Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Ferry Crossing


 

41 comments:

  1. As memory serves me, Nantucket is situated at the center of a submarine basin, so the tides cause the water to rock back and forth in the basin, and the tides are minimal at Nantucket itself. Convenient for ships. I think Tahiti is similar. Near where the ferry docks, someone ought to set up a booth selling Nantucket sleigh ride tickets.

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    1. Upon reflection, the Nantucket Sleigh Ride ticket booth probably wouldn't be a good idea; it would seem certain to attract adverse attention from the Cetacean Friendship League. Oh, well; another of my money-making ideas down the drain, as it were.

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    2. Well, up here Sleigh Ride indicates riding on snow. And Nantucket, having a maritime climate, get precious little of that.

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    3. Wikipedia tells the story: Nantucket sleighride [Click] It is not like a Vermont sleighride.

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    4. Ewwwww. Ew. Ew. Ew.

      I'll stick with a Vermont Sleigh Ride, thank you very much!
      Besides, my niece is a marine biologist who specialises in whales, and my SIL is Nantucket's Director of Culture and Tourism. No Nantucket Sleigh Ride for us!

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    5. I wasn't actually thinking of taking people out for Nantucket sleigh rides, which would be impossible--just selling them tickets as joke items or souvenirs. But some people would think they were paying for some sort of literal sleigh ride and object to being cheated, while others would be offended, thinking it was making light of abuse of whales. Certainly whaling was a huge part of Nantucket's culture, and it remains a large part of its history, which should be shared with tourists. IMO.

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    6. Incidentally, when I was around twenty years old, there was still a whaling station on San Francisco Bay, and whale meat could be legally imported and sold. I ate a can of it once, and it was just as Herman Melville describes it--like very coarse beef.

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  2. Vanity Fair: [Click] “Picture this: You’re the head of marketing at a potato chip company and you’re reissuing the brand’s original flavor in the hopes of boosting holiday sales. One day your team receives an email from Adolf Hitler’s great-great-nephew, who says he wants to help the campaign by filming a short video declaring that the chips in question were ‘Uncle Adolf’s favorite,’ with a little anecdote about how he ‘actually invaded Poland because someone set him off by eating the last bag in his stash.'”

    “You’d probably want to do everything in your power to ensure this didn’t happen, as it wouldn’t be ideal for your product to be associated with one of the worst people in history, right? If you’re vigorously nodding your head in agreement, you now have an idea of how Senate Republicans feel re: Donald Trump being the face of the party in the next midterm and presidential elections.”

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    1. I actually find that proposed marketing campaign rather amusing. It's essential that people realize it's satire, of course.

      Unfortinately, I don't think people realize Trump is satire.

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    2. Republicans have a choice. They can admit to four decades of financial mismanagement which has left everyone, including their corporate pets, in a negative position vis a vis their global competitors, or they can pledge allegiance to the equivalent of the golden calf. Which are they more likely to recover from?

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    1. “Under the plan, the Port of Los Angeles will nearly double the number of hours that cargo is moving off container ships and onto highways by having crews work through the night. Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union will fill the extra shifts, according to officials.”

      There are sure to be more injuries.

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    2. Another underlying problems is the lack of truck drivers; the people quoted in the article took no notice of the large decline in income for truck drivers since deregulation.

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    3. "Just in time" does not work, especially when you have mifflemen who have no sense of time in charge. All redundancy has been squeezed out so there is no cover for emergencies. FEMA is equally hampered. All they have prepositioned is heavy equipment without fuel and spare parts. In response to Ida it was the locals in southern Louisiana who had to clear their own roads.

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  4. Pro-Trump PAC Fined Over Soliciting Foreign Money [Click] The fine is far less than the amount of money they tried to raise, so not enough to discourage such behavior IMO. But one bad actor might see some time in the stoney lonesome.

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  5. Notes:

    “Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) raked in $8.4 million during the last three months for her U.S. Senate campaign — more than any candidate has raised at this stage of a Senate campaign in Florida history,” Florida Politics reports.
    ======================
    A new CNN poll shows President Biden’s net approval is positive at 50% to 49%.

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    1. ...and that's the *same* Val Demings who emails me constantly that's she's going to lose if I don't donate. Too many of them do this. I'm poor! I got no money! And you read later about how they've hauled in record-breaking amounts of cash.

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    2. Yes, the large majority of fundraising emails seem to be either "Great news!" or "Disaster! Disaster!" Often both from the same group on the same day.

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    3. The "free" press persists on basing its coverage of candidates on the amount of money they have to spend on paid advertising. So, to get any attention in the supposedly "objective press" candidates have to raise money.
      That said, the constant contact with the electorate is probably not a negative. We now have people planning to go vote with friends or relatives in the same way they make a date for lunch. So, civic participation is becoming part of a social routine.
      Getting more qualified candidates is still to come. What Republicans want is to go back to the fifties and sixties when women voted like their men and youths did not bother to vote.

