Dickey’s BBQ is a franchised BBQ concept headquartered in Dallas, Texas. They spend a ton of money advertising on cable calling themselves “real, Texas, BBQ.” They had a store in my town….it shut down, re-opened as a Side Burn BBQ, which I aided and abetted in their shut down (RIP). Now they have found a new sucker to re-open the store in the same location! So, without further ado here is the review.
Ambiance: When you walk into the restaurant, they yell out “Welcome to Dickey’s.” I found this weird because no one was there, sans one lady who ordered a large takeout order of sliders for her office.
Lunch rush at Dickey’s
Dickey’s, like everyone else, is trying to copy Moe’s Southwest Grill concept with the whole “Welcome to____” when anyone walks in, very unoriginal. Anyway, after walking in I saw one guy who was assembling the women’s order who was in front of me, the other two workers were just staring at me like I was a co-star in the “Invasion of the body snatchers.” I stood their statue like, jaw jutting out in deep thought “maybe it was a union shop and the other two couldn’t cut the meat?” Did I interrupt their break at lunchtime? Who knows?
Inspiring workplace poster for Dickey’s employees
Finally, Micaela asked what I wanted. I guess the union break was over, so I ordered the $3 pulled pork sandwich. 0/5 Literally I have seen a morgue with more ambiance.
Food: They offer BBQ faire like that found pretty much everywhere. The menu was pulled pork, brisket, chicken, ham (wtf??) ribs, spicy cheddar sausage, and polish sausage. They also offer an abundance of BBQ sandwiches like I ordered, as well as side dishes, salads, and baked potatoes. But as far as this being unique to Texas or anything…it stinks. Like literally there is nothing special about this joint. Why would you advertise Texas in California, a state that literally hates everything about Texas, without it somehow being better in flavor, portion, and quality? 1.5/5
Uninspiring sandwich
I ordered the pulled pork using my coupon for $3 BBQ sandwich. Knowing this was likely a loss leader, I figured I would help them out and order a side of waffle fries for …. yeah $2.50. WOOF. My pulled pork was pulled from a warmer vat (not a smoker or a warmer) and the girl squeezed all the juice with her gloves. She reassured me this is how it was supposed to be made. I was born in the South and I know BBQ, this girl is either retarded or dumb, frankly you can choose.
Cold, dead, French fries too
Overall: Here is the kicker. Remember my coupon for the $3 sandwich? The staff didn’t honor it. I even showed them the digital coupon on my trusty smartphone. Maybe I am blind, but it would stand to reason when someone gets a digital coupon from corporate that the price would be honored. It wasn’t. I was charged the full amount of $6.50 for the sandwich and $2.50 for the side. I paid because, well you cannot fix stupid and I would rather these 3 idiots remain employed rather than collect unemployment. The gal told me she would bring my sandwich and fries out together after my fries were cooked because that way, they were fresh…. bad idea.
One bite is all it took for me to book
The sandwich was cold and dry, and the fries were cold…weird because they were “fried fresh.” The sandwich was somehow worse. It was dryer than dry. Like Mojave Desert dry…I had one bite and a couple of fries. I voiced my disappointment and the crew did not care. I left and when I returned to the office, I had a sleeve of Oreo’s for lunch. 0/5
Oreo Cookies beat Dickey’s any day
This place stinks, it stinks, it stinks, it stinks. Legit Texas BBQ? Yeah, I guess not. I am certain my pulled pork was bought at the Safeway down the way, no chance they have a smoker in shop. The BBQ sauces they claim are homemade? I saw a delivery of sauces with a national name brands on them…not original, sorry. The shop was empty and it’s not hard to see why. The service is god awful and the food is a wild mashup of store-bought microwaved trash. Maybe try being legit and buy a BBQ or a smoker? Southerners everywhere must turn their noses up at this. Microwaved BBQ is what Yankees do!
Once, safely back at the office and stuffed with Oreo cookies, I complained to corporate and soon after, the franchisee called me and asked to have a meeting with me…I suggested maybe somewhere with authentic ethnic food like Taco Bell? He has been begging me to give it another try, and I have declined. He told me they pit smoke their meat every day for several hours, I guess Barney Fife and Col. Klink are minding the smoker? I feel bad for him because the food was bad and his employees stink…almost as bad as the food does. Long and short of it, save your money, because you will either get horrible food, or be overcharged for horrible food.
Jon Taffer
This place stinks….as Jon Taffer would say SHUT IT DOWN!
My wife is fond of quoting Dr. Laura Schlessinger, “Even a bird knows, you have to make a nest before laying an egg.” Truth is that birds seem to have more sense than people. We drag all sorts of stuff back to our nest that we shouldn’t. Sometimes it’s from the local watering hole and sometimes the local Best Buy or whatever vendor of electronic gizmos hits your fancy.
