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Allen, Joel, Rosemary, and Yolanda discuss the ongoing federal halt on US offshore wind projects and mounting lawsuits from Equinor, Ørsted, and Dominion Energy. Plus Japan’s Goto floating wind farm begins commercial operation with eight Hitachi turbines on hybrid SPAR-type foundations, and Finnish investigators seize a vessel suspected of severing Baltic Sea cables. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast brought to you by Strike Tape, protecting thousands of wind turbines from lightning damage worldwide. Visit striketape.com. And now your hosts, Allen Hall, Rosemary Barnes, Joel Saxum and Yolanda Padron. Welcome to the  Allen Hall: Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I’m your host, Alan Hall. I’m here with Rosie Barnes, Joel Saxum, and Yolanda Padron. Many things on the docket this week. The, the big one is the five US offshore wind projects that are facing cancellation after the federal halt. And on December 22nd, as we all know, the US Department of Interior ordered construction halted on every offshore wind project in American waters. Uh, the recent given and still given is national security. Uh, developers see it way differently and they’ve been going to court to try to. Get this issue resolved. Ecuador, Ted and Dominion Energy have all filed lawsuits at this point. EOR says [00:01:00] a 90 day pause, which is what this is right now, will likely mean cancellation of their empire. Project Dominion is losing more than about $5 million a day, and everybody is watching to see what happens. Orton’s also talking about taking some action here. Uh, there’s a, a lot of moving pieces. Essentially, as it stands right now, a lot of lawsuits, nothing happening in the water, and now talks mostly Ecuador of just completely canceling the project. That will have big implications to US. Electricity along the east coast,  Joel Saxum: right Joel? Yeah. We need it. Right? So I, I hate to beat a dead horse here because we’ve been talking about this for so long. Um, but. We’ve got energy demand growth, right? We’re sitting at three to 5% year on year demand growth in the United States, uh, which is unprecedented. Since, since, and this is a crazy thing. Since air [00:02:00] conditioning was invented for residential homes, we have not had this much demand for electricity growth. We’ve been pretty flat for the last 20 years. Uh, so we need it, right? We wanna be the AI data center superpower. We wanna do all this stuff. So we need electrons. Uh, these electrons are literally the quickest thing gonna be on the grid. Uh, up and down that whole eastern seaboard, which is a massive population center, a massive industrial and commercial center of the United States, and now we’re cutting the cord on ’em. Uh, so it is going to drive prices up for all consumers. That is a reality, right? Um, so we, we hear campaign promises up and down the things about making life more affordable for the. Joe Schmo on the street. Um, this is gonna hurt that big time. We’re already seeing. I think it was, um, we, Alan, you and I talked with some people from PGM not too long ago, and they were saying 20 to 30% increases already early this year. Allen Hall: Yeah. The, the increases in electricity rates are not being driven by [00:03:00] offshore wind. You see that in the press constantly or in commentary. The reason electricity rates are going up along the east coast is because they’re paying for. The early shutdown of cold fire generation, older generation, uh, petroleum based, uh, dirty, what I’ll call dirty electricity generation, they’re paying to shut those sites down early. So that’s why your rates are going up. Putting offshore wind into the equation will help lower some of those costs, and onshore wind and solar will help lower those costs. But. The East Coast, especially the Northeast, doesn’t have a lot of that to speak of at the minute. So, uh, Joel, my question is right now, what do you think the likelihood is of the lawsuits that are being filed moving within the next 90 days? Joel Saxum: I mean, it takes a long time to put anything through any kind of, um, judicial process in the United States, however. There’s enough money, power [00:04:00] in play here that what I see this as is just like the last time we saw an injunction happen like this is, it’s more of a posturing move. I have the power to do this, or we have the power to do this. It’s, it’s, uh, the, it’s to get power. Over some kind of decision making process. So once, once people come to the table and start talking, I think these things will be let, let back loose. Uh, I don’t, I don’t think it will go all the way to, we need to have lawsuits and stuff. It’ll just be the threat of lawsuits. There’ll be a little bit of arbitration. They’ll go back to work. Um, the problem that I see. One of the problems, I guess, is if we get to the point where people, companies start saying like, you know what, we can’t do this anymore. Like, we can’t keep having these breaks, these pauses, these, this, you know, if it’s 90 days at $5 million a day, I mean that’s 450 million bucks. That’s crazy. But that nobody, nobody could absorb that.  Allen Hall: Will they leave the mono piles and transition pieces and some [00:05:00] towers just sitting in the water. That’s what  Joel Saxum: I was gonna say next is. What happens to all of the assets, all of the steel that’s in the water, all the, all the, if there’s cable, it lays if there’s been rock dumps or the companies liable to go pick them up. I don’t know what the contracts look like, right? I don’t know what the Boem leases say. I don’t know about those kind of things, but most of that stuff is because they go back to the oil field side of things, right? You have a 20 year lease at the end of your 20 year lease. You gotta clean it up. So if you put the things in the water, do they have 20 years to leave ’em out there before they plan on how they’re gonna pull ’em out or they gotta pull ’em out now? I don’t know.  Allen Hall: Would just bankrupt the LLCs that they formed to create these, uh, wind  Joel Saxum: farms. That’s how the oil field does it bankrupt. The LC move on. You’ve, you’ve more than likely paid a bond when you, you signed that lease and that, but that bond in like in a lot of. Things is not enough. Right. A bond to pull mono piles out would have to be, [00:06:00] I mean, you’re already at billions of dollars there, right? So, and, and if you look again to the oil and gas world, which is our nearest mirror to what happens here, when you go and decommission an old oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, you don’t pull the mono piles out. You go down to as close to the sea floor as you can get, and you just cut ’em off with a diamond saw. So it’s just like a big clamp that goes around. It’s like a big band saw. And you cut the foundations off and then pull the steel back to shore, so that can be done. Um, it’s not cheap.  Allen Hall: You know what I would, what I would do is the model piles are in, the towers are up, and depending on what’s on top of them, whether it’s in the cell or whatever, I would sure as hell put the red flashing lights on top and I would turn those things on and let ’em run just so everybody along the East coast would know that there could be power coming out of these things. But there’s not. So if you’re gonna look at their red flashy lights, you might as well get some, uh, megawatts out of them. That’s what I would do.  Joel Saxum: You’d have to wonder if the contracts, what, what, what it says in the contracts about. [00:07:00] Uh, utilization of this stuff, right? So if there’s something out there, does the FAA say, if you got a tower out there, it’s gotta have a light on it anyways. Allen Hall: It has to or a certain height. So where’s the power coming from? I don’t know. Solar panel. Solar panel. That’s what it have to be, right? Yeah. This is ridiculous. But this is the world we live in today.  Speaker 4: Australia’s wind farms are growing fast, but are your operations keeping up? Join us February 17th and 18th at Melbourne’s Pullman on the park for Wind energy o and M Australia 2026, where you’ll connect with the experts solving real problems in maintenance asset management. And OEM relations. Walk away with practical strategies to cut costs and boost uptime that you can use the moment you’re back on site. Register now at W OM a 2020 six.com. Wind Energy o and m Australia is created by wind professionals for wind professionals. Because this industry needs solutions, not speeches, [00:08:00] Allen Hall: the dominoes keep falling. In American offshore wind, last year it was construction halts this year, contract delays. Massachusetts has pushed back the signing of two offshore wind agreements that were supposed to be done. Months ago, ocean Winds and Berroa won their bids in September of 2024. The paperwork is still unsigned more than a year later, a year and a half later. State officials blame Federal uncertainty. Uh, the new target is June and offshore wind for these delays are really becoming a huge problem, especially if you don’t have an offtake agreements signed, Joel.  Joel Saxum: I don’t see how the, I mean, again, I’m not sitting in those rooms. I’m not a fly on the wall there, but I don’t see how you can have something sitting out there for, it’s just say September 24. Yeah. Yeah. You’re at 18 months now, right? 17, 18 months without an agreement signed. Why is, why is Massachusetts doing this? What’s, what’s the, what’s the thing there? I mean, you’re an, [00:09:00] you are, uh, an ex Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Ian, is that what it’s called?  Allen Hall: Yeah. I, I think they would like to be able to change the pricing for the offtake is most likely what is happening as, uh, the Trump administration changes the agreements or trying to change the agreements, uh, the price can go up or down. So maybe the thing to do is to not sign it and wait this out to see what the courts say. Maybe something will happen in your favor. That’s a real shame. Right. Uh, there’s thousands of employees that have been sidelined. Uh, the last number I saw was around 4,000. That seems on the low end.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. I think about, um, the, the vessels too. Like you’re the, like the Eco Edison that was just built last year. I think it’s upwards of 500 million bucks or something to build that thing down in Louisiana, being sent up there. And you have all these other specialized, uh, vessels coming over from Europe to do all this construction. Um, you know. Of course if they’re coming over from Europe, those are being hot bunked and being paid standby rates, which [00:10:00] is crazy ’cause the standby rates are insane. Uh, ’cause you still gotta run fuel, you still gotta keep the thing running. You still gotta cook food. You still have all those things that have to happen on that offshore vessel. Uh, but they’re just gonna be sitting out there on DP doing nothing.  Yolanda Padron: You have the vessels, you have people’s jobs. You have. Regular people who are unrelated to energy at all suffering because of their prices going up for energy and just their cost of living overall going up. All because they don’t look pretty.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. The entire, that entire supply chain is suffering. I mean, Yolanda, you’re, you, you used to work with a company involved in offshore wind. How many people have, um, you know, have we seen across LinkedIn losing their jobs? Hey, we’re pivoting away from this. I gotta go find something else. And with that. In the United States, if you’re not from the States, you don’t know this, but there’s not that much wind, onshore wind on the East coast. So many of those families had to relocate out there, uproot your family, go out to Massachusetts, New Jersey, [00:11:00] Virginia, wherever, put roots back down and now you’re what? What happens? You gotta move back.  Yolanda Padron: Good luck to you. Especially, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s a lot of projects, right? So it’s not like you can just move on to the next wind farm. It’s a really unfortunate situation.  Allen Hall: Well, for years the promise of floating wind turbines has dangled just out of reach and the technology works, and the engineers have been saying for quite a while. We just needed someone to prove it at scale. Well, Japan just did the go-to floating wind farm began commercial operation this past week. Eight turbines on hybrid spar foundations anchored in water is too deep for anything fixed. Bottom, uh, it’s the first. Wind farm of his kind in Japan and signals to the rest of Asia that floating wind is possible. Now, uh, Rosemary, their turbines that are being used are Hitachi turbines, 2.1 megawatt machines. I don’t know a lot about this hybrid spark [00:12:00] type floater technology, which looks to be relatively new in terms of application. Is this gonna open up a large part of the Japanese shoreline to offshore wind? Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I mean, at the first glance it’s like two megawatt turbine turbines. That’s micro, even for onshore these days, that’s a really small turbine. Um, and for offshore, you know, usually when you hear about offshore announcements, it’s like 20 megawatt, 40 megawatt monstrosities. However, I, I think that if you just look at the size of it, then it really underestimates the significance of it, especially for Japan. Because they, one, don’t have a lot of great space to put turbines on shore or solar power on shore. Um, and two, they don’t have any, any good, um, locations for fixed bottom offshore. So this is not like this floating offshore wind farm. It’s not competing against many onshore um, options at all. For Japan, it’s competing against energy imports. I’m really happy to see [00:13:00] a proper wind farm. Um, in Japan and they’ll learn a lot from this. And I hope that it goes smoothly and that, you know, the next one can be bigger and better. And then it’s also, you know, Japan traditionally has been a really great manufacturing country and not so much with wind energy, but this could be their chance. If they’re the country that’s really on scale developing the floating offshore industry, they will necessarily, you know, like just naturally as a byproduct of that, they’re gonna develop manufacturing, at least supporting manufacturing and probably. Some major components and then bring down the cost. You know, the more that, um, these early projects might start out expensive, but get cheaper, fast. That’s how we hope it’ll go. And then they’ll push out into other areas that could benefit from offshore wind, but um, not at the cost. Somewhere like California, you know, they have the ability to have onshore wind. They’d really like some offshore wind, some floating offshore wind. But it is a hard sell there at the moment because it is so much more expensive. But if it gets cheaper because, you know, projects like [00:14:00] this help push the price down, then I think it will open things up a lot. So yeah, I am, I’m quite excited to see this project.  Allen Hall: Will it get cheaper at the two to six megawatt range instead of the 15 to 20 megawatt range?  Joel Saxum: That’s what I was gonna comment on. Like there’s, there’s a, there’s a key here that the general public misses. For a floating offshore wind farm. So if you’re gonna do this cost effectively, that’s why they did it with the 2.1 megawatts ones because with a, with the spar product that they’re using basically. And, and I was sourcing this off at my desk, so here you go,  Rosemary Barnes: Joel. We need a closed caption version for those listening on the podcast and not watching on YouTube. Joel’s holding like a foam, a foam model of a wind turbine. Looks like it’s got a stubby, stubby holder on the bottom.  Joel Saxum: This is. Turbine. Steel. Steel to a transition piece and then concrete, right? So this is basically a concrete tube like, um, with, with, uh, structural members on the inside of it. And you can float this thing or you can drag these, you can float ’em key side and then drag ’em out, and [00:15:00] then it just fill ’em halfway or three quarters away with ballast sea seawater. So you just open a valve, fill the thing up to three quarters of the way with seawater, and it sinks it down into the water a little bit. Water level sits about. Right at the transition piece and then it’s stable. And that’s a hybrid. Spar product is very simple. So to make this a easy demonstrate project, keyside facility is the key, is the big thing. So your Keyside facility, and you need a deep water keyside facility to make this easy. So if you go up to Alan, like you said, a two to six, to eight to 10 to 15 megawatt machine. You may have to go and take, you may have to barge the spars out and then dump ’em off the spar and then bring the turbines out and put ’em on. That’s not ideal. Right? But if you can do this all keyside, if you can have a crane on shore and you can float the spars and then put the, build the whole turbine, and then drag that out as it sits, that’s a huge cost reduction in the installation operations. So it, it’s all about how big is the subsea portion of the spar? How? How deep is your [00:16:00] deep water keyside port? To make it efficient to build. Right. So they’re looking at 10 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2030. Now it’s 2026. That’s only four years away, so 10 gigawatts. You’re gonna have to scale up the size of the turbines. It’ll be interesting how they do it, right? Because to me, flipping spars off of a barge is not that hard. That’s how jackets and spars have been installed in the past. Um, for, um, many industries, construction industries, whether it’s oil and gas or just maritime, construction can be done. Not a problem. Um, it’s just not as efficient. So we’ll see what, we’ll see what they do.  Allen Hall: You would need 5,000 turbines at two megawatts to get to 10 gigawatts, 5,000 turbines. They make 5,000 cars in a day. The, the Japanese manufacturing is really efficient. I wouldn’t put anything by the Japanese capabilities there.  Joel Saxum: The problem with that is the cost of the, the inter array cables and [00:17:00] export cables for 5,000 turbines is extreme. Allen Hall: We also know that. Some of the best technology has come out of Japan for the last 50 years, and then maybe there’s a solution to it. I, I’m really curious to see where this goes, because it’s a Hitachi turbine. It’s a 2.1 megawatt turbine, as Rosemary’s pointed out. That’s really old technology, but it is inexpensive to manufacture and easy to move around. Has benefits.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. It also means like they, they’re not gonna be surprised with like, you know, all of. When you make a 20 megawatt offshore wind turbine, you’re not only in the offshore environment, you’re also dealing with, you know, all your blade issues from a blade that long and 2.1 megawatt turbine has blades of the size that, you know, just so mature, reliable, robust. They can at least rule those headaches out of their, um, you know, out of their. Development phase and focus on the, the new stuff.  Joel Saxum: Does anybody know who [00:18:00] makes blades for Hitachi?  Allen Hall: Rosie? Was it lm? I, I, I know we have on a number of Hitachi turbines over time, but I don’t know who makes the blades.  Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, I don’t know. But I mean, also it’s like, um, it doesn’t mean that they’re locked into 2.1 megawatts for forever, right? So, um, if the economics suggest that it is be beneficial to scale up. Presumably there will be a lot that they have learned from the smaller scale that will be de-risking the, the bigger ones as well. So, you know, um, it’s, there’s advantages to doing it both ways. It’s probably a slower, more steady progress from starting small and incrementally increasing compared to the, you know, like big, um, fail fast kind of, um, approach where you just do a big, big, huge turbine and just find out everything wrong with it all at once. Um, but. You know, pros and cons to both.  Allen Hall: Hitachi buys TPI. They got the money. They got the money, and they got the brain power. [00:19:00] Delamination and bottom line. Failures and blades are difficult problems to detect early. These hidden issues can cost you millions in repairs and lost energy production. C-I-C-N-D-T are specialists to detect these critical flaws before they become expensive burdens. Their non-destructive test technology penetrates deep to blade materials to find voids and cracks. Traditional inspections completely. Miss C-I-C-N-D-T Maps. Every critical defect delivers actionable reports and provides support to get your blades back in service. So visit cic ndt.com because catching blade problems early will save you millions. The Baltic Sea has become a chessboard under sea. Cables carry data. Pipelines carry energy as we’ve all seen and someone keeps cutting them. Finnish investigators are now saying a cargo ship dragged its anchor [00:20:00] across the seabed for tens of kilometers before severing a telecommunications cable. On New Year’s Eve, special forces seize the vessel. Four crew members are detained, but the questions still remain. Who or what is trying to cut cables and pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.  Joel Saxum: It’s not accidents like it happened on New Year’s Eve and it was, and you drug an anchor for tens of kilometers. That’s on purpose. There’s, there’s no way that this is someone, oh, we forgot to pull the anchor up. You know how much more throttle you have to put on one of these? Have you seen an anchor for an offshore vessel? They’re the size of a fricking house,  Allen Hall: so they’re investigating it right now. And four, the 14 crew members are under detention. Travel restrictions, we’ll see how long that lasts. Crew includes nationals from of all places, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan. So there is a, a Russian element to this. [00:21:00] I don’t know if you were all watching, I don’t know, a week or two ago when there’s a YouTube video from and oral, which makes undersea. Equipment and defense, uh, related, uh, products. And Palmer Lucky who runs that company basically said, there are microphones all over the bottom of the ocean, all around the world. Everything is monitored. There’s no way you can drag an anchor for a kilometer without somebody knowing. So I’m a little surprised this took so long to grab hold of, but. Maybe the New Year’s Eve, uh, was a good time to pick because everybody is kind of relaxed and not thinking about a ship, dragging an anchor and breaking telecommunication cables, wind turbines have to be really careful about this. There, there have to be some sort of monitoring, installation sensors that are going on around the, all the wind power that exists up in that region and all [00:22:00] the way down in, in the North Sea. To prevent this from happening, the sabotage is ridiculous. At this point,  Joel Saxum: yeah. I mean, even, even with mattresses over the export cables, or the inter array cables or, or rock bags or rock dumps or, or burials, these anchors are big enough to, to cut those, to drag and cut ’em like it, it’s just a, it’s a reality. It’s a risk. But someone needs to be monitoring these things closer if they’re not yet. ’cause you are a hundred percent correct. There’s, so, there’s, there’s private, there’s public sides of the acoustic monitoring, right? So like the United States military monitors, there’s, there’s acoustic monitoring all up and down. I can’t actually never, I looked into it quite a while ago. There’s a name for the whole system. It’s called the blah, blah, blah, and it monitors our coastline. Like ev, there’s a sensor. Every man, it’s a couple miles. Like all, all around the EEZ of the United States. And that exists everywhere. So like you think like in international waters, guarantee that the United States has got microphones out listening to, [00:23:00] right. So, but if you’re in the Baltic Sea, it’s a little bit different of an, of a confined space. But you have Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, all along the southern and eastern coast and the, and Russia. And then you have the Fins, Swedes, Norwegian, Denmark, Germany. Everybody is Poland. Everybody’s monitoring that for sure. It’s just like a postmortem investigation is, is doable.  Allen Hall: Yolanda, how are they gonna stop this? Should they board the ships, pull the people off and sink them? What is it gonna take for this to end?  Yolanda Padron: I don’t know. In the meantime, I think Joel has a movie going on in his head about how exactly he’s gonna portray this. Um, yeah, it’s. I mean, I’d say better monitoring, but I, I’m not sure. I guess keep a closer eye on it next time. I mean, I really hope it’s, there’s not a next time, but there seems to be a pattern developing. Right.  Allen Hall: I forgot how many of those happened.  Joel Saxum: Yeah. The maritime, this is a, this is a tough reality about the maritime world. [00:24:00] ’cause I, I’ve done some work done in Africa and down there it’s specifically the same thing. There’s say there’s a vessel. Okay, so a vessel is flagged from. S Cy Malta, a lot of vessels are flagged Malta or Cyprus, right? Because of the laws. The local laws there that Cyprus flagged vessel may be owned by a company based in, um, Bermuda that’s owned by a company based in Russia that’s owned by a company based in India. All of these things are this way. There’s shell companies and hidden that you don’t know who owns vessels unless they’re even, even the specific ones. Like if you go to a Maersk vessel. And you’re like, oh, that’s Maersk, they’re Danish. Nope. That thing will be, that thing will be flagged somewhere else, hidden somewhere else. And it’s all about what port you go to and how much taxes you can hide from, and you’ll never be able to chase down the actual parties that own these vessels and that are responsible you, you, it, it’s so [00:25:00] difficult. You’re literally just going to have to deal with the people on board, and you can try to chase the channels to who owns that boat, but you’ll never find them. That’s the, that’s the trouble with it.  Allen Hall: It does seem like a Jean Claude Van Dam situation will need to happen pretty soon. Maybe as Steven Segal, something has to happen. It can’t continue to go on it over the next couple of months with as much attention as being paid to international waters and. Everything that’s happening around the world, you’d think that, uh, ships Defense Department ships from Denmark, Finland, Germany. We will all be watching this really closely UK be watching this and trying to stop these things before they really even happened. Interesting times. That wraps up another episode of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcasts. If today’s discussion sparked any questions or ideas. We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to us on LinkedIn and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. [00:26:00] And if you found value in today’s conversation, please leave us a review. It really helps other wind energy professionals discover the show for Rosie, Yolanda and Joel. I’m Alan Hall and we’ll catch you next week on the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast.

