The Work Truck Blog: Hating on EVs.

The Work Truck Blog: Hating on EVs.: 

Hating on EVs.

Oh my, they're here:

An earlier thread here:

The Work Truck Blog: Wyoming Delegation: Everyone Wants Internal Combus...: 

Wyoming Delegation: Everyone Wants Internal Combustion Engines, Enough With EV Nonsense

Wyoming Delegation: Everyone Wants Internal Combustion Engines, Enough With EV Nonsense

There is a real holding back the tide aspect to this.  Electric vehicles are coming, and soon.

Indeed, they aren't really new.

Something is really up with the GOP hating on EV's. It's really bizarre.  And it's not just Wyoming.  Consider that Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, who was on a tear the other day, posting tweet after tweet about electric vehicles.

California insists it's “speculative” to assume EVs will remain heavier than gas cars.

 

Public policy should reflect reality, not the baseless future dream of featherweight electric cars.

What’s speculative, obviously, is assuming with no evidence that their weight will change.

Heavy? Great. We used to complain that fuel efficient vehicles were too light.

To read the GOP propaganda in some quarters, Electric Vehicles travel in rogue bands, cross the Rhine, sack and loot villages, and take your daughters.

It's really absurd. 

All this comes about due to a Biden Administration proposed fuel efficiency mandate designed to spur on the development of EVs.  This is similar to what was done in the 70s and 80s concerning mileage standards, which some people also howled about.  And it's similar to what was done regarding water efficiency and electric efficiency in appliances since the 1970s.  In each instance, there were complainers who howled it was Federal overreach and the standard could't be met.  In each instance, however, industry had little trouble meeting it.

The truth of the matter is that EVs are now here, and there's a real holding back the tide aspect of this.  They're going to dominate in the near future, and each and every one of the supposed reasons that won't happen will be proven wrong, as will the common assertions it won't matter.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 7. What would that look like, and why would it fix anything, other than limiting my choices and lightening my wallet? Wouldn't every one be just bored and poor?

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with th...:   

 

His life will grow out of the ground like the other lives of the place, and take its place among them. He will be with them - neither ignorant of them, nor indifferent to them, nor against them - and so at last he will grow to be native-born. That is, he must reenter the silence and the darkness, and be born again.

Wendell Berry, A Native Hill.

So we've gone through this and lamented on the state of the world.

We looked at how working for largely local businesses, in an economy in which most were local, would work, in terms of economics.

In other words, if you needed an appliance, and went to Wally's Appliance Store, owned and operated by Wally, rather than Walmart, owned and operated by anonymous corporate shareholders, how would that look?

And we looked at something more radical yet, Agrarianism.

So how does this all tie together, and what difference would it really make?

Let's revisit the definition of Agrarianism.

Given the above, isn't Agrarianism simply agricultural distributism?

Well, no.

Agrarianism is an ethical perspective that privileges an agriculturally oriented political economy. At its most concise, agrarianism is “the idea that agriculture and those whose occupation involves agriculture are especially important and valuable elements of society

Bradley M. Jones, American Agrarianism.

Agrarianism is agriculture oriented on an up close and personal basis, and as such, it's family oriented, and land ethic oriented.

We also noted that agrarianism as we define it incorporates The Land Ethic, which holds:

All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts.The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants and animals, or collectively the land.

The Land Ethic, A Sand County Almanac.  Aldo Leopold.

So what would this mean to society at large, and a distributist society at that?

To start with, it would mean a lot more family farm operations, and no remotely owned and operated ones where the land was held by Bill Gates or the Chinese Communist Party. Combined with Distributism, it would also mean a lot more local processing of agricultural products.  Local packing houses, local flour mills, local bakeries.

It would also mean a society that was focused on local ownership of homes with residents who lived a more local, land ethic focused, lives.

Indeed, the local would matter much more in general.

And with it, humanity.

There would still be the rich and the poor, but not the remote rich and the ignorable poor.

Most people would be in the middle, and most of them, owning their own. They'd be more independent in that sense, and therefore less subject to the whims of remote employers, economic interests, and politicians.

All three major aspects of Catholic Social Teaching, humanity, subsidiarity, and solidarity, coming together.

An agrarian society would be much less focused on "growth", if focused on it at all.  Preservation of agricultural and wild lands would be paramount.  People would derive their social values in part from that, rather than the host of panem et circenses distractions they now do, or at least they could. 

