First it was a window which blew out, then it became a section, now it's a panel, but it will never be a door, which is what it really was

 Boeing shares tumble after panel blows out, FAA grounds 737 Maxes

 

 

Wow, just wow

 Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxing champion and mayor of Kyiv since 2014, was a “core shareholder” and active participant in a Hunter Biden-chaired subsidiary of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, according to emails and an associate with direct knowledge who spoke with The Post. ...

Klitschko issued a blanket denial of involvement in a statement provided by a spokeswoman.

“I am surprised by such questions. Because: I have never been a partner in the project you are talking about and had nothing to do with it,” Klitschko told The Post.

“Accordingly, there is no question of any compensation. I had no ties to Hunter Biden. And I did not discuss the company you are asking about with Joe Biden.”

The mayor’s spokeswoman declined to provide answers to follow-up questions, writing in an email, “The answer I sent before is the most comprehensive one we can provide.”

More.

The United States is not working up to its potential

 

If it weren't for double standards, Democrat minority leader Hakeem Jeffries would have no standards at all

 

Jan 6 wasn't an insurrection, except in some minds . . . and on both sides

Everything is so small and ridiculous, because we are.

 

When you asked for a window on your model but got the door anyway

Alaska Airlines grounds Boeing 737 Max 9 for checks after window blows out in midair

Reportedly a boy lost his shirt out the "window" and a bunch of cell phones got sucked out at 16,000 feet, and:

It later emerged that Boeing staff, in internal messages, were cavalier about FAA regulations and critical of the Max's design. One said it the aircraft was 'designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.'

 Look at this update to "section" lol:

Alaska Airlines grounds Boeing 737 Max 9 fleet after section blows out midair

 

Kim Strassel: Everyone remembers that Joe Biden invited all these illegals here who are pouring across our border unimpeded by his administration

 Biden invited them all during his campaign:

Biden promised millions of them amnesty and citizenship during his debate with Trump:

Kim Strassel, here, on Biden now pretending there's no problem with the millions streaming across.

Kim's lookin' good:

Joe Biden eeks out another good year for jobs as 2023 ends with 50.2% employed full time as a percent of population on an average annual basis

 December 2023 came in at 49.5%. Full time usually peaks in summer, and bottoms in winter. January and February 2023 had come in at 49.3% and 49.7% respectively.

Still not quite as good as Trump 2019, which itself wasn't close to what we are capable of as a country:

The media in India is as full of it as ours

 Israeli News Anchor Wields Gun Live On Air Amid Fear Of Another Attack...

"appeared on air Tuesday with a gun tucked inside her pants".

This is wielding:

Biden loses in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Red Sea

 

She gone lol

 

Off again on again Maersk is off again on Red Sea/Suez Canal transit, freight rates triple

 From the story:

Uncertainty remains despite a U.S.-led military effort to curb the attacks. Maersk had resumed the Suez route, but suspended it again in recent days after one of its ships was targeted by missiles and small boats.

Asia-Europe is Maersk’s biggest trade lane, and freight rates on the route have roughly tripled from their early December levels, the Goldman Sachs analysts said, while “the impact on annual contract rates is likely to be positive, albeit dependent on how the security situation evolves.”

Maersk’s other major routes are seeing “positive second-order effects from the Suez disruption.” Global trade is also being stymied by drought in the Panama Canal.

However, analysts do not currently foresee the same level of global supply chain disruption and capacity constraint as experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic, which triggered a huge spike in freight rates and record profits for companies including Maersk.

Contact your utility commission and complain about natural gas and electricity prices not coming down

 Utilities Get an Inflation Shock

Electricity and gas providers are encountering a pushback on rate increases:

 

Utilities get to pass through fuel prices, which means customers have been bearing the burden of higher natural-gas prices that surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On average, monthly electricity prices rose 13% in 2022 from a year earlier and 6% in the first 11 months of 2023, according to data from the Labor Department. ... Utility commissioners are either appointed by elected officials or elected themselves, which means they are sensitive to the financial pressures that ratepayers face. ... utilities were quick to ask for an increase on the allowed return on equity when market measures of capital cost rose yet slow to adjust rates when those measures declined.     

 

Has the natural gas portion of your utility bill dropped 60% like the price of natural gas in 2023 from 2022? Mine sure as hell has not.

