Thoughts On A Sunday

Here it is, the last TOAS of 2023 and the last post of 2023, period.

2023 can’t end soon enough for me as it has been a year that has seen numerous ups and downs, with the downs outnumbering the ups.

We see a government here in the US that shows nothing but contempt for the country it runs, has abandoned American ideals, abandoned the Constitution and the law, has devolved into a banana republic, and is working hard to destroy the middle class.

We see people trying to force a large majority of the American people into feeding the delusions of people who need psychiatric help, trying to force us to use pronouns that are absolute nonsense, trying to force us to believe there are 57+ genders, and trying to sell the idea that the only way to fight racism is to practice institutional racism and discrimination, aka DEI.

As we approach the end of 2023 it looks like many of those targeted for all of these things are saying “Enough! No more! We will no longer hear your words or bow to your demands! Go Away!!”

The American people are also ignoring the ill-informed and draconian push to EVs which have turned out to be even more dangerous and harmful to the environment than fossil-fueled vehicles, and which ignore certain truths with the biggest ones being no one wants them, no one can afford them, and that there isn’t anywhere near the needed capacity of the electrical grid to support them.

I’d like to think all that nonsense will come to an end in 2024. I really would…

...but I don’t think it will. I expect it to get even worse over the next year, particularly in light of the upcoming elections next November.

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If Trump can be removed from the ballot based upon an allegation under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment under the Democrat New Rules, then by those same rules Biden should be removed from the ballot under the 25th Amendment as he is not and hasn’t been mentally competent since before he became *Resident.

I can support that.

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Oh, no! Russia is turning into America! Say it ain’t so!!

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Why doesn’t this surprise me?

According to Don Surber it turns out that conservatives were right about DEI all along.

Diversity, equity and inclusion just got a punch in the eye because it is not diverse, equitable or inclusive; only socialists need apply. DEI uses women, blacks, gays and the rest as human shields for the terrible policies and programs they wish to impose on us.

Harvard’s Claudine Gay represents DEI — which is affirmative action on steroids — perfectly. She is a plagiarist who also fudges data in her work. Fortunately, she is lazy which reduced her production of bad scholarship. She also is inexperienced. Harvard hired her only because it wanted to brag that it had its first black woman president.

Zakaria was not done.

He said, “Out of this culture of diversity has grown the collection of ideas and practices that we have now all heard of—safe spaces, trigger warnings and microaggressions.”

He said schools have instituted speech codes “that make it a violation of university rules to say things that some groups might find offensive. Universities advise students not to speak, act, even dress in ways that might cause offense to some minority groups.”

DEI was nothing more than Critical Race Theory renamed, an excuse to ‘fight’ racism by employing racism, discrimination, and exclusion as a means of ‘eliminating’ racism, discrimination, and exclusion. Free speech? Gone. Innocent until proven guilty? That’s so passe. Equality? Yeah...right.

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I knew this was coming. I think everyone knew this was coming.

First, they came for our washing machines. Then they came for our dishwashers. Then our gas stoves. Then our ceiling fans. Now they’re coming for our refrigerators and freezers. And while doing so they’ll be overloading our declining electrical grid.

Biden seeks to take our gas stoves, ceiling fans but now he’s going for even more. The key aspect of his new rules is in this summary Fox News lifted from a remark made by Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow Ben Lieberman (emphasis mine):

In addition to potentially increasing upfront costs for consumers purchasing new appliances, Lieberman said the new efficiency standards may harm product performance. For example, he said new standards for dishwashers have led to cycles taking as much as twice as long to finish.

I can attest to that. We had to replace the dishwasher here at The Gulch a little over a year ago and the new on takes almost 3-and-a-half hours to go through a wash/dry cycle. The old one took a little over an hour and 20 minutes. At one point I measured the power draw for the new dishwasher and compared to the old one it draws about 20 percent less power...but it runs for more than twice as long which means in the end it uses more electricity than my old ‘inefficient’ dishwasher. How is that better?

Appliances take twice as long to finish cleaning will not only result in straining the electric grid but also leave dishes and utensils unclean but can also more easily contribute to the spread of sickness. Even food held in refrigerators subjected to the new regulations can spoil more easily costing consumers even more money. This on top of the increased cost of being able to purchase one.

With this in mind, one can only conclude that the Biden White House prefers that we go back to the days of ice deliveries like what occurred before refrigerators and freezers were invented along with weekly or even daily food deliveries resulting from consumers not wanting to have to deal with food storage since it could waste so quickly.

Regardless of their intentions, the end goal of these environmental rules is to do nothing more than not only destroy home appliance manufacturing but to revert people (other than the elites) to a state of primitivism where we will live miserable, undernourished lives. This is largely why Kamala Harris poses with a gas stove, shows off what her Christmas dinner is while other elitists (like Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Joe Biden) own beachfront properties despite warnings about oceanic sea rise while urging people to cut back on their lifestyles.

Well, we’ve known for some time they have wanted to lower everyone not “Them” to the lowest common denominator – poverty, want, fear, and hunger – and this is one way to do it. Oh, they’ll tell us “It’s for your own good”, but they don’t mean it.

I also have to ask this: Why are we destroying ourselves trying to offset the massively increased carbon dioxide emissions of China? The US has reduced its CO2 considerably, but our alleged betters say we must do more...while China laughs at us and our ‘betters’.

I think we should stop going to such lengths to reduce our emissions one more iota until China does so...and then only when they catch up to us. Otherwise we maintain the status quo...except that we start building new Generation IV nuclear power plants nationwide.

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Now that the new year is upon us it will be time to take down our old calendars and put up our new ones. Here’s one I like:

Click on image to embiggen

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Ice In looks to be at least a month away, there is little if any snow on the ground, and where we’re glad to soon see 2023 in the rear view mirror.

End Of The Year Point To Ponder

Is Biden Going To Abandon Ukraine?

The more stories I see about funding Ukraine’s fight against Russia, the more I am beginning to believe Biden is going to pull an “Afghanistan” on them and abandon them to a second Holodomor, but it won’t be famine killing Ukrainians this time. We already know the Joetato abandoned millions of Afghans to the tender mercies of the Taliban while at the same time leaving billions of dollars of US military equipment behind.

However, this time he’ll just cut off aid, blame the GOP for it, and call it a day.

Several Republican Senators tell me they have become increasingly convinced over several months that Joe Biden wants to kill the funding. This explains his very slow roll to provide Ukraine the deliverables he previously promised them. Biden has repeatedly promised munitions and other supplies to Ukraine and then never actually sent them, or slow rolled it.

At this point, the Democrats could get the Ukraine funding they want, but they will have to compromise on border security, which they have no desire to do and which Joe Biden is not willing to do. The thinking from these Senators is that Joe Biden is using President Zelensky as a prop against the GOP. Biden will blame the GOP for a lack of funding and use that lack of funding to both blame the GOP for a strategic failure in Ukraine and force Zelensky to compromise on land.

--snip--

Saying, “Sorry, Congress won’t budge so we can’t supply you weapons,” will force Zelensky to make decisions he has otherwise refused to make. Biden gets what he actually wants while also using the GOP as scapegoats.

This really is not rocket science except, perhaps, for a team that cannot even properly vet holiday tweets for the VP’s husband. Democrats do not control the House and only have nominal control of the Senate. If you want Ukraine funding, you have to give the GOP border funding.

The press always talks about the need for the GOP to compromise. Now it is the Democrats’ turn, or perhaps the Senators are right and Biden is playing politics through policy disagreement.

