhead, Wales) and it was surprising just how small the site was. It was a 500MW plant on a site of around 150 acres. So this is hardly a selling point.

   If modular reactors can be made even close to price competitive with conventional thermal plants they have a real future. But they will not be a NuScale design, they will probably be some type of molten salt or helium based pebble bed reactor. But they’ve been around for half a century or more and still nobody can make them even viable for military use, let alone commercial use.
   1. jefemt February 9, 2023 at 10:23 am

      Need some good old ‘capita;list’ socialism to privatize the gains and socialize the costs. Congress did NOT make a declaration stopping this pttern of behavior.

      Encourage all to read up on the salt reactor problem in Simi Vally CA in the late 50’s.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory

      https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/13/60-years-largest-us-nuclear-accident-and-captured-federal-agencies

      “…captured federal agencies…” Say it ain’t so!?!
   2. wendigo February 9, 2023 at 11:04 am

      The thing about the helium based reactors is they operate at very high temperatures to increase their efficiency. The materials and systems required have little long term testing experience or are still in development.

      What is more likely are reactors similar to the GE Hitachi 300 MWe water cooled reactor. Large enough to be cost effective, smaller to be more easily constructed.

      I think of it like the fridge in your home.

      The newer high efficiency fridges that are lucky to last ten years or the 40 year old fridge in the basement that is still working.
      1. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 1:02 pm

         Helium reactors have been around since the 1950’s. The UK Magnox reactors used helium.

         The GE Hitachi 300 unit is just a simplified version of older GE boiling water designs that didn’t work very well in the first place and they are now trying to flog a supposedly cheaper stripped down version. Only the Estonians seem interested in them and their one is scheduled to be ready by 2028, which in nuclear terms means it might produce some energy around 2040.
         1. wendigo February 9, 2023 at 3:43 pm

            The Magnox used co2 at a maximum outlet temperature of approx 410 C.

            The newer proposed reactors are to use outlet temperatures of 750 to 900 C.

            The 300 unit is a simplified version of a boiling water reactor, the 2nd most common operating design, you can find a list of the operating ones here, labelled as BWR.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors

            There is some interest outside Estonia.

            https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Federal-loan-provides-certainty-for-Canadian-SMR-b

            https://www.saskpower.com/about-us/media-information/news-releases/2022/saskpower-selects-the-ge-hitachi-bwrx-300-smr-technology-for-potential-deployment-in-saskatchewan

            https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/TVA-GEH-cooperate-on-BWRX-300-deployment-at-Clinch

            https://www.neimagazine.com/news/newssheffield-forgemasters-partners-ge-hitachi-to-support-uik-deployment-of-bwrx-300-smr-10002595

            https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Services-agreement-paves-way-for-Canadian-Polish-S
   3. Jabura Basaidai February 9, 2023 at 11:07 am

      wondering what the difference is between the modular reactors used by the navy since the early 60’s and NuScale and others are proposing? confused by your assertion,”…they’ve been around for half a century or more and still nobody can make them even viable for military use…” – are you saying there are no nuclear subs?
      1. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 12:32 pm

         I was referring to the non-light water reactor designs. There has been one submarine built on an alternative design – the Russian Alfa sub, with a lead-bismuth reactor, but that turned out to be a dead end.
      2. Norge February 9, 2023 at 12:46 pm

         Nuclear subs don’t need to be cost efficient
         1. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 1:03 pm

            Yup. Its notable that even though they have sub reactors, the Chinese are powering their new aircraft carriers with good old diesel. Even by military standards they are hugely expensive to operate.
      3. cfraenkel February 9, 2023 at 3:37 pm

         The Navy’s current set of nukes requires an extremely highly trained cadre of operators. That makes this class of designs a non-starter for “low-cost”, semi-rugged uses. Just think of handing the keys to a current Navy powerplant to a typical barely passed HS Marine grunt.
   4. Ranger Rick February 9, 2023 at 11:42 am

      As I hear it, the main advantage here is that the reactor can be shipped complete to its destination rather than built in-situ over several years. This saves several dozen regulatory reviews (and prevents opportunities for “concerned citizen” lawsuits).
      1. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 12:45 pm

         The principle behind the NuScale reactor – and a similar Rolls Royce design – is that through modular construction they can bring the costs down. And they have a point – well designed modular systems in construction can consistently be delivered cheaper than one-off designs and the costings tend to be more consistent (in other words, they are more likely to cost what is originally estimated). This is fine, so long as you get the design right. If you get any modular part wrong, then instead of one reactor down, you have all of them down.

         But the problem with modular light water reactors is simple physics. Bigger reactors are more efficient. This is why all thermal plants, whether nuclear or coal or other are built as big as possible. Nobody builds modular coal powered plants for a very good reason. The thermal inefficiencies outweigh any construction cost benefits. As the New Scientist link I posted indicates, its not just about energy outputs, its also about waste. Small modular reactors produce more of it per MW.

         So a modular reactor, to be commercially viable, needs to be a fundamentally different design from the light water reactors that have dominated nuclear energy for the past half century. There are plenty of potentially promising designs. The problem is, they’ve been promising designs for decades and still nobody has brought them to anything close to commercial viability, despite billions invested by both private industry and governments all over the world (especially for military purposes).

         Modular reactors are like fusion – always a decade away from reality as they have been for decades. Even if a prototype is built and run successfully, it will take a decade or more to gear up construction and get all the required approvals. Thats too late.
      2. Paradan February 9, 2023 at 4:15 pm

         One of these two things is a lie.

