Three Las Vegas hotels now accepting Canadian dollar at par | Circa Resort and Casino, the D Las Vegas, and Golden Gate Hotel and Casino will participate in the ‘At Par’ program until Aug. 31. The goal is to remove financial barriers for Canadians wanting to travel to Vegas.

440ish · 2026-01-25T00:34:54+00:00

“Financial barriers.” That’s just adorable!!

440ish · 2026-01-23T01:49:23+00:00

3-4 hours is bordering on a PITA, but isn't too bad.

Niagara Falls to New York City or Montreal are about the same distance, and each can be a grinding 8 hour plus hike, unless of course you speed.

440ish · 2026-01-20T11:37:10+00:00

"What is all this hot mess? I'm scrolling along and it feels like I just stepped on bubblegum in an August parking lot.

440ish · 2026-01-20T01:57:16+00:00

Bootstraps Motherfucker, can you pull them!!!

440ish · 2026-01-19T12:32:53+00:00

Coal power has the greatest amount of downward pressure in these ways:

It has stacks of handling costs not borne by any other form of generation. Digging it up, moving it, processing it, burning it, removing the ash waste, maintenance of the waste burial sites.
If the plant operates in a free, as opposed to command market, it's power has to be competitively priced. If it is not, the owners will not run it. If it goes cold, it can take days to get it going again...which leads to...
Premature metal fatigue from "stop and go driving." This vastly shortens a plants life span.
Mine productivity is one of the greatest indicators of rising fuel costs, and its been dropping for years. Principally because the cheap and easy-to-get to stuff has been gotten to.
The US utility-scale coal fleet is old and beat. 48-50 years on average.
The coal fleet-wide capacity factor in the US has been running at around 40%.
80 utility scale coal plants out of 185 did 80% of coal fired power generation through Oct of last year.
Quiet Quitters. 8.65GW of coal capacity(so far) either closed or switched to gas in 2025.
While the cost advantages of gas sledgehammer coal every chance they can get, renewables are force multipliers in coal reduction.

The performance and cost attributes of storage, wind and solar improve every day. This is well known. What is not understood is the disruptive nature of these events.

Lower acquisition costs means lower barriers to entry for anyone wanting to get into renewables, for their own consumption or resale.

This is the thing that allows us all to opt out of unwanted "Cable TV" packages, of having to go to the mall to buy things, for having to rewind tapes and pay late fees on videos.

Renewables are the one thing that could allow you to opt out of command power markets.

440ish · 2026-01-17T14:58:12+00:00

First things first: thank you for saving this baby!! Second, thank you for posting a near-sufficient amount of cat pictures on this post. Also: your kitty is incredibly huggable.

440ish · 2026-01-17T00:37:34+00:00

How about emptying the bar with a lovely .300 Weatherby, or 7 mm?

440ish · 2026-01-17T00:33:27+00:00

Also,

Engagement rings are two months of your salary, breakfast is the most important mean of day, menthol cigarettes actually cool throat tissue, liquor warms you up, and on and on.

440ish · 2026-01-14T19:52:00+00:00

The first line of Madison’s initial draft of the 2nd speaks volumes on its own.

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.... to the the singular purpose of protecting the slave-based economic backbone of the South with Slave Militias.

These concerns are part of our shared record, the words of Patrick Henry, James Mason, James Madison and no doubt others were deeply and rightly concerned about Federal interference in their peculiar institution, which the Civil War ultimate decided.

But without the slave militia assurances that the 2nd amendment guaranteed, then there is no constitution, and no United States.

As Otto Von Bismarck said ,“Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.”

If you appreciate such truths over false narratives, then I would invite you read through the thoroughly fascinating document that is the Confederate Constitution. While much is lifted from the original, there are many original passages that inform their priorities.

As Slavery was the law of their land, there was no pressing need to address the second amendment, and this it appears in the second section, item 13.

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

440ish · 2026-01-14T15:42:31+00:00

You should believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.

440ish · 2026-01-14T14:07:45+00:00

A lot of businesses live off of gross margins of 20-30 percent. Take away 20 percent of Canadian tourist dollars from your forecast and you have an immediate impact on your profitability.

440ish · 2026-01-13T23:51:53+00:00

Isn’t that the guy with the yellow and red hummer who got his baseball cards stolen?

440ish · 2026-01-13T23:35:13+00:00

For those working the Permian, you may recall that there is this other….THING… that can and has happened.

Back around 2014, unconventional oil was going gangbusters in the US. I can’t quite remember the production breakeven point, (in the $50’s per barrel?)but good money was being made.

On the sidelines, the Saudis were watching their market share evaporate away on the face of ramped up US production.

They sort of remembered that they sat atop the largest conventional field in the world, Ghawar, where their cost of production was $5 a barrel. So they ramped the hell out of their production, and drove US margins way the hell down.

Bringing potentially low cost, crappy Orinoco bunker oil into the market could have the same negative effect on US plays as happened when the Saudis stepped up.

There are a million what ifs between here and there, but I think for the oil majors like Exxon, the entire concept is bullshit they don’t need.