“The press always talks about the need for the GOP to compromise.” However, you never hear the press talking about the need for the Democrats to compromise. They won’t because WRBA won’t let them. They don’t really care about Ukraine. After all it’s far way and no one there is a Democrat constituent, just like Afghanistan.

I hate to say this, but I have come to believe that no one should trust America, particularly when Democrats are in charge because they will abandon them the instant it becomes convenient for the Democrats to do so. Americans should also beware as the America we once trusted no longer exists. It has become a country of broken promises, law-by-fiat, and using policies and political maneuvers that would make any banana republic tinpot dictator proud.
This is how far our Republic has decayed...and it’s been done on purpose. What’s worse is that it won’t be just the American people who will pay the price. The people of Ukraine will also pay for this perfidy, just as the people of Afghanistan are now.

Friday (Not So ) Funny - Socialism

To close out 2023 I figured this three-fer might be appropriate considering an increasing number of our young adaults seem to think socialism will solve all problems despite 400 years of history showing just the opposite.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s Christmas Eve and I can honestly say all our Christmas shopping is done. I gave BeezleBub his present this morning and will dropping off a few more gifts later today. My Dear Brother, his missus, and the WP Mom went out for brunch, one of the few non-Christmas things we did today.

I wish we were having a white Christmas this year, but Mother Nature decided otherwise. This isn’t the first time we’ve not had snow for Christmas and I doubt it will be the last. However, I have a feeling she’ll be making up for it the rest of the winter, particularly if the weather prognosticators are right. I know I’m looking forward to it.

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I haven’t been the only one saying the used EV market is dead. Now Bloomberg is saying the same thing.

The shift away from cars with dirty combustion engines is running into a new hurdle: Drivers don’t want to buy used electric vehicles, and that’s undermining the market for new ones, too.

In the $1.2 trillion secondhand market, prices for battery-powered cars are falling faster than for their combustion-engine cousins. Buyers are shunning them due to a lack of subsidies, a desire to wait for better technology and continued shortfalls in charging infrastructures. A fierce price war sparked by Tesla Inc. and competitive Chinese models are further depressing values of new and used cars alike, threatening earnings at rivals like Volkswagen AG and Stellantis NV.

It also doesn’t help that some of these used EVs may require a battery pack replacement a couple of years down the road. A replacement pack can run between $10,000 and $25,000, if not more. Why would anyone buy a used EV if it’s likely they’d have to shell out that kind of money to keep it on the road?

It makes no sense.

Then there are those who believe all they have to do is reprogram you in order for you to buy into Evs even though many of those same people have chosen to ignore an electrical infrastructure that is incapable of providing the electrical power needed to charge all those EVs, one that will not be upgraded to meet that need.

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Speaking about electrical power, it looks like the Osage Nation in Oklahoma has won its case in a federal court in Tulsa, with a federal judge ordering a Rome-based wind energy corporation to remove all 84 wind turbines built on Osage tribal property against it wishes and in violation of a court order which prevented the corporation from mining rock on the tribe’s property.

The Osage Nation won a massive ruling in Tulsa federal court on Wednesday that requires Enel to dismantle a 150-megawatt wind project it built in Osage County despite the tribe’s repeated objections. The tribe’s fight against Rome-based Enel began in 2011 and is the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history.

As reported by Curtis Killman in the Tulsa World on Thursday, the ruling grants the United States, the Osage Nation, and Osage Minerals Council permanent injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass.”

The decision by U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer Choe-Graves is the culmination of 12 years of litigation that pitted the tribe and federal authorities against Enel. During the construction of the project, the company illegally mined rock owned by the tribe, and it continued to do so even after being ordered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to stop. Instead of halting work, the company sped up construction. Enel must now remove the 84 turbines that it built on 8,400 acres of the Tallgrass Prairie located between Pawhuska and Fairfax. Removing the turbines will cost Enel some $300 million.

Under the Osage Allotment Act of 1906, the tribe owns the rights to the minerals beneath the land it bought from the Cherokee Nation in the late 1800s. Those mineral rights include oil, natural gas, and the rocks that Enel mined and crushed for the wind project. By mining without permission, the company violated the tribe’s sovereignty. Choe-Graves concluded that Enel “failed to acquire a mining lease during or after construction, as well as after issuance of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision holding that a mining lease was required” in 2017. She continued, saying the company’s “past and continued refusal to obtain a lease constitutes interference with the sovereignty of the Osage Nation and is sufficient to constitute irreparable injury.”

If this is how alternative energy companies are going to act when it comes to building their projects, then maybe they shouldn’t be allowed. That also goes for those who oppose non-renewable energy projects because of feelz or because they don’t fit the Green Energy narratives. They are quite often the same folks who will complain when they see their electric bills double or triple or when rolling blackouts become the norm. Too often they are incapable of seeing it was their actions that set these events in motion.

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This is something I had to include as it appeals to the nerd/science geek in me:

Click on image to embiggen

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And that is the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last preparations for Christmas are being made, the last presents are being delivered, and where I have some family to go spend time with on this Christmas Eve.

Warthog Defense Is Back!

Last week I mentioned that YouTube’s Progressive censors made pro-Ukraine channel Warthog Defense disappear, first charging that it was an “impostor” channel – one masquerading as another established channel – which was disproven, and then that it was providing misinformation despite its sources being from a number of reputable sources, embedded correspondents, and information provided by both Ukrainian and Russian military sources.

It appears the outcry from a large number of YouTube users, subscribers, and content providers must have had someone at YouTube paying attention because as of a couple days ago Warthog Defense was reinstated with little explanation other than a lukewarm letter saying little other than “OK, we’re going to let you come back.”

Friday (Ironically) Funny - Snow - Be Careful Where You Park!

Thoughts On A Sunday

It seems that yet another storm system is arriving here in New Hampshire later today. While it won’t be snow, as much as I had hoped it would, we’ll be seeing a couple of inches of rain and high gusty winds exceeding 50mph, at least in this part of the state. In light of that I will be prepping the Official Weekend Pundit Generator in case it is needed. I am not concerned with the winds causing tree limbs to come down on power lines, at least not here at The Gulch, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen elsewhere, so making sure the generator is ready to go just in case makes sense.

Unlike those of some of my neighbors, the Official Weekend Pundit Generator is a portable, not a standby generator. That means I have to pull it out of its storage location in order to use it.

Many of my neighbors have standby generators – a self-contained system that is located outside the house – fueled by one or two 50-gallon propane tanks that start automatically when the power goes out. After last winter’s numerous power outages, one of them lasting well over a day, quite a few neighbors bought generators, with some of them going for the standby generators. Around this neighborhood a bit more than half of the homes in The Gulch are seasonal homes and are unoccupied during the winter, so something that will provide emergency power and keep the heat on during the winter makes sense.

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Some have questioned the Left’s sharp turn to antisemitism.

To My Friends on the Left:

You’ve told me countless times over many years that antisemitism is almost exclusively a right-wing phenomenon, but events since October 7 indicate strongly that a far greater threat to the happiness, health, and safety of Jews comes from your left-wing allies. While Hamas was still live-streaming acts of rape, torture, mutilation, murder, kidnapping, and necrophilia on innocents; before Israel lifted a finger in response; throngs of your allies flooded streets, campuses, airwaves, and social media to rejoice. Still more of your friends hung their heads low to avoid offending the celebrants, who are vital components of your electoral base. A modest number of courageous souls on the left have sounded the alarm that when mobs cry out for the torment of Jews, the call is coming from inside the progressive house.

