Returning To The Tried And True

It seems the auto industry is finally waking up to a problem that was. one of their own making, that problem being the replacement of things like knobs, switches, buttons, and sliders with touchscreens, something that may have been seen as a way to lower costs and provide more advanced functions in cars and trucks. However, it hasn’t worked out that way.

On more than one occasion I have commented on the use of touchscreens in vehicles, stating that I have always thought it was a bad idea for a number of reasons, two of them being that they require a driver to take their attention away from road in order to change settings on everything from the volume on the radio to running the heat or A/C to turning headlights on or off and the fact that something called muscle memory is useless when it comes to using touch screens. I have also heard numerous friends and acquaintances complaining about the same things as the much prefer the physical controls – knobs, switches, buttons, and sliders – over touchscreens.

It seems that automakers are listening to their customers, with some of them changing their interior designs to bring those knobs, switches, buttons and sliders back.

In today’s automotive market, big touchscreens and digital interfaces dominate the cabin experience, often at the expense of usability and safety. While these features offer a high-tech aesthetic and access to a virtual library of fancy features, they also increase the time to execute the most basic automotive operations, like adjusting climate and audio. Fortunately, a few automakers still understand the value of intuitive physical controls—dials, knobs, and buttons placed within easy reach of the driver. We laud certain manufacturers in 2025 for their commitment to driver-focused ergonomics, blending modern tech with excellent switchgear that makes life behind the wheel simpler and safer.

It’s bad design whenever a driver has to stop paying attention to the road in order to use a touchscreen to perform some of the aforementioned functions, something that drivers could do in the past without the need to look away from the road. This is where muscle memory comes into play.

It generally means a driver knows where the headlight switches, heating, A/C and ventilation controls, radio tuning and volume controls and so one are located without actually having to look at them to use them because they’ve preformed those actions time and time again. The knobs, switches, buttons, and sliders are always in the same location and always perform the same functions. Touchscreens don’t allow for that because the menus and ‘buttons’ on the screen change function and location depending upon what the driver is trying to do. The driver must look away from the road and at the touchscreen in order to use it. Muscle memory doesn’t work.

My trusty 2014 RAM 1500 has a small touchscreen which controls a number of functions with most of them being related to entertainment or communications functions – AM/FM radio, Sirius XM, media player (by Bluetooth or USB), and phone functions (calls and texts). Things like tuning the radio station, adjusting the volume, selecting radio station presets and the like are controlled by knobs and buttons, not the touchscreen.

It’s time to dial back the multifunction touchscreens and start using physical controls again to increase safety and reduce driver distractions.

Friday Funny - Best Husband Ever

I'll Tell You The Story: Binky And The Grass Widow

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today would have been my father's 92nd birthday.

It's been 10-1/2 years since he passed and even after all this time I miss him.

I still hear his voice now and then, giving words of advice, telling a joke, or proffering words of comfort.

Happy birthday, Dad.

A Poem About Decoration Day aka Memorial Day

Sleep, comrades, sleep and rest
On this Field of the Grounded Arms,
Where foes no more molest,
Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Ye have slept on the ground before,
And started to your feet
At the cannon's sudden roar,
Or the drum's redoubling beat.

But in this camp of Death
No sound your slumber breaks;
Here is no fevered breath,
No wound that bleeds and aches.

All is repose and peace,
Untrampled lies the sod;
The shouts of battle cease,
It is the Truce of God!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free.

Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the long Memorial Day weekend and even if we didn’t look at the calendar we would have known. How?

The traffic.

Starting around noon on Friday the traffic into New Hampshire was quite heavy. A lot of that traffic was bound for the Lakes Region as we saw a lot of it in my town as summerfolk arrived to open up their cottages and summer homes. The local state park ‘camping’ area was almost full when I went by there yesterday afternoon. Parking lots at the local shopping centers were full earlier yesterday morning. About the only place that wasn’t as busy as I had expected was our town boat ramp as the weather wasn’t conducive to launching boats – cool, very windy, and a lot of white caps out on the lake. Not that some folks weren’t launching their boats, but the usual line we see at the ramp wasn’t there. I have a feeling there will be one tomorrow as the weather is supposed to be pretty nice and warm.

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Michael Mann hasn’t received a fraction of the abuse he so richly deserves.

Michael Mann's Legal Defeat and the Climate of Accountability

There was a time, not so long ago, when climate scientist Michael Mann could bully critics into silence with the mere threat of a lawsuit. He was the face behind the infamous "hockey stick" graph, a man lauded by progressives, featured in Al Gore's documentary, and embraced by a media eager to label skeptics as dangerous deniers. But the courtroom, as it turns out, is no place for manufactured myths or moral grandstanding.