When you put a Google Nest or similar product in your house, you should be wary of what you’re letting thru the front door. Every electronic device in your house is collecting information about you and sending it to others. Here’s a partial list of stuff that is already collecting data on you.
Television Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and all the other streaming services that you use are collecting information about you, but did you know your television and Blu-ray/DVD plays are too? Have a PlayStation, XBOX, or Nintendo product connected too? Many of these devices and associated peripherals have cameras and microphones and are never truly shutoff even when the power light is de-energized.
Computer If you own a computer—whether desktop or laptop, tablet, or smartphone—then all sorts of folks all over the world are collecting information on you. They know what websites you visit (even in private mode), what you have installed on you device, where you are—often in real time, where you work, live, send your children to school, shop, and much more.
Folks, the Internet allows the outside world into yours, but the reverse is true as well. The Amish say that Satan travels thru wires, but he went wireless decades ago.
Google Nest Hub Max
The new trend is having mesh networks with smart devices on them. This technology has been available for about a decade, but it has gone mainstream in the last couple of years. Folks, I can understand protecting the perimeter of your property but, I can’t understand why you’d want high definition cameras with microphones in every room in your house.
Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and others have people listening to you and watching you at will any time they wish. Never thought of yourself as the Truman Show, too bad ‘cause you might be.
A Milwaukee couple said hackers broke into their smart home devices and raised the thermostat while blasting vulgar music through the wireless electronics, a report said.
Samantha and Lamont Westmoreland, who purchased a Nest camera in 2018, experienced the shocking breach on Sept. 17, they told FOX 6. “It gives me the chills just talking about it,” Samantha told the network, describing the virtual intrusion that began when she returned from work to a scorching home with the thermostat set at 90 degrees.
She turned the temperature back down, chalking it up to a one-time malfunction.
But soon after, somebody started speaking through her kitchen security camera.
Then she heard vulgar music coming from the same device.
I can understand the family feeling violated but should their feelings really be the issue here?If the people had watched them without saying something, is that somehow better? By the way, they only found out about this because the watchers decided the reveal themselves, so we don’t know how long they were watched first? Yes, it might have just been kids in this instance, but others know how to cover their tracks better. Folks, nothing would prevent someone from recording something happening in the house and then posting it on the Internet, what then?
Google of course disavowed any responsibility and blamed the family. What else can they do?
The bottom line is, just because it’s on sale at Costco doesn’t mean it belongs in your home. Folks, if you want a system like this to protect your home’s perimeter, you should hire someone who knows more than you do. However, if you want this system in every room in your house then you’re a nut.
Back in the 1960’s, the Beach Boys admonished us to be true to your school. As a youth, I thought this song was about cheering for the football team and supporting your community. Boy was I wrong.
It turns out to be much more serious than that. If you thought being true to your school is what I thought, don’t go to Wisconsin. Such a casual view of school can get you thrown in jail. Say the wrong thing and you’re in legal jeopardy. No, really.
Anyone who delivers a speech at an event hosted by the school district in Appleton, Wisconsin, must submit the speech in advance and then swear under oath they will not deviate from the script. And that includes students.
“The opportunity to speak at a school event is a privilege, not a right,” the Appleton Area School District wrote in a statement.
The new guidelines require all speakers, including students, to submit their entire speech in writing two weeks in advance of delivery.
Speakers are also not permitted to wear “jewelry, clothing or accessories that reasonably could be understood to communicate a message to the audience when the speech is given.”
School Board member Rev. Alvin Dupree
But the swearing of an oath is perhaps the most disturbing part of Appleton’s crackdown on free speech.
“Speakers that submit proposed speeches shall be required to certify that they will deliver the speech as written, except for minor and immaterial variances from the text of their proposal,” the district wrote. “Certification shall be in writing and shall be sworn under oath.”
The oath must be signed by student and adult speakers and must be witnessed and sealed by a notary.
The oath states, among other things, “that I am affirming the statements to be true and correct under penalty of law.”
Lest you had any doubts about this draconian policy…
Their new policies and procedures are meant to silence people of faith – specifically Christians.
Why did the district do this?
The new regulations were implemented after a Christian school-board member invoked the name of Jesus Christ during a graduation ceremony last June.
Submit or else you’ll get worse
Oh how terrible. And worst yet, this school board member had the gall adlib his prepared remarks by deviating from the script. He “told students to ‘never succumb to the pressure of being politically correct’”. “He also changed the district’s prepared statement of ‘best wishes’ to ‘God bless.’”
The article ends with this controversial endorsement of the US Constitution and the First Amendment.
Every freedom-loving American should be appalled by the actions of the Appleton Area School District.
Heaven forbid the day comes when an American teenager or a pastor is dragged off the stage by security forces simply for uttering the name of Jesus Christ at a graduation ceremony.
To which I can only add a hearty and appropriate, “AMEN.”