To me it wasn’t a ‘sharp turn’ by any means. The Left has supported antisemitism for decades. However it wasn’t blatant...if you ignore the institutional antisemitism in socialist and communist countries like the old Soviet Union. The antisemitism of the Left has always been there just under the surface. Now that it is out in the open we can see the Left for what they are – hypocrites.

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Here’s a post that had my hackles up because while it’s premise is that a hydrogen economy would be a non-starter because of its inherent inefficiency.

I guess these folks have never heard of “Red Hydrogen”, a method developed by the Japanese for generating large amounts of hydrogen quickly and efficiently.


The Japanese appear to be heading towards a hydrogen economy, particularly when it comes to cars and trucks, as to them it makes more sense than remaining dependent on fossil fuels. It makes a lot more sense than using battery EVs. And it won’t require as much of an infrastructure upgrade as would be required for EVs nor will it take long to refill a hydrogen tank as it takes to recharge an EV, a big plus. The range anxiety seen with EVs won’t be an issue.

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You know it’s gone too far when a gang of Muslim teens decide it’s perfectly okay to attack and beat up a guy dressed as Santa.

The 54-year-old victim was due to perform at the Königsalm on Königsplatz in the city of Kassel on Dec. 6 when he was approached by a gang of youths who crossed the street and confronted him.

According to the victim, Rainer B., the gang comprised several teenagers of a migrant background around 15 years of age. He told police they insulted him, calling him a “son of a bitch” and a “fat man” and ordered him to remove his Santa Claus costume.

They said they were Muslim and that Germany was “their country,” the victim said, as reported by the Hessische Allgemeine newspaper.

When he refused, the gang turned violent and struck him, resulting in injuries to his neck and tearing his costume. In self-defense, the man hit one of his attackers in the face, causing them to flee towards Martinsplatz.

I have a feeling Germany is seriously regretting allowing the large influx of Muslim immigrants. Will German society survive such an invasion of immigrants inimical to the German way of life?

Is this an object lesson for the US considering the millions of illegal immigrants who marched across the border SloJoe opened after taking office?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re waiting for the rains and winds, keeping an eye on the trees, and ignoring Monday because I’m on vacation.

The Progressive Censors Have Struck Again

As bad as it’s gotten on YouTube when it comes to either demonetizing or ‘disappearing’ various YouTube channels, I found out this morning that a pro-Ukraine channel, Warthog Defense, has been disappeared by YouTube with no warning.

The channel has provided a lot of first hand accounts and videos of military actions taking place in Ukraine and Russia as well as preparations being made by Poland, Estonia, and Finland as Russia increases its saber-rattling and veiled threats via its propagandists. It has been one of the only unfiltered sources of war news.

YouTube made two entirely different claims for why they deleted the channel, neither of which makes any sense.

The first claim YouTube made was that Warthog Defense was an “imposter” channel, meaning it was posing as another legitimate YouTube channel. However Warthog Defense has existed on YouTube for years and YouTube would not/could not tell them where to find the “other” Warthog Defense.

The second claim was that they were providing misinformation despite the fact that all of their source material regarding Ukraine came from Ukrainian military sources, Warthog Defense correspondents in the field, and other sources such as UK Ministry of Defense, NATO, and other military and civilian sources. If that is “misinformation” then what is considered legitimate information, newsfeeds from TASS, Izvestia, Russia Times, MSNBC, CNN, and other Progressive propaganda media operations?

It appears so. It could be why more channels/content providers are abandoning YouTube for other providers like BitChute and Rumble, just to name two of the free services, and others like Locals.com and Vimeo.

And so it goes in our increasingly totalitarian state.

Friday Funny - Kale

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’re going to be experiencing yet another round of New England Weather Weirdness over today and tomorrow. Here in New Hampshire temperatures are expected to reach into the 50’s later today, up to three inches of rain, flood watches, and gusts of winds as high as 40 mph through tomorrow. Some of the northern parts of New Hampshire will also see snow towards the end of this weather system.

In December alone we’ve seen both below and above normal temperatures and that’s only the first 10 days of the month. What’s in store for us for the rest of the winter?

It must be said that if the temperatures were to remain below freezing we’d be seeing up to two-and-a-half feet of snow, something I would have preferred, it being December. I know some of my friends and acquaintances wouldn’t agree with me, but then I am of Nordic descent.

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I guess now-former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill’s tap-dancing around whether or not calls for the genocide of Jews and destruction of Israel violates Penn’s harassment and antisemitism policies has found out that such non-answers didn’t cut it. The presidents of Harvard and MIT are also finding out that equivocating or playing the ‘context’ card won’t cut it either. This shows us just how deep the rot has propagated in our so-called “institutions of higher learning” that the leaders of such prestigious institutions will no longer condemn such actions by students and faculty on their campuses.

Twenty years ago students would be suspended or expelled and faculty sanctioned for such reprehensible activities. Today there is tacit approval of such actions because the administration refuses to take action against the campus Nazis calling for a new Holocaust.

I have to agree with David Burge’s take on today’s colleges that they are “an oasis of totalitarianism in a desert of freedom.”

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How does one define irony? How about this:

Tennessee’s prison population grows as violent crime drops steeply.

The reason I find this ironic is that there apparently some people cannot make the connection between higher incarcerations rates and lower crime rates. They don’t understand that when criminals are in prison they can’t commit crimes out in the real world.

Maybe the headline should have read “Violent crime in Tennessee drops sharply as the prison population grows”, which better implies why the crime rate has been falling.

Of course, if George Soros gets his way all of those violent criminals will be released into the general public again to commit even more violent crimes.

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First it was math that is racist. Then it was science that is racist.

Now apparently spellcheck is racist.

As a reminder, if everything is racist, then nothing is racist.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this:

High School Apologizes for Displaying Christmas Tree.

Excuse me? Are Christmas trees now some kind of symbol of something the Left thinks is evil/discriminatory/racist/sexist/whateverist?

An Oregon high school apologized after a Christmas tree triggered a Jewish resident who said the display was not inclusive of any other religion.

“This is public property and I mean it’s supposed to be an education for everybody, not just people who are Christian and not just people who are Jewish,” parent Rick Lester told television station KEZI.

“Our understanding is that number one there is separation of church and state, and that number two it seemed very exclusionary of a lot of people who don’t celebrate Christmas.”

First of all, there is no separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution and second of all, that sort of logic would mean the school would have to remove the menorah because a lot of people don’t celebrate Hanukkah.

Sounds more like Mr. Lester has decided to be the pain-in-the-ass, either because he wanted to be or to gain attention, or he’s just another leftist trying to further dismantle society.

One has to wonder what the next target will be. Maybe Santa Claus?

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Just when I thought I’ve heard it all, now there’s something called a sandwich shop monopoly.

Really?

There is according to faux Native American Elizabeth Warren.

Warren is warning about a "sandwich shop monopoly." It seems that Subway, the home of above average subway sandwiches, is being bought by the same company that owns Jimmy Johns and McAlister’s Deli, among other sandwich emporiums.

Subway, which is family-owned, agreed to sell its business to private equity firm Roark Capital in a blockbuster (good name for a sandwich) deal worth $9 billion. Along with Jimmy Johns and McAlister's, Roark also owns Baskin-Robbins, Dunkin Brands, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Sonic.

It's an empire, and Warren wants it rein it in.

I wonder how many Americans are vitally concerned about whether Subway is owned by a family or Roark Capital. Warren thinks it's a burning issue and she is asking the FTC to look more closely at the transaction.

