NM

[wiscwarrior]

Pardon me? I can't hear you. 

[rocket surgeon]

Are you able to hear, "yes, yes, yes,...oh fook, yes,"  hey?

weird, certain things are hard to hear like honey, would you take out the garbage?  i hear the honey part, but the rest can be kind of faint.  now if she were to say, honey, do you want to...she doesn't have to say it twice no cognitive decline there

[Hards Alumni]

Anyone here wear hearing aids?

I have just enough hearing loss for my insurance to cover them, so I am giving them a shot. I am in the middle of the free trial period, and pondering giving them back because I'm not sure the hearing benefit is worth the annoyance of putting them in and taking them out.

For me, it's like wearing earbuds all day but only listening to a handful of songs.

I'm curious if others with moderate/borderline hearing loss like 'em.

Get them.  Hearing loss can lead to cognitive decline and depression.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

The article below is a couple of days old, California has actually hit 100% renewable energy briefly since then.


California just hit 95% renewable energy. Will other states come along for the ride?
https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-04-29/solar-power-water-canals-california-climate-change-boiling-point

"Something remarkable happened over the weekend: California hit nearly 95% renewable energy.

I'll say it again: 95% renewables. For all the time we spend talking about how to reach 100% clean power, it sometimes seems like a faraway proposition, whether the timeframe is California's 2045 target or President Biden's more aggressive 2035 goal. But on Saturday just before 2:30 p.m., one of the world's largest economies came within a stone's throw of getting there.

I've avoided writing too much about the Western EIM (acronym alert!) because it gets very wonky, very fast. But it's absolutely worth knowing about. It's a unique program that makes it easier for utility companies across the American West to share extra electricity, with a goal of saving money for ratepayers (i.e. you and me) and reducing planet-warming emissions.

How does it work? As I explained in a 2017 deep dive for the Desert Sun, the program allows out-of-state utilities to participate in California's real-time electricity market, where they can buy power to fill in last-minute gaps between supply and demand.

So if California has more solar power than it can use on a sunny afternoon — a growing trend each spring — it can send some of that cheap electricity to Arizona, which then might be able to burn less coal. Or if the wind is ripping in Wyoming — home to some of the country's strongest, most consistent gusts — California can tap into that clean power rather than firing up a gas plant.

A key barrier to this type of cooperation in the past was mistrust: Red states worried about blue states shoving renewable energy down their throats, and blue states worried about red states forcing them to buy dirty energy. And nobody wanted to risk finding themselves short on electricity in a pinch because some out-of-state utility made a higher bid for their power.

But in the seven years since California launched the Western EIM, that mistrust has started to fade."

[Mutaman]

She was originally going to name it Keefe but decided that was a bridge too far.


Goodwill Sold a Bust for $34.99. It's an Ancient Roman Relic.
By
Michael Levenson
The New York Times

Its 2,000-year journey to Texas remains a mystery, but the buyer is returning it to the German state of Bavaria, its pre-World War II home.
A Roman bust, determined to be from the late 1st century B.C. or early 1st century A.D., still had a price sticker on its right cheek — $34.99 — as its new owner drove it home from a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas.Credit...Laura Young
A Roman bust, determined to be from the late 1st century B.C. or early 1st century A.D., still had a price sticker on its right cheek — $34.99 — as its new owner drove it home from a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas.Credit...Laura Young

Laura Young was browsing through a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas, in 2018 when she found a bust for sale. It was resting on the floor, under a table, and had a yellow price tag slapped on its cheek: $34.99. She bought it.

Turns out, it wasn't just another heavy stone curio suitable for plunking in the garden. It was an actual Roman bust from the late 1st century B.C. or early 1st century A.D., which had been part of a Bavarian king's art collection from the 19th century until it was looted during World War II.

How it got to Texas remains a mystery. But the most likely path suggests it was taken by an American soldier after the Bavarian king's villa in Germany was bombed by Allied forces.

This week, it went on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art, next to signage acknowledging Ms. Young's role in discovering it after the bust's improbable, 2,000-year journey from ancient Rome to the Goodwill Boutique on Far West Boulevard.

Next year, it will be returned to the Bavarian government under an agreement with Ms. Young that ended her own complex relationship with the ancient artifact, which she had kept on a credenza in her living room for the last three and a half years.

