Posts Tagged ‘history’

Five Thoughts and Observations Under the Fedora: $269.9 Gas in Fitchburg, A Temporary Sign?, Open Roads, , Reagan 1981-84 redux? and A function of math not a Miracle of God

Posted: December 14, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, economy, politics, under the fedora
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This week I picked up my son from work and had him pump gas for me at the station near my church on Mechanic Street in Fitchburg because it’s the cheapest gas in town. The price was $273.9 and as I was almost empty it took a lot to fill it.

The very next day gas was at $269.9 which both annoyed me as I had filled up the day before but is a huge sign. If that price continues to drop it will mean an awful lot of extra cash in people’s pockets & a lowering of costs to every single business that gets a delivery by truck.

If this becomes a trend then it could be the sign of the turn in the economy that will change the dynamic in this country for 2026 or 2028.

Last year’s Christmas peak season, the final one of the Biden years was the shortest and weakest in my decade at the warehouse that I work at.

After dropping from 3 local warehouses to 1 during the 2nd year of Biden and losing our 2nd shift in the 3rd Biden year, last year’s peak lasted from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. By Tuesday every temp was gone and peak was finished with voluntary days off being offered.

Back during Trump’s first term we would be flat out for 3-4 weeks from Black Friday on, we’d have 10 hour days and at least one mandatory overtime day a week. We would bring in 100’s of temps to keep up with the work who would usually be kept till about the 14th or 20th of December with about a tenth of them, the best, kept on for the returns season who would eventually become full time employees.

In the first “peak” of the 2nd Trump term we’re not at that level but numbers were higher than expected and our temps were still here on last Friday (albeit they left two hours early that day). Word is we will be busy next week.

Even if the temps aren’t there tomorrow we would have kept them a full two weeks longer than last year. Does that mean the economy has turned around? I can’t say but it’s a data point.

There has been one more interesting sign of the times.

I generally try to leave for work by 6:20 AM to be at my place of work by 6:50-6:55 for my 7 AM shift.

Now when I worked every Sunday I knew I could leave as late as 6:30-6:35 and still (barring accidents on the highways) get to work in that time period but as a rule if it’s a school day and I leave for work anytime after 6:25 AM getting to work on time is iffy and leaving at 6:30 meant I’d have to punch in before I head to the cafeteria to put my lunch in the cooler to hit the grace period and have any shot of avoiding being late.

For reasons I won’t get into I’ve been running very late this week not leaving before 6:25 AM four of five days and leaving as late as 6:33 one day this week. Yet every single day the traffic has been so light that I’ve made it to work with plenty of time to spare. In fact the day I left on time I had so much spare time that I almost forgot to punch in as I sat waiting for the day to start.

Now Massachusetts being as blue as it gets has been fighting back on ICE’s attempts to apprehend illegal immigrants but that hasn’t stopped raids in Boston, Worcester and even in my city of Fitchburg from taking place.

I have no idea if this has effected the traffic coming north from Worcester or east from Gardner. People might be staying home because of the cold but I find the sudden end to the normal morning congestion on school days…interesting.

One of the advantages of age is being able to recognize patterns in history repeating not from books but from memory.

Back in the late 70’s the Carter economy was in the toilet which led to Ronald Reagan’s famous words:

As you know Reagan beat Carter and the economy took off, but it didn’t do so right away. The first year of Reagan was a tough one as he got his agenda passed and it wasn’t until 1982 that we saw signs of what would become one of the best economies of my lifetime. Alas for Reagan it didn’t happen fast enough for him to keep the Senate but it did happen fast enough for him to crush Mondale in 1984 so completely that even the blue states of Massachusetts, New York & California voted for him.

The Trump recovery which I’ve noted some signs of in this post is coming. I don’t know if it will come fast enough to save the House in 2026 but I know when it’s in full swing it’s going to make JD Vance a tough customer to beat in 2028, particularly if the best the left can come up with is Gavin Newsome or an AOC wannabe.

I feel very optimistic about the future & I suspect that as I near my retirement my country will be in good hands.

A few days ago I saw this tweet from Benny Johnson:

While I have seen more than my share of actual miracles from God (after a while they become almost mundane) this is not a miracle of God it’s a function of math as I noted in my reply:

For the last 60 years the left has promoted birth control, abortion, homosexuality & transgenderism even to the point of spaying their own kids. When you do that for two generations the population of people who believe what you do naturally decreases.

Meanwhile I’ve seen over the last few years a large rise in large families at church not quite at the 1940’s & 1950’s levels but getting there. Put simply Christians keep having kids and thus naturally are starting to catch up on unbelievers who don’t.

If the westerners had kids at the same rate they did in 1930 Islamic immigration even at the levels they have in Europe & Canada would have little effect.

