China is the Future

China has 40% of the world's manufacturing capacity. They produce more electricity than the next six biggest electricity producing countries combined. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest electricity producing facility of any kind in the world, 24 gigawatts. The Chinese are building another hydroelectric dam in Tibet that will be 60 gigawatts. The Chinese added more clean solar power to their grid than our entire nuclear generating capacity, just last year alone. When you go to Beijing, half the cars, trucks, and buses are already electric. China has already converted 13% of their cars to electric. Travel around the world and you will see Chinese car and truck dealerships, many of them electric. China has 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States by tonnage. Just one Chinese shipyard has more shipbuilding capacity than the entire United States. In the same time since Californians voted to build our high speed rail in 2008, China has built the largest high speed rail network in the world, with over 30,000 miles (ca. 48,280 km) of tracks and still growing.

This whole idea of China invading Taiwan or the US going to war with China over Taiwan is just some archaic Cold War American thinking. Taiwan will want to join China soon. Taiwan is part of China, with the same language, culture, etc. You can't even imagine how far behind China we are. They are still an industrial and manufacturing company, but they're working incredibly quickly to become a technology country. They're currently somewhat like what Japan was 20-30 years ago.

As far as culture, they have the oldest continuous civilization in the world, over 4,000, years; they became a unified country 2,200 years ago. We have to pivot to holding the Western Hemisphere because we've already lost the Asia-Pacific. We have no long term plan for our country, and whatever plan we have changes every 4 or 8 years with each president and political party. In 20 years the financial hub of the world won't be NYC, it'll be Hong Kong. Every day I read about some US scientist or engineer who is moving to China for better wages and opportunities. Every day I read about how they're becoming self-sufficient for their own computer chip manufacturing. We still have financial power and the edge in innovation, but that will change. China exports its excess manufacturing and engineering capacity to build the ports, railways, highways, electrical and network grids for 75% of the world's population. That ensures those countries will use Chinese equipment and technical standards for at least the rest of this century.

Trump is really a last ditch attempt to restore American industrial and manufacturing power, but we will never catch up with China now. Yet all the dribbling idiots that have never produced anything and don't understand anything and believe socialism might be a solution to their problems, they will fight every attempt at change the whole way, so they can keep the same broken, corrupt, ineffective system they've only ever known, the same system they've voted for their entire life. 

- Dave Badperson

Trump goes to China

 

Notice how President Trump brought 18 CEOs with him to China, business leaders in technology, finance, aerospace, and agriculture. Companies with a combined market value of $17 trillion. Those are the people who build the future. If you want your country to build and grow and move into the future, you don't bring a bunch of geriatric career lawyer-politicians who've never built anything and still think we're fighting the Cold War. This bodes well for us and for China. Huge things are coming.

If you're one of the "Waaah Trump!" people then you probably still listen to the same 2,000 songs from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and you probably voted for the geriatric career lawyer-politicians, and you're probably clinging to a dream that died decades ago.

- Dave Badperson

Albanian language and writing

Albanian is an enigma because it's not obviously related to other European languages and is a language isolate. It probably branched off from the Indo-European language family about 4,000-5,000 years ago, and is likely derived from some Paleo-Balkan language such as Illyrian. Since there are no written records of Albanian prior to 1462, and since history has given it a lot of loan words from Latin, Greek, Slavic, and Turkish, its origin remains a mystery. Unlike other European language families like Slavic and Latin that branched into many other languages, Albanian remained as a separate language and is one of the oldest linguistic heritages in Europe. In the past Albanian was written with Roman, Greek or Turkish-Arabic characters, but today it's all Roman characters like English, but with 2 letters that have diacritic marks to change the sound of the letter, Ç and Ë, and 9 digraphs that are considered distinct letters in Albanian, giving it a total of 36 characters, plus the letter W that's only used in loan words from other languages. I can understand some of the written words since they're obvious cognates with English, or Italian.

- Dave Badperson

The Kennedy Center Fiasco

 

I actually think the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in DC will be better off without having a certain real estate developer fixing it. That renovation needs to stop, so it keeps the massive backlog of deferred maintenance, the 65 year old heating and air-con systems that are failing, the compromised expansion joints that have led to extensive water leaks resulting in water damage and electrical fire hazards, the structural steel rusted to paper thin levels and structural failure points documented in engineering reviews, the crumbling exterior facades that have become a safety hazard to walkways below, the cracked marble, the worn and aged seating, the threadbare carpets, the corroded plumbing, the rats and bugs. Anything else would ruin the preservation of that historic building. The Board of the Center should never have put the real estate developer's name on the building to try to get him involved. That renovation needs to go back to the lawyer-politicians in congress who know how to get things done and get them done properly. 

