With the small problem that Dept of Energy has f*ck-all to do with fracking. Environmental regulations for oil and gas production? EPA, not Energy. Leases of federal land on which to drill? Various parts of Interior, not Energy. Markets and such? FERC, not Energy.
The Department of Energy is nuclear weapons and a whole bunch of R&D (not all energy related). Not to pick on Rick Perry too much, but early on he announced the Dept of Energy would be issuing rules that greatly favored new power plants that were dispatchable and could store six months of fuel on site (ie, coal and nuclear). That lasted about a week until FERC held a press conference to say rules like that were FERC's remit and the Secretary should stick to subjects where he actually had authority.
Energy is a very good example. All of the national labs fall under DOE, doing everything from nuclear weapons to exotic materials science to math. The traditional appointee is a PhD in some hard science with a bunch of experience administering other PhDs. Recall Rick Perry expressing public surprise when he discovered that he would be responsible for development and maintenance of the entire nuclear arsenal. Wright has apparently been in graduate school, but has no graduate degrees. He's going to be responsible for a lot of the early decisions in the $1.5T program to upgrade all of the US nuclear warheads and delivery systems.
Californians have been fleeing to Colorado for longer than that. I first heard the term "California diaspora" from a U of Colorado history professor in 1989.
Jumped up from the couch, tripped, staggered a couple of steps, then hit the ribs square on a wall corner when I fell. The ribs don't hurt too badly, but from time to time most of my "core" muscles spasm at once. Think the world's largest charlie-horse. Those are debilitatingly painful for several seconds until the muscles relax again.
Just an informational note... Like most blog platforms, WordPress's built-in spam filter is a black box. Or special sauce if you prefer that analogy. They think their algorithm is superior and don't want to reveal the inner workings. No way to determine why WP decided the comment was spam.
With a trifecta in DC, it may be time for the governors. Newsom and Inslee look to be preparing to take on the Trump administration. Polis in Colorado has strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers, so also in a position to fight. Shapiro can't attempt the same things because the Republicans retained control of the Pennsylvania state senate. Whitmer in Michigan will have the same problem because Republicans won the house there. Any others come to mind?
When I was a kid a border collie adopted us -- we got home from a weekend at my grandparents and she was sitting on the front porch waiting. No collar, no tags, no one claimed her despite ads in the local paper and radio station. Scary smart dog.
Excellent. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to ask a Musk-admirer of a certain sort, "How do you think he made his billions?"
He paid people with graduate degrees to design stuff. He paid people with regular degrees to figure out how to implement the designs. He paid people with two-year degrees or equivalent to execute those implementation plans. For the most part, he doesn't employee people that don't have some sort of degree.
Here at the north end of the urban corridor, our snowfall for the week totaled "never stuck to the streets or sidewalks." It's warm and sunny this AM, and the last of the snow on the grassy areas is gone, even in the shade.
This is the first presidential election since I had to put my wife in memory care. I'm going to miss cuddling up under a blanket with her and making fun of the talking heads on television.
Another potentially weird thing in NC is the flow of relief funds after Hurricane Helene. The GOP was all in on how terribly FEMA and the SBA were doing, but now hundreds of millions of federal dollars have arrived. Plus Mike Johnson's possible own goal stating that if the agencies ran out of money it was no big deal because there wouldn't be any federal money arriving until after the election any way.
When I worked on the budget staff for the state legislature here, it was disturbing how little the members knew about how the government actually functioned.
The two large political geography stories of the last 30 years are much of the Midwest turning Republican, and the West turning heavily Democratic. And it hasn't been just the coastal states. At this moment, and obviously subject to change today, the eight-state Mountain West has one more Democratic US Senator than the 13-state Midwest.
I'm terrible at national stuff. I'll confine myself to: the 13-state West will be bluer than the pundits are predicting. Harris wins AZ and NV, the AZ and NV Senate seats stay blue, Tester will be closer than people think, all four of the abortion ballot initiatives pass, the total number of (D) Representatives increases by two, and one of the two AZ state legislative chambers flips.
She's the sitting Vice President. There are rules. The only conditions under which Harris's security contingent -- which includes, recall, a military officer carrying her copy of the "nuclear football" -- would have allowed an interview in Rogan's studio would have been unacceptable to Rogan.
