Luiza Gondim is a fitness model. I'm providing free advertising for her.
Website: Lulu Fitness
Instagram: lulugondim
She's good. But don't take my word for it; take hers. She knows what she's doing. Consider that she has a truly magnificent abdominal section, and she also (apparently, inferring from some of the Instagram pictures) has a son. (Probably a husband, too.) Factor that in, and Wow.
I don't think she's related to Shakira, by the way. But there is a bit of a resemblance.
When you watch what happens, you'll understand why ending the use of fossil fuels is paramount. Nuclear energy can get us to a fossil-fuel-free future. For the sake of climate and the sake of humanity, we need to do it.
WATCH: Horrifying Moment Russian Oil Tanker Split in Half by Storm Sinks, Spilling Oil Into Black Sea
This is the first of two Lighthouse of the Week posts featuring lighthouses on the southwestern coast of Scotland. You'll see where they are in a moment. One is old and inactive (but still looks maintained and historical); the other is more prominent, and looks well-maintained, but is also inactive. More on that next week.
This week, the lighthouse is the Portpatrick Light. As noted, it's in Scotland, about the closest point of Scotland to Northern Ireland. Visualize that here. (A little to the north there is a point that might be a couple of km closer, but is not heavily inhabited, though there is a lighthouse up there, too.)
There isn't a lot to learn about this one; the Lighthouse Directory provides what there is to learn.
"1839 (station established 1774). Inactive since 1900; sometimes lit decoratively on holidays. Approx. 11 m (36 ft) round cylindrical brick tower with lantern and gallery. Tower is unpainted yellow brick; lantern painted white with a black roof. ... In the early 1900s the light was shone landward as a streetlight. The original lighthouse is said to have been dismantled and shipped for reassembly in Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon. The tower is privately owned; Michael Spencer reports that the keys are kept at the Lighthouse Pottery nearby and "polite enquiry will secure their loan." Located on the south side of the harbor entrance in Portpatrick."
Four pictures are below. There is another good picture here, similar to the first one below: Portpatrick Harbour and Lighthouse
I just found out about Savage Gulf State Park in Tennessee. I want to visit.
It's not THAT far away; it is located northwest of Chattanooga.
Below are three reasons why I'd like to visit. But I'd have to get my legs in shape, apparently.
Official website: Savage Gulf State Park
Supermodel of many flavors and looks Barbara Palvin may be married now but she's still uniquely and gorgeously hot. Even in black and white on the cover of a magazine (as just featured on her Instagram account).
Air pollution is a killer. A new study shows how much of a killer it is in the country of India.
Air Pollution in India Linked to Millions of Deaths
"Air pollution consisting of particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, PM2.5, can enter the lungs and bloodstream and is a major health risk in India. Researchers have now examined the link between these particles and mortality over a ten-year period. The study is based on data from 655 districts in India between 2009 and 2019.
“We found that every 10 microgram per cubic meter increase in PM2.5 concentration led to an 8.6 percent increase in mortality,” says Petter Ljungman, last author and researcher at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet.
The research analyzed the relationship between changes in air pollution levels and mortality. The results show that around 3.8 million deaths over the period can be linked to air pollution levels above India's own air quality guidelines of 40 micrograms per cubic meter."
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving to put the monarch butterfly on the endangered species list. Currently, only as threatened, not endangered. But still ...
That's huge, gigantic, and terrifying. As I said, it's epic.
This is not some obscure weed or local insect or lizard that only eats a certain type of worm. This is well-known orange-and-black monarch butterfly, which migrates around the country, which hangs in trees in Mexico in the winter in large groups (though that is endangered, too):
and which is also famous for its black-white-yellow milkweed-chowing caterpillar making a gold-studded turquoise chrysalis.
I would hazard that there have been hundreds of nature books with pictures of the monarch butterfly. It's a signature species. It's virtually unthinkable that it would go extinct.
But it might.
U.S. moves to add monarch butterfly to the endangered species list
"On its current course, the western monarch has a 99 percent chance of vanishing for good in about the next six decades, according to the federal scientists, after its population dropped by more than 95 percent from over 4.5 million in the 1980s."
"Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Arkansas), who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, criticized the proposed rule, arguing it shows why the Endangered Species Act needs to be amended to give more power to states.
