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poverty

Mandate Madness: Latest Episode of Bandit’s Cantina

By General Posts

Bandit’s Cantina Episode 98: Mandate Madness
Trying Business Survival in Los Angeles
By Bandit with George Fleming and Jon Towle Illustrations

Between Covid and multiple mandates, the Cantina business model imploded. It was no longer about food and parties. It was all about survival. Every Monday morning the staff met to discuss how to get through the next week.

More and more young loners came to the Cantina to help or hide out. Walker’s Café on Pt. Fermin closed after almost 70 years as a coastal biker hangout. Between break-ins and anti-fossil fuel zealots Bikers were no longer allowed to ride along the scenic winding coast.

Brothers who needed cash sold extra parts in a small swap area in the Cantina garages. Some gave parts to the Cantina to sell to pay the bills, others brought stuff to sell and split with the Cantina.

CLICK HERE To Read Latest Episode of Bandit’s Cantina – The Series.

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Clay’s Christmas – Blessings Come in Strange Packages

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New Episode 97 in Bandit’s Cantina – The Series

by K.Randall Ball with illustrations by Jon Towle and George Fleming

The Cantina bustled and Bandit kept the holiday tunes blasting while he stared at his budget sheet. It didn’t look good. The positive cash flow from the Sturgis Rally dwindled. He knew his time in Los Angeles waned and 2022 would be a turning point.

He put on a smiling Xmas face and walked down the stairs to the dining room. Most huddled together over their presents. Brothers discussed bike modifications and upcoming projects.

Marko came out from behind bar and nudged Bandit. “Looking good?” Marko said and then steered Bandit’s gaze to Clay, his thinning head of sandy-blonde hair resting against the polish bar top.

Clay was a too-regular. He started drinking early and didn’t stop. His poison Corona beers held him in place between piss and smoke breaks.

A friendly, helpful sort he wanted to assist folks and started to rebuild outboard motors and handled dinghy repairs. Never said a bad thing about anyone.

CLICK HERE To Read the Follow-up to the 2021 XMas Story

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Energy Poverty Kills

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From Center for Industrial Progress by Alex Epstein

Last week we looked at the need for a process of producing energy that is cheap, plentiful, and reliable—and we saw that solar and wind cannot produce cheap, reliable energy.

How Germany embraced solar and wind and ended up in energy poverty

Let’s take a look at this in practice. Germany is considered by some to be the best success story in the world of effective solar and wind use, and you’ll often hear that they get a large percentage of their energy from solar and wind.

You can see here on this chart how this claim was made and why it’s not accurate.

First of all, this is just a chart of electricity. Solar and wind are only producing electricity and half of Germany’s energy needs also include fuel and heating. So solar and wind never contribute half as much to Germany’s energy needs as this chart would imply.

But that’s not the biggest problem. What you notice here is that there’s certain days and times where there are large spikes, but there are also periods where there’s relatively little. What that means is that you can’t rely on solar and wind ever. You always have to have an infrastructure that can produce all of your electricity independent of the solar and wind because you can always go a long period with very little solar and wind.

So then why are the solar and wind necessary? Well, you could argue that they’re not and that adding them onto the grid will impose a lot of costs.

In Germany, electricity prices have more than doubled since 2000 when solar and wind started receiving massive subsidies and favorable regulations, and their electricity prices are three to four times what we would pay in the U.S. (Because of its low reliability, solar, and wind energy options require an alternative backup—one that’s cheap, plentiful, and reliable—to make it work, thus creating a more expensive and inefficient process.)

Nuclear and hydro

Fossil fuels are not the only reliable sources. There are two others that don’t generate CO2 that are significant and are more limited, but still significant contributors. Those are hydroelectric energy and nuclear energy.

Hydroelectric energy can be quite affordable over time, but it’s limited to locations where you have the right physical situation to produce hydroelectric power.

Nuclear is more interesting because nuclear doesn’t have the problems of hydro but it’s been very restricted throughout history so today in the vast majority of cases it’s considerably more expensive than say electricity from natural gas. This may change in the future and one thing we’ll discuss under policy is how we need to have the right policies so that all energy technologies can grow and flourish, if indeed the creators of those technologies can do it.

The reality of energy poverty: a story

To illustrate just how important it is to have cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy, I want to share a story I came across while doing research for my book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. This is a story about a baby born in the very poor country of Gambia.

The baby was born underweight and premature, but not in such a way that would be a big problem in say, the United States. In the United States, the solution would have been obvious: incubation. This technology would almost certainly bring this baby up to be completely healthy, and if you met the baby later in life you would never know that there had ever been a problem.

Unfortunately, in the Gambia, in this particular hospital, they needed something that billions of people in the world do not have, and that is reliable electricity.

Without reliable electricity, the hospital didn’t even contemplate owning an incubator, the one thing this baby desperately needed to survive.

Without access to this technology, the baby could not survive on her own, and sadly, she died. I think this story reminds us of what it means to have access to cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy, and how having more energy gives us the ability to improve our lives.

To summarize what we discussed, if you can’t afford energy you don’t have energy, and if energy is scarce or unreliable, then you don’t have energy when you need it. It’s not just enough to have energy, the energy and the process to create it has to be cheap, plentiful, and reliable.

Annual Motorcycle Ride for Toys for Tots to Begin October 24

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by Allison Keys from https://www.krqe.com

On Sunday, Oct. 24, the 17th Annual Ride for Toys for Tots will kick off the season.

Toys for Tots begins collections for holiday season during motorcycle run.

As a child, there is nothing quite as exciting as waking up on Christmas morning with presents under the tree. However, not every child gets to experience that feeling.

The Toys for Tots campaign works to change that. Assistant Program Coordinator Paul Caputo and Maj. Mike Schroeder discuss the campaign and how it’s making a difference in the lives of local children.

A program by the US Marine Corps Reserve, Toys for Tots strives to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November, and December every year and to distribute them as Christmas gifts to children in need within the community.

On Sunday, Oct. 24, the 17th Annual Ride for Toys for Tots will kick off the season at the Super Walmart located on 528 and Enchanted Hills. Registration for the motorcycle ride starts at 9 a.m. with a ride to Thunderbird Harley-Davidson at 5000 Alameda Blvd. for an afterparty. The entry fee to the event is an unwrapped gift.

For more information on how to get involved with the program, visit https://toysfortots.org/.

If you’d like to put a donation box for toys at your business, call Paul Caputo at 505-975-2033.

WATCH: Full interview with Toys for Tots Asst. Program Coordinator Paul Caputo and Maj. Mike Schroeder