The Iranians should be worried!

As my good friend Robert Stacy McCain has noted, Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it was responsible for the extermination — I refuse to call it an assassination, as one does not assassinate cockroaches — of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, though most people have concluded that they did. Personally, I hope that Israel is responsible! Arash Azizi certainly believes it!

A Wake-Up Call for Iran

Israel can pretty much do what it wants on Iranian soil.

By Arash Azizi | Wednesday, July 31, 2024 | 11:20 AM EDT

Ismail Haniyeh should have known that Tehran wasn’t a safe place for him to be. What has Israel ever wanted to do on Iranian territory that it hasn’t been able to accomplish? In 2018, it stole the country’s entire nuclear archive. In 2020, it killed Iran’s top nuclear-weapons official. In 2022 and 2023, it reportedly abducted, interrogated, and then released security officials who were planning actions against Israeli tourists in the region—and it did this entirely on Iranian soil. Such extensive operations show that Mossad has deeply penetrated Iran’s security architecture, much as it has in the hit Israeli TV show Tehran.

That’s all you get to read at The Atlantic, because the rest falls behind the paywall. But, not to worry, msn.com reproduced it for free! As much as I’m shelling out for subscriptions, free is still my favorite price!

Details are still emerging about the strike on Haniyeh, Hamas’s highest-ranking political leader, who was killed in Tehran in the early hours today. The assassination comes at an incredibly tense moment, less than 24 hours after Israel used an air strike to take out Fuad Shukr, a top Hezbollah official, in Beirut. Hezbollah has not confirmed Shukr dead, and Israel has not taken responsibility for the attack on Haniyeh. But fingers will naturally point to the country with both the capacity and the motive to go after the Hamas leader.

Israel has a history of targeting militant leaders behind the killing of its citizens. Palestinian militants massacred Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972, and Israel responded with Operation Wrath of God, a string of assassinations of militant leaders all over the world that ended only in 1988. Israel was always going to find and kill Haniyeh, a leader of the group that perpetrated October 7, the most lethal terror attack in the country’s history.

“Operation Wrath of God”? Yeah, I like that name!

We are told, of course, just how wrong, wrong, wrong! targeted assassinations are, but let’s tell the truth here: if the United Kingdom had had the ability to take out Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring in 1940, the way Israel supposedly exterminated Mr Haniyeh, does anyone doubt that Prime Minister Winston Churchill would have ordered it done? Does anyone doubt that the world would be a better place today if that had happened?

This supposed capability is hardly surprising. I’m old enough to remember when there was talk in the 1980s, perhaps a bit overblown, that the guidance system for American cruise missiles was so good that we could send it through the men’s room window in the Kremlin. With the ever-increasing capabilities of global positioning satellites, that Israel could put a weapon on any particular building it wished is not really surprising. The more surprising part is that Israel — if it was Israel! — not only knew that Mr Haniyeh was in Tehran, but knew exactly where he was staying. I expect to hear about crackdowns in Iran, as their security apparatus tries to find out how Israel got that information, in time for it to have been actionable. It will not pay to be one of the Usual Suspects in Iran right now!

Oh, who am I kidding? The Usual Suspects have already been in jail in Iran. The Islamic Republic will be scrutinizing anyone who had the information, scouring their computers to see if they can find a Mossad intrusion, interrogating journalists, and putting everyone in the neighborhood to the question. The Ayatollah might want to strike at Israel, but the real strike will be against Iranians themselves.

Ayatollah Ali Khameini has to be worried about something else. If Israel, or whomever, could target and kill Mr Haniyeh in his Tehran safe house, then the mad mullahs could just as easily be killed in their homes. It’s good that he’s worried.

Karma comes for Ismail Haniyeh He started a war he couldn't finish, and now that war has finished him.

Ismail Haniyeh isn’t smiling anymore.