“Monarchs are a classic example of why ESA reform is necessary, and empowering states and private landowners is the best way to go about reform,” he said in a statement. “In its 50-year run, the ESA has failed to achieve its goals for recovery.”
Here's an interesting article about the upgrades being performed under the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In a very small visitor space on one side of the memorial, there was a window allowing a view into the space (which the article calls the 'undercroft'), and you could see some stalactites, as some of the marble has been dissolved by rainwater and then redeposited. They are using some of this big space now.
Beneath the Lincoln Memorial, a vast space is being transformed
"The 38,000-ton structure was built on a platform supported by 122 concrete pillars that were sunk through the soft earth to the solid rock below. Dirt was packed around that foundation, leaving about 50,000 square feet of empty undercroft beneath the memorial.Below is what the work will look like.
The undercroft is so large that the entire memorial, flipped upside down, would fit in it, said Sam Meyerhoff, senior project manager with the Consigli construction company, which is doing much of the project work."
Pretty much since I began this blog, I've noted lingerie, and lingerie models, and also lingerie models who are representing brands like Victoria's Secret, Ultimo, even Aerie.
So I have to acknowledge when Elsa Hosk, long associated with Victoria's Secret, becomes the lead model for PrettyLittleThing.
Of course, the Daily Mail helped out here.
I went to the PLT website, and by searching with "elsa hosk", I had this return. Not all the featured items are being worn by Elsa, but the other models are nicely viewable, as well. At least one of the found items also appears in the linked Daily Mail article.
Actually, conservationists in Hawaii just did release five 'alala, also known as the Hawaiian crow, into the wild on Maui. The 'alala are extremely endangered, and were also extinct in the wild for a period of time. And having five of them in the wild doesn't exactly mean they're in great shape. But they still have a chance.
How scientists are giving these rare, brainy birds a second chance
After years in captivity, five members of a rare bird species called the ʻalala, or Hawaiian crow, are flying free in the wild, officials announced Wednesday."By the late 1990s, fewer than 20 of these crows persisted, with the habitat loss and predation by cats and other non-native animals pushing them to the brink. After the survivors were brought into conservation breeding centers, the bird went extinct in the wild in 2002.
Between 2016 and 2020, the crows’ caretakers reintroduced 30 ʻalala into the wild on Hawaii’s Big Island. For years they thrived, pairing off and building nests. But scientists decided to recapture the crows when their numbers began to decline as Hawaii’s native hawk, the ‘io, began preying on them."
I started thinking about this after Madison Keys just surprised the tennis world by winning the Australian Open 2025 after defeating Elena Rybakina (darn), Iga Swiatek (including a match point against), and Aryna Sabalenka (smash goes the racket). As of now, Rybakina is ranked #5, Swiatek #2, and Sabalenka #1. That is massively impressive.
So what I started thinking about was the best players in tennis never to win a Grand Slam tournament. So without much discussion (and that would take a long time), here's my list of the men and women.
Top men tennis players never to win a major (my list):
Current:
Alexander Zverev
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Francis Tiafoe
Past:
Tomas Berdych
Tom Okker
Miloslav Mecir
Vitas Gerulaitis
Henri Leconte
Marcelo Rios
Todd Martin
Top women tennis players never to win a major (my list):
Current:
Ons Jabeur
Elina Svitolina
Karolina Pliskova
Past:
Dinara Safina
Jelena Jankovic
Agnieszka Radwanska
Pam Shriver
Sources that provided some of these names:
I just recently heard of the Battle of Tirad Pass. If you haven't heard of it, don't worry, not a lot of us in the Western Hemisphere are experts on the history of the Philippines.
But it's a remarkable war story, and right up there with some of the more famous stories where a vastly outnumbered force holds off the force that has the large advantage of numbers. As it is described, it is the "Philippine Thermopylae" (Thermopylae being the battle in the movie The 300, also mentioned in The Last Samurai, where a few Spartans and some other Greeks held off a vastly superior army of Persians for a considerable period of time, before the valiant outnumbered side was all killed).
But back to the Philippines and the Battle of Tirad Pass. As described, it was a rearguard action in the Philippine-American War (OK, we in the USA should know something about that). The quick summary of the war goes like this:
"The conflict arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to secure independence from the United States following the latter's acquisition of the Philippines from Spain following the Spanish–American War. The war was a continuation of the Philippine struggle for independence that began in 1896 with the Philippine Revolution."
