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Say Wut?

Lifestyle, Real Estate

Seems as though a few areas in the U.S. have seen large growth in real estate values since the Covid thing.  Mostly, it should be said, this is because property in the area was relatively inexpensive — i.e. the growth is off a low base.  Some of the towns, though, are inexplicable.

Top 10 cities and how much the value of their homes has increased since 2019:

  1. Knoxville, TN – +86% — I’d live there
  2. Fayetteville, AR – +84.5% — low base
  3. Charleston, SC – +81.3% — I’d live there
  4. Scranton, PA – +78.4% — inexplicable;  shit hole
  5. Syracuse, NY – +77.6% — inexplicable;  shit hole
  6. Portland, ME – +75.7% — I’d live there
  7. Rochester, NY – +75.2% — inexplicable;  shit hole
  8. New Haven, CT – +73.8% — expensive became more expensive
  9. Charlotte, NC – +73.1% — sorry, nope
  10. Chattanooga, TN – +72.9% — low base, but I’d live there.

See any on the list where you’d care to live?  Your comments are welcome.

Tempting Wheels

Drive Time

Right off the bat, I’m going to say that I was never a fan of the old VW Beetle back in my yoot, even though I did own one briefly #Poverty.  Yes they were cute, but the body shape was ugly and the interior did nothing to excite me.  Best of all was the Beetle’s famed reliability, but that wasn’t enough to get me to keep it.

But I have to say that this one at Hemmings caught my eye:

It’s a 1964 vintage body, fitted with a ’74 1600cc engine.  That engine, for that time and for that company, was quite a beast, most assuredly compared to its predecessors.

And I love that candy-apple red color and those rear wheel covers.  The only thing missing are the flip-out indicators on the door column, then and now a lovely feature of the Beetle — I’m not sure whether they’d been taken off by 1964, though.

The listed price is just under $23,000.  Ask me whether I’d rather drive that than a secondhand “modern” car for the same price…

News Roundup

Bad News

Speaking of “letting go”, there’s always a good time, with


...now all we need to do is get rid of that stupid law that mandates state education for all kiddies, regardless of immigration status.


...as futile gestures go, this makes the Animal House parade disruption seem earth-shattering.


…


...let’s not forget Dallas, guys.  We’ve got plenty of illegal-immigrant crime to take care of, down here, and it’ll boost your numbers bigly.

And in related news:


...fair trial, followed by execution.


...see above.


...see above.


...a.k.a. irrelevant themes for an irrelevant conference.


...I would say “co-equal”, but who’s counting.


...why are we still listening to this horrible scold, anyway?

In the War On Terror:


...about damn time somebody did.  And speaking of terrorist orgs:


...so for all those asshole Greens who want to do that in the civilized world… stop that shit.


...I would have been a better choice, but this might not be too bad.


...somehow, me old darlin’, I just don’t think that’s going to be much of a danger for you.  And:


...first time I’ve ever heard the term “salacious activity” applied to wanking.

And now for some true 

And as we scan the view on :


...my favorite Pussycat Doll.  And not bad for a semi-centenarian.

   

And on that recumbent note, we can end this thing.

Replacement Workers

Good Stuff, Illegal immigrants

I have to say that Jamie Wilson has just been clearing the fences recently.  Here’s her latest:

“Americans just won’t do these jobs.” That phrase infuriated me from the first time I heard it. I knew it was a lie. I had done the tobacco work myself. My brothers had. Every teenager we knew had. Every adult performed the hard labor that kept the region alive. Americans didn’t suddenly lose their work ethic. The jobs were taken from them — not by immigrants directly, but by American employers who built a business model on illegal labor and by a federal government that looked the other way for forty years.

What Americans “won’t do” are jobs that have been made illegal in everything but name — jobs where wages have collapsed to exploit desperation, where safety standards are ignored, where workers are paid off the books, where insurance and taxes are bypassed, and where living conditions violate every regulation on the books. When the floor is lowered that far, legal workers cannot enter the market at all. That isn’t laziness. That’s math.

And her supporting arguments are terrific.  Read the whole article.

I remember when #2 Son was looking for some minimum-wage work back when he was in his late teens.  At the time, he was living in Dallas, and when I asked how things were going, work-wise, his response was:  “I just can’t compete with all the Mexicans who are willing to work well below the minimum wage.”

Eventually he quit that, and fortunately found his niche in online gaming quality control, but had to move down to Austin, enduring a few years of contract work — chicken and feathers income — before he finally found a full-time job at a company which was later bought out and became a division of Sony.