We noted, on June 6th, that Hamas leaders don’t really care about the lives of ordinary Palestinians, and see the sacrifice of their lives as politically useful:

Ismail Haniyeh is the ‘Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau,’ and as such is supposedly the chief officer of that terrorist group. On October 7, 2023, he gave a televised speech from Istanbul, telling the world that the October 7th attack was fully justified, which he “highlighted threats to Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the continuation of the blockade on Gaza and Israeli normalization with countries in the region.” Safely living in Qatar, Mr Haniyeh is once again rejecting a ceasefire proposal which does not give Hamas complete victory.

Mr Haniyeh is no longer “safely living in Qatar,” and his estimated net worth of $4 billion isn’t going to do him much good now, as someone has sent him straight to Hell.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is killed in Iran by an alleged Israeli strike, threatening escalation

by Abby Sewell | Wednesday, July 31, 2024 | 7:19 AM EDT

BEIRUT (AP) — Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital Wednesday, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risks escalating the conflict even as the U.S. and other nations were scrambling to prevent an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran — and only hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

The assassination of Hamas’ top political leader was potentially explosive amid the region’s volatile, intertwined conflicts — because of its target, its timing and the decision to carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel into direct confrontation if Iran retaliates.

Yahya Sinwar, you’re next!

Also read: William Teach, “Israel Strikes Beirut, Kills Hezbollah Commander

Naturally, the maddest of the mad mullahs, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that revenge was Iran’s duty for “a dear guest in our home,” but Iran has already been striking at Israel, via it’s stooges Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States had no advance knowledge of, and was not in any way involved in, the sending of Mr Haniyeh to his 72 bacha bazi boys virgins, and I believe him: Israel would never have told the US in advance, because they’d rightly fear that the US would warn Mr Haniyeh that the strike was coming.

Israel, under the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, completely evacuated Gaza in 2005, forcibly evacuating the Jewish settlers there, and giving the Arabs in Gaza a chance to build something positive there, build an enclave of peace and prosperity. Instead, the ‘Palestinians,’ led by Hamas, turned it into a fetid and festering sewer of anti-Jewish hatred, terrorist activity, and tunnels for hiding weapons and fighters, and a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Hamas had a chance to strive for peace, by being peaceful, and thus pushing for an Israeli government which would be responsive to that peace. Instead, led in part by Mr Haniyeh, they sought, and got, war.

The diplomats are all worried that this will lead to a wider war, but the truth is that, unless Israel finishes off Hamas, and Hezbollah, too, wider war will come. Mr Haniyeh was living in luxury in Qatar, and frequently traveling around the Muslim Middle East, in seeming impunity, while the people he (supposedly) led were dying in a useless struggle. Now he is in Jahannam.

Oh, noes! #COVID19 is surging in California! But still, few people are actually getting sick

The news is horrifically frightening, and Taylor Lorenz must be going absotively, posilutely bonkers: almost everyone in the Pyrite State has a cold.

COVID surging in California, nears two-year summer high. ‘Almost everybody has it’

By Rong-Gong Lin II | Monday, July 29, 2024 | 3:00 AM PDT

If it seems like many people around you are getting COVID-19, you’re not alone.

Federal data show coronavirus levels in California’s wastewater are surging to levels not seen in summertime since 2022, indicating a wide and worsening spread of COVID.

“We are seeing … a definite, definite surge,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California.

The surge is clearly apparent in doctor’s offices and clinics where people are seeking outpatient treatment, Hudson said. But, thankfully, not many people are having to be hospitalized because of COVID-19 at this point.

That’s from the Los Angeles Times original, but if readers are stymied by a paywall, the story can be accessed for free from Yahoo! News.

This ‘surge’ of COVID-19 isn’t being measured by actually testing of individuals, but by testing sewage to detect traces of infectious diseases circulating in a community, even if people don’t have symptoms. People infected can shed pieces of the virus when they use the toilet, bathe, or launder their clothing, and samples of the wastewater are taken and tested before the sewage is processed. The CDC are still testing for Monkeypox, though they now call it Mpox, because they don’t want to offend the poor dears who are most prone to contract it.

In particular, one of the FLiRT strains, known as KP.3.1.1, “has really taken off,” Hudson said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that that strain accounted for 17.7% of coronavirus samples nationwide for the two-week period that ended July 20, up from 6.8% for the prior comparable period.

