I'm a California native who grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 50s and 60s. It was an idyllic place to grow up. As a kid there were still orange groves and ranches in the Valley; we bought milk from a dairy farm (https://museumsanfernandovalley.blogspot.com/2010/06/historic-jessup-farms.html). and would occasionally see someone riding a horse down our suburban street. Once as a kid my dad and I returned from the movies and found that my mom and sister were out, the front door was locked and neither of us had a key. We were both flummoxed, wondering who locked the door, and why. Fast forward: My wife and I left CA in 1990 for the upper midwest. Several years ago we went back for a wedding in the Valley and drove through my old neighborhood. Many of the houses now have bars on the windows. What's happened in CA and all over the country is heartbreaking, especially for geezers like me who've watched paradise get flushed down the toilet for the political gain of morons.
There are premeditated and coldly calculated reasons for allowing cities like San Francisco and Philadelphia to sink into shambles much like there are reasons Sioux City has been elevated with millions and millions of federal dollars. Reason this through. Do you actually believe South Dakota had the dollars to transform and maintain Sioux City as it appears today? With their tiny tax base? Does it make sense once grand old cities are being devastated? There are plans behind all this. Look it up. I don't expect you to take my word for it.
Also, "Sioux" means "little snake" in Lakota and Dakota and is considered a racial slur. ha. ha.
California was the hot blonde of the States. She could get away with all kinds of craziness because there was always a long line of men willing to put up with it just to get with her. Steal your money, wreck your car, cheat on you with your best friend. The hot, crazy girl lives in a reality distortion bubble in which she's never held accountable for her actions. Until she hits the wall, and then it all suddenly changes.
California is the crazy hot girl that's hit the wall.
Yet specific kinds of people were used as metaphor. Specifically young women who behave in ways that seem wild to you will end up being sad ugly old neurotics.
Which is far from always true. California is still a beautiful state regardless of its politics.
Western South Dakota is gorgeous with the Badlands, Black Hills, and Wind Cave. All red states should have West Coast and NY/MA/IL refugees take a civics test to make sure they learned the lessons of why they are fleeing those deteriorating states.
It is, but I couldn't do flat and no trees (compared to the lower Midwest) for very long. I love my trees! --- And they give the dogs something to pee on. 😏
"East River" and "West River" are quite different, culturally. The western, more ranching half of the state has the MT/ID/WY-type libertarian influence, and the eastern, more farming part is somewhat MNish.
I understand the other ones, but what's the problem with Ranked Choice Voting? I never heard of that being implemented, much less that it was a problem. I'd be interested to hear how it breaks down.
Alaska went ranked choice voting, and I also think (I can't remember) Vermont or Maine, and they quickly repealed it. It stinks to high heaven. It is confusing for starters, many do not understand it at all, you are supposed to vote for more than one candidate in your order or preference. Which is stupid. Most of the time there is only one candidate you would vote for because you like their policies or background, etc. To then have to vote for more in order of your choice is ridiculous. So you vote for only one and if they don't get 50+1 then that vote gets tossed; then your second choice gets counted (if you chose one), etc. It is a very good way for somebody who would never win, to actually win. It did away with primaries too.
The main issue is that it takes a computer ≈2 weeks to calculate the winner because it must rerun the ballot count based on each sequential choice. And being a computer, the process is completely opaque to the public. Runoff elections are MUCH more expensive but much more understandable.
Wow... what the hell are they doing that it takes 2 weeks? That should take like an hour, tops, even with millions of votes with multiple candidates. Unless one is doing something super freaky... which, honestly, probably was going on.
I would recommend that if a polity is doing ranked order voting they should put out the data set of the election FIRST, then have 2-3 different computer companies (presumably hired by the parties) to grind out the results and ensure they replicate. Having multiple parties, including private citizens, replicating the results to ensure the process was fair is very valuable, especially when reporting the results isn't the same as counting the number for each candidate.
Agree 110%. I’ve never understood why an RCV ballot isn’t a multi-datum data set that, once scanned, can be referenced electronically, and which the system could report (for audit purposes) a comprehensive list *by ballot number* of all votes for each candidate in each round. Auditors could check samples from the list against the paper ballots.
