Podcast 583-Summer Storm

Podcast 583-Summer Storm. Nothing better than a summer storm to help you forget the bitter cold. It’s well below zero in Minnesota. While Europe and parts of the South consider mid twenties to thirties ‘bitter’ cold, in the Upper Midwest we’re talking minus twenty, thirty or even forty below. This is the kind of cold you don’t need windchill to exaggerate. If you’re in the deep freeze this podcast is designed to provide a half an hour or so of relief.

Last summer I had a chance to record a huge summer storm that rolled through the area. The storm track on this podcast isn’t edited. It was recorded in real time, complete with bouts of heavy rain and thunder. Interspersed throughout the storm are some thought starters to help subscribers to the Bob Davis Podcasts mentally escape.

Maybe when you were a kid your family did a road trip to Florida. Or while in college you and your friends took a trip through the mountains, or the desert. Many have had one of those summer college jobs for some agricultural company that required rolling around on back roads across Iowa and North Dakota, recording the growth of corn, or whatever those companies require people to write down on clipboards.

For me, sitting in a broken down old ’67 Ford Galaxy in the fields and watching the storms roll in across the prairie in Rural Illinois, will always remind me of deep summer. It’s easy for people to say, “Why don’t you get on a plane and go to LA, or Hawaii”. Yes, it sure would be nice. Thing is, not all of us can do that.

As we head into the deep freeze, keep this podcast handy. Put on your headphones for Podcast 583-Summer Storm and prepare to be transported to my porch during an awesome summer storm. Of course, you’ll have to put up with me talking in your ear about places I’ve been and places to go, but it’s better than looking out the window wishing it wasn’t twenty five below.

It is true we welcome the cold weather, at least the first blush and especially at Christmas Time. Trust me, though. You’re going to want to escape. If you can’t get away as soon as you’d like to or at all this year, Podcast 583-Summer Storm is your ticket to paradise. Summer in the Midwest. Storms. Thunder. Steady Rain. The hum of summer insects. Thoughts of rolling down two lane roads cutting through green fields. Freedom is a clean windshield and a full tank of gas.

Sponsored By Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41

Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41. All new content for this week’s radio show. I devoted some time in Podcast 541 to the state by state polls. So, for the radio show, rather than excerpt segments from that podcast, given the fact that new polls are being taken almost daily, I decided to do an all new radio show with updates where applicable for the state by state polls. As I said in previous podcasts, the election of the president in the United States is not a popular vote affair. When you vote for an individual candidate, you are voting for a slate of electors, already chosen by the state parties, controlled by state election law. These are the people who actually vote for the president. While no elector has ever been prosecuted for voting their conscience so to speak, there have been faithless electors. And as much crap as the electoral system takes, there have only been two elector incidents in our history. Both of these happened in the early days of the republic (1796 and 1800) when the system called for the ‘runner up’ for president to be the vice president. Florida in 2000 was not an electoral college issue, since the electoral college had not voted. Florida in 2000 was a local vote counting issue that was litigated all the way up to the US Supreme Court, which ended up deciding the issue for George W. Bush. The US is a representative republic, not a direct democracy. Both parties want to tinker with the electoral college. Hillary Clinton has said we should amend the constitution to abolish the electoral college. Republicans want to tinker with it by pushing something called the ‘National Popular Vote’ which is essentially slaving all fifty states’ electoral votes to the popular vote in that state. Currently 29 states require the electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote. If the 2016 cycle leaves us with any impression, it is that mob rule in politics is not a good thing. My preference is to go back to letting the electors be the electors, and by the way, to letting state legislatures appoint US Senators as well. So, given the electoral factor in the US presidential election, focusing on national popularity polls is pretty much a waste of time. At this time, State by State polls do not paint a pretty picture for Republican Donald Trump, or even for the Republican effort to hold the US Senate. Republicans don’t like to hear bad news but there it is. Can Trump pull it out? Yes, but listen to the podcast to find out where he has to put his efforts in the next few weeks before the election. Whether you think of the starting gun as the primary season, the conventions, Labor Day or two weeks before election day, the Republicans are the underdogs at this point in time and they have their work cut out for them, all in this brand new Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Karow Contracting.

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Podcast 363

Minnesota, Land of Confusion. What is the nature of what has been described as Minnesota’s ‘quirky’ political tendencies? Doubling as a Minnesota News Update, and commentary on the political state of affairs in the state, this podcast delves into the top political stories in the current time frame, and the conservative ‘movement’ in the state. As the House, with a Republicans majority vote to increase the education budget, the Senate with a Democrat majority votes to increase the gas tax by 16 cents. A tax which will come on top of the state’s 28 cent a gallon gas tax, federal taxes and local taxes. What’s the money going to used for? Roads and Bridges … Oh wait! Transportation. This, in addition to some three hundred million dollars a year which comes from the state’s recent Transportation Amendment, and existing bonding and budgeting for, well, roads and bridges. Senator Scott Dibble makes the ridiculous statement that ‘young people are leaving … for better transit options’. Richard Florida’s unproven assertions aside, studies show young people are moving to smaller, and larger cities like Austin, and Dallas, Denver, Des Moines and Omaha for career opportunities and cheaper housing. And what about the ‘lack of investment’ in the last thirty years? Projects on 94, 35W, 62, 100, the 610 interchange, the interchanges on 100 in the west metro this summer, innumerable ’roundabouts’ built all over the state, not to mention trains, trains, trains! And new buses. And a police force for the Met Council, and salaries for the Met Council. It seems as though, in this state Infrastructure, Education and Trains have taken their place next to entitlements as ‘third rail’ issues. Everyone wants more money, but they don’t want to have to pay for it. Solution? Tax the rich, tax corporations. And how many people in rural Minnesota really think they’re going to get their farm road repaved, or a new bridge down on the corner when the mayors of Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Duluth and rich Doctors in Rochester have their hands out for ‘infrastructure’ and transit projects of their own? And yet another Minnesotan has been killed by the ‘safe and clean’ Green Line … this one an employee of the Minnesota Senate. Meanwhile, reports are the Met Council actually plans for about 5 deaths like Lynne Thomas’ every year. Target laid off another 100 employees downtown, with more to come. Educators lied through their teeth about how STEM education was needed because STEM jobs were going unfilled in Minnesota. Most jobs in the state are for unskilled labor. Despite all this, it appears the conservative ‘movement’ in the state is failing. The republican leadership is moderate. Polls show the state’s population leans to the left. Why? Minnesota is an island of old-time-democrat-union-monopoly, in a sea of forward thinking, business oriented policy and politics in all the surrounding states. What’s wrong with us? Year after year the same arguments about Sunday liquor sales, stadiums and light rail, and yet the money is taxed, the outraged brooked, and the cycle starts over again. Is this how Minnesotans ARE? What can be done about it. SHOULD anything be done about it? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. Image from the tenth amendment group. 

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