Thoughts On A Sunday

It was indeed the last weekend of the boating season.

I spent some time out on the Big Lake yesterday, it being sunny and warm – in the upper 70’s – but windy in the afternoon. There were a lot of boats on the lake. I am assuming they were doing the same thing I was, that being one last trip out on the lake before putting our boats away until next spring. I know our town’s public docks were very busy yesterday as folks were taking their boats out of the water, not wanting to wait until today when the weather was much cooler – mid-40’s today – and rain.

On the other hand I pulled the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout this morning. It took BeezleBub and I about 30 minutes to get it out of the water, draining the water from the bilge and engine block, emptying all the gear out of the boat, and then hauling it to the boatyard for winterization. Then, to add to it all, it started to rain – a not unexpected event – but mixed with some sleet, something no one expected.

So my boating season is over for the year. I wish it had been a better one. With the wet summer I wasn’t out on the lake nearly as often as is normal for me. Most of my boating took place between Labor Day and this weekend. To give you an idea, I used not quite a single tank of gas between mid-May and Labor Day. But I’ve used 4 tanks between Labor Day and this weekend.

==+++==

I and many other have been saying for decades that the US should leave the UN. It serves no useful purpose other than supporting tyrants, death cults masquerading as a religion, and pretending like human rights are nothing but a mythical concept. The US has provided a large portion of the funding for the UN. After what has happened in Israel and Gaza, there are others considering withdrawing from the UN. The latest to do so?

The Czech Republic.

One must not stand silent in the face of a second Holocaust, the Czech Defense Minister Jana Černochová said as she called on her country to withdraw from the United Nations to protest its failure to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel.

She spoke of her outrage one day after the UN General Assembly voted 120-14 for a ceasefire for the Gaza War, which focused primarily on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The UNGA resolution which also had 45 abstentions, did not mention or clearly call for the release of the 230 hostages the terror group took captive on that day.

"I am ashamed of the UN. In my opinion - the Czech Republic has nothing to expect in an organization that supports terrorists and does not respect the basic right to self-defense. Let's get out.”

“Exactly three weeks ago, Hamas murdered more than 1,400 Israelis, which is more victims per their population than the militant Islamist organization al-Qaeda murdered on 9/11/2001 in the USA.

It’s long past time for the US to get out of the UN. It’s long past time for the UN to get out of the US.

==+++==

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am not a fan of EVs. From an engineering, environmental, and financial point of view, they make no sense to me. Despite claims about how ‘green’ EVs are, anyone paying attention or willing to do a little research will find they are anything but green, are no better than fossil fueled vehicles, are more expensive to buy/maintain/repair, and under many circumstances don’t/won’t/can’t meet the needs of many motorists. Then add the rapidly increasing cost of insuring them, and they make even less sense. Many under-perform and won’t be able to do the jobs they’re supposedly designed to do, one example being the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup.

EVs aren’t selling all that well. Dealers are seeing EVs going unsold and filling up their lots. With the exception of those who like ‘different’ vehicles, most motorists don’t like EVs. Once some of them find out what they really cost, they don’t want anything to do with them. Even the used EV market is moribund.

Then there’s this: Ford has cut back on production of the F-150 Lightning because of lackluster demand.

Then, to add insult to injury, GM has announced its intention to move away from EVs towards fuel cell vehicles (FCVs):


It’s ironic considering GM had done a lot of research and development of fuel cell vehicles many years ago. But GM isn’t the only automaker looking to FCVs. Honda, Toyota, and Kia are looking into FVCs, with Honda having fielded some for ‘real world’ testing. Japan has also pioneered methods for producing large volumes of hydrogen using gas-cooled nuclear reactors.

And then there’s this: Akio Toyoda, Chairman of the Toyota Motor Company, expressing his disdain for EVs. One point he made agrees with my analysis, that being hybrids make a lot more sense than EVs.

He explained that if the world were serious about climate change or reducing car emissions, we’d adopt hybrids instead. Hybrids are cars with both gas and electric engines. One of the things that he loved to say was that Toyota could make eight hybrids with the minerals required for one Electric Car.

Hybrids don’t require an updated infrastructure while EV’s require major upgrades to the electrical grid to meet the expected demand. The existing infrastructure – gasoline and diesel distribution – is more than sufficient to support hybrids. Knowing just how much the NIMBYs, BANANAs, and Watermelon Environmentalists will fight every single new powerline, substation, and powerplant, there’s no way the electrical grid will be updated to handle the projected demand.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how all of this will play out, particularly if we can get SloJoe and WRBA out of the loop.

