Posts Tagged ‘math’

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.

Scott McKay at the American Spectator Gives an Exercise in Realty about the House, Senate and the “Big Beautiful Bill”

Posted: May 26, 2025 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, politics
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As I’m not writing regularly anymore it’s not often that I read a piece and think: “I wish I wrote that.”

But Scott McKay’s piece at the American Spectator (via Hotair headlines) certainly fits the bill.

You see it’s all about the reality of the math.

It’s irritating to have to bring this up, but the Republicans have a 220-215 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate which isn’t really 53 votes given that Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, Bill Cassidy and a few others seem to do everything they can to torpedo the conservative agenda. For the most part, they’re ineffective in that respect, because none of them are all that willing to be the one vote that kills a bill or a nomination. They know there will be consequences for that, and they don’t have the courage to face those.

Nevertheless, that 53? It plays like 51. And the 220 plays like 215; luckily, 215 was all the Big Beautiful Bill needed on Thursday morning.

You have the number of votes that you have. Then there is the reality of the the filibuster:

Mike Johnson couldn’t send a clean, stripped-down budget bill through the House, though that would have been easier, and the budget aspects of the bill might have been better. Know why? Because codifying Trump’s agenda through legislation in 2025 means everything has to be attached to a must-pass bill.

As in, budget reconciliation.

You have to force the agenda through an omnibus bill if you want to pass it, because Democrats will reflexively filibuster everything the rules allow them to.

There is zero chance of passing a bill in the senate that requires more than 50 votes and JD Vance. Which means it has to be done in a single bill.

And then there is a reality:

The point is that while this thing could have been quite a bit leaner from a budget perspective, assuming it gets through the Senate and Trump signs it, Congress will have then codified the bulk of Trump’s agenda by the middle of the summer and there won’t be all that much to do for the rest of the year other than to shrink the federal government.

Which isn’t a bad place to be in.

And if you can’t understand why Vought would be so sanguine about the bill even though it doesn’t seem to be very aggressive in chopping down on federal spending, this is likely why.

Some of this is speculative, I’ll grant. But again, this is an ongoing process. And we are dealing in the world of what is possible with the Congress we have.

Within that world, this is a win. Sure, it’s probably not a beautiful win. It’s a 50-yard field goal with one second left to eke out a victory, and the team didn’t cover the spread.

But in the end it will be codified into law and let me remind you of something I said 15 years ago during the Scott Brown special election back in 2010:

…in an attempt to stop Obamacare. In a broadcast by 73wire with Stacy McCain and Ali Akbar (Brown’s new media guy) we talked about the healthcare bill and there was an interesting exchange. I stressed how important this election was because it was necessary to stop obamacare BEFORE it was passed prompting the following:

Ali: “And if it does pass, we will repeal it!”

DaTechGuy: “No we won’t.”

It was very telling that Ali (who is a really smart young man) didn’t argue the point with me and changed the subject.

It was six long years before there was a chance to get rid of Obamacare, and when that chance came John McCain with the applause of every Democrat in the Senate cast the vote to save it.

There is a lot that COULD have been in that big beautiful bill if we had more votes to spare in the House or the Senate but there is plenty IN that bill that the left loathes and that we have wanted to get done for a while.

Once those things are law it will be tough for Democrats to get the votes to repeal them. They’ll need the house and the senate and a President ready to sign and they’ll need majorities where even Democrats in swing districts will go along and you remember what happened last time swing dems did so.

Thus came the Stupak Amendment and the fig leaf he provided while proving disastrous to him and his followers was a Godsend to others as he said later:

“I had a number of members who thanked us after because they could vote no.”

But Stupak fig leaf would quickly wither. His seat and 62 others for democrats would not survive election day and even more shocking to the left the New GOP majority would remain even after the re-election of President Obama

I think putting the dems in this position is a good idea.

Twitter / Left Censorship A Sure Sign You’re Hitting the Target

Posted: November 9, 2020 by datechguy in elections, media, politics, Uncomfortable Truths
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If you were one of those folks on twitter who followed me you would have noticed that I had a habit of not blocking trolls, or idiots, or people who swore at me, practically the only way to get blocked by me was to be an obvious bot (identical tweets to many people usually with either no icon or a picture of a pretty girl often named something like joe3882472100) or to tweet images of pornography. Even those who insulted the church instead of being blocked would go on my Perpetual Twitter Novena list so I could pray for them.

The reason for this is simple. If the left was making a stupid or weak argument in my opinion the best thing is for people to see it and then to laugh at them. For example. A few hours before I was locked out I had the following exchange with such a person:

the response to this was a rather foolish one on our leftist friends part

You see once someone states you have put out “demonstrable lies” the logical thing is to say: OK Demonstrate them. He didn’t take it very well.