The background is this:
"The Battle of Tirad Pass, sometimes referred to as the "Philippine Thermopylae", was a battle in the Philippine-American War fought on December 2, 1899, in northern Luzon in the Philippines, in which a 60-man Filipino rear guard commanded by Brigadier General Gregorio del Pilar succumbed to around 300 Americans of the 33rd Infantry Regiment under Major Peyton C. March, while delaying the American advance to ensure Emilio Aguinaldo's escape."
It's a pretty classic example of what a strong defensive position can do in war.
"At about 6:30 in the morning of December 2, the Americans advanced up the trail but were met with a steady volley of fire, resulting in them only being able to climb around 300 feet. The Americans abandoned the idea of a frontal assault and took cover in the zigzag trail. Texan sharpshooters stationed themselves on a hill overlooking the trenches and proceeded to whittle down the Philippine rear guard with measured volleys. Nevertheless, the Filipinos continued to hold their ground, utilizing focused volley fire that repelled other advances by the Americans. Therefore, March sent elements of their force with an Igorot villager named Januario Galut to determine Filipino positions and outflank the defenders. While the search party was not yet returning, three American soldiers, wanting to have a Medal of Honor, rushed to the battlefield but found themselves receiving Filipino fire. Two were dead, being the only Americans killed in the encounter, and the third one was badly wounded.
More than five hours after the battle began, the Americans began to feel the scorching heat of the midday sun and decided to rest for a while in the rock cover. Later that day, as the search party had succeeded their task, the Americans fell upon the rear of the outnumbered defenders, defeating them. Over the course of the battle, 52 of the 60 Filipinos were killed. Among the dead was General del Pilar, shot through the neck at the height or end of the struggle (depending upon which eye-witness account is to be believed)."
And there is a movie about it.
What it looks like today:
From Dana Milbank in the Washington Post:
Democrats don’t have a working-class problem. America does.
"Trump channels populist anger, but he directs it at migrants and foreigners instead of corporations. The billionaire president-elect has chosen a billionaire commerce secretary, a billionaire interior secretary and a billionaire education secretary and has tapped the world’s wealthiest man to run his government-efficiency task force. This oligarchy is planning to impose more of the same policies that caused workers’ problems in the first place: extending tax breaks for the rich and further rolling back business regulation, employment law and union rights."
If you haven't heard of Alaska's Aghileen Pinnacles, don't be too concerned. I hadn't heard about them at all until I virtually stumbled over a picture of them.
What they are is a really jagged set of closely spaced peaks, volcanic in origin, located near Pavlof Volcano, which is a good explanation for their volcanic origin. They look quite weird. (Pavlof Volcano is at the western end of the Alaska Peninsula, before it turns into the Aleutian Islands chain.)
Getting there is half the fun. Climbing them would be even more fun. I don't know if that's been done (according to Peakbagger.com, they haven't been.) I've found three pictures to show how much fun they might be.
It took awhile to get there, but there's a satellite built in Japan currently orbiting Earth. The novel thing about this satellite, creatively named LignoSat, is that it is made out of wood.
The mission of this wooden satellite is to determine if it's feasible to build satellites out of wood. The goal is satellites that burn up a lot better when they re-enter the atmosphere and don't spread as much metal debris and dust in the atmosphere. We need all the help we can get.
LignoSat went to the International Space Station in November and was deployed in December. As far as I can tell, it's working. The article describes what it's doing up there.
World's 1st wooden satellite deploys from ISS to demonstrate cleaner spacecraft tech
"During the mission, researchers will measure the response of LignoSat's magnolia-wood body to the temperature swings and high radiation levels in near-Earth space."Watch the exciting video!
This lighthouse is attributed in location to Maine, but it's much closer to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the largest city on the coast of New Hampshire. It is located on an island close to the coast of Maine, which is why Maine gets it over New Hampshire.
This is where it is; zoomed out to show where that is.
Here is the pertinent information from the Lighthouse Directory:
"1872 (station established 1831). Active; focal plane 59 ft (18 m); 2 white flashes every 10 s. 50 ft (15 m) round granite tower with lantern and gallery, incorporating 3-story keeper's quarters; rotating VRB-25 aerobeacon (2002). Tower unpainted, lantern and gallery panted black. Fog horn (2 blasts every 30 s). ... In September 2013 a $7000 project completed critically needed repairs to the lantern and gallery. In January 2017 FPHL [Friends of Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouses] announced plans to repair breakwaters and build a new dock at the lighthouse with the goal of allowing public access. Located on a rocky reef in the mouth of the Piscataqua River off Jaffrey Point, NH."
