Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a beautiful day yesterday, though it did throw me off a bit as I described in yesterday’s post. This morning dawned with mostly clear skies and chilly temps. It was cold enough for there to be frost on the windshield of the trusty RAM 1500, but not on the ground cover.

One of the WP Sisters was up to visit yesterday, staying overnight and returning home after church and our Sunday brunch at one of our local diners.

Basically it was a typical mid-November weekend for us here at The Gulch.

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The labor shortage is extending to just about every level. One area being affected that I would never have thought about: Snow plow drivers.

Living up here in New England, snow plows are ubiquitous during the winter months. That some towns are having problem finding plow drivers is surprising, particularly contract drivers.

Paul Cohen is the town manager of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where last year they spent nearly $1 million on snow removal. This year, that price tag is about to get even higher because of a shortage of snowplow drivers.

"It's a hard job. It’s a lot of stress and it’s harder for people to take that on willingly," he said.

There are signs up around the city pleading for employees. But so far, Chelmsford is short about dozen plow drivers. They have the equipment; they just don’t have the people.

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To help address the shortage many cities and states are offering massive incentives in an effort to get drivers on the road this winter. Colorado's Department of Transportation is offering drivers a $2,000 performance bonus. Michigan has upped their hourly plow driver rate to $30 plus overtime, and some state drivers in Massachusetts could be making as much as $310 an hour this winter.

We are fortunate here in my small town that we are not suffering from such a shortage, at least regarding plow drivers to clear our town roads. I can’t speak to any of the other towns or cities in the rest of New Hampshire or how the state Department of Transportation is faring in this regard though in the past few years it hasn’t been an issue. But today, who knows?

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Are the Covid-19 vaccines causing an alarming increase in athletes dropping dead from cardiac issues? This seems to be a real problem in Europe.

The first few I looked at made no mention of their status as vaccinated for COVID but there are a lot of athletes in all levels of competition dropping dead with heart-related ailments if this list is accurate.

It also means there are more and we should make some effort to source those incidents and report them. If they are vaccine-related people deserve to know the risk.

If this is indeed an issue it does need to be addressed. If it is a problem then I have to ask if we’re seeing such an issue here, but it’s being devoutly ignored or covered up because the Progressive Powers That Be don’t want the proles questioning the Jab, its efficacy, or its safety.

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I have seen a number of those commenting on sites using Disqus complaining that site moderators are removing their comments because they want to silence dissent.

I have had some comments I’ve made here and there removed for reasons I couldn’t fathom until I realized it was a Disqus filtering algorithm removing those comments, not a site moderator. It appears the filter algorithm has a list of words that will trigger removal of a comment. The apparent problem is that the algorithm can’t parse context, so a word or term that might be problematic in one use is innocuous in another, yet the algorithm will still remove the comment containing the innocuous use of the word/term.

Certain nominally obscene words will also trigger the algorithm. One fellow complained that his use of the name Soros triggered removal of his comment. Another commenter tested that by posting a test comment using the name Soros...and nothing happened. The comment remained. But if I had to guess, maybe the fellow complaining had prefaced ‘Soros’ with the more obscene version of ‘effin’ and Disqus kicked his comment.

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It appears at least one part of the military isn’t going to bow down to SloJo’s vaccination mandate.

As Mike Hendrix tells us, the Oklahoma National Guard is refusing to bow down to the illegal mandate.

The Pentagon Sees Its First National Guard Unit Mutiny Over the Federal Vaccine Mandate. The first state National Guard unit has made itself clear to the Department of Defense it has no intention of enforcing its Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

“The Oklahoma National Guard has rejected the Defense Department’s requirement for all service members to receive the coronavirus vaccine and will allow personnel to sidestep the policy with no repercussions, a potential blueprint for Republican governors who have challenged Biden administration mandates,” the Washington Post reported.

“Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, appointed this week by Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) as adjutant of the state’s 10,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen, on Thursday notified those under his command that they are not required to receive the vaccine and won’t be punished if they decline it,” the report added.

I wish our Republican Governor, Chris Sununu, would be ballsy enough to do something similar. I would also like to see him follow the footsteps of Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and ban vaccine mandates and vaccine ‘passports’.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the leaves are now on the ground, thoughts of the coming winter are moving to the forefront, and where we’re nervously watching to cost of heating oil and propane.