Random Observations - v6

Some random observations from the past few weeks:

• We joyfully welcomed our fifth grandchild this month. A magnificent little girl that tips the score to 3-2 in favor of the fairer sex (we only have two genders in this family). Each time I’ve had the privilege of holding one of these newborns it brings such an incredible sense of awe. The creation of a unique and beautiful little human being, one can’t help but be amazed by Gods creativity and the blessings He bestows. Looking in their tiny faces and seeing them figuring out how to control their new little bodies, there is an instant boundless unconditional love that blossoms inside of me, and there is instinctively nothing I won’t do to protect these little ones. They are mine!

And if we are God’s children, perhaps that’s the way he looks at each of us: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:38-39]

I also find it incredibly humorous that we get to pass along some of our quirks that will last through future generations, long after we are gone. 😊

• Right after Elon Musk took over Twitter, I decided to sign up for my own Twitter account just to keep up with all the free speech drama. I’m mostly an observer and don’t plan to do much active tweeting, but my early reaction to this thing is that people, or at least their online personas, are nasty and vicious. Yikes!

I did enjoy keeping up with the Twitter Files – the release of internal information by Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, et. al., that clearly shows collusion between government agencies and former Twitter leadership to suppress information that does not align with the Narrative™, and to ensure that Joe Biden got elected in 2020.

These days, the difference between something being a “wild conspiracy theory” and actual news is just a few months!

• New York has now joined California in banning the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered automobiles as of 2035. I used to think the idea was just to replace gasoline powered passenger vehicles with electric vehicles, but there were some intractable problems with this: 1) electric vehicles are too expensive for the vast majority of citizens and due to the limited availability of the raw materials necessary to manufacture electric vehicles, the cost will not go down as demand rises, 2) the range limitations and charging characteristics of electric vehicles don’t match the driving needs of a significant percentage of people (like me!), and 3) our current electrical grid would need to be more than doubled in order to support the passenger miles currently driven in the US, and there is literally no chance that the grid will be expanded to this level in 2035 (or even 2065). Our electrical grid will actually shrink over the next few years as the geniuses in charge take nuclear, coal, and fossil fuel plants offline and fail to replace that capacity with their favored “green” alternatives.

I’ve finally realized how naïve I was. The people making these decisions have no intention of replacing the current fleet of petroleum powered cars with electric vehicles. EVs will continue to be for the rich, and the electric grid will not be expanded to support a similarly sized EV fleet. That doesn’t align with the utopian vision at all. Most citizens will no longer be able to own private vehicles. We will be completely dependent on public transportation to get from point A to point B, or we won’t be able to travel at all. Independent travel will be a thing of the past. Dependency is the goal! If we are dependent on them, we can be controlled by them. In the words of Claus Schwab’s World Economic Forum (that’s the Davos folks), “You’ll own nothing and be happy.” By design, we are becoming a world of serfs and lords, and that has been the plan all along.

• I tagged along with the grandkids for a visit to NASA’s US Space and Rocket Center down in Huntsville a couple of weeks ago (photo above). If you have a chance, I highly recommend it. The most prominent displays are from the Saturn/Apollo program during the mid-60s to the early 70s. It is absolutely crazy to think that we used the technology from that era to land men on the moon and then bring them back safely. From its inception under Kennedy to the safe splash-down of the first set of astronauts, the mission took less than a decade to develop and complete. The stark contrast with the ineptitude of our current Federal bureaucracy is incredible. Today it takes longer to widen a couple of miles of freeway.

• A few great quotes:

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~ George Orwell. Check! {MJE}

“For anyone not completely hoodwinked by the erotic obsessions of our day, taking pride in one’s sexual identity—indeed, even considering sexual desire to be an identity—would seem at best pitiful and at worst a deep perversion of what it means to be human. Yet, here we are. And we should not underestimate the power of what it signifies.” ~ Carl Trueman. Perhaps it signifies that we have no understanding of our own history! {MJE}