One of the other things that has been different this summer also has something to do with traffic, but not in the way you might think. In this case the one that that stands out is the unusual number of deer I’ve seen lying dead on the side of the road that passes by The Gulch. Over a ~2 mile stretch the state road that can have a lot of traffic I’ve seen at least 8 dead deer over the past month. Eight. I haven’t seen that many dead deer along that stretch of road over the 20 years I’ve lived in my town. I don’t know if it means there’s been more traffic which could lead to more road kill or that there are just a lot more deer around this year. Perhaps it’s a combination of both. But it is disturbing to see a surge of deer being hit and killed along a road that hasn’t seen that many in the 20+ years prior to that.
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After the Debate Debacle I posted about last week the shockwaves about Biden’s disastrous performance at the debate. It has the Democrats scrambling, with some trying to explain away Biden’s poor outcome and others trying to find a replacement for the top of the ticket because they know Biden is only going to get worse. You know it’s really bad when even the usually Democrat-friendly media outlets – the NYT, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, and others – are making noise about Biden needing to drop out of the race.
Those pushing for Biden to drop out are also scrambling to find a replacement. The problem is that no one, including poison pill VP Harris, is likely to draw as many votes as Biden. Harris isn’t popular, even among Democrats, because she’s an idiot and everyone knows it. California’s Destructor – Gavin Newsom – isn’t a viable candidate because of the damage he’s done to the Pyrite State and wants to do to the rest of the US. Neither is Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer, one of the biggest reasons being that she isn’t well known. One possible replacement isn’t liked by the Democrats, RFK Jr., as he isn’t Progressive enough for the DNC.
Can the DNC come up with a candidate to replace Biden that won’t be buried by Trump in November and allow them to retain the White House? I haven’t a clue...but then, neither do the Democrats.
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On more than one occasion I have made mention of the problem with the locations of weather stations which record temperatures, humidity, wind speed and direction, rainfall, and so on, that problem being poor siting. A perfect example of this is the difference between two weather station locations seen here. Both of these locations are in the UK, but one is for the UK Met Office and one for the University of Hull’s Environmental Department.
The Met Office site reads two degrees Celsius warmer than the University site. Take a look at the photos in the linked post and I think you’ll be able figure out which site belongs to the Met Office and which belongs to the University.
This is a problem in the US to an even greater degree. I know one of the weather stations near The Gulch is located at the local airport amid the runway, taxiways, and aircraft ramps. In other words it’s surrounded by large areas of paving. That means any temperature readings from that weather station are suspect. The same is true of weather stations located on building roofs, next to parking lots, near HVAC equipment, and near buildings on the same side of the building with sun exposure. The number of stations with ‘pristine’ sites, meaning sites that aren’t anywhere near any of the influences listed above, has been shrinking as urban and suburban sprawl surrounded those locations over the years. That makes all of the readings from those stations suspect, something that has been devoutly ignored for years. After all, it helps sell the narrative of global warming.
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This can’t be repeated enough:
46% of American electric vehicle owners are considering returning to gasoline-powered vehicles for their next purchase.
So much for EVs being The Next Big Thing.
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In a related subject, it looks like the $7.5 billion set aside to build 500,000 EV charging stations across the nation has seen only seven stations built so far. It must also be stated that this is the second year of the program, yet only seven stations have been built so far. To quote the post, “At this rate, it will require thousands of years to build all 500,000 charging stations, assuming there are sufficient funds to do so.”
Global consulting firm McKinsey and Company estimates that the U.S. will need 28 million charging ports by 2030. There are just two million charging ports today. To meet the goal, about 12,000 new public and private charging ports will need to be added every single day to reach the goal by 2030.As it goes with any government mandated program, it always costs more and is always over budget. This is something that should be handled by the free market, not by government, and particularly through mandates. The government is ‘stupid’ when it comes to what is needed for some types of markets. EVs is one of those markets.
It is true that significantly more government funded charging stations are in the works and will be opened. The stations completed so far cost significantly more than what has been promised. With retailers contributing land to the projects opened so far, the cost of each station has averaged one-million dollars, with the government participation of 80% of the cost. Eight-hundred-thousand dollars for each station is significantly more than the $15,000 committed by the administration. At this rate, the 500,000 charging stations will cost the government $400 billion, not the $7.5 billion the President has promised.
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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the Fourth of July crowds have been departing, the lake is ours again until next weekend, and where Monday is coming up to ruin yet another weekend.