Due solely to my 2020-based suspicions, I will wager they rerun the paper ballots for each sequential choice, with all the delays and discrepancies that involves.
However, every jurisdiction that’s adopted RCV reports the same massive processing time, so it’s not just Dems lying to buy time to cook the numbers.
note: I've been an advocate for hand counted paper ballots, counted in public for oh at least 8 years now. But after the covid reveal, now I realize that even "democracies" with "good" "election systems" were on board with the horror-show scam. So my conclusion is "democracy" has been a myth for a long while now.
Yea, I have seen people propose ranked choice voting as a way to improve multi-candidate outcomes, but I hadn't seen it being used, or subverted for problems. At least not on the scale of no ID, mail in, multi-day voting schemes.
In Alaska it was put in place by the Murkowski machine with Mitch the Bitch’s support in order to ensure her re-election because they knew Democrats would vote for her over her Trump-endorsed rival.
ranked choice voting selects for manchurian candidates in the middle, at the expense of both popular and polarizing candidates. it forces voters to literally support those they don't want in office. that's not democracy.
it's also popular with the crowd who want to completely computerize election results and that's...um....problematic as well.
Well... it shouldn't, depending on how you implement it, but that doesn't mean that it won't be implemented to make people support people they don't like. There are a few different ways to do it though that could force undesirable votes (like not having "abstain" be an option.)
And yea, I am skeptical about all computerized elections. Were it my choice I would have 3 different groups or so running the count simultaneously to confirm the outcome. I've always thought it strange there would be one set of machines in a district instead of having a couple to feed the ballots through.
RCV is unpopular with simpletons who are confused by it, and Boomers who think the R/D uniparty was a political arrangement ordained by God that can never be questioned.
Absolutely! I hate it when leftists flee the shitholes they helped create, only to do it over again in the new place they fled to for refuge from their terrible policies.
The Lakota and Dakota reservations are the poorest and most culturally degraded in the US. All those places you love were taken from them. By force. By genocide. Enjoy!
The places they stole from the Cheyenne to begin with? I don’t see why the Lakota claim to the land is any stronger than the U.S. one, they both took the land by force just like pretty much every population in human history.
I had a similar thought about easy vs. hard living when we were up at our vacation home in northern Idaho a couple of weeks ago. We caught the last of the nice fall weather - it snowed two days after we left - but we are happily going back in again in December. It will be cold and there will probably be snow. But it makes me appreciate the nice days there so much more! (And it is beautiful in the snow as well, and unlike California, they actually maintain the roads). Harder times and harsher weather make more grateful citizens, I think. Today in my San Diego home, it will be 89 degrees and sunny. And I live in the most expensive city in the country (woohoo!) now, and it’s full of garbage, homeless people, crime, shitty drivers and miserable human beings. Sioux Falls looks lovely!
So good that there are beautiful, vibrant, industrious and fun places outside the coastal states! You mean there were no pro-Hamas marches? No school board mandated masks and jabs? I did not see tents on the sidewalks ! I'm jealous of the mountains and even the snow. The music sounds awesome! Thank you for this positive view of flyover country! I love Coreys hot blonde girl analogy! SD may not be the hot blonde, instead has a hot and cool governor. Can California make a comeback? One can dream.
Hopefully the last reprobate returning there would arrive just in time for the Big One as CA falls into the sea. Reno would become beachfront property.
Obviously all the people fleeing CA for SD are stupid racists/homophobes, or somethings worse, but I don't know what. I bet you can't even surf in SD! Of course, you can't in parts of CA because of the sewage coming up from Mexico but that's just a minor point. And they don't have great football teams like the Rams and 'Niners, either! And I bet SD doesn't have all the nice refugees coming like they do to CA, for a better life, with all their academic and work bona fides. And I bet SD won't pay reparations, either! What a hell hole!
Being retired 10 yrs and keeping horses (aka “pasture ornaments”) (after 34 yrs as a CPA in international corporate tax in Houston), I have no connection to the local professional ranks. Sorry… (I’m trying to conceptualize the market for metrology in Knoxville.)
