Well that’s going to be fun

Looks like our election is going to be very interesting this fall. Here’s a thought: just like Joe won’t be running it’s entirely possible Donald won’t be either. At his age anything can happen -just like what we saw with Joe. 

But enough of politics for now. I think I stirred up the hornet’s nest enough. 

Speaking of a hornet’s nest, a good friend was mowing her lawn on a riding mower and hit a ground hornet’s nest. She was stung repeatedly then fell off her mower and broke her arm. That’s what messing with a hornet’s nest will get you. In her case I wish it was only a metaphor. 

Weather here has been very wet with intense storms. A trip to VT right now involves some long detours to avoid damaged bridges and blocked roads. I’m very careful on my scooter these days. Where there once road shoulders there are three or four foot ditches. There are parts of the road to my place that are crumbling into the river. It’s like we now have spring floods several times during the summer. 

I’ve ordered a backup battery pack for my cpap. Right now I run it off my solar electric system. That’s good backup for the grid but lately I feel I need backups for my backups. While it’s still possible to turn money into useful things I might as well take advantage. Money always felt kinda make believe to me. 

Not a bad time to round out your preps. There may be some civil unrest in our future and I know there will be nasty weather issues. 

-Sixbears

Shipping and canals

The Suez Canal is in the news lately due to attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Canals are shortcuts that can save a lot of time and money. A lot of ships are taking the very long way around the tip of Africa. In a just in time world that causes some supply side disruptions. 

Just to make things interesting the Panama Canal is in trouble. The issue this time isn’t attacks but climate and weather. The canal uses a lot of water. The feeder lakes are not getting enough rain to run the canal properly. Shipping now has to take the treacherous route around the tip of South America. Once again, we have supply disruptions. 

An interesting little canal came into operation in the last couple of years. Poland built the Vistula Canal.  The reason? Russia. Ships leaving that part of Poland had to pass through the Russian controlled waters of Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. Economically it probably doesn’t make sense but politically it’s a genius move. 

So what’s the big deal about canals? Shipping is still the least expensive way to move goods around the world. Anything that affects shipping affects the world economy. 

-Sixbears

Ah Texas . . . sigh

So now Texas is acting like it can overrule the Federal Government. That’s not a thing. Abe Lincoln settled that question some years ago. Either they don’t know History or are pretending to not know it. It’s a shame that we have governors who don’t know how government works. Considering we had a President who didn’t know how government works it’s no surprise.

Apparently settling the border issue is now off the table as a certain Republican would then have nothing to run on. 

In the mean time there are desperate people drowning in the river. Of course, they aren’t voters so I guess their lives don’t matter. Being downright mean to refugees is policy -for shame. 

We are a country of immigrants. Deal with it. Due to grandstanding political posturing we aren’t fixing the problems in a sane manner. 

-Sixbears

NH Election Day

Well it’s election day in New Hampshire. Sorta. New Hampshire state law requires that New Hampshire is the first primary state. Unfortunately, the National Democratic Party says otherwise. So now we have a Democratic primary that won’t produce any delegates. Biden isn’t even on the ballot, but he’s been pushing hard for a write in campaign. I don’t know how that’s going to work for him as a lot of Democrats feel disenfranchised -being disenfranchised and all. 

The interesting stuff is happening on the Republican side where it’s still a real primary. New Hampshire has a weird quirk where Independents can declare for a party on election day. There are a lot of Independents. My guess is that we’ll have a better idea how the candidates could do in the general election. The winner won’t necessarily be determined by the party faithful. 

All I know for sure is that the polls, as usual, will probably be wrong.

-Sixbears

Polls and elections

People are getting upset about political polling numbers. Can’t we all admit by now that polls, especially at this point in the game, mean little? All they seem to do is upset people who’s candidate lost when expected to win. 

We just had some actual local elections in various states. Pay attention to who wins and by how much. Also, check out what other measures pass. Are they conservative or more liberal? That will give you a bit better idea on how the general election is shaping up. 

Think about how polls are conducted. Often it’s still done over landline phones. So you have to ask yourself: what kind of person has a landline and answers calls from strange numbers? That’s your poll pool. Throw in some cherry picked polls with questionable methodology and then it’s all a mess. 

It doesn’t help that so many politicians, on all sides, are very very old. Health or even death could remove them from the election. 