Dit is de laatste aflevering van 2025! En daarin komt onderzoeksjournalist Daan de Wit langs om te praten over de wereld en over gezondheid. In de Xtra bespreken we concrete toepassingen van suplementen, voeding en de bijbehorende mindset. We zijn in de eerste week van Januari weer terug met een nieuw seizoen van V for Valentine!Word bazige baas

Boem! Jonathan Krispijn is te gast bij V for Valentine om te praten over zijn journalistieke carrière, over de media en over de onzinnigheid van de links rechts discussie.Word bazige baas

Tijd voor een nieuwe V4V! Vandaag gaan we los op inflatie. Een Amerikaanse econoom is in de armoedegrens gedoken en heeft uitgerekend wat een realistische armoede grens is vandaag de dag. Het resultaat is schokkend! Je denkt dat je goed verdiend maar na het zien van deze aflevering zie je dat misschien anders.Word bazige baas

Zijn de problemen op de Nederlandse huizenmarkt daadwerkelijk het gevolg van falend beleid en klimaatdoelenn? Of hebben we hier te maken met een toneelstuk om de aandacht af te leiden van een veel groter probleem dat de potentie heeft om de financiële wereld aan het wankelen te brengen? De vraag stellen is hem beantwoorden en dat doen we dan ook in de aflevering van V for Valentine.Word bazige baas

De verkiezingen zijn geweest en dan blijkt dat grote beloftes gewoon " een metafoor" waren. Zo gaat dat in Nederland. En maakt het uit? Niet echt. Nederland heeft toch niet gestemd op de inhoud maar gewoon "tegen de tokkies". Gaaf land.Word bazige baas

Normaal gesproken staan onze afleveringen elke donderdag om 20.00 uur live maar vanwege de verkiezingen zijn we deze week een dag vroeger. Want wat gaat er gebeuren met deze verkiezingen? Robert en Boris duiken nog een keer de egregore in en bespreken het clownworld ritueel dat hoort bij deze terugkerende onzin die we verkiezingen noemen. Wat heb jij gestemd?Word bazige baas

De verkiezingen zijn volgende week en Boris en Robert zitten klaar om de clown show te ontleden. Gaat Robert deze keer stemmen? Is Boris onder de indruk van de Nederlandse Alice Weidel? Daarnaast gaan we dieper in op A.I. en de gigantische veranderingen die voor de deur staan.Word bazige baas

De verkiezingen komen eraan en Boris en Robert verbazen zich erover dat geen enkele politieke partij in hun verkiezingsprogramma melding maakt van de komst van 3i/Atlas. Dit ruimteschip zou maar liefst 5 miljoen Draco reptillian soldaten aan boord hebben en volgende week al bij de aarde zijn. Dit allemaal volgens helderziende Sebastien Martin, die met behulp van remote viewing alvast een bezoekje bracht aan het moederschip. Maar effe serieus...gewoon klikken en kijken...Word bazige baas

Boem! Het rode lijn protest was afgelopen week. Was dit een geproduceerde show of was dit een grassroots protest vanuit het hart van de bevolking? Verder bespreken we de Hannibal directive waarover de Israëlische krant Haraatz publiceerde deze week. Dat en nog veel meer in deze aflevering!Word bazige baas

De moord op Charlie Kirk blijft toch wel een onderwerp hier op de redactie. Was een eenzame sluipschutter op een dak? Was het een een geheime dienst? Was het een micro-bomaanslag in een device? Of was het iets anders? Wij bespreken het eigenaardige gevoel dat we steeds opnieuw ervaren...dat stemmetje dat tegen je zegt: HET KLOPT NIET!!!!!Word bazige baas

Haha Boem! Trump gaat even helemaal los bij de verenigde Naties en scheurt de aanwezige bureaucraten even een tweede kontgat. Immigratie, Klimaat, Free Speech...Alles komt voorbij en niemand wordt gespaard. Net zoals in de rest van deze V for Valentine aflevering!Word bazige baas