In the last few years, our family has been attending a Lutheran Church. My wife and I like many things about the church, but there are times that I just want to scream. Last night was one of those times.
Before getting into the details of my complaint, let me preface a few things. Within the Protestant churches that take the Bible as the Word of God, there are two traditions that are polar opposites when it comes to doctrine and worship.
On the one hand are folks like the Baptists and Presbyterians. While you won’t often see these two groups lumped together, they do have one thing in common; namely, expository preaching. They vary widely on doctrine but during the sermon, neither group is afraid to take a deep dive into their understanding of the Bible. In their worship, the sermon is the focal point of the worship and Communion is like the cherry on top or caboose of the train, nice but not necessary.
On the other hand are folks like the Anglicans and Lutherans. Their focus in worship is very different. Anglican and Lutheran sermons are shallow by comparison and rarely expository in nature. In these churches, the deep dive into theology is outside of worship, usually Sunday school or small group Bible study. In their services, Communion is the focus of worship and the sermon is typically a meditation on a passage of Scripture appointed to be read on that Sunday. In the Anglican world, depending on the Lectionary, the Scripture reading many have been selected for that Sunday several hundred years ago.
In a typical Anglican or Lutheran service, you will get a 12 to 20 minute sermon whereas the Baptist or Presbyterian sermon will be 30 to 50 minutes. Anglicans and Lutherans practice frequent, often weekly, Communion. Again, the former group tends to be much more focused on the individual and less on the corporate body while the latter group is the opposite. During their sermons, Baptists and Presbyterians expose everyone to the more difficult theological issues while in Anglican and Lutheran circles, individuals desiring more need to seek it outside of the weekly service. The difference is that some folks are stuck in the shallow end of the pool and the Baptist and Presbyterian folks expect everyone to swim. The irony in my experience is that the most scholarly people are the Anglicans. Their command of Church history and doctrine is better than any other group, you just don’t get that from their sermons because of the difference in focus.
Last Night’s Gathering
Twice a month, the men of the church which I attend, meet at a local watering hole to discuss some aspect of the faith. Since the Reformation started in Germany, beer is often associated with church gatherings. Trust me, Martin Luther was a big fan of beer. As a recovering Baptist, beer is something I can only tolerate in very small doses.
Anyway, last night was such a gathering. In attendance were a cross-section of men from the Lutheran church and perhaps a visitor or two as well. It started with one of the pastors talking about reconciliation especially as it concerns forgiveness and reconciliation to our fellow man. As we talked, people brought up relationships between husbands and wives and parents and children. A comment was made that single folks can’t really appreciate the depth of love that a parent has for a child. One guy said that he didn’t realize what this was like until he because a father. At this point in the conversation, a young, single man made a comment that sounded right out of the OAC camp. He said that he can’t imagine bringing a child into this world because of all the acrimony in our society and then invoked climate change and overpopulation as reasons not to be a parent.
She who shall not be named
Folks, I about hurled my meager dinner when I heard him say this. I was literally seated next to this guy and stunned. (I whispered to him that global warming was nonsense but I don’t think others heard me.) Instead of disagreeing with his comment, another guy chimed-in about larger families in the past and another about people in poor countries having larger families. A third comment was about the Bible not addressing what our lives and families are like today because it was written for an agricultural society. A fourth guy said that sometimes other people have large families for religious reasons—the way he said it implied that the people who believe this were not present at this table. I waited for the pastor to jump in but he never forthrightly corrected the comments.
I had many things rush thru my mind but knew that if these guys agreed with the first comment, then they were incapable of understanding what I was thinking. It was clear that many at this gathering were comfortable in the shallow end of the theological pool. It occurred to me that I had to say something brief because a multitude of words would be casting pearls. I pointed out that our faith is based on having many children. Thankfully, I had a few others agree with me.
Folks, I’m really angry and alarmed about the extent to which people in the Church have been deceived by the lies propagated by our culture. No wonder we aren’t salt and light to our world. When we don’t know what the Bible says about families, and worse yet, don’t think it speaks to the nonsense that passes for knowledge these days!!! Lord have mercy.
This is the second time this week that I’ve crossed paths with supposedly Christian people that are embracing this environmental wacko crap without realizing that they are following a false religion that is the antithesis of Biblical Christianity.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were both shocked that a different pastor that we know prayed during the service for God to put out the forest fires in the Amazon—again more environmental hysteria which was nothing but propaganda.
Environmental Syllogism
Folks, the modern environmental movement is easy to understand. Here is the logic.
There is a crisis
The crisis is too big for you to solve
The only one big enough to impact the crisis is government
Therefore you need to yield more control of your life to government because only it can save you.
The environmental movement is really that simple.
Closing Thoughts
The Bible has the answers to real environmental issues. In part, it begins with a principle that is so simple you should have learned this as a child but again, common sense these days is uncommon. In essence, if you make a mess, clean it up. Don’t throw your trash over your neighbor’s fence and call it good, clean up your own mess.