==+++==

One last thing before I close out this week’s TOAS: One last picture of the last day out on the Big Lake.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the boating season has ended, the temps have dropped by over 30 degrees, and where Monday will be as cold and rainy as it was today.

Is Work-From-Home Ending?

I have been hearing and reading more and more about companies demanding their employees who have been working from home return to the office. While work-from-home became de rigeur for many office workers during the panicdemic, a side effect of the lockdowns and over-the-top precautions. Now that the lockdowns have ended, many office workers have been reluctant to return to the office.

For those with a long commute this makes sense. Some don’t mind returning to the office on an as needed basis or only being in the office for only part of the work week. For others the thought of returning to the office does not fill them with joy. But some employers are giving their work-from-home employees no leeway and are demanding their return to the office. For some companies work-from-home has made their office space look like a ghost town. I know this has been the case in places like San Francisco and New York City where millions of square feet of office space has a lot of empty desks and conference rooms, something the companies still have to light and heat/cool even if no one is there. It has also had another side effect, that being a lot of businesses that served the needs and desires of those now absent workers are struggling, if not closed down.

The oldest WP Sister had to deal with traveling into the office once a week even though she was never together with the rest of her team, meaning they still had to video conference even though they were in the same building complex. She always said it defeated the purpose of coming back into the office, particularly in light of the fact that they no longer had assigned offices. Now that she is retired she no longer has to deal with that problem.

My job required me to be in my employer’s hardware engineering lab two or three days a week during the panicdemic for the mere fact that it wasn’t possible for me to haul $200,000 to $500,000 worth of electronic and optical test equipment home. Also, the WP Mom wouldn’t let me set up that $200,000 to $500,000 worth of electronic and optical test equipment on her dining room table. So I split my time between working at the lab and working from home. At least my employer decided to extend the hybrid work-from-home system after the panicdemic was over and I and my fellow engineers have been making the best of it. I work at the lab three of four days during the week and work from home on the other days, usually dealing with the paperwork that goes with all the lab work.

Employers seem to be of two minds about work-from-home. Some see it as a good thing, a recruiting tool and a means of retaining present personnel. Some see it as just the opposite because they can’t keep an eye on their employees every second of every work day and don’t trust that they’ll get their work done. The argument can be made for both points of view.

Elon Musk, for one, has disparaged work-from-home employees, calling them “detached from reality”. He brings up some valid points. But he also ignores others which validate some work-from-home positions.

One such occupation that lends itself to work-from-home? Coding.

My company has quite a few programmers who work from home. It makes sense because some of them are in other parts of the country and others are in another country. How would they ‘come into the office’ when the nearest office is hundreds or thousands of miles away?

It will take time, but work-from-home will shake itself out, with some companies leveraging it to keep existing employees and recruiting others. Others won’t or can’t embrace work-from-home, perhaps to their detriment. Only time will tell.

Friday Funny - Meat

Hey, I actually remembered to hit the 'publish' button this time!

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a 50-50 weekend up here at The Manse: Saturday being rainy with an inch of rainfall and Sunday being partly cloudy with cooler temperatures and a stiff breeze. Temps barely reached 50ºF today, the first day I really needed to wear a sweatshirt to stay warm when out running errands.

The fall colors are really starting to make their presence known, but they’re still patchy and the colors are muted. (I am not the only one to notice that.) However, it appears that’s only around this part of New Hampshire as friends and relatives elsewhere in the state say they are spectacular. It’s true they are running a couple of weeks behind schedule, at least according to the Weather Guys^TM. I have to agree with them as we are usually at peak or just past peak right about now, but we still see a lot of trees whose leaves are still green.

As I mentioned last week, the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, is coming out of the water in a week. BeezleBub and I will haul it out of the water, empty out all of the gear – cushions, mooring lines, anchors, transom light, boat hooks, paddle, PFDs, fenders, etc. - clean the cockpit, and then haul the boat to the boatyard for winterization and storage. And so another boating season will end.

==+++==

Oh, great! Just what we need…

Yet another way for our less than scrupulous citizens to collect insurance because their homes or businesses burned to the ground. In this case blaming the fires on the lithium-ion batteries in their EVs or e-bikes.

