Sigh…

What now, coach???

A new report found that more than 75% of ships will not meet the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) new Environmental social and corporate governance (ESG) index aimed at decarbonizing the industry. This means that many ship owners will be forced to slow ships down to reduce emissions but doing so could deepen the global food and energy crisis by reducing available ship capacity.

Full article, HERE from Watt’s Up with That website.

When you add this to the finance world’s Poseidon Principles actions/accountability, and the costs variable of $200M to $600M per ship and and average of three years to complete one, this will be interesting in light of the fact that there are approximately 44,000 total cargo ships in the world.

If 75% fail this new requirement, that means that roughly 33,000 don’t meet the new standards.

Now, they can slow down, which reduces emissions… But that costs money and slows delivery. What happens if it’s food stuffs like bananas? Will they be ripe by the time they hit the pier?

If they slow down by 10%, that adds roughly 2 days to a China to LA cruise. Over a year, that would ‘cost’ one round trip per year, and around $3,000,000 in extra operating costs for a 4000 TEU ship.

The main ship manufacturer is China, which basically ‘self funds’ the ships, and figure the odds of them actually ‘obeying’ the letter of this new requirement.

This could just flat get ugly… As if we don’t already have enough problems with the supply chain.

 

 

Book Promo!!!

Larry Correia has his first non-fiction up for pre-order! In Defense of the Second Amendment is already a #1 best seller, even though it’s not due out for another 5 months!

As always, click on the cover for the Amazon link!

The blurb-

What Part of the Second Amendment Don’t You Understand?

That’s the question posed by award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, and professional firearms instructor, Larry Correia. 

Bringing with him the practical experience that comes from having owned a high-end gun store—catering largely to law enforcement—and as a competitive shooter and self-defense trainer, Correia blasts apart the emotion-laden, logic-free rhetoric of the gun control fanatics who turn every “mass shooting” into a crazed call for violating your rights, abusing the Constitution—and doing absolutely nothing to really fight crime. 
In his essential new book, In Defense of the Second Amendment, Correia reveals: 

  • Why “gun-free” zones are more dangerous for law-abiding citizens
  • How the Second Amendment does indeed include your right to own an AR-15—and why that’s not an “outdated” concept
  •  Why “red flag” laws don’t work, can be easily abused, and ignore a much more commonsensical approach to keeping guns out of the wrong hands 
  • The insanity of “criminal justice reform” that frees dangerous criminals and “gun reform” that penalizes your right to self-defense
  • How we can return to a society that has a safe and healthy relationship with guns—as we had for most of our history
  • Correia’s promise: “Believe me, I’ve heard every argument relating to gun control possible. I can show you how to defend your rights.”

Urgent, informed, with vitally important information for whoever who owns a gun—or is thinking about owning a gun—or who cares about the preservation of our constitutional rights, In Defense of the Second Amendment is a landmark book of enduring importance.

This one will be well worth the money spent!

Next is another offering from Peter Nealan. The fourth book in the Lost Series- Swords Against the Night

The blurb-

When a strange island rises out of the sea right in front of their ship, Conor McCall and his fellow Recon Marines find themselves within sight of their new home… and fighting for their lives,.

The Deep Ones know about Conor’s sword, and they want it. Badly.

Fighting their way out of the ambush, the Marines and their allies find themselves drawn into the quest for the sword’s twin, far off to the east.

Others want to take both ancient swords as well, and the Marines find themselves pursued by an empire propped up by sorcery, and opposed by monsters and revenants that have guarded the way to the second ancient, blessed sword for ages.

All will find their mettle tested.

If they survive.

This is another damned good series from Peter! Highly recommended!!!

And Kevin Ikenberry has a new book out! The Crossing

The blurb-

Behind enemy lines and displaced in time!

Before the Battle of Trenton, George Washington reputedly threw a coin across the river. What if that coin was a bicentennial quarter?

When a squad of ROTC cadets training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in November 2008 find themselves transported to December 1776 in the days before the Battle of Trenton, they find a Continental Army in disarray and General George Washington contemplating the potential of a bleak future. To make matters worse, they’ve lost a modern M-16 rifle to a roving Hessian patrol. Understanding the ramifications of such a discovery, the cadets have no choice but to report to General Washington. Without ammunition or their own meager supplies, can Cadet Sergeant Jameel Mason and his friends steel Washington’s courage and set the infancy of the United States of America back on track?