And I know that I published a stupid article on the topic of illegal alien workers a while back, and I cringe when I think of it.  (And yes, I was crucified in the Comments by y’all, and deservedly so.  I don’t know what I was thinking.)

Anyway, I see that as ICE is starting to do their job and deporting illegals, American workers are benefiting greatly.

So I guess they were prepared to to “those jobs”, despite the lies uttered by the Democrats over the years.

Let’s Get Real

Education, The Gun Thing

Apparently this group of schoolkids was on a school-sponsored walk, when a rather unwelcome companion joined them:

A grizzly bear attacked a group of elementary school students and teachers in Canada, leaving 11 people injured.  Two were critically injured and two seriously hurt following the attack while a class was out on a walk in Bella Coola, northwest of Vancouver. 

Veronica Schooner said her ten-year-old son Alvarez, who was in the Year 4-5 group, was so close to the animal ‘he even felt its fur.  He was running for his life,’ she told local media.  Ms Schooner said several people attempted to halt the attack but one male teacher ‘got the whole brunt of it’ and was among the people taken by helicopter from the scene.

Guess that school-issued bear spray didn’t work too well, huh?

Some time ago I watched one of TV shows where realtors took people to find their dream off-the-grid cabins in Alaska.  This generally involved a long trek by road, a trip upriver in a boat, or even getting ferried in by float plane.

Here’s the interesting part:  every single realtor, male or female, was packing what looked like a serious gun — mostly large-framed revolvers, but on at least two occasions, the realtors had a rifle slung over their shoulder.

This is what used to be known as “common sense”:  when you’re in bear country, take a frigging gun with you so that when Ol’ Smokey Tha Bahr is looking for a meal item, you can either disabuse him of the urge or else make it his last trip to the human buffet table.

And if realtors can do it, why not the teachers who are nominally responsible for the safety of pupils under their charge?

Oooh I know, guns are icky and you’re twice as likely to be shot by someone you know (Gun Wussies Bible, Chapter One Verses #3 and #4), but ignoring that lunacy, let’s at least acknowledge that pretty much the whole of northwestern America has a decent population of bears of the several varieties, all of which have no problem with munching on the occasional human if sufficiently hungry.

But lest we forget:  we humans and not the bears are at the top of the food chain — unless, that is, we don’t avail ourselves of the implements that put us there.

And as long as we indulge ourselves in this foolishness, there will be more casualties because bears are not like Baloo in the Jungle Book, no matter how much we tell ourselves they are.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice

“Dear Dr Kim,

“When my hands are deep in the turkey gizzard and relatives come brightly into my kitchen, without bringing me a drink, and offer to help:  what playlist can you suggest I ask the smart speaker to play to get them to fuck off?

“Suicidal Christmas Country Songs  worked well, actually a bit too well, last year, and Siri claimed not to recognise “Music to invade Poland to”. Your erudite musical knowledge is needed.

— Some English Farmer

Dear Farmer:

There are so many things wrong with this request that I barely know where to begin.

Let’s start with the “hands in the turkey gizzard” thing.  Where is your wife?  Why is she not performing her uxorial duties, whilst you are outside shooting at crows, neighbors etc.?  Small wonder that relatives come into the kitchen drinkless — they’re expecting to find her in there and not some male interloper.

Secondly:  WTF is this “smart speaker” gadget?  To me this bespeaks idleness or at least inattentiveness on your part, caused no doubt by your being in the kitchen instead of doing worthwhile things like browsing through your collection of gramophone records, wherein I have every expectation that you will find all sorts of music guaranteed to drive foul, unwanted people such as relatives screaming from the room.  Just off the top of my head, I would suggest Adge Cutler and the Wurzels’ debut album, but if said relatives are from your part of the world then this may be a dangerous choice as they would start singing along and even — perish the thought — dancing on your threadbare Axminster.  A better choice might be the musical efforts of Jimmy Shand and his Orchestra:  if that horrible ur-Scottish music fails to send them screaming not just from the room but from your farm altogether, you may as well give up and reach for the budget-priced Spanish plonk that your wife rejected for cooking.

And speaking of cooking, a reminder:  a man’s place to cook is at the barbecue or spit-roast, and not in the kitchen.

Finally, I have no idea what this “Siri” creature is.  It sounds like some ghoul, or an invention of Satan’s minions.  Best stay far away from it, lest you be corrupted and start doing things like leaving the parish and encountering strangers.

—