Random News and Notes 23 May

It was a busy day in history, so here’s a list of some notable events from past May 23rds

• Captain Kidd was hanged at Execution dock in London in 1701. He had been convicted of piracy despite holding letters of Marque and Reprisal.
• In 1777, the Meigs expedition managed to capture several British vessels and burn Redcoat supplies at Sag Harbor on Long Island.
• SGT. William Carney receives the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration, on May 23, 1900. Carney was the 1st black man to be awarded the Medal – for heroic defense of the US flag during the battle for Fort Wagner during the Civil War – and had to wait some 37 years to receive it.
• In 1937 Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, his partner Ben Gault and Louisiana State Police finally caught up with Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Bonnie and Clyde had been on a multi-year, multi-state crime spree and were wanted in several states at the time they were shot to death By Hamer and crew.
• On this day in 1945 Heinrich Himmler became a good Nazi. The head of the Schutzstaffel offed himself by taking cyanide a day after being caught by the British.
• 1949 marks the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany (popularly known as West Germany).
• A tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Chile travels across the Pacific Ocean and kills 61 people in Hilo, Hawaii, on this date in 1960. The massive 9.5-magnitude quake had killed thousands in Chile the previous day.

Now, News!

The FBI’s preliminary crime figures from over 17,000 agencies reveal violent crime fell 9.3% last year compared to 2024, the sharpest annual drop since 1937. Robbery dropped 18.5%, rape 7.6%, and aggravated assault 7.2%, while property crimes tumbled 12.4%.

I will point out that several of the largest metro areas in the country do not report their crime stats to the FBI. Is that enough to skew the numbers downwards? You bet your ass it is. More than 80% of the violent crimes in the US come from just 63 counties. I’ll let you guess which ones they are.

There is an ongoing debate about water use in the west, particularly in California. According to statistics, agriculture takes about 80% of the state’s captured water while contributing just 1-2% to its $4.3 trillion economy, with farmers paying around $36 per acre-foot compared to urban users’ $722. An acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons of water – enough to cover an acre of land with 1 foot of water.

I need to be clear, I do not endorse what this retard is saying. It’s a starting point for the rest of the segment.

On the surface that doesn’t make much sense, why should farms pay so much less, but as Mark Twain said; there are lies, damned lies and statistics. And this is a case of just that, manipulated statistics. The cost for farms, particularly in the central valley of california where many farmers pump their own water from deep aquifers, is much lower because they do not require the infrastructure of pipelines and treatment facilities.

What the retard above fails to realize is that ag has a much bigger impact on the economy than just GDP. No farms? No food. So, what about almonds and alfalfa, the two most water intensive crops in California? Between the two they use ~50% of all ag water in the state. Well, most of the almonds are grown in one area in the state, one with a general surplus of water. Alfalfa, on the other hand is not. However, alfalfa is used as a feed staple for the domestic dairy industry.

My point is this: water allocated for agriculture is a good thing generally. If the water allocated for almond production could be used elsewhere that would be fine, but it can’t without a massive infrastructure build out.

I have other water issues to get of my chest as it were. We’ll stick in the West for a minute. The allocations from the Colorado river basin – Lakes Mead and Powell – are wrong and have been since they were instituted decades ago. The allocations were based on faulty assumptions that the basin upstream of the impoundments would be at a certain # of acre-feet. I should go look, but off the top of my head the assumed number was 16-18 million acre-feet while the actual number was closer to 12 million acre-feet. Annual demand from downstream stakeholders is about 16.5 million acre-feet annually.

See the issue?

Lake Mead is currently at 1051′ AMSL (above mean sea level). That is 177′ below full pool – 1229′ AMSL – a depth it has not seen since 1983. They stop generating electricity at 1035′. Dead pool, the level at which water can no longer enter the intakes for the Hoover dam is 895′ AMSL, so not that far away.

Lake Powell, upstream from Lake Mead has similar – if not as dire – issues.

Now, for the other water issue you may have been seeing bandied about: data centers.

This is an Op pure and simple. I would guess it is the Chinese pushing this one.

California almond growers use 10 times more water in a season than all the data centers in the US use in 5 years. You read that correctly.

Do data centers need water? Yes, and a fair amount of it. Is it anywhere near what industrial agriculture uses? Hell no. Do data centers contaminate the ground water? I would ask how if I thought it was even possible for a second. It is not possible so. . .

You might wonder how and why data centers use water.

Cooling.

That simple, cooling. A more detailed explanation is that they use a form of evaporative cooling to keep the temps in the server rooms down. These systems use chilled water to cool the air, then blow the cold air back into the server room.

CIA director John Ratcliffe went to Cuba a while back. I want to say I told you about it when the news broke. Some news came out about the trip. Namely that he brought one of the operators involved in the Maduro raid and introduced him as one of the guys who killed the Cubans in Venezuela protecting Maduro.

Ice cold ice.