Category: Good Stuff

A Ban To Get Behind

Education, Good Stuff

Generally speaking, I tend to be somewhat of a libertarian when it comes to banning stuff, because it either doesn’t work or else has the opposite effect to the stated goal by creating a “forbidden fruit” cachet around the thing.

However, when it comes to banning the chilluns from using their cell phones at school, I’m all over the idea, and here’s one reason why:

One of the first UK schools to ban mobile phones has revealed their pupils are now more sociable and involved in activities than ever before.  12 years ago Burnage Academy for Boys, in Greater Manchester, banned phones — with associate assistant head teacher Greg Morrison now saying that ban’s made a “big impact” in the school.

Phones are not allowed among pupils at any point — including break times — until the end of the school day.

Last year it was named UK Secondary School of the Year at the 2024 TES Schools Awards in London, with judges praising it as an “inspiring and inclusive school where students thrive, love learning and achieve exceptionally well.”

Well well well, who could have predicted this outcome?

“Only anyone with a brain and common sense, Kim.”

Better Than Yeti Or Stanley

Good Stuff

LOL well that didn’t take long.  DOGE merch is now for sale.

Honesty compels me to state that I know the person behind this cool idea (the wife of one of my best friends), but I get absolutely NO kickback or other such reward for punting it on this website.

Honesty also compels me to state that it’s kinda spendy, but no more so than the aforementioned Yeti / Stanley stuff.

Favorite Things Update

Good Stuff

Last year I posted two lists of My Favorite Things (Part 1 and Part 2), and while I’m not going to redo the blessed things — as I said I wouldn’t — there are a couple of substitutions on the list, mainly because the items are no longer available or I’ve found something I prefer.  Here’s an example:

which has been replaced by the CZ 600.  But upon reflection, I think I’d rather go with this one:

Anschutz 1761 DHB Classic — $2,985

Yeah, it’s kinda spendy for a .22 — but it also comes in .223 Rem, for those extra-special varminting excursions — and the quality thereof is matchless.  Remember, this list is all about beauty and quality.

Interestingly, as I peruse both lists, I find that all the items are as alluring as they were a year ago.  But as I suspected may happen, I’ve found an alternative for a couple:

I know I said they were scarce, but sheesh.  “Unobtanium” about covers it.  But here’s one that is available, albeit at a Silly Money price:

1964 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider — $104,000

And while the exterior is lovely, it’s the interior that gets me all a-twitter:

None of that stuffy wood nonsense here:  if that doesn’t scream “FUN!!!” at the top of its lungs to you, you’re deaf and we can’t be friends.  And as with most cars sold at E&RClassics, this one has been completely resto-modded and restored to what it should have been back in the day, but wasn’t.  A hundred grand is spendy, mind, but let’s not compare it to today’s “exotic” sports cars, shall we?  And as an added bonus, there is not a single computer chip or electronic transmission device anywhere to be found, which means your Spider won’t be a Spyder, either.  (I know, I know:  I should be ashamed of myself.)

One more, for fun:


Now I have nothing against the 686, no sir not me. But I think I prefer this one over it:

S&W Mod 48 .22 Win Mag — $1,100

Blued steel, long barrel, chambered for my favorite rimfire cartridge… sorry, I need to get something to wipe the drool off my keyboard.  Second-hand, they run about $700-$800, depending on condition.

Those are pretty much all the changes I’ve run across, so far.

Feel free to browse the links and make some suggestions of your own.

Goodbye, Witchcraft

Eco-Crap, Good Stuff, Science!

If you look at all my posts about Global Warming Climate Cooling Change© over the years, you will see all the following points appear at some time or another.