Whaleback Lighthouse -- American Lighthouse Foundation'
A Complete Guide to Whaleback Lighthouse, Maine -- Maine Lighthouse Museum
Pictures are below, of course. As you can see, it does get some wave action at times.
In New England, where cranberries are traditional (but not necessarily the main place they come from), cranberry bogs are being converted back to wetlands. Sounds like a good move.
Why cranberry country is turning into wetlands
"Southeastern Massachusetts has been cranberry country for more than 200 years, ever since a Revolutionary War veteran discovered he could transplant wild vines to a swamp near his home on Cape Cod. But falling prices, competition from cranberry growers in Wisconsin, Quebec and Chile, and climate change have made it increasingly difficult for the state’s farmers to continue on — and has led to a boom in conservation projects as some look for an exit strategy."
"But 12 years after the first bog restoration was completed, the results suggest a path other states might follow as they warm to the idea that time-honored defenses like sea walls and dikes may not be enough in a changing climate."It may not look like much, but it is a wetland.
The Daily Mail never misses an opportunity for a tabloid-level headline. Well, it is a tabloid, after all.
NASA spots 'spiderwebs' on never-before-explored region of Mars that could be linked to aliens
OK, let's take a look at what NASA really saw. That is described in the following article:"Viewed by MRO [Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter], the boxwork looks like spiderwebs stretching across the surface. It’s believed to have formed when minerals carried by Mount Sharp’s last pulses of water settled into fractures in surface rock and then hardened. As portions of the rock erode.
On Earth, boxwork formations have been seen on cliffsides and in caves. But Mount Sharp’s boxwork structures stand apart from those both because they formed as water was disappearing from Mars and because they’re so extensive, spanning an area of 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20 kilometers)."
OK, so they are geological. So what about the aliens? Back to the Daily Mail:
"The likelihood that evidence of aquatic microbial life of Mars might be caught in this giant web as fossils 'makes this an exciting place to explore,' Dr Siebach noted.
This web of potential dead alien microbes and bugs rests in the shadow of a three-mile tall mountain, officially known as 'Aeolis Mon,' but nicknamed 'Mount Sharp.'
So they would be dead aliens, if they are there (or if they were there). '
What the boxwork looks like is shown below. The blue star was just a reference point, but this picture provides a scale.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which still exists as I write this, is proposing to list the Bethany Beach firefly as 'threatened'. It's the first firefly to be listed, if it happens.
I've been to Bethany Beach a few times. It's a nice place, a couple miles south of Rehoboth. I didn't know it had a firefly named after it, though.
So, as the article notes, like many other fireflies, its population is declining, for a lot of combined reasons that becomes more powerful as extinction pathways when combined. So the difficult problem is reducing their impact.
(This article is a bit old; I'm trying to address some backlog.)
This firefly delighted beachgoers. Now it’s flickering out of existence.
"Discovered in 1949, the Bethany Beach firefly is distinct from other fireflies for its telltale black head marking and its double flash of green light. Though named after the coastal Delaware town where it was discovered, the firefly also shines in low-lying marshes called swales along the shores of Maryland and Virginia.Here's the Bethany Beach firefly, doing what it's known for.
But today, rising tides and stronger storms fueled by a human-induced climate change are poised to wash through those freshwater marshes as well as the coastal dunes that protect them. According to climate models, up to 95 percent of those low wetlands may be lost to high-tide flooding by the end of the century.
“These more severe storm events like we saw in Florida” are threatening the firefly, Slacum said, referring to the deadly Hurricane Helene, which made landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast last week. “Over the next 30 or 50 years, a lot of these swales are probably going to be underwater.”
Meanwhile, booming coastal development — and the steady glare from buildings and streetlamps that come with it — is beginning to outshine the insect, which courts its potential mates by flashing. Even the blinking lights from airplanes and broadcast towers can confuse fireflies."
... but I am.
In a First, Transgender Woman Wins Model of the Year
"For the first time in the three-decade history of the award, the honoree, Ms. Consani, was a transgender woman. She is a TikTok phenom with almost four million followers and a cavalcade of catwalk appearances (Chanel, Stella McCartney and, in another first, Victoria’s Secret in October) to her name since being signed to IMG Models in 2019."