De haha boem! klinkt een beetje voorzichtig deze week want na de moord op Charlie Kirk, klinkt het uit de wok hoek nogmaals dat woorden geweld zijn. Na een grondige analyse van Boris en Robert vegen we dat argument van tafel. Woorden zijn woorden en geweld is geweld. Geen enkele reden om de twee door elkaar te halen. Daarmee trappen we af bij deze gelaagde aflevering van V for Valentine.Word bazige baas

haha Boem! We hebben deze aflevering opgenomen net voordat Charlie Kirk vermoord werd dus dat onderwerp behandelen we volgende week. We staan wel stil bij het 24 jarig jubileum van de aanslag op de democratie op 11 september 2001. Voor alle bazige bazen gaan we nog een hele aflevering door op https://www.vforvalentine.comWord bazige baas

De Franse minister van economische zaken trekt aan de bel en zegt dat Frankrijk misschien hulp moet vragen aan het IMF. In Groot-Brittannië steeg de rente op de 30 jaar lening naar ongekende hoogtes. Wat is er aan de hand? Boris en Robert doen een analyse en verklaren in het voorbijgaan ook gelijk even waarom nog maar 4% van de Nederlanders vertrouwen heeft in de politiek.Word bazige baas

De moord op de 17-jarige Lisa maakt veel emoties los. Maar het is ook een aanleiding voor de politieke wereld om er bovenop te duiken en het verhaal in eigen voordeel te spinnen. Wij bespreken de emoties die niet besproken worden. Hoe zit het met het recht op zelfverdediging? Hoe ziet echte gelijkheid eruit in een situatie waarin een 17 jarig meisje 's nachts tegenover een 22 jarige kerel vecht voor haar leven? Deze gaat terug tot de grond beginselen van vrijheid...Word bazige baas

Allen discusses the halting of Revolution Wind by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The order comes as part of a larger political motion to stop renewable energy in the US. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Welcome to Uptime News. Flash Industry News Lightning fast. Your host, Allen Hall, shares the renewable industry news you may have missed. Allen Hall 2025: There's a man from North Dakota who knows something about pipelines. His name is Doug Bergham, and last Friday, August 22nd, as Secretary of the Interior, he pulled the plug on another big energy project. Bergham ordered a halt to revolution wind. That's an offshore wind farm being built by Osted. 80% complete. 45 wind turbines already spinning in the ocean off the coast of Rhode Island Friday, they stop spinning. Revolution Wind was set to power 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. But Ham's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the project needed more Review. [00:01:00] Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee had called Revolution Wind Quote, essential to advancing the state's 100% renewable energy standard by 2033. Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said The project was quote, a key part of our clean energy strategy to provide families, quote, clean, reliable, and affordable power unquote. Both governors celebrated when revolution wind got federal approval. Now their project sits frozen in the water. Earlier this month, Bergham also canceled a massive wind project in Idaho. His interior department has vowed a comprehensive review of all wind projects. A review that could halt wind development on all federal land. Now here's what you need to know about Doug Bergham when President Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline back in 2021. Bergham. Was furious. [00:02:00] He said revoking the permit was wrong for the country. Said it would have chilling effect on private sector investment in much needed infrastructure projects, unquote. Bergen said, when the federal government stops projects under construction, it hurts working families and discourages future investments. Bergham has always been clear about protecting investors. At a political conference speech in 2023, he laid out his principle quote, if you put capital into a project that's related to fossil fuels, or a project related to critical minerals and mining, if somebody comes along in the future, administration with an executive order, if they want to wipe out what you've invested in. They've got to write you a check to pay for your lost capital. That was Bergen's rule. If government stops your fossil fuel project, well, government pays you back. That Keystone XL Pipeline would've carried [00:03:00] 830,000 barrels of oil daily through Bergen's home. And Bergham is not alone in his disdain for Wind Energy. Energy Secretary Chris Wright calls wind and solar, unreliable and worthless commerce. Secretary Howard Lunik launched a national security investigation into wind turbine imports Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy Once Wind turbines kept at least 1.2 miles from highways. EPA administrator Lee Den is weakening regulations that support renewables. It's a coordinated government assault on one of America's cheapest forms of electricity. Earlier this year, Bergham also stopped Empire Wind off New York's Coast, $5 billion worth of construction, 30% complete. At the time. He said the Biden administration rushed the approval. But here's the curious part. [00:04:00] Bergham let Empire Wind restart after New York. Governor Kath Hoel made a deal. She agreed to allow new natural gas pipelines ...

hah Boem! We zijn terug in de studio waar we de recente artikelen van libertariër Josh Stylman (https://brownstone.org/author/josh-stylman/) bespreken. Stylman schrijft een groot aantal maatschappelijke en economische problemen toe aan geldcreatie. Iets wat wij al jaren bespreken in deze podcast. Verder staan we natuurlijk ook even stil bij het politie pamflet dat gelekt is waarbij agenten wordt uitgelegd hoe ze moeten omgaan met "complotdenkers". Word bazige baas

haha Boem! Het is pleuris warm in de studio dus je krijgt een gesmolten Robert en Boris die je alles gaan vertellen over het begin van het einde voor de slavernij-pushers uit Brussel. Ze zijn zelfs zo stellig dat ze zeggen: Alleen een wonder kan de EU nog redden.Word bazige baas

De V for Valentine crew draait weer op volle sterkte! Boris is weer terug van vakantie en Robert is terug van............ VADER WORDEN! Boris en Robert bespreken het vaderschap in de huidige tijd en wereld en waar de menselijke evolutie ons naar toe gaat brengen. Hoe zorg je ervoor dat kinderen vrij zijn, of blijven? Alleen bij V for Valentine kan een gesprek over ouderschap uitmonden in een beschouwing van de drie wetten van Robotics van Asimov. Wil je begrijpen hoe dat kan? Kijken dan!Word bazige baas

Governor Tina Kotek has long expressed support for wind power. In 2024, the Biden administration approved 195,000acres off the southern Oregon coast for wind farm construction (Wind Energy Areas) as part of its push to grow offshore wind power capacity, which gave her the means to enact this vision. However, widespread opposition from residents, including fishermen, tribal nations, and local politicians, expressed concern over the harm it would bring to the ecosystem and local industry. When these wind farms started to look like a possibility, Kotek asked Biden to halt the project for further research into the potential effects of offshore wind farms on the localcommunity. By requesting the delay, she could torpedo the plan without appearing to backpedal on her previous platform.However, Kotek was recently tossed a lifeline from an unexpected source. The Trump administration's Bureau ofOcean Energy Management, or BOEM, has rescinded all wind power plans for the southern Oregon coast, to the relief of communities in those areas. This new Kotek and Trump alliance has handed the governor the pause on offshore wind she likely wanted. Don't hold your breath, however, waiting for the Governor to send Trump a thank-you note.

Wesley Feijth van Pro Privacy schuift aan bij Boris om te praten over het grote probleem rondom privacy: Hoe weeg je gemak af tegen vrijheid? We bespreken een aantal recente zaken waaronder het gelekte gebruik van Palantir in Nederland. Waarschijnlijk is dit de oorzaak van de toeslagen affaire. In de Xtra van deze week nog meer best practices en voorbeelden die je nodig hebt om jouw privacy te beschermen in deze gekke tijden.Word bazige baas

First principles thinking (denken vanuit eerste principes) is een methode om problemen op te lossen, waarbij complexe situaties worden teruggebracht tot hun meest fundamentele, onbetwistbare waarheden. Vanuit die basis worden vervolgens nieuwe oplossingen opgebouwd. In plaats van te vertrouwen op gangbare wijsheden of aannames, moedigt deze benadering aan om alles ter discussie te stellen en vanuit de kern te beginnen. Deze aanpak kan leiden tot innovatievere en effectievere oplossingen, vooral bij nieuwe of onbekende problemen en situaties.Word bazige baas

Deze aflevering had eigenlijk Verborgen Zaken moeten heten naar de gelijknamige film over de Franse filosoof Rene Girard. Maar Jasper, onze regisseur vond Ministerie van verborgen zaken leuk klinken en het bleef hangen. Dus vandaar. Hoe dan ook een vette aflevering over de filosofie achter de Trumpiaanse technocraten.Word bazige baas

In deze aflevering van V for Valentine duiken we diep in de sluier van chaos die zich rondom Iran aan het sluiten is. Terwijl het Westen zich opmaakt voor een mogelijke drie-frontenoorlog en Israël zijn opties afweegt, wordt de vraag steeds urgenter: staat Iran op het punt van imploderen? Word bazige baas

Even een week geen doemberichten uit de wereld. Eindelijk wat goed nieuws. De ECB is nog steeds met de uitrol van de digitale euro bezig. Maar wordt dit het volgende groots falende IT project van onze overheid? Boris is opperbest gestemd over de lage kans van slagen van de uitrol van de digitale euro. De concurrentie is te groot en de precedenten laten zien dat het volk het niet slikt. Dat zo mooi zijn want dat betekend dat iedereen in Europa gaat ontsnappen aan de financiële kooi waar ze ons in willen stoppen. Tijd voor wat optimisme dus. Praat mee over de uitzending via ons officiële Telegram kanaal

Dat was het dan. Het einde van het meest EXTREEM ULTRA RECHTSE KABINET DAT NEDERLAND OOIT GEHAD HEEFT. Wilders heeft er geen zin meer in. Hij krijg zijn halve A4'tje met punten niet getekend door zijn mede lapzwansen in het kabinet. Dus de stekker moest eruit. Wat maakt het ook uit. Er gebeurde toch vrij weinig, nu misschien een beetje minder.

Het einde van de weg. We zijn er! Allemaal uitstappen en je bezittingen inleveren bij de ECB! You'll own nothing and be happy! De douches zijn aan de linkerkant. Voor je kijken en doorlopen! SCHNELL!!!!!Word bazige baas

De uitdrukking “dat is een kanarie in de kolenmijn” staat symbool voor een vroege waarschuwing bij groot gevaar. Vroeger namen mijnwerkers daadwerkelijk een kanarie mee de mijn in. Niet voor gezelschap, maar als levensreddend alarmsysteem. De kleine vogeltjes zijn extreem gevoelig voor giftige gassen zoals koolmonoxide – een onzichtbare, reukloze sluipmoordenaar. Zodra de kanarie bezweek, wisten de mijnwerkers genoeg: tijd om weg te wezen. Dankzij dit waarschuwende offer konden zij op tijd vluchten en het lek opsporen.Nu is Japan die kanarie in de kolenmijn. Als praktisch de uitvinder van monetaire verruiming – het ongebreideld bijdrukken van geld en andere vormen van kunstmatige economische stimulering – laat het land zien waar dit beleid uiteindelijk toe leidt. De yen is sterk gedevalueerd, de schuldenberg is onhoudbaar geworden en alle conventionele oplossingen lijken uitgeput.De situatie is schrijnend: het geboortecijfer nadert het nulpunt en het land balanceert op de rand van de afgrond. Japan is de eerste die met deze realiteit wordt geconfronteerd, maar zeker niet de laatste. Ook China, de Verenigde Staten en Europa kampen met dezelfde structurele problemen.Misschien rest er nog één laatste Hail Mary: een ontsnapping uit deze existentiële crisis via kunstmatige intelligentie en robotisering.Word bazige baas