         1.15-20% of the cost of building a reactor is financing. Delays caused by regulatory requirements, and various excess bureaucratic complexities increase the cost of financing. If you finance them with direct 0% loans from the treasury, and have the DOE form a dedicated well-run reactor construction corps, you can drop the price 15-20%.

         2.This is totally possible in our political environment today.
         1. PlutoniumKun February 10, 2023 at 3:14 am

            Regulatory delays do produce significant financing costs because the costs are generally minuscule compared to capital construction costs. This is precisely why there are so many ‘proposed’ power stations around the world while so few of them get built. Its cheap to put together a proposal and hire some designers and consultants to get the ball rolling – usually much less than 5% of final costs. Actually building something is orders of magnitude more expensive, which is why so many development schemes of so many types never actually get started. Ask any consultant (engineering, architecture, planning, marketing, land purchasing, etc) in the development area what percentage of schemes they worked on got built in the end.

            Large scale capital financing is only released when ground is broken on a site. The big financing costs start when the first payments are made to contractors and keep on increasing until the structure starts generating income. This is why wind and solar are so profitable – there is a very short period between getting contractors on site and the first income coming in (often less than 6 months).
3. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 7:40 am

   China’s hypersonic triad pressing down on US Asia Times

   It’s worth noting that all three of the weapons listed in this article are not in fact hypersonic weapons as usually understood. They are ballistic missiles that achieve hypersonic speed on descent – which is something the V2 could do 75 years ago. There have been missiles like this around for decades – manoeuvring ones since at least the 1960’s.

   The problem with hypersonics is that precisely the characteristics that make them so hard to defend against – their speed and the electromagnetic plasma effect generated against a super high speed object – also makes them very difficult to use accurately. They cannot use IR or microwave radar guidance, and it is technically very difficult to guide them externally. And they have to be accurate as they cannot carry big or complex payloads (basic physics). This is why ICBMs or missiles like the Kinzhal are almost entirely dependent on GPS or inertial guidance. This is fine for attacking a fixed target if your warhead is big enough (or is a nuke), but hitting a moving target like an aircraft carrier is a different thing entirely. If you want some form of homing missile, then it has to be ‘relatively’ slow. This is not a problem if its stealthy or manoeuvrable enough to avoid defences.

   The Chinese missiles are only a threat to the US Navy if they have perfected the kill chain necessary to guide them to within a few metres of a moving target that is trying its best not to get hit. The Chinese are working very, very hard on this, and may well have succeeded, but its anyones guess if it works in reality. Thats the crucial technology, not the missiles themselves which are relatively straightforward to build. Focusing on the missiles themselves is a mistake. They do, however, make for good scare stories and will no doubt allow the Pentagon to shake down another few tens of billions from the US Treasury, which is usually the point of this. Its good for the military, its good for Raytheon shareholders, and its good for China, so everyone wins. Well, except for everyone else.
   1. digi_owl February 9, 2023 at 11:07 am

      > its good for Raytheon shareholders

      Quite a few who may be congress critters, or related to same…
   2. Lex February 9, 2023 at 11:31 am

      An aircraft carrier doesn’t move very fast nor is it very nimble, so I would think that guidance set from say an aircraft launch would be enough to hit a carrier in most cases. I admit that i didn’t read the article so I don’t know if it’s a hyping of ICBMs as technically hypersonic or the concept of a hypersonic glide munition launched from an ICBM, which is problematic since it will look like a potential nuclear launch. In general, I agree that hypersonics are really about fixed targets and programmed flight paths. I’d assume that the main Chinese strategy against carriers would be to overload the group’s air defenses with large salvos and maybe some fairly near-range launches of airframe mounted hypersonics similar to Kinzhal.
      1. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 4:03 pm

         If the Chinese believed they could take out aircraft carriers with hypersonics they wouldn’t be building their own aircraft carriers of a similar design and scale to the USN.

         By a coincidence, the reliable Military Aviation History channel has this very good primer on hypersonics (although typical of such channels recently its taken a very anti-Russian stance).
         1. NN Cassandra February 9, 2023 at 4:26 pm

            If the Chinese believed they couldn’t take out aircraft carriers and other ships with hypersonic missiles, they wouldn’t be manufacturing hypersonic missiles for taking out ships in the first place, no?

            Perhaps they see it as another tool in arsenal, not invincible, but useful against lesser adversaries. And it can be useful against US too, if it sends couple of those to Taiwan, China can park theirs in front of Guam, Hawaii or even California to help Washington think more clearly about if they really want to send the aircrafts to bombing raids.
         2. Polar Socialist February 9, 2023 at 4:28 pm

            Well, by the same logic countries with good anti-tank weapons wouldn’t be building tanks, or those with great anti-aircraft systems wouldn’t be building fighter or bombers. Or those with brilliant mine-clearing devices wouldn’t be using mines.

            And yet they are.

            Carries do have their niche, even if there were weapons that can sunk them. It’s noteworthy that Indian and Chinese carriers use STOBAR, so their the airplanes they launch have to compromise with fuel or weapon load, or both. They are more for providing air support for navies than projecting global striking power.