At that rate of growth, that strain is likely to become increasingly dominant in the next few weeks, Hudson said. “So, unfortunately, I think we are going to see a lot more cases.”

Coronavirus levels in California sewage are considered “very high” for a third consecutive week, the CDC said Friday. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia — home to nearly 3 in 4 Americans — have either “high” or “very high” coronavirus levels in wastewater.

For the seven-day period that ended July 20, the most recent data available, coronavirus levels in California wastewater were at 93% of the peak from the summer of 2022. They’ve already exceeded last summer’s height.

Naturally, the newspaper is reporting that some people contracting the FLiRT variant are feeling the worst symptoms yet:

“I’ve had COVID a few times but this is the worst I’ve had it,” wrote one person on Reddit. The person reported recurring fever, being so congested they couldn’t breathe out of their nose, “terrible sinus pressure and headache … and I can’t stand up for too long without feeling like I’m about to pass out.”

Another person wrote that their “throat feels like razor blades” and that they feel like they’re “in living misery.”

Naturally, the Democrats are not going to grossly overreact by ordering the stupid and unconstitutional restrictions of 2020-21, because there’s an election approaching! No one’s really going to call for universal masking, regardless of how much they might wish, because it’s so politically damaging.

In Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, there were an average of 286 COVID-19-positive people in hospitals for the week that ended July 20. That’s flat from the prior week’s figure of 291, and about half as many as last summer’s peak and one-quarter as many as the peak of summer 2022.

Yet we were also told that California has already exceeded the 2023 summer peak, which can mean only one thing: if serious cases of COVID-19 are fewer, despite a wider spread, then COVID-19 in 2024 just isn’t as bad as previously. “Almost everyone has it,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UCSF.

But if almost everyone has it, and we aren’t all dropping like flies, it simply cannot be serious anymore. It will be for a few people, but a few people die from the flu or measles as well.

COVID-19 has lost its ability to scare, and few believe the people who try to ramp up fear.

Welfare for the well-to-do

If you watch the Weather Channel, whenever one of the bad winter storms hits, or hurricanes, tropical storms, etc, you’ll see that they always have a graphic showing how many “customers” are without power. Customers does not equal people, but residential and commercial units consuming power. As ’empty nesters,’ we count as one customer, but are two people. When the first tropical storm/category 1 hurricane hit the Lone Star State earlier in July, the Weather Channel was telling us about how long customers in Texas were dealing with near 100ºF temperatures with no sparktricity for air conditioners. Primarily distributed by overhead wires, electricity is our most vulnerable to the weather utility.

Heat pumps are having their moment. Are they right for you?

More homeowners are opting for heat pumps, once thought to be ill-suited to cold Northeast winters.

by Frank Kummer | Monday, July 29, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

For decades, Scott Nelson’s Oceanside Service has been installing traditional residential cooling systems and gas-powered furnaces in Jersey Shore communities such as Long Beach Island.

Within the past few years, however, the Allenhurst-based contractor has seen a big change: More homeowners are opting for heat pumps, once thought to be ill-suited to cold Northeast winters. The switch is fostered by warming winters, more efficient heat pump units, and federal and state incentives.

“We give everybody the option,” Nelson said, referring to a traditional system versus a heat pump. “And 8 out of 10″ have been buying heat pumps.

Heat pumps are having their moment, boosted in recent years by federal tax credits and other incentives that align their cost more closely with traditional fossil-fuel powered units, while also being highly efficient.

And there it is! You, the taxpayers, are on the hook to buy HVAC systems for Other People! And the homeowners in “Jersey Shore communities such as Long Beach Island” are much wealthier than the typical taxpayer in Flyover Country USA. In June of 2024, the median sale price in Long Beach Island, NJ, was $2,250,000, up 32.4% from the same time in 2023.[1]Data accessed on July 29, 2024, and may show differently in the future, as the referenced real estate site updates information as it is received.