Case in point is China. 30 percent of the plastic pollution in the ocean is from China. If you don’t like the garbage patch in the Pacific, evangelize China and most of the problem will go away. In addition, the United States needs to quit sending our trash to China because we don’t want it in our landfills, we need to deal with our own refuse, not dump it in our neighbor’s back yard.
Lastly, the Church needs to counter false doctrines and teachings instead of allowing them to be accepted by her congregations because her leaders are silent. God is in control of the creation and we are to exercise dominion over the creation. He’s told us what to do. We are to bring every thought into captivity and weigh everything on the basis of His Word.
Some of men from last night’s gathering have clearly never received proper biblical instruction. Christianity is a way of living not just something you do for an hour on Sunday mornings. Our faith must be applied to every area of our lives, our families, and our communities. Jesus is Lord of all; now, not at some distant date in the future. Until we start living that way, we will be blown about by every wind of doctrine no matter how ridiculous; including the myth of climate change.
I have written in this space recently about the Knights Insurance Program being a fraudulent racketeering scheme, we have linked the article here if you choose to revisit it. However just when you thought this scheme was coming to a halt, they find a new low. Get this, the insurance program is now open to not just current Knights and their immediate family, now it’s open to anyone! Yeah, they say only to practicing Catholics but how does one identify or define that these days? I know quite a few people who call themselves Catholic yet haven’t been to church in decades! Or better yet how about the “Chreasters” as I call them who only show up on Christmas and Easter? Better yet, the Insurance Agents who sell these policies have territories that cover multiple churches, no way they even know if these people are confirmed into the church!
So now anyone can sign up for our life insurance, annuities, 401k, and get this, long term care insurance! Pay most attention to the last one, almost no one sells long term care anymore because it is a huge money loser! CalPERS quit selling a long time ago and I cannot find any reputable carrier who sells these plans! So now we have opened the flood gates to anyone. The only requirement is…..wait for it……wait…….you must join the Knights within 60 days of buying the insurance. So in essence the Knights gain a member for each policy sold. So I guess this is a way to grow membership right?
Incorrect. This is merely a way to prop up their insurance scheme, that by the way, is seeing its coffers for paying claims getting closer and closer to zero. They will sell this product, then the insured will have to join a council, and in theory become a dues paying member. Here is the problem, if you are an insured member you do not have to pay your dues, because the order cannot drop an insurance member! Even if your dues are in arrears over 10 years…does not matter if you have an insurance policy that you pay on!
(Sounds suspiciously like the CRA membership model of not paying dues as long as you are willing to be a delegate to local endorsing conventions.)
But wait, there is more! The council that you belong to has to send a per capita payment each year to Supreme HQ back in New Haven, Connecticut, whether the local unit collected dues from you or not. Think of it like a pyramid scheme, the folks in New Haven get paid for every member from the local council, regardless of whether their dues are paid or not!
No one sells the pyramid like Billy Mays
That my loyal readers is the definition of a pyramid scheme, and they have made us dues paying members subsidize the non-payers for the betterment of the fat cats in New Haven.
In a pyramid scheme, an organization compels individuals who wish to join to make a payment. In exchange, the organization promises its new members a share of the money taken from every additional member that they recruit. The directors of the organization (those at the top of the pyramid) also receive a share of these payments. For the directors, the scheme is potentially lucrative—whether or not they do any work, the organization’s membership has a strong incentive to continue recruiting and funneling money to the top of the pyramid.
However worst of all is they are poisoning their own local councils, due to the unknown. Rather than allowing the local membership to vet new candidates this process can be circumvented, allowing a member who is a complete unknown to have voting rights! Or even worse what if they try to spearhead a takeover? I used to belong to a church, who like any other Roman Catholic Church desperate for members let in quite a few homosexual couples, they worked their way onto the parish council (the governing body) and major changes happened. Suddenly the procession included streamers and dancers, the choir was replaced with a band, the congregation swayed during the songs, the sermon turned into something you would expect from a televangelist church! I no longer felt “in” and I left the church.
Sadly the same thing will happen to the local Knights councils. This is nothing but desperation on the part of a group who knows the gig is up. With no power to kick these members out, an aging population who uses the meetings and dinner as a chance to hide from their wives, or drink all you can for $7, the writing is on the wall. Word to the wise, I would buy no product from this group, as most of their insured membership will be looking up at the ground not down at it in the next 15 years.
The program is going insolvent and this is yet another last gasp effort to shore it up. The next step will be allowing any and every one to join the insurance program and the requirement of being a “practicing Catholic in accordance with the Holy See” will be removed. All this just so a group of incompetent jackholes in New Haven can make money off the dues paying members.
Lee Ann Harper, I am coming directly after you in my next blog, after what you did to me! She is the definition of an incompetent Jackhole.