            In time of crisis on South China Sea the carriers are certainly harder to find than the artificial islands are. And no other country in the area (South China Sea) has carriers or hypersonic missiles, so they do still serve as a deterrent.
            1. PlutoniumKun February 10, 2023 at 3:04 am

               Well, countries still build tanks precisely because they know anti-tank weapons are not that effective in real world situations and can be countered successfully, as the Russians and Israelis have demonstrated. Which is exactly my point. Hypersonics are a strong deterrent against carriers, but so are submarines and torpedoes and ASM’s and stealth weapons and sea mines and swarm tactics and anything else you can come up with. But China’s expenditures show clearly that they think the best counter to carriers is…. carriers. They are spending a vast sum on what appears to be a fleet of full sized carriers (although it should be said that there are whispers that they are having second thoughts). You either have to assume that they are being very stupid, or that they have looked carefully at the balance of power and technology and believe that carriers will still be a key weapon into the middle of the century at least. Incidentally, the French think so too, and they are famously very cautious about where they put their military cash. Not to mention the British, Koreans and Japanese (albeit with smaller more versatile flat-tops).

               There is of course an element of momentum to defence expenditure. The battleship era went to the bottom of the sea with the Prince of Wales, but all sides still kept building them until the end of the war. It may be that it will take a carrier going down to change everyones minds.
   3. ACPAL February 10, 2023 at 4:13 am

      When I looked into this 30 some odd years ago a proposed solution was to flow cold nitrogen gas over the optical sensor in the nose cone to prevent ionization distortion. I’m sure there have been some improvements since then. I wouldn’t rule out on-board terminal guidance systems just yet.

      P.S. I wasn’t always a potato farmer.
4. Steve H. February 9, 2023 at 7:46 am

   > Loofah-inspired gel purifies contaminated water with warmth of the sun New Scientist

   >> Xiaohui Xu at Princeton University and her colleagues call their material a loofah-inspired solar absorber gel. It is hydrophilic when cool, meaning it readily absorbs water, but becomes hydrophobic when warmed by the heat of the sun and begins to release water. Because the gel only absorbs water and not contaminants such as oils, metals and microplastics, the released water is purified.

   The ingredients are simple and readily available. The proof’s in the pudding, so we’ll see, but on a first pass the potential is very high, with emergent possibilities. Could scale from individual use to large industrial. Cooling? Fixed place irrigation? I’ll follow this.
5. Milton February 9, 2023 at 8:00 am

   Ukraine ‘can count on France to win this war’, Macron tells Zelensky in Paris France24 The Onion
   1. Not Again February 9, 2023 at 10:23 am

      Surrendering will be the most important part of ending the war. Go to the experts.
      1. Milton February 9, 2023 at 11:05 am

         Yeah, they seemed to have found a winning formula in losing. Unfortunately, those days are past.
6. Eric February 9, 2023 at 8:12 am

   correct link for “US has some Questions to Answer Over Nordstream Blast, Russia Says” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/8/us-has-questions-to-answer-over-nord-stream-blasts-russia-says
7. FreeMarketApologist February 9, 2023 at 8:14 am

   Re: “We were promised smaller nuclear reactors.”

   The MIT article goes in heavy on the science and development, and only casually mentions the capital cost, which is somewhere in the $50-60MwH range. I read an article last night in a power company magazine (*) which noted that costs appear to be closer to $90-100MwH. The claimed promise of nuclear was always ‘electricity too cheap to meter’, and this has yet to play out for any nuclear generation at any scale.

   There may be some place for these sorts of installations, and more diversity on the power grid is probably a good thing, but it ain’t going to be cheap.

   (*) https://www.ruralite.com/small-modular-nuclear-reactors/
   1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 8:20 am

      Maybe they can build a fleet of nuclear submarines but without the weapons and front end. Then have them dock at major ports where the electricity generated can go into the local grid.
      1. Milton February 9, 2023 at 11:11 am

         From Quora:
         1968, the USS Enterprise was in dock at San Francisco Naval Shipyard at Hunters Point. Saboteurs (rioting criminals) destroyed a main electric switching/distribution station that fed San Francisco.

         The skipper of the Enterprise called up the Mayor and the head of the electric company and told them to line up for power distribution from the Navy shipyard. We had one (out of 8) reactors on-line to provide ‘ships service’ electrical power. The reactor was running about 15% of full load. When the “powers that were” threw the switch, the Enterprise reactor went all the way up to 35% of full power.

         Newspapers and News reporters on TV reported that the city was being supplied electricity via a nuclear reactor on the ship. People were calling the mayors office and the news stations complaining that there was Nuclear Radiation coming out of their light fixtures and TV’s.

         The Enterprise supplied the entire city for a week or so until the distribution station was repaired.

         Several years later, after a hurricane in Hawaii, Honolulu was supplied electricity via a submarine tied to the pier at Sub-Base Pearl harbor.
         1. FreeMarketApologist February 9, 2023 at 12:25 pm

            There you go! Now add a few million $$ to the Kwh cost to pay for the campaigns to counter the disinformation that will be circulated about radioactive electrons that leak out of outlets and appliances.

