Pinball Machine or Heat? Thanks Joe Biden!

Posted: November 11, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, economy, fun, hobbies, News/opinion, pinball, Uncategorized
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As all of you know I’m both a big baseball fan and a huge pinball fan and yesterday I got an offer that I thought I couldn’t refuse.

There is a first rate pinball game called Silver Slugger that was rented for me as a Christmas gift last year. I really enjoyed this game as it combines a standard pinball scoring system with a baseball scoring system (pinball points and runs) I can highly recommend this game to anyone who wants an inexpensive pinball machine. (New Machines generally run between $7-15K)

Well the fellow who rented the machine offered it to me for sale. He understood that I only had a limited area to place a game and said location might have issues with sunlight than can fade machine. This machine had a color scheme that would best be able to handle the location without damage.

Furthermore the price he asked was $300 less than the median current price on Pinside (the pinball market) and because he would be picking up a rental from my son anyways the delivery would not be extra which is huge.

It was an excellent bargain. I had enough to pay for the machine in the mad money that I’ve been putting aside every paycheck for the last year or two and I was debating if DaWife would tolerate a machine at the spot where it would go when the oil delivery truck showed up in front of the house.

So I went outside grab the mail and to get the bill for the 190 gallons of heating oil that the tank took.

$710

Mind you this is the first delivery of the year. During an average heating season I expect to have 3 1/2 more such deliveries turn up at the house over the four or five months. Which means $2500 more in oil bills yet to come.

During the Trump years that same oil bill would have been about $360-$400 at the most meaning I would expect to pay another $1260- $1400 dollars over the course of the heating season.

The difference? That the price of the machine.

Now if it were the Trump years I would be able to use that cash saved for the machine secure in the knowledge that I’d be able to handle any twists and turns that might come up. The only question would be the reaction of DaWife to it being a permanent rather than a temporary addition to the house that my sons might rent for me at Christmas & Birthdays.

But alas Joe Biden is president, everything from groceries to gasoline has skyrocketed and given the inept foreign policy that has enabled our enemies and funded Iran who funds Iran and the turmoil in the middle east I can’t be sure that my next oil bill won’t be a whole lot more by the time I burn through what I have, particularly since domestic energy production which was big in the Trump years, is discouraged now.

Given those facts It would be completely irresponsible for me to spend the money on that machine, much more prudent to hold off in case the side effects of the third Obama Term Biden years get even worse. And of course if we have a fourth Obama term second Biden term it likely won’t be much better.

So as I look longingly at the photo of the machine that I enjoyed so much and email the fellow that I really can’t pull the trigger right now all I can say is:

Thanks Joe Biden.

Rewriting History’s Unintended Consequences

Posted: November 10, 2023 by datechguy in culture, Israel, middle east, Uncategorized
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Lt Harry Welsh: [watching Dutch women being shorn of their hair] What did they do?

Van Kooijk: They slept with the Germans. They are lucky. The men who collaborated are being shot.

Band of Brothers Replacements 2001

One of the things we have seen a lot from the left in general and our Arab friends in particular is the re-writing of history when it comes to Israel and the Jews. This consists of both the rewriting of the ancient history of Jews in Israel to the rewriting of the events of Oct 7th last month.

This lie is not only designed to justify themselves but to avoid the uncomfortable truths. You see if the Jews have been in Judea since the days when Abraham was still called Abram and if they are not the oppressors that they claim then the Arabs have to see what they’re doing in the light of truth and then the decision to slaughter Jews in any way possible becomes not a righteous cause but a choice between good or evil and while many might well decide is it “good” claiming an religious imprimatur, other might see things as they are and repent, and we can’t have that.

Put simply it’s more comfortable living with history’s re-write than dealing with the uncomfortable realities of history

But while this rewrite of history is the Arab dilemma, our response to this and unwillingness to deal with it properly comes from a re-write of our own. A rewrite accidently illustrated by these words from of all people Nathan Sharansky:

Sharansky, an Israeli human rights activist who spent years in a Soviet gulag, said schools such as Harvard and Yale have become bastions of support for terrorism—a big difference from World War II, when the vast majority of the Western world opposed the Nazi regime.

“All the world was against the Nazi regime, and nobody was sorry with [it] being destroyed,” said Sharansky during a discussion with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America on Wednesday. “Today, the legitimacy for the regimes like Hamas is coming from Oxford, from Harvard, from Yale, from Penn, from all these centers.”

Emphasis mine

In a lot of books, movies etc these are the words of the west not only about how World War 2 was fought but what people thought of the Nazis and of the extermination of the Jews.

It’s not.

Before the start of World War 2 the Nazi regime was much admired by many in the west. Time made Hitler their man of the year. There were big fans of both Hitler and Mussolini in the US in both academic and political circles not to mention among the many German and Italian American communities (as a rule the Sicilians didn’t care for Il Duce as he cracked down on the Mafia but that’s another story…).

In fact I remember watching one of the Charlie Chan Movies: Charlie Chan at the Olympics (1937) where his oldest son qualifies for the US Olympic swimming team for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and on the trip there is a mystery involving a murder and a stolen device made for the US Military. In the Germany Chan teams with a German police inspector Inspector Strasser to find the murderer and recover the equipment. All throughout this movie you see lines like this when Chan beats the steamship to Germany and he along with Inspector Strasser meet the ship :

Inspector Strasser: Exactly! You see Mr. Chan, German methods are very thorough.

