June | 2022 | Grumpa Joe's Place

Thank you Sam

Posted on 12/06/2022 by Grumpa Joe

Here is something to think about! How true!
The American dream in 2022
Both parents wake up in the morning at 4 a.m in a house where they never truly own the property but more or less rent the property off the government by paying property taxes. They say good morning to each other and try to put together a lunch for themselves with food that’s price has increased on average 7% in the last year. They don’t get to see their kids off to school in the morning or welcome them home bc both parents have to work a job where they are making less this year than they were last year bc inflation has gone up 7% in the market but their paycheck only went up 3% bc that’s the national average. Then they proceed down the street in a vehicle where they are forced to pay to register, inspect, and preform maintenance on it yearly, on roads that haven’t been redone in years to a gas station that charges them between a .56 cents and .74 cents per gallon tax to “repair” said roads. Once they get to their place of work they work on average 10 hours per day for 5-6 days a week to then be taxed on that money, all while their government tells them what they must do health wise to come to work to pay those taxes that funds them. After all those taxes are taken out of their paycheck they then must still pay taxes on practically every other transaction of money they do, along with a price increase on every good. They get home in the evening worn out, where they hopefully get to see their children who are being raised by the government due to the fact both parents must work, where the government is grooming them to be the next generation of cattle to milk dry in taxes so the cycle can continue. They turn on the tv while they cook dinner to hear from their government officials that they worked all day to fund tell them how “they are the problem” and cause division across the country and when they are up for re-election convince you why you need them to fix your issues. They turn the tv off and walk upstairs and lay next to their spouse hoping and dreaming that one day in 50+ years if they are lucky to make it that long that they might get to enjoy each other’s company for 5 years together in retirement.
The system is so broken and it’s disgusting. I hope people are waking up to the fact that more government regardless of party isn’t the answer. We don’t need politicians they need us, but somehow that narrative has been lost over time. Something needs to change in this country and it needs to happen quick bc the Nation is a dried out tinder box ready to be lit. I know I can’t be the only person tired of being stepped on in literally every aspect of life. It’s almost like we left a place once in our history bc of over taxation. This isn’t the American dream it’s the American nightmare where you aren’t a free American, you’re a free American to do what you are told. Copied and pasted.

Filed under: Aging, family, Government | Tagged: Inflation, socialism, taxes | 1 Comment »

Oceans Rising

Posted on 04/06/2022 by Grumpa Joe

I just completed a book titled “The Power of Crisis”by Ian Bremmer. Mr Bremmer predicts that the three largest threats to the world are: global warming, pandemics, and disruptive technology. As I read the passages about how people living on islands in large oceans are losing ground to rising waters, I thought about the phenom of global warming. I’m not sure I totally buy into this problem yet. Most of the blame is being pointed toward the polar ice caps melting. I see a problem with that premise. Number one, ice is frozen water and water expands as it freezes. The net effect is zero. When it melts it loses volume and returns to normal. As an experiment I filled a glass with ice cubes and then poured water over the cubes to fill the interstitial spaces to the brim. If the global warming argument works then I should see a flood of water around the glass as the ice melts, but I didn’t. The ice melted and the frozen water contracted in volume and stayed in the glass. This will work as long as the ice and water are floating together. If, however, the ice is on land like a glacier, and the glacier melts, that is adding water to the lake, or ocean. There are other effects that will cause water to rise in an ocean. One is gravitational pull of the moon. Which causes tides to rise and fall.

Antarctica is a continent which means there is ground somewhere beneath the ice we see. They have even discovered lakes under the ice. What triggered me to think of melting ice is the many experimental stations working at Antarctica. These are huge communities of buildings built on the ice and heated. Within the big buildings are smaller mini houses which are homes and offices to the hundreds of people who live there year around working on various experiments. Each of the mini-homes is heated to a human comfort level. All of that heat goes somewhere, it just doesn’t disintegrate. I picture all this heat transferring from the heaters inside the mini-homes into the walls and out into the large external building, and through it’s walls into the air surrounding, and into the ground upon which it is built. Except the buildings are not sitting on ground, they are sitting on ice. I picture this Arctic village which is inside a large building gradually melting away at the base, and the water flowing downhill toward the ocean. I’d be willing to bet that the amount of ice melting at the South pole is greater from the experimental stations than it is from air temperature rising due to increased carbon dioxide.

Anyway, I digressed from the book. Covid has scrambled my brain to think negatively about the effects of global warming. Over the course of the life of earth there is evidence of several cycles of global warming that have occurred, all before the invention of automobiles, the discovery of oil and before there were billions of people on the planet. All of these cycles of warming occurred due to natural phenomena, and I believe that we may be riding along on the wave of another warming cycle which we will not be able to do anything about, except to adapt as it happens. I would be more inclined to learn how to build effective dikes than how to generate electricity using wind power. Or perhaps we should be learning how to tap the molten core of earth to generate the heat we need to run power-plant turbines.

The crisis being caused by global warming is in the minds of those who think reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is the only answer, and who cannot shift their paradigm.

Filed under: Conservative, family, Science | Tagged: Arctic Station, Global Warming., South Pole | Leave a comment »

A Little Bitty Bug Took Me Down

Posted on 03/06/2022 by Grumpa Joe

An old song by Burl Ives is streaming through my mind. I love the lyrics because they are melancholy, and with a slight change of lyrics the song fits my current mood. The song is a Little Bitty Tear. . .

It has been eight days since I tested positive for Covid, and this is the first day I feel well enough to write anything. Mostly I feel nothing but exhaustion. Most likely I will tire myself into a nap by the time i finish this short post. Yes, I am double vaccinated but not boosted. Not that the boost would matter any. All I can believe is that life would be much more miserable if I were unvaxxed.

Looking back on the past days I have come to remember that I have had flu that hit me harder than this thing, and recovered. The Asian flu of 1957 in particular, put me down long enough to have to drop a physics class, and to interrupt my pursuit of an engineering degree. That bout cost me a full year extra of college. The biological difference between Asian and Covid is about sixty-five years. I can truly say that I feel the age effect dragging me down a rabbit hole into another universe.

Covid beat me up and stopped all the projects I had in the fire. In fact, today is the first time in a week that my exercise consisted of walking down the stairs to inspect the “house in a house” project to see where I left off. No doubt, I had worn myself down by pushing hard to complete the job, thus opening the door for the virus to take over. If I out live this event I may even finish the house in a house dream.

Meanwhile, looking out my kitchen window at the 2022 Monet’s Vision I see only unwanted natives overtaking the orderliness of a once manicured garden.