Democrats are having a revolution in their midst. The leadership doesn’t know how to stave-off the insurgency of the Broad Squad and likeminded socialists in their midst so what can they do? Oh, how about unite by fighting a common enemy? Perhaps, someone that they hate almost as much as the Republicans. Amongst themselves they say, “Let’s investigate Donald Trump. Let’s impeach Donald Trump. Let’s imprison Donald Trump.” In their Keynesian little minds they reason that Trump has to be guilty of something, how else could he become rich?
If you pay attention to the Democrats, you learn something very significant about them; namely, they always accuse others of doing what they do. In their mind, when they do something, it’s just natural and right but when others do it, its corruption, shameful, or otherwise wrong. It matters not the subject, you can find this in so many areas of public policy and discourse. One of their favorite accusations is racism, but did you notice that they are the only ones that care about a person’s race. The rest of us care more about the content of one’s character, but everything Democrats talk about is based on skin color and other categories that only they care about.
Likewise, they are now accusing Donald Trump of doing what Joe Biden actually did as Vice-President; the difference is that Trump never did it and Joe did. Thus Democrats have one rule for themselves—the ruling class—and another rule for everyone else. The corollary is that it’s patently unfair to hold people to the same standard.
But why impeachment? Is this Nancy Pelosi’s Hail Mary pass to achieve the impossible or her last ditch effort to hold on to the Speaker position? Both?
I think you have to go back to the time when Democrats last hated someone as vehemently as Trump and that President would be Richard Nixon.
Richard Nixon
(Democrats didn’t hate Ronald Reagan, they just didn’t take him seriously and unlike Trump, Reagan was a likeable guy and worked with both parties.) Democrats came off the 1972 revolution when Pelosi’s generation took control of the Party and were promptly focused on crucifying Richard Nixon. Nixon was Vice-President during the McCarthy hearings and hated communists. For many, it was payback time. Nixon was only guilty of trying to protect his friends but back then that was enough to run him out of office. Nixon was ultimately forced to resign because of phone calls—sound familiar. Why do you think no tape exists of Trump’s call to Ukraine? Nixon had tapes and was crucified for it in Congress. Now because Trump has transcripts and not an actual recording of the call, Democrats will try to use that against him. Do you see the circular reasoning employed here? If you have a tape we’ll use it against you and if you only have a transcript and not a tape then we’ll use that against you too because that means you must have something to hide.
I think the Democrats are trying to relive the glory days of Watergate but the glory is only in their heads and not based in reality. Neither the Broad Squad and their fellow travelers towards Communism nor Donald Trump are going to let this reenactment end like last time.
The impeachment effort has already come off the rails because the narrative has been proven to be based on lies, innuendo, and fabrications.
President Trump is a bull in a china shop. He says inadvisable things to inadvisable people, mainly because he is inadvisable – literally no one can advise him. The vast majority of things Trump says are ignored or brushed off by those who understand the difference between bloviation and manipulation. Still, Trump’s constant stream of noise can make it difficult to tell the difference between the two.
So when an intelligence community whistleblower came forward with an allegation that, on a call with the Ukrainian president, Trump proposed a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government – release of military aid in exchange for a Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden – the allegation didn’t appear absurd on its face. The timeline, after all, seemed to match up: Trump allegedly suspended military aid to Ukraine personally a week before talking with the Ukrainian president, only to release the aid after the holdup was met with public scrutiny.
Then, the Trump administration released a transcript of the call, in which Trump used the typical New York real estate wheeler-dealer language of favors: favors related to investigations surrounding CrowdStrike, the firm tasked with analyzing the hack of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, an investigation that concluded with allegations of Russian interference; favors related to helping Rudy Giuliani investigate the origins of the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation; favors related to investigating the Bidens. The theory seemed to be gaining credibility.
Then it seemed to fall apart. It turned out that the Ukrainian government apparently had no clue that Trump was even withholding military aid – and without such a quid, there couldn’t be a pro quo. The Ukrainian president publicly proclaimed that Trump hadn’t pressured him. The whistleblower report turned out to be third-hand gossip rather than first-hand information. And allegations of a cover-up imploded as the Trump administration released information ranging from the transcript to the whistleblower report itself.
Two other thoughts on the impeachment thing. First, Trump has a right to defend himself from the accusations of the Democrats; to expect him to just sit there and take it like George W Bush did for eight years is not going to happen. Trump will vigorously defend himself. Second, Trump promised to investigate the corruption of the last administration. Clearly Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden deserve scrutiny given their known behavior while in office. There is enough on the public record, often in their own words, to indict either. Is this impeachment push a ruse to thwart forthcoming criminal charges on one of them?