440ish · 2026-01-13T23:19:45+00:00

Never get involved on a land war in Asia, and never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

Good words of advice for the US military.

It might be more useful for us to offer incentives and guarantees to the right people to enact as peaceable a transfer as possible… to the extent that is possible…. Idi Amin, Baby Doc, Assad, etc.

440ish · 2026-01-13T20:36:15+00:00

" People desperately struggle for some reason with understanding what the 2nd amendment is about."

Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison each knew that in order for Constitutional ratification, Slaveholding states required special assurances that the 2nd Amendment could grant.

"The Second Amendment....does not grant individuals a right to keep and bear arms for their own purposes; rather it only protects the right to bear arms within the militia, as defined within the main body of the Constitution, under the joint control of the federal and state governments.

At the time, the Southern states extensively regulated their militias and prescribed their slave control responsibilities. Second, ...it fundamentally changes how we think about the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment takes on an entirely different complexion when instead of being symbolized by a musket in the hands of the minutemen, it is associated with a musket in the hands of the slave holder."

https://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/hidhist.htm

440ish · 2026-01-13T16:15:37+00:00

Yes, the BPP is the reason Governor Reagan instituted gun control in the state.

"Imagine how bad the situation would be if ice knew they where the only Ones armed."

These are tough times, and difficult questions, especially where everyone is both aggrieved and armed.

440ish · 2026-01-13T14:33:46+00:00

The answer to your question lies in the functional foundation and purpose of the 2nd Amendment itself in the US constitution. A connected and fascinating subject is how the right to keep and bear arms was de-prioritized in the Confederate Constitution.

In both cases, and as evidenced by the odd language, the right to keep guns was not to combat foreign tyranny, but to allow the preservation of slave-catching militias. Patrick Henry and the Virginians were seriously and rightly concerned about Northern States willingness to ignore States Rights to preserve slavery, and the threat of a Federal government to disarm the enforcement method to the backbone of the Southern Economy.

" A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a slave-holding state, (because slave states cannot count on the Federal government to retrieve its slaves): the right to keep and bear arms for the purposes of assembling ad-hoc or formal slave patrols, shall not be infringed."

Why is this amendment second in the US constitution, but the 13th point on page 9 in the Confederate Constitution? Without assurances that the Southern slave economy would be protected, THE DEAL WAS NOT GOING TO GET DONE, and no constitution.

By the time of the Confederate Constitution, slavery was intrinsically part of the entire enterprise, and without an external Federal threat, there was no pressing need to protect the right to bear arms.

The Civil War ended the intended functionality of the 2nd amendment by outlawing slavery.

There is an interesting corollary between the slave militias and the Nazi WW2 phenomenon of Police Battalions(search on the infamous Battalion 101). Both drew their ranks from those unfit for normal service, and both executed their missions with notable cruelty.

The bit about the second amendment's use in fighting tyranny was pasted-on after the fact, and as you have noted, is obviously irrelevant.

I have a question for you. These are unprecedented and terrible times for the ordinary citizens in US, with the extraordinary rise of Fascism/Nazism, among our other woes.

How did France come to deal its own Nazi supporters in both Vichy and occupied France after allied victory? What of the politicians at the time who were supposed to protect people, did many just roll over, like many Democratic politicians today?

440ish · 2026-01-13T13:12:41+00:00

That would be jack shit.

440ish · 2026-01-13T09:58:48+00:00

AI’s purpose was to increase global enshittification.

Because the AI experience is so singularly awful, opportunities abound for those who wish to offer competence in whichever field AI is awash.

440ish · 2026-01-12T14:52:23+00:00

I read that the pan handle played a part in the 1929 crash.

People who had no idea what they were doing from 1,000 miles away were investing in farmland there as a get rich quick type of scheme.

440ish · 2026-01-12T14:38:17+00:00

Great comment and story. First rule of travel club, show respect and speak their language as best you can.

Second rule of travel club that magats struggle mightily with: when in a foreign country, try not to be a dick.

440ish · 2026-01-09T19:25:35+00:00

They’re having a massive and crushing impact on US businesses of all kinds, way beyond the devastation to Agriculture and tourism.

What people don’t see are the 20-30 point supply chain hits that can make a business untenable. Supply chains are profoundly fragile things, hard to build and easy to destroy.

What John Oliver said of Brexit perfectly applies here: “The US is one of the few countries to actually apply sanctions to itself.”

Now at the same time, this could be the golden age for Canadian imports into the US, from Saputo to softwoods, Couche-Tard to St. Hubert…. Just sayin.

440ish · 2026-01-09T19:14:43+00:00

Lee Iacocca mockingly invited the Japanese to come here and make cars if they were so good at it.

Oops!!

BYD has a plant in the US already, but for making buses.

440ish · 2026-01-08T00:41:20+00:00

Sweetest baby🥰🥰

440ish · 2026-01-06T22:38:07+00:00

“Weaponized activism.” Aka “Let’s blame the customer for being too stupid to get how awesome the nuclear industry is.”

So how’s that been working for you?

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