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    4. No one ever emails me for money. When they first try it, I immediately unsubscribe. I am all grown up and perfectly able to read the news and figure out to whom to donate. So when I make a donation and get the inevitable followup email, I unsubscribe right then and there, before they have chance to share my info with others.

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    5. Question: Do the parts for trucks being made in Mexico come through Los Angeles USA or are they brought into port in Baja or somewhere south of the border?

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    6. ~listener: Problem is, at least in the Chicago area, that the news never mentions many races that are potentially important overall. Floria Senate race? Who kows? And if they mention it at all, Demings would be the only Democratic candidate you ever heard about. Even for races closer to home, they never really discuss the candidates' platforms. Alan's posts help but, like it or not, emails are to only way to get a clue to what you need to check out on the internet.

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    7. listener--your question is not clear. Are you referring to truck parts being made in Mexico, or to trucks being assembled in Mexico? Mexico assembles vehicles from foreign and domestic parts, and exports them to the US and Canada by road and rail. They also export parts for assembly in the US and Canada.

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    8. Bill...I guess I'm spoiled in Vermont!

      We have a great news source in VT Digger. We get in depth stories and can ask questions that get answered.

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    9. Alan...Oh, sorry, I see I got my truck parts question in the wrong sub-thread.

      I meant trucks being made in Mexico and shipped to the US. Just wondering what port parts would be delivered at for a plant a bit south of the border. Wil's hybrid truck was ordered in early June, but the plant in Mexico has had issues with backordered parts. Looks like it won't be available until maybe Christmas at this point.

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    10. I think but am not sure that US Route 67 [Click] is one of the major routes between US and Mexico. Interstate 35 [Click] is probably bigger, and Interstate 29 branches off from I35 for the run to Canada. [Click]

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    11. I see a lot of new automobiles being carried north through Fresno on the railway, but where they are coming from I do not know. I'd bet a nickel that the part(s) holding up Wil's truck are microprocessors. BYD Automobiles have no problems with microprocessor supplies because being vertically integrated they make their own. It looks like they are stealing a march on the US and European manufacturers. They are also evidently planning on dispensing with dealerships, which will simplify purchases and reduce costs to the consumers.

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    12. Why send things by sea when there are major road and rail connections between the countries? BTW, there is a good chance your Honda Fit was built/assembled in Mexico.

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  6. ”Alleged” Insurrectionist Blabs About Further Misdeeds While Rep[resenting] Himself At Hearing [Click] I suppose that his two weeks of studying law in the jail library didn’t extend to the truism that anyone who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer.

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    1. Many people do not understand that only coerced speech is prohibited. Here on the Georgia coast where we are getting ready for Arbery's killers to be tried, the fellows are discovering that their recorded phone conversations from the jail are going to be used against them.
      Of course that was highlighted in the handbook they were issued, but these are fellows who don't read. We are dealing with three idiots and an imbecile.
      One of them used to be employed as an investigator for the local prosecutor's office.

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  7. Shatner in Space [Click] “In his comments to Jeff Bezos right after a brief excursion to the edge of space, Shatner turns the culture of Star Trek on its head.”

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  8. Russia’s population undergoes largest ever peacetime decline [Click] So coronavirus deaths are roughly equal to those in the United States, which has somewhat more than twice Russia’s population. Assuming reports from both countries to be reliable.

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  9. Northern Irish firms hail EU proposals to resolve Brexit protocol row [Click] “Businesses say bloc has listened and gone ‘beyond expectations’, increasing their hopes of a deal.”

    BUT:

    Rip it up and start again: Frost numbs the senses with spoiled teenager act [Click]

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  10. Why Service Workers Are Quitting [Click] “How the pandemic pushed customer-facing workers over the edge. File under “Take this job and shove it, I ain’t workin’ here no more.”

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  11. More than 700 firefighters battling wildfire spreading along California coast [Click] Santa Barbara County—rural this time. They have wildfires thereabouts from time to time. Includes other fire news from California.

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  12. Social Security recipients get 5.9% increase, but rising prices will offset the boost
    https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/13/politics/social-security-cost-of-living-adjustment/index.html

    Hey, I'll take it. We start collecting Social Security at the start of 2022. It stuns us that something financial has gone in our direction at the right time! All our life the good stuff went to the folks 8-12 years older than we.

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    1. The SS checks are adjusted for inflation every year. There are always differences of opinion about just how it should be calculated, but that is to be expected. 5.9% is rather more than usual, I think.

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    2. So far, in my life and my mother's, every time they raise the COLA they *also* raise the cost of Medicare.

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