Weather forecasts are calling for brutally hot weather in the coming week, but I’m not afraid. My electricity supplier emailed me that all is well.

That supplier is FirstEnergy, which proclaims in the email that its system stretching from Ohio to New Jersey, is ready to meet the challenge.

Staffing has been adjusted and any planned outages have been rescheduled.

Sounds good, until the second paragraph promises that any local outages caused by excessive heat will be handled promptly.

What happened to the promise in the first paragraph that FirstEnergy is prepared to meet the anticipated demand from the heatwave?

The email concludes with the usual no-kidding list of things one can do to improve efficiency, things like caulking windows, etc. This is the sort of stuff that is the staple of TV news reports regarding weather.

When it’s cold, they advise us to dress in layers and limit exposure. When it’s hot, they encourage us to drink plenty of fluid and take breaks.

I doubt many will be rushing to caulk windows in advance of this bit of heat. I won’t.

I’m thinking (hoping) we will get through this because FirstEnergy has assured me the company is ready.

It is disconcerting, however, to recall all the news stories about people elsewhere being asked to conserve during warm or cold periods, because the creaky electrical grid just can’t handle the load.

And I think if all the electric-car wet dreamers had their way and we all were whirring round in EVs how bleak things would be. That would be electrical vehicles needing recharging virtually daily. No less an authority that Mayor Pete Butt (whatever) our secretary of transportation, has been forced to admit during Congressional testimony that each EV requires the annual electricity consumption equal to a person running 25 refrigerators.

I am willing to bet that if all of us ran out and bought 25 refrigerators and plugged them in prior to this heat wave, the FirstEnergy promise would not be fulfilled.

This is something you might think about as you sit around in your air-conditioned home in coming days, looking to avoid the heat and trying to follow all the no-kidding advice from the media about how to do so.

Now imagine those air-conditioners not running because the electrical grid has crashed due to EV recharging demands.

Enjoy.

Today is Flag Day. I mention this because it’s a virtually unforgotten holiday.

Most workers don’t get the day off and it has not been shifted around to provide yet another of the three-day weekends that are the bones tossed to the masses hoping to keep the declining percentage of the population still interested in working maintaining that tendency.

The holiday commemorates the adoption of the U.S. Flag way back in 1777, a time when men were men and women were women and there were not thousands of madeup genders in between.

Traditional celebration of Flag Day involves displaying the Stars and Stripes.

The American Flag is on display at the front of my house, as it is on most days, holidays or not.

A quick visual scan of the street showed a total of four American Flags flying today, clustered in a knot of seven houses near the middle of the block.

Beyond that, it was just the usual potpourri of political statement (a pride flag) and decorative banners flown simply to dress up a house’s external appearance.

As a young man, the numbers I saw would have been much greater in terms of houses displaying American Flags.

This is a metaphor for the ennui that grips our divided nation even as Clueless Joe is in Europe wandering aimlessly away from his peers at a ceremonial display and having to be reined in by other political leaders much in the way parents steer toddlers away from trouble in public settings.

Patriotism, particularly that born of knowledge of the nation’s history, is all but dead. School children are taught a leftist stew of guilt, blame and disdain for such formerly basic principles as religion, family and critical thinking.

Just the other day, a story was reported that our friends up north in Canada are making tentative plans of how to deal with the disruption that would follow the outbreak of a Civil War in these United States.

Maybe their flaming liberal dress-up leader could alternate public appearances wearing uniforms of the opposing sides just as he has been photographed in the past clad in the garb of Arabs or Indians, the former including brownface makeup.

This would be as helpful as most of his decisions. Trudeau is Clueless Joe, without the excuse of slipping mental faculty to explain his bizarre actions.

Regardless, celebrate the remainder of this holiday, and consider just how much worse things might be when next the holiday rolls around – presumably if it is allowed to be celebrated in 2024.

Pirates rookie phenom pitcher Paul Skenes got an ovation from the fans when he was pulled from a Tuesday game. Nothing unusual except it was in St. Louis, with fans of the Cardinals recognizing the special nature of a visiting player’s performance.

Skenes, the first pick overall in the 2023 draft, has been nothing less than a revelation for the Pirates. In a month of Major League play, Skenes has started six games, going 3-0 with a 2.43 earned-run average.

His velocity routinely hits triple digits. He has a five-pitch repertoire and is only beginning to display that at this level.

Simply put, Skenes has given downtrodden Pirates fans a glimpse of greatness and hope that this moribund franchise might somehow return to the time when it won six division titles and two World Series titles in the 1970s, or three consecutive division championships in the early 1990s.

But the track record of the Pirates franchise in recent decades Skenes tells us will be elsewhere in 2030, when he becomes eligible for free agency, if not well before.

This reality was rammed home by watching the Los Angeles Dodgers play the New York Yankees over the weekend in a matchup many believe was a preview of the season’s eventual World Series pairing.

These are thought to be two of the best teams in the majors, and both have former Pirates pitchers on their rosters.

The starting pitcher for Los Angeles in one game was Tyler Glasnow. During the broadcast of that game, injured Yankees hurler Gerrit Cole, another former Pirate, was shown in the dugout.

The Yankees won one game, and Clay Holmes, yet another ex-Pirate, got the save.

The message is clear: The Pirates draft and/or develop talent, then send it elsewhere once the cost of retention becomes too steep.

Yes, the Pirates gifted Skeenes with a record $9.2 million signing bonus, but that number pales compared to the average $36 million a season Cole is scheduled to earn in his current 9-year contract with the Yankees.

The Pirates can’t be a consistent contender without spending a lot more money on payroll. That’s the truth, one proven by results since that last run of sustained Pirates success more than three decades back.