They'd derive their leisure from it as well, and therefore appreciate it more.  If hiking in a local park, or going fishing, or being outdoors in general is what we would do, and we very much would as the big mega entertainment sources of all types are largely corporate in nature, preservation of the wild would be important.  

And this too, combined with what we've noted before, a distributist society and a society that was well-educated, would amount to a radical, and beneficial, reorientation of society.

We won't pretend that such a society would be prefect.  That would be absurd.  Human nature would remain that. All the vices that presently exist, still would, but with no corporate sources to feed them, they'd not grow as prominent.

And we will state that it would cure many of the ills that now confront us.

Such a society would force us to confront our nature and nature itself.  And to do so as a party of a greater community, for our common good.

Which, if we do not end up doing, will destroy us in the end.

Last prior:

A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 6. Politics

Directly related:

What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 3. Agrarianism.

Finis

Wednesday, March 22, 1944. German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Admiral Doenitz orders his U-boats to disperse and work singly.  Convoy attacks were halted in anticipation of new U-boat designs coming on.  Effectively, this amounted to a concession of German defeat in the Battle of the Atlantic.

New Zealanders made an unsuccessful assault on Monte Cassino.  After its failure, Allied defensive lines are consolidated.

The US OSS began Operation Ginny II, again intending to cut rail lines in Italy, and once again failing, this time as the landing party was beached in the wrong place and captured.

80% of the B-25s of the 340th Bombardment Group were destroyed by volcanic boulders from Vesuvius.

The Corpo Italiano di Liberazione (Italian Liberation Corps) was organized to collect the Royal Italain Army units that were now part of the Allied armies.  

Döme Sztójay replaced Miklós Kállay as Prime Minister of Hungary, and the country promulgated anti-Jewish legislation and ordered all Jewish businesses to close. The roundups of Hungarian Jews were soon to begin and the country would reenter the war as a German ally.

Hedwig Jahnow died at age 65 of malnutrition at Theresienstadt.  She was a German teacher and an Old Testament theologian who studied Rabbinic Dirge and remains significant in those studies.

On the same day, and at the same location, important pre Nazi German legal advisor to banking and industry, Albert Katzenellenbogen, died.

The Red Army took Pervomaysk

Mortar crew of 164th Inf. Regt., Americal Div., on Bougainville Island. 22 March, 1944.  All of these men were from Minnesota. All enlisted, this photograph is unusual in that one of the soldiers, PFC Russell Campbell, is wearing his service cap with the stiffner removed, something almost never seen in the case of U.S. soldiers in combat outside of airmen.

The only example of the Northrup XP-56, the first one having been destroyed in a crash, was photographed in anticipation of its first flight the following day.

Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet (s/n 42-38353) on the ground at Muroc Army Air Field, California, March 22, 1944.

The weird aircraft was not a success.

Sarah Sundin's excellent blog on daily events in World War Two, whose feed updates are no longer working, notes this item:

In US, “A” gas rationing cards (basic passenger car ration) are cut from three gallons per week to two gallons. 

Two gallons per week.

Could you get by on two gallons per week?  Most days I drive a 1/4 ton Utility Truck, which is better known as a Jeep, and while it's small, it gets terrible mileage.  I know that I use more than two gallons per week, but I would if I was driving my fuel efficient diesel truck as well.  If I was limited to two gallons per week, I'd have to make major life changes.

Should I be pondering this as Congress, through the neglect of Ukraine, pushes us ever closer to a war with Russia, should she invade the Balkans?

During World War Two I know that my grandfather had a different class of ration ticket as his vehicle was used for business.  His car was a "business coupe", which is about all I know about it.

I know it had a gasoline personnel heater, which probably provides a clue, but I still don't know who made it.

I had a 1954 Chevrolet at one time, and it got really good mileage.  Interestingly, a 1973 Mercury Comet, with a really powerful V8 engine we had, also did.  According to one site about older cars, the business couple should be something like this:

My '38 gets around 17-18 MPG @ 50 MPH. It drops to around 12-14 @ 60. She just doesn't like being pushed that hard.

My 54, and the 73, got much better mileage than that.

Whatever mileage the business coupé got, my father sort of brushed gasoline rationing off when I asked him about it, due to the other category of ticket.  I don't know what that really meant, however.

