Hingham Apple store rammed at high speed.

Posted on November 21, 2022 by On the North River

One person is dead and at least 14 people are injured after SUV plows into Apple store outside Boston at ‘high speed’ and leaves building on verge of collapse

  • At least 14 people have been taken to a local hospital after a vehicle crashed into an Apple store outside of Boston on Monday morning, with four in critical condition
  • One person has died in the chaotic aftermath 
  • Witnesses say the unidentified driver was bloodied in the aftermath but survived the crash 
  • As many as four people were trapped inside the building at the time, but authorities say everyone has now been rescued
  • Several people have been spotted being taken out of the store in Hingham, Massachusetts on stretchers

pjrae54  commented recently that reading my blog on local stories makes him glad he decided to leave Massachusetts.

I’m sure he is familiar with that store and is wondering, as I am, how the Hell could someone could attain “High Speed” in that area and accidentally hit the Apple store.   There is a ninety degree corner for traffic coming in one direction and coming out of the back parking lot the Apple store is masked by Burtons restaurant.   This is very disturbing.

Prayers for the injured and the dead.

Posted in 2022 | 5 Comments

Worst Winter forecast ever.

Posted on November 20, 2022 by On the North River

Two reasons New England will suffer brutal winter energy prices and even blackouts

New England’s woes are attributable to two factors: its lack of pipeline infrastructure, which prevents it from receiving supplies from other parts of the U.S., and a century-old law known as the Jones Act that limits the delivery of fuel from the rest of the country by ship.

As a result, U.S. fuel continues to be exported at record volumes to the European Union — where gas storage facilities are full and oil is, for now, oversupplied — even as its own residents are starved of that same supply.

When a cargo is loaded in the American Gulf Coast, it will be on a foreign registered ship since all LNG tankers are foreign registered. So that ship cannot sail to another American port.
If the ship owners re-register in the US, then after USCG recertification that ship can sail to an American port but the ship owners costs for operating that ship (not including mandated US modifications) escalate.

A Congressional waiver to set aside the Jones Act would be required. But no such action has gotten anywhere in one hundred years. And how does “The Big Guy” get his cut?  And Biden’s base would howl if he signed such a bill, even if it meant some Americans would freeze to death.

In the interim, American NG is going to China and Europe.

Posted in 2022, New England | 1 Comment

“It just went off by itself… I swear! “

Posted on November 18, 2022 by On the North River

Posted in 2022, Tongue in Cheek | Leave a comment

Suspected of Carrier without a Bicycle.

Posted on November 18, 2022 by On the North River

About my day.
I was driving a friend to do some errands when while driving through Abington Massachusetts I was lit up and pulled over by a local cop. Puzzled about the why of it I prepared by running the window down and putting both hands on the steering wheel in plain sight.
The cop, who was very pleasant throughout the stop, immediately explained that the reason he had stopped me was that my bike carrier was obscuring my license plate. Know what I have is a Thule towbar mounted carrier. I’m sure that everyone knows what that is and what it looks like.
The officer said that because I didn’t have a bike mounted on the carrier he stopped me.
To make sure I understood I repeated what I heard, “You stopped me because I have a bike carrier but no bike?” He confirmed that. He continued to say that anything that obscured the license plate was illegal in Massachusetts. He offered an example that the dealer license plate holders that advertise the dealerships name were also considered illegal. So the one inch black, steel square bar that rises up from the hitch connection is illegal… in Massachusetts.
I looked at him and nodded. “This is of course related to the expansion of license plate readers on the turnpike and bridges to collect tolls.”, I said. He replied, “Oh yes, the State wants to get it’s money.”
He assured me that they are not issuing citations for this … at this time… went unsaid by both of us.