Folks, this impeachment thing will result only in the termination of Joe Biden’s candidacy for President. As others have predicted on this blog, Biden couldn’t win, place, or show in any early primary states anyways. Given the weak Democrat field, it is possible that someone else may step off the sidelines and enter the fray. The filing window will begin closing soon in some states but if the field remains like it is, I see Trump easily winning reelection. I can’t speak to the other side but by their actions, Democrats have boosted the enthusiasm for Trump voters to an all-time high.
The other wildcard to watch is the Supreme Court. I think it highly probable that Justice Ginsburg will not be on the court come next fall. A looming court vacancy will upend anything else the Democrats might do between now and then.
No, I’m not writing about Tesla’s 3rd quarter financial report but their latest feature called “Smart Summons”. If you thought their autopilot was sketchy just wait ‘til you read this. Oh, emphasis was in original post.
With Tesla releasing V10 of its vehicle software earlier this week, owners were chomping at the bit to get their hands on the long touted “Smart Summon” feature, which is supposed to allow drivers to summon their vehicles to them in parking lots using their cell phones.
But, as things go with Tesla, the idea of the idea was worlds away from the actual implementation of it. In fact, early customer videos and reports of the “feature” are making Smart Summon look extremely dangerous and nothing short of a complete disaster.
As soon as the software update pushed to drivers, videos began popping up on social media showing a litany of negative consequences of everyday users beta testing Smart Summon in real life.
Tesla says that with Smart Summon “customers who have purchased Full Self-Driving Capability or Enhanced Autopilot can enable their car to navigate a parking lot and come to them or their destination of choice, as long as their car is within their line of sight. It’s the perfect feature to use if you have an overflowing shopping cart, are dealing with a fussy child, or simply don’t want to walk to your car through the rain.”
Tesla claims that “customers who have had early access to Smart Summon have told us that it adds both convenience to their trips and provides them with a unique moment of delight when their car picks them up to begin their journey.”
What follows is a series of Twitter posts from Tesla owners complaining about bumps, scrapes, and bruises to their vehicles as a result of trusting this half-baked idea. If you need a quick laugh, take a look at the rest of the article.
As usual, Elon sells the sizzle and not the steak.
Yesterday, I got to drive a car full of kids to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The drive each way was three hours; remarkably, that’s using the car pool lane otherwise it would have taken much longer.
For the trip, I figured that I would use Google Maps instead of my car’s navigation system since cities like San Francisco and Sacramento like to arbitrarily change the direction of one-way streets and add random bike lanes where cars once freely roamed. I figured, if there was an area that Google had down cold, it would be the highways and byways of their own backyard. Sadly, my experience was less than satisfactory. Things were OK until I got in San Francisco and then, when I needed it, Google failed. Twice when going down the highway (I-80 and then Highway 101), Google suddenly put me on surface streets just because I did a lane change. Worst of all, when exiting 101, it was totally messed up and kept rerouting me to get me lined-up to head west on surface streets towards Golden Gate Park.
Finally, we turned from John F Kennedy Drive to Nancy Pelosi Drive and got our first look at our destination.
Folks, in principle, I hate anything named after individuals that are still alive. Lots of people start well and finish life poorly. I’m speaking in generalities and being very charitable in this instance. I think the filter of history needs to weigh a person’s life before naming public places (or holidays) after them. This is not a slam on just Pelosi but my town of Elk Grove as well. Elk Grove is constantly naming parks and schools after living people. My reaction on hearing the name of the street (Nancy Pelosi) was mirrored by one of my son’s friend that verbalized my feelings. Folks, knowing that the boundaries of the museum are in part defined by invoking Nancy Pelosi’s name, is what is known in literature as foreshadowing.
The California Academy of Sciences is a composite of different areas under one roof. For one price you get access to an aquarium, planetarium, rainforest, and natural history museum. I have seen better displays elsewhere but for northern California, it is a respectable assembly of experiences in one place.
Steinhart Aquarium
The Steinhart Aquarium—which used to be a standalone attraction—is the best part of the museum. It is a fraction of the size of the Monterey Bay Aquarium but does boast an impressive display of mature freshwater fishes including some trophy sized arapaima.
River Monster sizes arapaima
The largest saltwater tank is supposed to be representative of a reef system in the Philippines; however, I doubt its authenticity. As it happens, I have scuba dived in the Philippines and many fish that I frequently saw while diving were missing from the display.
Philippines reef display
Also strangely absent from the displays were sharks. In many of the smaller salt water tanks, I saw algae and other things indicative of poor water quality. I think there is room for improvement in this area. This is one area that Monterey Bay beats all others since they take water directly out of the sea and don’t have to recycle and extensively tinker with water chemistry.
Osher Rainforest
The Osher Rainforest is supposed to represent a generic rainforest. It is housed in a Plexiglas bubble structure with a pathway through it. You walk up several levels from the ground to the tops of the trees. The most predominant feature is the assortment of butterflies. Also, you will notice various tropical birds. The exhibit is kept humid compared to the outside air but it’s not really as humid as a tropical region (otherwise my glasses would have instantly fogged over). Various small insects are displayed as you go thru the display including beetles, ants, etc. Signs also make mention of the roles of elephants and apes in such an environment. Of course there are also signs claiming that the Amazon rainforest is in danger due to human activity like logging and agriculture.
