Reporting in the White House

 

 

Does he even think about what he says?

 “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” Trump added. “Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my, into the people’s house.”

 No, Donald, it's not your house. You are a guest.

And the Justice Department, the toadies they are, can seem to do much better.

"The Justice Department urged a federal judge to keep CNN, Politico and MS NOW reporters off White House grounds, arguing that President Donald Trump may restrict their access over national security concerns ..."

Let's focus on "security concerns." Either (a) your people are releasing classified information, which is both unlikely and also an internal problem, or (b) the press saying negative things about the administration is treasonous, simply because they disagree with you. Really, it is the latter. You could argue that making the country sound divided and mentioning potential weaknesses is bad for national security; but this forces the leap to saying the administration has the right to control the narrative in all things, and that takes Donald so far past the First Amendment it's just criminal.

I hope this goes to the Supreme Court. He'll get stomped. I've seen a lot in the prior four-year term, and even more in the past 20 months, and this once again goes beyond the pale. The President does NOT get to control the narrative. If he can't take the heat, that speaks to both megalomania and clinical narcissism.

 Say what your think needs to be said.  Check your facts, and then say it. I wish I could keep this a strictly-sail blog, but I've got to say what I have to say. We have a rogue administrator with unrestricted power. A tyrant that believes he is unbounded by law.

  

 

Big Oil

1. An invasion/interference in Venezuela.  An oil deal in progress. Venezuela has 17% of the world's reserves, more than any other country. Not great oil, and hard to get to, but we will.
2. A war that closes the Straights of Hormuz.
3. A war that closes the Bab-el-Mandeb (Red Sea). The US had forces in position that could have impacted this quick movment, but not one strike was made. Either a major f__k-up, or intentional. Too major, I think, to have been accidental.
4. Conversation about ending the war very soon. I'm thinking that is because our objectives, items 2 and 3 above, will be complete.

And so a large portion of the world's supply of oil will be constricted, possibly for decades. 

• Iran is not defeated but rather enraged and positioned to choke the straits. Drones will make it easy.
• By military arm-twisting and bribery, we will have secured oil from Venezuela. 
• The price of oil will soar, allowing Big Oil to print money. Yes, we could restrict exports, but the administration has made no effort to do that and will not. 

This, by the way, is part of why the war in Ukraine was not interesting. No benefit to us. Even among liberals, I think there is a sense that this is Europe's problem first, ours only second.

The business in Gaza is nuts, from the music festival start to where we are now. I think the timing was convenient for the above "conspiracy theory," but probably only that.

Pipelines will be built to the Mediterranean. That will take time.  The straits will become less relevant within 2-5 years. Some already exist, and I am sure they are looking to upgrade this capacity. Not so good for China, but they will find a way.

So is my Big Oil conspiracy theory good for the US or not? It's not nice or globally neighborly, but financially, it's not clear. It depends on how you are invested, to be sure, and how you are employed.  Some benefits will spill beyond big oil, and fuel prices will be up for a while.

But I don't see current events as random.  I see greedy, certainly corrupt, politics. We elected a casino guy--what should we have expected?

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Today Trump asked the Ukraine to stop targeting Russian diesel production. It could cause a shortage. Isn't the hypocrisy in that just mind rattling?  Another example of "watch the shiny ball" to distract people from the important stuff. Unfortunately, there are gullible people.

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Yes, I am posting more politics. Free speech.  What happens when the people do nothing and say nothing? I hope to get back to sailing and tinkering. I'm retired now. That is what I should be doing. But it's raining today.

Hothouse Earth

All the conversation focuses on the next 50 years, because we don't care about people other than ourselves and our generation. I understand. I'm not going to turn the AC off because of something 300 years from now. Having no grandchildren, I don't even have a genetic imperative. Tough luck, folks. The problem is that CO2 is rising to extinction-level event heights, and doing it faster than ever before.