It is not uncommon for a business to burn legitimately, but there is always the chance it was an insurance fire—a way to get out from under a failing business. And not just a business. Homes too. I know that seems cynical, and my apologies. Many people lose much in any number of disasters. The flooding in Vermont this past spring was not as record-setting as advertised, but it was significant. It changed many lives, ended some, and washed out homes, businesses, and livelihoods.

Like the COVID response. The PPP Loans. Medical and bailout money fraud. The system increasingly lends itself to the means and opportunity to do better at someone else’s expense. The entire green energy net-zero movement also comes to mind. And with it, the volatile power cells upon which it stands—lithium Ion batteries. I had to get certified to handle them at the job I used to do. They are considered hazardous materials. They can start fires that take out freighters, trucks, and aircraft. Their ubiquity has taken cars, homes, apartment buildings, businesses, and lives.

Using them to start insurance fires seems logical, as “vehicles” for arson or to hide another crime. Instead of finding the body of the DNC staffer who leaked all the internal emails in a bathtub, they could leave him in his burning Tesla, even though he never owned one. No worries, the FBI is still convinced it’s not suspicious.

The “Gee, my house/business burned to the ground because my kid’s e-bike batteries ignited while they were charging,” claim will become the new mantra for those less than scrupulous citizens.

Then, there are the legitimate fires caused by lithium-ion battery pack failures to deal with.

Yeah, this is going to be fun.

==+++==

It looks like Elon Musk doesn’t think much of the “work-from-home” crowd because they’re “detached from reality”.

"How detached from reality does the work-from-home crowd have to be? While they take advantage of those who cannot work from home. Why did I sleep in the factory so many times? Because it mattered," Musk said, while drawing a comparison between remote workers to factory workers, restaurant workers, and delivery workers.

Musk's comments marked an abrupt pivot from a prior discussion about the affordability of Tesla's cars. After sharing his thoughts on remote work, he resumed the pricing discussion by saying, "So, I just can't emphasize again how important cost is."

Musk has made similar comments about remote work in the past. In May, Musk told CNBC he thought remote work was "morally wrong," and likened remote workers to Marie Antoinette's infamous "let them eat cake" remark.

The Tesla CEO's push for in-office work could stem from his own workaholic tendencies — like sleeping in the office — according to Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk.

His workaholic tendencies were also evident after he acquired Twitter last year — he announced in November that staff were expected to have 40-hour work weeks in the office. The company even transformed some offices into bedrooms, and a former Twitter executive went viral for sleeping on the floor to meet deadlines imposed by Musk.

I worked from home during the height of the Covid panicdemic, going into the lab only on those days I couldn’t do what work I couldn’t complete from home. While there were some upsides to work-from-home, the downsides outweighed many of them, the isolation being the worst aspect.

Once we were able to go back into work, I did, gladly. But corporate decided we could work a hybrid schedule from then on, allowing one or two days a week working from home. I will admit I do that, primarily to deal with data analysis, reports, and other paperwork that is part of my job. I find I can get it done in less time at home because I don’t have the distractions. So I work from home one day per week, usually a Friday, and am in the lab the other four days. It works for me, keeps me in touch with my fellow engineering geeks. (Yes, we can and do use electronic means for conferencing, in this case Microsoft Teams, but it isn’t the same as face-to-face cooperative work.)

Most of our software people work from home, particularly those who are across the country, across an international border, or on an entirely different continent. Then again, it seems many of the coders prefer to be ensconced in their basements, shunning daylight and direct human interaction, so coming into an office is a non-starter. (Yes, a stereotype. But it’s a stereotype for a reason.)

Some jobs lend themselves to work-from-home, so why not if there’s no issue with the employer?

==+++==

Despite its prestigious marque, it appears even Mercedes-Benz can’t sell EVs.

Like most government agencies, NGOs, and publicly traded companies, Mercedes-Benz has made a promise to be all-electric by 2030. The automaker intends to have every newly launched vehicle architecture be electric-only after 2024 and to gradually wean itself off combustion engines.

Unfortunately, the brand’s sales trajectory doesn’t appear to be cooperating. Despite seeing a surge of interest in its electrified EQ products initially, Mercedes has started having trouble moving EVs.

It’s been a growing problem for several brands that have started to pivot toward all-electric products. However, luxury brands seemed to have the edge in EV sales — as their customer base is more willing to be early adopters and typically has more disposable income.