When I saw this lighthouse in a Google Maps exploration, I was surprised to find out I hadn't featured it before in my Lighthouse of the Week posts. When I checked the Lighthouse Directory, I then discovered it has one of the longest entries for a lighthouse that I had ever seen. And then went image searching, I learned that there are several websites about it too, a few of which I'll feature after the main information.
As is my custom, the first thing I'll do is provide the location; basically south of Jacksonville, Florida.
Now, just some of the information from the Lighthouse Directory:
"1874 (Paul J. Pelz, architect). Station established 1823. Active (privately maintained); focal plane 161 ft (49 m); continuous white light with a more intense flash every 30 s. 165 ft (50 m) round brick tower painted in a black-and-white spiral similar to Cape Hatteras Light; lantern painted red; original rotating 1st order Fresnel lens. Sibling of Bodie Island, North Carolina. 2-story brick and wood Victorian keeper's house (rebuilt after being gutted by fire in 1970). ... The present light station has been meticulously restored to its 1888 appearance. ... In 2002 the lighthouse was one of the first to be transferred under the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. During Hurricane Frances in 2004 museum operations director Rick Cain valiantly kept the light on. In 2008-09 the exterior of the lantern was restored and its windows were replaced. In 2014 the museum paid $150,000 to purchase the keeper's house and the rest of the light station property, which had been leased previously from St. Johns County. In 2014-15 the lens and its rotating mechanism were cleaned and restored in place. In April 2015 the museum launched a crowdfunding campaign and sold T-shirts to complete the $280,000 needed for repainting and repairs to the tower. In 2016 work began to restore two Coast Guard buildings, a garage and a barracks, for expansion of exhibits on the station's history during World War II. This project was completed in 2018. In September 2017 the Maritime Archaeology and Education Center opened in new buildings on the light station grounds. The tower was repainted inside and out in 2021."
The websites (just a few):
St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum (Visit St. Augustine)
St. Augustine, Lighthouse (Lighthouse Friends)
St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum (Official Website)
Visit St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum (The Club Continental)
Pictures and a video finish this post.
If you live where it snows (in the USA), you know that northern cardinals stand out against the white snow quite markedly. Lots of pictures, puzzles, sweaters, socks, towels, etc. all attest to this.
So it turns out that cardinals are really more red in the winter.
Are Cardinals Redder in Winter?"Like many birds, Northern Cardinals molt their feathers and grow new ones in late summer and early fall, after the breeding season is over and at a time when food is abundant. During autumn people often comment about how ratty cardinals look. Molting cardinals commonly have areas of dark, exposed skin on their head or body, and some even molt their head feathers all at once, rendering the birds bald.
But even after its head is covered in feathers again, a newly molted male cardinal isn’t at his brightest. Many of his new feathers, especially on the neck and back, are tipped with gray. During fall and winter these dusky feather tips slowly wear off, revealing more and more brilliant red.
The birds reach the peak of brilliance by midwinter ahead of the spring breeding season. Against snow-covered conifers, it’s a feast for our eyes, too. The richness of a male’s red feathers may make a difference in his reproductive success: One study found that in rural areas, brighter red cardinals tended to mate earlier and nest in higher-quality habitat—factors usually associated with more offspring."
Just happened to accidentally catch a glimpse of Anna-Lisa Christiane, and she's worth more of my time.
The main problem? They don't have enough talent that is capable of scoring goals regularly. Scoring goals in soccer is like hitting baseballs in baseball -- it's the most difficult thing to do, of course, and thus the most prized skill that can be bought. And in the Premier League, it costs a lot. Like most of the mid-tier clubs, Crystal Palace can't afford to have consistent top-line scoring talent. Occasionally they get lucky for a year or two. They also some to keep just enough veterans to maintain their Premier League presence.
So, I anticipate another bottom 10, but not relegated, finish for the Eagles.
Their current status is 15th in the league, with 21 points, five points above Ipswich Town, who are in the top relegation position. They did win their FA Cup match today, January 12, 2025, over Stockport (who?) after a fourth-minute goal by Eze, one of the few players on the team that knows how to score occasionally. The goalkeeper was Matt Turner, who happens to be the number one goalkeeper for the USA Men's National Team. Stockport is League One, the third level in the UK, and resides somewhere near Manchester. So if that result doesn't show that CP doesn't have a lot of scoring firepower, I don't know what else would.
