Hello Dante? What Level Is This?

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

And the wind dies at night (because there is no solar power to heat airmasses and make the displacement).
And he is stating the obvious, because some people can't understand that most of the Northern hemisphere would need not only enough solar power to power their cities, they would also need enough storage cells to store power for the long winter nights.

[ti-amie]

And the wind dies at night (because there is no solar power to heat airmasses and make the displacement).
And he is stating the obvious, because some people can't understand that most of the Northern hemisphere would need not only enough solar power to power their cities, they would also need enough storage cells to store power for the long winter nights.

And here I was thinking he was just making sure the money from the oil and gas industries kept flowing. Thanks for the information.

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

And the wind dies at night (because there is no solar power to heat airmasses and make the displacement).
And he is stating the obvious, because some people can't understand that most of the Northern hemisphere would need not only enough solar power to power their cities, they would also need enough storage cells to store power for the long winter nights.

And here I was thinking he was just making sure the money from the oil and gas industries kept flowing. Thanks for the information.

He probably was. The two things are not exclusive.
People have to see something. The price of oil has not gone up, as was expected, in years. It sits currently around $75/BBl. And the oil companies are making huge profits but they are not setting up the price; they are taking the price.
We know. Climate change is real, and it keeps happening. But the believe that installing a billion solar panels and a billion wind mills will be the solution is a mirage. As I said before, you need a way to store that power because the sun sets, and the wind dies at night. A city like Stockholm would need, in the peak of winter, enough solar power and wind to power itself through 8 hours of daylight (or less) and THEN store enough power for 16 hours of night (or more). Electricity is cheap to generate but very expensive to store.
We need a mixed solution. As an example, you could make electrically powered airplanes, but they would be super heavy (less people to carry) and would take days to charge. So that industry will not switch to electrical power any time soon. As won't many others.

[ti-amie]

Danny
@danzu72
I miss the time before social media when we never knew how truly stupid celebrities were

[skatingfan]

I wonder if this comes from the idea that to be mixed race in America means being black & white, and it's something that was pushed on Naomi Osaka because her mother was Japanese she was not mixed race, and not black either.

[ti-amie]

I wonder if this comes from the idea that to be mixed race in America means being black & white, and it's something that was pushed on Naomi Osaka because her mother was Japanese she was not mixed race, and not black either.

Interesting. I grew up with a woman whose father was Chinese and her mother African-American. She had a hard time.

I also attribute her ignorance to being raised in a religious environment that didn't believe anything published outside of the bubble. Witnesses are not considered Christians.

ETA: It seems that all of her brothers support TFG too.

[ti-amie]

The backlash was fast and negative towards her comments. I guess her manager/brother Randy, who is a MAGAt, realized the damage that was done to the only one of them bringing in money these days and closed the barn door after the horse was gone.

Update:

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Melania Trump was paid for a rare appearance at a political event. It’s not clear who cut the unusual six-figure check
By Pamela Brown, Jeremy Herb and Shoshana Dubnow, CNN

Washington
CNN
—
Melania Trump has barely been seen on the campaign trail this year. One of the few times she has appeared at a political event, she’s received a six-figure paycheck – a highly unusual move for the spouse of a candidate.

The former first lady spoke at two political fundraisers for the Log Cabin Republicans this year, and she was paid $237,500 for an April event, according to former President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure form. The payment was listed as a “speaking engagement.”

Trump’s latest disclosure form said Melania Trump was paid by the Log Cabin Republicans for the April fundraiser. But it’s a mystery who actually cut the check: Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN earlier this month the group did not put up the money for her to speak, and the disclosure form did not give any more information about the source of the payment.

Ahead of the other fundraiser in July for the conservative LGBTQ group, a person familiar said at least one request was made to a donor about a similar payment. It’s unclear whether Melania Trump was ultimately paid. The campaign has not put out the financial disclosure for that period. The source told CNN that Ric Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and a Trump ally, was the one who made the request on behalf of Melania Trump. Sources said Grenell has also helped the former first lady with other business ventures.

Campaign finance and government ethics experts say a payment to a presidential candidate’s spouse to appear at political fundraisers in an election is unusual, ethically questionable and should, at the very least, be properly noted in the disclosure forms.

“It seems pretty self-serving. From my own general observation, I’m not used to seeing that,” said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

If the organization did not in fact make the payment to Melania Trump, the former president’s financial disclosure form may run afoul of ethics rules because it should have listed the sponsor who paid Melania Trump and not just where she spoke, Canter said.

“You could indicate that payment was for a speaking engagement for the Log Cabin Republicans, but you also need to report who the source of the payment was, otherwise you can’t assess for the conflicts of interest, and it wouldn’t be in compliance with the rules,” she said. “It should have properly been reported so that the source of the income is listed for the honorarium.”

Sources supportive of Melania Trump who attended the Log Cabin Republican events and didn’t know she got paid for at least one of them defended her, saying it’s her right to decide how to spend her time and to get paid for her time. One person close to Melania Trump said she has decided “my best and highest use is where I am,” adding that “she’s a priceless, timeless asset” for Donald Trump.

A spokesperson for Melania Trump declined to comment in response to CNN’s questions.

Records show Melania Trump was also paid $250,000 for a Log Cabin Republican event in December 2022, one of three payments for $250,000 or more that she received for speaking that month, just after the former president announced he was running for reelection, according to Donald Trump’s prior year financial disclosure form. One of the events took place in Florida, and the other was for a California group, Fix California, which was founded by Grenell. Grenell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The former first lady was also paid $155,000 by a Trump-aligned super PAC – called Make America Great Again, Again – for a speech she gave in Palm Beach, Florida, in December 2021, before Trump was a candidate.

She has a history of appearing at Log Cabin Republican events – in 2021 she was also the guest of honor at the group’s annual Spirit of Lincoln Gala.