The FTC hasn’t been able to block the acquisition since “not liking big business is not the same as legally being able to stop mergers.” It seems Warren and others are going overboard worrying about the “sandwich shop monopoly” because even with all of the sub shop chains listed, local sub shops will still outnumber them. At least that’s the way it is where I live. There are two Subway shops that I can think of in this area, and no Jimmy Johns or McAlister’s Deli. The equity firm buying Subway also owns Baskin-Robbins (of which there are none here), Dunkin Brands (aka Dunkin Donuts which are everywhere), Buffalo Wild Wings (none), and Sonic (none).

I would think Warren would be more worried about the Presidential overreach when the White House has decided for everyone that we’ll have to buy EVs that most folks can’t afford, don’t want, and won’t be able to charge. That’s far more important than worrying about a "sandwich shop monopoly” that no one cares about.

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This, however, is important:

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rain is coming down, the snow is being washed away, and where Monday is returning...again.

Another Modest Proposal

On more than one occasion over the past decade or so I have opined that it may be time to separate the Blue urban areas from the Red sub-urban, semi-rural, and rural areas, particularly after the disastrous Reynolds v Sims and Baker v Carr SCOTUS decisions which destroyed the balance between the cities and countrysides in the states, giving the urban areas total control in some states while leaving the rest of the state at the mercy of those urban areas.

We’ve seen that in states like New York, with the Metro New York City area and the I-87 corridor up to Albany lording it over (and ignoring) the rest of New York State. We’ve seen it in Illinois with the 12 counties making up metro Chicago doing the same to the 90 counties in the rest of the state. We’ve seen it in California where the coastal areas between San Francisco and San Diego treat the rest of the state like serfs. That’s just three examples. There are plenty more.

Here’s one of the many maps showing the breakdown of votes cast in the last Presidential election – Democrat and Republican – at county level.

Click On Image To Embiggen
You see blue areas surrounded by seas of red with most of the blue areas centered around metropolitan areas. I’ve thought the blue urban areas should become their own city-states and separate themselves from the parts of the US that are not looking to become more and more like the old Soviet Union. However, it seems someone else has been thinking about the same thing but has obviously put more thought into it than I have.

His suggestion?

Create 34 new states – really city-states – made up of cities and their surrounding areas that are over 2 million population. Here’s what he has in mind:

While there would be 68 new senators in the US Senate, there would still be 435 Representatives in the House. Some of the Senate seats presently held by Democrats would likely go to Republicans once the states they represent have shed themselves of the blue metro areas. House seats would likely be as they are at present, shifting back and forth between Democrats and Republicans over time.

While the balance of power may not shift all that much at the federal level, at state level power would shift to the suburban, semi-rural, and rural areas, with control and finances remaining in those areas. They would no longer be feeding the blue metro areas, metro areas that in some cases had been bleeding them dry.

Would it work? Would it make things better...or worse? If it didn’t work out would we be able to kick out those Blue city-states from the rest of the US so we don’t become yet another socialist dystopia?

It might be worth looking into.

However, I am still inclined to just kick them out.

Friday Funny - Life

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been one of those days where the weather can’t seem to make up its mind. It’s been switching between rain and snow since late this morning. Not that the Weather Guys^TM are predicting much in the way of snowfall here at The Gulch. If nothing else it’s a good excuse for not venturing out today.

It’s hard to believe that Christmas only 3 weeks away. Where has the year gone? Summer was too short because of the lousy weather. I didn’t do much in the way of boating because of that weather. I did a lot more boating after Labor Day...which is why it felt like fall was also too short. An extra four weeks of fall would have extended my boating season, but as we know it doesn’t work like that.

As such, it seemed the Thanksgiving leftovers were still cooling when the WP Mom had me taking out some of the Christmas decorations from the attic. It always seems too early to me.

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I am a die-hard New England Patriots fan, but I have not been watching the games this season as it appears the guys in the Patriots uniforms aren’t really football players. I don’t want to torture myself as they blow game after game after game. The Pats haven’t been this awful since the 1970s.

At least for today’s game they pulled Mac Jones from the starter QB position and have put second-string QB Bailey Zappe as starter.

As I finish this up the Patriots are behind at the end of the 3rd quarter, 6-0.

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It’s one thing to hear foolish people supporting Palestine (without realizing or caring they by doing so they are also supporting Hamas) versus what Arab nations are telling Israel privately. They aren’t even close to being the same thing.

It feeds into everything that’s been reported about Israel’s Arab neighbors and why they don’t want Palestinian refugees roaming wild in their country: they bring trouble. The late King Hussein had to declare war on them and successfully drove them out. The problem is the Palestinian Liberation Organization set up shop in Lebanon, where they caused problems for the government while also attacking Israel from the southern part of the country. Israel had to invade in 1982 and remained in Southern Lebanon until 2000. Egypt has closed its border with the Gaza Strip in Rafah due to terrorism concerns.

In the days after the brutal October 7 attacks executed by Hamas, Egypt knew what was going to happen. They deployed tanks to the border while their prime minister vowed that his country would sacrifice millions to keep their borders safe. He was not referring to Israel. So, what’s the latest? Well, Haaretz is reporting that Israel’s Arab neighbors are telling Jerusalem privately that they shouldn’t stop military operations until Hamas has been annihilated. They view them as a domestic threat.

They understand just how dangerous the Palestinians are, the unrest and death they bring with them.

As one commenter put it:

Who are the biggest killers of Arabs in the world today?

Other Arabs.

This is something the Egyptians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Libyans, Jordanians, Syrians, Yemenis and others know all too well.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department come this:

Moonbats Transsexualize Dinosaur

WTAF?? Was there a note with the 65 million year old fossil stating its preferred pronouns?

These woke lunatics need to be hospitalized until they are no longer delusional.

==+++==

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department come this second bit of insanity:

The Washington Post “Fact Checks” San Francisco Poop Map

Really? Umm, okay...but why?

==+++==

Just how bad is *Resident Biden’s approval rating these days?

This bad:

F. Joe Biden, the worst president in American history, has seen his worst approval rating in his idiotic presidency. At the moment, Biden is sitting at a twenty-seven percent approval rating.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think he can get that down closer to 20% if he stays the course. With only a few exceptions, I don’t know of any of the Democrats that I know up here in New Hampshire that will support SloJoe in 2024. My only concern is that it will get so bad that Michelle Obama will become the candidate who won’t be much different than Biden when it comes to policies and programs. At least she’s not demented...but that’s no reason to vote for her.

==+++==

Normally I would have saved this for a Friday (Not So) Funny, but somehow it felt like an appropriate way to close out this week’s edition of TOAS...because it is so true. We see the truth of this every day.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’ve been seeing thin skins of ice on some of the ponds, the snow is falling lightly, and once again Monday is returning to foul up our weekend.

Was Black Friday In The Red?

It was while I was out running errands and doing some of my usual weekend shopping that I thought to ask a number of staff at the stores I frequent how they fared during Black Friday, knowing that it is The Big Shopping Day For Christmas with all kinds of deals and discounts. The answers I got were surprising.

One of my regular shopping destinations – Walmart – saw an above average number of shoppers that day, but nowhere near what they expected. As I mentioned in a previous post, I postponed making an early shopping trip to Walmart the morning of Black Friday because I didn’t want to fight the frenzied crowds as I picked up my victuals. Since I was off that day it almost made sense to make my usual Sunday morning shopping trip on Friday morning instead...until I remembered what day it was.