Of course, one certain politician is in deep legal trouble right now. That could give younger polliticans a chance to hit the national state. 

At any rate, interesting times. 

-Sixbears

More Trouble in the House

The House of Representatives has a new Speaker: Mike Johnson. If you didn’t know of him before don’t feel too badly. In fact, he probably won’t be around long enough to be worth knowing. If he goes beyond another six weeks I’ll be surprised. 

Republicans in the House have proven, over and over again, that they lack the ability to govern. They can’t even keep or elect a speaker it doesn’t bode well for anything else they may want to do. When you have the majority electing a speaker is the easy part. 

Should any of Mr. Johnson’s wishes somehow get turned into legislation it won’t go any further than the House. The Senate and Executive branches will kill it. This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you elected anti-government people into office you end up with people who don’t know how to do the job. 

It takes all three branches of government to pass laws in this country. A small minority in the House has been allowed to gum up the whole works. Normally that would be an inconvenience. With the world currently in crisis, it’s a tragedy. Decisive action needs to be taken and we are stuck with legislative gridlock. 

-Sixbears

Stupid Political Games

Looks like there’s another potential government shutdown in the works. 

With all the problems in the world the House thinks it’s a good idea to throw in some economic turmoil on top of everything else. There are plenty of real problems. One would think politicians would be busy enough solving problems, but that’s not what they do.

It’s also kinda twisted that so many people who support a government shutdown actually depend a lot on the government. Unless you refuse Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you. Too many people don’t even know they benefit from a lot of programs. However, they will scream when their mortgage or home improvement loan can’t be processed. 

I’m not a fan of government waste, but private business often does nothing at all or is even more wasteful. Trust me, nobody wants to go back to private fire departments. 

We can contact our representatives and tell them to get back to doing real work. At the same time prepare for a politically caused economic downturn. 

-Sixbears

Small business idiots

It wasn’t all that long ago that it was extremely rare for a small business owner to promote their politics at their business. It’s not a mystery. Why upset potential customers for nothing? 

These days, however, I see a lot of local small business promoting their political alliances. For some strange reason a lot of those businesses are struggling. A number of them have out of business. Perhaps they don’t realize that at least half the country might disagree with them? It’s easy to go on social media and get into an echo chamber where everyone appears to think like you. 

Not only are these companies losing business some of them can’t even get employees. One of my friends was so disgusted by the open politics at his job that he quite and went to work for a competitor. He just wants to clock in and do his job, not get into political debates. 

It’s one thing if your business is on-line and draws from a very large pool of people. Maybe blatant partisan politics can even be a bonus there. (if you are selling something like red hats) If your business relies on local customers it makes sense to not limit your customer base. 

I see where one local sandwich shop business quietly took down all their political signs and slogans. Too bad for them I’ve since found a different shop I enjoy more. 

-Sixbears

Canadian travel advisory

The Canadian government has issued a travel advisory. They’ve informed their citizens that LGBTQ people are not safe in certain states. Be sure to check the laws. 

It’s a shame that certain states are so unwelcoming that there are now official warnings from a foreign government. Of course, it’s no secret that plenty of US citizens now avoid certain states. That is causing plenty of real world effects on things like tourism dollars. 

Families are being separated by those laws. If one of your kids is LGBTQ you aren’t going to go visit grandma and put your kid in danger. If you’ve voted for those laws and don’t know why no one visits now you know. 

Kids growing up in those states have it rough. There’s a meanness that has crept into our political life. Sometimes it takes outsiders, like very polite Canadians, to point it out. 

As for myself, if I have to do a few linguistic tricks to make people happy I can do it. I don’t have to completely understand people to love them. 

-Sixbears

Here’s the thing about Biden

I’m not a huge Biden fan. However, with all his faults I voted for him. Most people did. That’s why he’s President. That’s how it works. 

If he loses the next election I expect he’ll graciously step down. That’s how democracy works. What I don’t expect is false claims about actually winning. I don’t expect him to encourage an insurrection. That’s someone else. 

For the sake of argument let’s say that Biden is found guilty of serious wrong doing. Picture something so serious he’s indicted and charged in a Federal court. At that point I expect he’s resign as President. 

Hope you would all enjoy President Harris. 