A Washington, D.C. court just handed Mann a bruising legal defeat. After more than a decade of litigation, he has been ordered to pay over $1 million in attorney's fees to the very people he accused of defamation: National Review, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and writer Rand Simberg, a former PJM contributor.

Even more humiliating, the court revealed that Mann grossly misrepresented his financial damages. Once celebrated as a martyr for the climate cause, he now stands exposed as a fabricator, not just of projections, but of personal injury.

Mann’s downfall was of his own making, pushing his infamous climate “hockey stick” chart as a warning and going after anyone who disagreed with his findings. However, it turns out his findings were bogus, the mathematics of his chart designed to give the hockey stick graph regardless of the data used.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) elevated the hockey stick to icon status. Schools taught it. Politicians cited it. Al Gore plastered it in "An Inconvenient Truth," like a gospel.

But critics soon noticed that something wasn’t right. Canadian researchers Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick uncovered glaring flaws in Mann’s methodology, showing that his algorithm could produce a hockey stick shape even when fed with random data. This wasn’t just bad science; it was political theater dressed in lab coats.

Too bad this court case hadn’t been decided before Mann’s suit against Mark Steyn, where Mann was awarded $1 million USD in a defamation suit against Steyn. It turns out that Steyn was telling the truth and Mann’s reputation is trash. The million dollar award was later reduced to $5000.

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I mentioned in yesterday’s post that one of the things we need in order to bring back nuclear power is a reduction in over-the-top regulations. It looks like that it is finally going to happen, something that is long overdue.

Donald Trump took a huge step toward ensuring America's energy future by signing four executive orders that gave the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) a long-overdue overhaul.

Currently, it takes about 12 years to plan, design, and construct a nuclear power plant, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Getting all the license approvals takes an average of five years.

One of Trump's executive orders directs the NRC to streamline its rules so that it takes just 18 months to approve applications for a new reactor.

Another order directs the Energy and Defense departments to explore placing reactors on federal land, thus bypassing the NRC entirely. It would also allow those departments to develop their own faster, more efficient approval process for building nuclear reactors.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum participated in the signing ceremony in the Oval Office.

“This is a huge day for the nuclear industry,” said Burgum, adding: “Mark this day on your calendar. This is going to turn the clock back on over 50 years of overregulation.”

I have seen how overregulation, hostile legislation, and licensing delays can add billions of dollars to the cost of building a nuclear power station.

I remember when the project to build two nuclear power plants in Seabrook, New Hampshire started. The projected cost of the project was $800 million for the two units. Construction started in 1976...and it all went downhill from there. Between lawsuits filed by anti-nuclear groups, temporary restraining orders that stopped construction on more than one occasion, changes in NRC regulations that required “do overs” on parts of the plants already completed, then a governor hostile to nuclear power that pushed legislation to make a long existing funding mechanism known as CWIP – Construction Works In Progress – illegal, that ended up bankrupting one of the utilities involved in the project and financially damaging some of the others which in turn caused abandonment of the one of the two units being built.

Seabrook Unit 1 was finally completed and went online in 1990. The final cost?

$6.2 billion, almost eight times the projected cost, and for only half the original project.

Modern plants are not going to be built in the same fashion as the Generation I and II power plants, all of which were in effect custom built. Even two nuclear plants built side by side at the same time were not identical, something that greatly increased the cost. The French got it right when they built their nuclear power plants because they all used the same design, sections were built in a factory, and almost 80% of all of France’s electricity comes from nuclear. And the did it for a fraction of the cost of what it cost the US.

If we want ‘green’ reliable electrical power, nuclear is the way to go, at least for baseload generation.

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Yeah, this doesn’t surprise me at all. Then again, I am an engineer...

How The A.I. Takeover Might Affect Women More Than Men.

Women are more likely to have their jobs replaced by generative AI, and they are slower to adopt AI technology into their work. Eight out of ten women in the workforce are in ‘occupations highly exposed to generative AI automation,’ compared to six out of ten men, said a 2023 analysis by the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

Much of what the linked article states makes sense. However, it might not happen nearly as quickly as some folks think because, quite frankly, there isn’t enough electricity to run all those A.I. data centers that will be needed to take over all those jobs, at least not yet.

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This doesn’t surprise me in the least knowing just how much of a failing society the Pyrite State has become over the past four decades...and it was all done on purpose.