Morrison Planetarium
The Morrison Planetarium can seat several hundred people. Sadly, we didn’t see a show about the stars but instead a film about oceans. The film was Expedition Reef. This film is completely computer generated. It begins at the Philippine reef display at the aquarium and then does a reverse angle to reveal the open sea in all its CGI glory. The production is stunning except for one small problem, the sea doesn’t look anything like it does in the film. Folks 4K photography can’t really capture the brilliance of the undersea adventure let alone the limitations of CGI. The colors and lighting of this film was more akin to diving just after sunset than in broad daylight. The scope of seeing it on the planetarium screen was reminiscent of an IMAX presentation.
Below is a summary of the film’s content.
Narrated by Tony Award® winner Lea Salonga, the all-digital Expedition Reef takes full advantage of the Morrison Planetarium’s fulldome screen to immerse you in the undersea adventure. Along the way, discover how corals grow, feed, reproduce, and support over 25% of all marine life on Earth—while facing unprecedented threats from climate change, habitat destruction, and overfishing.
“This is a difficult story [and] a turning point for reefs,” says Academy scientist and reef expert Dr. Rebecca Albright, “but it’s not too late.”
Folks, while much of the usual Darwin and millions of years was missing from many of the displays, radical environmentalism was front and center of this whole place. The centerpiece of this worldview was this film at the museum. In it we are told that we need to stop using plastic, synthetic materials for clothing, and reduce CO2 emissions amongst other things. As always, we are told that by some arbitrary date in the future, in this case 2050, it will be too late.
The plastic waste in the seas was presented as being all our fault because of our lifestyle even though most of the trash in the world’s oceans is from Asian countries.
In 2015, a study published in the journal Science sought to discover where exactly all of this garbage is coming from. According to the researchers, the discarded plastics and other debris floats eastward out of countries in Asia from six primary sources: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand. In fact, the Ocean Conservancy reported that China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam dump more plastic in the sea than all other countries combined. China alone is responsible for 30% of worldwide plastic ocean pollution.
Also, this film neglects that the plastic in the ocean is serving as impromptu coral reefs with millions of creatures including juvenile fish living in their midst. In fact these trash zones have their own unique ecosystems.
Imagine you’re on a small boat in the middle of the open ocean, surrounded by what looks like a raft of plastic. Now flip the whole world upside down. You remain comfortably attached to your seat—the abyss towers above you, and all around, stretching up from the water’s surface, is an electric-blue meadow of life. What you thought was plastic is actually a living island. This meadow is made up of a diverse collection of animals. The most abundant are blue buttons and by-the-wind sailors, with bright-blue bodies that dot the sky like suns, and deep-purple snails found in patches so dense one scientist described collecting more than 1,000 in 20 minutes.
This is the neuston, a whole ecosystem living at the ocean’s surface. I once stumbled upon a raft of neuston when a storm blew it ashore in California. Many neustonic animals are vibrant highlighter colors, and the sand was saturated in bright blues and pale pinks. Together, these small creatures may function like upside-down coral reefs: an oasis of shelter and life far out to sea. As far back as the Cold War era, scientists were describing these colorful and important ecosystems, yet they still remain all but unknown. But now, as efforts to clean the ocean of plastic start up, our ignorance is putting this ecosystem at risk.
The neuston is home to more than blue buttons and bright snails. Erupting through the lawn of blue are crackling purple, red, gold, and yellow strands. These are Portuguese man o’ wars, whose tentacles stretch like lightning from the meadows of blue and pink. And among them, dragons roam.
Small nudibranchs, known as blue sea dragons, feast on blue buttons and man o’ wars, using their winglike cerata to grab and hold onto their tentacled prey. There are sea anemones, barnacles, copepods, color-changing crabs, specialized bacteria, even bugs, all living in this inverted reef in the middle of the open ocean. (Organisms that live exclusively by floating at the surface of the water are called pleuston, while neuston is a broader term, referring generally to the sea-surface ecosystem, which is why I chose to use it here.)
Just like reefs on the seafloor, this ecosystem does not stand apart from the open ocean around it. The neuston is a nursery for multiple species of larval fish and a hunting ground for paper nautilus octopuses. It supports sunfish, leatherback turtles, and diverse ocean grazers, which frequent these islands, relying on them as a food source. At night, soft-bodied jellies rise up to join the neuston, sparkling like fireflies. But all of this, from the blue sea dragons to the by-the-wind sailors, is in peril.