-Sixbears

Bad Air

Apparently environmental issues don’t respect International borders. The air is pretty bad in much of the US due to fires in Canada. We’ve been pretty lucky so far in northern NH. While we’ve gotten a whiff of smoke now and then it’s no where near NY’s orange sky levels.

So why doesn’t the US help our neighbors up in Canada? Thanks to new rules put in during the Trump administration it’s almost impossible for US firefighters to work in Canada now. The two countries used to have a very good working relationship when it came to fires. Apparently Justin Trudeau had to be punished for perceived transgressions or something like that. 

So with the obvious crisis, now stretching all the way down to D. C. itself, congress is at work. Are they tackling the problem? Of course not. They are debating about not letting Biden ban gas stoves. Funny thing, Republicans can’t even agree on that bit of political theater. Even their dysfunction is dysfunctional. 

Just wait until the western fire season gets into high gear. 

Still have those masks lying around?

-Sixbears

Blue Texas?

You make assumptions about a state but one day everything changes. Paxton just might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. When the people who are supposed to uphold the law are charged with a long list of criminal activities somethings wrong. It’s almost impossible to get impeached in Texas but Paxton managed it. 

When a party’s election plan involves voter suppression they aren’t going to last. The Democrats have the numbers. What they lack is candidates the voters can get excited about. Once again it all comes down to quality. 

In my previous blog I mentioned how people are moving to get to states where they feel more comfortable. If you are thinking of moving to TX because it’s a red state you might get surprised. Demographics are changing there. More liberal people have been moving in plus younger voters tend to be more liberal. 

You really have to drill down to see what a state is truly like and where it’s going. Take Vermont for example. This is the place that gave the country Bernie Sanders, perhaps one of the more liberal politicians the nation has. Yet the state of the Vermont is also very gun friendly. Yep, it’s one of those places with well armed liberals. Blow your mind? 

Personally, I’m interested in places where the politicians are looking to improve the lives of their citizens. If their main focus is identity politics there’s a lot of basic governing that just isn’t happening. Someone has to pay attention to the nuts and bolts of running a state. 

-Sixbears

Secrets

There’s an old saying that three can keep a secret if two are dead. That’s one extreme. On the other end the government did a pretty darn good job of keeping the development of the nuclear bomb secret. It’s amazing what war time powers, unlimited money, isolation, and compartmentalization can accomplish. 

I’m sure there are currently projects on-going with that same kind of secrecy. Never mind why I’m sure. 

Setting that aside, I think we are entering a time when more and more secrets will come out. I’m not talking so much about secret military projects but political and business secrets. A fair amount of information will come to light through the legal system. While the justice system grinds on slowly, it grinds very fine. Some long running major cases are coming to their natural end. It doesn’t matter to me which way politicians lean. If they are doing bad things I want their misdeeds to come to light. 

There’s an old saying that you don’t want to know how the sausage is made. Personally I want to know what goes into those pig guts. 

Financial stresses have brought a lot of businesses practices to light. Looking at things like bank failures shows how badly some major institutions are run. These guys are supposed to be pros? Don’t even get me started on crypto. We’ve been conditioned to accept a lot of BS from big companies. The conditioning is wearing off.

Pharmaceutical and medical companies have feet of clay. They’ve had some embarrassing things come to light. Once you accept it’s not about health care but about making huge obscene piles of money it makes sense.

We seem to be in an almost cosmic alignment where a lot of secrets are coming to light at the same time. It won’t happen overnight and there will b some chaos. However, I bet in the end we come out stronger with more protections for the little guy. 

-either that or some elites get strung up on lamp posts by their intestines. 

-Sixbears

Yeah . . . no

Do I expect to see much unrest if and when Trump is called up on criminal charges? Each time that happens?

In short, no. The number of people who’ll resort to violence for Trump isn’t that great. For those that do, there are heavy precautions in place. 

We’ve seen from the January 6 trials that those who resort to violence get the book thrown at them. An awful lot of them are being sentenced to the maximums allowable. That has a chilling effect -which is probably intentional. 

Even hardcore supporters of Trump recognize he has a lot of baggage. They are looking for someone else to vote for. 

My main concern of this post is not the politics but the dangers of civil unrest. While an extra bit of vigilance wouldn’t be out of place, things will not devolve into wide spread chaos. 