There are (or at least were, it's been too long since I kept track of such things professionally) other programs that require states to behave or lose Medicaid funding. TTBOMK, none of those have been challenged in court. OTOH, there's NFIB v. Sebelius where Roberts wrote that Medicaid funding was so large that requiring states to adopt new programs on threat of loss of traditional Medicaid funding was unconstitutional coercion.
That isn’t how you build systems, though. If your failure mode is right there in the design, but it only fails catastrophically when it fails catastrophically, it still fails in exactly the way you designed it (and maybe in a couple ways you didn’t design).
All voting systems have failure modes built in. Eg, in-person voting on election day is subject to weather, work and work-related schedules, and transportation problems. Probably the most common single fix used for all of those collectively -- other than a full vote by mail system -- is the permanent no-excuse mail ballot list.
If you want to argue that coerced voting is the bigger problem, offer some evidence.
My argument has always been that if such felonies are being committed on any sort of scale, it would show up in divorce filings. Or in labor complaints.
In the best possible scenario it’s a national unity project which will get buy-in from the vast majority — even as it gores various oxen from place to place.
As I (too) often point out, when the various state systems are evaluated by experts for accuracy, security, and ease of use, the top few spots are dominated by western vote by mail states. Justify requiring those states to maintain a second poorer-performing parallel precinct system.
I suspect that there will be considerable difficulty in finding a single voting system that enough state delegations will get behind. There are states that want a traditional system emphasizing election day voting at hundreds/thousands of neighborhood precinct places. There are states that have gone full-on vote by mail that have minimal in-person voting locations. Some of the latter group actually discourage, at least indirectly, in-person voting. My state is one of those, with warnings that in-person election-day voting may require a lengthy drive and long wait.
The most recent version of the Congressional Democrats' bill on the subject actually followed the worst path I can imagine, requiring that states go to the expense of having both precincts and vote by mail systems sufficient to handle the full load.
A weekend-like chore on a Monday morning... I woke up this morning to no hot water. That wasn't horrible, I didn't have to be anywhere requiring a shower and shave [1]. The fancy display on the tankless water heater was flashing "E110". Found the paper documentation for the unit. Looked up the code, which was "insufficient air flow for the burner." The table that had that info also pointed at one of the maintenance sections. That showed (roughly) how to extract the unit's internal air filter [2]. When I got that out, it was filled with desiccated moth corpses [3]. Emptied the carcasses, washed the filter, put everything back together, and -- voila! -- hot water. I'll take myself out for a nice lunch later in the week :^)
[1] I can grow a beard sufficient to provide a disguise in three weeks. Granddaughter #3 came to visit after I had gotten that far along and hid behind her mother. "Who's that?" she asked. "That's Grandpa, he grew a beard." Once I spoke up and had the right voice, the beard was okay.
[2] I'm an oldster and long-time home owner, so have the habit of keeping all manuals for household appliances (despite the internet). Is this another thing the youngs will not do? I also took pictures of the actual filter, and how it fit into the bracket, which was not in the manual, before removing it. Dropped one screw and was halfway to the stairs to go get a flashlight when I remembered, "Phones are flashlights and your phone is in your pocket." Somewhere here I have the beginning of a short story where the private investigator uses his phone to do all the things that old stories depended on the PI not being able to do -- no phone, no flashlight, no audio recorder...
[3] Front Range Colorado has an annual miller moth migration from the plains to the mountains each spring. The last couple of years have been unusually heavy. Presumably these were seeking some sort of shelter and got lost. I'll buy and install filters for the PVC vent pipes (opening near ground level) to block the insects in the future.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “How Republicans Can Save Trump’s Presidency”
With the small problem that Dept of Energy has f*ck-all to do with fracking. Environmental regulations for oil and gas production? EPA, not Energy. Leases of federal land on which to drill? Various parts of Interior, not Energy. Markets and such? FERC, not Energy.
