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bolverk

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. Kill your tapatalk.
  2. I think this population density map of Texas is very cool.
  3. Texas Senate majority unveils bill requiring voters to prove their citizenship All 20 GOP senators signed on to Senate Bill 16, which would apply to currently registered voters, and restrict some to only congressional elections.
  4. I drove through Hill Country yesterday, and everything looks dry as a bone, ready to go up in smoke at a moment’s notice. I didn’t notice a single wildflower of any kind. No bluebonnets, no Indian paintbrushes. Most of the live oak looked sickly AF. It’s bad out there in a 2011 kind of way.
  5. I've no idea where he got that figure from. Below is an archived link to the NYTimes tracking the big West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico outbreak, as well as other (mostly isolated) cases scattered around the country. The map shows 14 states. https://archive.is/WuXzy
  6. Chinese Warships Circle Australia and Leave It Feeling ‘Near-Naked’ The unusual deployment by three navy ships over the past month has prompted a debate in Australia about its aging fleet and reliance on the United States. For nearly a month, Australian forces were on alert as a flotilla of Chinese navy ships made an unannounced voyage around the continent. The ships sailed in and out of Australia’s exclusive economic zone. They fired live shots near commercial airspace, forcing dozens of civilian flights to reroute. They sailed past Perth in Western Australia, days after a visiting U.S. nuclear submarine docked at a nearby naval base. Finally, last weekend, the Chinese ships headed north toward Indonesia. Australian officials repeatedly assured the public that the Chinese ships’ presence and actions were perfectly legitimate under international law. But the voyage was the farthest south the Chinese military had ever come, and was deeply uncomfortable for Australia. It has forced the nation to take a hard look at its own aging fleet, its heavy military dependence on a faraway ally, the United States, and the increasing muscularity of its biggest trading partner, China. There was nothing about the deployment of the three Chinese vessels — a cruiser, a frigate and a replenishment tanker — that was technically impressive or strategically significant. China’s formidable navy has long demonstrated the vast distances it can cover and the capabilities of its premier ships. Instead, it ended up highlighting Australia’s inadequacies: its own navy is the oldest and smallest it has been since World War II, analysts and former navy officials say. It has two tankers, which are crucial for navigating long distances, as the Chinese did, but both have been out of commission for months. The two Chinese warships had a combined 144 vertical launch missile cells, while the Royal Australian Navy’s 10 warships, altogether, have 200. “The Chinese are showing us up in our own backyard,” said Marcus Hellyer, an expert on military spending and capability who previously worked for Australia’s defense department. “We can’t even sail around our own country. They are really rubbing it in,” he said. Australian forces, could of course, rely on friendly countries like New Zealand, which refueled an Australian ship in the Tasman Sea as the two countries jointly surveilled the Chinese ships. The firestorm the flotilla ignited in Australia is an indication of how China could take advantage of a moment when the staunchest of American allies are being forced to revisit longstanding assumptions about ties to Washington. The United States has not officially commented on the Chinese ships, even though they coincided with the visit of a top U.S. commander and a U.S. submarine to Australia. Chinese officials have said they were carrying out training in international waters as all navies do, and had nothing to explain or apologize for. That hasn’t stopped the speculation in Australia about the timing and the message it was designed to send. The ships encircled Australia as the Trump administration has been upending expectations about continued U.S. support for allies like Europe and Ukraine. Australia is about to hold a federal election, in which the ships all but guaranteed that defense will be a major talking point. “China’s navy is illustrating Australia’s vulnerability at the exact moment that the U.S. is demonstrating American unreliability,” Peter Hartcher, the political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, wrote last month. Between the “buccaneering” in Washington and China’s military drumbeat, he wrote: “We’re so exposed that we face the next decade near-naked.” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government has spent the past few years working hard to stabilize relations with China, which had hit a low point under the previous government, with China imposing crippling trade restrictions. At the same time, Australia has doubled down on its military alliance with the United States. In February, it paid half a billion dollars to Washington as a down payment to bolster the U.S. submarine industry, to eventually receive used U.S. nuclear submarines as part of a security pact with America and Britain known as AUKUS. Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his Australian counterpart, Richard Marles, that President Trump was “very aware, supportive” of the three-way agreement. But a few weeks later, when a reporter asked Mr. Trump whether he would discuss AUKUS with Britain’s prime minister, Mr. Trump asked: “What does that mean?” Australia first detected the Chinese ships in early February, one to the north and the other two to the northeast. It tracked them as they traveled south along its eastern coast, entering Australia’s exclusive economic zone near Sydney. The unease over the ships became full blown alarm on Feb. 21, when a commercial pilot flying over the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand heard radio broadcasts from the Chinese vessels warning of live fire drills. The pilot informed Australia’s civil aviation service, which scrambled to divert flights in the area. Nearly 50 planes would end up changing course. The drills came as a surprise to both Australia and New Zealand but both acknowledged they were legal. One ship had the potential to carry land-attack missiles or anti-ship ballistic missiles. China’s response was, in essence: Get used to it. “As a major power in this region, as a country that has so many things to look after, it is normal for China to send their vessels to different parts of the region to conduct various kinds of activities,” Xiao Qian, China’s ambassador to Australia, told Australia’s national broadcaster. China’s navy, already the world’s largest and rapidly expanding, has also been more aggressive in making its presence felt elsewhere in Asia. Japan’s defense minister said last month that Chinese navy ships had passed through the waters around the Ryukyu Islands — a chain that stretches between Kyushu and Taiwan — a total of 68 times last year, a dramatic increase from 21 times in 2021. “They are gradually but very steadily spreading their wings, showing the world they’re able to be anywhere they want to be, whenever they choose,” said Rowan Moffitt, a former deputy chief of the Australian navy. “We see no reason to suggest intent to use their capability against us today. Should the intent change, they could.” But for some, the Chinese flotilla was a reminder of the possibility of hostile powers reaching Australian shores. “We’ve thought of conflict as something we choose to get involved in on the other side of the world,” said Jennifer Parker, a naval expert and two-decade veteran of the navy. Last year, Mr. Albanese’s government announced ambitious goals to expand and update Australia’s naval fleet, but the results aren’t expected to be seen until the 2030s, and some experts are skeptical that the local industry can deliver. Australian warships have sailed near China, through the Taiwan Strait, and participated in joint exercises in the South China Sea. (And a Chinese defense ministry spokesman asked if Australia would notify Beijing of its own exercises near China.) But those are heavily trafficked corridors where multiple countries’ interests intersect, whereas the only reason to be south of Australia or in the Tasman Sea would be to send a message, said Ray Powell, the director of the maritime transparency project SeaLight, who previously served as a U.S. defense attaché in Canberra. “That particular message is, we are able to hold you at risk,” he said.