Note: The middle road is not going to happen. We will continue burning fuels, perhaps at a slower rate, until they are gone.  In 10 million years, natural processes will sequester the CO2 and something unpredictable will follow. Of course, that may happen anyway. We're just urging it along; something that might have happened in 100,000 years or 10,000,000 years will happen in a few centuries. We're not good at waiting.

 

 Temperature is going to do the same thing. That means "hothouse" temperatures that, on their own, are nearly unsurvivable. More to the point, ocean temperatures rise, oxygen solubility in water falls, pH drops, and the ocean becomes a very different place. 

 

 

I'd love to go on ice for 500 years to see how the movie ends. I don't think I'd want to live there, but I am curious. The math paints an interesting picture.

 I'm not sayin' there is anything we can do about it. It's like watching an alcoholic or addict crash. Mostly, they have to hit bottom, to where there are no alternatives, and most of the time, they don't change things then. We're going to see this even more clearly in another 50 years, and we still won't do anything, and it's going to crash. We're going to burn all the fossil fuel we can. At most we will stretch it out by a geologically unimportant wink of time.

Sorry. I don't have a solution or suggestion.  I belive the only real solution is to have fewer children and just let it happen. Rather fatalistic, to be sure. Human nature can't make the turn. Just watch politics, for a read on the public nerve. Most don't look beyond next year, and very few look seriously beyond their own mortality. If they do, it's like a person standing on the beach staring at a tsunami, knowing that it is already too late to run. I doubt the universe will notice.

 You can get this at the library. A very good read, about the 6 billion year history of CO2.

The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World – A Natural History of Climate and the Future of Life

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXLM5617?lv=shuf&channelId=510&plpRedirect=mhFallback

 

It Seems We Have a Foe That is Stragically Smarter Than Us---Houthis Closing off the Red Sea

Even my conservative side finds Trump unaffordable.  And it's not just him. He has a Congress full of lickspittle toadies with no shame.

I can't say that I am surprised.  I was wondering when this would come. I'm not surprised. What does surprise me a little is that apparently neither the US or Saudi Arabia saw it coming. That's a stratigic and military f__k up of epic proportion. We had assets on-site.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/analysis-houthi-advance-yemen-puts-131834732.html

 

If the Red Sea is cut off, that could be quite something for oil prices. I wonder what Europe will think of Trump's machinations then.  In fact, I wonder if Trump is not content to see the second straight close, to the considerable benefit of US big oil. They're printing money. 

 

Unreal. Actually, both real and sad, given our leadership. If things are going fine and the market is happy ... let's screw things up to make a buck.

$500 Obamacare Rebate Before November

PLEASE remember who pledged to dismantle Obamacare and who has worked tirelessly to reduce Obamacare subsidies (increase rates). 

He is a pathological liar, hoping people are gullible. He does not think the rules of hinesty aply to him in any way. He is trying to bribe people to get votes. And he will do whatever it takes to reduce Obamacare subsidies (increase rates) as soon as the elections are over. 

He's scared. And he's doing his usual schtick and jive. So transparent.

Think it through. 

Hanger Holder

A trivial DIY project I put together about 30 years ago, but it became sufficiently popular with the family that I ended up making about six of them, some decorated by budding elementary school artists (our kids). A simple modification of a common uniform service tool.

Just some scrap 3/8-inch plywood cut to shape, sanded, held together with drywall screws, and painted.  Not beautiful nor perfectly crafted, but very handy. We keep almost all of our clothes on hangers (double rods in every closet), so we have a lot of hangers. Taking the hangers out of the closet frees up space in the closet.

 

DIY 6- to 8-inch Screw-Out Deck Plate Wrench

rev. 9-10-2026 

In this case, there is no good commercial option. As common as these are, I have no idea why.

My F-24 trimaran has 8 of these hatches on the outriggers (amas), and when sailed in spirited conditions, they go underwater a lot. The hulls pant a little with the water pressure, and unless snugged down, they leak a lot. It can be gallons per hour. Snugged down properly, they get stuck. Keep em' clean, keep em' lubed, they can still stick.