Now for something completely different! Becky R. Jones has her third book in the Academic Magic series out- Magic Abroad

The blurb-

Zoe O’Brien is very much looking forward to teaching summer school and tracking down fairy tales in Ireland. Her hopes for a quiet, academic summer are squashed when the dolphins tell her there’s something wrong in the Aran Islands, and her students are stalked by a… something before disappearing. There’s also the possibility that the slightly creepy guy at the train station is her father. So much for a quiet research-filled summer!

Now Zoe is in a race to find her students and help stop an invasion of Ireland by creatures out of myth and legend. The amount of magic in Ireland stuns Zoe. Are the ancient gods of Ireland returning to fight their enemies in the middle of her research? And what does the Morrígan want with Zoe?

This is one smart lady who is writing from ‘experience’ as an academic… Not saying it’s autobiographical or anything… 🙂

But something tells me she ‘might’ have crossed paths with some of these folks over the years!

TBT…

Back in the day, the P-3s had a fairly wide range of operating locations…

I had the ‘pleasure’ of visit all of these at one time or another over the years. Pleasure…yeah, right…

And I got a question in an email about bioluminescence. Yes, if a ship or submarine drove through an area with bioluminescent fish, jellyfish, dinoflagellates/phytoplankton, etc, yes they left a nice lighted track that we could follow in the dark, and it was caused by the ship/sub stirring up the creatures, who would then light up in ‘reaction’ to the movement.

Here is a picture of Jervis Bay, Australia showing biolum caused by wave action at the beach.

Yes, it is blue, and very beautiful to see! And there used to be a bay down in Puerto Rico where you could actually go swimming and see yourself get lit up… LOL

Posted in TBT

Well, well, well…

Apparently Manchin was bought off…

By Chuck U. Schumer

The deal for a long-sought $6.6 billion natural gas pipeline in West Virginia is just one of the energy plums that Sen. Joe Manchin III has secured in exchange for his support of Democrats’ broader tax and climate spending bill.

Full article, HERE from the Washington Times.

And now the USAF is going back to congress wanting a new ‘Air Force’ engine for the F-35… I wonder how many congresscritters are going to back this, just to get production in their districts???

OBTW, this engine will NOT be for any other service, or country, JUST for the USAF…

Full article, HERE from Defense News.

Sigh…

 

As if they didn’t have enough problems…

Europe is having a bad month…

A wildfire is consuming Slovenia and as the blaze moves across areas that were once battlefields during World War I, it’s meeting century-old unexploded ordnance with deadly results. 

Full article, HERE from Vice.

Most European countries have ‘specialists’ that deal with UXO, which tend to show up routinely when farmers in Europe plow their land in the spring, or when construction crews find UXO when they go to build a building or something else.

This is just one more issue and a real danger to the firefighters, in addition to heatstroke, the fire, and now UXO blowing up in their faces.

Kudos to them for continuing to get out there and fight the wildfires as successfully as they do! Those folks clank when they walk!!!

From the wayback machine…

We were talking yesterday morning at breakfast about the ‘legend’ of a jam session in Memphis back in the day that had Elvis, Johnny Cash, and a couple of other musicians that we couldn’t remember…

Sanford found it on YouTube, so here ya go…

Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and a ‘kid’ named Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun Studios in Memphis in December 1956.

Yes, it is a gospel song, but back in those days, most if not all musicians were able to do gospel as easily as they did country, since most of them started singing in church.

They don’t say who actually started the tape running, but I for one am glad that they did! Maybe it was Sam Perkins himself…

Snort…

Here they go again…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a new Delta tunnel plan Wednesday to reroute water that comes into Northern California during rainstorms down to Southern California, which is known to suffer from long droughts that scientists predict will get worse due to climate change.

Full article, HERE from the Washington Examiner.

This plan, and others like it have been bouncing around since the late 1970s that I know of. The LA/San Diego metro mess has been running out of water for years, while northern California has plenty (and econazis that thought protecting a fish was more important than food production).

Even if this could possibly pass, it would be YEARS before it would be completed, if ever, due to the lawsuits!!!

At the same time, per the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir can store as much as 117 billion gallons for the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System, which serves San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and San Mateo counties. Hetch Hetchy has been a bone of contention for years, because there is no swimming or boating allowed to ‘keep the water clean’. And the econazis want it returned to its ‘pristine’ condition, but the pols in SFO have always managed to fight that off.

Sacramento, for years, had NO water meters, because they got plenty of water from the American River, well above the delta, where the little fishes are…

Meanwhile, in SoCal, the California Coastal Commission (CCC) once again on Thursday unanimously rejected a proposed desalination plant for Southern California over concerns the facility would kill marine life and drive up the cost of water. 