Oh, I could never get my wife to move anyway. Maybe if I dangle the opportunity for horses... PA is just starting to feel too far gone for me, even though we're in Nowheresville among the Anabaptists.
Anywhere that has lab equipment needs to have it maintained, repaired and calibrated from time to time. I'm a natural tinkerer, so just acquired the knowledge and responsibilities in the course of my career. No real metrology "training", but in the age of the internet, the resources to learn independently are available for the curious mind.
My wife was born/raised in a western suburb of Pittsburgh & we met at Duquesne. So we share your sadness at PA’s condition. Fetterman’s election was jaw dropping, both in itself, and as a comment on the electorate.
They’re fleeing NY as well. High taxes, ridiculous taxes, imposing more taxes on things that make no sense at all. Wait.... did I mention the tax thing? It’s becoming almost impossible to live here, cousin.
Idaho is booming. Boise is where white monied Californians are moving to retire. They are selling their inflated properties and buying at something of a discount in Idaho. Then they save 10% of their income on state income tax for the rest of their lives. What I want to emphasize about California is that the land that made everyone rich is still going to be here after its period of decline. When the parasitic government pops there will be another period of abundance like in Steinbeck's East of Eden. The sun, the sea, and the land of California create abundance. There is nothing the government can do to stop it.
Sadly, you remind me of the way Charleston, SC, became so ungodly expensive, with people cashing out in Connecticut and buying up and beautifully renovating all the South of Broad properties to the point where heirs to family property had to sell out because even collectively they couldn’t pay the tax bill.
I grew up in the Black Hills -- beautiful!!! and amazing people. We lived in Washington State for far too long and now live in Idaho which reminds me of South Dakota -- Real Life, worshipping God and loving our neighbors!!
Population loss in only part of the explanation. CA ran budget deficits in the 80s & 90s when people were flooding in. Sacramento’s problem is they can’t shop spending money both unproductively and inefficiently (the goals are bad and they waste money NOT accomplishing them) – most notable example is high speed rail from nowhere to nowhere, that’s cost more than NASA’s cumulative budget from the V-2 to Neil Armstrong’s first footprint.
I worked in the oil patch for 14 yrs, but in the “oil field service” segment. Reserves weren’t my thing, but it was clear the oil companies stopped drilling off the CA coast solely b/c of the refusal of Sacramento to issue permits.
Hadn't known that about NH, which is only a 20 minute drive away, but I think any rural place - even in a vaxxy state - is different. Vermont has the distinction of being the most highly coof-vaccinated state, yet the husband and I aren't vaxxed or interested therein, and nobody has pushed the issue, not even the PCPs. We live way off the beaten path and kinda mind our own business. You can get away with a bit of ignoring TPTB when you don't live cheek to jowl with everybody else.
BTW, NH has no income or sales tax, but I'm told the property taxes are pretty high.
Thanks VFW, As I am currently in OR, I am quite used to no sales tax so choosing someplace with a sales tax would be a rude awakening...best and thanks
For a moment I thought you were meaning Brattleboro, Vermont. Nooooooooo! That town is highly woke, very charming, but almost intolerably woke. Stay away, everyone!
Fellow Vermonter here (moved here in 2009 after living in California for 54 years).
Yes, Vermont went absolutely nuts over the Scary Virus and the Miracle Clot Shots, and it was especially bad in the classical music world: I'm an amateur pianist and was not allowed to go to concerts in my town or attend the piano camp in Bennington due to my being an Unclean Plague Rat. I'm in central VT and have seriously considered moving to the northeast corner of the state where people seem a little saner.
I scan real estate listings daily in both VT and NH, and NH seems quite a bit more expensive, so much so that almost nothing in NH gets through my price cap filters. I don't know if this is an unintended consequence of no sales tax, or due to some other factors.
Southern Windsor county here, so we're south of you. Now that you mention the music camp, I wonder if Kinhaven, the lovely music camp just on the other side of Terrible Mountain (yes, that's its real name) in Weston went full crazy during covid. Probably.
