Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Cornell
2. Brits
3. Boulder
4. Delta
5. Debris
6. Shipyard
7. Refineries
8. Announcer
1. Cornell. Not a lot of big stories this week. OTOH, there were a lot of smaller ones perhaps building toward a larger outcome, though as always, I need to keep a close watch on my kneejerk Pollyanna response. That being said, first up is the reprise of the Duke Lacrosse hoax, this time at Cornell, a deep blue university in a deep blue state, with a deep blue administration. As the story goes, a Chickie Babe decided she wanted to bang everything that moved, got herself properly inebriated, got to do so, wasn’t sufficiently celebrated afterwards, changed her mind as to what happened, and is now the trigger for the latest edition of She Said, The Guys Are Toast, this time with the full and complete participation of the NY state legal system with Governor Hochul appointing corruptocrat Tish James as special prosecutor. Oh, joy. Given her performance in the anti-Trump Jihad after being elected to get Trump, I can hardly wait. One final note: she is up for reelection in November. Nothing like a fresh scandal to turn out the dummies.
- What happened? From here, it sounds like a drunken teenaged brawl. Note to self: for a clean future, try not to participate in too many of those. Zero would be a good starting goal. Barring that, fewer is better than more. And mixed sex participation, especially in blue states, is a definite no-no.
- We know a few things for sure. First is that everyone was s^&*faced. We know that chickie babe started the festivities at her sorority, ramping up her inebriation to what she thought were the required levels. Upon arrival at the frat, she continued to pile on the alcohol, including ingesting some unspecified amount of ketamine.
- A good time, in the description of the participants, was had by all.
- She thought about it for a couple weeks. Did not get the expected response from the male participants and decided she had been raped. Reported it to the authorities a couple weeks later after which the fecal matter hit the rotating machinery.
We are about to get a real lesson in the fraudulent notion that we should indeed believe all women, followed closely by a discussion of whether women (like men) lie about consensual sex, finishing with what happens when everyone is inebriated. Should be a fun discussion, during which a bunch of blue state lawyers are gonna make hundreds of thousands of dollars and the participating politicians may end up being (sadly) reelected.
2. Brits It has been an interesting week in (the formerly) free Great Britain. Sadly, not a lot of stories involving liberty.
- As it turns out, the planned attack on RAF Fairfield, the joint NATO / US bomber base was to be a drone attack, intended to reprise the Ukrainian Spiderweb drone attack June 1, 2025 on Russian bombers. The drone attack hit Russian air force bases inside Russia. Drones were smuggled into Russia and launched against multiple bases. They ended up destroying or damaging dozens of Russian bombers. 41 were hit with 20 damaged or destroyed, and yeah, I can’t nor do I even try to reconcile the notion of 21 Russian bombers hit but not damaged.
- The English town of Gosport was reportedly locked down as British police “rescued” at least 149 people from the English Channel on their way to Britian. The locals weren’t all that pleased with the influx and turned out in protest which was met with the full force of British law enforcement. The invaders were reportedly transferred to a processing center in Kent. No word where they finally ended up being settled.
- Finally, the Brits really hate their anti-green protesters. A 63-year-old who used a homemade black powder explosive to destroy a newly installed ultra-low emission zone camera (ULEZ) was convicted of a terrorist connection and sentenced to 15 years in jail for destroying the camera. ULEZ cameras are area specific little pieces of sunshine that monitor passing vehicles for violations of local emissions standards which vary in parts of town. Violate the local emissions standard, and you pay a fine. I would say he was doing God’s Work, but that’s just me. Local government, not so much.
3. Boulder. One of the things the left has been trying to do for years is to use the courts for things they couldn’t shove through state legislatures. Last week’s example was SCOTUS arguments in Suncor v Boulder. This case involves a Boulder County lawsuit against two energy companies over compensation for some of the costs of climate change incurred as a result of the companies operating in Colorado. Note that no accounting of those costs has ever been done nor agreed upon, not even between the greens. Suncor is a Canadian company with only two facilities in Colorado. The lawsuit is purposely open-ended, an attempt to use the courts to regulate global conduct. Boulder is attempting to parallel the tobacco lawsuits, but the injury, whatever it is, is not suffered by the consumer in the traditional sense, for instance, injury involving clean air and clean water claims. The problem here is that should this suit go forward, there will be no limit to any claims. For example, Boulder could sue anyone passing through who would fill their gas tanks and therefore contribute to global climate change. The problem with this case is that Justice Alito recused himself.
