Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Had too many people knocking on my door trying to sell me solar, keep telling them to get lost. On top of the steep cost and people financing them to get them on their house (which will put a lien on the deed on the house), too much $$$ for little payback. Also, it isn't like you are getting a good deal selling your power back to FPL or one of those power companies in the state.

 

I haven’t delved into the solar financing and prob won’t soon as we don’t plan on staying in this house, but how do they get you there? What’s the scam that they’re selling? I’m guessing some kind “no money down” wirh a huge back end.

 

I’m going REAL “green”. At the end of the month we’re putting a Vermont Castings Wood Stove in my 26x16 listening room/living room. I’ll burn wood at high efficiencies, and we’ll just use the oil for the hot water system (mostly). Heck, between the Oak down in a storm 18 months ago, and the just-felled black cherry (last week in a big storm), I’ve got over 1/2 cord right there; alls I gotta do is cut, split and stack (and age) it.

Solar in mountainous NH for over half the year is an utter JOKE, payback/roi won’t happen until AFTER the life-span of the cells… not enough sun. Now, would I *like* to have it also as a backup, with sufficient battery and tertiary generator capacity? Sure… but I’ve an inkling REAL “cash” is going to be worth a lot more very soon…. And anyone who borrows or uses “special” financing for Solar is a perfect candidate for PT Barnum….

What do I know, I came of adulthood in the mid 70’s during the last time we were HERE (and the fundamentals were far better then).

 

https://www.hngn.com/articles/26263...ed-over-handicapped-parking-space-dispute.htm

 

Sad but very true. And that's to say nothing of the fact that our Federal government spent so many billions courting TSMC to build that plant without understanding that we also need domestic advanced packaging and high bandwidth memory production, or we are still forced to ship the 2nm chips back across the Pacific before they can actually be used. I felt depressed for a week after reading the ars article on this: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...still-leaves-us-missing-piece-of-chip-puzzle/

That KOSA passed with a 91 - 3 vote in the Senate on July 30 is even scarier. This barely even made the news, but if the house signs off, it seems we've taken a giant first step down the slippery slope of ham fisted government content moderation on the net, under the guise of protecting emotional harm to minors, with age gating and the loss of net anonymity as the alternatives. If someone has another take on this, I'd be interested, but from what I've read to date, it seems to me that the EFF has characterized it accurately. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/...ust-passed-senate-its-our-last-chance-stop-it

 

I live and work next to White Sands Missile Range and what is simply called "the NASA facility" which is one of three main uplinks and processing centers for NRO and its spy satellites. Lot's of engineers, masters+ scientists and the like and I get to know them (not that they talk about their jobs) through work, school, youth sports, church, etc. Half of them are imports (i.e. they moved here) and are predominately white. The other half are locals (born, educated, and will probably die here) and the majority of them are from the traditional Hispanic and white population that has always been here. Not sure what this particularly anecdotal evidence means however.

Most of the agricultural workers along the Rio Grande here are actually Hispanics whose family have been here forever, according to the handful of local farmers/ranchers who I have talked to and have confidence are not feeding me a line. The real recent illegals end up in construction & service (house cleaning, etc.) mostly. I may or may not know an illegal who has some sort of steel skill that is hard to find, and works for a company that has him working at certain secure facilities that I could never get near. Shows you the hypocrisy of it all - taditionally BOTH the left and the right have had their reasons for saying one thing and then actually doing nothing about the border.

 

This fanatical green push in EU and UK has broader implications.
As we know Europe, UK in particular but, the same thing happened in France not so long ago, is not a quiet place right now, and is likely to get louder and louder. Of course the public discourse around it is getting more idological and dumber every day.
It focuses on bad far right or bad immigrants, or too many immigrants. Of course open borders do not make anything easier but the real reason for those unrest, IMHO, is complete stagnation of the EU and UK economy caused mostly by the EU implementing insane policies that make energy in Europe 5x more expensive than in China and 3x more expensive than in the US.
Most immigrants come to Europe to build better life for themselves and their families. Their mission in life is not to help German green fanatics to reduce CO2 emissions. They did not sign up for the operation enduring stupidity that is destroying Europe industrial base, crushing foreign investment and reducing everyone chances to live better.