It wasn’t until I was out shopping today that I remembered I should ask about Black Friday. One of my friends (and a former neighbor) who works at Walmart told me it had been “uncharacteristically quiet” for a Black Friday. It was pretty much the same thing at some of the local outlet stores, at our local BJ’s (Berkley-Jensen’s) discount store, as well as a couple of others. The crowds usually seen out on Black Friday weren’t quite as large as usual.

Seeing a few YouTube reports and blog posts that reported similar shopper turnouts in some areas begs the question, “Is inflation and the recession the Biden Administration and WRBA say don’t exist affecting the willingness of consumers to open their wallets, wallets that don’t have nearly as much cash in them as there was in previous years?” From what I’ve seen the answer is a qualified “Yes”. Other reports say in-person purchases were up as compared to last year, but it must be remembered the previous couple of years we were still dealing with Covid.

Seeing the numbers for Cyber Monday’s sales, it looks like some portion of Black Friday in-person sales were shunted to online purchases, including those made on Cyber Monday even though the discounts weren’t as big as they have been in the past.

According to Adobe, shoppers spent a record $9.8 billion online Friday — marking a 7.5% jump from last year. Meanwhile, Salesforce, which also tracks online shopping, estimated that Black Friday online sales totaled $16.4 billion in the U.S. and $70.9 billion around the world. And Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks in-person and online spending across all payment forms, reported that overall Black Friday sales excluding automotive rose 2.5% from a year ago — a smaller but still notable jump compared to 2022’s double-digit growth.

According to the firm, online sales rose 8.5%, while in-store purchases were up just 1.1%. Those numbers are not adjusted for inflation, which means that real sales in-stores could have dipped due to high prices.

Other data showed Black Friday saw some increases in store traffic — with large crowds in stores nationwide feeling more similar to pre-pandemic days.

RetailNext, which measures real-time foot traffic in stores, reported that store traffic rose 2.1% on Friday. Sensormatic Solutions, which also tracks store traffic, saw a bigger increase — reporting a 4.6% jump in shopper visits on Black Friday compared to a year ago. That also marks a turnaround from an average decline in store traffic seen throughout 2023 to date, Sensormatic said.

--snip--

Retailers began offering holiday deals in October this year, continuing a trend that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been resurrected multiple times due to supply chain clogs or inflation woes. But many consumers waited to buy until Black Friday.

It will be interesting to see what the actual sales figure are once the feds are able to run the numbers.

All I know is I won’t be spending as much on Christmas presents this year as money is tight and I have to keep my spending under control...so no Porsche Boxster for the WP Girlfriend (if I had one) unless it is one of the Hot Wheels models.

Friday (Not So) Funny (I Can Be Such An Idiot Edition) - Top 5

I wish I could say I just forgot to click the "Publish" button or was too busy or out on the town. But I was too smart by half, figuring I'd put together this post Thursday evening and schedule it to be published Friday night. The problem is I set the date wrong, setting it for Friday...December 8th.

Imagine my surprise when I didn't see it this morning when I checked the blog.

I can be such a maroon.

Click on image to embiggen

Thoughts On A Sunday

As I mentioned in my belated Friday post, I partook of the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert Friday night. It is a concert I have attended three times over the past five years and it’s been a better show each year. I went down to the big city of Manchester, met up with one of my oldest friends, had dinner and then headed to the concert.

It was over two hours of wonder and delight.

I look forward to seeing them again next year around this time.

Click on image to embiggen

==+++==

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I still can’t get used to all of the Christmas decorations already up and the Christmas music in all of the stores...all while we’re still eating leftovers from Thanksgiving Day.

Yes, I know Black Friday took place with loads of people trying to get Christmas gifts with a heavy discount. (As a side note, I almost forgot about Black Friday and was going to make my usual weekend shopping trip to Walmart a day or two early. But the WP Mom reminded me and said that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea, so I went this morning instead.) This morning’s trip to Walmart didn’t see the frenzied shopping, but as soon as I walked into the store the Christmas music slapped me across the face. At least it wasn’t loud, one saving grace. I didn’t have to wrestle a pint of Half-and-Half away from a Black Friday crazed shopper or elbow my way towards the cat food aisle or beat someone semi-conscious when they tried to take the two gallons of spring water from my shopping cart.

I’d like to think that the Internet won’t be overloaded on Cyber Monday.

==+++==

Ed Driscoll is on a roll and delves into the past, specifically Salon’s past when it comes to their push to make the US a socialist state.

A few of their ‘headlines’ over the past 10 years:

“Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle.”

“Let’s nationalize Fox News: Imagining a very different media…Excerpted from ‘Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA.’

“Let’s nationalize Amazon and Google: Publicly funded technology built Big Tech. They’re huge and ruthless and define our lives. They’re close to monopolies. Let’s make them public utilities.”

Give it a rest, Republicans — no one wants to take away Turkey Day.

Salon Magazine Warns of ‘Democracy’s Last Thanksgiving’ If Trump Becomes President.

What a bunch of leftist losers.

==+++==

And one more thing from Ed Driscoll about defunding police and the results thereof.

It all breaks down to this: Those blue cities that did that are finding out their crime rates have skyrocketed and police are quitting in increasing number, adding even more to their problems.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch. Those suffering under these conditions must remember that they bought the woke bullsh*t and voted for this...and are getting it good and hard.

==+++==

This isn’t exactly news since this has been happening since shortly after SloJoe became *Resident:

Democrats See Mass Exodus Of Black Voters

Left wing New York Times is recording that as much as 22% of black voters are supporting Trump for 2024. Those numbers, if they are accurate are historically high for any Republican candidate. Black voters are slowly growing tired of communist Democrats and old, senile Joe Biden, though not fast enough. Despite constantly voting for communist Democrats for more than the last 50 years, black voters have remained among the poorest demographic in the country. Democrats have done nothing for the black voter despite the claims of how “racist” Republicans are.

Interesting that the racists in the room – Democrats - are calling Republicans “racists”. The Democrats are the party of the KKK. They are the party that practices “soft racism”, the racism of low expectations, the racism that puts forth the belief that Black Americans cannot get ahead without their guiding hand – a hand that more often than not holds them back – all while decrying how the “Evil Republicans” are going to “put y’all back in chains”. (Biden actually said that during Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.)

It will be interesting to see how many Black Americans will actually vote for the GOP nominee as well as Hispanics, another demographic that has been abandoning the Democrat Party in increasing numbers.

==+++==

Steve MacDonald asks “Is it just me, or are there fewer EV car commercials airing?”

He’s not imagining it.

I like to sneer and make snide comments when commercials for Electric Vehicles interrupt whatever I happen to be streaming. My wife has learned to ignore them, and I am trying to keep those opinions to myself, but recently, within the past few weeks, I’ve had no need.

There has been no shortage of commercials or ads for cars and trucks. Christmas is coming, and they pepper the breaks more frequently than Pharma or food ads (only barely). But not one of them has been for Electric Vehicles. This is very odd.

In the recent past, it was unlikely for a spate of ads to pass without someone pimping an EV, typically doing things EVs can’t do, like traveling long distances, climbing rocky slopes with a trailer or something heavy in tow. It would be more realistic if they showed drivers looking for a charging station, stranded, or watching from a distance as their car ignited a parking garage full of other people’s cars and trucks.

The past few weeks? Nothing. Zilch. Naught, nix, nil, nada! No hay coches eléctricos. Not a one. And they aren’t appearing while I sneak off “during the break” to relieve myself or grab a snack. I ask.