Of course, for most long travel of any kind, people took the train.  Something that we might want to consider as potentially being something that may very well return.  High speed rail, for that matter, may be coming to Wyoming.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, March 21, 1944. Dear John.

1940s, 1944, Aircraft, Churches, Continuation War, Kamikaze, Miles City Montana, New Guinea, Operation Margarethe, Operation U-Go, The relationship between men and women, The written word, World War Two

Monday, March 22, 1824. The Fall Creek Massacre

The Fall Creek Massacre occured in which Native Americans of uncertain tribal origin, two men, three women, two boys, and two girls were killed by seven white settlers in Madison County, Indiana. 

The perpetrators would be caught, tried and sentenced to execution, in the first instance of European Americans being executed for the murder of Native Americans under U.S. law.  Not all were, however, as the Governor arrived during the executions and pardoned those who had not yet had their sentence carried out.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, March 17, 1824. Irish in Savannah and Old Glory

1810s, 1814, 1820s, 1824, 1830s, 1837, Diplomacy, Ethnicities, Georgia, Ireland, Netherlands, Personalities, St. Patrick's Day, United Kingdom

March 21, 1774

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, March 18, 1774. Lord North goofs.: Lord Frederick North introduced the Boston Port Act to the House of Commons.  The proposed act stated: Parliament of Great Britain Anno Deci...

On this day the Port Act passed, closing, in time delayed fashion, the Port of Boston.

Last Prior Edition:

Friday, March 18, 1774. Lord North goofs.

Blog Mirror: Tom Lubnau: The Headline For Failure -- The Wyoming Republican Party

Tom Lubnau: The Headline For Failure -- The Wyoming Republican Party

Tuesday, March 21, 1944. Dear John.

The first in print use of the term "Dear John Letter" appeared in a UPI article entitled Hollywood Girls Gain Weight on Tour in Africa.¹   It was clear from the use, which was a quote from one of the increasingly corpulent Hollywood Girls that the term was in the common vernacular at the time.

We've touched on the topic of wartime marriages and breakups several times before, but my ability to link them in is restrained, as I can't find them all.  We haven't done one on wartime romantic relationships in general.  As our Fourth Law of History details, War Changes Everything, but like a lot of things surrounding World War Two, this topic is subject to a lot of myth.  According to one scholarly source:

Marriage rates rose in 1940-41 and peaked in 1942, only to slow down during the war and rise to even higher levels in 1946. Divorce rates followed a much smoother pattern, increasing from 1940 to 1946, then quickly declining in 1947.

World War II and Divorce: A Life-Course Perspective by Eliza K. Pavalko and Glen H. Elder, Jr.  

Frankly, looking at it, the Second World War didn't impact divorce nearly as much as commonly believed.  If it is taken into consideration that World War Two came immediately on the heels of the Great Depression, and that the ages of US troops in the war was higher than commonly imagined, it makes sense.  Consider:

While the Great Depression did lower marriage rates, the effect was not long lasting: marriages were delayed, not denied. The primary long-run effect of the downturn on marriage was stability: Marriages formed in tough economic times were more likely to survive compared to matches made in more prosperous time periods.

Love in the Time of the Depression: The Effect of Economic Conditions on Marriage in the Great Depression, Matthew J. Hill.

Indeed, that short snipped is revealing.

There were a lot of marriages contracted before soldiers went overseas, and some people did marry very quickly, which is probably balanced out by a lot of people who were going to get married anyhow getting married before they would be husband deployed.  Also, according to The Great Plains during World War II  by Prof. R. Douglas Hurt, there was an increase of pre deployment pre marital contact, although the book relied solely on interview data for that claim.  Having said that, a Florida academic, Alan Petigny, has noted that "between the beginning of World War II in 1941 and the inaugural issue of Playboy in 1953, the overall rate of single motherhood more than doubled".²

That the war had an impact on behavior in regard to relations outside of marriage is well documented.  Prostitution was rampant in every area where troops were deployed, with it being openly engaged in locations like London.  Examples of illicit behavior aren't very hard to find at all.  The length of the war no doubt contributed to this.  Nonetheless, traditional moral conduct dominated throughout the 1940s and after it, with the real, and disastrous, changes really starting in the early 1950s.