A couple of points I should mention, yes I ride a bike, I have spinal stenosis, walking is a problem but I can ride a bike since there is an angle on my spine. And I do still ride in November. But I keep the bike rack on now all year because I find it painful to walk down my very, very long driveway to put the town trash barrels out on Tuesday mornings. The handles hook nicely onto the bike rack and I can drive them down the driveway. The rack is connected with two large bolts and I have to use a half inch ratchet wrench to connect/disconnect it. Takes a while and isn’t easy for me these days. So I’m leaving the rack on the car.

“A comment I got when I wrote about this online last night was that policy is a violation of the Federal ADA law. You have a medical reason for that bike rack.”

“Another comment was simple, What? Someone stole my bike?”

I wonder if this ‘push’ to harass citizens into removing anything ‘obscuring’ the license plate is related to the thousands of license plate readers installed on all State roads in the last few years. Right now all they do is track the passage of individual cars and calculate the speed of traffic and predict the time to get to exits further down the highway. But most of the citizens in Massachusetts are unaware that a law enabling the state to convert any state road into a toll road passed mostly unnoticed years ago. With license plate scanners there is no need to install toll booths and the bill for driving on a NEW state toll road can be mailed to your home, with a surcharge added for ‘processing’.

Another item on the ledger on the side of “Time to get out of Massachusetts”.

A police state that Himmler and Stalin could only dream of.

Posted in 2022, Police, When Progressives Attack | 6 Comments

I did not see this coming.

Posted on November 16, 2022 by On the North River

Stranded Without Food? Edible Drone Has Snackable Wings

The munchable machine could be used in rescue missions.

To make the wings, the researchers trimmed up round rice cakes using a laser cutter and glued them together with gelatin to create a wing structure that could hold up to flight. The rice is strong, but lightweight and still reasonably nutritious. The drone would be a one-way proposition, but the partially edible nature means there wouldn’t be a lot of debris left behind.

The idea of edible drones has been kicking around for years. We met a chocolate quadcopter back in 2014 and a UK aerospace company talked up an edible drone called Pouncer in 2017.

Wait did they say “Chocolate”?

Posted in 2022, All the News not fit to print. | Leave a comment

The people who voted for Fetterman.

Posted on November 16, 2022 by On the North River

Republicans were annihilated by Gen Z ‘independent voters’…

These people.

Nationally, almost one in three voters were independents. In Pennsylvania, independents favored John Fetterman by 18 points, and he won by by 4.5. Raphael Warnock won independents by 28 points, and he beat Herschel by 1 point. In Arizona, Mark Kelly won independents by 31 points, and he beat masters by 5.

Gen Z 18 to 29 voted D +28 and a huge number are registered as independents.

Gen Z voted for John Fetterman by a 46 point margin.

The state of Michigan an Abortion referendum on the ballot and turnout was so great for Democrats that they swept races for Governor, State Senate and House, Attorney General, and Secretary of State.

 

They were voting for Abortion and Loan Bailouts.

Democrats put an Abortion referendum on the Midterm ballot in several states, motivating young progressives to vote, when they might normally stay home.

We’ve had these clips in queue since election day. Finally had a moment to post.

Gen Z voted in large numbers…

Posted in 2022, Can't fix Stupid | 3 Comments

Heart of Stone.

Posted on November 14, 2022 by On the North River

Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and most other social media companies are laying off thousands,  and tens of thousands.  Each.

Why?

As a recession looms, Silicon Valley is shedding the non-essential workers it acquired when unlimited venture funding made turning a profit an afterthought. Musk happens to have taken the helm at Twitter just as this reality is asserting itself. In this sense, the revolt against his leadership is the last stand of a cohort of activist hangers-on who are about to find themselves unemployed.

…

YaBoiZach was watching TikToks from laid-off Facebook employees, and he says that almost none of the laid-off people had any technical skills of any kind– they’re all in “soft” stuff like “climate,” “human rights,” recruiting, “diversity officer,” morale boosting.

He said one laid off woman was a “Niceness Maestro.” Now, that may sound like an exaggeration, and I’m sure it is an exaggeration, but I have heard of positions like “Director of Niceness” or the like at these companies.