The momentum could grow with the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement last week of $4.3 billion in grants for projects in 30 states aimed at reducing climate change and air pollution, fostering environmental justice, and accelerating a transition to renewable energy. Pennsylvania received nearly $400 million, and New Jersey and a coalition of other states received nearly $250 million, all funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as part of the Biden administration’s agenda.

The grants will be used to fund various programs, including those that encourage a switch to heat pumps such as Pennsylvania’s Priority Climate Action Plan.

So, even more of your taxed-away dollars — or that money borrowed from investors and repaid with interest — being given to Other People.

Our HVAC system, a circa 1995 heat pump system, was destroyed in the 2021 flood, and the $6,100 it cost to replace it came from our pockets, not the taxpayers. Remember that $6,100 figure; it will be important later. How much moolah is Uncle Sam giving to people wealthier than you? Skipping down a few paragraphs we find:

Heat pump installations can quality for federal tax credits valued at up to 30% of the cost paid for the unit, or up to $2,000 per year, for air-source heat pumps. There’s a rebate up to $8,000 for an ENERGY STAR-certified electric heat pump for space heating and cooling.

Pennsylvania anticipates using money from the Infrastructure Act to offer rebates starting in 2025 for heat pumps installed in low- to moderate-income households.

Further down, readers are told that the up-front costs for a heat pump are about $15,000, versus roughly $8,000 for a gas furnace. I guess that my $6,100 wasn’t so bad, huh?

Philadelphia has plans to try and push heat pumps, but has 440,000 mostly brick rowhomes, with an average age of 80 years. Many have insufficient electrical service to power a heat pump system. My heat pump system has not one but two 220-volt, 50-amphere circuits, one for the exterior condenser unit, and another for the blower unit in the crawlspace, which includes heating elements for the ’emergency’ heat cycle. With our ‘backup’ heating system, a propane fireplace, we’ve never needed to use the ’emergency’ heat cycle. A modern, 200-amp circuit breaker panel is needed for installation of a heat pump system, so many of the Philly rowhomes would also need an electrician to upgrade that before any heat pump system could be installed.

There’s more than just that, though. As Frank Kummer, the article author noted, many Philadelphia houses, particularly the rowhomes, “still have boilers that use radiators and baseboard heat. Those likely would need ductless, mini-split heat pumps.” While it is possible to mount mini-split units on interior walls, doing so is more complicated, and more expensive than mounting them on exterior walls.

This is a program that is nothing more than welfare for the already well-to-do. The heat pump systems do have tax credits, but that doesn’t mean that homeowners can simply stroke a check for $15 grand, and be able to wait for their tax credits. While some rowhouse neighborhoods like Fishtown are gentrifying, and might have some better-off homeowners who would consider heat pumps as they remodel, it’s more difficult to see how the working-class people in Philly’s working-class neighborhoods could do so. If their gas furnaces have to be replaced, it’s still cheaper for them to replace with new gas furnaces than heat pumps, as Mr Kummer’s article tells us.

And so I go back to the beginning, and how electricity is our most vulnerable to the weather utility. If you live in a Philly rowhome, and the power goes out on a bitterly cold February day, whether you had a heat pump based system, or your old natural gas fired boiler for radiators, both would be out. But a low-end home generator from Lowe’s or Home Despot can provide enough 110-volt, 20-amp power to run your natural gas furnace, while you’d need a substantial generator, providing 220-volts to run your heat pump system.

I have no objection at all to people being able to choose what kind of heating system they want; I do find it objectionable that the government has its snotty nose in these decisions, and that the feds are providing what amounts to welfare for already prosperous people.

References

References
1 Data accessed on July 29, 2024, and may show differently in the future, as the referenced real estate site updates information as it is received.

Hamas delendum est

In November of 2022, I had the privilege of a far-too-short visit to Jerusalem, really just 3 days, and my daughter and I spent almost all of our time in the Old City. We were able to attend Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visit the Western Wall, then ascend the Temple Mount to the al-Aqsa Mosque, though we could not enter that. We saw the Garden of Gethsemane, and many of the Christian sites there, along with taking the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross.