The Department of Energy is nuclear weapons and a whole bunch of R&D (not all energy related). Not to pick on Rick Perry too much, but early on he announced the Dept of Energy would be issuing rules that greatly favored new power plants that were dispatchable and could store six months of fuel on site (ie, coal and nuclear). That lasted about a week until FERC held a press conference to say rules like that were FERC's remit and the Secretary should stick to subjects where he actually had authority.
"
Energy is a very good example. All of the national labs fall under DOE, doing everything from nuclear weapons to exotic materials science to math. The traditional appointee is a PhD in some hard science with a bunch of experience administering other PhDs. Recall Rick Perry expressing public surprise when he discovered that he would be responsible for development and maintenance of the entire nuclear arsenal. Wright has apparently been in graduate school, but has no graduate degrees. He's going to be responsible for a lot of the early decisions in the $1.5T program to upgrade all of the US nuclear warheads and delivery systems.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
Symptoms have improved markedly this morning.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Californians have been fleeing to Colorado for longer than that. I first heard the term "California diaspora" from a U of Colorado history professor in 1989.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
Jumped up from the couch, tripped, staggered a couple of steps, then hit the ribs square on a wall corner when I fell. The ribs don't hurt too badly, but from time to time most of my "core" muscles spasm at once. Think the world's largest charlie-horse. Those are debilitatingly painful for several seconds until the muscles relax again.
"
As little as possible. I broke two ribs last Sunday.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/11/2024”
Just an informational note... Like most blog platforms, WordPress's built-in spam filter is a black box. Or special sauce if you prefer that analogy. They think their algorithm is superior and don't want to reveal the inner workings. No way to determine why WP decided the comment was spam.
"
With a trifecta in DC, it may be time for the governors. Newsom and Inslee look to be preparing to take on the Trump administration. Polis in Colorado has strong Democratic majorities in both legislative chambers, so also in a position to fight. Shapiro can't attempt the same things because the Republicans retained control of the Pennsylvania state senate. Whitmer in Michigan will have the same problem because Republicans won the house there. Any others come to mind?
On “Puppy Love in the IG Era: Ten Favorite Dog Breeds”
When I was a kid a border collie adopted us -- we got home from a weekend at my grandparents and she was sitting on the front porch waiting. No collar, no tags, no one claimed her despite ads in the local paper and radio station. Scary smart dog.
On “He Got Away With It”
Excellent. I have been tempted on more than one occasion to ask a Musk-admirer of a certain sort, "How do you think he made his billions?"
He paid people with graduate degrees to design stuff. He paid people with regular degrees to figure out how to implement the designs. He paid people with two-year degrees or equivalent to execute those implementation plans. For the most part, he doesn't employee people that don't have some sort of degree.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Batchin’ It (Again) and It’s Snowing”
Here at the north end of the urban corridor, our snowfall for the week totaled "never stuck to the streets or sidewalks." It's warm and sunny this AM, and the last of the snow on the grassy areas is gone, even in the shade.
On “2024 Election Day Live Stream, Reaction, Open Thread”
This is the first presidential election since I had to put my wife in memory care. I'm going to miss cuddling up under a blanket with her and making fun of the talking heads on television.
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: The Night Before the 2024 Presidential Election”
Another potentially weird thing in NC is the flow of relief funds after Hurricane Helene. The GOP was all in on how terribly FEMA and the SBA were doing, but now hundreds of millions of federal dollars have arrived. Plus Mike Johnson's possible own goal stating that if the agencies ran out of money it was no big deal because there wouldn't be any federal money arriving until after the election any way.
When I worked on the budget staff for the state legislature here, it was disturbing how little the members knew about how the government actually functioned.
"
Two years ago you predicted an enormous GOP wave sweeping the West. That turned out to be the Nevada governor's office.
"
The two large political geography stories of the last 30 years are much of the Midwest turning Republican, and the West turning heavily Democratic. And it hasn't been just the coastal states. At this moment, and obviously subject to change today, the eight-state Mountain West has one more Democratic US Senator than the 13-state Midwest.
"
I'm terrible at national stuff. I'll confine myself to: the 13-state West will be bluer than the pundits are predicting. Harris wins AZ and NV, the AZ and NV Senate seats stay blue, Tester will be closer than people think, all four of the abortion ballot initiatives pass, the total number of (D) Representatives increases by two, and one of the two AZ state legislative chambers flips.
