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FYI WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley Fitchburg only available as stream for the next week or so.

Posted: July 18, 2023 by datechguy in catholic

Apparently the storms that went though the area knocked out a critical piece of equipment on the tower.

The good news is we had a spare.

The bad news is the spare isn’t working.

So we will have to order a replacement (and hopefully an extra spare that works) and so until that part comes in our station will be streaming only.

So if you want some excellent catholic radio but can’t get the signal feel free to listen to the stream here. We will continue to produce original programing during this time so it’s well worth your while.

And feel free to throw a prayer our way, it is much appreciated.

The Subsidies Don’t Cover Repair Bills

Posted: July 17, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized
Tags:

About three or four years ago as I was about to get onto Route 2 East to head for work a young lady hit the back bumper of my 1999 Buick LeSabre (not the 1999 LeSabre I currently drive, the 1999 LeSabre that’s currently in my son’s back yard as my parts car). Since she was going maybe 2 mph all it did was drop some rust onto the pavement so I told her not to worry about it to her immense relief.

At Not the Bee we see how lucky she was that I decided to drive a car made before Tom Brady was drafted instead of taking advantage of all the subsidies and buying an electric pickup like this one:

Apparently EV’s as a whole cost more to repair and insure:

Last year, a study from CCC Intelligent Solutions found that on average EV repairs cost more than repairs for gas-powered cars. Another report from Mitchell that was cited by the Times found that last year EV repairs cost about $2,400 more than fixes for traditional combustion-engine vehicles. 

Similarly, Insider’s Alexa St. John previously reported that EVs are more expensive to insure. For example, the national average cost of car insurance is about $2,148 per year, while a Tesla Model S costs about $4,066 to insure, according to the Insider report.

And of course if your bumper is full of sensors all of that has to be handed even if your car isn’t electric and remember while all those tax breaks, which are really tax payer giveaways to the carmakers, might make those child slave dependent electric cars easier to get, they don’t apply to the repair bills or the insurance bills.

You have been warned.

Under the Fedora: Competence Rules, Russia Mistakes, Islam vs Alphabet in Michigan, Racism Shortage…Except in AI

Posted: July 16, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Stacy McCain notes some excellent police work in identifying a serial killer:

According to cops, Heuermann kept the cell phones of two victims and used the phones to get numbers of their relatives, then used “burner” phones to taunt at least one victim’s family member. However, Heuermann apparently didn’t realize that having his own cell phone with him at the time he used the “burner” phones meant that he was “pinging” off the same phone tower. So cops pored over the phone information and, by a process of elimination, narrowed down the possibilities to a comparative handful of potential suspects, and then — because a witness had seen a green pickup truck near one crime scene — this brought Heuermann to the top of the stack, as he sometimes drove a green truck he borrowed from his brother. Once he became the focus of the investigation, Heuermann’s financial records and Internet activity added more evidence against him, and finally detectives got a DNA match from discarded garbage. 

Note that all of this was observation and deduction. Not a woke move in sight.

Newsweek is reporting that according to a Russian Lawmaker the whole movement of the Wagner Group to  Belarus to allegedly prepare for an attack against Poland.

While I think this would be very foolish as Poland is not only well armed but would be very motivated in a shooting war vs Russia for reasons still in living memory all of this talk concerning the Suwałki Gap is continuing fallout of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States and Poland from World War II to the end of the Cold War that is now in play thanks to Ukraine.

While aiding the Soviets bleed Germany making victory in the west easier I’m thinking in the long term enabling Stalin and thus communism’s survival in world war 2 remains one of the biggest strategic errors in the history of the United States.

The clash between Islam and the “Alphabet People” continues in Michigan as two members of Hamtramck Human Relations Commission after they flew the LGBTQ pride flag over a public sidewalk in the town run by American Muslims.

This is in Michigan where they are preparing a law to treat “misgendering” people as a felony with huge fines.

I can’t wait to see what happens when Muslim citizens begin to flout that law if it passes

I’m old enough to remember when a new artist covering a hit was considered a complement to the previous one:

Clearly the Demand for actual “racism” and “Oppression” far outpaces the supply.

Finally there was a bizarre story at Buzzfeed about using a chatbot to illustrate how Europeans saw Americans from every state

Interesting note except for Hawaii every person is white, apparently Europeans and AI don’t think there are any black or Spanish people in the US

A Sad Thought on a Good Story

Posted: July 15, 2023 by datechguy in middle east
Tags: ,

When I saw this headline at Don Surber’s site my first thought was: “Wow!”

Doctors RE-ATTACH ‘decapitated’ boy’s head after 12-year-old struck in horror accident.”

When I read the story and saw this part

Suleiman’s surgery was a success and he was sent home with a neck brace and is being monitored by doctors.

Dr Einav said it is impressive that he is “functionally normally” already and does not appear to have any lasting nerve damage.

The boy’s dad stayed with his son in the hospital and told medics: “I will thank you all my life for saving my dear only son. Bless you all. 

“Thanks to you he regained his life even when the odds were low and the danger was obvious.”

my second thought was: “Double Wow!”.

But then I remembered that the boy was a Palestinian and he was treated by Jewish Doctors in Israel and then remembered this story from twenty years ago:

Downstairs, before we left, the head of the hospital, an Israeli named Audrey, was showing me the children’s waiting room. I couldn’t help but notice, all around, an Arab woman with her son, an Arab family over there checking in, Arab children playing with the toys while waiting. The doctor saw the look on my face and laughed. “Oh, yes, we treat everyone.” I guess I was astonished. She just shrugged. “We’re Jews. This is how we live. It’s also for the future. They’re not going anywhere, and we’re not going anywhere. There will eventually be peace. There has to be.” When? A month? A year? A hundred years? More? She didn’t know. I had to say it. You’re incredible. You take everyone, you treat everyone, no one goes first, no one goes last, you just go in order of who needs help. That’s, like, Mother Teresa stuff. “We’re not saints, we’re just doing our jobs. It’s not easy, I admit. And it gets hard when they cheer when the bodies are brought in.” I looked at her. What did you say? She sighed. “Yes, it gets hard when they cheer.” This was one of the times during my trip when I held up my hands and said, “Stop. Wait.” I turned and walked away to breathe deeply for a minute. I wonder if they’ve restocked that mini-bar. Yeah, probably. It’s a good hotel.

And I recall that there have been no evidence presented to me that this has changed one bit and that’s when my thoughts turned sad.

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