Full article, HERE from US News.

For those playing along at home, the CCC is extremely powerful, and is infested with econazis. They have also had a significant role in both the closures of San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear power stations. They would rather the coast stay ‘pristine’ than they would have water…

Well, they may find out sooner rather than later that the choice will be made for them by mother nature, and that whole corridor may become a literal desert!

Book promos!!!

First up is Peter Nealan with the 11th book in the Brannigan’s Blackhearts series- Marque and Reprisal

The blurb-

Ships are disappearing on the high seas…

…And no one knows why

A new threat darkens the waves

When ships with valuable—and often secret—cargoes begin to vanish far from the usual choke points and trouble spots, authorities are at a loss. Yet something must be done.

Brannigan’s Blackhearts have a new job.

Maritime security hasn’t usually been their bailiwick, but when Hector Chavez comes to Brannigan with the task, they take it. They’ll escort a cargo across the Atlantic. It’s probably going to be the most boring paycheck they’ve ever made.

They’re not ready for what they’ll meet out there.

A new, sophisticated pirate menace has emerged.

Will they defeat it? Or go down with the ship?

You’ll love this fast-paced action thriller because once it gets going, it doesn’t let up!

Get it now!

If you followed Peter’s Maelstrom Rising series, a lot of it took place at sea, so Peter had done the research and it shows in this volume.

Next up is Alma T.C. Boykin’s latest in the Familiars series- O Familiar

The blurb-

Anyone can defeat an infernal fiend. Raising a teenage daughter? Now that’s hard!

Lelia and André Lestrang juggle jobs, a daughter as stubborn as her mother and as determined as her father, and the usual magical (and Familiar) messes. An attack on St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church draws the family into a mystery: who would squander so much magic to ruin old books about healing? And does a giant owl have anything to do with it? Toss in an emergency deployment, the usual autumn rush at the Goth Shop, and high school social drama, and Lelia has her hands full.

Then it gets interesting.

I’m biased on this one, I beta read it! Get it, it’s GOOD!!!

And last but not least, Dorothy Grant’s fourth book in her ‘tactical romance’ series- Between Two Graves

The blurb-

He swore he wouldn’t be back while his parents lived…

Now, almost thirty years later, AJ is going home.

Ordered to attend his mother’s funeral in the rugged northern border of the Empire, AJ is baring old wounds to his new wife, and burying familial feuds.

But the past won’t die that easily, and grave secrets will threaten all the survivors and the women they love. Because the Feds are after AJ’s unwanted inheritance…

And they’re willing to risk a war to get their hands on it.

Yes, I’m biased on this one too, I beta read it and it’s GOOD! Get it!!!

Oopsie…

Forgot to do a post for today…

Got wrapped around the axle working on the Haunted Library Anthologies for our local library.

Here’s a quick look at two possible covers…

We had 22 stories that made it, so there will be two volumes, probably the first in the next couple of weeks.

The first volume will have the following stories-

Secrets of Mrs Pruski Medlock

A Lioness in Winter K Legg

A matchmaking Ghost Zinn

Library Donations Schultz

Old Librarians Never Die Whisnand

Tommy and the Cheerleader Ro Smith

All Because of Some Books Re Smith

Eva Third Floor Mystery Ehme

A Death in the Stacks Grenoille

Overdue Return Tim Rangnow

The Ghost Writer K Gray

The Groundskeeper Hoodoo You Do Sanderson

And the possible covers…

The second volume will have the following stories-

The Knowledge Foster

The Ghosts of Port Aransas Brock

Out of Circulation Dyck

TEF Burns

The Book Return Gilbert

First Annual Eunice J Tucker Book Burning and BBQ Barrett

Dragon’s Butterfly Piazzo

TheWillow Park Ghost Gillis

Interview With A Librarian Thomas

The Librarian’s Looking Glass Zeidler

The Old Man Curtis

The second volume will come out 30 days after the first one!

TBT…

Cubi Point, 1975…

From the bounce pattern!

Left turn on takeoff, looking out over Olongapo at Subic Navy base and the main gate.

Downwind. USS Kitty Hawk at the carrier pier, with Cubi off to the left, and Grande Island in the distance.

Over the top of Cubi Point Air Station. Marine A-4s, A-6s, C-1 CODS, and two C-47s on the ramp along with eight of nine P-3s. And some other cats and dogs aircraft I don’t remember…

Photos by my shipmate, S. Shell