I know I have certainly seen a lot less ads and I know the reason why: EV sales have tanked big time and automakers have dialed back or even halted production of EVs.

Despite the ads, the motoring public isn’t buying. Despite claims to the contrary, EVs ‘aren’t ready for prime time’. There are too many downsides for most motorists, one of the biggest ones being the cost to buy one. Then there’s the cost to repair them and, increasingly, the cost of insuring them which have driven potential buyers away. Charging can be problematic, particularly during longer trips.
It doesn’t help that our electrical infrastructure isn’t up to handling the demand that EVs will add. It isn’t even close to being able to do so.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the battle between fall and winter continue, Black Friday is just a fading memory, and where Christmas is a lot closer than many of us realize.

Is What She's Saying True?

I can’t believe this is now in the open, but it appears the conspiracy theorists were right about January 6^th, at least according to Nancy Pelosi’s daughter who said on video the whole thing was “a marketing gimmick to propagandize the public for the benefit of the Democrat Party.”

The video, apparently filmed surreptitiously in the style of Project Veritas and released by CitizenLens, reportedly between Pelosi and a January 6 defendant she was courting so as to appear in her documentary of the event, featured Pelosi discussing the political implications of the Jan 6 show trials and their effects on the upcoming 2022 mid-term elections.

--snip--

She then goes on to explain how she knows Gavin McInnes (the purported former leader of the Proud Boys) and used, in fact, to party with him. She knows that he’s a provocateur and doesn’t actually mean what he says.

It’s all bread and circuses, people.

Were FBI provocateurs the only ones behind much of the chaos? We know from video and photos that quite a few known Antifa instigators were among the crowds, wearing MAGA hats and carrying Trump signs. (Hmm, weren’t some of the FBI guys doing the same thing?)

If what Alexandra Pelosi said on video is correct, then there are a lot of people that need to go to prison, and it’s not those who are being charged with insurrection and those already imprisoned by the Democrats.

Personally, I think Nancy Pelosi would look good in prison orange...

Friday (Not So) Funny - What A Difference Four Years Make - (Post-T.S.O. Concert Edition)

No, I did not forget to hit the 'Publish' button or forget that yesterday was Friday. I was out most of the day yesterday, ending the day down in the "Big City" - Manchester, NH - to dine with friends and then attend the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. I didn't get back until almost midnight as it took longer to leave the venue and get back to the trusty RAM 1500 than I had anticipated.

So without further ado:

Click on image to embiggen it.

Thoughts On A Sunday

I was surprised to see how much the temperature changed between Friday and Saturday, being in the upper 50’s/lower 60’s on Friday but in the upper 30’s and breezy on Saturday. Such is fall in New Hampshire.

Since I am off for the coming Thanksgiving week I have been doing work around The Gulch in preparation for the upcoming winter. Much of that deals with rearranging things in the garage, moving things used during spring, summer, and fall out of the way and making sure all those things needed for winter are easy to reach. Not that there’s a lot that needs to be moved, but it’s where it needs to be moved that takes time – from the garage up into the attic and vice versa. A few things will also need to be moved between the garage and the Official Weekend Pundit Storage Unit.

There will also be some last cleanup around the outside of The Gulch, mostly cleaning up the last of the leaves from both the ground and out of the gutter along the front side of the roof.

And then during the rest of the week…

==+++==

It looks like the kid gloves are coming off as Elon Musk is filing a “thermonuclear lawsuit” against Media Matters and "all those who colluded" for "completely misrepresenting" the real user experience on X.

Musk is saying Media Matters falsely pushed ‘news’ that X was supporting "white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories" when in fact no such support was given or implied. This in turn triggered a number of corporate advertisers to pull their ads (and the revenue that goes with them). Says Musk:

X has seen a number of attacks from activist groups like Media Matters and legacy media outlets who seek to undermine freedom of expression on our platform because they perceive it as a threat to their ideological narrative and those of their financial supporters.

It will be interesting to see how well Musk does against the leftist media organizations, the same organizations that have no problems censoring ideas and opinions that disagree with their Marxist doctrine.

==+++==

I am beginning to agree the only way to salvage the FBI as a law enforcement agency is to fire everyone and start from scratch. It has shifted from law enforcement to becoming the leg-breakers and a 21st century version of the Geheim Staatzpolizei, working on the behalf of the Party, in this case the DNC, SloJoe, and WRBA (Whoever is Running the Biden Administration).

What has me thinking this?

How about this?

On January 6, 2021, the FBI explicitly chose to abandon a sting on a child pornographer in Virginia who was messaging with an undercover agent about having sex with a nine-year-old boy, opting instead to focus on prosecuting Donald Trump’s supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol. Less than three years later, the FBI discovered the same man living in Alaska where he appears to have been performing sex acts on a 10-year-old boy, according to court documents.

On December 2, 2020, an internet user with the screen name “gayboy69freak” messaged an undercover agent with the FBI’s Washington Field Office, who was posing as a father pimping out his 9-year-old son, and told him that he wanted to travel to D.C. to have sex with the boy. The man also sent the agent a video of “a prepubescent minor male being anally penetrated by an adult male’s erect penis.” His IP address led the FBI to Brogan Welsh of Glenn Allen, Virginia.

What appears to be a slam-dunk case against a child predator was abruptly abandoned just one month later.

Yeah, it was far more important to railroad J6 protesters, particularly those who had done nothing wrong, to let the people know that no opposition to the Party would be allowed.

The only way to fix the FBI is to clean house.

==+++==

As dumb as a box of rocks.

Indeed.

Do these people understand what the people they are supporting would do to them if they ever met?

I’m guessing the answer is a resounding “No”.

==+++==

Gee, it seems California talks a good game...but they don’t deliver. Case in point: 40% of EV charging stations in LA don’t work.

As Cap’n Teach notes, “One would think that a place like LA would have operational charging stations, considering that California was the first state to mandate all of the peasants having to forgo petrol cars, well before Let’s Go Biden pushed his mandate.” I have to wonder whether those non-functional charging stations are located where most of the neo-serfs live. Only the New Nobility will have access to working EV charging stations. Let the peasants take the bus, or better yet, walk.

Joanna Stern, a WSJ reporter, visited over 120 EV charging stations throughout LA and found many of them didn’t work for one reason or another.

This is only part of the problem.

It won’t matter of charging stations aren’t functional if there’s no electricity to run them. Considering how fragile its electrical grid has become and it’s decreasing generation capacity – caused by California’s obsession with over the top environmental regulations and laws - even working EV charging stations will be unusable because there will be no electricity available to operate them.

As such, one has to wonder if that is the actual intent of California’s Progressive-run government.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where preparations for Thanksgiving continue apace, pre-winter cleanup continues, and where I don’t have to worry about Monday this week.

Smart Phones Are The Debbil!!

I feel I must put here what I’ve been posting in comments to a number posts elsewhere, ‘what’ being how destructive smart phones and social media have become, primarily among teens and young adults. Not that we more ‘mature’ adults are immune from the lures and traps they represent, but I’d like to think we wouldn’t be affected nearly as much as our kids and grandkids. I’d like to. Really.

This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this here, but I think it bears repeating – If you want to raise healthy kids and teens, ban them from owning smart phones or using social media. (I am going to include tablets in this as well since they are almost as ubiquitous as smart phones.) Once they turn 18 they can indulge to their heart’s desire.

Since the two are intricately linked together I shall refer to them as one or the other while meaning both.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but it seems so many kids, teens, and young adults are addicted to their smart phones and the ‘world’ it represents. The only problem is that world is not real. It is smoke and mirrors, a mirage, a fever dream, an illusion. A lie.