Automotive News recently conducted a series of interviews with Mercedes retailers. Citing Edmunds data that shows Mercedes-Benz dealers took an average of 82 days to sell the brand's battery-powered EQ models in September (double BMW's 38-day turnaround rate while also being above the luxury segment average of 57 days), the outlet was hoping to shed some light on the matter.

Why M-B thought they would be immune to the lack of enthusiasm for EVs escapes me. Even luxury market customers aren’t stupid, understand the pluses and minuses of EVs, and will make the same decision customers in other automotive markets have made: EVs aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where fall weather has finally arrived, the foliage colors are still changing, and where we all have to put up with yet another Monday.

Scientific American Gets It Wrong

Years ago I was a devoted subscriber to Scientific American, an excellent magazine that delved into science of all kinds and made it understandable to the average person. However, in the 1990’s the publication became less about actual science and more about political correctness. These days it seems about the only relation to science it has these days is the word ‘science’ in its name. Lysenkoism and ‘woke’ that has replaced the science that was the raison d'être of the magazine.

How bad has the decline of a once great publication become?

This bad: It accepted and published an article that dismisses scientific rigor, specifically when it comes to the efficacy of face masks in preventing the spread of diseases like Covid.

In response, [Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard professor of the history of science] claimed that “[t]he Cochrane finding was not that masking didn’t work but that scientists lacked sufficient evidence of sufficient quality to conclude that they worked.” She continues, “Jefferson erased that distinction, in effect arguing that because the authors couldn’t prove that masks did work, one could say that they didn’t work. That’s just wrong.” But Jefferson didn’t simply say that masks don’t work; he said there’s “no evidence” they work. The burden of proof should be on the side of those advocating a medical intervention. Without remotely having met that burden, Oreskes asserts that masks do work. Cochrane, she writes, “gave the false impression that masking didn’t help.”

In fact, 16 RCTs have tested whether masks effectively reduce the spread of viruses. Not one has found compelling evidence that they do. Two have found statistically significant evidence that masks are counterproductive—that they increase the spread of viruses—probably because masks are frequently moist or dirty, and people often touch them. As for non-RCT evidence, check out this chart by Ian Miller, which shows that mask-mandate and mask-free states registered almost identical Covid-19 case rates.

Surgical masks were designed to protect patients from having open wounds infected by medical personnel, not to prevent the spread of viruses. N95 masks were designed to protect workers from breathing in fumes, smoke, or dust. When N95s were worn in hospitals pre-Covid, it was usually to protect against the spread of tuberculosis bacteria, not to stop the spread of viruses. As an article on the National Institutes of Health website puts it, “Viruses are tiny. . . . Billions can fit on the head of a pin.” Bacteria are huge by comparison: “Bacteria are 10 to 100 times larger than viruses.” Trying to block a virus with a mask is like trying to keep mosquitos out of your yard with a chain-link fence.

Many of the health professionals I know, including my ex-wife, told me over and over again that the disposable ‘procedure masks’ were not effective, particularly against viruses. They were never made to do that. They were made to be used for the duration of a procedure – generally 20 to 30 minutes – and then disposed of. However, during the height of the Covid panic, people would wear these masks for hours, some times for day after day before replacing them. Respiratory illnesses other than Covid became rampant. Yet without one jot of evidence that masks work against Covid, mask mandates were issued. I have to think it was more of some kind of “We’re all in this together” move by the local, state, and federal governments even though masks wouldn’t make a difference.

All the ‘experts’ said masks, social distancing, and hand washing were the only way to prevent the spread. They were right on two out of three. (Don’t even get me started on the experimental mRNA vaccines that were less effective than claimed, not to mention the side effects which seem to be worse than the disease they were supposed to protect against.)

And so it goes.

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

I can't believe I did it again - assemble the post, insert the photo, preview the post...and forget to hit 'Publish'. It seems if I wait until the end of the day when it's time to go to bed that will happen. So from hereon out I will need to do this much earlier in the day. With that in mind and without further ado:

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a busy weekend here at The Gulch, getting summer things put away, cleaning up around the house, getting winter things out of storage, and finally, making arrangements for the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout to be pulled out of the water and winterized for storage. I figure two more weeks of boating and my boating season will be done. My ‘summer’ will be over.

