Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
The national parks are so small, and generally don't have the resources the private sector is looking for. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management [1] holdings are potentially more attractive. OTOH, as privately held lands, they fall under state jurisdiction for royalties and restoration requirements. Why is so much of Wyoming's coal mined on federal lands? Because even deep-red Wyoming levies much higher royalties and taxes than the feds do, and has much more stringent reclamation requirements.
[1] I spent too many years in western states, and on a western state government legislative staff in particular. In my head, the BLM acronym is always associated with "What have those d*ckheads done now?"
2025-12-11 00:42:48
...having oil not under US control...
Regarding today's seizure of a loaded oil tanker, reportedly in transit from Venezuela to Cuba... As I understand how these things are done, ownership of the oil transferred FOB some oil terminal in Venezuela. The owner is almost certainly not the company that owns the tanker. Trump has said regarding the oil, "Well, we keep it, I guess." Part of me wishes that there's some back room paper shuffling going on and tomorrow China issues a statement asking, "Did we just hear you say that you're keeping a million barrels of our oil?"
A bigger part of me fears irrationality, and a back channel message being sent that says, "Nice AI bubble you've blown there. Be a shame if anything happened to TSMC's ability to deliver chips to American companies."
2025-12-08 23:36:01
I used to act out shouting “no, no, no” so that my wife had to wake me up. In the dream I would usually be in a situation of powerlesness.
My vampire dreams -- see above -- were infrequent. My wife would wake me up when things got to the huffing and puffing and occasionally whimpering stage. "Vampires again?" she would ask.
2025-12-08 23:26:52
I’ve always known that most people can remember at least some of their dreams. But I’ve never done that.
I can remember the last dream immediately upon awakening, but have to review it a couple of times to get it into somewhat more permanent storage. I did that this morning. The dream setting was a hilly suburban neighborhood. The guy down the street was a sword smith who produced "good" magical swords. The guy across the street made "bad" magical swords. The wife of the guy across the street was a serial killer using one of the bad swords. They were framing the guy who made good swords for the killings. When I figured out what was going on, the good smith gave me a sword so I could take on the bad smith. Swashbuckling across streets and yards ensued. One of the backyards was filled with rabbits, we literally had to wade through them. Each rabbit had been dyed a bright color: red, blue, green, yellow.
Sometimes I wake up from the weird ones because, in the dream, I get to the point of "I'd like to speak with the screenwriter, please."
2025-12-07 14:48:10
Now that I have an older man's prostate and bladder, I wake up once in the middle of the night because I have to pee. Sometimes I have trouble getting back to sleep after that, another common problem amongst the old. I have very vivid, complicated dreams, which are common side effects of the two long-term medications I take. I seem to dream more than I used to, but don't have any of the symptoms (like waking up fatigued) that indicate excess dreaming. None of the acting-out behavior, the normal REM "paralysis" seems to be working just fine.
I've long been interested in what kind of nightmares people have -- what makes you wake up huffing and puffing with the adrenaline pumping. The only ones that do that to me are dreams about vampires. For unknown reasons, while I know that witches and werewolves and such -- everything except vampires -- are just make-believe, part of me believes in vampires. I don't know if the fear pre- or post-dates the time I finished reading Salem's Lot in bed at 2:00 in the morning. I had to decide if I was going to walk across the room to turn the light off, knowing that I would have to walk back in the dark, or put my head under the pillow to sleep. I elected to put my head under the pillow.
Before this ends all National Parks will likely be privatized (to private = to plunder); to be logged and mined into moonscapes.
The national parks are so small, and generally don't have the resources the private sector is looking for. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management [1] holdings are potentially more attractive. OTOH, as privately held lands, they fall under state jurisdiction for royalties and restoration requirements. Why is so much of Wyoming's coal mined on federal lands? Because even deep-red Wyoming levies much higher royalties and taxes than the feds do, and has much more stringent reclamation requirements.
[1] I spent too many years in western states, and on a western state government legislative staff in particular. In my head, the BLM acronym is always associated with "What have those d*ckheads done now?"
...having oil not under US control...
Regarding today's seizure of a loaded oil tanker, reportedly in transit from Venezuela to Cuba... As I understand how these things are done, ownership of the oil transferred FOB some oil terminal in Venezuela. The owner is almost certainly not the company that owns the tanker. Trump has said regarding the oil, "Well, we keep it, I guess." Part of me wishes that there's some back room paper shuffling going on and tomorrow China issues a statement asking, "Did we just hear you say that you're keeping a million barrels of our oil?"
A bigger part of me fears irrationality, and a back channel message being sent that says, "Nice AI bubble you've blown there. Be a shame if anything happened to TSMC's ability to deliver chips to American companies."
I used to act out shouting “no, no, no” so that my wife had to wake me up. In the dream I would usually be in a situation of powerlesness.
My vampire dreams -- see above -- were infrequent. My wife would wake me up when things got to the huffing and puffing and occasionally whimpering stage. "Vampires again?" she would ask.
I’ve always known that most people can remember at least some of their dreams. But I’ve never done that.
I can remember the last dream immediately upon awakening, but have to review it a couple of times to get it into somewhat more permanent storage. I did that this morning. The dream setting was a hilly suburban neighborhood. The guy down the street was a sword smith who produced "good" magical swords. The guy across the street made "bad" magical swords. The wife of the guy across the street was a serial killer using one of the bad swords. They were framing the guy who made good swords for the killings. When I figured out what was going on, the good smith gave me a sword so I could take on the bad smith. Swashbuckling across streets and yards ensued. One of the backyards was filled with rabbits, we literally had to wade through them. Each rabbit had been dyed a bright color: red, blue, green, yellow.
Sometimes I wake up from the weird ones because, in the dream, I get to the point of "I'd like to speak with the screenwriter, please."
Now that I have an older man's prostate and bladder, I wake up once in the middle of the night because I have to pee. Sometimes I have trouble getting back to sleep after that, another common problem amongst the old. I have very vivid, complicated dreams, which are common side effects of the two long-term medications I take. I seem to dream more than I used to, but don't have any of the symptoms (like waking up fatigued) that indicate excess dreaming. None of the acting-out behavior, the normal REM "paralysis" seems to be working just fine.
I've long been interested in what kind of nightmares people have -- what makes you wake up huffing and puffing with the adrenaline pumping. The only ones that do that to me are dreams about vampires. For unknown reasons, while I know that witches and werewolves and such -- everything except vampires -- are just make-believe, part of me believes in vampires. I don't know if the fear pre- or post-dates the time I finished reading Salem's Lot in bed at 2:00 in the morning. I had to decide if I was going to walk across the room to turn the light off, knowing that I would have to walk back in the dark, or put my head under the pillow to sleep. I elected to put my head under the pillow.