Whether directed for the purpose of voting or not...

Party leadership knows exactly how many bodies will be required by census time for a state to gain an additional seat...
Many blue states, ie CA, NY are losing seats due to migration, which are handed over to Red States, ie TX, FL, NC......

By A David Merritt (Adm) on Friday, January 30, 2026 - 03:23 pm: Edit

Red states like MO are losing seats to TX, and FL as well.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Friday, January 30, 2026 - 03:45 pm: Edit

For reference, I had an incident this morning that reminded me of the Goode incident. I was in a parking lot, traffic was clear, save for one car that was stopped, so I (on foot) crossed the access lane to go to my car. About halfway there, the guy in the stopped car gunned his engine and took off. Initially it looked like he was aiming straight at me, but he was peeling out to go up a lane.

Even though he missed me by a good two feet, the chirping tires scared the Hades out of me. I can only imagine how frightening it would have been, had I been clipped.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, January 30, 2026 - 05:28 pm: Edit

The vote rigging of open borders is national not local. I suppose someone could dig deep enough to find if the previous administration was sending immigration to key area, but I have never looked at it that way.

I don’t think you can say that stopping one side from illegally rigging an election is the other side rigging the election. Preventing a crime is not something criminals can fairly call a crime.

Show me a country that is totally right wing and maybe when I become king I will import refugees from that country. Until then, all of the immigration vote rigging is on the other side not mine.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, January 30, 2026 - 05:30 pm: Edit

Further post on this issue are prohibited. They will be deleted.do not spoil my weekend by making me check the BBS every 30 seconds.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 11, 2026 - 12:30 am: Edit

NANCY GUTHRIE CASE

Apparently they have arrested someone.

Eight or so hours ago the FBI released just recovered nest doorbell footage of someone breaking into her house eight days ago.

The narrative theory of the moment is that someone recognized the perpetrator because the SWAT team rolled out three hours ago and were watching a house.

The perpetrator got in his car and headed for the Mexican border, and the sheriff team decided to grab him rather than try to follow him hoping he was heading for Nancy.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, February 11, 2026 - 04:25 am: Edit

The chaos continues. The individual detained has been released and apparently isn’t involved in the case at all.

By Randy Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 12:30 pm: Edit

Skimming through this topic.. and doing a little googling..

California has 112 utility-scale wind farms generating 6,530 MW. The largest wind farm has over 4700 turbines. That's a lot of turbines. Texas probably has more wind turbines though.. just guessing.

Texas leads the nation in new utility-scale solar installations, projecting to add 41 GW within the next 5 years. Wind and solar will likely become ERCOT’s largest generation resource in 2026, surpassing natural gas. Utility-scale battery installation is skyrocketing to address availability concerns and ease charge management.

Texas is looking pretty... green. :0

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 01:25 pm: Edit

So, interesting thing.

A quarter of the corn we grow in the U.S. goes into ethanol fuel. At a very generous estimate of 30 mpg, that fuel is enough to run vehicles some two million miles.

If the same land was given over to solar farms, it would produce enough energy to (at current average rates for EVs, and using per-acre solar generation rates in northern Illinois as representative of the Corn Belt) run vehicles some 70 million miles...and if the land owners were to go the agrivoltaic route, they could still grow certain crops on that land (particularly row crops like vegetables) between the rows of panels.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 02:04 pm: Edit

Some problems with the Jessica Solar Plan.

1. Ethanol comes from corn. Corn comes from farmers. Farmers are the driving engine of the agricultural economy. Stopping ethanol production means losing the next election when the farmers and their suppliers and customers lose money.

2. It is very difficult to efficiently grow row crops in the strips between solar panels. It can be done, but leaving space for the machinery to get up and down the rows means you'll at best get 1/3 of that last converted to solar.