            A big plus of shipboard reactors is that it is easy to cool them with water. Not easy for these small units out in the hinterlands.
      2. wendigo February 9, 2023 at 1:09 pm

         Been done, but using a barge.

         https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station
8. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 8:18 am

   “U.K. Commits To Training Ukrainian Fighter Pilots, Many Questions Remain”

   The media are talking about giving the Ukrainians ‘wings for freedom’. It would be better to send them a coupla container loads of Red Bull instead. So this is a sign of the collective west yet once more doubling down and upping the level of weapons that they are giving the Ukrainians, even though the Ukrainians have been reduced to grabbing 16 year-olds for their army. Boris Johnson is demanding that the UK give virtually their entire weapons inventory and as Zelensky is about due in Brussels, I am sure that those countries will double down as well. But it seems strange that the UK is offering F-16 training as that is one aircraft not in their inventory. From recent history, I would say that the UK has been made the point nation for support for the Ukraine. Thing is, I would not be surprised to learn that this commitment creates chaos in the training of their own pilots. But I doubt that these pilots are for the present conflict. There are hints that the west wants to freeze this conflict like in Korea so that they can rebuild the Ukrainian military to go at the Russians again. Trouble is the Russians have already said that they are not going to play that game.
   1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 9:12 am

      Forgot to link to a tweet in my comment. Check out the photo and yes, it is real. That is Zelensky on the left and UK PM Sunak on the right. It’s always about the optics with people like that-

      https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1623507606974173185
      1. paul February 9, 2023 at 10:49 am

         I think rishi is just cock a hoop that there is another political giant just as tall as he is, maybe even richer too!
      2. Bart Hansen February 9, 2023 at 11:51 am

         I prefer the photos of Dukakis in a tank. Search on ‘Dukakis in a tank images’

         He really did not look all that bad, but the MSM went to level 10 hysteria.
      3. Paradan February 9, 2023 at 4:28 pm

         Bush had a bigger bulge. He could probably play a kettle drum or something to accompany Zelenskisha.
   2. Polar Socialist February 9, 2023 at 10:42 am

      it seems strange that the UK is offering F-16 training as that is one aircraft not in their inventory

      Have not seen the money on offer for anything relating to supporting Ukraine?

      You take a platoon of recruits and train them for a week for counter-insurgency operations on a team level, then they get to sent to Bakhmut meatgrinder while you get to collect your check.

      I’m sure the check is much bigger when you train fighter pilots. Even if you don’t have the fighters in questions – that’s not the point of the training.
9. Wukchumni February 9, 2023 at 8:20 am

   I hear the agent for the seven deadly sins
   And a NATO arming binge came to call on you
   The bigger they are babe
   The harder they fall on you
   And we’re always the same we persevere
   On the same old pleasure ground
   Oh and it never rains around here
   The money comes pouring down

   You had no more volunteers
   So you got war profiteers for to help you out
   With friends like that babe
   Good friends you had to do without
   And now Putin’s taken out the chains and the gears
   From off your grid merry-go-round
   Oh and it never rains around here
   The money comes pouring down

   And our new romeo
   Wasn’t a stand up comedian when he let us down
   See the faster they are babe
   The faster they get manna out of DC town
   Leaving made up claims and the tears
   Of a clown
   Yes and it never rains around here
   The money comes pouring down

   Oh you were just a roller coaster memory
   I don’t know why we were even passing through
   We saw you making a date with destiny
   When we came around here asking after you
   In the shadow of the wheel of fortune
   You’re busy trying to build your fame
   You say ‘I may be guilty yeah that may be true
   But I’d be lying if I said I was to blame
   See we could have been a major contender
   We got mo money mo breaks’
   You’ve got a list of all the major offenses
   You got a list of all their major mistakes
   And he’s just standing on the shadows
   Yes and you smile that come-on smile
   Oh I can still hear you say as clear as the day
   ‘I’d like to make it worth your while’

   Ah but it’s a sad reminder
   When your proxy has blown through all the money sent
   And all you’ve got to give him
   Is the use of your propaganda tent
   Yes and that’s all that remains of the year’s money
   Spent on artillery rounds
   And it never rains around here
   Well the money comes pouring down

   Now you know what they say about beggars
   You can’t complain about the rules
   You know what they say about beggars
   You know who’s the first to blame his tools
   We never gave a damn about who we (family blogged) up
   And leave lying bleeding on the ground
   You screw people over to your way of tinkering
   Because we thought that we were never coming down
   And he takes you out in vaudeville valley
   With his green shirt smothering your screens
   And he takes you down a 1-way alley
   In the capital city of broken dreams

   It Never Rains, by Dire Straits

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2RM2Yvjd9U
10. t February 9, 2023 at 8:29 am

    Always been, shocked – shocked I tell you! – that delivery app algos are unable to alert someone when a “driver” using a refillable Trakphone works 24 hours a day for weeks on end (because the driver is a household who work back to back shifts with mom handing the phone off to dad, who then hands it off to junior, who hands it off to sis, who hands it back to mom….)

    So weird their technology can monitor every little detail about delivery drivers but miss this.
11. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 8:37 am

    “Exclusive: US sanctions preventing Syria from receiving aid – FM”

    Washington is refusing to allow any aid to go into Syria as they see this as an opportunity to crush Syria even more and further prevent any reconstruction in that country. The Syrian Red Crescent and Christian leaders are asking for sanctions to be lifted to get aid and medicine into Syria but DC is not budging. I have to say that the TV media here in Oz covering the earthquake in Syria is verging on the bizarre. The past coupla night there have been stories of the White Helmets rescuing trapped people. But they are an Al Qaeda PR unit that only operates in Idlib province which is run by Al Qaeda wannabes. They also talking about the difficulty of getting aid into Syria but what they are actually talking about when you see their map is getting aid into only Idlib province – and they still manage to blame the Syrian Government for this. These are the sorts of things that get me to say many unkind words to those news presenters who probably know better.
    1. ChrisFromGA February 9, 2023 at 8:47 am

       Well, the sanctions aren’t preventing India from sending aid:

       https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/news/india-sends-6-tonnes-of-relief-material-to-quake-hit-syria-under-op-dost-toll-crosses-11500-101675861325993.html

       Modi is getting real “uppity” in ignoring sanctions, and besides, under international law humanitarian aid is not subject to sanctions.