On the other hand fall isn’t turning out the way I thought it would. Our weather has not been fall-like, being warmer than usual (but not ‘summer’ warm). We haven’t been seeing the usually vibrant fall foliage colors, either. They have been rather muted, at least here in this part of New Hampshire. They have also been patchy, showing up here and there while other areas remain green. That isn’t how it usually goes.

While some are pointing to climate change as the cause, I think it has more to do with the Tonga-Hunga volcano eruption last year which has caused warmer than normal temperatures and well above average rainfall all over the world. That much higher than normal rainfall affects the fall foliage (as does below normal rainfall). One of the things that has had some foliage going from green directly to brown as been a fungus that has infected leaves on some of the trees, the fungus due to the very wet summer. It looks like this year’s fall foliage season is going to be a bust, at least around here.

==+++==

Why do the Woke support Hamas?

One has to remember the woke are delusional and are perpetually offended about everything on the behalf of others, even if those ‘others’ are genocidal terrorists who think the Nazis were too warm and fuzzy to finish eradicating Jews.

Here’s one example, a tweet posted by author Dylan Evans, since deleted:

It appears the Nazis went undercover after WWII and have now decided to crawl out of their subterranean lairs and try to restart the Holocaust.

==+++==

Talk about hypocrisy!

It appears a number of women’s rights groups are remaining silent about the rape and murder of women by Hamas.

Does this mean they endorse Hamas’ actions during the attack on Israel?

They claim to be “women’s rights” organizations, but so far, almost none of them have spoken out to oppose the rapes, murders, and kidnappings of Israeli women and girls.

Gee, don’t you wonder why that might be?

Is it because they are leftists before they are women?

It seems these days that too many leftists don’t really believe there is any such thing as women since they are no longer capable of actually defining the term ‘woman’.

==+++==

Due to today’s lengthy activities this TOAS post is going to a bit brief. I still have distaff duties to attend to before the day comes to an end.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, my ‘summer’ is coming to and end. As such, the following seems an appropriate way to close it out:

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the number of boats in the water continue to dwindle, the fall foliage isn’t up to snuff, and where we’re hoping for good weather this week so we can get a little more boating in before the boat comes out of the water.

Is Gaza Housing A Dying Culture?

Stuart Schneiderman delves into the the attacks on Israel by Hamas, commenting on a piece by David Goldman in the Asia Times which blames the horrific attacks upon a failing culture trying to assert itself.

After reading his reasoning, I have to say it makes sense.

David Goldman has rendered us an inestimable service by conjuring the ghost of a famed seventeenth century French statesman, Cardinal Richelieu.

Considering the strange things that are happening in the world today, getting a ghost’s opinion does not seem completely out of line.

Richelieu’s theory seems original. At the least, it is uncommon. It wants us to be aware of the danger posed by dying cultures. When your culture is dying, when your language is becoming useless, when you are about to be absorbed in a larger, more successful culture, you might think that you have little choice but to go to war.

Since war is the ultimate form of competition, a failing culture might resort to it in order to assert its putative greatness.

The Palestinians, at least those within Gaza and other refuges around the Middle East, have been stuck in what we now call a ‘doom loop’. Gaza has been a source and refuge for Islamic fundamentalist militants like Hamas for generations. The more power the militants gain the worse it gets for the the residents in Gaza.

Was the purpose of Hamas’ attack to inflict damage on Israel as part of a larger war, or was it a means of generating a lot of casualties in Israel and Gaza, the Gaza casualties to be used solely for solely for propaganda purposes? Seeing how previous Hamas propaganda has used staged scenes, old photos of previous actions as ‘new evidence’ of Israel’s inhumanity, or employed Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals ploy of blaming Israel for acts Hamas in fact committed.

As for Palestine, Richelieu remarks that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people. It was invented recently to cover up the simple fact that the Arabs who were displaced in the founding of the state of Israel were rejected by their fellow Arab states.

When Jews were expelled from Middle Eastern Muslim countries, Israel accepted them. When Arabs chose to leave the Jewish state after its founding in 1948, they were not accepted by other Arab states. Many of them ended up in camps.

If this refugee population cannot settle in Israel, it will need to find homes in other Arab states. And, according to Richelieu, the Arab states still do not want them.