When I learned about the Ocean Cleanup project’s 600-meter-long barrier with a three-meter-deep net, a wall being placed in the open ocean, ostensibly to collect plastic passively as the currents push water through the net, I thought immediately of the neuston. How will it be impacted? But in the 146 pages of the Ocean Cleanup’s environmental-impact assessment, this ecosystem isn’t mentioned once.
I was disturbed by this omission. Though the neuston isn’t known to many people, it is certainly known to marine biologists. Evidence that the Ocean Cleanup knows about the neuston is clear from a table reporting animals in the vicinity of the Ocean Cleanup deployment area, where both blue buttons and by-the-wind sailors are listed. But the ecosystem itself is never discussed. By omitting the neuston from its assessment, the project is overlooking the habitat it could be impacting most, and there is no sense of what the damage might be.
We were told in the film not to wash our clothes because doing so introduces microscopic plastic fibers into the water. We are also told in the film that plastic can never truly be removed from the environment once introduced into the water which is false.
Did you know that microscopic critters are actually eating and dissolving the plastic?
Many flourishing microbes appear to interact with the plastic surfaces we examined. These observations, together with findings from previous studies, suggest that microbes are helping to break down plastics at sea. This could be another explanation for the less-than-expected level of plastic pollution at surface waters.
Plastic-eating microbes may also support biotechnological solutions for better plastic waste disposal practices on land. Perhaps in the future, we may come up with industrial “composts” that can break down our plastic waste.
This radical environmental theme is found throughout the museum but the film, Expedition Reef, is the centerpiece of the message. Second only to the film is the “Living Roof.” I found this quite hypocritical given the construction materials used in the building. The Living Roof is described as:
Our living roof is more than beautiful—it’s the heart of the Academy. Weather stations on the roof monitor wind, rain, and changes in temperature to help inform the building’s automated systems and skylights, keeping rainforest temps just right, the interior piazza cool and comfortable, and natural light streaming to the exhibits below.
Edged by solar panels, the roof’s seven hills are lined with 50,000 porous, biodegradable vegetation trays made from tree sap and coconut husks. An estimated 1.7 million plants fill the trays, their roots interlocking to create an extraordinary oasis for birds, insects, people, and other creatures.
The Living Roof provides excellent insulation (reducing energy needs for heating and cooling), captures 100% of excess storm water (preventing runoff from carrying pollutants into the ecosystem), and transforms carbon dioxide into oxygen—just for starters.
Sounds really green right? Only problem is that the living roof is only possible because it is coated with polystyrene and other petroleum based materials which allow the roof to be inches thick on top of a concrete roof. Only because of the plastics used can the roof absorb rain water, retain moisture, not leak, and give enough anchor points for the roots so plants can grow.
As with any other modern structures, the building is built of Plexiglas, steel, and concrete. Yes it’s certified as a “green” building but only because of these materials and a host of petroleum based products used in things like solar cells, wiring, plastic piping, and various displays.
Given their radical environmental posture, it makes me wonder why plastic is ok for them and not us. Lest you think I was alone in perceiving a double standard, the students in my car noted the plastic waste in the museum’s food areas as contrary to their message.
Natural History Museum
Scattered in various places were displays collectively known as the Natural History Museum. At the entrance to the building is a plastic or fiberglass reproduction of a T-Rex skeleton along with the obligatory plaque touting the millions of years old party line.
A section dedicated to the continent of Africa also has a brief mention of human evolution on one wall and various displays of taxidermied animals. No other continent had its own display area. Also, there is a section dedicated to mammals that live in the Pacific Ocean. Whales and sea otters made up much of this portion. A docent was allowing people to see pieces of whale baleen.
FYI The docents that I spoke to were all nice and willing to talk about their subject areas with visitors.
Conclusion
The radical environmental message needs to be countered by parental discussion. I’ve provided you with at least a few resources in the discussion above to counter some claims made environmentalists. None of us is in favor of trashing the planet but saying it’s all my fault because I happen to live in the United States is disingenuous. As stated elsewhere on this blog, our recycling scheme is broken and needs a private sector solution.
This Gaia worship is wrapped in scientific sounding jargon but don’t surrender to this false religion. God has put man in charge of the planet while the view portrayed at the California Academy of Sciences is that man is the cancer that plagues the planet. A proper Christian worldview would go a long way towards fixing our understanding of this issue. Over time, I think that will happen but not by following the environmentalist religion but by the Gospel permeating the world and bringing into subjugation every area of life to the authority of God’s Word.
If you make the trip to Golden Gate Park during the week, allow plenty of time to drive and expect to spend much on bridge tolls, parking, and food. Not counting the admission tickets, I think I spent about $120 for my son and I to participate in this outing. Truthfully, if you can; go to Monterey Bay Aquarium instead. The food on Cannery Row is world class and the aquarium is better.
Lastly, remember my pet peeve about naming things after people that are still alive, when did the Bay Bridge get renamed the Willie L Brown Jr. Bridge?
