I was little when the abominable Roe was first decided. I grew up watching different administrations appointing different SCOTUS members and watched myriad suits wind their way up the court chain to try and get that poorly reasoned decision overturned. Before Roe unilaterally said HUR DUR EMANATIONS PENUMBRAS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT, abortion was working its way through 50 state populations, as each group of citizens tried to figure out what worked best for them.

Noah Rothman, who I actually like reading on occasion, is one of those Bush-era GOPers who absolutely refuse to acknowledge how/why Trump gained traction among voters. It actually beggars belief that he and those like him fail to grasp the simplicity of it all. Yes, yes, I know their standard response: TEH VOTRZ IS TEH STOOPID

I'm sure that comments like that in no way angers the GOP voting base and increases their desire to stick a thumb in the eyes of their "betters".

Okay, tangential topic due to an asinine response I got from some dullard about fracking this past weekend which I didn't have time to respond to properly.

Him: FRACKING CAUSES EARTHQUAKES AND YOU DON'T KNOW/CARE!

Me: Actually, I know quite a bit about this. For the record, seismic vulnerabilities of nuclear plants is sort of in my wheelhouse, albeit from a risk perspective rather than a structural perspective; I'm not a civil engineer, but thank goodness for them.

Children's books that didn't make it:

1. You Are Different and That's Bad

2. The Boy who Died From Eating His Vegetables

3. Dad's New Wife Robert

4. Fun Four Letter Words to Know and Share

5. Hammers, Scissors and Screwdrivers: An I-Can-Do-It Book 6. The Kid's Guide to Hitchhiking

7. Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her

8. Curious George and The High Voltage Fence

9. All Cats Go To Hell

10. The Little Sissy Who Snitched

11. Some Kittens Can Fly

12. That's It, I'm Putting You Up For Adoption

Let me see if I have this right:

1) Intentionally allow a flood of illegals into the country for several years.
2) Proclaim that you cannot do anything about the millions of illegals in the this country because doing so would be "ethnic cleansing" 3) Find a way to get non-citizen former residents of leftist hellholes to vote (already happening in some places) to make their residency irrevocable

4) Punish anyone who tries to enforce existing immigration laws which, by the way, are legion.

Anyone else think that we're raising people who have no conception how to do anything if their phone stops working? I recently spoke to a Gen Z person (bright, personable) and he needed to go somewhere for the first time. Oh noes, his phone started an auto-update and was unusable so no GPS! Not to fear, I pointed out on a map that there only 3 turns he'd have to make: onto this highway, left onto this other highway, left onto this main artery and it's on the left. Easy, right?

When Roe was wrongly decided 50 years ago, the majority of the country was anti-abortion. People worked tirelessly during that time trying to a) reduce the number of abortions and b) get Roe overturned and get the decision returned to the states. Also during that time, there was a different group working tirelessly to convince people that a) abortion was a right divinely bestowed upon humanity which trumped and b) sacrificing babies to Moloch b/c too lazy to use birth control made your life better.

2016's support of Trump by evangelicals was driven (rightly IMO) by fear of Hillary presidency. His SCOTUS nominees overturne the abominable Roe v. Wade. Whatever Trump's issues are, and they are legion, the reality that most evangelicals see is that unlike all of the GOPers who said LIFE! he was the first president whose time in office had an impact that they could see.

There are other factors which I won't go into, but the reality is that if you don't understand why Trump enjoys strong evangelical support,

If the climate alarmist cult members would use reasonable, non-apocalyptic language, I'd be willing to talk with them about historical data, models, possible impacts on climate, etcetera. Instead, I'm treated to this: IF YOU DON'T GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY AND COMPLETE CONTROL OVER YOUR LIVES THE EARTH WILL EXPLODE WITHIN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES.