- Dave Badperson

Elon Musk the Trillionaire

 

Just think, right now Elon the trillionaire is looking at his checking account with his hoard of a trillion dollars in it, and he's wringing his hands that he made that money by whipping the backs of lowly workers and stealing the fruits of their labor. Never mind that 99.9% of his wealth is tied up in the companies he owns, that he's created entire industries, products and services that people are willing to pay for, over 170,000 jobs, paid more taxes than anyone in history, and has turned thousands of people into millionaires, even lowly cafeteria and factory floor workers have become millionaires. Yet some people within Congress, universities, and the media, people who govern, educate, and influence the nation but contribute almost nothing to society, have decided this is disgusting. This is just one of many reasons why the Western world is dying from within.

- Dave Badperson

Gasoline averaging $6.13 a gallon in San Diego, May 5, 2026

Gasoline is averaging $6.13 a gallon in San Diego right now, May 5, 2026. Let's break down that per-gallon price. 

Drilling and extraction of crude oil: $1.35 per gallon.

Elevated shipping insurance rates due to Iran war: $0.30 per gallon.

Elevated cost of oil per barrel because of Iran war, due to supply & demand dynamics and fears about future supply: $0.80 per gallon.

California's Phillips and Valero refineries are now permanently shutdown due to a long list of regulatory and compliance burdens, maintenance costs, and a toxic legal and tax environment, making them unprofitable in the long term. This represents a loss of 17% of California's refining capacity in the last 6 months. There are 11 refineries remaining in the state but only 7 of those produce the gas that goes in your car. Those 7 refineries are now operating at 100% capacity, and without imports, we would have a 5-8% gasoline supply deficit. That means if California didn't import refined gasoline, we would run out of gas in 4-6 weeks. This adds a scarcity premium due to supply & demand dynamics, and it's highly sensitive to disruptions at the refineries: $0.94 per gallon.

Refinery's specialized union labor and engineers: $0.22 per gallon.

Refinery energy usage, with California among the highest industrial energy costs in the country: $0.14 per gallon.

Industrial catalysts, chemicals, and processing needed to refine oil to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) standard. The CARB standard is more stringent than the federal EPA standard and mandates the use of California Reformulated Gasoline, which burns cleaner, evaporates less, has less sulfur and benzene, no MTBE additive, and contains ethanol. The intention is to reduce smog and pollution. It also means California can't get gasoline from Arizona or Nevada because it doesn't meet the CARB standard and is illegal to sell here. CARB gas costs more to produce, and since only a handful of refineries mostly in California produce it, and they're running at 100% capacity, any disruptions at those refineries causes supply shocks and associated price hikes: $0.08 per gallon.

With no oil pipelines coming into California, and since we're unable to simply bring in gasoline from nearby states due to our CARB standard, we ship 75% of our crude oil from Alaska and overseas, and 20% of our CARB compliant gasoline as a finished product from refineries in India and South Korea. Those ships have to return empty. We don't get any oil or gasoline directly from the eastern US, for a multitude of reasons I don't have time to go into here. Ironically, the long shipping routes and less environmentally regulated refineries overseas actually cause more carbon emissions. So shipping cost: $0.18 per gallon.

Evaporative and other losses during the long ocean voyage: $0.01 per gallon.

Tanker insurance: $0.09 per gallon.

Port of San Diego offloading fees: $0.05 per gallon.

Fuel terminal storage and additive blending: $0.06 per gallon.

Trucking distribution to local gas stations: $0.08 per gallon.

California state fuel excise tax: $0.61 per gallon.

Federal fuel excise tax, unchanged since 1993: $0.18 per gallon.

California environmental monitoring of underground storage tanks at gas stations: $0.02 per gallon.

California carbon emissions cap and trade program, which requires fuel suppliers by law to buy enough carbon allowances from the California government to cover the carbon released when you burn your fuel. The intention here is to drive up fuel prices and make alternative fuels more competitive to reduce carbon emissions. Unfortunately, for various reasons, for example the heavier oil we're importing, our refineries now have a higher carbon footprint per gallon of gas produced. This requires them to buy more carbon allowances to remain legally compliant, and of course they pass on the cost of those carbon allowances to consumers: $0.25 per gallon.

California low carbon fuel standard (LCFS). This is a regulatory system to force oil companies to pay for the transition to renewable fuels. Think of it as a tax on the carbon density of a fuel. Oil companies are forced by law to buy LCFS credits from companies that produce alternative low carbon fuels such as electricity for electric vehicles, biodiesel, and hydrogen, to offset their LFCS deficit. The main difference from the cap and trade program is that the money goes directly to producers of clean fuels rather than the State: $0.22 per gallon.

