Thoughts On A Sunday

With the somewhat (relatively) warmer and sunnier weather I am having to deal with something that I haven’t seen in a number of years, that being ice dams. It’s been a problem over the past few days here at The Gulch and I’m seeing some water from the melting snow on the roof infiltrating under the shingles and into the interior of the house. That’s not good. I know this has been a problem here in the past but well before I moved here in 2018. So I have been taking some action to reduce the probability of further ice damming and trying to reduce or remove the existing ice dam. I only have one place on the roof where it’s taking place, that being along the junction where the house roof and garage roof meet. It’s the same place the WP Parents had problems with ice dams in the past. Hopefully between making sure the gutter along the roof doesn’t freeze up and being able to get some ice melt roof tablets up where they’re needed I should be able to deal with this issue. I do have to pick up another bucket of roof tablets at the local Lowes. (They have 49 in stock as of noon, when I am writing this.) I’ll be heading out shortly to pick some up after I toss a couple of more up into the problem area.

Hopefully this will take care of the problem.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this bit of foolishness, this time from the UK. It looks like the UK is going to make the same mistake as the LA Fire Department and focus their firefighter recruitment efforts to DEI rather than capability.

Britain’s fire service is too male and too white, a report has claimed.

The report, which was commissioned by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC), found that the fire service was “institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic”.

--snip--

The review said: “The common ‘image’ of a firefighter is, for the most part, of a white heterosexual male turning out in a fire engine to fight fires… The diversity of the service needs to be much more reflective of the communities it serves and the wide range of services it delivers.

“Whilst progress has been made, the pace has been slow and progressive action has been applied inconsistently. Too many people are still being let down,” it added.

Paul Embery, a former executive council member of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), told The Telegraph that fire chiefs should focus on putting out fires rather than “manipulating the workforce demographic”.

He said: “Public services should of course ensure that individuals from all backgrounds are able to join their ranks and prejudice must be tackled where it exists.”

“But when they set arbitrary targets for recruitment, it crosses over into social engineering.”

“There are all sorts of reasons why particular groups might not enter certain trades – there are, for example, few male midwives and hardly any female refuse collectors.”

Mr Embery added: “Most of the time it has little to do with prejudice. Some individuals and groups are attracted to jobs that hold little appeal for others – that’s just a fact of life.”

“We should stop fixating on manipulating the workforce demographic in certain public services and concentrate more on ensuring that these services perform better for the public.”

I’m sorry, but there are some professions where equity has no place. Firefighting is one of them. Ability counts, not race or gender. Equality of opportunity makes perfect sense. Equality of outcome – equity - can kill people. That’s where this is headed, as much as I hate to say it. Let’s just hope that not to many will need to die or sections of a city will need to burn to the ground before DEI is ejected from professions like firefighting.

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Seeing this on Instapundit was serendipitous as the WP Niece and I had actually been discussing this topic during our day yesterday, ‘this’ being the increasing overregulation within Europe.

My employer does a lot of business in the EU and the UK and the level of regulations has been increasing at an accelerating pace, particularly environmental regulations. I deal with those, at least when it comes to the electronic and optical components, and have done so since 2006 when it was only something called RoHS – Restrictions on Hazardous Substances – that was aimed primarily electrical and electronic equipment and the substances they contained. The original regulations were aimed at six substances - lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chrome, PBB’s (Polybrominated Biphenyls) and PBDE’s (Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers) which are both fire retardants used in plastics. Since then four others have been added which doesn’t really add all that much in the way of a burden.

If it had stopped there it wouldn’t be an issue, but since then environmental regulations have spread to cover darned near everything and it is becoming more difficult and more expensive to keep up. I have to wonder if it will reach the point where it is no longer possible to do business in the EU or the UK because of the cost and shrinking profit margins.

I know I am being overwhelmed because while I do deal with environmental regulations across the world as part of my job, it is limited to what I covered above. If I have to cover every one, particularly for items which are out of my usual range of responsibility, that’s all I will be doing. I won’t have time for anything else. I know I won’t be the only one in that position. It doesn’t bode well for Europe if this increasing overregulation ends up killing their economy.

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I was wrong.

I stated the story about DEI being instituted in the UK fire departments was from the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department which usually means it’s the stupidest thing I’ve come across this past week. But it turns out the governor of the state of Wisconsin has done something just as stupid, if not stupider.

Wisconsin Gov. Evers Wants to Change ‘Mother’ to ‘Inseminated Person’

I know the Left wants to change language to make it impossible to offend anyone...or impossible to dissent against all the ‘wonderful’ ideas they want to impose upon everyone. (‘1984’ anyone?) There is nothing wrong with the present terms but this Leftist drone wants to do away with them ‘because’.

Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wants the state law to drop “mother” and use “inseminated person” instead.

I. Am. Fuming.

The bill also changes “paternity” to “parentage” and “father” to “parent.”

In cases of surrogacy, “mother” is now “parent” or “person” “who gave birth to the child.”

It’s not “biological” mother or father…it’s “natural parent.”

STOP. ERASING. FEMALES.

It is not just on those pages that cases of artificial insemination are discussed.

The changes are throughout the bill. I understand the changes regarding marriage since same-sex couples can have a legal union.

This bill also erases males.

Only females can carry and birth a human being. Only a male can impregnate the female.

The only thing I am going to add to this is Read The Whole Thing.

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This one is fun and may be a way to decide which federal government employees will be retained and which will be RIF’d.

“I mean, if you can’t name five things you accomplished in a 40 hour work week, then you aren’t providing any value.”

I file a status report of the things I’ve accomplished during the work week at the end of every week. Lots of times I have 5 things I’ve done before Monday has come to a close.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the temps are actually above freezing, will be again on Monday, and the ice dams will continue to grow.