Thoughts On A Sunday

I have to admit that getting back to work after New Year’s was a little daunting, though I did ‘cheat’ as I worked from home on Thursday and Friday, allowing me to edge back into work. Tomorrow I do actually have to go into the office. Some of my co-workers won’t be returning from their vacations until the 13^th of the month, so it is going to be quieter than usual in the office over the coming week. Fortunately there isn’t a lot of work waiting for me in the office as not a whole lot gets done during the last couple of weeks of the year which is one reason I take a majority of my vacation time at the end of the year.

If nothing else the three weeks I took off gave me a small view of what retirement would be like...and I didn’t like it in the least. Maybe I’m one of those folks who feel I should be productive and retirement means I would be just the opposite. I know more than a few folks who have voiced that sentiment, including a few who “unretired” because they had too much time on their hands and didn’t like it. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t consider changing careers or dialing back on the hours I put in for my existing job, but I would continue working.

Some people may think I and the others are crazy, but considering the present job situation in this country, there aren’t enough young people filling the jobs opened when someone retires. My employer has had open engineering positions that have gone unfilled for years. If it was just my company that had that issue I’d say the problem was with the company, but this has been an industry-wide problem and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be solved any time soon.

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Now that “Congestion Pricing” is going into effect in New York City, it’s going to be yet another self-inflicted blow to the Big Apple, and it’s likely to have a major negative effect on its economy.

Conservatives joke that the left will eventually get around to taxing the air we breathe and the sidewalks we walk on. The obvious allusion is to the idea that nothing is safe from taxation in liberal cities.

Today, New York City plans to tax the freedom to move in the United States. For the first time in the U.S., a city will apply "congestion pricing" to charge commuters, partygoers, tourists, and drivers just wanting to get from Point "A" to Point "B" $9 for the privilege of driving through lower Manhattan.

CBS News reports, "Drivers will be charged when they enter the Congestion Relief Zone using the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queensboro or Williamsburg Bridges, or the Holland, Hugh L. Carey, Lincoln or Queens-Midtown tunnels. Drivers coming from the Bronx or Upper Manhattan will be charged once they reach 60th Street."

--snip--

... back in June, Governor Kathy Hochul scotched the implementation of congestion pricing when polls showed it would cost Democrats the House of Representatives and several swing seats in New York state. "Unfair to working people" was her excuse then. After the election, she suddenly decided that it was OK to be unfair to working people. She allowed the pricing scheme to move forward but lowered the tax from $15 a trip to $9 a trip.

New Yorkers shouldn't worry. It will be $15 a trip soon enough. The planned tax increase to $15 will take place automatically in 2031.

Does anyone really think that it will increase to only $15 or that it won’t happen well before 2031? I also have to wonder if at some point New York City will start charging an exit fee as well. I wouldn’t put it past them. And then we could see a real life version of the old movie Escape From New York as people try to avoid paying to leave Manhattan. It could also mean that people just won’t bother going into New York at all.

Another thing related to this was something I read about trucking companies being pissed off about congestion pricing considering how much they already pay in taxes, fees, toll, licensing, and so on just to bring cargo into and out of the city. Now add in the congestion pricing on top of that and it’s adding insult to injury.

How many more such ideas like this will it take before New York Democrats wake up to what they are doing or see the Big Apple collapse much as we’ve been seeing in Portland and Seattle and San Francisco?

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Is woke dead? It would be nice if it was and disappeared from the face of the Earth. However, Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury fame shows us it’s hanging on on college campuses. One such campus is Tufts University in Boston.

Tufts University offering ‘Transcestors’ course next semester:

Two concepts for the course will be trans oppression and trans erasure. Other things included in the course description are book bans, transgender-identifying people playing in sports, and “access to trans-related healthcare.”

Tufts University is offering students a chance to study transgender-identifying persons throughout history in a course called “Transcestors: Trans History, Narrative & Influence” next semester.

According to the description, the course will prompt students with questions such as “How have transgender people been systematically misused, misunderstood, co-opted, and erased throughout history?”

It’s going to take a long time for the ‘woke’ madness to fade away and there will be some folks who will do what they can to keep it alive. However, they are members of an ever shrinking part of the population that tolerates such nonsense. It is my impression that the November 5^th election signaled the people’s rejection of the nonsense that’s been rammed down our throats the past few years, ‘woke’ being but one of those nonsensical things.

A meme that Mike included in his post sums up my feelings about the whole thing: “YOUR mental disorder does not constitute sufficient grounds for MY compulsory endorsement of it.”

Indeed.

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In line with the post just above comes this bit of moonbattery from Moonbattery:

Moonbat claims to be ‘oppressed’ by pink dresses.

[An] HMRC [Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs] worker who branded her female boss ‘sexist’ when she said in a meeting that she wanted a granddaughter so she could buy ‘pink dresses’ has lost a discrimination claim, an employment tribunal heard.

Rachel Gladstone demanded that team leader Sandra Edwards apologise, asking that she ‘keep the overt spoilt pink baby girl princess sexism for your private and family life’.

Ms Gladstone added that it was a ‘triggering’ subject for her as she had spent time while raising her own daughter to counteract the ‘pink is for girls’ culture…

Yet more delusion. As I quoted above, “YOUR mental disorder does not constitute sufficient grounds for MY compulsory endorsement of it.”

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How long before the UK learns the lesson Germany has learned when it comes to wind power, that lesson being that it’s a scam that doesn’t work and costs consumers a lot of money?