She had named it "Dennis Reynolds," after a character from the comedy series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Like that vain and narcissistic cad, the 52-pound marble bust was "a very difficult, cold, aloof, emotionless man that caused some problems for me," Ms. Young said.

When Ms. Young, a dealer of antique and vintage goods, first spotted the bust, as reported by KUT in Austin and the The Art Newspaper, she knew it was probably valuable.

"I got it outside in the light," she said. "He had chips to the base. He had clear repairs. He looks old. I've been to museums. I've seen Roman portrait heads before."

She did a Google image search for "Roman bust" and realized, "They look a lot like my guy."

After taking the bust home, strapped in a seatbelt in the front seat of her car, she contacted two auction houses, Bonhams and Sotheby's, both of which confirmed that her hunch was right: The bust was from ancient Rome.

Ms. Young was on vacation, celebrating her 40th birthday, when she got the email from Bonhams. She wanted to return home immediately.

"He was at my house, alone," she said.

But subsequent research, authenticated by the Bavarian government, soon confirmed that Ms. Young would not be able to sell the piece, and fulfill the fantasy of anyone who has ever haunted Goodwill stores and yard sales for priceless treasures.
The Pompejanum, a replica of a Roman villa, once owned by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, was bombed during World War II.Credit...San Antonio Museum of Art

At some point before 1833, the bust had been acquired by Ludwig I, a Bavarian king, who displayed it in the courtyard of the Pompejanum, his replica of a Roman villa in Pompeii, in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, according to Ms. Young's lawyer, Leila A. Amineddoleh.

The Pompejanum was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and 1945, and although some of its objects survived, others disappeared, Ms. Amineddoleh said.

The looting of art by the Nazis has gained widespread attention. But because the bust ended up in Texas, it is likely that an American service member either stole it or traded for it after the war, Ms. Amineddoleh said.

That meant Ms. Young was not the rightful owner because Germany had never sold the piece or abandoned the title to it, Ms. Amineddoleh said. Ms. Young said Goodwill was also unable to provide answers about the bust's origins.

"Immediately, I was like, 'OK, I cannot keep him and I also cannot sell him,'" Ms. Young said. "It was extremely bittersweet, to say the least. But I only have control over what I can control, and art theft, looting during a war, is a war crime. I can't be a party to it."

So Ms. Young struck an agreement to have the bust shipped back to Bavaria. In exchange, she will receive only a "small finder's fee," which Ms. Amineddoleh declined to disclose.

"We are very pleased that a piece of Bavarian history that we thought was lost has reappeared and will soon be able to return to its rightful location," Bernd Schreiber, president of the Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes, said in a statement released by the San Antonio Museum of Art.

The bust is believed to portray either a son of Pompey the Great, who was defeated in battle by Julius Caesar, or Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, a Roman commander whose forces once occupied German territory.

The San Antonio Museum of Art will display the bust until May 2023, which was important to Ms. Young.

"He's been hidden for 70 to 80 years; I think he deserves some attention," she said. "And I think he deserves some attention in Texas."

Last month, she handed over the bust to the museum, leaving her with only a 3D-printed model of the piece that she keeps in her living room.

"It's hard a little bit because this is probably going to be the coolest thing I ever find, and it's over," Ms. Young said. "But there's always something else to find. If you're an antiques dealer, there's always something else."

[ZiggysFryBoy]

That's bananas.

[Herman Cain]

Dog talks smack , and the cat shows who is boss

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CdG31argeRa/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

[real chili 83]

Dog talks smack , and the cat shows who is boss

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CdG31argeRa/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

No Bueno

[rocket surgeon]

The article below is a couple of days old, California has actually hit 100% renewable energy briefly since then.


California just hit 95% renewable energy. Will other states come along for the ride?
https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-04-29/solar-power-water-canals-california-climate-change-boiling-point

"Something remarkable happened over the weekend: California hit nearly 95% renewable energy.

I'll say it again: 95% renewables. For all the time we spend talking about how to reach 100% clean power, it sometimes seems like a faraway proposition, whether the timeframe is California's 2045 target or President Biden's more aggressive 2035 goal. But on Saturday just before 2:30 p.m., one of the world's largest economies came within a stone's throw of getting there.