But to too many it appears to be real, to be more important than the real world. They are mesmerized by what’s presented on the screens, believing everything that appears on them. With social media I think some things are amplified. Observations, events, scandals, and disses are of greater import. People will say things on social media they would never say to someone’s face, even if their posts or videos aren’t anonymous. (It’s even worse when such postings are anonymous.)

People lie on social media, particularly when it comes to their lives and how they portray them. They rarely show real life, trying to portray their lives as perfect with never a worry or sorrow. However, as we all know life is rarely like that. But others may not realize that and they see the ‘perfect’ lives of others and wonder why their own is nothing like that. They don’t understand that those they envy are only showing one aspect of their lives, assuming what they are presenting on social media is the true. All too often it isn’t. But those viewing those perfect lives don’t know that and they see their own lives diminished in comparison.

Then there’s the dating apps, something that may have started as a something to help people interested in finding someone with whom to share their lives. These days they are little more than a means for arranging a hookup. They are grossly imbalanced with far more men using them than women...and with far more men being ignored by women. (You can’t tell me so many men being ‘left-swiped’, i.e. rejected, doesn’t have some effect on men.)

So much of social media is being used as a means of validation by men and women (though it seems mostly women) via Twitter/X, Instagram, Snap Chat, Tinder, Match, TikTok, and a host of other social media apps. They all can paint a false narrative, show a world that does not exist (in some cases should not exist), gives people the impression they aren’t good enough because they can’t meet impossible or unrealistic expectations.

All of this affects people, particularly teens, emotionally and psychologically. You can’t convince me that social media hasn’t driven an increase in mental illness among teens and young adults.

It must be said again and again that social media can be a disease driven by the need for validation or the Fear Of Missing Out. It is one we must work to lessen its effects, not by regulating or banning social media since the last thing we need is for government to get involved. It has to be driven by parents, social organizations, religious groups, and peers.

In the mean time it might be a good idea to take away your kid’s smart phone...until they turn 30.

Friday Funny - The Problem

Thoughts On A Sunday

The older WP Sister was up visiting this weekend and it was a pleasant one, for the most part. It’s always nice to see her as we don’t get a chance to do so as often as we might like.

The weather cooperated, being sunny though a bit cool, being only 27ºF this morning. However, it looks like it will be warmer as we go through the upcoming week. It will allow me to finish up some of the pre-winter cleanup including a last clean-out of the gutters, removing the last of the fallen leaves which had come down in large amounts just before last week’s snowfall. This will let me take care of all of that prior to going on vacation for a couple of weeks.

==+++==

I came across the following comment on a YouTube video dealing with relations between men and women and how they have changed, and not for the better.

“Wanna know how to make a woman miserable? Give her everything she wants.”

I will admit that at first I nodded in agreement as I have seen more than a few instances where this was proven out. But the more I thought about it the less I liked it. Have things deteriorated to the point where this comment is the rule rather than the exception? If so, why has this happened? There are plenty of people out there positing all kinds of causes. I don’t know which, if any of them have brought us to this point.

I can honestly say that I am glad I am not a young man trying to date in today’s dating environment as it seems there are a lot of angry and/or delusional people out there.

==+++==

We’ve seen major jumps in shoplifting in California after the ‘limit’ for felony theft was raised to $950 from $200. One of the biggest changes seen was ‘mob’ shoplifting when 20 or more people would come rushing into the target store grab merchandise, and run back out, making it difficult if not impossible to stop them. Add in Soros DA’s who were soft on crime and bail laws changed which saw perpetrators were back out on the street before the police paperwork was completed.

It seems that particular malady has spread to Texas, specifically Dallas, where shoplifting has increased by 73%.

The shopping experience in Dallas is starting to change as retail theft increased 73% through the first six months of this year, according to a report released Tuesday.

Dallas and Los Angeles, where shoplifting increased 109%, experienced the highest reported retail theft in the first half of this year, according to an analysis of 24 major cities by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice.

The data helps to explain new scenes around Dallas.

At a Walmart in northeast Dallas flashing lights frame a camera above an aisle of locked cases holding men’s underwear, socks and wallets. It comes with a warning: “Security camera in use.” Electric toothbrushes are also behind locked cases. The electric razors are behind lock and key at a nearby Target.

Kroger has added security gates to some Dallas stores to prevent quick exits of full shopping carts of consumables such as laundry detergent. Tide and Oxi are behind new locked cases at a Kroger on Mockingbird Lane. A box asks shoppers to press the button if they need help. Armed guards in uniform are more visible in Dallas stores and malls.

Things are different in Texas, one of the biggest being Texas gun laws are far more liberal than the draconian gun laws in California. I figure it’s only a matter of time before someone gets stupid and tries to rip off the wrong store and gets ventilated by a store owner...legally.

==+++==

Here’s yet another “stake through the heart” of EVs, in this case New York City giving up on EV snowplows.

Winter is on the way. Time to put away the asinine EVs and fall back on vehicles that work in the cold — or that work period:

Three years ago, the New York Department of Sanitation ordered seven electric rear loader garbage trucks made by Mack LR Electric. The department has not been able to find electric trucks that are powerful enough to plow snow like the original diesel ones.

No worries. According to The Experts, the climate will soon punish us for not fully embracing central planning by withholding snow anyway.

It seems the transition was more about virtue signaling and less about being ‘green’. As we’ve seen in one example after another, virtue signaling can be more expensive and less effective than solutions based on reality. That New York City decided EV snowplows would be a good idea baffles me. Snowplows sometimes have to operate continuously for hours or days, stopping only for crew changes, refueling and for those that also include sanders, refilling the hoppers with sand and road salt. EV snowplows can do everything ‘regular’ snowplows can do except refuel quickly and operating continuously. I’m not sure how well they can move snow or for how long.

At least someone in New York understands that EV snowplows aren’t going to work very well in a place that has frigid temperatures and can measure snowfall in feet.

==+++==

Springtime for Hitler and MIT…

==+++==

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this and I doubt it will be the last:

Credit Card Debt has Skyrocketed Thanks to Joe Biden’ Horrendous Economy

Between inflation, a stupid energy policy that has done far more harm than good, a spendthrift administration and Congress, and the Treasury printing presses running at full speed further eroding the value of a dollar, that an increasing number of Americans are relying on credit cards to make ends meet is not surprising.

Paychecks have not kept up with the rising cost of living. I don’t know about you, but my pay hasn’t kept up with inflation. Over the past three years I figure I have lost about 10% of the value of my pay. My pay raises were wiped out in as few as 4 months due to inflation.

The only thing I’ve got going for me is that I have no debt. That includes credit card debt. The trusty RAM 1500 pickup is paid off. If I can’t afford to pay for something without using a credit card, then I do without. Unfortunately too many Americans can’t do that, still dealing with the effects of the Covid panicdemic.

I (and others) think it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better...if it ever does.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s still getting dark far too early, the last of the boats have been pulled from the water, and where we’re setting the thermostat a little higher to fend off the evening chill.

A Clash Of Civilization

It seems two opposing forces have been increasingly clashing against each other and that clash is getting noisier and more contentious. This clash is affecting more people all the time. What is this clash?

Here’s a hint: It isn’t in Gaza or Israel.

This clash is between the Biden Administration’s EV mandate and reality, specifically the reality of the high cost of EVs and the electrical grid’s lack of capacity to charge all those EVs we’re being told we’ll have to drive.