-Sixbears

No Respect for Authority

Actually, I don’t exactly have no respect for authority. I have no respect for authoritarians. Anyone who thinks they can be obeyed without question  . . . well, I question that. That’s one of the reasons I never joined the military. I understand that necessity of authority and discipline for military structures to work. That doesn’t mean it’d work for me. 

Sure, I was in a fire department with a command structure similar to the military. That similarities are only surface deep. I followed my commanding officers because I respected them and their leadership. They also were smart enough to listen to those below them. We had a saying “You can’t be a chief without all the little Indians.” 

Backstopping all that was the fact I worked in a union shop. The union had my back. Conflicts with “the leadership” were often resolved in favor of the little guys. Just the fact the union was there kept the worse abuses in check. 

With that background it puzzles me the number of people who admire authoritarians. Many people in American even liked Putin because he was a strongman who could get things done. Now we see the getting things done part involves human suicide waves to capture a bit of dirt. Then there are the crimes against humanity like missile attacks on hospitals. In spite of his crimes there are those in the west who still admire him. 

I don’t even like authoritarians who agree with most of the things I support. They may agree with me now, but there are no checks and balances to keep them agreeing with me. During Hitler’s rise he purged many of the allies who got him into power. 

US politicians can still make gains with authoritarian agendas. I don’t know why people stand for it. Maybe they never had a decent History class? Maybe I know too much History? 

At any rate, I personally think the general appeal of the authoritarian is coming to an end. There will always be a core of people who support that sort of thing. However, they won’t be enough to get their pocket Hitlers elected. That’s my hope anyway.

-Sixbears

Another Year

Another year has come to an end. 

Well, that was interesting. 

Sometimes I think the universe throws this stuff at us out of boredom. Do you ever feel like a fish in an aquarium and some snotty nosed kid keeps banging on the glass?

Hope none of you were too heavily invested in crypto. Remember though, no matter how bad your crpyto investments did, you can always laugh at people who’ve invested in NFTs. 

Looks like a fair number of people took a bath with investments in general. Real estate in particular was and is a wild ride. Maybe we should stop looking at real estate as an investment and look at it as a place to live. Heck, it’s an investment if your property has room for a chicken coop and a kitchen garden. That’s real wealth. 

If you were Russian of conscription age it was a good year to visit wondrous Uzbekistan and Georgia. If you were a Russian Oligarch it was a good year to stay the heck away from open windows. 

All I’m going to say about Ukraine is: glory to Ukraine. 

Politics were interesting this year. Once again, the universe had little reason to complain about being bored. 

I’m looking forward to 2023. Whatever happens, I don’t think it’ll be boring. 

On a personal level it was far from being a bad year. I just celebrated my 44th wedding anniversary. That’s pretty impressive for a couple of 20 year old kids who only knew each other 4 months before getting hitched. Apparently there’s at least one person I don’t piss off too badly. 

-Sixbears

Infrastructure Attacks

There’s been a number of attacks on the power grid. Personally, I wasn’t too worried about it. However, there are people who’ve asked me how serious these attacks are going to get. Well that depends on what you mean by “how serious.”

If you are on medical equipment that needs electricity and your power goes out, it’s serious. If your power is out long enough that your local water supply is impacted, it’s serious. 

It appears that at least some of these attacks are a right wing attempt to destabilize the country. Will it work? In short, no. The country is too big and too diversified. There’s not enough political support behind the attacks either. Add that to the fact arrested people will do hard time. You know those people who need medical devices and die? That will be a factor when those idiots get sentenced. 

These attacks will mostly fall in the nuisance category. 

The grid is actually in more danger from two other things. The first is weather events. Hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms, flooding: those things take down the grid all the time. The second biggest issue is poorly run grid systems. Texas takes the reward on that one. It’s like they are denial that there will ever be another cold day. 

People, as a matter of course, should prepare for infrastructure problems. Sure, they can happen due to terrorist activity, but it’s more likely that other issues will cause more problems. They will happen sooner or later. 

What won’t happen is a successful overthrow of the government through nuisance attacks. 

-Sixbears

An Interesting Winter

. . . but maybe a good spring? 

We shall see. I can make a pretty good argument for the interesting winter part. We already have an interesting fall. Just following the current issues will be enough to hold our attention. 

Inflation is in the news, and in the grocery stores. I’m not sure that the Fed’s job killing efforts are the way to go. However, I’m not an economist. Too bad, as it’s a great job. You can always be wrong and still work in your field. 