I've avoided writing too much about the Western EIM (acronym alert!) because it gets very wonky, very fast. But it's absolutely worth knowing about. It's a unique program that makes it easier for utility companies across the American West to share extra electricity, with a goal of saving money for ratepayers (i.e. you and me) and reducing planet-warming emissions.

How does it work? As I explained in a 2017 deep dive for the Desert Sun, the program allows out-of-state utilities to participate in California's real-time electricity market, where they can buy power to fill in last-minute gaps between supply and demand.

So if California has more solar power than it can use on a sunny afternoon — a growing trend each spring — it can send some of that cheap electricity to Arizona, which then might be able to burn less coal. Or if the wind is ripping in Wyoming — home to some of the country's strongest, most consistent gusts — California can tap into that clean power rather than firing up a gas plant.

A key barrier to this type of cooperation in the past was mistrust: Red states worried about blue states shoving renewable energy down their throats, and blue states worried about red states forcing them to buy dirty energy. And nobody wanted to risk finding themselves short on electricity in a pinch because some out-of-state utility made a higher bid for their power.

But in the seven years since California launched the Western EIM, that mistrust has started to fade."

  all of this feel good crap that is costing a lot of money going to...someone is doing absolutely NOTHING.  california's air quality is the worst in the country!  people are leaving that state in droves.  hopefully the people that created this mess stay to live in the schiff pile they are creating

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

  all of this feel good crap that is costing a lot of money going to...someone is doing absolutely NOTHING.  california's air quality is the worst in the country!  people are leaving that state in droves.  hopefully the people that created this mess stay to live in the schiff pile they are creating

California doesn't have the worst air in the US, though if they did that would be a good reason to rely on renewables.

And its population is growing.

[rocket surgeon]

California doesn't have the worst air in the US, though if they did that would be a good reason to rely on renewables.

And its population is growing.

yes it does and

no it's not

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

yes it does and

no it's not

You are objectively wrong on both counts.

http://www.usa.com/rank/us--air-quality-index--state-rank.htm

https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/

[Uncle Rico]

I love California.  That's where I'm retiring to

[4everwarriors]

I love California.  That's where I'm retiring to

Carry on wayward son

https://media.giphy.com/media/9Pv9oiqnbQtzld6ADl/giphy.gif

[rocket surgeon]

You are objectively wrong on both counts.

http://www.usa.com/rank/us--air-quality-index--state-rank.htm

https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/

 
no i'm not-

  https://www.kron4.com/news/california/california-ranked-as-no-1-state-with-worst-air-quality-report/

and

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas/articles/2022-05-02/california-lost-population-in-2021-still-largest-in-us

[rocket surgeon]

I love California.  That's where I'm retiring to

you will fit right in reeko

[Uncle Rico]

you will fit right in reeko

Thanks!  I've made many friends in California through the years.  A lot of great people live there.  Ronald Reagan made it his home even after leaving the White House. 

[TSmith34, Inc.]

  all of this feel good crap that is costing a lot of money going to...someone is doing absolutely NOTHING.  california's air quality is the worst in the country!  people are leaving that state in droves.  hopefully the people that created this mess stay to live in the schiff pile they are creating

Now you are screaming that renewable energy is bad...because. LOL

Peek roqqet

[rocky_warrior]

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas/articles/2022-05-02/california-lost-population-in-2021-still-largest-in-us

lol

Experts say part of the reason for the bad air in California is the increase in population and the recent wildfires.

[Uncle Rico]

lol

Listen, facts don't care about your feelings

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

 
no i'm not-

  https://www.kron4.com/news/california/california-ranked-as-no-1-state-with-worst-air-quality-report/

and

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/texas/articles/2022-05-02/california-lost-population-in-2021-still-largest-in-us

Read more carefully.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

lol

I mean you couldn't make this up if you tried.

[rocket surgeon]

trying to argue with you is like grabbing a greased hog-believe what you want.  you guys are just the smartest people in the room-just ask anyone here

[TSmith34, Inc.]

trying to argue with you is like grabbing a greased hog-believe what you want.  you guys are just the smartest people in the room-just ask anyone here

That right there is your problem.

[Newsdreams]

Read more carefully.

They don't like to read.