That "Dear John" letters weren't uncommon makes a lot of sense, however. The majority, but not all of them, would have been written by single women to single men, i.e., by girlfriend to boyfriend.  Those relationships were not solemnized and largely unconsummated, if we use those terms.  The war was long and accordingly the separations were as well.  Young women in many instances would have aged a few years, as the men would have also, but in conditions that were dramatically different than the men.  The women were, to a large degree, temporarily forced outside their homes, if they fit into the demographic that would have remained at home, but in conditions that were considerably more stable than the men.  If they went to work, they could have remained at one employer for years, whereas the soldier boyfriend may very well have constantly been on the move. Workplace romances certainly aren't uncommon now, with around 20% of Americans having met their spouses at work (Forbes claims its 43%).  Some large percentage of Americans have dated a coworker.  Given the long separations, a young woman meeting a man at work, or perhaps at church, or in her group of friends, was undoubtedly a common occurrence during the war, as it was never the case that all men were deployed, even though a very large number were.

FWIW, the Vietnam War is associated with the highest rate of "Dear John" letters, even though troops deployed for only one year in the country.  This undoubtedly says something about the change in economic and social conditions from the 1940s to the 1960s.

On a personally anecdotal level, I think I've met three people, now all deceased, who married during the war prior to the husband deploying.  One of those marriages failed, but the other two were lifelong.

The 20th Indian Division completed a withdrawal to the Shenan Hills. The 17th Indian Division was conducting a fighting withdrawal.

The Japanese were accordingly engaging in a very successful offensive in northeast Burma.  The war in that quarter was far from settled.  Be that as it may, as that was going on, the Western Allies were advancing in the Pacific ever close to Japan itself, which Japan was proving unable to arrest.  The Japanese situation, therefore, was oddly complicated in that in order to really reverse the tide of the war, they would have had to taken Indian entirely, and then knocked China out of the war, neither of which was realistic in spite of its recent battlefield successes.

As that was going on:

The Aerodrome: 21–25 April 1944. First Helicopter Combat Rescue: 21–25 April 1944.

We don't think of helicopters in World War Two, but they were starting to show up, and in one of their classic roles.

US and Australian troops linked up on the Huon Peninsula.  

Fighting in New Guinea, while going in the Allied direction, was proving endless.

The Finnish parliament, in a secret session, rejected Soviet peace terms.  Secret or not, the Finnish rejection hit American newspapers that very day.  That the Finns and Soviets were talking was very well known to everyone.

The papers were also noting the German invasion of Hungary, and there were rumors that Hungary was going to declare war on Germany, which proved far from true.  The Hungarian situation must have caused some concern, however, in Finland.

It was the first flight of the Japanese kamikaze rocket plane, the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka (櫻花)

The first flight was an unpowered test.

It might be noted that there's a real logic failure with this design.  If you can build a powered rocket suicide plane, you can build a rocket powered drone.

The ice jammed Yellowstone broke over its banks in Miles City, Montana.

The Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit was founded near Conyers, Georgia.

Footnotes:

1. The "girls" were Louise Allbritton, an actress who would have been 23 years old at the time, and June Clyde, who would have been 35.

Allbritton married a CBS news correspondent in 1946 and retired from acting.  She remained married until her death in 1979.  Clyde, who was a pre code actress and dancer, was married (1930) and also remained for the rest of her life. She passed away in 1987.

2.  World War One, which was comparatively short, does not seem to have impacted behavior and marriage rates nearly as much, but it did cause a very notable boom in overseas "war bride" marriages anywhere American troops were deployed, including Siberia.

There were, of course, war brides as a result of World War Two, but that's another story.

Related items:

Yeoman's Laws of History

Father Arne and the Greatest Failure of the Greatest Generation

1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Baby Boom Generation, Great Migration, It was because of World War Two, mehr Mensch sein, trends, World War II (Greatest) Generation, World War Two, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Friday, June 19, 1942 . James Dougherty and Norma Jean Baker marry. The Second Washington Conference commenced. The Germans execute Eliáš,

1940s, 1942s, Commandos, Czechoslovakia, Infantry, Marilyn Monroe, Personalities, Rangers, Second Washington Conference, Special Air Service, Special Boat Service, Teenagers, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 20, 1944. Landings, port stops, potential halts.

1940s, 1944, 1944 at the Movies, Eastern Front, India, Italy, Monte Cassino, Movies, Operation Cartwheel, Operation U-Go, Ukraine, World War Two

Saturday, March 21, 1874. Home on the Range.