Analysis: Sad but Very True. 100 Year old World War 2 Wasn’t Worth it Edition

Posted: November 8, 2025 by datechguy in culture, internet/free speech, media
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James Hacker: Will you answer a direct question?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: I strongly advise you not to ask a direct question.

James Hacker: Why?

Sir Humphrey Appleby: It might provoke a direct answer.

Yes Minister: The Moral Dimension 1982

Were the sacrifices of World War 2 worth it?

My father who served in the pacific braving Kamikazes & Subs to keep capital ships & carriers supplied died would have turned 104 last week on Halloween but died just after I was engaged but before I was married at the age of 65 so while I have an opinion of what he might think of this subject I can’t state it as fact.

However Alec Penstone who served in the Royal Navy is still with us at the age of 100. As soon as he was of age he left his factory job for the Royal Navy braving U-Boats and Air attacks to protect Great Britain from actual Nazis (as opposed to the phony Antifa cosplayers of today) and saw many of his friends lose their lives doing so.

Thus is was an awful shock to the British TV show when on Good Morning Britain he was asked what Remembrance Day (Veterans day for us) means to him and he answered thus:

However the moving segment took a turn when Kate asked him what Remembrance Sunday means to him. He said he felt that winning the war was “not worth” how the country had turned out today. “My message is, I can see in my mind’s eye those rows and rows of white stones and all the hundreds of my friends who gave their lives, for what? The country of today?” he said sadly.

“No, I’m sorry – but the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result of what it is now. What we fought for was our freedom, but now it’s a darn sight worse than when I fought for it.”

It’s one thing for a blogger like myself online or even a Tommy Robinson during a protest to say that The Few, the term used to describe the pilots in the battle of Britain who defeated the German Luftwaffe, would be ashamed of what the Brits have done with the freedom they bought for them. It’s very easy for the powers that be to dismiss us.

It’s quite another thing for a man who fought and saw his friends die enduring all the Nazi Kriegsmarine could throw at him saying so on live television to an entire nation.

Here is the full interview:

What was really interesting however was his response when one of the hosts Aldi Ray followed up with a question concerning what he had just said:

“What do you mean by that, though?” the GMB host probed, prompting the WWII veteran to reply: “What we fought for, and what we fought for was our freedom.

“We find that even now it’s downright worse than when I fought for it.”

Ms Garraway intervened to bring the discussion to a close before Mr Penstone could face any further questions from Mr Ray. “Oh, Alec, I’m sorry you feel like that,” she said.

Ray is ironically getting hit for asking that follow up question because even those who have been so determined to Bring down the Britain that Mr. Penstone fought for dare not publicly attack him for giving that honest answer. As the Irish Sun put it:

It was a heartbreaking admission from a war hero and a damning indictment on the state of Britain today.

Alec Penstone may not realize it but he just preformed one last great duty for his country speaking the truth outloud for the entire country to hear. Giving one final warning concerning the path that those he fought to protect have taken.

How the nation reacts to that warning will determine if Britain falls.

The Russia Reality or Why Peace

Posted: August 17, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, Blame Trump, in Ukraine, politics, Uncomfortable Truths, war
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Yesterday I was at an event at the American Heritage Museum in Hudson MA. They had a parade of World War 2 Tanks: Stewarts, Shermans and a Jackson. For those with money to burn you could actually ride in said tanks and if you had a LOT of dough to burn you could even getting a driving lesson or two.

Their collection of items from a Russian T-34 to a German Panther and a British Matilda and lots more. It was like a living exhibit of the book Great Weapons of World War II, they also has tanks and planes from later eras as well as other exhibits.

But the real prize of a 103 year old gentleman who served in the Pacific both in New Guinea and in the Philippines at the same time as my father. My sons born in the 1990’s have known few such men while in my youth I was surrounded by those like him who had seen combat in World War 2. I met plenty when my dad took me to the local VFW and such events. I found myself very moved when I realized that this was likely the last such man I would ever meet.

And that, in a round about way brings me to Russia, the talks between Trump and Putin and the attempt to end this war.

Before anything considers this one must look at Russia honestly, for all the efforts of Peter the Great and all the perceptions of elites, Russia is not a western country, it’s people are not western people and it does not think like a western people.

Russia is a country that suffered defeats. They lost small wars to Japan and Poland in the last 150 years and had massive defeats both in Europe and in Russia proper to the armies of Napoleon and Hitler before their armies eventually marched to victory in bringing down both Napoleon with the help of the Brits and Prussians and Hitler with the help of America and England.

No Russian leader will forget that in each of the previous two centuries they were invaded by the single greatest war machine in the world of the time and both had to be repelled at great cost. In us the Russians face the greatest war machine in the history of history. No amount of assurances, deals or negotiation is going to convince any Russian leader that the west does not have designs on their territory and or their vast resources.