The Northeast Kingdom is the most conservative (read: sane) part of the state; Rutland is also somewhat more conservative than the average. Burlington, Middlebury, Brattleboro, and Montpelier - they put the s**t in bats**t crazy. Everyone stay away.
Vermont, being Vermont, went full anti-racist racist during the pandemic, of course, and put BIPOCs (all 15 of them in the state) at the front of the coof vaxx line, behind the very elderly but ahead of all those non-elderly icky white people who live here. If, or when, it becomes common knowledge that the vaxxes might be actually dangerous for some number of people, will the idiots in Montpelier do a mea culpa? Probably not, that would require some soul searching and they don't seem to have souls.
I understand that NH, with no sales or income taxes, has to get the funds to run the state from property taxes and fees of all sorts. Just because they don't tax some of your money doesn't mean they're not squeezing it out of you some other way.
My little town in the northwest corner of Windsor County is pretty bats**t crazy too. We had a "Covid Response Team" here that regularly put out "be super scared!" propaganda on Front Porch Forum. When I tried to respond with info about PCR tests and how to interpret them and why you should NOT panic, FPF censored me twice.
I gave up on Front Porch Forum long before the "pandemic" and I'm not aware of our tiny village having any covid response group, or maybe I just missed the whole thing.
Brave soul, you are, for trying to inject a little common sense into a social insanity event. Not really surprised at the reaction, though.
I love California so much but we settled in Nevada cause it's not as left wing. Unfortunately, most of the people you meet here are former Californians and they are definitely bringing the "locust effect." The cute suburban library held drag queen story hour, the Reno Aces have Pride Night, and Nevada has become an abortion destination state. Adam Laxalt should have easily beaten Harry Reid's handpicked successor Catherine Cortez Masto, but he lost. The local media is as dishonest and leftwing as it gets.
😢 oh that is sad. I love Arizona too, and the outcome of your last election was so disappointing. Esp Blake Masters losing to the hack astronaut who pretends to be moderate.
Compare disgusting and backward Sioux Falls to this glorious progressive paradise:
https://twitter.com/InformedMama209/status/1719790133288026328
Jesus wept.
I'm a California native who grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 50s and 60s. It was an idyllic place to grow up. As a kid there were still orange groves and ranches in the Valley; we bought milk from a dairy farm (https://museumsanfernandovalley.blogspot.com/2010/06/historic-jessup-farms.html). and would occasionally see someone riding a horse down our suburban street. Once as a kid my dad and I returned from the movies and found that my mom and sister were out, the front door was locked and neither of us had a key. We were both flummoxed, wondering who locked the door, and why. Fast forward: My wife and I left CA in 1990 for the upper midwest. Several years ago we went back for a wedding in the Valley and drove through my old neighborhood. Many of the houses now have bars on the windows. What's happened in CA and all over the country is heartbreaking, especially for geezers like me who've watched paradise get flushed down the toilet for the political gain of morons.
Looks like a scene out of "In the Mouth of Madness."
Hard pass on that hellscape.
Some pretty good college options in SD as well. USD and SDSU are good schools and very affordable. USF and Augustana in the area as well.
"Progressive Paradise" is a good name for a garage/surf/punk-band.
There are premeditated and coldly calculated reasons for allowing cities like San Francisco and Philadelphia to sink into shambles much like there are reasons Sioux City has been elevated with millions and millions of federal dollars. Reason this through. Do you actually believe South Dakota had the dollars to transform and maintain Sioux City as it appears today? With their tiny tax base? Does it make sense once grand old cities are being devastated? There are plans behind all this. Look it up. I don't expect you to take my word for it.
Also, "Sioux" means "little snake" in Lakota and Dakota and is considered a racial slur. ha. ha.
And in Sioux, "Lakota Dakota" means "stanky bush".
In English - you are grotesque.
No, I am Two Spirit: vodka and bourbon
California was the hot blonde of the States. She could get away with all kinds of craziness because there was always a long line of men willing to put up with it just to get with her. Steal your money, wreck your car, cheat on you with your best friend. The hot, crazy girl lives in a reality distortion bubble in which she's never held accountable for her actions. Until she hits the wall, and then it all suddenly changes.