Parents Pulling Their Little Ones Out of California Public Schools in Massive Numbers.

Parents are saving their children. The left has destroyed a generation of young minds. No country can thrive let alone survive the destruction of the mind.

There are now 20 percent less 1st graders than 12th graders. Los Angeles Times: California public school enrollment has declined for the seventh straight year and the number of students from low-income and homeless families has increased as many school districts throughout the state face financial pressures to downsize. Statewide, perhaps the most stark figure is a comparison between enrollment in 12th grade — 488,295 students — and in 1st grade — 384,822. That’s a more than 20% difference between the size of the class leaving school and the size of the class beginning its trek through the public school system.

Why wouldn’t a parent want their precious little one in a California public school? After all, they rank in bottom quarter of public schools across the nation—at number 38. Golden State public schools are 42nd in high school graduation rate and 43rd in college readiness.

As dire as the numbers are I have to wonder if there isn’t another possible explanation for the decline, that being that there aren’t nearly as many children in California as there used to be. It could be because of a low birthrate. It could be that because families are leaving California in growing numbers because they can no longer afford to live there or state regulations are making it increasingly difficult to do business there. It could be a combination of all of these things.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the summerfolk have returned, the weather isn’t quite as nice as we would have liked, and where this Monday has an entirely meaning than other Mondays.

Is The Fake Green Energy 'Boom' Dead In The US?

Are the days of government subsidized “clean energy” programs coming to an end? I certainly hope so.

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) - The House budget bill that narrowly passed in an early morning vote on Thursday would effectively put the brakes on a clean energy production boom in the United States spurred by subsidies enacted in 2022.

Republican lawmakers' "one big beautiful bill" to carry out President Donald Trump's plan to cut taxes and boost spending on the military and border enforcement would end Biden-era tax credits for clean energy projects years sooner than planned in an earlier draft, rendering them unusable for most companies.

To quote Stephen Green in his Instapundit post, “Here’s a tip for Reuters: It’s not a boom if it’s financed by tax dollars and summoned into existence by mandates. It’s just another boondoggle.”

Clean energy – aka Green energy – sounds great, but the means of achieving has been less than effective. Those pushing it think of two main sources for that energy – wind and solar – while ignoring other more tradition energy sources of clean energy such as hydro and nuclear. While the legislation mentioned in the Reuters article affects the monies brought forth by the Biden administration in 2022, the long list of clean energy programs that have not met their goals but have eaten up billions of taxpayer dollars goes back to at least the George W. Bush administration, but a lot of taxpayer money was spent during the Obama administration for clean energy programs that failed, with Solyndra being just one of them, as well as desert solar plants like the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating in the Mojave Desert which has never produced anywhere near the amount electricity promised by the developers. (The plant is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2026.) Another failure has been the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Tonopah, Nevada which which was shut down in 2019 after its only customer, NV Energy, canceled its contract. This was after almost $1 billion had been spent on the project of which $737 million was from government guaranteed loans.

How many more billions have been wasted on wind farms and large solar photovoltaic arrays that haven’t lived up to the hype? Experience has shown us that wind is a loser, particularly since the promised longevity of wind turbines has been found to be optimistic at best and the maintenance and repair intervals have been a lost shorter as well. Their dependence of weather is another weakness to proponents choose to ignore even when we have seen the effects when there is no wind just when the electricity from those wind farms is needed the most. (Texas and Germany are two places that have proven that to be a problem over the past few years.)

I’d rather see all that money being spent on nuclear power, particularly advanced Generation III and IV reactors, and specifically Small Modular Reactors that are built in a factory and then shipped to the power plant sites to be installed. Nuclear is not dependent upon weather, can provide baseload power 24/7/365 for years between refueling. Some designs like Molten Salt Reactors or Liquid Fluorine Thorium Reactors can be refueled while they are operating.

Another advantage to nuclear? They don’t take up nearly as much land area as wind or solar.

But will any of that happen? Maybe. At least we are seeing some action being taken by government at both state and federal levels to reduce much of the overly restrictive regulations and overly long licensing process. There are a number of new nuclear power plant projects in the works.

Only time will tell if any of them come to fruition.

Friday Funny - Answers: Petty, Husband, and Truth

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a bit of an exciting day on Saturday with fog, rain, and more than a couple of thunderstorms sweeping across the lake later in the day. It wasn’t a great day to be out of doors. However, we will make up for that weather with some sun this morning and again later this afternoon. It will only be in the 60’s today, but that’s just fine with me.

