The European gas crisis more than quadrupled the US LNG export business, which started as a subsidized foreign policy tool and suddenly became very profitable (the ports were super expensive and were not competitive with pipeline gas before). 60% of US LNG now goes to Europe, totaling more than we send to Mexico and Canada via pipeline.
Biden just ended all new LNG export construction for "environmental" reasons, hugely enriching the existing owners (the government's partners) by granting them a monopoly.
So in one move they made Europe more economically and politically dependent on the US, paid off the party's cronies, gave their green wing a fake win with some payouts, and put an entire security-critical industry under the thumb of the party. It was a stroke of absolute genius.
And the most impressive part is how long range the plan was. Iirc the government started those then-unprofitable LNG export terminal partnerships over a decade ago, all for this moment when the strategy to split the EU and Russia came to fruition.
SteveKirk
21d ago
If you're interested in telling, I would definitely enjoy Recursive Congressional Storytime (with names and details obfuscated to protect the guilty of course)
SteveKirk
21d ago
That's a great tip: I tried using my drawing glove to check, but it was just my overly slick desk surface letting the pad slide, which didn't happen with my old sticky pad. Changing to a much lighter mouse and a better surface fixed it.
Thanks! As an uncontacted Amazon rainforest pygmy I still don't have a steam account, but apparently there's some way to get a steam key if you bought the game directly? (Or just vice versa?)
I don't see any reason their ballot harvesting ops would be less effective now. They've had four more years to organize and consolidate power, how could they have lost any capacity?
SteveKirk
21d ago
Voting is literally the only way the community can respond to a persistent troll the mods have decided to enable. They can ban people for criticizing the troll, they can ban people for reporting the troll, but as far as I know they can't ban them for downvoting the troll.
I don't know why anyone would want to take that one recourse away from the users.
Yes, I'm certain it's going to come down to turnout, and that's where the Democrat machine has an unbeatable advantage. They've got people going door to door making sure the right people's ballots are collected here, in a place where turnout literally doesn't matter because half the Democrats are running unopposed or against 5 different permutations of the People's Socialist Environmental Indigenous Justice Party For Killing Whitey.
If they're doing organization like that just for fun in a blue state, I doubt there'll be a single ballot unharvested in swing states.
Asking my neighbors if I can have all their old BLM signs they had to keep in the garage because they're scared to be seen throwing them away.
If I can turn an F into an A+ I can turn a B into an S
They don't work together, especially in Germany. On summer days solar is producing over 100% of demand and spot prices go negative, then spike at 5pm depending on literally which way the wind is blowing. In winter solar produces zilch and wind stays variable, plummeting to nothing during those climatically stable dead-still cold spells where energy demand is highest.
There's no place for high-fixed-zero-variable cost nuclear in that environment, but it's ideal for cheap gas plants that can be turned off half the time but print money when electricity prices spike. And for gas heating.
There's honestly no explanation for Germany's energy plan but suicidal national insanity. It's as bad as their war plans.
SteveKirk
22d ago
that one time that guy candidly admitted he was a pedophile
I just tried to count how many times that happened and had to use both hands and take a shoe off, so it definitely wasn't one time. But iirc the most prolific of those guys is still unbanned and active on theschism (throwaway0# or something), unless I'm mixing him up with someone else.
For some reason it doesn't seem to spark the same reddit admin ire as all the other stuff.
Moldbug only used a blogging pseudonymn when he worked in tech and could get cancelled. Now he's part of the respectable gentlemen with unusual names club.
BAP still wants the pseudonymn because his real name makes a portion of his audience do an Early Life check.
SteveKirk
22d ago
Can you post a screencap of what you guys are up to?
I got derailed spreadsheeting the new beacon mechanics before going right back to 8x8. Optimizing quality modules and simplifying nuclear has been fun too
SteveKirk
23d ago
It's flattering to think that he's involved in the community, but I expect most of these guys read articles that go viral among the VC set. Think this is how most of Scott's famous articles came to be widely known, rather than through dedicated fans.