Furthermore they remember that at one time the Ukraine was the bread basket of Russia and that the Baltic states and Poland once flew their flag.

Their misadventure in Ukraine (which they see internally as protecting a Russian minority as well as reclaiming a chunk of “historical” Russia) is in many ways a way to create a larger buffer between Russia proper and western armies.

When I say “misadventure” I’m referring to their reverses. The Ukrainians who have no business beating a world power who dwarfs them in population and arms have been stubborn, creative and have managed quite a few moves to set a complacent Russia on their heels but the reality is this:

Ukraine can not win a war of attrition: Eventually they will run out of manpower while Russia can bring not only their own troops but North Korean troops to the fight. Basically they’re in the same position as Lee being driven towards the siege of Petersburg. They can make some impressive moves but It’s only a matter of time.

The only way that Lee could have been saved would have been massive intervention by a foreign power but England was not going to war to save the Southern Confederacy and France was not going to war without England.

In the same way the only way Putin can be defeated militarily would be if west decided on open war.

Europe will not go to war without America and the bottom line is America is not going to risk a war that at best would cost tens of thousands of lives and at worst will result in a nuclear exchange that would not spare the American mainland not to mention what would happen to eastern Europe when the scourge of the last World War is still in living memory.

There are plenty of self righteous keyboard warriors who have no problem with hundreds of thousands of Americans and others sent to Ukraine to risk death as they sit far away imagining themselves immune to the costs but to those of us who live in the real world and understand how many men like the old gentlemen I met yesterday didn’t come back think twice before committing our young men to the risk of death in a fight that frankly isn’t ours.

That being said a deal must be made, such a deal has to take into account the realities on the ground plus understanding that you don’t want Putin to be in a situation where a more belligerent rival will replace him on the promise of winning a war he lost.

Thus Trump will negotiate with a goal of preserving as much of Ukraine as possible as an independent state with the ability to defend itself while taking into account both what the Russians currently hold and the ethnic issues of Russians in said area.

It’s not going to be easy anything short of Putin begging for forgiveness will be painted as a defeat by the left and anything that doesn’t give Putin sovereignty over most if not all of Donbas will likely cause grief to the Russian hawks, but only quietly as Putin is still Putin.

Let’s hope Trump can pull it off, if anyone can it’s him.

A final thought, all of this was made possible by Joe Biden & Co who signaled to Putin that he had no issue with him going to take the Donbass (the media might have forgotten Biden’s words before and at the start of the invasion but I haven’t). Putin seeing Biden for what he was, a weak horse not actually in charge, decided to go all in and try to take the lot rather than grabbing the piece old Joe’s team thought he was going for. For all his faults (and he has PLENTY) if Zelenskyy doesn’t very publicly turn down Biden offer of escape and declared he would stay and fight we might be talking about Russia threatening Moldovia or even Belarus, assuming he didn’t gobble them up while the weak Biden admin was his only threat.

If Trump adds peace in Ukraine via a deal that preserves Ukrainian independence to his already impressive case for the Nobel based on his peace efforts worldwide, the prize will likely be automatic. If it happens we must remember that whatever else I might think and whatever else he has done the reason why there will be a Ukraine still there for Trump to save was because of Zelenskyy.

What USAID is Doing as Explained by Tip O’Neill and James Michael Curley

Posted: February 9, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, Uncomfortable Truths
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Interviewer: Did he really [Robin Hood] steal from the rich and give to the poor?

2000 Year Old Man: No, he didn’t

Interviewer: He didn’t?

2000 Year old man: He stole from everyone and kept everything.

Interviewer: Well How did legend spring up that he was…

2000 Year Old Man: He had a fellow Marty, Marty the press agent, ran in all the papers he wrote in scrolls. ‘He took from the rich and gave to the poor’ who knew? He’d give you such a knock in a head when he robbed you you wouldn’t remember a thing.

Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks The 2000 Year old Man animated special 1975

One of the things I have argued for years is that nothing really changes because the things that drive humans haven’t changed, the only difference between a courtier of 1000 years ago and a deep state person of today is tactics and what the reward can bring.

A great example of this is USAID. The left is screaming that they are cutting live saving programs when what in fact is happening is the discovery of the giant Chicago style grift that’s been going on for decades but I suspect was accelerated greatly by the elevation of a corrupt Chicago pol to the highest office in the land.

The best way to understand how this grift works is compare what’s happening to something similar and I can’t think of anything that serves this purpose than one of Tip O’Neill’s stories concerning his relationship the legendary Boston mayor, Massachusetts Governor and US Congressman James Michael Curley.