8 maart 2015. De Kuip gonst, maar met weinig hoop. PSV staat bovenaan, ongenaakbaar, met Depay, Wijnaldum, Luuk de Jong. Feyenoord? Kwakkelend. Geen grote verwachtingen. Maar wat niemand weet: dit wordt de wedstrijd van Anass Achahbar.De kleine spits, geboren in Den Haag, jarenlang gezien als groot talent, krijgt onverwacht het vertrouwen van Fred Rutten in de spits. Geen Kazim. Achahbar — 21 jaar, veelbelovend, maar nog altijd wachtend op zijn moment.En dan: minuut 59. Een lange bal, net in de zestien. In één vloeiende beweging neemt hij hem op de slof. BOEM. Dwars door alles heen. Zo zuiver. Zo onverwacht. 1-0. De Kuip ontploft.Nog geen vijf minuten later doet hij het wéér. Bal stuit op, hij neemt ‘m aan op de borst en haalt uit. Geen twijfel, geen aarzeling. Tweede goal. 2-0. Tegen de toekomstige kampioen. In een wedstrijd waar niemand op hem had gerekend, draagt Achahbar Feyenoord op zijn schouders.PSV komt terug tot 2-1, maar Feyenoord houdt stand. Een gigantische overwinning. Een breekijzer voor de eindspurt. En in het oog van de storm: een spits die jarenlang de belofte was, en hem op deze ene avond helemaal inloste.Voor Achahbar bleef het moment uniek. Geen vaste waarde, geen lange carrière in de top. Maar in De Kuip leeft die avond voort.Een jeugdige jongen. Tegen de koploper. In het hol van de leeuw.En op 8 maart 2015? Was het stadion van hem.Anass Achahbar. Een naam, een middag.In de podcast verwijzen Neal en Kenneth naar:De samenvatting van de wedstrijd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzDHmU5g3lQ&ab_channel=ESPNNLZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Er is een nieuwe brandhaard ontstaan in de wereld. Na de terroristische aanval van Pakistaanse moslim terroristen heeft India meerdere bombardementen uitgevoerd op Pakistaans grondgebied. Pakistan bezint zich nu op wraak. Staan deze twee kernmachten nu op het punt van oorlog? De spanningen zijn sinds 1999 niet zo hoog opgelopen. Minder spannend is dat we volgens sommigen al een tijd in de "age of average" leven. Een term die duid dat alles tegenwoordig weinig hoogstaand is en hetzelfde wordt. Hoe komen we aan deze middelmatigheid en belangrijker: hoe ontkomen we er weer aan?Thanks voor het kijken naar de podcast! We kunnen content maken dankzij jullie steun.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found Click On Picture To See Larger PictureBecause of Germany's policies the economy is now struggling and the people can see it very clearly. Inflation remains high and the Fed is in a holding pattern. Right on schedule. The fake news along with the Fed are building the market crash narrative. Trump is ready to place 100% tariffs on countries [CB] that move from the US currency. The [DS] is losing more and more power each day. The swamp is learning that resisting this time around will not work. Trump has studied the enemy and he is attacking it at it's core. The purge is happening. Trump is continually blocking the [DS] to weaken them, his latest move they cannot enter buildings.   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Economy https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1885261695024603156 Revolving Door': Biden's Ocean Energy Chief Went To Work For Major Offshore Wind Company After Admin Boosted Industry Amanda Lefton, the former director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), went to work for a major offshore wind company after the agency boosted the industry and worked to limit offshore fossil fuel development on her watch. Lefton spearheaded the Biden administration's effort to build out 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity along America's coasts by 2030 in her capacity as the leader of BOEM, playing a key role in the administration's all-of-government offshore wind push from February 2021 to February 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile. She then went to work on green energy-related issues for Foley Hoag LLC — a major D.C. law firm — for approximately six months and then joined RWE, a major player in the offshore wind space, as the head of development for the east coast in July 2023. Source: dailycaller.com https://twitter.com/KobeissiLetter/status/1885319814262018079 Trump is getting the lower interest rates he demanded from everyone but the Fed   U.S. President Donald Trump is getting his wish that interest rates drop across the world, just not at home where a strong economy and uncertainty over his own policies have set the stage for the Federal Reserve to diverge from its central bank peers. Source: reuters.com Trump may be his own worst enemy in his fight against the Fed Trump has said he wants lower interest rates, but he may be standing in his own way. His policies, though, are an obstacle the Fed could have to navigate as it adjusts monetary policy. Fed Chair Jerome Powell sent a clear message this week that central bankers were in no rush to lower rates, with Fed officials opting to pause rate cuts in the first policy meeting of the year. That seemed to defy pressure from Trump, who said in his address to the World Economic Forum last week that he would demand interest rates be lowered "immediately." He added that his policies — including plans to levy steep tariffs on imports from China, Canada, and Mexico — could help renew the US economy. But those plans could end up being the very obstacle the Fed has to navigate this year as it decides what to do with interest rates, and they're likely the reason the Fed will hit pause until the picture becomes clearer, Wall Street forecasters say. Economists have warned that Trump's plan to levy steep tariffs on US imports could stoke inflation, a notion that Trump has pushed back on. The president has said he would lower prices, and he implemented tariffs in his first term without a significant inflation increase. His tariff plan this time around, though, is far more wide-reaching,

Connecticut and Massachusetts have backed out of their portions of the Vineyard Wind 2 offshore project, Avaada Group is investing $12B in renewables for Rajasthan by 2030, and Enersense is selling its onshore wind and solar project development business to Fortum. Fill out our Uptime listener survey and enter to win an Uptime mug! Register for Wind Energy O&M Australia! https://www.windaustralia.com Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Welcome to Uptime News Flash. Industry news, lightning fast. Your hosts, Allen Hall, Joel Saxum, and Phil Totaro discuss the latest deals, mergers, and alliances that will shape the future of wind power. News Flash is brought to you by IntelStor. For market intelligence that generates revenue, visit www.intelstor.com. Allen Hall: There's been a significant setback for offshore wind development from Vineyard Offshore as they announced the withdrawal of its 800 megawatt portion of the Vineyard Wind 2 project from Massachusetts contract negotiations and that decision came after Connecticut opted not to purchase its planned 400 megawatt share of the project. This development impacts Massachusetts ambitious offshore wind goals, where despite earlier procurement of 3200 megawatts of capacity, only Vineyard Wind 1 remains active in the state's pipeline. And Phil, this is due to the combination of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island working together to draw from some of these offshore projects. But now, Connecticut is full stop, not going to be involved in offshore wind, they said, for at least a couple of years. Phil Totaro: Yeah, not that Connecticut has always been Wind Energy's biggest well, biggest fan, pardon the pun. Connecticut has, is basically saying that they're pulling out of this procurement because offshore wind is just too expensive, and that's entirely true. . Given what the industry has to price the PPA at to be able to pay for the project, given the the cost of money and the cost of equipment these days. So I can see why they did it, but it does kind of screw Rhode Island and Massachusetts a little bit because, they were counting on that offtake. So the question then becomes, does Massachusetts unilaterally go and sign an agreement 2 at some point? Is that even something that's going to be able to move forward, before January 20th, where presumably we're not going to get, four years worth of BOEM approvals on offshore wind farms? So there's a lot of uncertainty and unfortunately chaos caused by, Connecticut's decision here and, and certainly unfortunate for, for vineyard offshore wind. Joel Saxum: I think one thing to think about here is that like you said, Phil, that there's a looming deadline that might close the door on some of these wind things or not, not slam the door, but close it a little bit more this offshore wind program that we have going on the East Coast for no matter what state you're in. And, and the way I'm looking at some of this is, yes, the PPAs are expensive. I see that. Tech, the technology is expensive. I see that the financing is, has been a bit difficult. It should be hopefully getting easier to see that. However, If your goal is to have renewable energies and you're in the northeast part of the United States, you don't have a whole lot of options. Your options basically are offshore wind and something else that someone dreams up for something because that's it.

Join us on the Tap Tap Cast, where apparently a new season means a variety of NEW face and winners! This week we chat with Boem20, who won the Lille regional, the very first official tournament he's every played in! The crew talk about Boem's notoriety in the grassroots scene, his thoughts on how the meta is evolving and the differences between the Dutch and Flemish language. Follow the crew! Amanda // www.twitter.com/Lundberger Martijn // www.twitter.com/InadequancePOGO Boem20 // www.twitter.com/boem20

The new lease site could yield enough electricity to power up to 1.4 million homes, according to BOEM.

BOEM has cancelled its Gulf of Mexico offshore wind lease auction due to lack of interest. We explore why companies are hesitant to put turbines in the gulf, examining challenges and opportunities for wind projects in Texas and Louisiana from both financial and technical perspectives. Phil and Rosemary discuss downwind turbine designs for hurricane-prone areas and the complex economics of wind energy projects in the region. Our Wind Farm of the Week is the farm built for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, showcasing the potential of wind energy on a global stage. Register for the AMI Wind Turbine Blades Event! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Have you seen the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile up close, Joel? Have you been around that thing? Joel Saxum: I have, I've actually sat in it and I think I know where this story is going. Allen Hall: I been up close to it and I don't remember where it must have been an automobile museum and to the peanut mobile Which is another engineering marvel not seen that I saw them both driving down a highway one day I thought man either I'm really tired Strange vehicles on the road today But the wiener mobile flipped over outside of Chicago, did you see that It looked like a, did it look like somebody fell asleep and hit one of those concrete barriers that you can always find in Chicago? Joel Saxum: My thought was, I was actually joking with a friend about it, is cause I'm from Wisconsin, so there's this rivalry between Chicago and the people in Wisconsin. And it was brats versus the all, the all beef hot dogs in Chicago that they make the Chicago dogs. And they're saying that they wanted to keep the Wienermobile in Chicago so much that they, someone actually sabotaged it. I don't know, that's probably not what happened, of course, but that was the joke. Allen Hall: Is there a Bratmobile? Joel Saxum: There's not. I will tell you this, if you'd like to see some great American entertainment, tune into a Milwaukee Brewers game and watch the Sausage Race. And you will see hot dogs and brats, polishes. Italian sausage. That's the fourth one. Are these the four food groups up in Wisconsin? Yes, yes. Yes they are. Number five is cheese curds and number six is beer. That rounds it out nicely. So the Wienermobile needs a little TLC based on the photos I've seen and they're gonna have to put that thing back together. That's a hallmark of America, right? There's things to be proud of. That's one of them, man on the moon, Wienermobile. I'm Allen Hall, and I'll be joined by the rest of the Uptime host after these news headlines. In our first story, German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex is reporting a significant turnaround in its financial performance. For the first half of 2024, the company saw a dramatically reduced net loss of 12.6 million euros, a substantial improvement from the 298 million Euro loss reported in the same period last year. This positive trend is further underscored by a 24.7% increase in sales reaching 3.43 billion euros. In light of these encouraging results, Nordics has revived its 2024 guidance upward now projecting an EBITDA margin between three and 4%. Amid these industry dynamics, the United Kingdom is making bold moves to accelerate its wind energy sector.  The British government has unveiled ambitious plans to support an additional 20 to 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030...

26 July, 2024 – EASTHAM, MA – Over 200 Cape Codders attended the public information session at the Sheraton in Eastham, July 17, called by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The presentation about the leasing process and the environmental assessment was cut short to give more time to the public's comments and questions. BOEM is proposing lease sales of 1 million acres, some of it 20 miles outside lower and outer Cape Cod, for construction and operation of a wind power station with the capacity of supplying energy to 5 million homes.

Top stories across project and infrastructure finance last week:    - Aethon to buy Tellurian's upstream assets in $260m deal - Azerbaijan plans to borrow $5bn for infrastructure projects - Bidders seek bank commitments for South African border post projects - BOEM offers Maine floating wind research lease - Brookfield in talks to acquire Neoen - Cebu handed control of $1.6bn expressway project - Energy Capital Partners to buy Atlantica in $2.5bn deal - FID taken for Atapu-2 and Sepia-2 oil developments - FirstLight Fiber secures financing package - Glenfarne seeks more time to build Texas LNG terminal    

S4E15 - Monica neemt het niet zo nauw met een paaltje hier of muurtje daar, en ook zíj́ heeft ooit haar rijbewijs gehaald. Reden genoeg voor onze luisteraar om de moed erin te houden. Maar eerst tijd voor een Bachelor-review van Kaj én juicy aftertalk van Mo's birthday dinner.

An environmental group sues BOEM over the location of two offshore wind projects. Lawyers for the alleged Long Island serial killer want files related to the ex-cop involved in the original investigation. Two Bridgeport ballot tampering complaints are now under state investigation. And Connecticut's first female supreme court justice has died at the age of 94.

Latest on Oregon Offshore Wind Projects The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, BOEM, released the latest info this week on the proposed floating offshore wind energy projects slated for southern Oregon coastal waters. Even after a lengthy public comment period last fall, stakeholders like tribes and commercial fishermen still say they aren't being heard. A 30-day public comment period opens this week. Info online: Google "BOEM Oregon Activities."

