Quotulatiousness

March 22, 2025

Fundraising is much tougher for Democrats right now … and they’re not coping well

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It’s not just Canadian politicians getting driven completely insane by the Bad Orange Man’s antics — he’s even doing it to his domestic opponents in the Democratic party as well:

“REMINDER: It Is Offensive And Possibly Illegal To Photoshop Anything On These Democrats’ Signs That Would Make Them Look Foolish.
The Babylon Bee.

Kansas City Star:

    Democrats Suffer Blow Ahead of Senate Elections

It’s a goddamn slide show, but as it might be amusing I shall wade in. The things I do for you people …

    Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s retirement is expected to significantly impact the Democratic Party’s prospects for the upcoming Senate elections, amplifying pressure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The party’s challenges ahead have heightened with the departures of Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN). Democrats must regain four seats to reclaim the majority.

It sure looks like the Donks are planning to get clobbered in 2026. Or, more likely, they anticipate a series of bruising primary fights as the old grift-and-grin Democrats are challenged by True Believers, because as HGG has taught us — credit where it’s due — SJWs always double down. Batshit insanity is the hill they’ve chosen to die on — Trump keeps handing them 80/20 issues, and they keep jumping on the 20 with both feet.

    CNN’s Chris Cillizza recently noted the Party’s challenges in the upcoming Senate elections. With the need for a net gain of four seats, Cillizza expressed concern over potential financial limitations that may hinder effective campaigning.

Yes. “Financial limitations”. Democrat donors are stupid — if they weren’t, they wouldn’t be Democrats — but even they can see that 80 is way, way bigger than 20.

Oh, and also: It doesn’t help that you’re openly, gleefully endorsing no-shit terrorism against Tesla dealerships — and drivers! — calling for Musk’s assassination, and so on. It’s a bad look in general, and a bad look in particular, because now the guys with the big checkbooks are wondering if that kind of thing won’t happen to them if they get crosswise with the most lunatic members of the lunatic fringe (hint: It will. As the scorpion said to the frog: can’t be ‘elped, mate, it’s me nature).

    Cillizza said, “The money that gets spent there playing defense, just to hold Democratic seats, means money that doesn’t get spent playing offense in, let’s say, a state like Ohio, where Democrats are trying to recruit Sherrod Brown, the former senator, to take on John Huston, the appointed Republican senator.”

Yes, a dwindling asset pool forces those kinds of choices. It also doesn’t help that you keep going back to the well like that. One assumes there’s a reason Sherrod Brown is a former senator. Do you have no one else?

Haha, just kidding, obviously you don’t have anyone else. That’s one of the biggest problems with gerontocracy — the Groovy Fossils are going to have to be carried out at room temperature, so anyone with anything on the ball has been giving Government a pass since the 1980s. Trump went around the Official GOP for lots of reasons, but not the least of them was: he had to. They have the same gerontocracy problem as the other side of the Uniparty. It’s turtles all the way down.

    Cillizza concluded, “I just do not see it. I don’t see the money there. I don’t see the energy there. I don’t see the candidates there to expand the playing field”.

It won’t be for lack of trying, though. You’ve still got The Media in your pocket, and they can still do some damage. You’ll never get to the 80 side of those 80/20 issues, but you might get it to 50/50 — as has been done with abortion, gay “marriage”, and so on. On the other hand, those took 40, 50 years, and The Media hadn’t totally pissed away all its credibility back then. It’s a real corner you’ve backed yourselves into, guys gals persyns.

It also doesn’t help that you’re stupid:

    Democrats have identified potential pickup opportunities in Maine and North Carolina, targeting Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC).

Holy breakdancing Buddha, why would you target them? Thom Tillis is the very definition of “RINO”; Collins is a Leftist, full stop. The next time they vote against the Democrats on any issue of substance will be the first time they’ve ever done it. It’s as predictable as sunrise, so much so that it’s a joke to anyone right of Mao — the GOP officially has X number of seats, minus Collins and Murkowski.

    Vulnerabilities among current incumbents, especially Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), have added to the party’s challenges.