Ironically, Arabs who remained in Israel after its founding in 1948 and became Israelis have done quite well, as well as any other Israeli citizen. I have no idea if they have any respect for their refugee relations, but if their reaction is like that of Arabs in the other Middle Eastern and northern African nations, the answer is likely that they do not. Are the attacks by Hamas a “last gasp” action of a dying culture, a culture that cannot survive without the support of other terrorist states?

Only time will tell.

Friday Funny - Gettin' Around Yesterday And Today

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a busy weekend for yours truly. Today was Part 1 of our neighborhood fall cleanup – cutting back brush and removing dead limbs from nearby trees around the homes around The Gulch. This is an annual ritual of which I have been partaking since having moved here after selling The Manse a few years ago. It’s a good way to get things cleaned up, speak with the neighbors (many whom are here only seasonally), and get to know each other better.

Part 1 didn’t take long, maybe 2-1/2 hours, and we got to the things that needed to be done with little fanfare and no drama. The weather was cooperative, yesterday’s rains having ended by early morning and leaving dry and partly sunny conditions for the cleanup. It wasn’t all that warm, maybe 52ºF with a breeze, but it wasn’t unseasonably cool. It made for pleasant working conditions.

==+++==

I’d like to see how the Democrats and SloJoe are going to explain away Trump’s on-the-nose prediction of what would happen if the US released $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets.

“[One] month ago Trump predicted the $6 Billion that Biden gave Iran would be used for terror attacks across the Middle East and specifically kidnapping,” conservative Jack Posobiec captioned a screenshot of Trump’s prediction on X. “This is exactly what we are seeing in Israel this morning.”

Biden released the $6 billion to Iran in exchange for the regime releasing five American prisoners it had detained for years.

Trump’s post, which was published on September 11, said, “Can you believe that Crooked Joe Biden is giving $6 Billion to the terrorist regime in Iran? That money [will] be used for terrorism all over the Middle East, and, indeed, the World. This incompetent FOOL is absolutely destroying America. He had the audacity to announce this terrible deal today, September 11th.”

“To pay for hostages will lead to kidnapping, ransom, and blackmail against Americans across the globe,” Trump added. “I freed many dozens of our people from various unfriendly countries and never paid a dime!”

I was not surprised at such a prediction as anyone with a bit of understanding of human nature knows that if you reward bad behavior you get more of it. That Iran knows it can kidnap and hold American citizens hostage for ransom means there will be more of this. Even as the Americans were released after Biden handed over the $6 billion, Iranian officials were detaining yet more Americans. I expect they’ll be demanding even more money. The same goes for Americans taken hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah during the attacks on Israel yesterday.

Yet another reason why the Dems and the Biden Administration need to be kicked out of Washington.

==+++==

Here’s another hit to SloJoe’s delusional view of his presidency.

Joe Biden: Media to Blame for Why Most Americans Don’t Feel Good About the Economy

Biden actually thinks things are better economically. But ask just about any American wage earner and you’ll get a different picture of the economy: It sucks.

The numbers Biden touted “shows it’s not as rosy as it first appears.”

It makes me wonder if we’ll hear SloJoe utter the phrase “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

All I know is my eyes have shown me that my money isn’t worth what it was at the beginning of the year and that my pay raise during the first quarter of this year was canceled out by inflation by the start of the fourth quarter.

==+++==

If offshore Big Wind is supposed to be so wonderful, then why does it require constantly increasing amount of subsidies to even get started even though it won’t provide the amount of power promised? Governors have requested additional funding because the cost of their offshore wind projects skyrocketed. Is the cost worth what the coastal states will receive in return?

30,000 megawatts. Wow, that’s a lot. Or is it? According to the American Public Power Association, as of February 2023 the U.S. had some 1.3 million megawatts of electricity generation capacity. So the 30,000 MW of new offshore wind would be an increment of something between 2 and 3% to existing nameplate capacity. And since wind turbines only function about 30-40% of the time (optimistically) when averaged over the year, the 30,000 new MW of capacity of offshore wind would really be equivalent to at most 9-12,000 MW of dispatchable generation, so will at best add about 1% to existing capacity, and even that at random times that would require backup to assure reliability.

But is the 30,000 MW of new offshore wind capacity even real? Yes, big subsidy numbers got put into the fraudulently-named “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022 for the purpose of getting the offshore wind projects built. Lots of offshore wind projects in the mid-Atlantic and New England areas then got put up for bid, and contracts for construction of the turbines were issued. Can we get an update on that? Is anything actually getting built?