I have been seeing signs of the upcoming Memorial Day weekend with a lot more traffic as folks get their cottages ready for the summer. Lots of cars seen with out of state plates, parking lots at stores and shopping centers being more crowded, particularly during the Saturday morning “rush”. Our seasonal restaurants have been open, though some of them only on the weekends until Memorial Day weekend, one of my favorite ice cream joints being one of them. A large number of boats are now back in the water with quite a few more waiting to be launched, the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout being one of them.

This weekend has also been “Getting Ready for Summer” cleanup around The Gulch, with the last of the winter stuff being stored away and the summer stuff coming out of the attic. Windows and window screens have been cleaned, the last winter drapes have been swapped out with some of the ‘sheer’ drapes we for the larger windows. (They let in a lot more light!) The annual “Let’s get this stuff to the dump” pile is growing, with yours truly going to make that dump run next Friday. (I swear, that stuff grows on its own as I don’t remember nearly that amount junk being stored away in the attic last fall!)

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I admit I feel of two minds about this.

German Chancellor Merz promises to “build Europe’s strongest military.”

Reading the comments in this referring Instapundit post I see that quite a few others have been having some of the same thoughts as I.

One of my first questions was “How is Germany going to do that? Between Net Zero, non-Net Zero related energy shortages, Increasingly draconian EU environmental regulations, and Germany’s industrial decline, how can they possibly do that?” At the moment I would have to say that Poland is one of the stronger military powers in Europe. They don’t want a repeat of their WWII and post-WWII history so they are making sure if anyone gets any ideas that they will pay a heavy price for doing so. I have no doubt that Poland is looking closely at Ukraine’s war against Russia to see how more can be done with less. The only countries with a military stronger than Poland are the UK, Italy, and France, and I have my doubts about them. (There are a couple of different lists out there about European military power by country and they don’t agree...or are outdated.)

In light of Russia’s continued occupation of Ukrainian territory and its not-so-subtle hints that they “want to get the old gang back together...whether they want to or not”, it’s not surprising the European nations are seeing that they need to start addressing their defense needs. For too long they have been letting Uncle Sam pick up the tab as they have been decreasing their defense spending as a percentage of their GDP despite their commitment under the NATO treaty.

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Should Biden’s “Autopen” pardons be declared null and void? If it can be proven that Biden did not authorize such pardons (this assumes he would remember even if he had), than all such pardons should be revoked as they were never legitimate.

This brings us to the issue of Biden’s pardons, especially those granted to his family and public figures like Dr. Anthony Fauci. Put simply, did Biden have any idea what he was doing when his autopen scratched the surface of those presidential papers?

In the case of the pardon for his son Hunter, Biden is on the record just months earlier saying he would never ever do that. Sure, it’s possible that he was lying, but he did give us his word as a Biden.

If, as Democrats and their media allies insist, Biden’s decline was so swift, starting in 2023, that it caught everyone off guard, then shouldn’t we question whether the Joe Biden who signed Hunter’s pardon wasn’t deeper in the throes of dementia than the one who promised not to?

The worst part of the mendacity from the Biden administration is that all those smarmy spokespeople like Ian Sams and all his bosses knew that the harm they were doing probably could not be undone, even if the actions were born of lies.

They knew that, as a practical matter, it is likely impossible to deport 10 million illegal aliens, and they knew that it would be almost impossible to challenge Biden’s pardons, even if he thought he was signing a pool pass for Corn Pop.

If those Autopen pardons were not signed with Joe’s knowledge or consent, then that pushes the narrative that maybe he was never in charge of anything during his administration. Rather it was the WRBA (Whoever is Running the Biden Administration) cabal running the show...and the Autopen. It makes us wonder if Joe was nothing more than a “John Gill” figurehead. Even now that the MSM is admitting it did cover up Joe’s increasing mental decline, they aren’t willing to actually own up to being complicit in the cover up by offering all kinds of lame excuses for doing so. One has to wonder if they knew about the abuse of the Autopen as well.

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Uh oh, they’re planning the Greatest Looting Spree in History, also known as Reparations.

If they get away with it it will be never-ending and it will bankrupt this nation.

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It looks like yet another European nation is finding out that renewable energy isn’t the way to go. A few months ago it was Sweden announcing it was “going nuclear” because they didn’t see any future in renewables. They already have two new nuclear power stations planned. Today, it seems that Denmark is going to follow Sweden’s example and go nuclear which makes sense, particularly in light that a large percentage of Denmark’s power comes from wind, something they are finding isn’t working as promised.