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, January 26th, 2024. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? Then Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. The Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4428905-gop-governors-abbott-border-security-immigration/ GOP governors back Abbott in border standoff Republican governors are backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in his standoff against the federal government over border authority. On Tuesday, the Texas National Guard appeared to ignore a Supreme Court decision and continued building razor wire barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, preventing the federal Border Patrol from doing their jobs. In a statement Wednesday, Abbott justified the actions by claiming his authority to combat an “invasion” of the state “supersedes” federal law. GOP Govs. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Brian Kemp of Georgia have all said they support Abbott’s actions. “If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did,” DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter. “TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.” Youngkin added that the Biden administration “has turned every state into a border state,” and that Abbott is doing what the border officials “refuse to do to secure our border.” Stitt, Noem and Kemp also said their states “stand with” Texas. The federal government has claimed in court filings that the Texas National Guard has physically prevented the Border Patrol from doing its job on certain parts of the Rio Grande, as well as blocked off portions of the border previously used to process migrants. The claim that Texas officials can supersede federal authority has sparked calls from Democrats for President Biden to nationalize the Texas National Guard and force them to follow the court’s decision and federal law. Democratic Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar have advocated for nationalizing the state guard. Abbott’s statement Wednesday specifically claims the federal government has “broken the compact” with the states, justifying ignoring federal law and the Supreme Court. The so-called “compact theory” is a rejected idea of state supremacy used to justify the secession of Confederate states during the Civil War. The Supreme Court repeatedly shot down the legal theory in the early years of the U.S., when it was first proposed to nullify federal legislation during former President John Adams’s time in office. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-ags-battle-blue-state-push-to-shutter-largest-ammo-manufacturer-to-punish-second-amendment-rights GOP AGs take aim at Dem plea for Biden to shut down critical ammo manufacturer Every republican attorney general in the country blasted their Democrat counterparts for attempting to shutter an ammunition factory in Missouri, a letter sent to the White House Wednesday revealed. In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, all 28 GOP attorneys general asked President Biden and White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention director Stefanie Feldman to disregard their Democrat colleagues' request to end commercial sales from Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, one of the country’s largest ammo manufacturers. Democrats had previously asked the administration to investigate the contracting and manufacturing practices of the plant after a New York Times report alleged that "military-grade rounds" were sold commercially and were connected to mass shootings. But the Republicans say the Democrats’ letter contained a "litany of errors." "Perhaps those States should focus more on prosecuting crime to stop mass shootings—rather than trying to stop lawful Americans’ use of guns and ammunition. Their tactic is an overt attempt to punish Americans’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights, Among the list of "errors" the GOP AGs point out that their Democrat colleages allege that ammunition manufactured for "military use" does not belong in communities. "First, the ammunition manufactured at Lake City and sold into the commercial market is not the primary rifle cartridge used by the United States military. The primary cartridge is proprietary to the Army and may not be sold commercially," the AGs note. "Second, while the United States military purchases and uses a particular type of ammunition, that is not determinative as to whether it is "military ammunition" that should be banned for public use," they write. "If the United States military using ammunition precluded that ammunition’s use by civilians, then other widely and commonly available ammunition, including 9mm and 12-gauge shotshells, would also be prohibited for public use," they argued, adding that Supreme Court precedent "does not support such an openly artificial distinction." According to the state’s top prosecutors, Lake City only sells ammunition to commercial customers that is legal to manufacture, and it complies with all the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) requirements. The AGs argued that the Democrats’ efforts would undermine national security. "Gun control advocates are firing blanks when they contend that taxpayers are subsidizing mass shooters. They get causality backward. The law-abiding target shooters and gun owners who buy Lake City ammunition are subsidizing national defense and military readiness," they argue. They note that the Defense Department "sought to avoid a situation when the military needs surge due to a real-world conflict, ammunition is not readily available," adding that ammunition availability requires facilities, production equipment, a skilled workforce, and supply chains to remain in constant operation. "Machines and production cannot be turned on like the flip of a switch. It takes time to hire and train the highly skilled workers needed to operate production lines to manufacture the highest quality ammunition for U.S. warfighters. Commercial production has allowed Lake City, and its suppliers, to maintain steady labor, maximize equipment run time, ensure a stable supply base, and provide a level of readiness to the U.S. military that would not otherwise be available," they added. The attorneys general also said that Lake City cannot halt commercial use without a "detrimental loss" to their communities and economy. If it stopped, the AGs allege it would result in an estimated loss of 500–700 jobs or 30%–45% of the skilled workforce now employed at Lake City and "countless more" throughout the supply chain. Montana Attorney General Austen Knudsen in a statement to Fox News Digital called the investigation by the New York Times "highly questionable" and, their latest effort to shut down the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is based on a highly questionable ‘investigation' by the New York Times." Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird charged that "if the Biden Administration and anti-gun activists were serious about saving lives, they would start by enforcing the laws on the books to combat violent criminals." Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey echoed those sentiments, adding that "Lake City Ammunition did nothing wrong." "We should be focused on the free flow of illegal weapons coming across our border – not taking aim at law-abiding patriots," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said, adding that the border crisis "is exactly why law-abiding citizens need the liberty to defend themselves." https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/24/canadian-court-rules-trudeaus-unreasonable-crackdown-on-trucker-convoy-violated-federal-law/ Canadian Court Rules Trudeau’s ‘Unreasonable’ Crackdown On Trucker Convoy Violated Federal Law A Canadian court ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of a controversial federal law in early 2022 to target truckers protesting their industry’s Covid vaccine mandate was “unreasonable” and illegal. The use of the Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility,” Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote. “I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.” As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) explained, “ultra vires” is a term courts use “to refer to actions beyond the scope of the law.” In early 2022, Trudeau’s government implemented a series of Covid shot mandates for various sectors of Canadian society, including a requirement for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border. The tyrannical mandate ultimately prompted Canadian truckers to launch the “Freedom Convoy,” a massive protest comprised of vehicles that ended outside Parliament Hill in the nation’s capital. While peaceful, the protests evoked the ire of Trudeau, who used the Emergencies Act to mobilize the Canadian military and state intel agencies to forcibly remove the demonstrators gridlocking Ottawa. In addition to backing GoFundMe’s attempts to deplatform fundraising efforts for the convoy, Trudeau’s administration also expanded “its terrorist financing rules to target crowdfunding sites like the convoy’s new platform GiveSendGo,” The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote, with Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland baselessly claiming the platforms were “being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity which is damaging the Canadian economy.” As if his abuse of the Emergencies Act weren’t despicable enough, Trudeau — who went into hiding upon the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa — also grossly smeared the protesters with the typical diatribe of leftist slanders, including accusations of “antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia.” Despite his best attempt to play the role of a dictator, Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act went beyond the scope of what is permitted by Canadian law. While the Emergencies Act can be employed to manage a national emergency that “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,” Mosley determined that Trudeau’s actions far exceeded that threshold. “The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern,” Mosley wrote. “But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act, particularly as there was no evidence of a similar ‘hardened cell’ elsewhere in the country, only speculation, and the situation at Cou[r]ts had been resolved without violence.” Mosley further ruled that the government’s financial crackdown violated demonstrators’ Charter rights “by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts.” Unsurprisingly, the Canadian government plans to appeal the ruling, with Freeland laughably claiming on Tuesday that the administration’s unlawful actions were “necessary” and “legal” because Canadian “national security was under real threat.” https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/taxpayers-could-get-stuck-cost-removing-offshore-wind-farm-after-biden-admin Taxpayers may get stuck with cost of removing an offshore wind farm after Biden admin waives fees The Biden administration reportedly waived fees for an offshore wind project that are in place to ensure that the infrastructure is removed and the site reclaimed at the end of the project’s life. President Joe Biden, as part of his climate agenda, is pushing an aggressive buildout of offshore wind projects along the East Coast. With the offshore wind industry struggling financially, the waiving of these fees raises concerns about what would happen if these companies go bankrupt and leave behind wind farms they can’t afford to remove. Protect The Public Trust (PPT), a government watchdog group, obtained documents showing that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind had approved the company’s request to waive fees for financial assurances that goes toward decommissioning costs. The bureau’s reasoning for granting the deferral, according to PPT, was that the financial assurance was “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” Since the project is using “proven wind turbine technology” and its contracts guaranteed electricity sale prices, BOEM reasoned, the project had a predictable income over the life of the project. The Department of Interior requires these bonds from oil and gas producers, as taxpayers have been stuck decommissioning the projects of companies that go bankrupt or were operating prior to bonding requirements. California, for example, is trying to decommission 23 federal offshore platforms at a cost of $1.7 billion, and the liability for those costs remain unresolved. There are also thousands of onshore orphaned wells across the country that the federal government is trying to plug. In some cases, these wells were drilled a century or more ago before bonding requirements, and there’s no solvent owner of record to hold accountable for the costs. In Wyoming, an industry sprang up a decade ago hoping to tap coal beds for natural gas, but after natural gas prices collapsed, the entire industry collapsed with it. The state was left with a lot of wells to plug and no companies to hold accountable. While the Biden administration is granting waivers for these protections to offshore wind projects, it’s proposing steep increases in bonding requirements for oil and gas operations. While that proposal is met with support from environmentalists, industry groups have criticized the measure. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Reuters in July that rather than trying to ensure funding for reclamation efforts, the administration was raising the costs so high as a means to reduce the number of operations. Elmer Peter Danenberger III, a petroleum engineer with decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, explained on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” blog that BOEM’s decision to waive Vineyard Wind’s obligations significantly increases the public’s risk exposure. Danenberger wrote that BOEM, in granting the waiver, cited a general departure authority, which was intended for special situations and not for waivers that could be applied broadly.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, January 26th, 2024. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? Then Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. The Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4428905-gop-governors-abbott-border-security-immigration/ GOP governors back Abbott in border standoff Republican governors are backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in his standoff against the federal government over border authority. On Tuesday, the Texas National Guard appeared to ignore a Supreme Court decision and continued building razor wire barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, preventing the federal Border Patrol from doing their jobs. In a statement Wednesday, Abbott justified the actions by claiming his authority to combat an “invasion” of the state “supersedes” federal law. GOP Govs. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Brian Kemp of Georgia have all said they support Abbott’s actions. “If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did,” DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter. “TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.” Youngkin added that the Biden administration “has turned every state into a border state,” and that Abbott is doing what the border officials “refuse to do to secure our border.” Stitt, Noem and Kemp also said their states “stand with” Texas. The federal government has claimed in court filings that the Texas National Guard has physically prevented the Border Patrol from doing its job on certain parts of the Rio Grande, as well as blocked off portions of the border previously used to process migrants. The claim that Texas officials can supersede federal authority has sparked calls from Democrats for President Biden to nationalize the Texas National Guard and force them to follow the court’s decision and federal law. Democratic Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar have advocated for nationalizing the state guard. Abbott’s statement Wednesday specifically claims the federal government has “broken the compact” with the states, justifying ignoring federal law and the Supreme Court. The so-called “compact theory” is a rejected idea of state supremacy used to justify the secession of Confederate states during the Civil War. The Supreme Court repeatedly shot down the legal theory in the early years of the U.S., when it was first proposed to nullify federal legislation during former President John Adams’s time in office. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-ags-battle-blue-state-push-to-shutter-largest-ammo-manufacturer-to-punish-second-amendment-rights GOP AGs take aim at Dem plea for Biden to shut down critical ammo manufacturer Every republican attorney general in the country blasted their Democrat counterparts for attempting to shutter an ammunition factory in Missouri, a letter sent to the White House Wednesday revealed. In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, all 28 GOP attorneys general asked President Biden and White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention director Stefanie Feldman to disregard their Democrat colleagues' request to end commercial sales from Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, one of the country’s largest ammo manufacturers. Democrats had previously asked the administration to investigate the contracting and manufacturing practices of the plant after a New York Times report alleged that "military-grade rounds" were sold commercially and were connected to mass shootings. But the Republicans say the Democrats’ letter contained a "litany of errors." "Perhaps those States should focus more on prosecuting crime to stop mass shootings—rather than trying to stop lawful Americans’ use of guns and ammunition. Their tactic is an overt attempt to punish Americans’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights, Among the list of "errors" the GOP AGs point out that their Democrat colleages allege that ammunition manufactured for "military use" does not belong in communities. "First, the ammunition manufactured at Lake City and sold into the commercial market is not the primary rifle cartridge used by the United States military. The primary cartridge is proprietary to the Army and may not be sold commercially," the AGs note. "Second, while the United States military purchases and uses a particular type of ammunition, that is not determinative as to whether it is "military ammunition" that should be banned for public use," they write. "If the United States military using ammunition precluded that ammunition’s use by civilians, then other widely and commonly available ammunition, including 9mm and 12-gauge shotshells, would also be prohibited for public use," they argued, adding that Supreme Court precedent "does not support such an openly artificial distinction." According to the state’s top prosecutors, Lake City only sells ammunition to commercial customers that is legal to manufacture, and it complies with all the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) requirements. The AGs argued that the Democrats’ efforts would undermine national security. "Gun control advocates are firing blanks when they contend that taxpayers are subsidizing mass shooters. They get causality backward. The law-abiding target shooters and gun owners who buy Lake City ammunition are subsidizing national defense and military readiness," they argue. They note that the Defense Department "sought to avoid a situation when the military needs surge due to a real-world conflict, ammunition is not readily available," adding that ammunition availability requires facilities, production equipment, a skilled workforce, and supply chains to remain in constant operation. "Machines and production cannot be turned on like the flip of a switch. It takes time to hire and train the highly skilled workers needed to operate production lines to manufacture the highest quality ammunition for U.S. warfighters. Commercial production has allowed Lake City, and its suppliers, to maintain steady labor, maximize equipment run time, ensure a stable supply base, and provide a level of readiness to the U.S. military that would not otherwise be available," they added. The attorneys general also said that Lake City cannot halt commercial use without a "detrimental loss" to their communities and economy. If it stopped, the AGs allege it would result in an estimated loss of 500–700 jobs or 30%–45% of the skilled workforce now employed at Lake City and "countless more" throughout the supply chain. Montana Attorney General Austen Knudsen in a statement to Fox News Digital called the investigation by the New York Times "highly questionable" and, their latest effort to shut down the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is based on a highly questionable ‘investigation' by the New York Times." Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird charged that "if the Biden Administration and anti-gun activists were serious about saving lives, they would start by enforcing the laws on the books to combat violent criminals." Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey echoed those sentiments, adding that "Lake City Ammunition did nothing wrong." "We should be focused on the free flow of illegal weapons coming across our border – not taking aim at law-abiding patriots," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said, adding that the border crisis "is exactly why law-abiding citizens need the liberty to defend themselves." https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/24/canadian-court-rules-trudeaus-unreasonable-crackdown-on-trucker-convoy-violated-federal-law/ Canadian Court Rules Trudeau’s ‘Unreasonable’ Crackdown On Trucker Convoy Violated Federal Law A Canadian court ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of a controversial federal law in early 2022 to target truckers protesting their industry’s Covid vaccine mandate was “unreasonable” and illegal. The use of the Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility,” Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote. “I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.” As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) explained, “ultra vires” is a term courts use “to refer to actions beyond the scope of the law.” In early 2022, Trudeau’s government implemented a series of Covid shot mandates for various sectors of Canadian society, including a requirement for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border. The tyrannical mandate ultimately prompted Canadian truckers to launch the “Freedom Convoy,” a massive protest comprised of vehicles that ended outside Parliament Hill in the nation’s capital. While peaceful, the protests evoked the ire of Trudeau, who used the Emergencies Act to mobilize the Canadian military and state intel agencies to forcibly remove the demonstrators gridlocking Ottawa. In addition to backing GoFundMe’s attempts to deplatform fundraising efforts for the convoy, Trudeau’s administration also expanded “its terrorist financing rules to target crowdfunding sites like the convoy’s new platform GiveSendGo,” The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote, with Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland baselessly claiming the platforms were “being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity which is damaging the Canadian economy.” As if his abuse of the Emergencies Act weren’t despicable enough, Trudeau — who went into hiding upon the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa — also grossly smeared the protesters with the typical diatribe of leftist slanders, including accusations of “antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia.” Despite his best attempt to play the role of a dictator, Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act went beyond the scope of what is permitted by Canadian law. While the Emergencies Act can be employed to manage a national emergency that “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,” Mosley determined that Trudeau’s actions far exceeded that threshold. “The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern,” Mosley wrote. “But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act, particularly as there was no evidence of a similar ‘hardened cell’ elsewhere in the country, only speculation, and the situation at Cou[r]ts had been resolved without violence.” Mosley further ruled that the government’s financial crackdown violated demonstrators’ Charter rights “by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts.” Unsurprisingly, the Canadian government plans to appeal the ruling, with Freeland laughably claiming on Tuesday that the administration’s unlawful actions were “necessary” and “legal” because Canadian “national security was under real threat.” https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/taxpayers-could-get-stuck-cost-removing-offshore-wind-farm-after-biden-admin Taxpayers may get stuck with cost of removing an offshore wind farm after Biden admin waives fees The Biden administration reportedly waived fees for an offshore wind project that are in place to ensure that the infrastructure is removed and the site reclaimed at the end of the project’s life. President Joe Biden, as part of his climate agenda, is pushing an aggressive buildout of offshore wind projects along the East Coast. With the offshore wind industry struggling financially, the waiving of these fees raises concerns about what would happen if these companies go bankrupt and leave behind wind farms they can’t afford to remove. Protect The Public Trust (PPT), a government watchdog group, obtained documents showing that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind had approved the company’s request to waive fees for financial assurances that goes toward decommissioning costs. The bureau’s reasoning for granting the deferral, according to PPT, was that the financial assurance was “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” Since the project is using “proven wind turbine technology” and its contracts guaranteed electricity sale prices, BOEM reasoned, the project had a predictable income over the life of the project. The Department of Interior requires these bonds from oil and gas producers, as taxpayers have been stuck decommissioning the projects of companies that go bankrupt or were operating prior to bonding requirements. California, for example, is trying to decommission 23 federal offshore platforms at a cost of $1.7 billion, and the liability for those costs remain unresolved. There are also thousands of onshore orphaned wells across the country that the federal government is trying to plug. In some cases, these wells were drilled a century or more ago before bonding requirements, and there’s no solvent owner of record to hold accountable for the costs. In Wyoming, an industry sprang up a decade ago hoping to tap coal beds for natural gas, but after natural gas prices collapsed, the entire industry collapsed with it. The state was left with a lot of wells to plug and no companies to hold accountable. While the Biden administration is granting waivers for these protections to offshore wind projects, it’s proposing steep increases in bonding requirements for oil and gas operations. While that proposal is met with support from environmentalists, industry groups have criticized the measure. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Reuters in July that rather than trying to ensure funding for reclamation efforts, the administration was raising the costs so high as a means to reduce the number of operations. Elmer Peter Danenberger III, a petroleum engineer with decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, explained on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” blog that BOEM’s decision to waive Vineyard Wind’s obligations significantly increases the public’s risk exposure. Danenberger wrote that BOEM, in granting the waiver, cited a general departure authority, which was intended for special situations and not for waivers that could be applied broadly.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, January 26th, 2024. Dropwave Do you have a podcast, or thinking about starting one? Does your church have a podcast feed for sermons? Then Dropwave.io is for you. Cancel culture is like walking on a thin glass bridge over the Grand Canyon. Every step you take could get you killed, I mean canceled. Since the beginning CrossPolitic has been working on being antifragile, so no matter what happens, our content can still be delivered to your tv and to your podcast. The Waterboy and his friend Jeremi, have been working on building a podcast hosting solution for rowdy platforms like CrossPolitic, so that you can be confident your podcast will never fall through that glass bridge. Dropwave offers seamless onboarding for shows that have been around for years to easy to use solutions for starting your own podcast. Dropwave will track all your show’s downloads by city, state, and country, and it offers network and enterprise packages for solutions like the Fight Laugh Feast Network. Free to speak, Free to podcast, free to start your journey now at www.Dropwave.io. https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4428905-gop-governors-abbott-border-security-immigration/ GOP governors back Abbott in border standoff Republican governors are backing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in his standoff against the federal government over border authority. On Tuesday, the Texas National Guard appeared to ignore a Supreme Court decision and continued building razor wire barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, preventing the federal Border Patrol from doing their jobs. In a statement Wednesday, Abbott justified the actions by claiming his authority to combat an “invasion” of the state “supersedes” federal law. GOP Govs. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Brian Kemp of Georgia have all said they support Abbott’s actions. “If the Constitution really made states powerless to defend themselves against an invasion, it wouldn’t have been ratified in the first place and Texas would have never joined the union when it did,” DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter. “TX is upholding the law while Biden is flouting it.” Youngkin added that the Biden administration “has turned every state into a border state,” and that Abbott is doing what the border officials “refuse to do to secure our border.” Stitt, Noem and Kemp also said their states “stand with” Texas. The federal government has claimed in court filings that the Texas National Guard has physically prevented the Border Patrol from doing its job on certain parts of the Rio Grande, as well as blocked off portions of the border previously used to process migrants. The claim that Texas officials can supersede federal authority has sparked calls from Democrats for President Biden to nationalize the Texas National Guard and force them to follow the court’s decision and federal law. Democratic Texas Reps. Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar have advocated for nationalizing the state guard. Abbott’s statement Wednesday specifically claims the federal government has “broken the compact” with the states, justifying ignoring federal law and the Supreme Court. The so-called “compact theory” is a rejected idea of state supremacy used to justify the secession of Confederate states during the Civil War. The Supreme Court repeatedly shot down the legal theory in the early years of the U.S., when it was first proposed to nullify federal legislation during former President John Adams’s time in office. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-ags-battle-blue-state-push-to-shutter-largest-ammo-manufacturer-to-punish-second-amendment-rights GOP AGs take aim at Dem plea for Biden to shut down critical ammo manufacturer Every republican attorney general in the country blasted their Democrat counterparts for attempting to shutter an ammunition factory in Missouri, a letter sent to the White House Wednesday revealed. In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, all 28 GOP attorneys general asked President Biden and White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention director Stefanie Feldman to disregard their Democrat colleagues' request to end commercial sales from Lake City Army Ammunition Plant, one of the country’s largest ammo manufacturers. Democrats had previously asked the administration to investigate the contracting and manufacturing practices of the plant after a New York Times report alleged that "military-grade rounds" were sold commercially and were connected to mass shootings. But the Republicans say the Democrats’ letter contained a "litany of errors." "Perhaps those States should focus more on prosecuting crime to stop mass shootings—rather than trying to stop lawful Americans’ use of guns and ammunition. Their tactic is an overt attempt to punish Americans’ exercise of their Second Amendment rights, Among the list of "errors" the GOP AGs point out that their Democrat colleages allege that ammunition manufactured for "military use" does not belong in communities. "First, the ammunition manufactured at Lake City and sold into the commercial market is not the primary rifle cartridge used by the United States military. The primary cartridge is proprietary to the Army and may not be sold commercially," the AGs note. "Second, while the United States military purchases and uses a particular type of ammunition, that is not determinative as to whether it is "military ammunition" that should be banned for public use," they write. "If the United States military using ammunition precluded that ammunition’s use by civilians, then other widely and commonly available ammunition, including 9mm and 12-gauge shotshells, would also be prohibited for public use," they argued, adding that Supreme Court precedent "does not support such an openly artificial distinction." According to the state’s top prosecutors, Lake City only sells ammunition to commercial customers that is legal to manufacture, and it complies with all the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) requirements. The AGs argued that the Democrats’ efforts would undermine national security. "Gun control advocates are firing blanks when they contend that taxpayers are subsidizing mass shooters. They get causality backward. The law-abiding target shooters and gun owners who buy Lake City ammunition are subsidizing national defense and military readiness," they argue. They note that the Defense Department "sought to avoid a situation when the military needs surge due to a real-world conflict, ammunition is not readily available," adding that ammunition availability requires facilities, production equipment, a skilled workforce, and supply chains to remain in constant operation. "Machines and production cannot be turned on like the flip of a switch. It takes time to hire and train the highly skilled workers needed to operate production lines to manufacture the highest quality ammunition for U.S. warfighters. Commercial production has allowed Lake City, and its suppliers, to maintain steady labor, maximize equipment run time, ensure a stable supply base, and provide a level of readiness to the U.S. military that would not otherwise be available," they added. The attorneys general also said that Lake City cannot halt commercial use without a "detrimental loss" to their communities and economy. If it stopped, the AGs allege it would result in an estimated loss of 500–700 jobs or 30%–45% of the skilled workforce now employed at Lake City and "countless more" throughout the supply chain. Montana Attorney General Austen Knudsen in a statement to Fox News Digital called the investigation by the New York Times "highly questionable" and, their latest effort to shut down the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is based on a highly questionable ‘investigation' by the New York Times." Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird charged that "if the Biden Administration and anti-gun activists were serious about saving lives, they would start by enforcing the laws on the books to combat violent criminals." Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey echoed those sentiments, adding that "Lake City Ammunition did nothing wrong." "We should be focused on the free flow of illegal weapons coming across our border – not taking aim at law-abiding patriots," Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said, adding that the border crisis "is exactly why law-abiding citizens need the liberty to defend themselves." https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/24/canadian-court-rules-trudeaus-unreasonable-crackdown-on-trucker-convoy-violated-federal-law/ Canadian Court Rules Trudeau’s ‘Unreasonable’ Crackdown On Trucker Convoy Violated Federal Law A Canadian court ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of a controversial federal law in early 2022 to target truckers protesting their industry’s Covid vaccine mandate was “unreasonable” and illegal. The use of the Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility,” Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote. “I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.” As the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) explained, “ultra vires” is a term courts use “to refer to actions beyond the scope of the law.” In early 2022, Trudeau’s government implemented a series of Covid shot mandates for various sectors of Canadian society, including a requirement for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border. The tyrannical mandate ultimately prompted Canadian truckers to launch the “Freedom Convoy,” a massive protest comprised of vehicles that ended outside Parliament Hill in the nation’s capital. While peaceful, the protests evoked the ire of Trudeau, who used the Emergencies Act to mobilize the Canadian military and state intel agencies to forcibly remove the demonstrators gridlocking Ottawa. In addition to backing GoFundMe’s attempts to deplatform fundraising efforts for the convoy, Trudeau’s administration also expanded “its terrorist financing rules to target crowdfunding sites like the convoy’s new platform GiveSendGo,” The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd wrote, with Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland baselessly claiming the platforms were “being used to support illegal blockades and illegal activity which is damaging the Canadian economy.” As if his abuse of the Emergencies Act weren’t despicable enough, Trudeau — who went into hiding upon the convoy’s arrival in Ottawa — also grossly smeared the protesters with the typical diatribe of leftist slanders, including accusations of “antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia.” Despite his best attempt to play the role of a dictator, Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act went beyond the scope of what is permitted by Canadian law. While the Emergencies Act can be employed to manage a national emergency that “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada,” Mosley determined that Trudeau’s actions far exceeded that threshold. “The potential for serious violence, or being unable to say that there was no potential for serious violence was, of course, a valid reason for concern,” Mosley wrote. “But in my view, it did not satisfy the test required to invoke the Act, particularly as there was no evidence of a similar ‘hardened cell’ elsewhere in the country, only speculation, and the situation at Cou[r]ts had been resolved without violence.” Mosley further ruled that the government’s financial crackdown violated demonstrators’ Charter rights “by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts.” Unsurprisingly, the Canadian government plans to appeal the ruling, with Freeland laughably claiming on Tuesday that the administration’s unlawful actions were “necessary” and “legal” because Canadian “national security was under real threat.” https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/taxpayers-could-get-stuck-cost-removing-offshore-wind-farm-after-biden-admin Taxpayers may get stuck with cost of removing an offshore wind farm after Biden admin waives fees The Biden administration reportedly waived fees for an offshore wind project that are in place to ensure that the infrastructure is removed and the site reclaimed at the end of the project’s life. President Joe Biden, as part of his climate agenda, is pushing an aggressive buildout of offshore wind projects along the East Coast. With the offshore wind industry struggling financially, the waiving of these fees raises concerns about what would happen if these companies go bankrupt and leave behind wind farms they can’t afford to remove. Protect The Public Trust (PPT), a government watchdog group, obtained documents showing that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) informed Vineyard Wind had approved the company’s request to waive fees for financial assurances that goes toward decommissioning costs. The bureau’s reasoning for granting the deferral, according to PPT, was that the financial assurance was “unnecessarily burdensome for lessees because, at that point, they have not begun receiving project income.” Since the project is using “proven wind turbine technology” and its contracts guaranteed electricity sale prices, BOEM reasoned, the project had a predictable income over the life of the project. The Department of Interior requires these bonds from oil and gas producers, as taxpayers have been stuck decommissioning the projects of companies that go bankrupt or were operating prior to bonding requirements. California, for example, is trying to decommission 23 federal offshore platforms at a cost of $1.7 billion, and the liability for those costs remain unresolved. There are also thousands of onshore orphaned wells across the country that the federal government is trying to plug. In some cases, these wells were drilled a century or more ago before bonding requirements, and there’s no solvent owner of record to hold accountable for the costs. In Wyoming, an industry sprang up a decade ago hoping to tap coal beds for natural gas, but after natural gas prices collapsed, the entire industry collapsed with it. The state was left with a lot of wells to plug and no companies to hold accountable. While the Biden administration is granting waivers for these protections to offshore wind projects, it’s proposing steep increases in bonding requirements for oil and gas operations. While that proposal is met with support from environmentalists, industry groups have criticized the measure. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, told Reuters in July that rather than trying to ensure funding for reclamation efforts, the administration was raising the costs so high as a means to reduce the number of operations. Elmer Peter Danenberger III, a petroleum engineer with decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, explained on his “Bud’s Offshore Energy” blog that BOEM’s decision to waive Vineyard Wind’s obligations significantly increases the public’s risk exposure. Danenberger wrote that BOEM, in granting the waiver, cited a general departure authority, which was intended for special situations and not for waivers that could be applied broadly.

