Old Crank
Old Crank's JournalGas prices
Automobile users in the US are seeing gas price hikes. These are bothering the GOP since it was their boy who caused the rise in prices.
Krugman thinks that if Iran bottles up the Straight of Homan for an extended time period oil could easily go over $150 per barrel Even though the world is less dependent on oil.
This will hurt the US consumers more. Why?
New US car fleet (Including pickups and SUV) average 27.2 mpg. The entire base is getting 22 mpg.
The European average for all non totally electric is 42 mpg equivalent.
We could have been there. Instead this administration is scrapping the standards and the CA standards.
Belligerent Ignorance
Thank you Paul Krugman for describing most of this administration.
He was talking about Hegseth telling the American Shield group that he only speaks American. BTW, the US is only about 35% of the total population of the Americas. He is not an outlier in this administration. All seem to love wearing tehir ignorance on their sleeves.
Omaha, the beach not the city
Some pictures from Omaha Beach.
Omaha Beach Memorial
The Braves
Two old friends
Mike and Joe were friends from childhood. Both now 90 years old and Joe is about to pass on.
Mike goes to see him and recounts that they have been friends since childhood. They were is schools together and played football (soccer) together for decades.
Mike asks Joe for a final favour. Joe, when you go to heaven, if you can try to contact me an let me know if there is football in heaven. Joe agrees and says if he can we will let him know.
A couple of nights after Joe passes Mike is asleep in his bed. A bright flash and a clap of thunder wake him up. A voice says Mike, Mike can you hear me? Mike sits bold upright and says, Who is this?
It's Joe says the voice. Can't be, Mike says you died 3 days ago.
Mike! I tell you it's me, Joe. I've come to tell you that I have some good news and a little bad news.
Okay, I believe you Joe, what is the good news?
The good news is that there is football in heaven. We can play whenever we want. We are all young again and never get tired.
WOW says Mike that is great news. What is the bad news?
The bad news Joe replies, is that,
You are on my team this Saturday!
Well that was fun
Finally sent off all (?) my tax documents to my two tax preparers. Nothing but fun. I had most of them collected but I needed some help getting a record of fees charged during 2025.
I used to do my taxes but dealing with the German taxes is much harder. I may look at their tax software to see if I can reduce the expenses.
No I wait. The US guy can't file until he gets numbers from the German preparer.
Who knows what I'll have to pay or get back.
Sword Beach
One of the 5 landing points for D-Day.
Lots of shorebirds today.
Beach finds
Caen Cathedral
One of my wife's childhood friends and her family have moved to France. They are waiting for German citizenship. We went to visit and see the area in the Normandy region. On the way back home we stopped to hear an organ concert in the refurbished Notre Dame.
Here are a few from the Caen cathedral. Plus a picture of what it looked like after D Day.
Old picture of an old picture. The top shows bomb damage. The lower shows what are artillery did.
Gargoyles, Caen Cathedral
Caen was heavily impacted during the D-Day invasion. The Cathedral was rebuilt. Here are some of the gargoyles from it.
And the GOP still lick his boots.
We have imposed crippling sanctions on Russian oil.
Now involved in a war, undeclared, with Iran.
Iran supplies Russia with their drones to attack the Ukraine.
Oil and gas prices go up.
GOP sweating bullets because people notice immediately.
Russia is supplying troop and ship positions to Iran.
Trump is going to ease sanctions against Russian oil hoping to ease pump prices.
Letting Russia off the hook. Ducking moron.
He is like young boys with cap guns. Running around in circles shooting wildly.
France is changing its toll road system
The last time I drove in France the highways had toll booths scattered all over the place. First you had people taking money. Then they moved to credit card payment. You still had to stop and pay the fee. Sometimes when you got on some time when you got off.
They are replacing the toll booths with a electronic system. French vehicle owners must have some sort of tag to put on the dash or they are using plate readers. Since we had a rental we had to log into a site to pay within 72 hours. We put in our car's license and it knew it was a rental. Glad we asked about that when we rented the car so we knew.
Profile Information
Name: RalphGender: Male
Current location: München, DE
Member since: Tue Nov 14, 2017, 07:17 AM
Number of posts: 6,917