Most of the renewed interest in nuclear seen around the world stems from the expected growth in electricity demand from AI data centres, but Denmark is different. The Danes are concerned about possible blackouts similar to the one that struck Iberia recently. Like Spain and Portugal, Denmark is heavily dependent on weather-based renewable energy which is not very compatible with the way power grids operate.

Conventional generators produce alternating current, creating a stable output of current and voltage that alternates at a frequency which is directly – synchronously – linked with the rotating turbines which drive the generators in gas, coal, nuclear or hydropower plants. All of these turbines rotate at a speed of 3000 revolutions per minute, so producing electricity with current and voltage that varies in a sine wave shape with a frequency of 50 cycles per second (ie 50 Hz).

--snip--

Electrical equipment is highly sensitive to this frequency and can break if it deviates too much from 50 Hz. For this reason, power stations, substations, switching equipment and other devices in the grid have fail-safes which will cause them to trip out should frequency fall outside acceptable bounds.

--snip--

However, wind and solar do not produce synchronous alternating current. Although wind turbines rotate, they do not do so at a constant speed, and solar has no moving parts at all. They produce direct current which is converted to alternating current using electronic devices known as inverters. Wind and solar also have no inertia.

The loss of synchronization of the 50Hz alternating current was one of the causes of the major electrical blackout in Spain, Portugal, and portions of France earlier this year.

Weather also plays a part when it comes to renewables, particularly when the weather doesn’t cooperate and renewables generate little or no electricity. We saw that in Texas a couple of winters ago when the grid almost collapsed because there was no wind and power demand was very high due to sub-freezing temperatures.

The case with Denmark is that it has too much wind as part of its generation portfolio and that has caused problems, particularly as electrical demand grows, so they are looking to nuclear power as a solution.

The US is seeing steadily growing electrical demand and renewables cannot possible meet the needs, particularly in light of their dependence upon weather (and sunlight). Demand is growing as data centers are being built since those data centers use a lot of electricity. I won’t get into the EV demand because as it stands now EVs are not ready for the real world despite claims to the contrary. If we had to expand the electrical grid to cover both we would need to increase the generation and transmission capacity by a factor of three in order to meet the demand. That’s not going to happen, at least not without a lot of new nuclear power plants being built.

Let’s just hope that happens, both here and in Denmark...and Germany...and the UK...and…

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is being a little schizophrenic, the cleanup and prep of summer cottages continues, and where Monday is having a decreasing amount of power over us as summer gets closer.

Los Angeles Goes Stupid On Minimum Wage

It seems California hasn’t learned the lesson about raising the minimum wage to unsustainable levels. More specifically, Los Angeles has voted to raise the minimum wage to $30 at hotels and for LAX. I expect we’ll see the same outcome as when California raised fast food minimum wage to $20.

Layoffs. Lots and lots of layoffs.

It’s already starting.

1. They may not hire the worker at all. Outlawing jobs below a certain pay doesn’t guarantee higher-paid work; it guarantees unemployment for those priced out. If a person’s skills or experience don’t merit $30 in the market, this law has made it illegal for them to earn a wage at all. Consider an immigrant with limited English who might start in hotel housekeeping, dishwashing, or entry-level service jobs. At $15 – $20 an hour, an employer might take a chance and hire them, training them on the job. At $30 an hour, that same employer will likely demand a more experienced, highly productive worker for the role (if the role isn’t eliminated altogether). The rung at the bottom of the ladder gets sawed off.

2. Employers substitute and automate. When labor gets costlier, it drives businesses to find ways to get by with less labor. That can mean investing in machines or tech or shifting work onto customers or remaining staff. Many chains curtailed daily housekeeping and never restored it fully (often spinning it as “green choice” to save water, while conveniently saving on payroll).Expect more automation at the airport and hotels: kiosks instead clerks, mobile ordering in airport eateries, robotic floor cleaners. Even trash collection can be automated; Pittsburgh deployed robotic vacuum sweepers. When labor costs skyrocket, technology that replaces that labor suddenly looks a lot more attractive.

In effect, L.A. could make itself even more expensive, driving away the very tourism dollars it’s trying to redistribute.

So we’ll see a repeat of what happened when California raised the fast food minimum wage. It is insane to think it won’t happen again. Remember Einstein’s the definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result this time.”

Are there any economists left in California that are not Marxists? If there are, have they been silenced by The Powers That Be because their warnings don’t support The Narrative?