Another day, another gun grabber fapping themselves into a frenzy over the thought of the government nuking its citizens, or rolling tanks into neighborhoods of those who refuse to give up their guns willingly. Let's examine the reality of the situation. 1) No one with a single functioning brain cell would nuke a city because people refused to hand over their firearms. Let's move on from this idiocy right now.

2) In response to the "we'll send in tanks" crew, let's just look at the TL:

Every time I see another commercial for e-vehicles I just shake my head. They simply cannot become the vehicle of choice and/or need for the vast majority for the foreseeable future. Here are a few reasons why: 1) The cost. Even the cheap models are expensive. And that price doesn't tell the whole story. They are heavily subsidized by the gov't to keep the prices at a point where people MIGHT be able to afford them. The gov't is essentially paying for part of the purchase price.

So I received an email from DMV stating that if I had an e-vehicle/hybrid/fuel efficient car, there's a new program I can enter to pay for miles driven rather than the "usage fee" that owners of vehicles are government is trying to force into will have to pay. BUT YOU SHOULD PAY MORE FOR BECAUSE-

Oh do shut up. A little story time.

Hard to find now, but the Timex Marathon GPS watch is a really nice low cost GPS watch (around $99 when it hit the market). If you look at it, it's exactly the same as the comparable Soleus watch with one major difference: the Timex is water resistant to about 25 meters. So the charger that comes with the watch has 2 prongs, but you'll notice that the back of the watch has four contacts, just like the Soleus.

Hmm.

So let's use the Soleus cable to see what happens...lo and behold, the data is downloadable using the Soleus software.

The constant "the planet is burning" refrain from some people in opposition to observable reality is amazing. If St. Louis were being ground to dust under a mile thick glacier, these same people would be saying "the planet is burning". I've spent most of my career analyzing data and trends and correlations and the "proof" that we're causing the world to overheat is, uh, let's just say that the analytical rigor supporting such a claim is lacking.

I understand voting for and supporting Biden because he supports your political causes, but the growing number of fawning, sycophantic, rhetorically-fellating comments I'm seeing about Biden are making my gag reflex act up. "I can't believe how great Biden's economic plan is working."

"I'm astounded at Biden's foreign policy success, which has surpassed even my wildest dreams."

[insert more cringe worthy debris here]

Bulwark and other grifting types: I cannot like and/or RT this enough. Endorsed.

What if Santa answered his letters truthfully? Deer Santa,
I wud like a kool toy space ranjur fer Xmas. Iv ben a gud boy all yeer.
Yer Frend,
BiLLy

So the Twitter files continue to dump and the grifters and other usual suspects are chiming in as expected:

1) It wasn't shadowbanning. They called it "anal kitten raping" so it wasn't shadowbanning. Duh. 2) Look at all the conspiracy nuts claiming vindication just because everything they've claimed for years just happened to turn out to be true. Pure guesswork and they're still nuts.

A man was walking home alone late one foggy night, when behind him he hears:

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP... Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.

BUMP...

BUMP...

BUMP...

As someone who has spent the better part of 2 decades in power generation, I am simultaneously amused and irritated by those who claim we can go 100% renewables (they mean wind/solar, not biosmass/wood) and it will be easy. We cannot and it will not. There are spot places where wind and solar make sense, but it is not possible under existing technologies to power the grid. And I'm not even counting the storage problems for dark/no wind periods.

I broke my own rule and mentioned Nipples again. I've said many times that ignoring him was the way to go. Deprive him of oxygen and let him scream into the void. However, I just couldn't resist today. Call it a personal failing, but watching a public tantrum because no one listens to him anymore was just...fun.

There was a time when Nipples and his advice were sought in the GOP.

Seeing PA say, in defiance of a SCOTUS ruling about undated ballots, say "F*ck it, we're going to count them even though they're illegal" is giving me flashbacks to 2020. Imagine this scenario. Republicans are leading races across the state and then late in the evening, hey, we need to take a break from counting until morning. And then questions arise about the undated ballots being counted.