Stacy gets her business cards and her mug!

Today I went to a big mining conference. They let government employees register for free. Technically we are all still government employees. I went to spend the day networking. I was, when you consider that this is difficult, great. If you grade on a curve I get a gold star. I did a very good job and I know this is something a lot of people cannot make themselves do. It was also much easier and nicer with Stacy there. 

This was my chance to give her business cards which she happily handed out to people. I also, as you can see, gave her her mug and had someone take a picture that we will one day use for company history. 

Now, just to keep the bizarre dystopian novel going, the conference was held in the Ronald Reagan Building. The RRB is where USAID had its offices before they were taken away from us. This was my first time back. 

I talked with someone who works for the EPA. They watched us get canned and they were sure they were next. A number of the agencies destroyed had been investigating Elon, including USAID. I asked if EPA was investigating them. Yes, actually, but magically he has heard NOTHING about the investigation for MONTHS. I’m not saying the EPA dropped the investigations and were therefore allowed to live, I guess I’m saying that if one day we find out it was true that I won’t be surprised. 

He said almost all of senior leadership is quitting, taking the fork offer, leaving people like him, alone, without institutional knowledge, without the skills, in charge. 

A year ago I went to a mining conference and it was just accepted that you could not get a mine through the permitting process, that critical minerals would have to be mined overseas. At this conference, today, it was assumed that we would have mines in the US. Complete 180. Both then and now with utter assuredness. 

There was also a lot of diplomatic explaining that companies can not, will not invest without a stable regulatory environment and that these tariffs and the chipping away at Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act = an unstable regulatory environment and too much uncertainty. 

I’m so glad I could share the story yesterday about the amazing drone smuggling operation and that you also liked it. 

“Ukrainian attacks triggered power cuts over swathes of Russian-controlled territory in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in Ukraine's south, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, Russia-installed officials said on Tuesday.”
In March and April 2022, a boy named Illia and his mother, Natalia, hid in a basement in Mariupol, melting snow to drink and cooking over an open fire when their gas ran out. They went outside to look for food — and were injured by the Russian shelling of a nearby building. Illia’s legs were badly wounded. Nataliia sustained a serious head injury. She died. Russian soldiers found him, took him to a hospital, he was operated on w/o anesthesia, and he lived. They put him up for adoption. Someone interviewed him on camera about his mother’s death. A friend of his grandmother’s saw the video and told her. 
“The only document she had to prove Illia was her grandson was a copy of Nataliia’s passport. Volunteers at a local shelter helped her get copies of the rest — Illia’s reissued Ukrainian birth certificate, her housing registration, custody paperwork, the police investigation into her daughter’s death. She tucked the documents in a clear plastic bag and contacted the Presidential Office, which launched a first-of-its-kind special operation to get Illia back and, through volunteers in Russia, helped Olena get in touch with the hospital in Donetsk.“
The grandmother got on a special diplomatic train to Poland and then flew to Moscow and went to the hospital. He did not initially believe it was her, he did not believe she came for him. 
“Britain pledged on Wednesday to supply 100,000 drones to Ukraine by the end of the current financial year in April 2026, marking a tenfold increase….”