Why they think that this jump in minimum wage for this particular group will somehow solve problems that can’t be solved in this fashion puzzles me. It merely makes things cost more because the wage raise will cause the cost of services to increase. It ripples through the local economy. It’s no different than when energy costs increase, something that effects the cost of everything. Decisions made in Washington that adversely affect energy prices triggers inflation that generally cannot be offset by other measures.

Will the folks in LA realize they’ve made a mistake and rescind the wage jump? Of course they won’t because they really aren’t all that smart. Look at the people they elect to office as proof of that.

Friday Funny - Why My Wife Mows The Lawn

Thoughts On A Sunday

This will be an abbreviated post as the last of the WP Clan departed just a little while ago and I usually write this post throughout the day. ‘Regular’ TOAS will return next Sunday.

It’s Mother’s Day and the WP Clan gathered here at The Gulch to celebrate the day with the WP Mom. The weather was cooperative, being sunny and in the upper 50’s until late afternoon when it finally made it into the low 60’s. We got about 2 inches of rain over the previous five days which has made the brooks and streams run with the rainfall. Fortunately we didn’t experience any flooding due to the rain, but other parts of New Hampshire, primarily the southern counties, did see some flooding here and there. Any precipitation deficit we had is now long gone as we’ve had more rain than we usually get for the entire month in just the first 9 days of the month.

One of the downsides of the rain we’ve received is that it has prevented paving of the state road that passes by the area where The Gulch is located. On more than a few occasions preparation and paving operations have delayed my ability to get to work or get home and on occasion made it impossible to leave The Gulch so I had to work from home. I had hoped all of the paving would have been completed by the middle of this coming week, but now it looks it will take at least a week longer than that.

Welcome to Construction Season!

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It’s gotten so bad for the Dems and their MSM flunkies that the “House of Stephanopoulus” has descended to outright lying regarding President Trump. In this case ABC’s Jonathan Karl posted an outright lie that was easily disproven about Qatar allegedly giving Trump a luxury Boeing jet in violation of law. It was an easily disproven lie.

Yes, there is a Boeing jet. Yes, it used to be owned by Qatar. No, it wasn’t a gift.

Instead, it is being modifed by a Texas firm to become an ‘interim’ Air Force One while Boeing still struggles to deliver new jets for use as Air Force One to replace the aging 747’s presently being used.

I figure this is just the beginning of the new propaganda war to discredit Trump and the GOP. The truth need not apply.

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Oh, yeah, this is going to get the Left upset, not because of what this group has admitted regarding of what they’re working towards, but because of the reaction that will follow this admission.

College Palestinian Group Admits Their Job Is To Destroy The Unites States.

A Palestinian support group and domestic terror outfit that operates with impunity on many U.S. college campuses has now admitted openly that they see it as their job to destroy the United States of America by subvert our youth.

The group, Students for Justice in Palestine, is responsible for many of the racist, anti-Jewish protests at schools all across the country.

These Muslim terrorists pretend that they are supporting the human rights of so-called “Palestinians” and are protesting “genocide” being perpetrated against Gazans by Israel.

--snip--

Temple University activist Rishi Arun openly admitted that “It is our job to destroy imperialism, destroy the United States, and destroy capitalism.”

“We will do it by organizing that actively undermines and destabilizes the legitimacy and the power of [the United States],” he adds, “and the power and legitimacy of capitalism,” this terrorist added.

So he has admitted he is an active enemy of the US which means he is fomenting treason, terrorist activities, and doing so on the behalf of adversaries and enemies in the Middle East. Why is this guy still free? Somehow I doubt the First Amendment covers enemy agents working to destroy the government and doing so openly. If he is here on a student visa it should be revoked and he should be deported as an enemy alien.

Of course I expect the Left and the Dems in Congress to aid and support this enemy of the US. (Somehow I think they believe that if the support him that they will be seen as friends...but they won’t. He probably wants them dead, too.)

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While this sounds interesting, I doubt that it will actually occur.

Meet the potential 51st state: Alberta

Alberta doesn’t belong in this Canada.

That’s not treason. It’s not even radical. It’s a simple observation of cultural, economic, and political reality — a reality growing starker by the year. Albertans have known for decades that something is deeply broken in the Confederation they were born into. But it’s only recently, as Ottawa’s indifference curdled into hostility, that many have begun asking the inevitable question: What if we left?

Not just to form a new nation. But to join one that already reflects their values. A nation that respects liberty, rewards hard work, and doesn’t treat resource-producing states or provinces like piggy banks and political afterthoughts. A nation that — however imperfect — still believes in the rule of law, in constitutional government, and in the right of free people to govern themselves.

That nation is not Canada. That nation is the United States.