  

Beckson makes a crappy wrench. People tap them with blocks of wood, use oversized Crescent wrenches, and even metal pin spanners, all of which can be damaging. 

 The solution is a DIY wrench made with custom fitted stubs that fit the pockets, bolted or screwed to a wooden handle. A bad picture, but there will be a better article in Practical Sailor.

 

 

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In fact, after further searching, there was a guy who marketed a version milled from King Starboard, out of his garage. That was 14 years ago, and the website is gone.

Easy Out Deck Plate Removal Tool 

  

 

 

New America

And now from the same guy, "Many people suggested changing the name of New Mexico, one of the great vote cheating states of all time, to NEW AMERICA. So much more prestigious and beautiful for the people of that potentially incredible State. Wow, I Love It!!!"

Third-grade diction and multiple mistakes. A sub-adolescent taunt, on both Truth Social and the White House X account, obviously intended to distract. "Look at me, holding this shiny ball." People fall for that. And of course, no one in the White House is embarrassed, or rather, they won't show it. I guess, working in (some positions-- there are many very good people) the White House is embarrassing on the face of it these days. 

This is disappointing, disturbing, and frankly terrifying. We have an unstable man with his finger on the button.

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I promise, the next post will be about sailing. But there comes a point when keeping quiet is complicity. This is not OK.

Gulf of America. Lake America.

The President is now pretending that he can change the name of Lake Ontario by signing an executive order, the obvious result being another humiliation United States citizens on the world stage. He ebarrasses himself once again, but is increasingly oblivious to the obvious. Let's just call it what it is.

Diminished mental capacity. 

America was strong. Past tense. Now we are medium and trending downwards. It's hard to be strong with no friends.

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 Just as with the Gulf of America change, Google Maps went right along with this embarrassing change. Wimps.

 I prefer Mapquest anyway. Use Mapquest.

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So why did the UN choose this time, of major global strife and instability, to vote on a map? Rather obviously, it was a poke at someone who believes he can unilaterally rename stuff, like the Straights of Hormuz. That made it worthwhile, beyond the Equal Earth reasoning. Basically, he is being ignored, and it bugs him. 

 

 

Charging Lithium

 A year ago, I made the leap to lithium (LiFePO4). My lead AGM gave up the ghost, the result of a failed solar panel allowing it to go flat for too long. It was also long in the tooth. I wrenched my shoulder maneuvering it out of its hold, which was horribly located, so the decision was significantly based on its being half the weight. 

 I'd read up on lithium. I picked one that had been vetted by a battery expert I trust. The BMS (battery management system) would cut off charging below freezing, which can be an issue for me. We've all been told that charging below freezing is bad, resulting in lithium plating. But ...

1. 32F has no particular significance to a system that does not contain water. It sounds like just a number that is easy to remember.
2. I have read in several places that, in fact, it is a soft number, and that what matters is tapering off the charge rate at low temperatures. That at some low rate, charging in the cold is non-damaging. 

One source said 0.05C (5% of battery capacity) may be considered safe. My panel can only charge 0.025C on the best of days, and typically more like 0.010C in the winter, when this would matter. 

 C= charging rate/capacity. Many of the studies were done at C=1 to 3, meaning that a battery could be fully recharged in 20-60 minutes. That's FAST for solar systems. I doubt many sailors can recharge the bank in less than 5 hours, and most, more like 10-20 hours (C=0.1 to 0.05).

 

 

It's never clear how far you can extrapolate data without more  testing, but it seems clear from the above graph that at very low charging rates, the effect of temperature on plating (low temperatures) and side reactions (high temperatures) are much less than at common charging rates. While it is convenient to repower you EV, cell phone, or device in an hour or less (C=1 to 3), that has no application to sailors charging from solar (C=0.1 to 0.05 or less). I'm guessing that curve is pretty flat, and that even if it is not, the cycles at C=0.025 at 32 F are probably better than C=1 at 20C. 

 

How about those apples? Nothing for sailors to worry about.