    Oh, don’t worry about it — the GOP will find some way to throw it. Georgia, Georgia … hey, what’s Herschel Walker up to these days? Think he’s up for another run? Why not parachute in Alan Keyes or Ben Carson? They’re still alive, right? What about “Nikki” “Haley”? She’s gotta keep her arm loose for the 2028 primaries …

      Some Democrats have remained optimistic despite the hurdles. Discussions have included potential candidates such as Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and State Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-MI) for key races. New Hampshire Democrats have prepared for competitive primaries, with Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) considering a bid for Shaheen’s seat.

    As we know, when it comes to crime 13 does 50. When it comes to Leftism, though, it’s more like 20 does 100, and there’s no better illustration than New Hampshire. It should be the reddest state in the union, and people who live there tell me it really is… except for their Congresscritters, because the good people of New Hampshire didn’t shoot every Masshole they could catch. The fine folks in Oregon, Colorado, and (soon enough) Texas know what I mean — y’all didn’t introduce migrating Californians to wood chippers when you had the chance.

February 25, 2025

Argentina’s experience of life with high tariffs

Filed under: Americas, Business, Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Marcos Falcone explains how Argentina’s unusually high tariff barriers distort ordinary economic activity for Argentines every day:

When Argentines go abroad, they usually go shopping. Many of the products they want cannot be bought at home, ranging from clothes to smartphones and all kinds of home appliances. Because of this, it has become a tradition to return from a trip with one or two extra suitcases filled with smuggled goods. Did you know that it is more expensive to buy an outdated iPhone in Argentina than it is to fly from Buenos Aires to Miami, stay for three days, and get the newest one?

[…]

Tariffs do not just make it difficult to get phones at home — they can make life dangerous as well. Argentina’s most sold car, which is artificially expensive because of protectionist measures, got 0 (zero) stars on one of Latin America’s most renowned safety tests. Cars in Argentina are not only more expensive than elsewhere in the region, but also markedly less safe.

To achieve these terrible results, the only thing Argentina had to do was enact tariffs, and now the US seems to be heading in the same direction. But in the past, protectionism has caused the same damage in the north as it caused in the south. Back in the first Trump administration, protecting the steel-production industry saved some jobs, but eliminated many more. Tariffs have also hurt businesses that rely on imports within the US and can continue to do so in a world of globally integrated supply chains. More generally, the 1933 Buy American Act, which forces the government to pay more for US-made goods, has been proven to be both ineffective and costly.

There is no escaping the negative effects of blocking outside competition. The more barriers a country enacts, the more damage it causes to itself. If we, as individuals, acted in a protectionist way, we should aim to grow our own food, build our own house, or make our own cars. But how does that make any sense? Economist Robert Solow once said, “I have a chronic deficit with my barber, who doesn’t buy a darned thing from me”. He meant it as a joke, but he had a point: What matters is to create wealth, which can be done both by selling and buying from others.

The revival of protectionism in the US is worrisome. To avoid it, Americans should take a look at the enormous destruction of wealth that tariffs have caused in other countries. Despite President Milei’s recent efforts to lift tariffs and take Argentina out of the “prison” in which it exists, the fact that the country shot itself in the foot decades ago has put it in a very delicate economic position. The US should not follow its path.

February 12, 2025

Electric vehicles and cold Canadian weather

Filed under: Cancon, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The Canadian government has been a noisy proponent for Canadians replacing their internal combustion vehicles with electric-powered alternatives, but unlike places like California it gets cold in Canada … very cold indeed at times. The CAA conducted some tests on popular EVs to find out how typical cold conditions impact the range of the cars:

Nissan Leaf electric vehicle charging.
Photo by Nissan UK

CAA is out with the results from their first ever road tests of how electric vehicles (EV) charge and perform in a Canadian winter.

They tested out 14 electric vehicles which included seven of the top 10 sellers in Canada. They were driven from Ottawa to Mont Tremblant and the temperatures during the drive ranged from -7 to -15 degrees Celsius.

Each vehicle was driven until the battery completely died to determine the range in winter conditions. The results were compared to the estimated driving range published by Natural Resources Canada. CAA says officially posted EV ranges (below) in Canada are based on overall, year-round numbers.

“CAA is responding to a top concern of Canadians when it comes to EVs,” said Ian Jack, vice-president, public affairs, CAA National. “We measured the effective range of electric vehicles in cold weather and how quickly they charge. These insights are critical for both current EV owners and those considering making the switch.”