1. The modest increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that has taken place since the end of the Little Ice Age has been net-beneficial to humanity.
2. Foreseeable future increases in greenhouse gases in the air will probably also prove net-beneficial.
3. The rate and amplitude of global warming have been and will continue to be appreciably less than climate scientists have long predicted.
4. The Sun, and not greenhouse gases, has contributed and will continue to contribute the overwhelming majority of global temperature.
5. Geological evidence compellingly suggests that the rate and amplitude of global warming during the industrial era are neither unprecedented nor unusual.
6. Climate models are inherently incapable of telling us anything about how much global warming there will be or about whether or to what extent the warming has a natural or anthropogenic cause.
7. Global warming will likely continue to be slow, small, harmless and net-beneficial.
8. There is broad agreement among the scientific community that extreme weather events have not increased in frequency, intensity or duration and are in future unlikely to do so.
9. Though global population has increased fourfold over the past century, annually averaged deaths attributable to any climate-related or weather-related event have declined by 99%.
10. Global climate-related financial losses, expressed as a percentage of global annual gross domestic product, have declined and continue to decline notwithstanding the increase in built infrastructure in harm’s way.
11. Despite trillions of dollars spent chiefly in Western countries on emissions abatement, global temperature has continued to rise since 1990.
12. Even if all nations, rather than chiefly western nations, were to move directly and together from the current trajectory to net zero emissions by the official target year of 2050, the global warming prevented by that year would be no more than 0.05 to 0.1 Celsius.
13. If the Czech Republic, the host of this conference, were to move directly to net zero emissions by 2050, it would prevent only 1/4000 of a degree of warming by that target date.
14. Based pro rata on the estimate by the UK national grid authority that preparing the grid for net zero would cost $3.8 trillion (the only such estimate that is properly-costed), and on the fact that the grid accounts for 25% of UK emissions, and that UK emissions account for 0.8% of global emissions, the global cost of attaining net zero would approach $2 quadrillion, equivalent to 20 years’ global annual GDP.
15. On any grid where the installed nameplate capacity of wind and solar power exceeds the mean demand on that grid, adding any further wind or solar power will barely reduce grid CO2 emissions but will greatly increase the cost of electricity and yet will reduce the revenues earned by both new and existing wind and solar generators.
16. The resources of techno-metals required to achieve global net zero emissions are entirely insufficient even for one 15-year generation of net zero infrastructure, so that net zero is in practice unattainable.
17. Since wind and solar power are costly, intermittent and more environmentally destructive per TWh generatedthan any other energy source, governments should cease to subsidize or to prioritize them, and should instead expand coal, gas and, above, all nuclear generation.
18. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which excludes participants and published papers disagreeing with its narrative, fails to comply with its own error-reporting protocol and draws conclusions some of which are dishonest, should be forthwith dismantled.
Okay, there may be a couple in there that I didn’t write (e.g. #13), but I think you get the gist.
As it happened, the above came from a gathering of actual scientists in Prague.  These are actual scientists, as opposed to a bunch of gloomy watermelons subsidized by Leftist governments and universities.
I expect the response from the Fainting Goats On The Left will be the usual mix of screams, character assassination and assorted hysteria.
From right-thinking people, however, the response will just be nods of agreement and approval.

Why They Lost

Elections, Good Stuff

Mostly, furrin commentators get things wrong when they analyze political events outside their own borders, and most especially when it comes to the U.S.  (I remember one Brit idiot on TV saying “President Obama should just abolish the Second Amendment!” and all the other panelists just sat there and nodded their heads, showing that none of them had the faintest clue about how our Constitution actually works.)

However, this little piece is absolutely spot on in terms of a realistic overview of the recent electoral fiasco (for the Democrat Socialists, of course).

And by the way, Rita Panahi’s channel is probably one of the better conservative ones out there (despite her rather annoying Strine accent), and Douglas Murray one of the more clear-headed no-nonsense political commentators.

Enjoy.

Incidentally, here are Mike Rowe and Victor Davis Hanson talking about the world — the podcast was made before the recent election — and it’s still more relevant than ever.

Burning Down The Climate Change Thicket

Bureaucracy, Eco-Crap, Good Stuff, Rights

Here are some very constructive ideas about how to unlock and/or break the raft of stupid eco-fascist laws and regulations.  I especially like this one:

Obama joined Paris Climate Agreement by executive action. Trump exited by the same method. And Biden rejoined, again by executive action, right on January 20, 2021.

Trump could follow the previous method and just quit again. But my preferred suggestion would be to submit the Agreement to the Senate as a treaty. There is zero chance that the Senate would ratify. That would kill this thing much more securely than the other method.

And this would be the time to submit it, while the Stupid Party controls the Senate.

I know, the Paris Climate whatever is pretty much a paper tiger and waste of time.  Don’t care about it?  Then try this one:

“Regulations” are different from mere Executive Orders and actions, in that in order to be adopted they have gone through some complex and time-consuming processes prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act. The processes are designed to give these “regulations” some purported legitimacy and heft, to make them hard to undo, and to distract the gullible public from the fact that they have not gone through the only process that counts under the Constitution for valid legislative action, namely passage by both houses of Congress and signature by the President. The result of all the procedural rigamarole is that — if you buy the legitimacy of enactment of massive substantive regulations by administrative agencies in the first place — then the processes to eliminate the regulations are the same complex and time-consuming mess that it previously took to adopt them.

Do the Trump people really need to go through the same labyrinth to rescind these Rules? Here’s an approach I would take: First, announce that the legal opinion of the administration is that the Rules are invalid under Supreme Court precedent (i.e., the “major questions doctrine” of West Virginia v. EPA), and therefore they will not be enforced. Next, announce that permitting on power plant and other fossil fuel projects will take place as if these Rules did not exist. Finally, switch sides in the litigation, and join the red states and other plaintiffs seeking to have the Rules invalidated.

Here’s what I really, really like about this initiative:  it would also nullify, ipso facto, all the horrible regulations foisted on us by other Gummint agencies — such as the fucking ATF, for starters, and [add your favorite agency’s name here].

So when you follow the link above to see all the other Good Ideas, don’t just look at those suggestions as part of the destruction of the “climate change” myth, good as they are;  apply those principles to all areas of our life that the bureaucracy have (un-Constitutionally and illegally) affected over the years.

Roll on January 2025.