I don't care if it's not real though because it would be fucking hilarious if it was.
Following that /r/SSC link was depressing. I hadn't realized how Reddit they'd gone, with /r/transdiy leftists berating walls of <deleted> comments.
Guess that's what "no culture war" really means. Just one hivemind's boot doing all the stomping
The greens were hardly pushing against fossil fuels except being violently against fracking (partly because they overlap with pro-coal labor unions). They were campaigning against nuclear and for vast investments in solar, both of which cripple the German grid and help Russia sell more gas at higher prices in the winter.
I'm not excusing German greens by saying they were just rational foreign agents (because I think they're legitimately insane), but Russian sponsorship of their activism goes back to the anti-nuclear campaigns by communist front orgs in the 60s. Today's senior greens literally had KGB handlers when they were young radicals. And that's not counting the ones who were actual East German officials
Like the least sketchy German green politician I can think of at this point was the one who wrote about having sex with kindergarteners. At least he probably wasn't being paid to do it unless he was part of that one social agency in Berlin.
SteveKirk
23d ago
You definitely need to post this call-out in the thread. Lying about what's in cited papers knowing nobody will read them should be disqualifying, or the spirit of SSC is just another hollowed-out skin-suit for leftist propaganda.
SteveKirk
23d ago
I suspected mold issues in the ramshackle house I grew up in. Not much of a lead, but if it clears up if you ever spend a few months away from home, it might be a start.
I might have said this before, but there's no way old age is the death Trump would choose. He'd want a death so dramatic Vance would have to commission a 400' gold statue of him on top of Mt Rushmore, standing above all the other presidents in a heroic pose. He'd want a new Trump House built over the smouldering crater where the White House used to be.
More than anything he'd want good television
SteveKirk
24d ago
If it makes you feel better, I had issues with this for years as a kid, especially in winter. Not sure if it was something in the house, but it ended for good after I moved.
Have you moved between environments at all since it became an issue? Any possible clues there?
SteveKirk
24d ago
Are you in your 30s now? Coffee never used to do that to me either, until one day at about 34.
That's basically the plot of the Turner Diaries, which is interesting but not something I expected to hear from the left. Reminds me I should finish that book review.
As for strategies used abroad coming home, as you might suspect we are somewhat more concerned about the rhetoric and tactics of the "anti-colonialists" coming home to us, being as we are disgusting Settlers illegally occupying the traditional Unceded Land of Turtle Island, marking us for righteous ethnic cleansing by Decolonial Violence.
Also we already know what being a target of the security state is like. One of those "not giving your enemy a path to retreat guarantees he'll fight to the death" issues the left has created for itself through its dominance and abuse of every institution.
SteveKirk
24d ago
Seconding bartender, coffee reliably gives me the shits in ways tea or even energy drinks don't.
We've been talking about Musk's management ability, and to prove I'm not sucking his dick I started thinking about the failure modes that will eventually break his personal control of his companies.
His cutting is vulnerable to Yellowstoning, where managers deliberately hurt performance or use cuts as an excuse to avoid responsibility. Right now Musk can personally show up at the office with an audit team to instantly fire a guy he suspects of doing that. But as the org expands and the hierarchies deepen and interlink, internal politics will hurt his ability to excise a bad actor who's spent all his time schmoozing with management.
Worse, his harsh strategies incentivize internal politicking and backchannel dealing among management to mutually reinforce their positions. It's like overusing an anti-parasite drench on a flock: you're accelerating resistance buildup.
(Even worse, the kind of internal politics most effective at subversion through parallel management cadres is the bioleninism of the party that's made him a priority target and allocated massive resources to seizing his companies. I'm expecting some manufactured hysteria along the lines of "Elon Musk Fired LGBT Rocket Scientist Whistleblower For Supporting Environmental Justice Over Rocket Noise Harming Endangered Birds: Harris Administration pledges to arrest him for hate crimes." And if that sounds crazy to anyone, they're nuts for forgetting the exact same scenario played out with Timnet Gebru and google)
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