The fundraising appearances also underscore how Melania Trump has been sparingly on the campaign trail this year. In addition to the two Log Cabin Republican appearances, she’s appeared alongside her husband at a  fundraiser hosted by billionaire investor John Paulson in Palm Beach and she made a brief appearance at the Republican National Convention, though she did not speak like she did in 2016. There’s no indication that she was paid for the appearance at Paulson’s fundraiser.

“She’s been so disconnected with this campaign and so absent that I could see her saying, ‘If I’m going to put my time in, I will get paid for this,’” said Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump White House press secretary and top aide to Melania Trump who has become a critic of the former president. “Even when we were in the White House, she was always so concerned about people making money off of her because she felt it was money she should be earning.”

Grisham said that, while in the White House in 2018, Melania Trump instructed her staff to direct a gift shop by the White House to stop selling Melania Trump memorabilia, such as bobbleheads, without permission.

“She was outraged. She didn’t like they were making money off of her,” Grisham said.

Donald Trump’s financial disclosures also show that the former first lady earned more than $330,000 over the past year for a licensing agreement for the sale of digital trading cards, or NFTs. Her website sells jewelry and other collectibles.

In addition, the former first lady is releasing a memoir next month and embarking on a promotional tour, which is separate from the campaign. In a series of short videos promoting her book on X, she’s made rare remarks on the attempted assassination of her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania, the 2020 election results and her history as a nude model.

“I can’t help but wonder, why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?” she said in one of the videos, referencing the gunman who fired at and wounded Trump at a rally on July 13 before being taken down by the Secret Service.

Melania Trump is not the only Trump family member to get paid while in the political spotlight. Kimberly Guilfoyle received a $60,000 speaking fee for introducing her fiancé, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., at the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, ahead of the insurrection at the US Capitol. Her speech was less than three minutes.

Speaking and appearance fees for events outside of political fundraisers for former government officials are not unheard of.

Former President Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton collected more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 to the time the former secretary of state launched her 2016 presidential campaign. Former President Barack Obama reportedly made $400,000 from a single speech at a Wall Street health conference in 2017, attracting criticism from members of his own party at the time. And in the two years after he left the vice presidency and before launching his presidential campaign, Joe and Jill Biden made a combined $15.6 million, primarily from book deals and speaking engagements.

But officials for Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Bill Clinton say they did not get paid for any fundraising appearances during a political campaign.

The president’s son, Hunter Biden, was scrutinized for selling pieces of artwork, each priced at $85,000, at a Manhattan art gallery last spring while his father was a candidate for reelection.

By all accounts, the Log Cabin Republican fundraisers this year were a success. Grenell posted on X in July that the former first lady “opened her NYC Penthouse tonight to raise money” for the group.

“It’s the first campaign event ever held at the Trump residence,” he wrote. “And we raised $1.4 million in one night. Our goal is to get 50% of the gay vote for Donald Trump.”

At the April Mar-a-Lago event where Melania Trump spoke, the organization launched its “Road to Victory” program to target voters in swing states, according to Politico.

CNN’s Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/23/politics ... index.html

[Owendonovan]

“It’s the first campaign event ever held at the Trump residence,” he wrote. “And we raised $1.4 million in one night. Our goal is to get 50% of the gay vote for Donald Trump.”

50% of the gay vote don't hate themselves as much as the Log Cabin republicans do.

[mmmm8]

And the wind dies at night (because there is no solar power to heat airmasses and make the displacement).
And he is stating the obvious, because some people can't understand that most of the Northern hemisphere would need not only enough solar power to power their cities, they would also need enough storage cells to store power for the long winter nights.

And here I was thinking he was just making sure the money from the oil and gas industries kept flowing. Thanks for the information.

He probably was. The two things are not exclusive.
People have to see something. The price of oil has not gone up, as was expected, in years. It sits currently around $75/BBl. And the oil companies are making huge profits but they are not setting up the price; they are taking the price.
We know. Climate change is real, and it keeps happening. But the believe that installing a billion solar panels and a billion wind mills will be the solution is a mirage. As I said before, you need a way to store that power because the sun sets, and the wind dies at night. A city like Stockholm would need, in the peak of winter, enough solar power and wind to power itself through 8 hours of daylight (or less) and THEN store enough power for 16 hours of night (or more). Electricity is cheap to generate but very expensive to store.
We need a mixed solution. As an example, you could make electrically powered airplanes, but they would be super heavy (less people to carry) and would take days to charge. So that industry will not switch to electrical power any time soon. As won't many others.

So how is Stockholm aiming to be carbon-neutral/positive by 2040? (Also, the whole of Denmark by 2045, they are progressing so well they moved the goal up from 2050).

[ponchi101]

As I said, a mixed solution. They are looking at nuclear and, for example, I read that Stockholm is using a system in which they are transferring heat from the subway system, generated by the human mass running through it, to the neighboring areas downtown.
Again, I know I sound like I am against solar or wind. I am not. But it is not a panacea that will solve everybody's problems. Example. Today, I am in Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina. It is coastal city, with lots and lots of wind. They installed a few wind turbines around the city, which then broke down because the wind is so strong that the turbines could not handle the stress of it. So, in a case of not doing things well, they let those turbines breakdown and have not been replaced by the proper ones.
I am surprised that nobody thought of that; it is not as if Comodoro was not known for its strong winds.

About Denmark. I read that some of their plans include a tax levied on agricultural emissions, as well as a heavy tax on air travel. Denmark is also a country where your sales tax on cars is 100%, so they rely on public transport a lot. But then again, it is a country of less than 6 million, with a dwindling population. I have to be an a**hole and wonder if Denmark believes it will be able to cut down emissions because by 2045, its population will be down to 4.