On “Final Thoughts Before November Fifth”
At a less serious level, next weekend's football games will not be wall-to-wall obnoxious political ads.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
She's the sitting Vice President. There are rules. The only conditions under which Harris's security contingent -- which includes, recall, a military officer carrying her copy of the "nuclear football" -- would have allowed an interview in Rogan's studio would have been unacceptable to Rogan.
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
Nit: Medicaid funding.
There are (or at least were, it's been too long since I kept track of such things professionally) other programs that require states to behave or lose Medicaid funding. TTBOMK, none of those have been challenged in court. OTOH, there's NFIB v. Sebelius where Roberts wrote that Medicaid funding was so large that requiring states to adopt new programs on threat of loss of traditional Medicaid funding was unconstitutional coercion.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024”
Cite? All I can find online is a picture of him sitting in the passenger seat of a spotless white truck. Hardly "working a shift".
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
That isn’t how you build systems, though. If your failure mode is right there in the design, but it only fails catastrophically when it fails catastrophically, it still fails in exactly the way you designed it (and maybe in a couple ways you didn’t design).
All voting systems have failure modes built in. Eg, in-person voting on election day is subject to weather, work and work-related schedules, and transportation problems. Probably the most common single fix used for all of those collectively -- other than a full vote by mail system -- is the permanent no-excuse mail ballot list.
If you want to argue that coerced voting is the bigger problem, offer some evidence.
"
My argument has always been that if such felonies are being committed on any sort of scale, it would show up in divorce filings. Or in labor complaints.
"
In the best possible scenario it’s a national unity project which will get buy-in from the vast majority — even as it gores various oxen from place to place.
As I (too) often point out, when the various state systems are evaluated by experts for accuracy, security, and ease of use, the top few spots are dominated by western vote by mail states. Justify requiring those states to maintain a second poorer-performing parallel precinct system.
"
I suspect that there will be considerable difficulty in finding a single voting system that enough state delegations will get behind. There are states that want a traditional system emphasizing election day voting at hundreds/thousands of neighborhood precinct places. There are states that have gone full-on vote by mail that have minimal in-person voting locations. Some of the latter group actually discourage, at least indirectly, in-person voting. My state is one of those, with warnings that in-person election-day voting may require a lengthy drive and long wait.
The most recent version of the Congressional Democrats' bill on the subject actually followed the worst path I can imagine, requiring that states go to the expense of having both precincts and vote by mail systems sufficient to handle the full load.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Switch”
A weekend-like chore on a Monday morning... I woke up this morning to no hot water. That wasn't horrible, I didn't have to be anywhere requiring a shower and shave [1]. The fancy display on the tankless water heater was flashing "E110". Found the paper documentation for the unit. Looked up the code, which was "insufficient air flow for the burner." The table that had that info also pointed at one of the maintenance sections. That showed (roughly) how to extract the unit's internal air filter [2]. When I got that out, it was filled with desiccated moth corpses [3]. Emptied the carcasses, washed the filter, put everything back together, and -- voila! -- hot water. I'll take myself out for a nice lunch later in the week :^)
[1] I can grow a beard sufficient to provide a disguise in three weeks. Granddaughter #3 came to visit after I had gotten that far along and hid behind her mother. "Who's that?" she asked. "That's Grandpa, he grew a beard." Once I spoke up and had the right voice, the beard was okay.
[2] I'm an oldster and long-time home owner, so have the habit of keeping all manuals for household appliances (despite the internet). Is this another thing the youngs will not do? I also took pictures of the actual filter, and how it fit into the bracket, which was not in the manual, before removing it. Dropped one screw and was halfway to the stairs to go get a flashlight when I remembered, "Phones are flashlights and your phone is in your pocket." Somewhere here I have the beginning of a short story where the private investigator uses his phone to do all the things that old stories depended on the PI not being able to do -- no phone, no flashlight, no audio recorder...
[3] Front Range Colorado has an annual miller moth migration from the plains to the mountains each spring. The last couple of years have been unusually heavy. Presumably these were seeking some sort of shelter and got lost. I'll buy and install filters for the PVC vent pipes (opening near ground level) to block the insects in the future.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.