       Welcome to the multi-polar world.
       1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 8:51 am

          Glad to hear that countries like India are manning up. It will be interesting to see how many Arabic countries do the same. As for ‘under international law humanitarian aid is not subject to sanctions’, that is quite true. But not under a rules-based order.
          1. Lex February 9, 2023 at 11:34 am

             Egypt thumbed its nose at US sanctions to such a degree that it sent 3 C-130’s to Damascus with aid. Not just breaking the sanctions but breaking the specific sanction of using a “US supplied” airplane to do so.
             1. Chas February 9, 2023 at 2:53 pm

                Israel better move quickly to knock out the Damascus airport again.
    2. Partyless poster February 9, 2023 at 2:25 pm

       What’s really disgusted me is that the MSM has not mentioned the sanctions once while showing US aid workers going there to help.
       (Turkey I’m assuming)
       Which really amounts to lying plain and simple.
       Must never ever show the US in a bad light, even when our boots are on their necks
12. WobblyTelomeres February 9, 2023 at 8:52 am

    re: Spy Balloons

    Any malign actor with the capability of launching several tons of ball bearings into orbit is capable of initiating a Kessler crisis. If one nation-state is presumed to control the high ground, aka space, then taking the high ground off the table in this manner is a logical act to a combatant. US, Chinese, and Russian agents have already demonstrated their abilities. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon

    In the event of space systems being rendered unusable, surveillance balloons will be an important factor. We cannot allow a [Buck chomps gum] surveillance balloon gap.
    1. NotTimothyGeithner February 9, 2023 at 10:42 am

       Didn’t you hear? The balloon had “antennas”. What strange technology are these “antennas”? I bet they even had a barometric pressure sensor.
    2. digi_owl February 9, 2023 at 11:10 am

       “we do not know who started it, be we know we were the ones to blacken the sky”.

       Sad what was done with the franchise in order for WB to get a forth movie…
13. Wukchumni February 9, 2023 at 9:03 am

    Drought may have doomed ancient Hittite empire, tree study reveals Guardian
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Without the array of reservoirs and collection possibilities, the wicked 3 year drought in Cali similar to what befell the Hittites would have emptied the state.

    As it was, without the amazing series of atmospheric rivers hitting us, and February looking plenty dry, a 4th year of drought might have been the hammer blow, but no.
    1. The Rev Kev February 9, 2023 at 10:00 am

       I was reading that article when I came across an interesting bit where it said ‘The Hittites were also challenged by not having a port or other easy avenues to move food into the area.’ Never thought about it before but during a catastrophic drought, so long as you have access to drinking water and the sea you should be right. Drought or not, the sea should be a source of food for your population so perhaps ancient Greece with their extensive coastlines for example might have fared better.
       1. Rob February 9, 2023 at 11:39 am

          Rev and Wuk, I am a big fan of the storyteller Paul Cooper who has a podcast/utube about “fallen civilzations”. I am becoming fascinated by these in general as well as the end of the Bronze Age in particular.

          In case you or anyone has further interest ->

          https://www.youtube.com/c/FallofCivilizationsPodcast/videos
          1. Mildred Montana February 9, 2023 at 1:50 pm

             Just wait for the mother of all “fallen civilizations” stories: The End of the Age of Oil. Our civilization’s two centuries of easy, comfortable, and prosperous living off oil is about to come to a coda in about thirty years, barring a miracle of some sort.

             The story of it will of course be told. Book or movie, you’ll find it in the “Apocalypse” section. The question is, Will the traumatized survivors be in any mood to read such books or see such movies? Probably not, excepting the slim number of masochists among them.

             Therefore the much more numerous feel-good books and movies about saviors bearing miracles will be immensely popular (as saviors and miracle-mongers always are in hard times) to satisfy the longing of people to return to the good old days of cheap plentiful oil. That’s just human nature, and therein lies the problem. It’s not in our stars, it’s in us.

             Sorry for the gloomy comment. I blame it on Ozymandias.
          2. Martin Oline February 9, 2023 at 10:43 pm

             Thanks Rob. It is now bookmarked for later use.
14. Cetra Ess February 9, 2023 at 9:03 am

    Ok, so it’s been days now since the US scored its air victory over a balloon, they’ve had lots of time to inspect the thing, what’s the verdict – is it a surveillance or weather balloon? Or has the compliant and captured media been instructed not to ask?
    1. Altandmain February 9, 2023 at 9:12 pm

       I’d say the most likely outcome was that it was just a weather ballon. If it had been a spy balloon, it would have been all over the media by now.
15. flora February 9, 2023 at 9:09 am

    In otter news:

    let’s play

    https://twitter.com/HumansNoContext/status/1620075327530598404
    1. Chas February 9, 2023 at 2:57 pm

       What a wonderful video. I don’t think the boys knew their new friend was an otter who wouldn’t hurt them. I knew someone once who had a pet otter.
16. Terry Flynn February 9, 2023 at 9:11 am

    Google ChatGPT mistake unsurprising to me and is certainly explainable (even if the ACTUAL reason is something else) via a weakness I highlighted in these AI/machine learning/whatever programs in one of Lambert’s pieces. To the extent that these algorithms are Bayesian, they can quickly and efficiently “climb the hill in the likelihood function” and with some tweaks it’ll be Everest, not K2. Trouble arises if K2 happened to be half a world away. Bayesian solutions can (in worst case scenario) be very accurate….. And completely wrong.