Crystal Palace 1 --- Stockport County 0
Rah, rah.
First of a couple of articles I'll post in the next couple of days/weeks about interesting new ship (and plane) wreck finds.
Navy confirms finding sunken U.S. warship known as ‘the dancing mouse’
"The wreck was found late last year in 18,000 feet of water south of Australia’s remote Christmas Island, the U.S. Navy said. Australian and U.S. officials worked together to confirm it was the Edsall.Being as deep as it is, it still looks in pretty good shape.
“It is pretty incredible,” said retired U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Samuel J. Cox, head of the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington. “And because there were no surviving American witnesses, there’s no Medals of Honor, no Navy Crosses, nothing for any of these guys.”
I don't know much about Jared Isaacman, except that he's really wealthy and he's been in space twice. I'm not exactly sure how that qualifies someone to lead NASA, but Don the Con POTUS picked him for that spot.
I'll be very curious to see what Isaacman's priorities now. I'll certainly post on that as they come into focus.
Trump picks billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to head NASA
They've already put out some trial balloons about some "bold", aka dumb, ideas for NASA. We'll see what comes of those.
As I promised in last week's Lighthouse of the Week post, I'm again featuring the Sturgeon Bay North Pierhead Lighthouse in Wisconsin, notably one of the Door County lighthouses. However, I only provided one picture.
Now I'm giving it the full treatment, with location, description and more pictures.
First of all, here's the location. Google Maps calls it the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Pierhead Front Lighthouse. I like the Lighthouse Directory, so I'm still calling it what that resource calls it. In my selected location and zoom setting, you can see all of Door County, Green Bay, Peshtigo, and Marinette, Michigan, among other places.
Now, speaking of the Lighthouse Directory, here is the excerpted information.
"1903 (station established 1882). Active; focal plane 40 ft (12 m); red flash every 2.5 s. 39 ft (12 m) round cylindrical cast iron tower with lantern and gallery, attached to 1-1/2 story steel fog signal building. The 6th order Fresnel lens (1881) was recently replaced by a modern 300 mm lens. The entire lighthouse is painted bright red. Fog horn (2 blasts every 30 s) on demand. ... Built in the 1880s, the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal connects the main part of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, cutting through the narrowest part of the Door Peninsula. The lighthouse became available for transfer under NHLPA in 2010, and when no qualified recipients were found it went on auction sale in July 2014. It was sold in September for $48,500 to Gordon Krist of Paris, Kentucky."
Which brings up one obvious question: what is he doing with it?
Anyhow, below are pictures and a short video. One picture shows it can get icy at times. The first one shows both canal lighthouses, the other one with the designation "Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Lighthouse", which is still a working Coast Guard station lighthouse.
I eavesdrop on Townhall.com occasionally. Most of the writers there are, to put it mildly, nuts. This post there caught my eye.
JD Vance Had the Perfect Response to Bolton's Criticism of Kash Patel
Let's set the context:
"In the current transition, potential Trump appointees say they have been asked whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen (to which there is only one right answer, one contrary to fact) and how they view the events of Jan. 6, 2021. (When Mr. Trump finally leaves the political scene, it will be interesting to see how many nominees claim they never believed he won in 2020 or that Jan. 6 was an innocent walk in the park, not an unlawful riot.) Kissing Mr. Trump’s ring to gain the highest government ranks is one thing, but the real crunch for the new appointees, especially those without prior government experience, will come after they actually begin work. That is one reason the Constitution checks the president’s appointment power."
Bolton is quite astute. He also echoes and reaffirms the statements of many others about the dangers of Kash Patel. Will Congress somehow not let this loose cannon get confirmed? We'll find out soon.
Looking into the future with the Yale Climate Connection.
He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution
"Beyond being more efficient, green tech is simply cheaper to adopt. Consider Texas, which long ago divorced its electrical grid from the national grid so it could skirt federal regulation. The Lone Star State is the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, but it gets 40 percent of its total energy from carbon-free sources. “Texas has the most solar and wind of any state, not because Republicans in Texas love renewables, but because it’s the cheapest form of electricity there,” said Zeke Hausfather, a research scientist at Berkeley Earth, a climate research nonprofit. The next top three states for producing wind power — Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas — are red, too."
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