Make no mistake, I'm good with the plan, but only if you eliminate all subsidies for wind and solar, at which point no one will install it.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 02:34 pm: Edit

My understanding is that to even claim that you get more energy out of the corn to ethanol program than you put in you have to claim that the left over mash is a high value energy product AND you have to claim that the ethanol mix fuel is as good as an equal amount of pure gasoline.

So we may well be spending a fortune to waste energy and burn MORE petrochemicals in the name of conservation/green.

To add to the insanity, Cane Sugar cultivation actually CAN result in a net gain in energy by taking the waste and brewing ethonal (and it appears that this is WITHOUT counting either the sugar or the residual mash as having value, cane is very high energy), but our agricultural programs strictly limit cane cultivation to make the people with the quotas richer and to make people use high fructose corn syrup in place of sugar.

By Randy Green (Hollywood750) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 03:51 pm: Edit

Market forces and continued use of subsidies will determine the future here. Note that Agrovoltaics farmers can tap the USDA Rural Electrification of America (REAP) program for their subsidies. That's not going away anytime soon, since that program is setup to benefit rural America. In the end, someone that can convert to an agrovoltaic farm is going to be more profitable than someone who can't.

Texas must be reaping tons of government incentives to subsidize their tremendous growth in the renewable energy sector, so ERCOT will keep installing renewables regardless of public opinion. And with the number of data centers going up in Texas, they are going to need every bit of electricity ERCOT can generate.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 03:56 pm: Edit

Randy, you are quite correct, not that it makes anyone here particularly happy.

Doug, yes, ethanol arguably burns about as much gasoline as it produces. If not for the Iowa caucuses, we would not have ethanol.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 04:26 pm: Edit

What about encouraging wind and/or solar farms in desolate areas where there's NO corn grown?

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 05:56 pm: Edit

RE: Solar Farms --- go to YouTube and look for Alexandra Fasulo. Just binge-watch her videos on the subject. It shouldn't take long to make you grid your teeth.


Garth L. Getgen

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 06:06 pm: Edit

I think you meant “Grind” not grid.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 06:12 pm: Edit

What about putting solar panels on a whole lot of roof tops? Parking garages and they like?

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 10:28 pm: Edit

Parking garages locally have parking on the top. There's lots of industrial buildings with flat roofs. But I suspect you'd have to completely rebuild the roof to put much solar on them.

I doubt that it would be worth it unless you are redoing the roof anyway (which has to be done every so often, roofs don't last as long as buildings).

Industrial buildings are good locations for solar, because you're only using substantial power during daytime.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, February 12, 2026 - 11:47 pm: Edit

Solar panels come in various sizes and options.

Fixed position panels are set at an optimal position to maximize exposure to the sun depending on how near or far from the equator, sometimes elevation can be a factor (say if you are surrounded by mountains) or even climate (pacific north west of the united states gets a lot of rain.)

Variable position solar panels (oftem motorized and computer controlled) to maximize the best position relative to exposure to the sun.

Motors and additional wiring and computer controls all add weight.

Some roofing configurations may be limited by how much weight can be positioned, others may already have some other kind of equipment positioned, such as satellite dishes, or other communication equipment, or even a helicopter landing pad installed.

Some industrial buildings might have limits on when they are engaged in various operations, say steel plants or foundry, or process facilities that might last several days or longer (such as plastics or refining facilities.

You may not (probably won’t) get anything close to 100% participation.

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 03:01 am: Edit

Sorry, this is a really really really stupid question.

"At a very generous estimate of 30 mpg"

Why is the MPG so low?

(Accepting the obvious, the UK Gallon is 20% bigger more or less).

But, my current car does about 45-50 mpg depending on where I drive it - my best car, an A4 Convertible had the 1.8T Petrol Engine - and that did about 37 mpg and could get to 40 Mpg+ if I was sensible (it was a lovelly car to drive... once I did drive really well and got a very good MPG) - and I bought that in 2004.....

Neither of these cars was designed to be "highly economical" - and yes, there are cars with 3 to 5 litre Engines all over the place etc, but 30 mpg as an average seems very low?