California is the crazy hot girl that's hit the wall.
Perfect analogy, Corey!
Thank you for the oh-so-apt imagery.
A faded jaded rose.
I read this to my hubby and he laughed and laughed!
Vivid and eloquent.
That’s pretty good...👍🏻
And the United States of America was the hot blonde of the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ol4oWChjzk
Yes but the 70’s was interesting 🤨
If you can't afford a new wife every ten years you can't afford ca.
Wonderful that you're so above it all and can see it so clearly. Just wonderful!
Yet specific kinds of people were used as metaphor. Specifically young women who behave in ways that seem wild to you will end up being sad ugly old neurotics.
Which is far from always true. California is still a beautiful state regardless of its politics.
Western South Dakota is gorgeous with the Badlands, Black Hills, and Wind Cave. All red states should have West Coast and NY/MA/IL refugees take a civics test to make sure they learned the lessons of why they are fleeing those deteriorating states.
Eastern SD is gorgeous in a less-obvious way, but I may like it more.
It is, but I couldn't do flat and no trees (compared to the lower Midwest) for very long. I love my trees! --- And they give the dogs something to pee on. 😏
LOL
"East River" and "West River" are quite different, culturally. The western, more ranching half of the state has the MT/ID/WY-type libertarian influence, and the eastern, more farming part is somewhat MNish.
I’d be worried about the Minnesota refugees. They’re already used to harsh winters and it doesn’t slow down their socialism one bit.
As long as South Dakota has paper ballots, single day voting, no ranked choice voting
and voter id you won't have to worry about the cheatin pinkos.
I understand the other ones, but what's the problem with Ranked Choice Voting? I never heard of that being implemented, much less that it was a problem. I'd be interested to hear how it breaks down.
Alaska went ranked choice voting, and I also think (I can't remember) Vermont or Maine, and they quickly repealed it. It stinks to high heaven. It is confusing for starters, many do not understand it at all, you are supposed to vote for more than one candidate in your order or preference. Which is stupid. Most of the time there is only one candidate you would vote for because you like their policies or background, etc. To then have to vote for more in order of your choice is ridiculous. So you vote for only one and if they don't get 50+1 then that vote gets tossed; then your second choice gets counted (if you chose one), etc. It is a very good way for somebody who would never win, to actually win. It did away with primaries too.
The main issue is that it takes a computer ≈2 weeks to calculate the winner because it must rerun the ballot count based on each sequential choice. And being a computer, the process is completely opaque to the public. Runoff elections are MUCH more expensive but much more understandable.
Wow... what the hell are they doing that it takes 2 weeks? That should take like an hour, tops, even with millions of votes with multiple candidates. Unless one is doing something super freaky... which, honestly, probably was going on.
I would recommend that if a polity is doing ranked order voting they should put out the data set of the election FIRST, then have 2-3 different computer companies (presumably hired by the parties) to grind out the results and ensure they replicate. Having multiple parties, including private citizens, replicating the results to ensure the process was fair is very valuable, especially when reporting the results isn't the same as counting the number for each candidate.
Agree 110%. I’ve never understood why an RCV ballot isn’t a multi-datum data set that, once scanned, can be referenced electronically, and which the system could report (for audit purposes) a comprehensive list *by ballot number* of all votes for each candidate in each round. Auditors could check samples from the list against the paper ballots.
Due solely to my 2020-based suspicions, I will wager they rerun the paper ballots for each sequential choice, with all the delays and discrepancies that involves.
However, every jurisdiction that’s adopted RCV reports the same massive processing time, so it’s not just Dems lying to buy time to cook the numbers.
to be fair, I think Ranked Choice Voting was one attempt to subvert the vote rigging uniparty.
Sounds like it didn't work.
note: I've been an advocate for hand counted paper ballots, counted in public for oh at least 8 years now. But after the covid reveal, now I realize that even "democracies" with "good" "election systems" were on board with the horror-show scam. So my conclusion is "democracy" has been a myth for a long while now.
Yea, I have seen people propose ranked choice voting as a way to improve multi-candidate outcomes, but I hadn't seen it being used, or subverted for problems. At least not on the scale of no ID, mail in, multi-day voting schemes.