So far it appears the answer is ‘No’.

==+++==

Since I have been piling on pResident Biden, I figured I’d take one last shot before closing this edition of TOAS:

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is now fall-like, the foliage colors are changing more rapidly, and most of us do not have to worry about Monday this week.

Green Energy Is Toxic

One more than one occasion I have stated that so-called Green Energy isn’t anywhere near as green as it’s many proponents believe. Most people have no idea what it entails to go green, assuming that just because such energy sources don’t use fossil fuels that they are automatically “green”. They aren’t even close.

Most of these green energy sources require metals and other materials previously used in small amounts. The extraction of those metals and materials have major negative environmental factors of their own that are worse than all of those ‘evil non-green energy sources’, i.e. fossil fuel, and more specifically fossil fueled vehicles, put together.

“According to the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, green energy technologies like wind turbines and electric cars often do require many more mined minerals than the present fossil fuels infrastructure,” The Daily Mail reports. “One electric car, for example, requires six times more metallic and mineral materials than a combustion engine car, MIT’s university team reports.

“And a wind power plant requires nine times more of these mined compounds than a traditional gas-fired plant,” The Daily Mail reports.

As a result, more green energy equals more mining and a need for radically improved waste disposal to avoid “business as usual” pollution.

This is something being ignored, particularly by the Biden Administration and the Watermelon Environmentalists. Is it that they are so focused on ‘saving’ the climate they are overlooking the unintended consequences of going green, or is it all about controlling people and the environmental consequences be damned? Seeing from past actions I am guessing it’s more the latter. Going green is merely the mechanism they’re using to take over.

However, there are millions of people who will disagree with the actions being taken by the faux environmentalists, particularly when they find out what the cost to them will be both to their wallets and their health.

Tens of millions of people — more than live in the entire state of Florida — are now exposed to toxic water runoff from metal mining, a new study has found.

The report lays bare the devastating impacts that can follow a reckless transition to 'green' energy, compounding the ecological damage wrought by over 150 years of drilling and mining for fossil fuels.

The researchers found that 23 million people worldwide, as well as 5.72 million in livestock, over 16 million acres of irrigated farmland and over 297,800 miles worth of rivers have been contaminated by mining's toxic byproducts seeping into the water.

This metal mining includes many so-called 'rare earth elements' essential to the manufacture of high-tech electronics, solar cells, wind turbines and all the batteries needed to store sustainable 'green' energy (and power electric cars and iPhones).

Many of these climate cultists chose to ignore how some of these materials are mined and extracted – child and slave labor – because it all takes place far away and out of sight. Therefore, it doesn’t exist as far as they’re concerned.

So much for their concern for human life or the environment.

Then there’s the NIMBYs who, in this case, might be the good guys.

Consider the case of Maine which has large hard rock lithium deposits. Do you think the die hard Down East Yankees are going to allow large swaths of Maine to be turned into a wasteland not unlike West Virginia during the bad old days of large scale strip mining? How many thousands of square miles of forests – a large carbon sink - would be devastated in order to ‘Save The Planet’? How much ground water would be polluted? How much are the Watermelon Environmentalists willing to destroy in order to get their way?

Friday Funny - Taking A Hike

Thoughts On A Sunday

I have been amazed at how quickly the days are getting shorter even though there’s nothing unusual about it. It has always caught me off guard seeing the sun setting earlier every day. I had hope we wouldn’t need to put our clocks back in November but it seems Congress can’t make up its collective mind. Almost everyone I’ve talked to hates having to change their clocks twice a year. It screws us up for a week or more every time we do.

It is time to start thinking about the coming winter, getting summer stuff stored away and winter stuff pulled out and ready. While winter is still three months away it will be here before we know it.

You know what else will be here before we know it?

Monday.

==+++==

During my errands today I notice a lot more color around as more swamp maples are turning as are the white birches – the maples turning red and the birches yellow.

Watching the local TV prognosticators they’re saying we’ll see peak foliage colors towards the second half of October. Some are saying the colors might be muted this year because of the higher than average rainfall. It’s the same when there is below average rainfall. So it’s anyone’s guess how good the colors will be this year.

Personally, I don’t think it will make any difference. It won’t keep the leaf-peepers away.

That’s fine with me.

==+++==

It’s time to start bombing Canada. This is the casus belli.

The last thing we need is a poor clone of the old Soviet Union along our norther border.