Whats the average Petrol Engine size for cars made in the last 5 years say?

(If I had to guess, UK is probably 1.5 to 1.6 litres - lots of smaller Petrol Engines got Turbo's added to make them smaller... - we used to be around 1.6 to 1.8 I bet, based on purely numbers of mass built family cars on the road!!!)

By Paul Howard (Raven) on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 03:53 am: Edit

Can't edit my above post...

Had't really noticed it but Winter seems to be horrible (Heated Seats and Heating Air Con - although the latter is probably more effecient than Cooling Air Con??) on Fuel Economy..... I only averaged 35 mpg this morning (although about two thirds of the driving is 3rd and 4th gear - lots of 20 mph and 30 mph roads I have to use and only about 4 miles out of 15 where I got to use 5th or 6th gear....).

So my fuel economy isn't as good as normal at the moment.

So 30 mpg in winter might not be that bad!!

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 09:52 am: Edit

Paul:

"At a very generous estimate of 30 mpg"

Why is the MPG so low?

Because ethanol provides considerably worse fuel efficiency than does gasoline/petrol.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 09:54 am: Edit

"only if you eliminate all subsidies for wind and solar"

Fossil fuels get a lot of subsidies mostly through tax breaks. And there are significant environmental externalities.

As for messing with farmers use of their crops, you can point to the current problem with US soybean exports.

I agree 100% with SVC, stop ALL subsidies for energy production (including coal) and let "the invisible hand" referee.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 09:57 am: Edit

Garth: Alexandra Fasulo has about as much credibility as Joe Isuzu (she's also a scam artist who uses ghost writers and then never pays them, but that's a separate issue).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, February 13, 2026 - 10:44 am: Edit

Goodness gracious, Mike Grafton and I agree on something.

Actually, the term "business subsidies" covers a whole lot of stuff including things that are just standard accounting. We just bought another shrinkwrap machine. We paid $500 for it. Tax laws for any business (energy or not) allow us to "amortize" that over the lifetime of the machine, which we might say is 20 years (I haven't looked it up). That means that every year for 20 years ADB will "spend" $25 for that machine, so we get to deduct $25 from our taxable corporate income. We just bought two new computers for a total of $2500 which we get to "amortize" over 10 years meaning $250 a year gets deducted ("depreciated").

SOMETIMES when you see people who don't like oil or coal talk about subsides they're including standard business deductions that EVERY business gets to take because that is how accounting works. You collect money (sales) and spend money (rent, equipment depreciation, paychecks, supplies) and pay taxes on what's left. Is my "depreciating" a computer a "subsidy"? Well, sometimes if you dig into the rhetoric you find that depreciation is being called a subsidy.

Now, there is another trick, which is Schedule 179 depreciation. This allows you to write off somethings immediately, not over years. There are also some "tax credits" for doing certain things that build a better business and and hire more workers, and EVERY business, energy or not, gets to do that.

So I would make it clear and I'm sure Mike G agrees, standard accounting/business practices that EVERY business gets AREN'T the "subsidies" he and I want to get rid of for "energy" companies.

Congress sometimes "encourages" things by giving specific subsidies to specific things. If powerful lobbyists convinced enough congress critters to give checks or tax breaks to zorium mines because we think that is a clean form of energy, THAT is a subsidy. The heck of it is, sometimes that is a good and noble thing because it gets a new industry rolling. (Wind, solar, and ethanol get such things.) And sometimes its just a way to funnel government checks into the hands of businesses that donate money to specific politicians. Some taxpayer solar money went into phony companies (outright fraud) and a whole bunch of it went into companies that could never survive in the market but which were set up by big money donors who knew what was coming.

So you gotta ask, when the government subsidized companies to get into the microchip business, was this money distributed fairly to companies owned by red and blue billionaires? Or did it all go into the pockets of one color only?