    Getting “just” a single fact wrong is all too easy since “highest mountain” without some idea of the context of the questioner might lead to focusing on that Hawaiian one (biggest distance from base to summit) or the one in South America (stands on the bit where Earth gets “fat” so has “furthest point from Earth’s core”). When you need context in much more complex situations it gets exponentially worse.

    The program first of all needs human input via theories (of how all sorts of questions might not be amenable to some kind of easy search and that EXPERIENCE-BASED context is vital) ; also theories of how humans choose between options and how they make mistakes. The latter led to an old friend, now working in linguistics and machine learning, to seek me out in a professional capacity since my “old fashioned” way of doing choice modelling (essentially sampling all over the world map in tandem with human guidance) might be best (though certainly not “most efficient”).

    Bottom line is that these chatbots can’t “do” context without human guidance. We would still need the old boomy grail of genuine artificial intelligence that has learnt like a kid, before these could really do the job.
    1. cfraenkel February 9, 2023 at 3:53 pm

       The mistake that cost the megabuck valuation hit wasn’t the robot’s, it was the hubris of the Alphabet marketing and exec team that didn’t bother to fact check their own PR fluff piece.
17. pjay February 9, 2023 at 9:26 am

    – ‘Administrator Samantha Power to Travel to Hungary’ – USAID

    “Administrator Samantha Power will travel to Budapest, Hungary from February 9-10 to build on the United States’ long-standing partnership with the Hungarian people. USAID recently relaunched its work in several countries in Central Europe, including Hungary, where programs support independent Hungarian partner organizations working to protect the rule of law, strengthen democratic institutions and civil society, and support independent media.”

    “During her visit, Administrator Power will engage with Hungarian civil society and other leaders, independent journalists, young people building the future of Hungary, and the U.S. Embassy staff who work every day to deepen our partnership and collaboration with the Hungarian people.”

    LOL! “Rule of law.”, “Democratic institutions.” “Civil society.” “Independent media.” The “people.” At this point I don’t think it is even necessary to comment. Your move, Viktor.
    1. ChrisFromGA February 9, 2023 at 9:50 am

       Seen in the back of the Budapest Times newspaper:

       Help Wanted: Food taster. Must speak Hungarian, and be willing to take on high-risk assignments. Reports directly to the office of Viktor Orban.

       Benefits: Full dental coverage, 401k, and free gourmet meals!
       1. Bart Hansen February 9, 2023 at 12:06 pm

          Good one!

          Also, it’s certain she will be up to no good, probably dealing with some of the NGOs that have been, or will be, set up there and with various dissidents.
    2. flora February 9, 2023 at 1:04 pm

       re: “USAID recently relaunched its work in several countries in Central Europe, including Hungary, ”

       From this long distance it looks like P and RU understand soft diplomacy much better than the US. Does the US use soft diplomacy anymore?
18. Wukchumni February 9, 2023 at 9:42 am

    Warehouse boom transformed Inland Empire. Are jobs worth the environmental degradation? LA Times
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The inland empire was already SoCal’s favorite place to send smog, whats a little more environmental degradation in the scheme of things, and think of the possibilities of housing the homeless once the great internet game goes awry?
19. Cetra Ess February 9, 2023 at 9:47 am

    re: the Hersh story

    That it’s single sourced doesn’t bother me because that’s the nature of the thing. And what about the fact the MSM uses single anonymous state sources all the time, so….

    Someone like Hersh would check the source, verify they were actually employed as they say, in the claimed capacity and in the correct timeframe. Those disparaging Hersh obviously don’t mention this aspect but it’s the first and essential step in corroboration, right? A list of people currently employed by the orgs in question, when asked, said “yup” and confirmed the source was indeed employed and/or present. Without this, there is nothing.

    And this source is highly placed to have been in or adjacent to so many of these conversations and decisions. If it were a low level person it would be difficult to corroborate.

    And clearly the whole thing is supremely unethical, the damage to the environment alone is staggering, the economic damage as well, so no surprises if there are Snowdons within the ranks on this one.

    So it lines up very neatly.
    1. IMOR February 9, 2023 at 10:32 am

       What we/he has to look out for is the single source still along enough for the ride to plant one large misstatement or fib, by omission or commission, to allow deniability (“Hey, it wasn’t me or just me: I wouldn’t have made that one error / had no way of knowing that one fact”) and plant a hook on which to attack Hersh’s accuracy.
       My candidates would be a) the delay/timer mechanism (‘It was more difficult, left less training time, we didn’t want to use it – but that’s what we did!’) or b) the existence of an entire second team, whether from the Navy dive specialists or elsewhere, who were actually used so that a member of the team examined/revealed in Hersh’s piece can step forward later and truthfully say, “Yeah, we trained for something like that, but quite close to our go date, we were told it was off, stand down. Mr. Hersh has been misled.”
       Hope not, but it’s happened before.
    2. albrt February 9, 2023 at 1:36 pm

       What strikes me is that after all this time, no one else has a plausible alternative explanation.