It's anything but!
See Oakland, California.
Or the recent Congressional race in Alaska where two Republicans split the vote and a dim won. They are looking to repeal it now.
In Alaska it was put in place by the Murkowski machine with Mitch the Bitch’s support in order to ensure her re-election because they knew Democrats would vote for her over her Trump-endorsed rival.
What happened in Oakland? Other than, you know, being Oakland, CA for the past 60 years or so.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/08/oakland-ranked-choice-voting-fiasco-finally-resolved-with-judges-ruling/
Don't they have some weirdness like that in Alaska?
Yes!
ranked choice voting selects for manchurian candidates in the middle, at the expense of both popular and polarizing candidates. it forces voters to literally support those they don't want in office. that's not democracy.
it's also popular with the crowd who want to completely computerize election results and that's...um....problematic as well.
Well... it shouldn't, depending on how you implement it, but that doesn't mean that it won't be implemented to make people support people they don't like. There are a few different ways to do it though that could force undesirable votes (like not having "abstain" be an option.)
And yea, I am skeptical about all computerized elections. Were it my choice I would have 3 different groups or so running the count simultaneously to confirm the outcome. I've always thought it strange there would be one set of machines in a district instead of having a couple to feed the ballots through.
It sounded real good, but the way it was used kept the MAGA canditade from winning in Alaska.
RCV is unpopular with simpletons who are confused by it, and Boomers who think the R/D uniparty was a political arrangement ordained by God that can never be questioned.
LOLz 😂
Absolutely! I hate it when leftists flee the shitholes they helped create, only to do it over again in the new place they fled to for refuge from their terrible policies.
Maybe each state needs a border wall. (Only sorta kidding.)
Don’t need a wall; just don’t let people vote who haven’t been residents for a decade or so.
Or they can pass tests showing they're not communists.
The Lakota and Dakota reservations are the poorest and most culturally degraded in the US. All those places you love were taken from them. By force. By genocide. Enjoy!
The places they stole from the Cheyenne to begin with? I don’t see why the Lakota claim to the land is any stronger than the U.S. one, they both took the land by force just like pretty much every population in human history.
I had a similar thought about easy vs. hard living when we were up at our vacation home in northern Idaho a couple of weeks ago. We caught the last of the nice fall weather - it snowed two days after we left - but we are happily going back in again in December. It will be cold and there will probably be snow. But it makes me appreciate the nice days there so much more! (And it is beautiful in the snow as well, and unlike California, they actually maintain the roads). Harder times and harsher weather make more grateful citizens, I think. Today in my San Diego home, it will be 89 degrees and sunny. And I live in the most expensive city in the country (woohoo!) now, and it’s full of garbage, homeless people, crime, shitty drivers and miserable human beings. Sioux Falls looks lovely!
“Harder times and harsher weather make more grateful citizens…”
A fantastic insight! Truer words have never been written.
So good that there are beautiful, vibrant, industrious and fun places outside the coastal states! You mean there were no pro-Hamas marches? No school board mandated masks and jabs? I did not see tents on the sidewalks ! I'm jealous of the mountains and even the snow. The music sounds awesome! Thank you for this positive view of flyover country! I love Coreys hot blonde girl analogy! SD may not be the hot blonde, instead has a hot and cool governor. Can California make a comeback? One can dream.
I was disgusted by the absence of pro-Hamas marches. Still more evidence of backwardness!
I wish Cali would make a comeback! Maybe then all the commie trash that moved from there would go back and leave the rest of us alone.
Hopefully the last reprobate returning there would arrive just in time for the Big One as CA falls into the sea. Reno would become beachfront property.
The Lex Luthor strategy! Love it!
Obviously all the people fleeing CA for SD are stupid racists/homophobes, or somethings worse, but I don't know what. I bet you can't even surf in SD! Of course, you can't in parts of CA because of the sewage coming up from Mexico but that's just a minor point. And they don't have great football teams like the Rams and 'Niners, either! And I bet SD doesn't have all the nice refugees coming like they do to CA, for a better life, with all their academic and work bona fides. And I bet SD won't pay reparations, either! What a hell hole!
