Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter reminded us that it isn’t quite done with us despite it being spring. We had some snow yesterday, though not much. We got about and inch and most of that accumulated on the bare ground (what there was of it), rooftops, and the remaining snow. There wasn’t much on the roads themselves as much of the snow melted when it hit the relatively warm pavement. We have a little more that might fall late Tuesday/early Wednesday, but again not much is expected.

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Though winter is trying hard to hang on, spring is starting to win out.

While out running errands this morning I saw a lot more open water on the big lake, a sign that the warmer temps and longer days are working their magic. The snow banks have been melting away, evidenced by the two at the end of my driveway having shrunk from almost 6 feet in height a week and a half ago to about half that height today.

It’s hard to believe boating season is a little over 6 weeks away.

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I got to some maintenance here at The Gulch, having to replace the gooseneck faucet on the kitchen sink. The failure of a push-on quick-connect coupler meant we had no water coming out of the faucet. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a replacement coupler from the manufacturer, something that would have taken me all of 5 minutes to swap out. From the costs of similar couplers the repair would have cost me all of $19. Instead, I had to shell out $179 for a complete gooseneck faucet assembly.

I wish I could say I was able to take care of it myself, having done so in the past, but I can’t. I found I couldn’t reach the large nut that secured the old assembly to the sink as the space under sink was taken up by the garbage disposal and related drain plumbing which made it difficult to find a position where I could reach the underside of the faucet. I had to call in reinforcements in the person of BeezleBub since he was smaller and could fit in the space I couldn’t. He swung by after finishing his day at the farm and in a couple of minutes we had the old faucet out and the new one in.

One thing I can say about my old home - The Manse - was that there was a lot more room under the kitchen sink which made it easy when I had to change out a faulty faucet about a year before we sold it.

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Is the electrical grid collapse being seen in Africa a precursor to what the Democrats have in store for us here in the US?

The problem in Africa is that the grid failures are getting even worse.

From Zimbabwe, where many must work at night because it’s the only time there is power, to Nigeria where collapses of the grid are frequent, the reliable supply of electricity remains elusive across Africa.

The electricity shortages that plague many of Africa’s 54 countries are a serious drain on the continent’s economic growth, energy experts warn.

In recent years South Africa’s power generation has become so inadequate that the continent’s most developed economy must cope with rolling power blackouts of eight to 10 hours per day.

What has driven this accelerating collapse of the grids in Africa?

Con artists...with government credentails.

So what do Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and South Africa all have in common? A couple of years ago, Zimbabwe agreed to a UN plan to mandate more renewable energy and move away from coal and natural gas. At roughly the same time, Nigeria signed on to the UN Clean Energy Demand Initiative and John Kerry showed up in person when Nigeria’s president signed the mandate. And as we’ve discussed here before, South Africa started its “transition” to renewable energy years ago, dumping $8.5 billion into the plan in a move the New York Times described as a “Breakthrough for the World.” A few years later, people are sitting in the dark with no heat over wide regions of each country. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, right?

It was all done on purpose. Many of the same people who pushed this on Africa are trying to the same thing here. We’ve already seen some of the effects, with coal plants being shut down with no other sources replacing the lost power, natural gas plants being affected by artificially limited gas supplies, and a politically driven and irrationally emotional ‘ban’ on new nuclear power plants, even though the new generation reactors are better, safer, and less expensive to build and operate.

But wait! There’s more!

Do you know who isn’t worried about having enough power? China. They’ve been issuing construction permits for an average of two new coal plants per week for the past couple of years. China’s carbon output is more than double that of the United States, where the energy industry has been slashing emissions for years. And yet you didn’t hear a peep out of John Kerry and the rest of the climate hecklers who flew their private jets to Davos so they could scold everyone else. China can apparently do what they like because they’re a “developing nation.”

The Chinese are laughing their butts off at us right now. We’re tanking our own power grid and our economy to placate the climate gods. I somehow doubt Beijing is too concerned about potentially getting into a hot war with a country that can’t keep its lights on...

So we have been ‘making up’ for China’s expanding CO2 emissions by dismantling our electrical grid and crippling our energy production by being forced to change over to inadequate and unreliable ‘renewable’ energy sources? No wonder China is laughing at us.

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Since I’ve brought up the subject of electricity, I am going to delve into electric vehicles, and more specifically why they are more ‘smoke and mirrors’ rather than a solution to a problem that has been vastly overstated and oversold.

One of my biggest problems is something everyone notices and can’t deny – They’re too damn expensive. When an equivalent electric vehicle costs $15,000, $20,000, $30,000 more than an ICE or hybrid vehicle, and then add the cost of the support equipment – a fast charger, being but one – and you can add up to another $10,000 - $15,000 in costs.

Then there’s other issues like higher insurance costs, higher repair costs, and higher likelihood of the EV being declared a total loss for accident damage that if it had occurred on an ICE or hybrid vehicle would have been repaired.

And then there’s the “carbon footprint mythology”, the claims that EVs are no/low carbon when in fact they are nothing of the sort. It’s more virtue signaling and “economically debilitating and environmentally irresponsible.”

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This is a perfect example of “The legal profession [being] among the many institutions that have been subverted by leftism.” What is ‘this’?

The High Price of Low Bond for Lowlifes.

Jonathan Welch, the Detroit man who was released on a low bond after being charged with several felonies including torture, has now been charged with a fourth murder that happened prior to his original arrest in June.

This victim was 24-year-old Natayla Morse, whose head Welch allegedly bashed in before stealing her car and setting it on fire. The June arrest was for torturing his ex-girlfriend for 4 hours straight in the presence of their child.

Previously Welch had allegedly killed this same ex-girlfriend as well as his mother and step-dad and then killed Morse. Why was this guy released on such low bond ($10,000)?

There are plenty of examples of violent criminals with low/no-bond release from previous crimes committing more crimes, sometimes only hours after being released. When re-arrested, they are again released with low/no-bond.

Does anyone else think low/no-bond release is a stupid idea?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice is breaking up, the snow banks are melting away, and thoughts of boating are coming to the forefront.