Watch The X22 Report On Video No videos found The [WEF]/Biden admin are pushing the green new deal, Biden makes the next move, skimpiest offshore drilling. Speculative mania on deck. The [CB] just signaled what comes next, rate cuts and printing, the stage has been set, financial crisis. This will be used against them. The [DS] has tried almost everything to remove Trump. The indictments aren't working, arresting and putting Trump in jail will not work. The [DS] is now signaling that they will not be able to win against Trump. [BO] is getting ready to make a move. Scavino sends message, points to [HRC] and the [MB]. All roads lead to [BO]. The [DS] is now projecting that Trump will shutdown the internet, translation, the Biden admin will shut it down after the country is cyber attacked, the Biden admin will use the communication act to do so.   (function(w,d,s,i){w.ldAdInit=w.ldAdInit||[];w.ldAdInit.push({slot:13499335648425062,size:[0, 0],id:"ld-7164-1323"});if(!d.getElementById(i)){var j=d.createElement(s),p=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];j.async=true;j.src="//cdn2.customads.co/_js/ajs.js";j.id=i;p.parentNode.insertBefore(j,p);}})(window,document,"script","ld-ajs"); Economy https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1736325368800547093?s=20 Biden Admin Locks In Skimpiest Offshore Oil And Gas Leasing Schedule In US History As Prices Remain High At The Pump The Biden administration finalized the most restrictive offshore oil and gas five-year leasing schedule in U.S. history on Friday as the national average retail gas price remains high for American consumers. The Department of the Interior (DOI), which oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), announced that it is finalizing the leasing schedule, which meets the bare minimum acreage required by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in order for the administration to issue offshore wind leases, according to the DOI. The 2024-2029 schedule only features three lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, with no sales scheduled for any other area off the country's shores; DOI finalized the plan as the national average per-gallon price at the pump hovers at around $3.10. BOEM's finalized plan is a far cry from the schedule that former President Donald Trump and his administration were crafting, which would have allowed for 47 lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond, including in the Pacific Ocean and off the Alaskan coast. The three leases— scheduled to take place in 2025, 2027 and 2029— amount to just over 60 million acres in total, which is the threshold that the administration is required to meet in order to continue issuing offshore wind leases to advance its sweeping climate agenda.  “The release of the U.S. offshore leasing program, mandated by law and long overdue, is an utter failure for the country,” National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito said of the proposed schedule in September. “The White House simply ignores our energy realities in once again limiting U.S. energy production opportunities.”   Source: dailycaller.com This is the push into the green new deal, Trump made the country energy independent and Biden reversed it. If there is a national emergency, Biden has drained the strategic petro reserve, we have to beg other countries for oil, what happens if there is a war. https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/1736013530602631302?s=20 https://twitter.com/ElectionWiz/status/1736105660675240267?s=20 TAKE A LISTEN Rate Cuts Are Coming – And So Is the Money Printer With the squashing of further rate hikes and now talk of three rate cuts during 2024, Powell's turning to the Dark Side is all but complete. Stocks, Bitcoin, bonds, oil, and of course gold, all rallied. But few people are pricing in how the Fed will be forced into QE (Money Printer go Brrr), either through balance sheet growth or “stealth mode.” There will be consequences.

