We kick off this edition of Random News And Notes with a couple of obituaries.
Tommy Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers, died Tuesday at 86. The musician and comedian had been battling cancer. Requescat in Pace.
Gaston Glock, the man behind Glock pistols, died yesterday at age 94. Glock was a mechanical engineer, and his empire started with an injection molding business that made consumer goods. It wasn’t until 1980 that the company started producing pistols.
It’s been a busy couple of days in the Bab el Mandeb and the Red Sea. DDG 58, USS Laboon, a Burke class destroyer and a flight of FA-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower shot down or otherwise intercepted a bunch of drones and cruise missiles launched from Yemen.
Here’s the deal though, until the launchers and personnel doing the launching are attacked, this is going to continue. And it’s not sustainable, either operationally or financially. Just one missile or drone leaks through, and that shipping route gets closed. Again.
Texas authorities have arrested more than 10,000 illegals for criminal trespass in recent weeks. The program, run by the Texas Dept of Public Safety, partners with border landowners. Governor Abbott signed a new law authorizing local judges to order deportation after those arrests. The new law goes into effect in March.
As I predicted, the Colorado primary case has been appealed to SCOTUS. The Colorado GOP filed the appeal yesterday. They are being represented by the American center for law and justice, the legal foundation run by Jay and Jordan Sekulow. I can’t see the disqualification standing, but IANAL. . .
Here’s a bit of history for you. Today in 1732 Ben Franklin published the first edition of Poor Richards Almanack.
The almanack contained weather predictions, witty sayings, poems, proverbs, astronomical information, math exercises, epigrams, calendar information, etc. and was published until 1758.
I remember writing about the Philly soft drink tax a few years back, and now John Stossel has an update. It’s worth the 5 or so minutes to watch:
Ford announced they are cutting EV production by half next year. That’s just the latest in a long line of EV production cuts by car makers. There is also the issue of EV inventory on dealer lots. I saw a stat about the number of days cars are sitting on lots across all segments the other day. It seems given the current sales velocity, the average age of EVs is about 240 days. ICE vehicles average about 60 days. That gets costly for dealers, as they typically do not actually own the cars on their lots. The technical term is floorplanning, and it costs the dealer an average of about 6% of their cost for the vehicle a month. With expensive EVs sitting on the lot for 8 months, well you do the math. . .
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