4. Delta. Delta Airlines used to have a decent reputation as a competent, employee and customer centric business. That reputation has slipped a bit in recent years as corporate decisions were made on other basis. Most recent example of this is a breakout of hostilities between Elon Musk and Delta CEO Ed Bastian over which company would provide inflight WiFi on their jets. Inflight WiFi is currently slow and spotty at best. Last March, following what turned out to be a rather festive negotiation, Delta opted for Amazon’s satellite internet service, with just under 400 satellites in orbit instead of Starlink with over 11,000. Better yet, their service will go live sometime in 2028 as opposed to installing Starlink kit today. Until that happens, Delta will remain on their existing Viasat / Hughes provided network out of geosynchronous orbit that is slower with higher latency than Starlink. Latency is the round-trip time it takes a signal from your computer to the target and back. The more real time you application is (online gaming, streaming, video conferencing, WiFi calling, etc), the worse impact from high latency. The reported negotiations issue was access to the service onboard. Delta wanted to retain its branded Delta Sync portal. Starlink wanted to use its built-in system. The disagreement was quiet for half the year before blowing up this past week with name-calling between the two CEOs. Great corporate decision, that, Delta. You chose a slower system that will not be ready for at least two years, that currently only has 4% of the Starlink constellation in orbit. But yes, the customer always comes first, except when they don’t. Not anymore, apparently. Note to self: it is never a good idea to bet against Elon in a competitive technical environment, a lesson the AT&T CEO is about to learn in the cellular world.
5. Debris. As we put more satellites in orbit, at higher altitudes where their orbital lifetime is measured in centuries rather than years, the risk of an orbital debris cascade, the Kessler Syndrome, increases. Yes, it is week’s episode of We’re All Gonna Die theater. Sadly, this one has some teeth, as it has been a busy year for satellites breaking up, which is no longer so hard to do (apologies to Neil Sadaka). First was Starlink 34343, that broke up at 560 km late Mar. This was the second such incident since Dec. Second was the Chinese Yaogan 50-02, early Sept. This one is suspected to be a military action. Next was USA 32, an old military satellite. Final participant was a Reagan-era Soviet weather satellite, Meteor 2-7 last week. This was its second anomaly from the satellite, first one taking place Mar 2004. All of these were at similar altitudes. All have observed, expanding debris fields. No word on the cause of the breakups. While Starlink flies with the ability to deorbit upon retirement, most (if not all) of the older birds do not. Orbital debris mitigation and cleanup are about to become a money-making field.
6. Shipyard. President Trump and SECWAR Hegseth announced development of a new shipyard, Arsenal-2 at Sparrows Point, MD last week. This one will be jointly funded with $6.6 billion from the Navy and Anduril Industries. It will focus on submarines and autonomous underwater vehicles. The new shipyard will be the largest of its type in the US. One of the things Trump has been focused on in both his terms in office was reindustrializing the US, moving industry previously sent offshore back onto the mainland. This is another instance of promises made, promises kept. The Usual Suspects on the left expressed concerns about defense companies that received investments from a venture capital firm where Donald Trump, Jr is a partner. These are the same guys who wholeheartedly support the hedge fund / NGO world that launders hundreds of billions into the democrat ecosystem.
7. Refineries. An analysis of diesel price increases may be in order. Given that we are near a record production level out of US wells, one would think that this would immediately translate into lower prices. Sadly not, as there is an intermediate step between well and gas (or fuel) tank. This step is refining. Each 42-gallon barrel of crude is turned into gasoline, diesel, and other products. Gasoline is 19 – 20 gallons, distillate (mostly diesel), 11 – 13 gallons, and all the other 9 – 12 gallons. Total daily output is 18.2 million barrels/day out of 130 operating refineries. They can surge another million barrels/day, but you pay for surges with downtime to catch up on deferred maintenance. Two refineries closed in Cali last year cut roughly 2% of the national capability. The last new refinery was built in 1977. The last major expansion / upgrade was complete in 2023. Note that diesel is a worldwide commodity. The ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia now targeting domestic refining capacity in Russia. Russia’s diesel exports are down perhaps 83%, putting upwards pressure on prices. Most of the online data blames the initial price spike in diesel 2022 to the beginning of that war. The other thing that took place here in the US was the impact of the first round of Biden anti-oil Executive Orders on production of oil and natural gas on federal lands and really cranking up environmental rules and regulations, both of which nicely jacked up the prices at the pump. Note that those prices were highest in 2022 and fell a couple dollars per gallon until the recent spike. This does not include intentionally idiotic state specific zero carbon policies that add a few more dollars / gallon to gasoline and diesel in those states, policies Cali are trying desperately to export to the rest of the nation.
8. Announcer. About 10 days ago, the Portland Trailblazers fired a new play by play broadcaster on the day he was hired. His offense? Inappropriate, sexist, racist or harmful comments that violate the team and league standards. After his hiring was announced, one of the local reporters went digging through his Twitter posts and found some stuff he posted when he was 15, yes, 15 years old. The basic lesson here is that when you are young and dumb, you are generally young and dumb. And teenaged boys will fall all over themselves seeing who can do or say the most outrageous thing possible, which is kind of what guys that age tend to do. Some of us even figure out how to outgrow it. Some of the rest of us, not so much. The bigger story is the willingness of local media to engage in historical digging to trash this kid’s reputation and get him fired, which looks a lot like crabs trying to escape from a bucket of crabs, with those underneath always grabbing hold of the escapee thwarting the escape. Worse, Blazer management went along with this farce, firing the kid instantly. I predict the Blazers will shortly be writing a 6-7 figure check to the kid to keep out of court or having to defend their actions in front of a jury. Some local lawyer is about to have a very good day.
More later –
- AG