O’Neill had been a protégé of Curley and knew him well. Ironically it was his decision to not expose Curley’s theft of a delegate election against his own group in 1948 that cemented his place within the Democrat party which aided his advancement. He tells many stories about Curley in his autobiography Man of the House (1987). This was the final one:

It happened in 1954 while I was in Congress. I came home for a few days to come home to campaign for reelection, and I ran into Curley on Beacon Street. He was, as people said in those days “on his uppers,” which meant that he didn’t even have enough money to fix the heels on his shoes.

Curley was a notorious thief but was also known for being a soft touch and giving money away particularly to the poor, so once he no longer had influence to sell things began to go hard for him. Tip continues:

Still he gave me a warm greeting. “How are you Tip? You’re going to win easy.”

“I hope so Governor, but I’m not taking any chances.”

“That’s smart of you, Tip and I’d like to give you a hand. Do I have your permission to raise a few dollars for your campaign?”

I assured him that would be fine.

Given that Tip O’Neill was an up and coming man in congress the idea that Curley was part of his fundraising crew would give the old man some clout in the area. Tip picks up the story…

The following Monday, he came to see me. “I raised five hundred dollars for you,” [a little over $5800 in 2024 dollars DTG] he said as he handed me an envelope. I thanks him and put it in my pocket. But when I counted the money I found that the envelope contained only $450. [$5250 in today’s dollars DTG]

The very same thing happened the following day, and the next, Curley didn’t show up on Thursday, but on Friday he cam in and said. “Here’s a thousand bucks for you.” By then I wasn’t surprised to she that his 10 percent commission had already been removed. I didn’t really mind because he obviously needed the money, Besides, I didn’t want to quarrel with my best fund-raiser.

So at that point we’re talking $2500 or in today’s dollars just under $30K with Curley presumably taking $3k for himself. Tip continues:

“By the way Governor.” I said to him the following week, “I’d like the names of these people so I can send them a thank-you note.”

“Oh you’re getting too smart. They’ve already been thanked.” And that was the last time I saw Jim Curley.

Now you might be thinking at this point: “Hey DaTechGuy. What’s the big deal. O’Neill got what he wanted, about $4500 bucks or $52 grand in today’s money and Curley got $5800 out of the deal? That’s doesn’t seem very significant, it certainly wasn’t to Tip who was happy to get that $4500 bucks.” And if the story ended here you might have a point but the story didn’t end here as Tip explains:

Several months later I was back home one weekend when a fellow came into my office to ask for help in straightening out a problem with one of the government agencies.

I’d never seen the man before so I asked if he lived in my district. “No.” he said. “I live in John McCormack’s district.” [House majority leader who would become speaker after Sam Rayburns death DTG]

“Then why don’t you go and see Mr. McCormack?” I asked.

“Well that’s a fine way to treat a friend.” he said, “after all I’ve done for you!”

“Excuse me,” I said “but what are you talking about?”

“Are you kidding? I gave you a big contribution during your last campaign.”

We had a list of every contributor, so I excused myself and asked my secretary to look up the fellow’s name. But there was no sign of him in our records. “You know,” I told him when I got back to my desk. “I don’t run my office on a quid pro quo basis. I do favors for people because they need my help, not because they contributed to my campaign. But the funny thing is I don’t even have your name in my book. Would you refresh my memory?“

“Sure.” he said “In your last election I paid for your television ads on the final two nights of the campaign.”

“You must be mistaken, ” I said. “You never paid for my television ads. I’ve never heard of you.”

“What do you mean?” he said. “Jim Curley came ot me and said he was raising money to put Tip O’Neill on television. And I’m the one who paid for your TV time the night you went on. Didn’t he give you my name?”

So THAT was it! I told him the story of how Curley had asked me for permission to raise money and how he had skimmed a little off the top. We both had a good laugh over that.

“Now I understand why you’ve never heard of me.” he said, “But I remember how much money I gave to Curley to pay for those ads, and let me tell you something. Jim Curley made out just fine. I’m afraid you were the one who was working for ten percent.”

In short Curley didn’t hit up this guy for $5000 and then give Tip O’Neill $4500. He hit up this guy for $50,000 ($583,000) in today’s money and kept $45,500. ($535,000) for himself. In other words 91% of that money was skimmed and only 9% actually went to Tip for his campaign

That’s pretty much what Elon Musk and his team is finding out. The Democrats and their press allies are screaming to the press and claiming with a straight face that useful items are at risk without acknowledging that they’re not worried about the 9% that might actually do good, they’re trying to protect the 91 cents out of every dollar that they are using as a slush fund. And believe me unlike Curley they aren’t given a portion of that 91% to the poor unless you count the portion given as tips given to waiters after an expensive meal or valets after parking the cars your tax dollars are paying for.

Closing thought. I highly recommend O’Neill’s autobiography if you have any interest in what of the leading figures of the Democrat party during they years when they actually gave a damn about regular people thought.

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