The association says a recent poll revealed more than two-thirds of Canadians say the drop in driving range during winter is the top barrier to purchasing an EV. Out of those who own an EV, 65 per cent said they experienced a lower battery range in extreme cold weather.

The rest results showed the vehicles drove 14 to 39 per cent less than their official range.

“The vast difference in results really highlights the importance in truth and advertising when it comes to EV range and making sure that Canadians are comparing numbers when it comes to winter performance,” said Kristine D’Arbelles, Senior Director of Public Affairs for CAA National.

December 12, 2024

CHEVROLET with Cartoonist Rube Goldberg: Something for Nothing (1940)

Filed under: History, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Charlie Dean Archives
Published Aug 27, 2013

Cartoonist Rube Goldberg creates a little animation to explain how fuel is converted to power in the modern automobile engine.

CharlieDeanArchives – Archive footage from the 20th century making history come alive!

December 5, 2024

Look at Life – The City’s for Living In (1968)

Filed under: Architecture, Britain, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Classic Vehicle Channel
Published Apr 19, 2020

Traffic was still an issue in the 60’s. Residents discuss how they can divert to traffic from the city. This film features great archive of city traffic in the late 60s

November 30, 2024

QotD: Unrealized promises of a “Great Society”

Filed under: Economics, Government, History, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Black unemployment, which had been the same as that of whites in the 1950s, from the early 1960s rose above white unemployment. The gap between black and white unemployment widened. Welfare programs funded by presidents Johnson and Nixon expanded rolls to an appalling extent — appalling because welfare fostered a new sense of hopelessness and disenfranchisement among those who received it. “Boy, were we wrong about a guaranteed income!” wrote that most honest of policy makers, Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1978, looking back on a pilot program that had prolonged unemployment rather than met its goal, curtailing joblessness. The “worker versus employer” culture promoted by the unions and tolerated by the automakers suppressed creativity on the plant floor and in executive officers. Detroit built shoddy autos — the whistleblower Ralph Nader was correct when he charged that American cars were not safe. Detroit failed to come up with an automobile to compete with those made by other foreign automakers. Whereas in the 1930s American automakers’ productivity amounted to triple that of their German competitors, by the late 1960s and 1970s, German and Japanese automakers were catching up to it or pulling ahead. In the end the worker benefits that union leaders in their social democratic aspirations extracted from companies rendered the same companies so uncompetitive that employers in our industrial centers lost not merely benefits but jobs themselves. Vibrant centers of industry became “the rust belt”, something to abandon. […] What the 1960s experiment and its 1970s results suggest is that social democratic compromise comes close enough to socialism to cause economic tragedy.

Amity Shlaes, Great Society: A New History, 2020.

October 14, 2024

QotD: Americans and their cars

Filed under: Humour, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Given that, for “Americans”, cars are a pretty good proxy for personality. What you drive, and more importantly how you drive, shows everyone else on the road the state of your soul. There are entire models of car — Toyota Priuses (Prii?), Subaru Outbacks — that are only driven by SJWs. Karen drives a late-model SUV, almost universally, but if she’s forced to drive a minivan or, God help us all, a standard four-door, she’ll festoon it with a thousand of those “passive-aggressive” (or whatever we end up calling them) bumper stickers: My broomstick is in the shop. Stick-figure families in rainbow colors. Hate is not a family value (often juxtaposed, with brain-breaking obtuseness, next to one wishing that various “conservatives” would die in fires). And so on.

Severian, “Cars, Bikes, Motorcycles”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-07-25.

October 7, 2024

The demographic impact of modern cities

Filed under: Education, Health, History — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Lorenzo Warby touches on some of the social and demographic issues that David Friedman discussed the other day:

US Birth Rates from 1909-2008. The number of births per thousand people in the United States. The red segment is known as the Baby Boomer period. The drop in 1970 is due to excluding births to non-residents.
Graph by Saiarcot895 via Wikimedia Commons

Cities are demographic sinks. That is, cities have higher death rates than fertility rates.

For much of human history, cities have been unhealthy places to live. This is no longer true: cities have higher average life expectancies than rural areas. But they are still demographic sinks, for cities collapse fertility rates.

The problem is not that more women have no children, or only one child, making it to adulthood. Such women have always existed, though their share of the population has gone up across recent decades.