Dr. Higley.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 21: 

March 21

1874  My Western Home, better known as Home On The Range, was published by Dr. Brewster Higley, a Kansas homesteader, in the The Kirwin Chief.  It was shortly set to music by a friend of his.

My Western Home

by Dr. Brewster Higley

Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam

Where the Deer and the Antelope play;

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

A home! A home!

Where the Deer and the Antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

And the sky is not clouded all day.

Oh! give me a land where the bright diamond sand

Throws its light from the glittering streams,

Where glideth along the graceful white swan,

Like the maid in her heavenly dreams.

Chorus

Oh! give me a gale of the Solomon vale,

Where the life streams with buoyancy flow;

On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever,

Any poisonous herbage doth grow.

Chorus

How often at night, when the heavens were bright,

With the light of the twinkling stars

Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazed,

If their glory exceed that of ours.

Chorus

I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours,

I love the wild curlew’s shrill scream;

The bluffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks

That graze on the mountains so green.

Chorus

The air is so pure and the breezes so fine,

The zephyrs so balmy and light,

That I would not exchange my home here to range

Forever in azures so bright.

Chorus

1904 Version of the text

by William and Mary Goodwin:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play;

There seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

A home, a home

Where the deer and the antelope play,

There seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the sky is not cloudy all day.

Yes, give me the gleam of the swift mountain stream

And the place where no hurricane blows;

Oh, give me the park where the prairie dogs bark

And the mountain all covered with snow.

Chorus

Oh, give me the hills and the ring of the drills

And the rich silver ore in the ground;

Yes, give me the gulch where the miner can sluice

And the bright, yellow gold can be found.

Chorus

Oh, give me the mine where the prospectors find

The gold in its own native land;

And the hot springs below where the sick people go

And camp on the banks of the Grande.

Chorus

Oh, give me the steed and the gun that I need

To shoot game for my own cabin home;

Then give me the camp where the fire is the lamp

And the wild Rocky Mountains to roam.

Chorus

Yes, give me the home where the prospectors roam

Their business is always alive

In these wild western hills midst the ring of the drills

Oh, there let me live till I die.

Chorus

1910 Version of the Text

by John A. Lomax

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

Where the deer and the antelope play,

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Chorus:

Home, home on the range,

Where the deer and the antelope play;

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day.

Where the air is so pure, the zephyrs so free,

The breezes so balmy and light,

That I would not exchange my home on the range

For all of the cities so bright.

Chorus

The red man was pressed from this part of the West

He’s likely no more to return,

To the banks of Red River where seldom if ever

Their flickering camp-fires burn.

Chorus

How often at night when the heavens are bright

With the light from the glittering stars

Have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed

If their glory exceeds that of ours.

Chorus

Oh, I love these wild prairies where I roam

The curlew I love to hear scream,

And I love the white rocks and the antelope flocks

That graze on the mountain-tops green.

Chorus

Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand

Flows leisurely down the stream;

Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along

Like a maid in a heavenly dream.

Chorus

Last Prior Edition:

Tuesday, March 17, 1874. John Younger shot and killed

1870s, 1874, Crime, Missouri, Personalities

Dear Candidate,

Average Wyoming candidate on campaign trail.

Thank you for running for office.  If I assume that your goals are honorable, which I shall until proven otherwise, you deserve our thanks for running.

Until, that is, you don't.

As the election hurtles towards November, there are a few things I'd like for you to keep in mind.

The first is, I'm not stupid, and a lot of voters aren't either.  Quit acting like we are.

For that reason, if you are an incumbent, don't send me a letter that brings up a topic and then immediately hurl into "Biden's radical green agenda" and other such things.  In quite a few instances, I believe you don't believe a word of what you are saying.  Coming from here, I know that you have to be conservative, or pretend that you are, but if you weren't a populist when first elected, I know that you aren't now.  You are lying to me, as you know that a lot of imports and gullible are led to their positions.

Some of us think about them.

If you've been holding office, I want to know what you've done for the good of the country, and the good of the state, and why you believe what you cite was good.  That doesn't mean immediately launching off on a screed that holds the opposing party is evil incarnate, which will mean, from my prospective, that you can't think of anything to tell me of what you accomplished.

I'm not going to vote, I'd note, for a liar.  If you are telling me that Trump is great and the election was stolen, I know that you are lying and don't believe that, if you are an incumbent.   If you aren't, and run around saying that, I'll regard you as ill-informed at best.  