That clash is already having some fallout with one automaker after another rethinking their shift towards EVs. Ford has ceased production of EVs and GM is ramping down production of theirs. Demand is falling off and EVs are filling dealer lots with no takers.

Toyota and Honda are moving away from battery EVs and towards fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) and hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines. (Toyota has also been touting their new ammonia-fueled internal combustion engine.) Volkswagen dialed back EV production and may cease it altogether. BMW has seen EV sales fall off and has also reduced EV production.

There’s another downside of EVs, that being that most of them are heavier than an equivalent ICE vehicle which increases wear and tear on the roads and bridges. (Some have made the claim EVs aren’t any heavier than regular vehicles, but that claim is easy to debunk with a little research online.)

Range anxiety is also a problem, with EV owners/drivers worried about having enough charge left in the battery pack to make it to their destination. (At this point I have to bring up this joke: “95% of all EVs are still on the road. The other 5% made it to their destinations.”) They also worry about being able to find a charging station if it turns out that they don’t have enough charge left in their battery to make it back home.

I know one issue that is often ignored by EV advocates is the problem of temperature, specifically cold temperatures. The batteries don’t like below freezing temperatures, causing the effective capacity to decrease. In places like where I live, New Hampshire, the winter temperatures can get to well below zero. It is not unusual to see -20ºF in the depths of winter. At temperatures like that an EV battery pack can lose up to two-thirds of its capacity. You won’t go far. You aren’t likely to stay very warm as there may not be enough battery charge available to both move the EV and heat the interior. Being stranded on a lightly traveled rural road at night with very little battery charge available when it’s -20ºF is not anything I want to experience.

Yet there are those supporting the EV mandate that think that would be just dandy. And that is just one aspect of the clash taking place – What is demanded versus what is possible. The mandate ignores what is possible. Proponents don’t care whether or not what is mandated is possible. They just want it done. However, those who are subject to such mandates don’t care what the mandates being pushed on them say. They will either ignore them, if possible, or push back and tell The Powers That Be to “Piss off”.

This will be a long, drawn out clash. I have no idea who will prevail in the end, but I think it’s going to get nasty, it will be expensive, and it’s going to hurt a lot of people and a lot of businesses. But “They” don’t care as long as they get their way.

Friday (Not So) Funny - It's The Economy, Stupid - Part Deux

Thoughts On A Sunday

I don’t know about you, but I have an intense dislike for “falling back” to Standard Time. It’s much more disruptive than the other way around. New Hampshire being where it is in the Eastern Time Zone – the extreme eastern side of the zone, beaten out only by Maine being even farther east. The Eastern Time Zone is the widest in the contiguous US and New England is at the eastern edge. Looking at a Time Zone Map it makes more sense to either remain in Daylight Savings Time or move Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts into the Atlantic Time Zone.

I had to start ‘moving’ the Weekend Pundit Feline Contingent feeding times until they were an hour later so that when the clocks were set back I would be feeding them at the same time, at least in relation to Greenwich Mean Time. Neither Pip or Bailey can tell time, but their stomachs don’t care about whether we’re on Standard or Daylight Savings Time. They just know it’s time for food. Despite what those without pets might say, dogs and cats don’t like it when their routines are disrupted by things like time changes.

Neither do I.

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Being that this is taking place in California, this doesn’t surprise me in the least.

Mask Mandates Return To California.

Study after study after study have shown masks don’t work, particularly the ubiquitous ‘procedure masks’ almost everyone was using during the panicdemic. That places like Sweden and Denmark didn’t take the extreme precautions like so many other countries like the US did and they saw a lower rate of infections and Covid deaths tells us that many of those precautions forced upon us were not effective.

What worked and what didn’t?

Masks? No.

Social Distancing? Questionable.

Lockdowns and quarantine of healthy people? No.

Washing hands? Yes.

Staying home when sick? Yes.

Vaccination? Questionable.

California is going back to mask mandates, but this time because of the annual flu bug. But I have no doubt it will be just as effective against the flu as it was for Covid, meaning not at all. Flu shots have a long history of being effective, but even that comes with a disclaimer, that being that the folks determining which strains of flu would be dominant for the coming flu season chose the correct ones. Sometimes they get it wrong and the flu shots won’t be nearly as effective. But for the most part they get it right.

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Talking with acquaintances in Finland and Sweden, and business contacts in Finland, Sweden and Norway, none of the following surprises me.

Five Nordic Nations Agree to Collaborate on Shared Deportation Flights.

It seems Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have been having an increasing problem with illegal immigrants and have been working to return them to their countries of origin. The flood of illegal immigrants coming in by way of North Africa has burdened many European nations.

One of the major downsides to this flood has been rising crime rates that have been driven by both legal and illegal immigrants. That has certainly been the case in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark where the number of sexual assaults have skyrocketed. My acquaintances in Sweden and Norway have mentioned that as being one of the big problems they’ve seen in their countries.

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In this next item I’m going to throw you a three-fer, seeing as these three items are somewhat related dealing with EVs and renewable energy. (Knowing my disdain for EVs and renewable energy, specifically wind and solar - I still like hydro – I think you’ll see the connection between the two.)

The first item deals with the continuing collapse of the EV market as the EV bubble deflates.

It’s been a crushing week for the EV industry as the bad news that has been brewing for months was laid bare in the quarterly reports. Across the industry, corporate CEO’s are all admitting that demand is unexpectedly slow, orders are down, and suddenly projects are being delayed “indefinitely”.

Volkswagen admitted orders are down a shocking 50% and they are sacking 2,000 jobs in the software division. Ford posted an operating loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter — meaning they are losing $36,000 for every EV they sell. They face a ghastly full year loss of $4.5b, so not surprisingly, they are delaying battery plants, and plans to expand production. All up they are now holding off on $12 billion in investments.

The head of Mercedes-Benz described the market as “a pretty brutal space”. Harald Wilhelm hinted that some manufacturers won’t survive: “I can hardly imagine the current status quo is fully sustainable for everybody,” he said.

Panasonic has slowed EV battery production was reduced by 60% in Japan compared to the same quarter last year. While its US plants were OK, profit forecasts of the whole energy division were down 15% and depended on US subsidies.

News of cars kidnapping drivers, and airport car infernos have added to range anxiety and crushing interest rates to squeeze the EV bubble til it popped.

No matter how much the government pushes EVs on the motoring public, it cannot force the public to adopt something it doesn’t want and can’t afford, even with tax breaks.

Speaking of EVs, there’s this:


That this is taking place in California makes it even more enjoyable as the folks there aren’t getting half the abuse they voted for.

And finally, seeing that a major international energy corporation is pulling out of an offshore wind contract tells us that wind isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Shell’s finance chief said on Thursday the firm had exited a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the planned SouthCoast windfarm off the coast of Massachusetts, agreeing to pay a penalty rather than face rising costs for building the project.

Energy firms from BP (BP.L) to Orsted (ORSTED.CO) have announced hefty write-downs in recent days for their U.S. windfarm projects in the face of high inflation.

Windfarms aren’t as efficient, reliable, or as financially viable as has been touted. Without subsidies they aren’t moneymakers. Move them offshore and they become even less so as they are more expensive to build, require more maintenance, and have a shorter service life than land-based wind turbines. Add inflation and supply chain issues and windfarms make even less sense.

I’m not surprised Shell Oil pulled out.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee,where the weather has been very up and down temperature wise, Halloween has come and gone and Christmas decorations are already appearing in the stores and at the malls, and where we’ll still be complaining about the return to Standard Time...until next March.