If it comes to that, will Alberta tell Ottawa “We’re outta here”? Goodness knows they are seeing less and less reasons to remain as part of Canada. A lot of money flows from Alberta to Ottawa and from there to some of the other “less fortunate” provinces...like Quebec, just to name one.

Albertans also dislike their political disfranchisement with Parliament set up to favor the Eastern provinces and a Prime Minister’s office that has been ruling by decree, often “in open contempt of the West.”

Why would anyone want to continue trying to live under conditions that to all intents and purposes makes Albertans nothing more than serfs to the ‘nobles’ in Ottawa.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Alberta votes to leave Canada. But I wouldn’t automatically assume they would then apply for statehood in the US.

But it could happen.

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And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been drying out, the paving is restarting, and Monday is returning yet again.

Is Artificial Intelligence A Threat To Jobs?

I saw post over at PJ Media and it got me to wondering if we were seeing yet another version of machines taking jobs away from human beings? I’d have to say the answer is likely to be “Yes”. What’s this next round of machines versus humans doing jobs?

Artificial Intelligence – or A.I. - taking over office jobs...to start with.

In light of this possibility I and going to quote something paraphrased in the original post that came from the second scariest A.I. movie I can think of:

"Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... EVER, until your job has been fully automated!" —Kyle Reese in a reboot of "The Terminator," possibly.

Some of the examples of A.I. that is already out there is already impressive. I think we’ve all seen examples from things like ChatGPT and Grok, just to name two. One friend has said he uses A.I. rather than Google to do web searches because as he said, “I get better results that are more relevant to what I’m looking for.” I have also seen examples where A.I. gets it hilariously wrong, particularly when it comes to generating images.

Could A.I. do my job, engineering, better than I can? For some parts of my job I’d have to say that it probably can, particularly when it comes to dealing with the products I help design and develop by ensuring they will meet the ever growing range of environmental regulations and requirements being generated, particularly in the EU. But when it comes to being creative, to wondering “What if?” and seeing what can be done, I would have to say that it can’t, at least not any time soon. My job has led me to file for and receive a number of patents, many of which were thought of by wondering if there were better ways of doing “This, That, and the Other Thing” which has in turn led to new products that have garnered a lot of business for my employer.

What about other jobs like bookkeeping, logistics planning, order entry, or product schedule planning, just to name a few? I’d say the answer is a qualified “Yes”, that being because it isn’t quite there yet, but it is getting there.

What about something as simple as providing companionship? A.I. is already doing some of that as we’ve seen with the phenomenon of so-called A.I. “girlfriends”. We’ve seen the fictional application of A.I. for this in the movie Her even though the A.I. hadn’t been developed for this purpose.

Is A.I. scary? Yes, part of that being we don’t really know what it will become capable of doing. We’ve seen examples of A.I. going wrong in movies like The Terminator. As I said, I thought it was the second scariest A.I. movie. The scariest?

Colossus – The Forbin Project.

The coolest A.I. movie?

A.I. Artificial Intelligence, with Haley Joel Osment as an A.I. in the form of a young boy.

Getting back to the main subject, will A.I. end up taking over your job? Who knows?

Friday Funny - Running

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky And COVID

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a somewhat screwy weekend weather-wise, between sunshine, clouds, rain – both light and heavy – as well as fog. One other thing is that the leaves have been coming out on the trees with the birches leading the way, at least around here at The Gulch. I’ve also seen the leaves coming out on the apple tree next to the house, and on maples here and there. I think the oaks will be out shortly.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be coming out of winter storage in a little less than 2 weeks. After some work like clean up and getting the gear loaded into the boat it should be back in the water a few days after we pick it up from storage.

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I have been dealing with a changeover from my old work laptop, a Lenovo P50, to my new one, a Lenovo P16, for some time now. The P16 is using Windows 11 and from my previous post on the subject you know I really don’t like Windows 11.

I spent almost the entire work day this past Friday trying to finalize the changeover and have hit a few snags, something I hope to get squared away over the next couple of days. I have made the suggestion to one of our IT head honchos that maybe it’s time to consider dumping Windows for Linux. While I heard sympathetic noises, it looks like my employer is held in thrall to Microsoft.

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Elon Musk won his first election...by a landslide!

The results: 173-4!

In this case it was about incorporating the town of Starbase, Texas.

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Just when I thought the hypocrisy couldn’t and deeper I was proven wrong. In this case it’s taking place in the UK.

The hypocrisy?