Now if I had just blocked such a fellow I would not have been able to illustrate to those who follow me and him that said statement about “demonstrable lies” was blowing smoke. Instead I was able to illustrate to my followers and his that he was full of it.

And that brings us once again to twitter locking me out.

You see if people are saying something stupid, or outrageous it’s simple enough to counter such folk because such arguments are generally over the top and given the number of people on twitter there is no shortage of bright people on the other side who could do so.

BUT if people are saying things or making observations that are factual and or credible, something that the average person can understand or even something that might make you think, like the link I sent out that got me locked, then you risk a discussion that can be lost.

Now if you are a person who wants facts and truth that’s not necessarily a bad thing. After all if my opinion is wrong or “demonstratively false” I’d like to know it because I believe in truth and fact.

BUT if you are a person trying to advance a false or a weak proposition such as:

Donald Trump had a historic performance among non-white voters and outperformed his previous vote share even in blue cities EXCEPT in four cities in four swing state where Joe Biden not only outperformed Trump but out preformed Barack Obama enough to swing said states.”

Then the last thing you want is anyone advancing factual or credible arguments against it, particularly arguments that are easy for people to understand.

Or to put it simply, if our leftist friends on Twitter and Facebook thought that Joe Biden’s #election2020 #magicballots in #detroit #philadelphia #atlanta & #milwaukee were legitimate as sure as the sun rises in the east they would point at such posts and simply laugh or provide evidence that could easily or credibly counter assertions to the contrary.

But

If our leftist friends on Twitter and Facebook think that Joe Biden’s #election2020 #magicballots in #detroit #philadelphia #atlanta & #milwaukee were legitimate as sure as Jeffery Epstein killed himself then they will go all out to prevent evidence or arguments which support that fact.

The question isn’t if President Trump’s team has evidence of vote fraud. He does and plenty. The question is can he provide the courts with enough such evidence that will cause the courts to prescribe remedies to counter Joe Biden’s #Magicballots . You don’t know and neither do I. This is likely going to go to the Supreme Court.

But the Hollywood / media / academic / big tech left are fighting a different fight. The standard of evidence convince the avg person is MUCH lower than the standard to convince a court and right now the circumstantial evidence is more that sufficient to convince any citizen whose religion is not politics that the fix is in.

That’s the dirty little (Not So) secret here. They’re not censoring stuff because we’re making incredible arguments or points, they’re censoring us because we’re making credible arguments and points that the average person can understand.

In other words they’re still scared because they know it’s not legit.

Five Simple 2+2=5 Questions for Biden Voters of the Left (and one Insurance question)

Posted: August 26, 2020 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, culture, elections, politics
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I noticed this post at Stacy McCain’s site about a big time liberal Bernie Socialist voter who works in a Nursing Home in NY and is both:

  1. Angry at the democrats for the Biden/Harris Ticket as not radical enough
  2. Angry at Andrew Cuomo over his Covid response.

That reminded me of the axiom that people are always conservative about things that pertain to them. For example the elites of the left champion public schools and deride charter schools, while making sure their kids aren’t anywhere near them.

So it hit me that the best way to explain to a woke Biden voter that all of this 2+2=5 stuff that will continue to be pushed if he is elected is dangerous is to give them real life examples of where that comes into play.

So let me ask you, oh Biden/Bernie voter these questions:

  • Will you feel comfortable having your breaks fixed by a mechanic who has been taught that hydraulic force manipulation is racist western concept?
  • Will you feel comfortable getting a prescription for your medication if the person determining your dosage has been taught that 2+2=4 is a racist western concept?
  • Will you feel comfortable getting a replacement heart valve designed by someone taught that 2+2=4 is a racist western concept or put in by a surgeon who has been taught the same?

Finally:

  • If you were an insurance company would you insure any of the people or devices unless there was a clause voiding coverage if any of them worked under the assumptions taught that I listed above. I’ve listed above?

When you choose to vote Biden and surrender in the culture wars to the radical left that now runs our universities, this is what you are voting for.

A lot of people think the riots are the most dangerous thing that the Democrats are pushing but those can be beaten back, but if you lose the basic building blocks of science and engineering, your society never progresses again.

It’s your choice but if you’re going to make choice, do it with your eyes wide open.

Closing thought: I submit and suggest if we had people teaching this at the time of the creation of the TVA we would not have the Raccoon Lake Battery today:

Raccoon Mountain Lake is not your typical Tennessee Valley Authority lake. Carved out of the top of a mountain just west of Chattanooga, its purpose is to store excess energy produced by the TVA when it is generating more hydro and nuclear electricity than is being consumed. The excess energy is used to pump water uphill from the Tennessee River. During periods of peak demand, the water is sent back down, running 1,080 feet through a tunnel in the mountain and generating electricity as it returns to the river. In effect, the lake is a battery. It can generate 1.6 million kw hours of electricity per day. Here’s a time-lapse video of it filling back up after being emptied to generate electricity.

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