The Old City is simply amazing. Jerusalem has been destroyed several times before, and the Old City is not what it was in Jesus’ time, and much of what can be seen is actually Byzantine construction. Some things are clearly fanciful, as the alleged Tomb of Mary and Birthplace of Mary are there, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that Mary was either born or died in that city. Our best guess is that Mary was Galilean, from the area around Nazareth, and even though Nazareth is close to Jerusalem, at least in modern terms, roughly 144 kilometers, it’s not the kind of journey a young woman would normally have made just before the time of Jesus.

One of the places we stopped can be seen in the photo at the beginning of this article. To my American eyes, it looked like some kind of reading room, though SSG Pico — she is an Army Reservist, then deployed to Kuwait, and I met her in Jerusalem when she had a four-day pass — and I had to go along with Islamic respect: a head covering for her, and shoes off for both of us.

It wasn’t a reading room, but actually a mosque, the gentleman shown to the left of the photograph told us. It was quiet, and yes, he did try, gently, to proselytize us — we informed him that we were Catholic — but he was entirely respectful of us.

In November of 2022, the Christians, Jews, and Muslims of Jerusalem were able to live in peaceful coexistence. Yes, there were armed Israeli policemen around and very visible to keep the peace, but we were not bothered by anyone, in any place we walked, including the Temple Mount, run by a Muslim Waqf out of Jordan by mutual agreement, even though we were about as obviously Westerners as can be.

Our hotel was about half a mile north, off of Jaffa Street, and the vast majority of the people we saw walking to and from the Old City were visibly Jewish by their dress, and they, too, never bothered us. The Jewish restaurants outside the Old City, as well as Arabic restaurants inside — there’s an amazing sidewalk-and-inside cafe on the Via Dolorosa, near the fourth Station of the Cross! — served us very politely.

One important point: don’t ever eat at a kosher McDonald’s! They are absolutely awful!

My point is a simple one: these people can live together, if they’ll only try. In 2005, the government under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, forcibly evacuated all of the Jewish settlers from Gaza, and told the ‘Palestinians’ to make of it what they would. The Israelis hoped that reasonable heads would prevail, and the Arabs would take advantage of their unoccupied land to try to build something peaceful and prosperous. Gaza has few natural resources, but also enjoys some of the best beachfront property on the Mediterranean, and could have built resorts which would attract well-to-do European vacationers, and the euros that they’d have to spend.

Obviously, that’s not what they did. Instead, the Arab irredentists fought with each other, Hamas seized control in Gaza, and the whole thing became a big terrorist training camp. Instead of resorts which could bring some prosperity to Gaza, they built a vast tunnel system. What an absolute waste!

What’s happening in Gaza didn’t have to happen. It was started by bloodthirsty Hamas terrorists, who must have thought that, if they started a war, the other Arab nations would join them. Oops!

This is why Hamas must be completely destroyed! Given a chance for peace, being given land where they could develop the beginnings of a peaceful ‘Palestine,’ the Arabs proved that they were not interested in peace, that they were still interested in complete victory. You cannot reason with such people, at least not reason as those of us living in a Western civilization culture would do.

This morning’s rant

Via William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove, I saw this quote:

“I never imagined seeing the flag of a terror group holding eight Americans hostage for 292 days waved in the streets of our nation’s Capitol,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) wrote alongside an image of a protester waving the Hamas flag.

I guess that he’s not old enough to remember the campus protest chant, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, NLF is gonna win!”

It’s amazing to me that there are so many people in Western countries, enjoying the fruits of Western civilization and a modern economy, supporting Islamist savages who would gladly hang all of the queers and force the women back into subjugation. It’s as though they just can’t wrap their pointy heads around the notion that, if Hamas did win, and drive all of the Jooooos into the sea, this new ‘Palestine’ would not somehow be all sweetness and light, with a First World economy, liberation for queers and trannies, religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, and the happiness of a wealthy, Ivy League university campus, but become the same squalor that the rest of the non-oil producing Arab Middle East is.