Ponder for a moment how intrinsically unsuitable, maladapted, and worthless wind turbines are to a grid. Their failure is so comprehensive, multifaceted and inevitable, an entirely new and bizarre market was invented to reward their failures. Even when they generate electricity, if the time is wrong, the demand is low, or the network can’t handle it, they will still be paid. The grid can’t use the power, but the customer still gets slugged for something they didn’t use, or they couldn’t get. In the UK the costs for this useless power grew to nearly £400 million last year.

The largest provider of useless power was SeaGreen wind plant which made nearly twice as much from being “constrained” than from being of service. The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) reports that SeaGreen earned £100 million for making electricity, and £200 million for being “constrained”. Effectively, the useful electricity it made costs a shocking £2.70 a kilowatt hour, after the other payments are included.

Obviously, when the government rewards failure, the market responds by planning to fail. It follows then that industrial wind plant developers would be bonkers if they weren’t looking for sites where their output would arrive at the worst possible time, or through the most remote and overloaded corner of the network.

Everything about the wind industry has “Rent Seeker” tattooed all over it.

And it’s going to get worse, not just in the UK, but everywhere that wind is being pushed as a path to Net Zero. The only ones benefiting from it are the wind farm owners.

Here in my home state – New Hampshire – our new governor, Kelly Ayotte, has been pushing for a renaissance of nuclear power, something that has a better chance of reducing carbon emissions while still providing all of the electricity needed to meet demand.

New Hampshire already receives ~60% of its electrical power from nuclear. The balance comes from natural gas, something that is expensive in New England because of the NIMBYs and BANANAs blocking a new pipeline, hydro, coal, biomass, wind, and solar. Since the aforementioned NIMBYs and BANANAs also don’t like power lines, New England can’t bring in cheap, plentiful, and green hydropower in from Quebec. Solar is a non-starter because, let’s face it, it isn’t available when we need it the most (winter). So nuclear is an option, particularly in light of advanced Gen III and Gen IV small modular reactors which keeps the construction costs down, are safer to operate, and some of which don’t have the nuclear waste disposal issues of old Gen II and early Gen III reactors.

Hopefully we can avoid the Net Zero scam of the kind being perpetrated by the wind power advocates in Europe.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps are cold, the windchill is colder, and where we’re still waiting for the main part of the lake to freeze over.

A Letter To The Public

I have commented now and then on this blog about how the relations between men and women have changed over the past few decades. Frankly, they aren’t as good as they used to be. I have mentioned that I have seen more young men and women going it alone, meaning they aren’t dating, aren’t getting married, aren’t starting families. I could point out a host of reasons why this is happening, and doing so, could make this post dozens of pages long. Some of those reasons I would cite would be based upon my observations, on my indirect experiences, and on numerous articles and websites. I could lay the blame for this situation on all kinds of social changes that have taken place, one of them being the disconnect that has been caused by social media, something that was supposed to bring people together but has had just the opposite effect.

When I see stats that say that 63% of single men between the ages of 18 and 36 are not dating, that’s a danger signal. That the marriage rate in the US has plummeted while divorce rates have skyrocketed is also a danger signal. I watch posts on YouTube and TikTok which see modern women disparaging men because thy don’t meet unrealistic expectations and those which see modern men disparaging women as self-important with inflated visions of their self-worth and who should be dating them – basically narcissism – and to whom the average man is invisibl. It’s gone too darned far. I could delve deeper into that and spend hours writing this post.

What brought this up at today’s topic? Simply, a letter in today’s edition of our local paper which was more of an advertisement and social commentary at the same time. Here it is minus a few identifying items at the end:

Chance for Love

Perhaps is is now as it has always been in part, some fault of my own that my dear boy, who is now a young man, is unable to find love. My heart aches every day at the concealed loneliness behind his steadfast routine. He is too humble to bestow accolades upon himself and is not well leveraged to meet women. As such, please consider my shameless proclamation herein notwithstanding his consent.

This tall and handsome lad is unique in this time for his genuine character, honesty and benevolence. Strong, healthy and fit, he does not drink nor smoke any variety. He bears a lifelong respect for Christian principles but is not settled on a religion. A constitution-loving American boy, he aligns with those who are proud of this country and its heritage. He has no offspring and no debt despite earning a difficult bachelor's degree and more. An intellectual homebody of sorts, he also enjoys working outdoors, seasonal activities, and playing with his dogs in his home state of (central) New Hampshire.

At age 28, my responsible and dependable son continues to add to his current savings that can easily secure a comfortable homestead. He has long conveyed his desire to marry a kindhearted and hardworking woman of similar values for the purpose of raising a family and mutual, lifelong devotion, adoration and happiness. His presence is always enjoyed and his character admired by those who come to know him, but he is not fluent at fostering these eventualities. Social enterprises and watering holes are not compatible with his reserved personality. Sound like your warm heart? Only if [you’re] true, take a chance and I will reveal to him this post and your response.

That it has come to this is disheartening, at least to me. Fifty, forty, thirty, even twenty years ago young women would be beating a path to this young man’s door. Today, he’s invisible to them because he’s not what have become to be known as a “Sixer” – at least six feet tall, six pack abs, six figure income, and and at least six inches where it counts. He also has to be at least ‘9’ in looks as well as meet a lengthy and unrealistic list of other “must haves” that no man on the planet can possibly meet. He’s not “exciting”, meaning he’s not a bad boy, not a so-called “Chad” or “Tyrone”. Today, he might be someone a modern young women might “settle” for, but that’s about it. That’s a sad commentary.

That this young man’s mother has had to resort to such a letter/advertisement in a newspaper shows us just how bad it’s become. Reading it, I know of a dozen or so young men that fit the description laid out by this woman concerned about her son’s non-existent love life.

‘Nuff said...

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