In this rerun, join hosts Peter Ravella and Tyler Buckingham for a deep dive with Dr. Rodney Cluck, the Division Chief of Environmental Sciences at BOEM — the agency that shapes the energy landscape on the American Shoreline. With a shift in tides towards offshore wind energy, Dr. Cluck sheds light on BOEM's evolving mission, detailing the crucial role scientific research plays in guiding responsible offshore development. Discover the intersection of environmental stewardship and the burgeoning ocean economy as BOEM charts a course through the offshore wind surge. Tune in to uncover the scientific currents propelling the future of our nation's energy, right here on ASPN.

Fluent Fiction - Dutch: Daan's High Heel Adventure: Embracing Challenges in Amsterdam Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/daans-high-heel-adventure-embracing-challenges-in-amsterdam Story Transcript:Nl: Op een mooie dag in Amsterdam was er een man genaamd Daan.En: On a beautiful day in Amsterdam, there was a man named Daan.Nl: Daan was een grappige man.En: Daan was a funny man.Nl: Hij hield van lachen, maar hij hield ook van uitdagingen.En: He loved to laugh, but he also loved challenges.Nl: Op die dag had Daan een plan.En: On that day, Daan had a plan.Nl: Hij ging fietsen op hoge hakken!En: He was going to ride a bike in high heels!Nl: Daan woonde in een klein huis in de Jordaan.En: Daan lived in a small house in the Jordaan.Nl: Vanuit zijn raam kon hij de grachten zien.En: From his window, he could see the canals.Nl: De eenden en zwanen zwommen rustig rond.En: The ducks and swans swam peacefully around.Nl: Het was een vredige plek.En: It was a peaceful place.Nl: Maar Daan was niet rustig.En: But Daan was not peaceful.Nl: Hij zocht zijn hoge hakken.En: He searched for his high heels.Nl: Hij vond zijn mooie, rode hakken in de kast.En: He found his beautiful, red heels in the closet.Nl: Ze waren glanzend en hoog.En: They were shiny and tall.Nl: Hij bekeek ze en daarna keek hij naar zijn fiets.En: He looked at them and then looked at his bike.Nl: Het was een oud model, maar hij hield van zijn fiets.En: It was an old model, but he loved his bike.Nl: Daan trok de hakken aan.En: Daan put on the heels.Nl: Eerst wankelde hij een beetje.En: At first, he wobbled a bit.Nl: Het was niet makkelijk.En: It wasn't easy.Nl: Maar hij gaf niet op.En: But he didn't give up.Nl: Hij pakte zijn fiets en stapte op.En: He grabbed his bike and got on.Nl: Het was moeilijk om zijn evenwicht te bewaren.En: It was difficult to keep his balance.Nl: Zijn voeten gleden steeds weer van de pedalen.En: His feet kept slipping off the pedals.Nl: Maar Daan was een koppige man.En: But Daan was a stubborn man.Nl: Langzaam begon hij te fietsen.En: Slowly, he started to ride.Nl: Hij wankelde en zwaaide heen en weer.En: He wavered and swayed back and forth.Nl: De mensen om hem heen lachten.En: The people around him laughed.Nl: Maar Daan lachte ook en bleef proberen.En: But Daan laughed too and kept trying.Nl: Hij fiets door de smalle straten, over de oude bruggen, langs de grachten, totdat... Boem!En: He rode through the narrow streets, over the old bridges, along the canals, until... Boom!Nl: Daan viel om.En: Daan fell down.Nl: Hij lag op de grond naast zijn fiets.En: He lay on the ground next to his bike.Nl: De hoge hakken waren te moeilijk.En: The high heels were too difficult.Nl: Maar Daan gaf niet op.En: But Daan didn't give up.Nl: Hij stond op, stapte weer op zijn fiets, en fietste verder.En: He stood up, got back on his bike, and kept riding.Nl: Het was een lange dag.En: It was a long day.Nl: Hij viel veel keer om.En: He fell many times.Nl: Maar elke keer, stond hij weer op.En: But each time, he stood back up.Nl: Aan het eind van de dag, was Daan moe.En: At the end of the day, Daan was tired.Nl: Maar hij was ook blij.En: But he was also happy.Nl: Hij had het geprobeerd.En: He had tried.Nl: Hij had gefietst op hoge hakken in Amsterdam!En: He had ridden a bike in high heels in Amsterdam!Nl: Daan keek naar de zonsondergang vanaf een bankje.En: Daan looked at the sunset from a bench.Nl: Hij keek naar de mooie kleuren.En: He looked at the beautiful colors.Nl: Hij lachte.En: He laughed.Nl: Ja, het was een goede dag.En: Yes, it was a good day.Nl: Daan hield van uitdagingen.En: Daan loved challenges.Nl: Hij hield van Amsterdam.En: He loved Amsterdam.Nl: En hij hield van zijn rode, glanzende hoge hakken.En: And he loved his red, shiny high heels.Nl: Dat was de dag dat Daan ging fietsen op hoge hakken.En: That was the day Daan rode a bike in high heels.Nl: En hoewel het hem niet gelukt is, was hij trots op zijn poging.En: And even though he didn't succeed, he was proud of his attempt.Nl: Want in het leven, net als bij het fietsen op hoge hakken, is het soms belangrijker om het te proberen, dan om het perfect te doen.En: Because in life, just like riding a bike in high heels, sometimes it's more important to try than to do it perfectly.Nl: En dat is een les die Daan nooit zal vergeten.En: And that's a lesson Daan will never forget. Vocabulary Words:Amsterdam: AmsterdamDaan: Daanday: dagman: manfunny: grappiglaugh: lachenchallenges: uitdagingenplan: planride: fietsenbike: fietshigh heels: hoge hakkensmall house: klein huisJordaan: Jordaanwindow: raamcanals: grachtenducks: eendenswans: zwanenpeacefully: rustigplace: pleksearched: zochtbeautiful: mooiered: rodeheels: hakkencloset: kastshiny: glanzendtall: hoogwobbled: wankeldedifficult: moeilijkgrabbed: paktebalance: evenwichtslipping off: gleden steeds weer vanpedals: pedalenstubborn: koppigestarted to ride: begon te fietsenwavered: wankelde