The key problem is the collapse in the demographic “tail” of large families. Cities are profoundly antipathetic to large families, and have always been so. This is particularly true of apartment cities — suburbs are somewhat more amenable to large families, though not enough to make up for the urbanisation effect.

While modern cities do not have slaves and household servants who were blocked from reproducing as ancient cities did, various aspects of modern technology have fertility-suppressing effects. Cars that presume a maximum of three children, for instance. An effect that is worsened by compulsory baby car-seats. Or ticketing and accommodation that presumes two children or less. There is also the deep problems of modern online dating. Plus the effects that endocrine disrupters and falling testosterone may be having.

These effects also extend to rural populations: falling fertility in rural populations is far more of a mystery than falling fertility in urban populations. How much declining metabolic health plays in all this is unclear. Indeed, futurist Samo Burja is correct, we do not really understand the “social technology” of human breeding.

Be that as it may, cities as demographic sinks is a continuation of patterns that go back to the first cities.

Matters at the margin

There are factors at the margin known to make a difference. Religious folk breed more than secular folk, though that is in part because rural people are more religious and city folk more secular.

Educating women reduces fertility. This is, in part, an urbanisation effect, as more education is available in cities. It is also an opportunity cost effect — there is more to do in cities, both paid and unpaid.

Education increases the general opportunity cost of motherhood, by expanding women’s opportunities. This also makes moving to cities more attractive. Women having more career opportunities reduces the relative attractiveness of men as marriage partners, reducing the marriage rate.

Strong cultural barriers against children outside marriage can reduce the fertility rate, by largely restricting motherhood to married women. This makes the fertility rate more dependant on the marriage rate.

Educating women makes children more expensive, as educated mothers have educated children. Part of the patterns that economist Gary Becker analysed.

September 2, 2024

There’s no limit to how progressive politicians want to control your life

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the National Post a couple of days ago, Carson Jerema provided many examples of how the Canadian federal government — despite failing and fumbling so many of its existing responsibilities — still wants to increase control over the daily lives of Canadians:

After a decade or so, progressives are on the defensive in Canada and elsewhere because regular people, as in those who are not activist weirdos, are tired of the agenda to control every aspect of our lives. Point this out to a progressive, and they will deny that anyone’s life is being interfered with and claim only some far-right monster would think otherwise. They can’t believe there are people out there who share a different view. They don’t understand how this could be.

But progressive governments are trying to control our lives in ways big and small, and in ways that range from subtle to a punch in the face.

In Canada, the federal government’s environmental policies are the most obvious example of this interference. The Liberals have banned plastic straws and plastic bags; even compostable bags are banned in grocery stores because they resemble plastic. Such bans are pointless irritants that make shopping more expensive, and life slightly less enjoyable as paper straws dissolve in one’s drink. People might dismiss these concerns as simply minor inconveniences, but this is how most people experience government policy, by being forced to replace their bag of plastic bags that they were already reusing, with more expensive, less useful options.

Next up, the Liberals are exploring options to bring in environmental regulations for clothing. The cost of clothes has actually gone down in recent years, so leave it to Ottawa to look for ways to bring the cost back up and to limit options.

There is also the plan to essentially force Canadians to purchase electric vehicles, that nobody would otherwise want, through government mandates to phase out the sale of gas-powered cars and trucks.

On a larger scale, the government is attempting to restrict the kind of work people do, specifically work in the oil and gas industry, through steep emissions targets, which will close off lucrative job opportunities in western oilfields. It will also limit the kinds of fuels people will be able to use to heat their homes.

There are also policies that the Canadian government hasn’t implemented, but which green activists have endorsed, such as the banning of gas stoves and the ludicrous suggestion from some academics that “climate lockdowns” be implemented to help cut emissions.

It is possible to be supportive of all these policies, despite their paternalistic and job-killing nature, but pretending that no one is trying to, or that no one wants to, interfere with our liberty is not a credible position to take.

July 28, 2024

How America RUINED the world’s screws! (Robertson vs. Phillips)

Filed under: Business, Cancon, History, Humour, Tools, USA, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Stumpy Nubs
Published Apr 17, 2024

May 28, 2024

Why a Tire Company Gives Out Food’s Most Famous Award

Filed under: Books, Business, Europe, Food, France, History, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Tasting History with Max Miller
Published Feb 20, 2024

Eugénie Brazier, the chef behind today’s recipe, was a culinary force to be reckoned with. She was described as “a formidable woman with a voice like a foghorn, rough language, and strong forearms”. Both of her restaurants won Michelin stars in the early 20th century, making her the first person to have six. No one else would earn six Michelin stars for 64 years.