==+++==

I know some insurers here in the US have been raising insurance rates on Electric Vehicles because the cost of repairs after an accident is so high as compared to old fashioned internal combustion engine vehicles. The costs are so high in some cases that at least one insurer in the UK has stopped insuring EVs.

John Lewis has stopped offering insurance to electric car drivers amid fears over the cost of repairs.

The department store’s lending business John Lewis Financial Services has put a temporary pause on customers taking out cover or renewing existing policies on battery-power vehicles while its underwriter, Covéa, analyses risks and costs.

Insurers are facing rising costs for vehicle repairs, which are eating into profits. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), vehicle repair costs rose 33pc over the first quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, helping to push annual premiums to record highs.

Electric cars can be particularly expensive to repair, costing around a quarter more to fix on average, compared to a petrol or diesel vehicle, according to Thatcham Research, the motor industry’s research centre.

Particular worries surround the batteries, which are commonly mounted on the floor of the vehicle. This placement can make it more likely that it will be damaged even in a minor accident such as mounting a kerb.

Can the same thing be all that far behind in the US? Damage to the battery pack on an EV can be a major expense to replace. Battery packs are often part of the structure of an EV and it doesn’t take much for one or more cells in the pack to be damaged, something that can turn the battery pack into a rolling incendiary device. Depending upon the vehicle the cost of a pack can run between $10,000 and $30,000. I can’t see insurers wanting to shell out that kind of money when a pack is ‘tweaked’ by running over a street curb.

==+++==

More and more people have stated they won’t take the next series of Covid vaccinations, particularly in light of mounting data that the experimental vaccines have major negative side effects and are not as efficacious in preventing being infected or reducing the spread. It seems SloJoe is pissed off that people won’t automatically line up to get the latest Covid vaccines.

In a Wednesday speech in San Francisco, President Joe Biden hammered Americans for shying away from taking any more shots for new coronavirus variants and for increasingly turning a deaf ear to discussions about vaccines.

Biden appeared at the Fairmont San Francisco Hotel in San Francisco, California, to deliver a short speech on America’s efforts on artificial intelligence for scientific research and medical applications. But at the outset of his little address, he went off on vaccines.

--snip--

The president then urged everyone to talk more about the need for this investment in research. And that led him to go off on vaccine deniers.

“And one of those areas — you saw what happened with regard to the crisis — health crisis that we had that cost us,” Biden exclaimed. “We lost well over a million people. And as time began to move on, you had more and more voices saying, ‘No, no, no. You don’t need to get that shot. You don’t need to be — get — you don’t need to.’

“And we have a new strain of COVID now, and we have answers for it. But I just would urge those in public life and both political parties or no political party to be cautious about the ac- — the sometimes inflammatory things you say about this, because people’s lives are at stake,” he railed.

When the vaccine may be as much as killer as the illness it is supposed to protect against, why would anyone take the gamble, particularly for a disease that has an overall survival rate of over 99%? How many Covid ‘deaths’ were actually people who died with Covid, but not from Covid?

==+++==

Speaking of Covid, it seems the newest wave of Covid hospitalizations has stalled despite expectations of a continuing increase. Instead the number of Covid hospitalizations has been falling.

In the week ending Sept. 16, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show hospitalizations are down 4.3 percent. The number had been increasing since July, although the CDC's historical trends shows that hospitalization numbers were relatively low compared with previous increases in the virus—notably compared with a prior "surge" that occurred in the summer of 2022.

Meanwhile, the latest figures show that emergency department visits are down 19.3 percent and test positivity is down 1.6 percent. Deaths are up by about 12.5 percent, the data show, but that figure is also relatively low when compared with previous years.

The EG.5 variant, which has been dubbed Eris, accounts for about 24.5 percent of all cases, according to the CDC's variant tracker. FL.1.5.1, known as Fornax, is estimated to be responsible for about 13.7 percent of COVID-19 infections, the CDC figures show.

About a month ago, amid a steady rise in hospitalizations, some health officials suggested that it doesn't appear to be as bad as before.

While hospitalizations had increased, deaths had not. Whether that is due to the latest variant not being nearly as deadly as previous variants or to more truthful reporting of cause of death isn’t known, at least not by me. Only time will tell.

==+++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re seeing a return to summer weather, the leaves are changing colors, and the number of leaf-peepers is expected to increase over the next few weeks.