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023. Bohnet Music Academy Isn’t it about time to take action on how you're going to give your children and grandchildren a good music education? Moses, David, and all the Saints of the church have worshiped God with musical might, so let’s be confidently found doing the same. Bohnet Music Academy instructs children and adults in how to be musically literate. That’s everything you need to know and do as the musician God made you to be. Lessons are available locally in Moscow, ID and online. What’s great is that in addition to getting vocal training, you can also study the piano, guitar, violin, cello, drums, or the trumpet. Visit Bohnetma.com/crosspolitic for more information on how to equip your family to serve God’s musical commands. B-O-H-N-E-T MA.com/crosspolitic https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2023/08/22/biden-reallocates-student-loan-debtagain-n2627350#google_vignette Biden Redistributes Student Loan Debt...Again President Joe Biden has again worked with administration officials to redistribute student loan debt belonging to wealthy degree holders to Americans taxpayers, most of whom never went to college. https://twitter.com/i/status/1693962658775474442 - Play Video According to Fox Business, the new plan will cost taxpayers $276 billion. The move comes after the administration announced an additional round of bailouts earlier this month and in defiance of a recent Supreme Court ruling on the issue. Speaking of Biden… https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-takes-action-restricting-oil-gas-development-settlement-eco-groups Biden admin takes action restricting oil, gas development after settlement with eco groups The Biden administration issued new restrictions on oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, in an effort to protect a whale species after it settled last month with a coalition of environmental groups. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which manages energy development in federal waters, published a Notice to Lessees and Operators (NTL) on Monday evening highlighting expanded protections for the Rice’s whale, a species listed under the Endangered Species Act. BOEM was slated to issue the NTL last week, but delayed it until Monday. "This decision by the Biden Administration does an end-around legal requirements and the public process, imposing unwarranted restrictions on U.S. energy production at a time of continued inflation with prices rising at the pump for consumers," said National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito. He added that the agreement the administration reached with environmental groups ignores the "best science," contravenes congressional intent under the Inflation Reduction Act and threatens America's energy independence. Under the NTL issued Monday, BOEM created a vast new protection zone stretching across the Gulf of Mexico with a variety of new conditions for industry operators. Among its recommendations, BOEM said specially-trained visual observers should be aboard all vessels traversing the area, all ships regardless of size should travel no quicker than 10 knots, and vessels should only travel through the area in the daytime. Those recommendations will be introduced as stipulations to Lease Sale 261, an upcoming offshore oil and gas lease auction. And BOEM removed an estimated 11 million acres of potential oil-rich lease blocks from that lease sale under its actions Monday. In a federal stipulated stay agreement filed late last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to a number of conditions requested by four eco groups led by the Sierra Club which, in response, agreed to temporarily pause litigation in the related case. The case dates back nearly three years when, in October 2020, the environmental coalition sued the NMFS for failing to properly assess the oil industry impacts on endangered and threatened marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. They pursued the lawsuit after the NMFS coordinated a multiagency consultation studying the effects all federally regulated oil and gas activities would have on species listed under the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf of Mexico over the next 50 years. The groups argued in the original complaint that the NMFS' biological opinion resulting from its consultation was not based on the best science. According to API, the NTL solely targets oil and gas traffic while refraining from restricting vessel traffic related to other industries. https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/08/21/covid-mask-mandates-return-to-hollywood-lionsgate-requires-employees-to-mask-up-submit-to-daily-testing/ COVID Mandates Return to Hollywood: Lionsgate Requires Employees to Mask Up, Submit to Daily Testing COVID mask mandates are returning to Hollywood, with Lionsgate being the first major studio to reinstate masking and daily testing for its Los Angeles office workers. Lionsgate is requiring employees who physically work at its headquarters in Santa Monica to wear masks at all times when in the building, effective immediately, except when alone in an enclosed office or large open workspace. In addition, employees are required to submit to daily COVID testing and to report the results to the company, according to an internal memo obtained by Deadline. Employees must wear “a medical grade face covering (surgical mask, KN95 or N95) when indoors except when alone in an office with the door closed, actively eating, actively drinking at their desk or workstation, or if they are the only individual present in a large open workspace,” the memo reportedly states. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has reported a recent uptick in transmissions but “overall metrics remain at a low level of concern.” A growing number of colleges and medical institutions throughout the country are also reinstating mask mandates, with the mainstream news media running articles pushing for the return of face coverings. Former Obama official and MSNBC medical contributor Dr. Kavita Patel said earlier this month on MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports” that a rise in COVID cases meant it was time to bring back masks. The return of mask mandates comes as the Biden administration is ramping up another round of COVID hysteria ahead of 2024, pressuring all Americans to get the latest booster this fall. This had led to growing suspicion that Democrats will not only impose mask mandates but bring back mass lockdowns ahead of the next presidential election, in a repeat of 2020. As Breitbart News reported, the new push for Americans to line up for booster shots follows the revelation in January that health officials want to make coronavirus booster vaccinations an annual event. Now it’s time for my favorite topic, sports! https://www.boundingintosports.com/2023/08/the-blind-side-author-michael-lewis-calls-out-michael-oher-amid-lawsuit-against-tuohy-family-that-hes-suspicious-of-them-is-breathtaking/ ‘The Blind Side’ Author Michael Lewis Calls Out Michael Oher Amid Lawsuit Against Tuohy Family: “That He’s Suspicious Of Them Is Breathtaking” The celebrated story of Michael Oher, former NFL athlete and the subject of the best-selling book “The Blind Side” by Michael Lewis, has taken an insane turn over the past week. Oher has filed a lawsuit against the Tuohy family, claiming they never officially adopted him and accusing them of financial misdeeds related to movie profits. Now, author Lewis has defended the Tuohys and pointed fingers at Hollywood’s accounting system as the real culprit. In 2006, Lewis’s book spotlighted Oher’s heartwarming journey from a troubled youth to an accomplished football player, largely credited to the benevolence and support of Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. The narrative was later adapted into an award-winning movie in 2009, starring Sandra Bullock. However, the harmony of the feel-good story depicted on the big screen seems drastically different from the current situation we’re seeing unfold now. Oher’s lawsuit alleges that the Tuohys tricked him into signing over the legal authority to use his name in business deals after his 18th birthday, thereby cheating him out of future proceeds. He asserts they profited off the Oscar-winning movie while sidelining him financially. Responding to these allegations, the Tuohy family labeled Oher’s claims a “shameful shakedown” and voiced intentions to end the conservatorship, a legal concept where an individual is appointed to manage another’s financial and/or personal affairs. Adding fuel to the fire, the Tuohy family’s attorney, Martin Singer, claims that before initiating the lawsuit, Oher tried to extort the family for $15 million. Singer alleged Oher threatened the Tuohys with negative press unless the hefty amount was handed over. But Michael Lewis, in interviews with both The Washington Post and at a previously recorded Google event, blames Tinsel Town for the mess. Lewis slammed Hollywood studios (the film was produced and distributed by Warner Bros.) for their accounting practices which, according to him, often shortchange those whose real-life stories inspire box office hits. I “Everybody should be mad at the Hollywood studio system,” Lewis said. “Michael Oher should join the writers strike. It’s outrageous how Hollywood accounting works, but the money is not in the Tuohys’ pockets.” Lewis further divulged that both he and the Tuohy family made about $350,000 each from the movie after considering taxes and agent fees. Challenging Oher’s narrative, Lewis asserted that the Tuohys intended to share movie royalties among family members, including Oher. However, Oher reportedly began declining these royalty checks. In a move showcasing the Tuohy’s good faith, Lewis revealed they deposited Oher’s share in a trust fund designed for Oher’s son.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023. Bohnet Music Academy Isn’t it about time to take action on how you're going to give your children and grandchildren a good music education? Moses, David, and all the Saints of the church have worshiped God with musical might, so let’s be confidently found doing the same. Bohnet Music Academy instructs children and adults in how to be musically literate. That’s everything you need to know and do as the musician God made you to be. Lessons are available locally in Moscow, ID and online. What’s great is that in addition to getting vocal training, you can also study the piano, guitar, violin, cello, drums, or the trumpet. Visit Bohnetma.com/crosspolitic for more information on how to equip your family to serve God’s musical commands. B-O-H-N-E-T MA.com/crosspolitic https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2023/08/22/biden-reallocates-student-loan-debtagain-n2627350#google_vignette Biden Redistributes Student Loan Debt...Again President Joe Biden has again worked with administration officials to redistribute student loan debt belonging to wealthy degree holders to Americans taxpayers, most of whom never went to college. https://twitter.com/i/status/1693962658775474442 - Play Video According to Fox Business, the new plan will cost taxpayers $276 billion. The move comes after the administration announced an additional round of bailouts earlier this month and in defiance of a recent Supreme Court ruling on the issue. Speaking of Biden… https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-admin-takes-action-restricting-oil-gas-development-settlement-eco-groups Biden admin takes action restricting oil, gas development after settlement with eco groups The Biden administration issued new restrictions on oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, in an effort to protect a whale species after it settled last month with a coalition of environmental groups. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which manages energy development in federal waters, published a Notice to Lessees and Operators (NTL) on Monday evening highlighting expanded protections for the Rice’s whale, a species listed under the Endangered Species Act. BOEM was slated to issue the NTL last week, but delayed it until Monday. "This decision by the Biden Administration does an end-around legal requirements and the public process, imposing unwarranted restrictions on U.S. energy production at a time of continued inflation with prices rising at the pump for consumers," said National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito. He added that the agreement the administration reached with environmental groups ignores the "best science," contravenes congressional intent under the Inflation Reduction Act and threatens America's energy independence. Under the NTL issued Monday, BOEM created a vast new protection zone stretching across the Gulf of Mexico with a variety of new conditions for industry operators. Among its recommendations, BOEM said specially-trained visual observers should be aboard all vessels traversing the area, all ships regardless of size should travel no quicker than 10 knots, and vessels should only travel through the area in the daytime. Those recommendations will be introduced as stipulations to Lease Sale 261, an upcoming offshore oil and gas lease auction. And BOEM removed an estimated 11 million acres of potential oil-rich lease blocks from that lease sale under its actions Monday. In a federal stipulated stay agreement filed late last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) agreed to a number of conditions requested by four eco groups led by the Sierra Club which, in response, agreed to temporarily pause litigation in the related case. The case dates back nearly three years when, in October 2020, the environmental coalition sued the NMFS for failing to properly assess the oil industry impacts on endangered and threatened marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. They pursued the lawsuit after the NMFS coordinated a multiagency consultation studying the effects all federally regulated oil and gas activities would have on species listed under the Endangered Species Act in the Gulf of Mexico over the next 50 years. The groups argued in the original complaint that the NMFS' biological opinion resulting from its consultation was not based on the best science. According to API, the NTL solely targets oil and gas traffic while refraining from restricting vessel traffic related to other industries. https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2023/08/21/covid-mask-mandates-return-to-hollywood-lionsgate-requires-employees-to-mask-up-submit-to-daily-testing/ COVID Mandates Return to Hollywood: Lionsgate Requires Employees to Mask Up, Submit to Daily Testing COVID mask mandates are returning to Hollywood, with Lionsgate being the first major studio to reinstate masking and daily testing for its Los Angeles office workers. Lionsgate is requiring employees who physically work at its headquarters in Santa Monica to wear masks at all times when in the building, effective immediately, except when alone in an enclosed office or large open workspace. In addition, employees are required to submit to daily COVID testing and to report the results to the company, according to an internal memo obtained by Deadline. Employees must wear “a medical grade face covering (surgical mask, KN95 or N95) when indoors except when alone in an office with the door closed, actively eating, actively drinking at their desk or workstation, or if they are the only individual present in a large open workspace,” the memo reportedly states. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has reported a recent uptick in transmissions but “overall metrics remain at a low level of concern.” A growing number of colleges and medical institutions throughout the country are also reinstating mask mandates, with the mainstream news media running articles pushing for the return of face coverings. Former Obama official and MSNBC medical contributor Dr. Kavita Patel said earlier this month on MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports” that a rise in COVID cases meant it was time to bring back masks. The return of mask mandates comes as the Biden administration is ramping up another round of COVID hysteria ahead of 2024, pressuring all Americans to get the latest booster this fall. This had led to growing suspicion that Democrats will not only impose mask mandates but bring back mass lockdowns ahead of the next presidential election, in a repeat of 2020. As Breitbart News reported, the new push for Americans to line up for booster shots follows the revelation in January that health officials want to make coronavirus booster vaccinations an annual event. Now it’s time for my favorite topic, sports! https://www.boundingintosports.com/2023/08/the-blind-side-author-michael-lewis-calls-out-michael-oher-amid-lawsuit-against-tuohy-family-that-hes-suspicious-of-them-is-breathtaking/ ‘The Blind Side’ Author Michael Lewis Calls Out Michael Oher Amid Lawsuit Against Tuohy Family: “That He’s Suspicious Of Them Is Breathtaking” The celebrated story of Michael Oher, former NFL athlete and the subject of the best-selling book “The Blind Side” by Michael Lewis, has taken an insane turn over the past week. Oher has filed a lawsuit against the Tuohy family, claiming they never officially adopted him and accusing them of financial misdeeds related to movie profits. Now, author Lewis has defended the Tuohys and pointed fingers at Hollywood’s accounting system as the real culprit. In 2006, Lewis’s book spotlighted Oher’s heartwarming journey from a troubled youth to an accomplished football player, largely credited to the benevolence and support of Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy. The narrative was later adapted into an award-winning movie in 2009, starring Sandra Bullock. However, the harmony of the feel-good story depicted on the big screen seems drastically different from the current situation we’re seeing unfold now. Oher’s lawsuit alleges that the Tuohys tricked him into signing over the legal authority to use his name in business deals after his 18th birthday, thereby cheating him out of future proceeds. He asserts they profited off the Oscar-winning movie while sidelining him financially. Responding to these allegations, the Tuohy family labeled Oher’s claims a “shameful shakedown” and voiced intentions to end the conservatorship, a legal concept where an individual is appointed to manage another’s financial and/or personal affairs. Adding fuel to the fire, the Tuohy family’s attorney, Martin Singer, claims that before initiating the lawsuit, Oher tried to extort the family for $15 million. Singer alleged Oher threatened the Tuohys with negative press unless the hefty amount was handed over. But Michael Lewis, in interviews with both The Washington Post and at a previously recorded Google event, blames Tinsel Town for the mess. Lewis slammed Hollywood studios (the film was produced and distributed by Warner Bros.) for their accounting practices which, according to him, often shortchange those whose real-life stories inspire box office hits. I “Everybody should be mad at the Hollywood studio system,” Lewis said. “Michael Oher should join the writers strike. It’s outrageous how Hollywood accounting works, but the money is not in the Tuohys’ pockets.” Lewis further divulged that both he and the Tuohy family made about $350,000 each from the movie after considering taxes and agent fees. Challenging Oher’s narrative, Lewis asserted that the Tuohys intended to share movie royalties among family members, including Oher. However, Oher reportedly began declining these royalty checks. In a move showcasing the Tuohy’s good faith, Lewis revealed they deposited Oher’s share in a trust fund designed for Oher’s son.

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