By modern Michelin standards, this dish is pretty plain, but it’s still really good. The chicken is cooked simply in butter, and the cream sauce is absolutely fantastic. I was afraid the alcohol would overpower it, but it doesn’t. The sauce takes on a kind of floral woodiness instead of each individual alcohol’s flavor, and it’s so good.
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May 14, 2024

Tesla versus the German green activists

Filed under: Business, Environment, Germany, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

It’s not surprising that environmental activists would dislike a large factory, but this weekend’s attempted storming of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Germany must have raised a few eyebrows:

Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, 28 July 2023.
Photo by Michael Wolf via Wikimedia Commons.

Grünheide is a small town in Brandenburg and the site of Europe’s only Tesla factory. It is a rare bright point in a German economy that is otherwise rapidly deindustrialising thanks to fruitless Green environmental policies, and so it has become a flashpoint for leftist activism. You might think that the German left would have no problem with Tesla, as e-vehicles are an important pillar of the energy transition, but here you would be very wrong. Happy fairy tales about the bright future of electromobility emanate primarily from the leftist political establishment; their activist militias have different ideas, often preferring broad crusades against everything related to industry, capitalism and profit.

The Grünheide factory employs 12,000 people and contributes millions of Euros every year in taxes, which is bad enough from the activists’ point of view. Still worse, production has caused some water pollution, and Tesla plans to expand the factory, which will entail cutting down some trees. A bunch of “water justice” advocates and forest saviours have therefore crawled out of their Berlin squats and made their way to Grünheide to defend humanity from the scourge of car production.

One of them is a 25 year-old named Luis, who we read “has been committed to climate protection since 2019” and who is “concerned about drinking water”. He also doesn’t like the fact that Brandenburg has moved heaven and earth to stimulate the local economy by incentivising Tesla to set up their factory:

    Luis is bothered that many special permits were granted for the construction of the electric car factory. Tesla sometimes constructed its factory on the basis of premature approvals: “You can just tell how interested the state of Brandenburg was in having Tesla set up shop here.”

It is terrifying indeed, the extent to which regional politicians will go to attract industry and employment to their states. Somebody must put a stop to this.

Back in March, when we were all reading long think-pieces about the grave threat posed by the “extreme right” and hundreds of thousands of dim idiots were taking to the streets to denounce non-existent Nazis, a gaggle of arsonists (or, in media patois, “activists”) calling themselves the “Volcano Group” burned down an electricity pole, stopping production at the Grünheide facility for days and cutting off power to various nearby villages. Because the Volcano Group are on the left, this was not an example of escalating political violence or the fruit of brutalised social media discourse.

Yesterday, our activist heroes returned to further their bold stance against industrial production, which is something nobody has ever thought of doing before. Some of them hail from a group called “Turn off Tesla’s tap.” They have partnered with “Disrupt,” which the Süddeutsche Zeitung calls a “platform” but which appears to be little more than a Twitter account with 1,784 followers, which is so deeply reviled they have had to turn off comments on all of their posts.

May 3, 2024

The History of Half-tracks, by the Chieftain

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, Russia, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 2 May 2024

Is it a tank? Is it a truck? No, it’s a half-track! Nicholas Moran aka “The Chieftain” stops by to cover this Frankenstein of a vehicle. He looks at their origins at the turn of the twentieth century, their heyday as troop transporting, artillery towing, flak gunning, jacks-of-all-trades during the war, and their sudden decline after the war.
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Art Deco vs Streamline Moderne

Filed under: Architecture, History, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Michael Pacitti
Published Dec 24, 2022

Differentiating between Art Deco and Streamline Moderne can be difficult if you don’t know their history. They are two very different periods of design. Here is a look at those differences, characteristics, colors, transportation, influences, and more.

April 28, 2024

Look at Life – The Car Has Wings (1963)

Filed under: Britain, History, Railways, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Classic Vehicle Channel
Published Apr 19, 2020

Transporting cars by sea, air and rail. This film features wonderful traffic archives.

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