Charlie Chan: Have greatest admiration for well known efficiency

And as there are a series of thefts, assaults’ and more there is a line constantly repeated by the inspector:

Inspector Strasser: It’s impossible! Things like this can not happen in Berlin!

In the images actually taken from the film of the Olympics there are crowds of people giving the Nazi salute as the Olympic torch is brought in and the flame lit with no thought at all that it might be controversial to moviegoers worldwide and of course the German police arrive just in time to save the day.

As for Antisemitism it was prevalent in a portion of the population, many of them elite in what would become the allied countries as well as in Germany.

When war with Germany came first to the UK and then the US (which interned plenty of Germans and Italians as well as Japanese but that gets little press as it doesn’t serve the left’s narrative) suddenly admiration of the Axis was no longer chic (In fact in the US the left embraced the Nazis after the non aggression pact with Soviets and didn’t reject them until Hitler invaded Russia) and once the horrors of the death camps was not only exposed but were shown to troops en masse and to dignitaries so they could not be denied, open antisemitism was unthinkable.

Thus came the mutually beneficial myth that all were united against the Axis as it gave cover to many whose real opinions and sympathies might have been an embarrassment and it not only allowed a sense of unity to take place but allowed international stances against many of the horrors that had been common to humanity for thousands of years to be advanced and codified into international law at a time when those who might have objected were not only be isolated in their defense but might want the financial aid of the very rich proudly Christian US who along with Canada and Australia (both still highly Christian and proud of it) who were advancing these ideas.

And thus came the myth of the unity against the Nazis and against the horrors and evils they advanced.

And because of this myth many who held these views needed a release for them, and thus came the alliance of the anti-Semites with the Marxists and the Arabs who didn’t want any part of the Jews.

That’s the real secret here. The antisemitism was always there, but because of the comfortable illusion of unity people let it be.

I’m sure they thought it was a good idea at the time, but we’re paying for it now.

What Does Senator Joe Manchin Have in Common With Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill

Posted: November 9, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Both apparently know how to count:

“After months of deliberation and long conversation with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I’ve accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia. I’ve made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate,” he added.

Let’s be blunt Joe Manchin had as much of a chance of winning a senate election in West Virginia in 2024 as I did and maybe just a bit less so not being insane decided to get while the getting was good.

He will likely not be missed by either side.

The Biden Regime’s Digital Discrimination Rule will devastate the internet

Posted: November 9, 2023 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr issued a very dire warning about a recent proposed rule issued by the FCC that would grant the Federal Government the authority to micromanage the internet.  This is absolutely unprecedented and will have an exceedingly negative impact on the internet.

Here is the text of the warning issues by Chairman Carr: DOC-398244A1.pdf (fcc.gov)

The President called on the FCC to implement a one-page section of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Infrastructure Act) by adopting new rules of breathtaking scope, all in the name of “digital equity.” For the first time ever, those rules would give the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions—from how ISPs allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services, to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive. Talk about central planning.

As you can see from the FCC Fact sheet DOC-397997A1.pdf (fcc.gov), this rule will destroy the internet to solve a nonexistent problem.

This Report and Order would take the next step in the Commission’s efforts to promote equal access to broadband internet access service, a service that is critical to virtually every aspect of life in our country and to the U.S. economy. To implement section 60506 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Commission would adopt rules to establish a framework to facilitate equal access to broadband internet access service by preventing digital discrimination of access to that service based on income level, race, ethnicity, color, religion and national origin. The Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking would propose and seek comment on certain affirmative measures to facilitate our efforts to prevent digital discrimination of access

This rule attempts to make the internet a ‘basic human right.’  Leftists however do not understand the concept of rights at all.  Nothing that is produced by the labor of another can be truly a right because it makes a slave out of the producer.

In this Report and Order, we adopt rules pursuant to section 60506 of the Infrastructure Act that establish a framework to facilitate equal access to broadband internet access service3 by preventing digital discrimination of access. These rules address policies and practices that impede equal access to broadband, while taking into account issues of technical and economic feasibility that pose serious challenges to full achievement of the equal access objective. The rules we adopt today constitute an effective, balanced means to accomplish Congress’s objective of ensuring that historically unserved and underserved communities throughout the Nation have equal opportunity to receive high-speed broadband service comparable to that received by others, without discrimination as to the terms and conditions on which that service is received. Accompanying the Report and Order is a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in which we seek additional comment on matters pertaining to our implementation of section 60506 and our diligent efforts to facilitate equal access.

This farce is based on the lefts favorite new buzz word, equity, which is code for Marxist wealth distribution.

We adopt the Communications Equity and Diversity Council’s recommendations that propose model policies and practices for states and localities to address digital discrimination of access.4 We emphasize that these model policies and practices do not foreclose adoption by states and localities of additional measures to ensure equal access to broadband service in their communities.

Most relevant here, section 60506 of the Infrastructure Act sets out further measures to support the fundamental objective of ensuring equal access to broadband.48 The Statement of Policy provides that “insofar as technically and economically feasible” the Commission “should take steps to ensure that all people of the United States benefit from equal access to broadband internet access service.”49 In addition to mandating the adoption of rules to facilitate equal access by “preventing digital discrimination of access” on specified bases and identifying necessary steps to eliminate such discrimination,50 matters we discuss in great depth throughout this Report and Order, section 60506 requires the Commission and the Attorney General to “ensure that Federal policies promote equal access

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