I have to laugh at the “Queers for Palestine” signs, of (mostly) white young women taking a leadership role in these protests, when none of them would be allowed any leadership roles at all under Islam. I have to laugh at those calling the Israelis “white settler colonialists” when every white person in America is the descendant or beneficiary of white settler colonialists, only here because white settler colonialists — including my first American ancestor, Richard Warren — drove out and (mostly) killed the Indians here before them. Every black person in America is the descendant or beneficiary of the evil white slaveholders who brought their ancestors here, rather than leaving them in the undeveloped squalor that is most of sub-Saharan Africa today. Every Hispanic person in America today is the descendant or beneficiary of the white Spanish settler colonialists who drove out and (mostly) killed the Indians south of the Rio Grande.

Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday, to Congress, referring to the anti-Semitic protesters outside:

I have a message for these protesters. When the tyrants of Tehran who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair are praising, promoting and funding you: you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.

Absotively, posilutely right!

When the people that today’s left are supporting actually take over, all of the campus idiots are going to be utterly astonished when they are among the first to be lined up against the wall and shot.
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Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

The left are pro-choice on exactly one thing

Journalist James Ochoa of The Street has said that Ford is sending “mixed signals” about its “commitment” to plug in electric vehicles, but he’s got that wrong. Reality is that car buyers have sent signals that the left do not like concerning the silly things!


Ford execs send mixed signals about EV commitment

The Dearborn-based automaker’s moves are a grim reflection of the EV market

James Ochoa | Sunday, July 21, 2024 | 5:09 PM EDT

Despite CEO Jim Farley’s enthusiasm about electric vehicles, navigating the avenues of the EV marketplace has been a rocky road at best for Ford (F).

In its earnings report released in April, the Blue Oval reported that its electric car division, Model e, lost $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2024. Meanwhile, the automaker’s commercial and fleet vehicle division, Ford Pro, made $7,300 per vehicle on the nearly 400,000 vehicles it sold.

Meanwhile, the electric Model e division lost $130,000 on each of the nearly 10,000 EVs it moved in the same period.

Think about that: Ford was losing twice the cost of its most expensive electric vehicle, the F-150 lightning, on each unit sold.

During the company’s earnings call, Farley expressed that much work had to be done to make its EVs positively impact the company’s bottom line.

“We’re being very consistent about our discipline on profitability,” Farley said. “We expect every one of our EVs to make money in the first 12 months, and that is a very disciplined process.”

But here comes the kicker:

Part of Ford’s “disciplined process” is outsizing the need to build more profitable vehicles. Unfortunately for the environment, those vehicles aren’t electric vehicles but rather massive, fuel-burning, heavy-duty pickup trucks.

In a recent announcement, Blue Oval said it’s investing $3 billion to boost the output of the Super Duty, the bigger, bulkier sibling of the popular F-150 pickup trucks. These trucks, equipped with up to a 7.3-liter V8 engine, are popular with tradespeople and laymen who want extra power for towing larger objects like boats.

The article continues to tell readers about the investments the company is making to produce more of the Super Duty, which is a version of the F-250 or F-350, not the F-150 — because Ford is having trouble keeping up with the demand for the trucks. And here’s the money line:

While Ford’s Model e division loses $130,000 on each EV, Ford makes an estimated $20,000 in profit on every Super Duty.

Translation: in a market in which the federal government is providing tax credits and incentives to buy plug-in electric vehicles, Ford still cannot sell enough of them to come close to breaking even, while the company not only makes money on its larger trucks, but is just barely, if that, keeping up with the demand. While there are obviously some people who want EVs, the majority of the new vehicle buying market simply don’t want them.

But, of course, the federal government, and some state governments, want to force-feed the American people on things they do not really want. President Biden put in place a mandate that all new vehicles sold in the United States must be zero-emission by 2035, but his term ends in January. The expected Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Emhoff[1]Just because she does not respect her husband enough to have taken his name, I will not show him similar disrespect. launched her own presidential campaign in 2019, and her stated positions were even more stringent than Mr Biden’s:

  • A bold target to exceed the Paris Agreement climate goals and achieve a clean economy by 2045;
  • Investing $10 trillion in public and private funding to meet the initial 10-year mobilization necessary to stave off the worst climate impacts;
  • Modernize our transportation, energy, and water infrastructure;
  • Accelerate the spread of electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines;
  • Make big investments in battery storage, climate-smart agriculture, advanced manufacturing, and the innovative technologies that will build our carbon-free future;
  • By 2030, we will run on 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity, all new buses, heavy-duty vehicles, and vehicle fleets will be zero-emission;

As we have previously reported, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Agency (SEPTA) bought 25 battery-electric buses from California manufacturer Proterra in 2016, but all have been parked since 2020 because they were pieces of feces had problems. In November of 2022, one of the mothballed Proterra buses spontaneously caught fire, which a SEPTA spokeswoman confirmed was traced to lithium ion battery units inside the bus.

  • All new buildings will be carbon-neutral; and
  • Transition our public lands from producing the fossil fuels that represent 24 percent of national emissions to carbon sinks.

In 2023, the United States was the world’s largest crude oil producer, as it had been for the previous five years, and has the world’s greatest proven recoverable oil reserves. In 2023, the US was by far the world’s largest natural gas producer, at 1,035,000,000,000 cubic feet, 76.4% more than #2 Russia’s 586.4 billion ft³, and over four times as much as third place Iran.

The propane fireplace that is our secondary heat source.

Mrs Emhoff would curtail our oil and natural gas production where she could, raising prices for consumers, and sending more of Americans’ hard-earned dollars to foreign countries to buy oil and natural gas, and, of course, cut the number of jobs in oil and natural gas production in the US.

That is all pie-in-the-sky, and four years of economic reality ought to temper her proposals, but it tells us that Mrs Emhoff doesn’t care about what the American people actually want, as measured by our own economic choices. We vote every couple of years for political candidates, but we vote every single day of our lives with our economic choices. Those people buying gasoline-powered vehicles are voting against the Democrats’ plans to require zero-emission cars and trucks, at least for themselves. Those people buying or remodeling with natural gas furnaces and ranges are voting against the liberals’ stated policies.

The United States has been blessed with tremendous natural resources, including huge oil and natural gas resources. The US also has the world’s largest coal reserves, 250.3 billion tons, 56.1% more than second place Russia’s 160.3 billion tons. Mrs Emhoff and the Democrats would squander that great natural wealth by leaving it untapped, costing the American people wealth and jobs, and sending more of our remaining wealth overseas to buy things we currently produce ourselves.

References

References
1 Just because she does not respect her husband enough to have taken his name, I will not show him similar disrespect.

When he says we must listen to students, it needs to be all that the students say!

The Great Valley Middle School case in Malvern, Pennsylvania, has mostly faded from the news. As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported, some students created 22 faked TikTok accounts, “some depicting racist, homophobic, or sexually inappropriate content” that were attributed to teachers.

On Monday morning, Inquirer columnist Jonathan Zimmerman, pondered how to maintain freedom of speech for students and still avoid the ‘disruption’ student speech can sometimes cause. We need to listen to the students, he told readers, but missed an important point. Continue reading

You in a heap o’ trouble, girl! But, but, but, recreational drug offenses are victimless crimes!

Dominique Billups, photo by Philadelphia Police Department, via KYW News. No, of course The Philadelphia Inquirer would not publish her mugshot.

There has been something of an internet sensation, though perhaps not as much as I’d have expected, over a woman shooting a seven-month-old infant in a stroller.

None of the characters in this sad tale are a benefit to civilized society.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Police cite $100 drug debt as the reason behind the shooting of a 7-month-old; alleged shooter ID’d

Police said the parents fled the scene without their wounded child because both had open warrants.

by Max Marin | Saturday, July 20, 2024 | 3:09 PM EDT

A 28-year-old woman has been charged in the shooting of a 7-month-old infant in the city’s Holmesburg section on Thursday night that police say stemmed from a $100 drug debt with the child’s parents.

Police arrested Dominique Billups, of Northeast Philadelphia, Friday night and authorities charged her with three counts of aggravated assault, possession of an instrument of crime, reckless engagement, and related offenses, Lt. Dennis Rosenbaum said at a news conference Saturday. Continue reading