Just tell the truth.

If you send me an email that states:

From where I sit, it looks like Democrats are doing their best to screw up your life. The rising prices of groceries, gas, new cars, homes, and tuition, along with the increasing crime in our communities.

It's not your fault, but the Democrats are not going to stop.

I'm not going to be happy.  From where you sit, you don't believe for a second that the "Democrats are doing their best to screw up" my life.  You are lying to me, and you believe that I don't think.  No serious person thinks that the Democrats are purposely trying to increase inflation or crime. That's patently absurd.

If your positions comport 100% with your party's I'll know that you are lying or, almost worse, completely unthinking.

If you campaign like you aren't from here, and run on issues that don't matter, or that most Wyomingites are on the other side of, I'll assume that your default setting is set somewhere else.  I don't want you talking about Kerri Lake or trials in Georgia.

For that matter, I know that some of you "radical green agenda" folks actually believe in climate change, but are afraid to say it.  I know that some of you who are now for transgenderism or deeply disturbed dudes being admitted to sororities, actually find that icky, but your politics is governing your thought, not the other way around.  I know that some of you know that electric vehicles are going to replace gasoline ones, no matter what you say.   I know that none of you really think sixteen weeks is when a person suddenly becomes a human being.

If you campaign on something contrary to science, no matter how unpopular it is, don't bother me.

If your only arguments are economic, in the end, don't bother me either.  "Vote for me so that we all get richer" isn't what I want to hear.

If you cite your (Christian) religion, I'd like evidence that you grasp it.  If you are divorced and remarried, claim that we aren't our brother's keeper, or that God is keen with abusing refugees, I don't believe you for a second.  If you've switched churches to accommodate a divorce and remarriage, or for politics, I'll feel that you don't really believe in what you espouse much.  If you are an Apostolic Christian who can compromise on abortion, I'll feel that you can compromise on anything.  If you are an Evangelical Protestant who believes the Constitution of the United States is divinely ordained and subject to your special interpretation, I'm not voting for you ever.

I know that some of you who spout about family values have not lived them or have compromised deeply on them.  I'd rather you admit that, then pretend that you are in the outer camp at the Sermon on the Mount.  If you cite your deep convictions, but they don't reflect what a personal life should reflect by somebody holding them, I'd like to know the reason, no matter how personal.  There may be a very good reason, or maybe it was just personal convenience.  It matters.

If you find that uncomfortable, I'd frankly rather have you act like Kyrsten Sinema or Tammy Duckworth and just say that your personal beliefs are personal, and not particularly any of your business.  At least that's not acting like John Brown on the campaign trail, but not in the house.

If you come to me and proclaim your support for Israel but not for Ukraine, you better be able to explain it, and not in Evangelical Protestant terms.

If you were of conscription age during the Vietnam War, and were male, and didn't serve, I want to know why.  I'll accept an honest answer, including that you evaded service.  But I don't want a lot of flag waiving followed by "I wanted to go, but I had bad dandruff" or whatever.

I'd like to know what your real connection with the state is.  If you don't really have one, and washed up here for economic reasons, just admit it.  

I want to know what you failed at and what you were wrong about, including politically.  If the answer is nothing, I don't believe you and can't trust you.

I want to you to run an entire campaign and not mention Joe Biden or Donald Trump a single time. They have their own race.  Saying "I hate Joe Biden" or "I love Donald Trump" is the political equivalent to saying in the same campaign "I hate Rocky Road ice cream, but I love Vanilla".  It's irrelevant.

I want you to say, during your campaign, at least one thing that your party opposes, but you know to be true.  "We need to raise taxes" would be a good start.

I want you to show a personal command of something really boring but important during the campaign.  Launch into a discussion of the Social Security Act, give a detailed explanation of the role of the Federal Court of Claims, discussing bovine infectious diseases. Something. And, once again, I want you do to that without launching into some BS attack on the opposing party, as in "Scrapie is a fatal brain disease of sheep and goats and is related to other similar diseases in other mammals. It remains a threat to the sheep industry, AND JOE BIDEN'S RADICAL GREEN AGENDA IS GOING TO STEAL YOUR LUNCH, SHAVE YOUR CATS, AND CONVERT YOUR DAUGHTER'S INTO LESBIAN MUSLIM TAYLOR SWIFT FANS"

Finally, on economic issues which you will be voting on, I want you to be bold enough to say that you'll pledge your personal assets for not getting our spending problems fixed.  If you really believe lowering taxes is going to cause all boats to rise, so be it, but put your cash in the boat.  The rest of us already do, whether we like it or not.