Combination of arrested economy and ever increasing number of immigrants will lead to disaster. US economy is still a miracle comparing to Europe so it is much less of a problem here.

Of course the European elites, as dumb and useless as they are, found a perfect solution to those problems: censorship and control of the social media.

 

This is going to make me an asshat but aren't you Polish who lives half the time in Canada and another half the time in Florida?

As we say in Florida: "Snowbirds do love to screw everything up in the Winter, but those from Quebec are quite the assholes."

 

Not much in Canada anymore, just visiting, I am mostly in Poland and Florida.

 

Stumbled across this article today on solar:
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14/1244...raud-deception?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us


I just finished having my solar installed this past week. I'll update with my utility bills once I get a few months of data. The last couple days have been overcast but it looks like I've generated on average just about the same as my consumption. Mind you, the sell back rate during the day is less than my buy rate at night.

edit: figured I should add some context
There are both federal and provincial grants available up here, as well as a federal loan program for energy efficiency measures. I was not approached by any door-to-door types. I sought out three different companies on my own to get quotes and the high/low difference was about 8%

 

Depends where you are at in FL @purr1n. In my city it’s a mini Staten Island. Leave it and it becomes Alabama.

 

That is what I quote when folks have trouble understanding my distrust for this two buddy system.

 

I wish I could disagree with you but I cannot.

Right-wing parties or more nationalistic movements are increasing their presence. In NL the left-wing coalition lost the most recent elections and I understand why.

When right-wing parties focus more on daily needs of working people than the "so called" left-wing parties place your bets. Working people want to be able to have a good life. At one point everybody votes with his or her wallet and life in NL is not as affordable as before.

 

Update. The woodstove is installed. 30’ of insulated stainless vented. It’s a super high efficiency Vermont Castings. It’s eligible for a $3K Tax credit (you can only take $2K of it in one year). I paid CASH, net cost stove, vent, installation, etc. to me post tax credit is $7K. I can get local excellent hardwood (already seasoned and split) for $350 a chord. I am *guessing* I will use 2 chords a season, but when the price of oil heat averages around $150-175 a week from mid December through end of March, I figure payback is going to be well under 5 years.

Just had the first chord delivered this AM. Finished building a 4x4x8’ wood crib with roof just off back deck. Next step, stacking the first chord.

I also decided I’m now officially too old/decripit to manually spit ever single log myself (I’ve about 1/2 a chord of seasoned/logged oak from trees down last 2 years here; it’ll need splitting) so I bought a 7ton electric log splitter. Not super huge or high-duty, but enough for my needs. The gas powered ones were huge and expensive, I don’t need that overkill.

Now to await weather cold enough to fire it up

 

This response takes into account that the military would act against the citizens... Not sure they would.

 

This response takes into account a common response that citizens need to protect themselves against the government.

Anyway, it's all a moot point. A country that places the fragile egos of insecure man-boys above the lives of its own children is a perverted country.

Keep praying for the victims, it's effective. Guns for all.

 

Ya, I was saying, not well said I think, that I have more faith in our service men and women to not drone strike their own country's citizens. But that was a large part of what makes the design behind this place so great right? That we should be capable of hitting the reset button on the establishment. I am not in the burn it down camp, but I believe that we a s citizens are the power of this country, but the wool has been inching over our eyes so slowly that as generations pass our children are more and more comfortable with their liberties being co-opted. Sorry, I know this thread is old but I am enjoying the read and chimed in. We the people have elected you not to govern us as parents, but to run the day to day of the country, I think term limits and the real need to be able to remove entrenched politicians is needed, sadly most people are not paying attention and my sin, not voting because I cannot stomach any of their rhetoric and that legal bribery crap. Shit I rambled. I hope that I did not ruffle your feathers. Original point, the marines that I know, stepson is one of them, would not follow orders to move against US citizens like that.