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.
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.
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.
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’m old enough to remember when a new artist covering a hit was considered a complement to the previous one:
This is such a bizarre story from WP. Reader-added context says a lot, but leaves out Chapman's huge record sales; debut album alone sold at least 13 million copies. Total career sales around 30 million. https://t.co/0U0JRmihC1
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.
I never thought I’d see the day. In fact, I waited till this morning to write this post, because I thought for sure someone would cave in.
But it happened:
And even better:
Lose talent??
Wait wait wait wait a second.
DoD thought it would simply bypass the Hyde Amendment without any consequences? Remember when I wrote that the Department of the Navy basically threatened anyone that challenged spending command funds on elective abortions? Re-read that again and think about how condescending that last paragraph is. Apparently at least a few people called their Senators and Representatives, because now we have some action on it.
I find it insulting that the military’s free health care won’t pay for orthodontic work or specialized contacts to prevent myopia in my children, but they will bend over backwards for abortions and transgender surgery. I’ve had Tricare for quite some time now, and yet I continue to spend money on my kids medical care, often in cases where the doctor says “This is necessary care,” but Tricare refuses to cover the bill.
And in case anyone is wondering, I had one kid with two teeth that came in at an angle that would have had them punching out her lip. I had to pay over $2,000 for specialized braces with chains to pull them into place. Somehow Tricare said that wasn’t “medically necessary.”
So yeah, I’m totally fine with the DoD taking it in the shorts and being slapped around by Congress and told to enforce the Hyde Amendment. Even better, the first person that violates it (and you know that is going to happen) needs to be investigated and blackballed from promotion, because if you don’t take enforcement actions, it’s just a hollow threat.
As to losing DoD talent, spare me. The same generals and admirals that lost in Afghanistan, lied to President Trump about putting troops in Syria (tell me again how good that’s going), can’t fix our ships, can’t roll out advanced weapon systems to deal with China, and have now presided over a huge drop in morale and can’t recruit enough warm bodies for the coming slaughter new young people to be Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsman and Guardians….that’s the “talent” we want to recruit?
If I got to say anything Senator Tuberville, I would simply ask: can you run off more of that so-called talent?
If anything is going to make a difference quickly, it would be finding the O-7, O-6 and O-5 talented warfighters that are somehow still in the service and to begin cultivating them for high level jobs. Getting the right leaders into place can make a huge difference. Just ask Admiral Rickover, who single-handedly drove the development of the Navy’s nuclear submarine and carrier program.
If you have Republican Senators or Representatives, tell them to keep it up AND to start searching for the talented O-6s and O-7s, because its only by promoting these people that we can hope to save the military. They need to search now because you can trust the current promotion boards to find talented warfighters for tomorrow’s conflicts.
Overall, I’m happy House and Senate Republicans found their spinal cord. Let’s hope they continue to stay resolved on these matters.
This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. That’s because it represents actual views from warfighters, and as we’ve already seen, our existing government agencies don’t want to actually win any wars.
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