So, there!
Danny Huckabee
I’d move to SD immediately, except that where I live (East TN in the Smokies is a “hellhole” in its own right so I’d gain nothing. 🤣
I'd love to move to eastern TN. Know anybody in need of a damn good QC chemist/metrologist with over 20 years of experience?
Being retired 10 yrs and keeping horses (aka “pasture ornaments”) (after 34 yrs as a CPA in international corporate tax in Houston), I have no connection to the local professional ranks. Sorry… (I’m trying to conceptualize the market for metrology in Knoxville.)
Oh, I could never get my wife to move anyway. Maybe if I dangle the opportunity for horses... PA is just starting to feel too far gone for me, even though we're in Nowheresville among the Anabaptists.
Anywhere that has lab equipment needs to have it maintained, repaired and calibrated from time to time. I'm a natural tinkerer, so just acquired the knowledge and responsibilities in the course of my career. No real metrology "training", but in the age of the internet, the resources to learn independently are available for the curious mind.
My wife was born/raised in a western suburb of Pittsburgh & we met at Duquesne. So we share your sadness at PA’s condition. Fetterman’s election was jaw dropping, both in itself, and as a comment on the electorate.
I do miss In-N-Out, though. They are coming to TN in a couple of years; not too far from NC.
Plus, you pay way more for a gardener in SD.
They’re fleeing NY as well. High taxes, ridiculous taxes, imposing more taxes on things that make no sense at all. Wait.... did I mention the tax thing? It’s becoming almost impossible to live here, cousin.
Here too.
Explanation in 2 words: Kristie Noem
and the tens of thousands of the South Dakota citizens that voted for her!
Idaho is booming. Boise is where white monied Californians are moving to retire. They are selling their inflated properties and buying at something of a discount in Idaho. Then they save 10% of their income on state income tax for the rest of their lives. What I want to emphasize about California is that the land that made everyone rich is still going to be here after its period of decline. When the parasitic government pops there will be another period of abundance like in Steinbeck's East of Eden. The sun, the sea, and the land of California create abundance. There is nothing the government can do to stop it.
Any politician with the political capital could turn California around in 5 years.
Drill baby drill
“There is nothing the government can do to stop it.”
Sacramento’s response: “Hold my beer…”
Sadly, you remind me of the way Charleston, SC, became so ungodly expensive, with people cashing out in Connecticut and buying up and beautifully renovating all the South of Broad properties to the point where heirs to family property had to sell out because even collectively they couldn’t pay the tax bill.
I grew up in the Black Hills -- beautiful!!! and amazing people. We lived in Washington State for far too long and now live in Idaho which reminds me of South Dakota -- Real Life, worshipping God and loving our neighbors!!
To quote the Eagles...
'They called it paradise, I don't know why. Call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye'
Maybe don't tell anymore California morons that lovely places like South Dakota exist.
They are already flooding my once wonderful state of Georgia.....I have to have SOMEWHERE to retreat to.....
“We’re losing money because we’re losing people.”
Population loss in only part of the explanation. CA ran budget deficits in the 80s & 90s when people were flooding in. Sacramento’s problem is they can’t shop spending money both unproductively and inefficiently (the goals are bad and they waste money NOT accomplishing them) – most notable example is high speed rail from nowhere to nowhere, that’s cost more than NASA’s cumulative budget from the V-2 to Neil Armstrong’s first footprint.
Yes, yes, yes.
I have an answer.
Drill baby drill
You think Hamas is hard on the Palestinians? Watch the Sacramento Dems’ reaction if the voters approve a referendum on ramped-up drilling…
The demicide of the state would have to stop.
But you probably know how much oil they are sitting on.
I worked in the oil patch for 14 yrs, but in the “oil field service” segment. Reserves weren’t my thing, but it was clear the oil companies stopped drilling off the CA coast solely b/c of the refusal of Sacramento to issue permits.
Roughnecked the gulf for 4 years. California is 5th in reserves.
Come for the economic growth, common sense, and freedom. Stay because your feet are frozen to the ground. :-)
SD is on my shortlist. It includes TN, Idaho as well. I had NH on the list, but heard they are very vaxxy.