Real estate has some negative trends going on. High interest rates are making home loans more expensive. Since hurricane Ian you can expect insurance rates to go up too. Places that were hot markets during the pandemic are cooling rapidly. Turns out a lot of urban dwellers don’t like living in rural Lower East Podunk Nowhereville. 

This mid term elections are heating up. I’m betting there will be more than a few surprises on election day. Of course everyone will accept the results, shake hands, and plan for the next election. Right. That doesn’t happen so much anymore. Personally I can’t believe how many people are still stuck on the 2020 election. The world keeps on moving. Try to keep up.

The war in Ukraine is getting more intense. The Ukrainians are wisely hitting Russian logistics very hard. Russia’s response has been to hit static civilian targets. It’s a war crime and it doesn’t advance their cause. Expect more Ukrainian gains. Russian conscripts are going into a meat grinder. Some military experts expect winter to cause a major slow down in intensity. They might be in for a surprise. 

One thing to come out of all this is the weakness of Russia. They are struggling and are getting clobbered by the Ukrainian's use of western weapons. Here’s the thing. The west is only now starting to send a little of the top shelf stuff. The Russians have been getting beat with second and third tier weapons. 

Energy is an issue and will continue to be until at least spring. Europe is going to have a long cold winter. However, they are working very hard to fill the huge gap left by departing Russian fuels. By next winter they won’t even miss Russian energy supplies as they will have found alternatives. 

Gasoline prices really aren’t all that bad in the US right now. The big issue is diesel and heating oil. I know heating oil is too expensive for me this winter. The woodstove will be our primary heat source. My neighbor locked in a lower price with a prebuy program. Soon after I checked into the program only to find it was suspended in my area. 

By spring my guess is that a lot of the financial instability will be over. The trial and error school of economics will have sorted something out. The election will be behind us and new people settled into office. It’s just a feeling, but I think Russia will be seriously looking for a way out of Ukraine -if they haven’t been pushed out by then. A change of leadership is probably already in the works. As the weather warms up pressure on diesel and fuel stocks will drop. 

Spring could have a lot of things sorted out and some positive trends started. 

Of course, freaking Putin could decided to go nuclear and all bets are off.

-Sixbears

Nice Folks from Montreal

I was having a good conversation with nice older couple from Montreal. I think the old guy was happy he could talk to someone who knew something about Canadian History. His wife was probably happy that I was there to engage her husband. 

I’m not going to bore you with the last 50 years of Quebec History. However, one big issue has always been Quebec threatening to leave Canada. The vote to leave Canada back in in the 90s was a close thing. The United States almost ended up with another country on its border. 

In the end Quebec got some concessions and special treatment from the rest of Canada. One funny thing is that the rest of Canada is officially bilingual. Quebec is not. It’s French. 

The old guy went to school in Canada. Their school system struggles to show the advantages of Canada over the United States. They used the US Civil War as an example. In Canada there’s a legal procedure for leaving the union. They have a peaceful solution. In the US, not so much. There are some technicalities, but basically the South could not leave peacefully. 

Personally, I’m thinking like a Canadian here. If a state wants to leave we should just let them go. Civil war is so horrific that a peaceful separation is a better option. There aren’t a lot of examples of countries peacefully splitting apart. We do have Czechoslovakia. Back in 1993 they split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We know it can happen. We also know it’s rare. 

I’m not surprised the Canadians have a polite way of getting a political divorce. 

-Sixbears

Storm Watch

Well that was interesting. So Mr. Trump had visitors down to his place in Florida. Unfortunately he wasn’t there in person to greet his company. Instead he was in New York giving a deposition concerning a different legal matter. 

It’s a big deal to get a Federal warrant to search a place -especially for the rich and powerful. You have to convince a Federal judge that a crime has been committed and that the evidence is located in a certain place. They don’t hand them out like party treats. 

In a more perfect world politics would have nothing to do with it. Now if you don’t like Mr. Trump you can say that the reason this didn’t happen earlier was due to his political clout. If you are a fan of Mr. Trump you might think this was some sort of a witch hunt. 

It’s important to be aware that nobody has been charged with a crime -yet. That may change. Mr. Trump says he’s not worried. So now the thing to do is to wait for the legal system to slowly grind onward. 

Personally, I have hope and faith that justice will be done. We are still a nation of laws. 

-Sixbears