The Members of the UK Parliament have lost access to EV charging stations in the New Palace Yard’s underground parking garage, having been removed due to “health and safety grounds following a review by the Safety and Fire teams, and in consultation with the Chair of the Administration Committee.”

In other words, they don’t want anyone charging EVs – the same ones they pushed as the solution to climate charge – because they are too dangerous to be allowed to charge in a parking garage because they might ignite and cause damage and destruction to neighboring vehicles and to the underground garage itself.

It looks like they are admitting (finally) that EVs are not much more than wheeled thermal grenades with loose pins.

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As if it isn’t well known that California’s High Speed Rail project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, it seems that the Pyrite State isn’t willing to admit it’s a doomed project, one that should be canceled. From the beginning this was a doomed project, with poor planning regarding its route and which sections of the rail line would be built first.

California’s high-speed rail project is a lesson in the inefficiency of big government. The project was started nearly twenty years ago and they have not even started laying down tracks.

One of the reasons it’s in the news right now is because it has gone way over budget and the people in charge are looking for alternate forms of funding.

The current CEO, who came on board last summer, is now claiming that the project might be finished in twenty years. That would be the year 2045.

It’s going to take a total of 40 years to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco? Maybe they should have hired the guys who designed and built the TGV high speed rail system in France. It would have been done in only a few years and would have been operating for almost 15 years by now. But then, California isn’t exactly known for getting things done in a timely fashion and hasn’t been for decades. Heck, they can’t seem to repair a quarter-mile stretch of Highway 1 in Big Sur, something that’s been waiting for repair for 840 days now and isn’t likely to for another 840 days if past performance is any indicator.

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I’m not sure what to make of this. Is it calculated act to open dialogue with the US or is it an act desperation to keep its economy operating?

China EXEMPTS A Quarter of US Imports From Tariffs

China quietly exempts US goods from tariffs, covering around $40 billion worth of imports, in an effort to soften the blow of the trade war on its own economy.

Chinese officials are quietly drawing up a “whitelist” of critical U.S. goods that importers rely on to exempt them from Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The news adds to a growing number of reports from China of businesses discovering that tariffs have been waived on some goods, such as certain semiconductor and integrated circuit products.

It also shows how, underneath its tough rhetoric, Beijing is trying to mitigate the impact of the U.S. trade war on its export-reliant economy, the world’s second-largest, which was already under pressure from a broader slowdown.

Even before the trade war China’s economy had been struggling. The punitive tariffs placed an even greater burden on its economy as trade fell off. Then add in the purported demographic problems facing China and it is a perfect storm of bad economic forces.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Hmm. What do we have here?

A blast from the past, indeed.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rain is hanging around for a couple of more days, everyone is getting ready of the summer tourist season, and where we wonder where the heck the weekend went.

Bicyclist Need To Learn Traffic Laws Apply To Them Too

I saw this over at Instapundit, a PJ Media posting reminding bicyclists that the roads were built for cars and trucks. As Glenn Reynolds commented in his post, “I’m convinced that so many people hate cyclists because they’re perceived as cheaters, demanding the rights of cars when it suits them, then running traffic lights or u-turning in traffic without a thought.”

I will admit that I have seen more than few bicyclists doing what Glenn mentions, but more often that not it’s not the cyclists who are more than just casual riders – the serious die-hard cyclists – but the ‘casual’ riders who seem to think the traffic laws and “rules of the road” don’t apply to them. They’ll do incredibly dumb stuff, somehow thinking any ‘argument’ they have with motor vehicles that weigh 10+ times what they do will somehow work out in their favor. Imagine their surprise when they find out they’re wrong.

I have seen more than a few...hundred…videos on YouTube of cyclists ignoring traffic laws, taking shortcuts that cut across traffic, pretending traffic signals don’t mean them, and those incidents ended badly for the cyclists. One thing I have noticed is that an increasing number of them are riding e-bikes. I don’t if it’s because e-bikes are becoming more popular or that the clueless scofflaws are buying them. It seems most accidents takes place primarily at intersections and the cyclists ignore stop signs and traffic lights.

Another group of riders that are also increasingly putting their lives at risk are those riding e-scooters. It may be just my opinion but it seems to me they are even worse than the scofflaw cyclists, weaving in and out of traffic, hopping on and off sidewalks and weaving their way through traffic and around pedestrians. It also appears that many of the e-scooter riders are young and not yet of driving age which might be one factor as to why they do what they do.

While I haven’t seen much of the behavior described above around here, I have seen it. It makes me wonder how many of those folks are “from away” and are merely repeating the behavior used back where they come from.

Friday Funny - I'm Spanish