Blog Mirror: Winter fighting in Ukraine. In the US, Putin-loving Republicans withhold aid. History is watching.

 

Winter fighting in Ukraine. In the US, Putin-loving Republicans withhold aid. History is watching.

Trump's political epitaph?

Almost 30 years ago, I cited in The Atlantic some advice I’d heard dispensed by an old hand to a political novice in a congressional race. “There are only two issues when running against an incumbent,” the stager said. “[The incumbent’s] record, and I’m not a kook.” Beyond that, he went on, “if a subject can’t elect you to Congress, don’t talk about it.”

The same advice applies even more to presidential campaigns.

Trump defies such advice. His two issues are his record and Yes, I am a kook. The subjects that won’t get him elected to anything are the subjects that he is most determined to talk about.

In Raymond Chandler’s novel The Long Goodbye, the private eye Philip Marlowe breaks off a friendship with a searing farewell: “You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.” When historians write their epitaphs for Trump’s 2024 campaign, that could well be their verdict.

David Frum, The Atlantic.

Monday, March 20, 1944. Landings, port stops, potential halts.

U.S. Marines landed unopposed on Emirau in the last stage of Operation Cartwheel in the Bismarks. 

The Battle of Sangshak began in Minipur on the Burmese frontier with India.

African American crew members of the USS Mason, March 20, 1944. Boston.

The Red Army took Vinnytsia and Mohyliv-Podilskyi.  Vinnytsia had been the site of Hitler's headquarters in Ukraine.

Gen. Alexander agrees to call off attacks at Monte Cassino if progress is not made within the next two days.

The Rita Hayworth film Cover Girl was released.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, March 19, 1944. Germany invades Hungary.

Thursday, March 20, 1924. Barbarity Codified.

Virginia's Racial Integrity Act and Eugenical Sterilization Act went into effect, seeing two vile trains of thought combine into legislation on a single day.

The former barred that if a person had a great-grandparent who was black, they were black, and were barred from marrying outside of that racial category.  The Pocahontas Clause" provided an exception for Native American heritage, sort of, in that if a person had 15/16th European heritage, they would be deemed white.

An emergency existing, this act shall be enforced from its passage.

Chap. 394. - An ACT to provide for the sexual sterilization of inmates of State institutions in certain cases. [S B 281]

Approved March 20, 1924.

Whereas, both the health of the individual patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives under careful safeguard and by competent and conscientious authority, and

 Whereas, such sterilization may be effected in males by the operation of vasectomy and in females by the operation of salpingectomy, both of which said operations may be performed without serious pain or substantial danger to the life of the patient, and

 Whereas, the Commonwealth has in custodial care and is supporting in various State institutions many defective persons who if now discharged or paroled would likely become by the propagation of their kind a menace to society but who if incapable of procreating might properly and safely be discharged or paroled and become self-supporting with benefit both to themselves and to society, and

Whereas, human experience has demonstrated that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of sanity, idiocy, imbecility, epilepsy and crime, now, therefore

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That whenever the superintendent of the Western State Hospital, or of the Eastern State Hospital, or of the Southwestern State Hospital, or of the Central State Hospital, or the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, shall be of opinion that it is for the best interests of the patients and of society that any inmate of the institution under his care should be sexually sterilized, such superintendent is hereby authorized to perform, or cause to be performed by some capable physicians or surgeon, the operation of sterilization on any such patient confined in such institution afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy; provided that such superintendent shall have first complied with the requirements of this act.

 2. Such superintendent shall first present to the special board of directors of his hospital or colony a petition stating the facts of the case and the grounds of his opinion, verified by his affidavit to the best of his knowledge and belief, and praying that an order may be entered by said board requiring him to perform or have performed by some competent physician to be designated by him in his said petition or by said board in its order, upon the inmate of his institution named in such petition, the operation of vasectomy if upon a male and of salpingectomy if upon a female.

 A copy of said petition must be served upon the inmate together with a notice in writing designating the time and place in the said institution, not less than thirty days before the presentation of such petition to said special board of directors when and where said board may hear and act upon such petition [10]

—Virginia General Assembly, March 20, 1924

Finnair commenced commercial flights.