No, I can’t link these TikToks — TikTok’s search function is terrible. I looked for them and failed.

He calls these thousands upon thousands of absolutely useless, skill-less profit-vampires “human bloatware.” Which was actually Brian Stelter’s official job title at CNN, and look what happened to him.

Many of which were recruited in the aftermath of #MeToo, and then George Floyd, and of course after Trump’s election — to serve as the #Resistance in tech.

But you can’t sustain Trump-level Human Bloatware in a Joe Biden Austerity Economy. Congratulations, #Resistance — you said “You’re fired” to yourselves.

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for these benighted and useless fools…

Posted in 2022, World's smallest violin | 1 Comment

Teaching reading to children.

Posted on November 12, 2022 by On the North River

Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

There’s an idea about how children learn to read that’s held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It’s an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn’t true and are now reckoning with the consequences — children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.

Posted in All the News not fit to print., Education | Leave a comment

Coal.

Posted on November 12, 2022 by On the North River

This was on a mailing list I get.  My comment below.

How many coal fired power plants are there in the world today


The EU has 468 – building 27 more… Total of 495

Turkey has 56 – building 93 more…

Total 149

South Africa has 79 – building 24 more… Total 103

India has 589 – building 446 more…

Total 1035

The Philippines has 19 – building 60 more…

Total 79

South Korea has 58 – building 26 more… Total of 84

Japan has 90 – building 45 more…

Total 135

China has 2,363 – building 1,171 more… Total = 3,534

That’s 5,615 projected coal-powered plants in just 8 countries.

USA has 15 – building 0 more…Total = 15

And Democrat politicians with their “green new deal” want to brainwash us and shut down those 15 plants in order to “save” the planet.

This is EXCELLENT! I knew the rough idea about the number of coal plants but had not yet seen actual numbers until now.

This makes the point. Whatever the USA does or doesn’t do won’t make a Tinker’s Damn regarding CO2 unless the rest of the world, especially China and India reduce their coal-fired power plants as well.

The whole “global warming” and “climate change” gambits by Democrats are to create a *supposedly* sound, scientific basis to justify a federal government power-grab and the passage of MORE laws to increase taxes and increased control of the privately-owned power industry and its distribution. Never forget the *main* motivation they have!

“Oh, we will SAVE the planet!!”

Comment:  The point is valid but the numbers are inaccurate.  First this seems to come from figures over five years old.  In that time there has been a lot of changes, the US has decommissioned a lot of coal burning plants, but even so the numbers for US coal plants in service is wildly inaccurate, not 15 but over two hundred.

On the other hand, most of the more modern and efficient decommissioned US coal plants weren’t destroyed but dismantled and shipped to China.

The EU isn’t building new coal plants, but (in response to the natural gas shortage in Europe) is re-starting many shut-down coal plants and coal mines.

And consider this awkward question…

And the main problem with this post is that it buys into the fallacy that CO2 is an pollutant. It isn’t, it’s a necessary part of the cycle of the planets respiration that supports all life on Earth. Ignoring the false ‘timeline’ promoted by con artists like Al Gore, in truth, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are historically low. Even dangerously low. Only a couple of hundred parts per million from the level at which plants stop growing and die. Thousands of parts per million BELOW the levels historically in the Earths atmosphere during those periods (before Man) that had the greatest growth of flora and fauna.

If the Earth’s CO2 had a gas gauge.

Posted in 2022, China, Global Warming Hoax, Green | 2 Comments

No Red Wave.

Posted on November 9, 2022 by On the North River

Confirms that we are not fixing this country by voting.

If a brain dead candidate can be ‘elected’ in PA it proves the system is both filled with stupid voters AND fraud.

Here in Massachusetts the ballot initiatives also prove that it’s time to stick a fork in this state.  It’s done.   Massachusetts voters passed an amendment to the State Constitution raising a NEW tax in Taxachusetts.    I need to start planning my departure.

Posted in 2022, Can't fix Stupid | 5 Comments