       Hersh is the firstest with the mostest, and nobody else appears to be trying. That is probably the strongest corroboration of Hersh’s story.
       1. begob February 9, 2023 at 3:14 pm

          Moon of Alabama has been on the case since the start, and politely suggests certain amendments to the story – basically that the bombs were planted a lot closer to the time of detonation and well after the naval exercise: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/some-small-corrections-to-seymour-hershs-new-nord-stream-revelations.html#more

          If so, it does cast doubt on the fly-on-the-wall quality of Hersh’s account of the planning.
          1. albrt February 9, 2023 at 4:33 pm

             Moon of Alabama has done a great job on this, but I don’t think his quibbles undermine the Hersh story much. The fact that a U.S. vessel eminently suited to the mission hung around Bornholm and could have done more work after BALTOPS doesn’t really contradict the Hersh story.
20. GramSci February 9, 2023 at 9:50 am

    Re: Patrick Lawrence / Russiagate

    «These people, behaving as if they were Dominican inquisitors,…»

    God is dead, and the Fourth Estate has assumed the role of the First.
21. Ghost in the Machine February 9, 2023 at 9:51 am

    The Baffler article on the insane, but interesting future ruin (if any of it gets built), is pretty good as usual for the magazine. But, there is this line:

    “On occasion, this status quo can be challenged, as evidenced by those firms who have ceased their Russian projects as Putin and his cronies continue their imperial misadventure in Ukraine.“

    First, I doubt the firms had a choice. Second, even publications like the Baffler can’t conceive (or admit) that the US and others might have had a significant hand in starting this mess. Yep, Putin , embodiment of irrational evil. No reasons that he might have repeatedly stated plainly. Maybe he hates our freedom. In my life I have never seen this amount of uniformity. Jeffery Sachs, Elon Musk, Roger Waters, and Tucker Carlson are it for mentioning, maybe, there are other interests? Really? Ramping up WWIII? Reading Guns of August, you are always thinking ‘fools!’ but here we are again. Progress is a myth.
    1. PlutoniumKun February 9, 2023 at 10:53 am

       It was a strange line to insert in an otherwise good article (by Kate Wagner, of McMansion Hell fame). Especially as no names are mentioned – from what I know, very few non-Russian architects have been active in Russia for the past couple of decades as it has plenty of its own pretty good designers, although of course most of the big names were quite keen to get a cut of the action in the former Soviet States when oil prices were higher.

       Wagner could have pointed out that there are thousands of architects who have opted out of being corporate bottom feeders by working for government agencies, or housing associations, or any number of less glamorous outposts of the building and design industry. Every day I walk past the public housing designed by Horace Tennyson O’Rourke, Dublin City architect in the early 20th Century and his senior designer, Herbert Simms. The city didn’t have much money, but they still made sure that housing for the poorest had dignity and not a little beauty. I’m sure neither of them made too much money compared to the Zahid’s or Fosters of the architecture world, but for me they leave a better legacy.
22. Wukchumni February 9, 2023 at 9:56 am

    This is pretty darned cool, a timelapse video of mostly Three Rivers and the Kaweah River showing off our exquisite dark skies, enjoy!

    https://laughingsquid.com/sequoia-national-park-timelapse/
    1. flora February 9, 2023 at 1:33 pm

       Gorgeous! Thanks.
23. Mikel February 9, 2023 at 10:10 am

    “Half of Americans Say They’re Worse Off, Most Since 2009” Bloomberg

    “…Americans tend to expect their finances to improve rather than worsen.

    “If this optimism holds and consumers act accordingly, it may help to minimize or avert an economic recession,” Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones wrote in the report…”

    If delusions hold, people will keep borrowing to buy things they can’t afford.
    I guess saying it that way isn’t very confidence fairy inspiring.
    It’s also like the Jeffrey is saying “if we ignore a recession, it will go away.”

    Because the cost of living inflation that is excluded from the official BS stats keeps these economists from having to talk about the reality.
    1. flora February 9, 2023 at 1:35 pm

       2009. The subprime mortgage game implosion. The Great Financial Crisis. None of the big banks’ CEOs went to jail, they didn’t even lose their jobs. They were bailed out. At the same time O set up the HAMP mortgage refi program which “foamed the runway” for the banks. Thousands lost their homes after enrolling in the HAMP program.
    2. griffen February 9, 2023 at 1:51 pm

       There is deluded optimism, and then there is stark reality. Deluded optimism emanates near daily from our White House, and several times per week the tweets of the official POTUS account are vomit inducing. Yeah, jobs report. Yeah, inflation is lower.

       As I commented over breakfast this morning with a former colleague, it’s the way of life in 2023. Up is down, less bad is good. Our economy is strong, comrades! And a bonus thought or conjecture, what looms for inflation of raw materials when Mayo Pete starts the flow of funds from the Infrastructure Bill passed in 2021? Inflation of labor inputs, for another.
24. Wukchumni February 9, 2023 at 11:05 am

    This winter is shaping up to be the kind of season that skiers and riders dream about. Mammoth Mountain, which has clocked more than 500 inches of snow at its summit so far this season, is currently “the snowiest place in North America.” Palisades Tahoe’s upper mountain is just shy of 400 inches, according to Kirstin Guinn, the marketing director of the North Tahoe Community Alliance.

    “Ultimately, this has been one of the best skiing winters in memory,” Ms. Guinn said.

    “We’re expecting to be skiing well past Memorial Day,” said Lauren Burke, the communications director of Mammoth Mountain Ski Area. (NYT)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    The amount of snow in the city of Mammoth Lakes is extraordinary-20 foot walls everywhere…

    I was informed that snow shovelers clearing off roofs of frozen white stuff were making $100 an hour, and help was coming from the Central Valley and SoCal to get ‘r done.