  7. Wordle 1,362 3/6 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #640 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🙂 Daily Quordle 1143 6️⃣5️⃣ 4️⃣7️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜🟨🟩 ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  8. I wonder how many similarly important but obscure and silly-sounding lines of study have just been ended due to the ongoing, irrational shark frenzy in the name of cost-cutting but really only benefit rampant corruption.
  9. Post it in the protest song thread. https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/topic/788-protest-songs/?do=getNewComment Edit: We have musicians. Maybe someone will revise it.
  10. CORRUPTION This has to be the message. It’s not ideological, and everyone understands it. Hammer that message repeatedly for everyfuckingthing. It’s not a lie, and it’s not even bending the truth. Corruption is the key. Tie everything to it incessantly.
  11. Wonderful thing about this site is you can read the content sans giving the fuckers a click. https://archive.is/qr37m
  12. ICYMI
  13. Catching up after a long afternoon and early evening of travel. Also, accidentally quoted these in the wrong order. Pato is halfway to my answer, which I’ve held in the back of my head while getting through the thread. Apologies. The other half of the response would be the long-term goal of controlling natural resources, especially water, as the Earth starts to fry while also providing an outlet for the mass migration of Americans to cooler climes. The same goes for Greenland. It’s certainly neither moral nor ethical, but if you’re a megalomaniac planning to carve up the globe, it makes a certain amount of sense.
  14. Fitlump imo
  15. Krasnov's idea of a glorious war plan.
  16. Les Québécois ne seront pas amusés.
  17. Yeah, I read that Malcolm Nance assessment, too. Sounds fucking insane, yet here we are.
  18. TFG is slapping a 50% tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum. He goes on to say he'll kill their (and our) auto industry, along with continued threats to annex a peaceful, sovereign neighbor.
  19. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/solar-accounted-84-new-us-power-added-2024-report-says-2025-03-11/ March 11 (Reuters) - Solar energy accounted for 84% of new electricity generation capacity added to the U.S. power grid last year, but the industry faces a challenging future with the new U.S. administration's energy policies, a report published on Tuesday said. The country installed 50 gigawatts (GW) of new solar capacity in 2024, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie groups said in the report, adding that 2024 was largest single year of growth by any energy technology in over two decades. WHY IT IS IMPORTANT The solar industry was a major beneficiary of subsidies contained in former President Joe Biden's landmark 2022 climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Trump administration has said it was reviewing federal funding plans, and any removal of tax credits issued under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act would impact clean energy deployment. The clean-energy sector has been on high alert since the election of Donald Trump, whose first executive orders prioritized unleashing U.S. fossil-fuel production, paused federal wind projects and froze funding for clean-energy projects from two Biden-era laws. BY THE NUMBERS Total U.S. solar capacity is expected to reach 739 GW by 2035, the report said, warning that changes to federal tax credits, supply chain availability, and permitting policy will cause slowdown in solar deployment. The low case forecast showed a 130 GW decline in solar deployment over the next decade compared to the base case, representing nearly $250 billion of lost investment, according to the report. KEY QUOTES "Last year’s record-level of installations was aided by several solar policies and credits within the Inflation Reduction Act that helped drive interest in the solar market," said Sylvia Levya Martinez, Principal Analyst, North America Utility-Scale Solar for Wood Mackenzie. "We still have many challenges ahead, including unprecedented load growth on the power grid. If many of these policies were eliminated or significantly altered, it would be very detrimental to the industry's continued growth."
  20. Trump says he will double tariffs on Canada metals to 50% WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday doubled his planned tariff on all steel and aluminum products coming into the United States from Canada, bringing the total to 50%, in response to the province of Ontario placing, opens new tab a 25% tariff on electricity coming into the U.S. Trump said in a post on Truth Social he has instructed his commerce secretary to add an additional 25% tariff on the products that will go into effect on Wednesday morning.
  21. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/11/world/europe/ukraine-russia-moscow-war-drones.html
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