Here are the average prices per year for Henry Hub natural gas:

2015: 2.62

2016: 2.52

2017: 2.99

2018: 3.15

2019: 2.56

2020: 2.03

2021: 3.89 +91.6%

2022: 6.45 +65.8%

2023: 2.53 -60.7%

That 92% jump in 2021 had nothing to do with Ukraine.

We're being gouged for green energy tomfoolery.

 

COMPLAIN, not to the utility, but to the utility commission. It's the only way.

 

In Michigan, go to:

 

https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why does Madcow keep talking like a dipshit? Because that's her audience at PMSNBC

 Rachel Maddow: Why Does Trump Keep Talking Like A Fascist? Because Polls Say That's What Republican Voters Want To Hear

Flying is safe, until it isn't

 Japan Airlines flight JL516 burst into flames after colliding with another aircraft at landing in Tokyo. Somehow they all got out alive.

Story. 

 

The 1.7k commenters to this Joe Biden-crude oil-puff piece at The Wall Street Journal are having none of it, call it a joke, which it is

 Meet America’s Newest Oil-Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden

 Oil prices have sputtered since the U.S. began selling its stockpiles

Danish shipper Maersk suspended Red Sea transit for 48 hours after late Saturday Houthi attack, U.S. Navy claims 1,200 safe transits in the last 10 days

 From the story here:

The events surrounding the Maersk Hangzhou represented the 23rd illegal attack by the Houthis on international shipping since Nov. 19, the Central Command said. It was the first time the U.S. Navy said its personnel had killed Houthi fighters since the Red Sea attacks started. ...

Since the Pentagon announced Operation Prosperity Guardian to counter the attacks just over 10 days ago, 1,200 merchant ships have traveled through the Red Sea region, and none had been hit by drone or missile strikes, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper told The Associated Press in an interview on Saturday.

Nuclear power plants nearest to the Japan quake today had already been offline for routine inspection

 Reported here:

Hokuriku’s Shika plant in Ishikawa, the closest nuclear power station to the quake’s epicentre, had already halted its two reactors before the quake for regular inspections and saw no impact from the quake, the agency said.

Japan starts 2024 with a bang with a 7.5 mag quake

 From the USGS here:

The January 1, 2024, M7.5 earthquake on the west coast of Japan, on the island of Honshu, occurred as a result of shallow reverse faulting in the Earth’s crust. Focal mechanism solutions for the earthquake indicate faulting occurred on a moderately dipping reverse fault striking to the southwest or northeast. Japan is a seismically active region, with most earthquakes occurring off the east coast, where the Pacific plate subducts beneath Japan. This earthquake occurred on the west coast of Japan where crustal deformation created by the broader plate motions is accommodated in shallow faults. Shallow earthquakes cause more damage than intermediate- and deep-focus ones since the energy generated by the shallow events is released closer to the surface and therefore produces stronger shaking relative to earthquakes located deeper within the Earth. This coastal earthquake produced both strong shaking on land and generated a tsunami.

While earthquakes are common in Japan, the region surrounding the January 1, 2024, earthquake sees lower rates of seismicity as compared to the major subduction zone along its east coast. Still, since 1900, 30 other M6 and larger earthquakes have occurred within 250 km of the January 1 event. Three of these occurred on or near the Noto Peninsula, where the January 1 event is located. On May 5, 2023, a M6.2 earthquake on the Noto Peninsula killed one person and damaged hundreds of buildings. On April 16, 1964, a M7.6 occurred 205 km east-northeast of the January 1 event, resulting in 36 fatalities and roughly 3,500 destroyed homes. 

 

Paraprosdokianism in the news: Colorado and Maine move to destroy democracy in order to save it

Do we really want another pre-civil war election, where one candidate doesn't appear, for whatever reasons, on the ballots of ten Democrat states, as Lincoln did not and became president despite 60% of the country wanting anybody but Lincoln?

Radicalism is in the air.

Please wear a mask.

 

 

 

 

 

Destroying democracy to save it: Maine shows the danger of zealots in our legal system:

Maine’s Shenna Bellows issued a “decision” that declared Trump an “insurrectionist” and ineligible to be president. She joined an ignoble list of Democratic officials in states such as Colorado who claim to safeguard democracy by denying its exercise to millions of Americans. ...

One columnist wrote that “Democrats may have to act radically to deny Donald Trump the 2024 Republican nomination. We cannot rely on Republicans to do it…Trump must be defeated. No matter what it takes.”