    Was watching the action on top of the roof of our rental condo and 5 Hispanic fellows were clearing it off with no ropes or harnesses and a 30 foot fall if you fell off, yikes!
    1. Kurtismayfield February 9, 2023 at 3:06 pm

       Meanwhile the East coast is horrible. There has been very little natural snow this year, and the base has very little coverage. It’s going to be a short winter out on the right coast.
       1. semper loquitur February 9, 2023 at 3:24 pm

          I just read that NYC’s recent snow, which I saw exactly 35 seconds of (I counted), broke a 50 year record for late snowfall. It usually starts in January.
25. antidlc February 9, 2023 at 11:34 am

    I didn’t watch SOTU and I don’t watch MSNBC, but Rachel Maddow said this:

    https://twitter.com/luckytran/status/1623539116599287808

    Dr. Lucky Tran
    @luckytran
    ·
    16h
    “A 1000 people in that room. I have to say, I know this is wrong, but it does give me the ughs a little bit to see the average age in that room & then to see precisely one mask in the entire room”

    Thank you @maddow
    for rightfully calling out the lack of masks at #StateOfTheUnion

    Video at the link.
26. Carolinian February 9, 2023 at 12:00 pm

    File under Nothing New Under the Sun.

    Perhaps the closest model for the blind support American admirers are currently according Zelensky, though, was the attitude that Americans (especially conservatives) displayed toward Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s (especially throughout Ronald Reagan’s administration), numerous political and media figures advocated greater US support for Savimbi’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and its insurgency against Angola’s leftist government. In the process, they overlooked or concealed their “democratic” client’s massive flaws.

    https://original.antiwar.com/ted_galen_carpenter/2023/02/08/volodymyr-zelensky-is-washingtons-new-jonas-savimbi/

    Okay a little new

    One key difference between the naïve support of Americans for Savimbi and the equally naive support for Zelensky is that the earlier episode was rather partisan. Conservatives were much more inclined than their liberal counterparts to back Savimbi. The current willingness to ignore Zelensky’s obvious abuses and continue portraying him as a champion of democracy is worse, since it is staunchly bipartisan. By the early 1990s, the evidence of Savimbi’s real nature was indisputable, and his embarrassed American supporters became very quiet. One wonders how long it will take Zelensky’s fans to accept reality and at least implicitly acknowledge that they have made a similar blunder.

    If the NY Times continues to exist then never.
    1. albrt February 9, 2023 at 1:39 pm

       Democracy dies in darkness, and we got yer darkness right here!
    2. pjay February 9, 2023 at 3:54 pm

       Interesting analogy. It also works because, as with Angola, most Americans knew nothing about Ukraine, had little interest in it, and so whatever thoughts or feelings they had were shaped by the dominant mass media narrative – evil commie USSR (or their Cuban proxies) becomes evil authoritarian Russia against poor little democratic Ukraine.

       I remember well the Reagan administration attempts to do this for the Contra “freedom fighters” as well, but that didn’t really work. They were too close, too many people in the US were knowledgeable about the situation, there were still some authentic progressives (or at least anti-fascists) in Congress, and many progressive activists on college campuses, etc. Certainly none of this is true regarding the Ukrainian situation today.
27. Jeremy Grimm February 9, 2023 at 12:03 pm

    “The coming existential threat …” Doctorow:

    “…look for an escape hatch!”
    “Either … there will be an anti-war movement in the USA, in Europe arising from … coming kinetic war between NATO and Russia, OR failing that, it will be every man for himself.”

    “All of us in the Northern Hemisphere now may be facing the same existential choice” [like the choice that faced the Jews living in Berlin in 1937 — stay or flee].

    The u.s. had extensive large scale anti-war movements during the Vietnam war years and a large anti-war movement prior to the first invasion of Iraq but neither appeared to have much effect at altering u.s. war policies. I think that leaves making arrangements for a move to Patagonia.
    1. Offtrail February 9, 2023 at 6:20 pm

       The Vietnam antiwar movement did have an effect. It kept President Lyndon Johnson from running for reelection, and forced Nixon to promise an end to the war. The Iraq antiwar movement was much smaller, both in the number of bodies at rallies and in it’s overall impact on society. No doubt the prowar media climate had much to do with that.
    2. digi_owl February 10, 2023 at 4:31 am

       The Vietnam protests were more anti-draft protests.

       And the Iraq invasion protests petered out soon after the statue came down in Bagdad and the whole thing shifted to “rebuilding”.
28. JustAnotherVolunteet February 9, 2023 at 12:28 pm

    BALTOPS 22: A Perfect Opportunity for Research and Resting New Technology (sic)
    Posted on June 14, 2022 by Seapower Staff

    “In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.

    Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring all under the direction of U.S. 6th Fleet Task Force 68. “

    https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-resting-new-technology/
29. Paradan February 9, 2023 at 4:30 pm

    Ukrainian Sea Otter forced to surrender in brutal move by Putin’s Storm-troopers.
    1. digi_owl February 10, 2023 at 5:59 am

       “Seize fire, i’m an otter not a (navy) seal ya dumbass”.
30. Grateful Dude February 10, 2023 at 12:04 pm

    re “right to repair” and Big Tech: Is it possible that the Governor in NY can sign something into law that is different from the bill passed by the legislature? Can she just make s**t up? For real?

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