San Diego sales tax: $0.11 per gallon.

Gas station payroll: $0.07 per gallon.

Gas station utilities and insurance: $0.06 per gallon.

Credit card fees at gas station: $0.18 per gallon.

Gas station profit. Yes the credit card companies are making more off a gallon of gas than the gas station: $0.13 per gallon.

Add all those numbers up and you get $6.13 a gallon.

Cost of Iran war: $1.10 per gallon. This is caused by Iran holding 20% of the world's oil supply hostage, because they insist they must build a swarm tactic of 10,000 drones and 10,000 missiles to overwhelm Israel's air defenses, so they can then send in their nukes. This number will come down as the Strait of Hormuz is reopened. 

Cost of State of California gas tax, scarcity premium, CARB gas regulations, carbon emissions programs, and the logistics of shipping oil and CARB-grade gas across the world, not including San Diego sales tax, port fees, storage, and other fixed costs... Before you see this number, consider that California only produces about 0.8% of global carbon emissions, and much of our carbon emissions programs are offset by long shipping routes and less regulated refining overseas: $2.39 per gallon. 

Trump conspiracy theories

The leftie conspiracy theories about Trump are hilarious. One is that he's a pedophile, with no evidence of course, other than a few mentally ill or politically motivated calls to FBI that never checked out. Not one credible Epstein accuser has accused Trump of any wrongdoing. Yet I see this claim made repeatedly on social media, often with Ai-generated fake images that have been thoroughly debunked. The lefties have been saying "He's going to jail" for literally a decade and now this pedophile conspiracy theroy is their last vain hope.

Now of course there's the theory that the Iran war is simply to distract people from the Epstein files. Yeah, 47 years of Iran terrorism and chanting "Death to Israel! Death to America!" and trying to build a nuke to hold the world hostage, and it's all a distraction from the Epstein files. These things make me want to slap my forehead repeatedly in frustration.

Another theory says Elon Musk used his Starlink satellites to flip, upload, or cancel votes in favor of Trump. Voting systems aren't even connected to the internet for exactly that reason.

Another theory says the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt was staged to improve his image. Never mind that someone in the crowd and the shooter were killed.

Then there are the various  claims that he's going to create a pregnancy register for women, eliminate FEMA, or cancel all elections, more forehead slapping material.

Then of course there was the Russian pee tape from his first term. What ever happened to the term "Putin's puppet"? Is he a dictator king or a puppet, make up your mind.

And don't forget the two year investigation into supposed collusion between the Russian election meddlers and the Trump campaign. After two years, no evidence was found of a channel of communication between the two in which they could coordinate their actions, yet people still believe it, and if I call out their BS they claim I didn't read the Mueller Report, which is more forehead slapping material that makes me want to move to China for less propaganda.

Also remember Jan 20, 2025 when the media cherry-picked a single frame from a video and claimed Elon Musk did a Nazi salute, and then people went around painting and scratching swastikas on Teslas, vandalizing and fire bombing Tesla dealerships and chargers? What kind of people paint swastikas on things to intimidate people, Nazis perhaps? The people who believe these things are the low functioning people of society, the leftie version of QAnon believers, the people with eyebrow ridges and sloping foreheads who contribute the least to society, and they're allowed to vote.

And don't forget that Trump is a mysoginist who doesn't like strong willed women, and he's going to turn the country into a real life version of The Handmaid's Tale. This is invariably from people who've never read the book "The Handmaid's Tale", I have. Never mind that he has 9 women in his cabinet, well 7 now without Noem and Bondi, almost as many as Biden, who was as sharp as a tack and ready to serve another term.

-Dave Badperson

The Deranged Response to Operation Epic Fury

Just look on X and you will see the reactions of many Democrat politicians first hand. While the people of Iran celebrate in the streets, these politicians oppose taking out the Iranian regime, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, who have chanted "Death to Israel! Death to America!" for decades, who have directly or indirectly killed hundreds of Americans and thousands of Israelis, who have shot and executed by hanging tens of thousands of their own people who recently protested against them, who have oppressed their own people, particularly women, with a backwards religious dictatorship for 47 years. They oppose it not because it was the wrong thing to do, but simply because Trump did it. And they're going to be stuck with it, right as we head into the midterm elections. The same can be said for liberals in America who are currently protesting or whining about it on social media. You might even say they're evil people to support the Iranian regime, but probably they're just completely out of touch, and out of their minds, simply because of their hatred for Trump.

-Dave Badperson