Hadn't known that about NH, which is only a 20 minute drive away, but I think any rural place - even in a vaxxy state - is different. Vermont has the distinction of being the most highly coof-vaccinated state, yet the husband and I aren't vaxxed or interested therein, and nobody has pushed the issue, not even the PCPs. We live way off the beaten path and kinda mind our own business. You can get away with a bit of ignoring TPTB when you don't live cheek to jowl with everybody else.
BTW, NH has no income or sales tax, but I'm told the property taxes are pretty high.
Thanks VFW, As I am currently in OR, I am quite used to no sales tax so choosing someplace with a sales tax would be a rude awakening...best and thanks
For a moment I thought you were meaning Brattleboro, Vermont. Nooooooooo! That town is highly woke, very charming, but almost intolerably woke. Stay away, everyone!
Good luck with your move. If you do decide on NH, get in touch! It's nice to have sane neighbors.
Fellow Vermonter here (moved here in 2009 after living in California for 54 years).
Yes, Vermont went absolutely nuts over the Scary Virus and the Miracle Clot Shots, and it was especially bad in the classical music world: I'm an amateur pianist and was not allowed to go to concerts in my town or attend the piano camp in Bennington due to my being an Unclean Plague Rat. I'm in central VT and have seriously considered moving to the northeast corner of the state where people seem a little saner.
I scan real estate listings daily in both VT and NH, and NH seems quite a bit more expensive, so much so that almost nothing in NH gets through my price cap filters. I don't know if this is an unintended consequence of no sales tax, or due to some other factors.
Southern Windsor county here, so we're south of you. Now that you mention the music camp, I wonder if Kinhaven, the lovely music camp just on the other side of Terrible Mountain (yes, that's its real name) in Weston went full crazy during covid. Probably.
The Northeast Kingdom is the most conservative (read: sane) part of the state; Rutland is also somewhat more conservative than the average. Burlington, Middlebury, Brattleboro, and Montpelier - they put the s**t in bats**t crazy. Everyone stay away.
Vermont, being Vermont, went full anti-racist racist during the pandemic, of course, and put BIPOCs (all 15 of them in the state) at the front of the coof vaxx line, behind the very elderly but ahead of all those non-elderly icky white people who live here. If, or when, it becomes common knowledge that the vaxxes might be actually dangerous for some number of people, will the idiots in Montpelier do a mea culpa? Probably not, that would require some soul searching and they don't seem to have souls.
I understand that NH, with no sales or income taxes, has to get the funds to run the state from property taxes and fees of all sorts. Just because they don't tax some of your money doesn't mean they're not squeezing it out of you some other way.
My little town in the northwest corner of Windsor County is pretty bats**t crazy too. We had a "Covid Response Team" here that regularly put out "be super scared!" propaganda on Front Porch Forum. When I tried to respond with info about PCR tests and how to interpret them and why you should NOT panic, FPF censored me twice.
I gave up on Front Porch Forum long before the "pandemic" and I'm not aware of our tiny village having any covid response group, or maybe I just missed the whole thing.
Brave soul, you are, for trying to inject a little common sense into a social insanity event. Not really surprised at the reaction, though.
I love California so much but we settled in Nevada cause it's not as left wing. Unfortunately, most of the people you meet here are former Californians and they are definitely bringing the "locust effect." The cute suburban library held drag queen story hour, the Reno Aces have Pride Night, and Nevada has become an abortion destination state. Adam Laxalt should have easily beaten Harry Reid's handpicked successor Catherine Cortez Masto, but he lost. The local media is as dishonest and leftwing as it gets.
Well you can always hop over to my Narco State, Arizona
😢 oh that is sad. I love Arizona too, and the outcome of your last election was so disappointing. Esp Blake Masters losing to the hack astronaut who pretends to be moderate.
Very little has been accomplished. AZ will be a repeat of 2020 in 2024.
Not only that, but South Dakota is in the process of making gold and silver legal tender. The horror!
https://www.soundmoneydefense.org/gold-silver-laws-south-dakota