It can be argued whether the Pirates are frugal by choice or by necessity, but that doesn’t change the reality that they don’t spend enough to win.

The Pirates traded Cole to Houston after the 2017 season because they couldn’t afford to re-sign him.

One of the players the Pirates received in the deal was pitcher Joe Musgrove, who they traded to the Padres after two seasons.

Jameson Taillon, currently with the Chicago Cubs, is another Pirates castoff, one in some ways similar to Skenes. Taillon was the second overall pick in the first round of the 2010 draft. After several injury-plagued seasons with the Pirates, he was traded to the Yankees, a team that can afford to take chances on talented players with injury problems.

Taillon had two strong seasons with the Yankees, parlaying that into a four-year $68-million contract with the Cubs.

Even the Yankees can’t keep – pay – everyone. But teams like the Yankees and Dodgers do more than their share of spending.

The Pirates do not. The message to Pirates fans is enjoy Skenes while he’s here, because that sound you hear is the unmistakable ticking of the clock on his career in Pittsburgh.

First my wife sang out the news as delivered by her smart phone Tuesday, and then a cousin emailed the revelation. Hunter Biden guilty on all counts.

No doubt Clueless Joe henceforth will not refer to Hunter without the “convicted felon” tag so liberally applied to one Donald Trump.

I can just see the campaign ads with Biden and his “convicted felon” son.

No? Clueless Joe and his tribe of sycophants would be disingenuous on such matters?

Of course there are differences between the convictions. Trump was found guilty of felony charges that were escalated from misdemeanors after the statute of limitations had expired. This by a jury instructed it needn’t agree on what Trump supposedly had done wrong to convict him, and after a trial presided over by a judge more fit for a scene in a Three Stooges short.

Order, order, order in the court.

I’ll have a pastrami on rye.

Hunter, on the other hand, came a cropper in federal court for mixing gun ownership with being a crackhead, fibbing to the Feds about it all, and having his former sister-in-law turned lover throw away the gun due to concern about Hunter’s mental state, and neatly cataloging all this in text messages.

Hunter’s crimes were felonies, not technical violations ramped up due to some overzealous left-wing district attorney. The statute of limitations had not expired on Hunter.

Allow me to admit right here I’m surprised Hunter was convicted. It wasn’t for perceived lack of evidence, but more because evidence doesn’t seem to outweigh politics in court decisions these days.

Reports indicate Hunter could face as much as 25 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000.

But, before you indulge in orgies of celebration, I’m thinking there’s still room for a sentencing reprieve. Along that line, if Hunter serves more than a few days, or even less time behind bars, I’ll be stunned.

As to the fine, even if it’s $750,000, all Hunter needs to do is hurl some paint at a canvas to produce more of his kindergarten level art to be gobbled up by some Biden and Democrat cronies posing as art collectors, just to tamp down any appearance of anything not completely above board.

Any of Hunter’s art pieces could fit under the category of dog’s breakfast, a British term for a confused mess.

Beyond the gun convictions, it’s fair to ask why Hunter continues to skate on accusations of association with sex trafficking of minors, not to mention carving out percentages of his “business” deals for “The Big Guy”

Don’t forget, until a righteous judge intervened, Big Guy Joe’s justice department was offering Hunter a plea bargain that would have made the gun charges and a tax beef go away.

Now Hunter has gone down on the gun part, but still faces court on the allegations of failing to pay income taxes.

Of course, Clueless Joe and DR. JILL BIDEN, who expressed pride today over Hunter, will be equally proud if a guilty verdict follows on tax charges.

And they will be similarly proud when the consequences of Hunter’s misdeeds amount to a light slap on his money-grubbing wrists.

Seeing them forced to embrace publicly their beloved convicted felon brings a smile to my face. Maybe they might want to adopt Trump?

I passed on writing my typical D-Day post yesterday, in part because of the way our president politicized the 80^th anniversary of this historic event and turned it into a Ukraine pep rally, which made me want to vomit.

You’d expect as much from an obviously addled sort who thinks, despite all available evidence, that his relative was eaten by cannibals in Papua New Guinea during World War II, and more recently twice noted in an interview that he has known Vlad Putin for “over 40 years.”

Now that’s a Russian collusion tale worthy of investigation by the Biden Secret Police considering back then Putin was a relatively unknown KGB officer. So what was a minor league U.S. Senator, which Biden was at the time, doing consorting with a KGB agent?

I’d love to hear that explanation, other than the stereotypical Joe is losing his mental faculties and we can’t hold him accountable for things like mishandling classified information because of that.

We also can’t, presumably, hold Biden accountable for anything that happens during his watch as president. We can, however, blame his predecessor, Donald Trump, for all Biden calamities, including a southern border only slightly less porous than Ukraine’s ground defenses.

But Biden and his brain-donor supporters aren’t alone in claiming long-term residence at the irrational hotel.

Today’s major dose of irrational behavior centered on the monthly jobs reports, an exercise in reading goat entrails that no one should take seriously, yet investment professionals do month after month.

Understand that these days government statistics tend to be guesses and results issued by statistical models, which are themselves mostly guesses, seasoned with a bit of research.

If you made observations based on similar models, a neighbor buying a new car might cause you to state that car sales are going through the roof, and we might be in for a record sales year.

Government inflation reports are excellent examples of useless numbers. Some exclude “volatile” items such as food and energy, which just happen to be two elements necessary to life as we know it.

Our Federal Reserve, still trying to meet its target of reducing inflation to 2 percent annually, loves an inflation measure which does not include housing costs. Understandably, this might be accurate if all residents were Section 8 types or illegal immigrants, not responsible for paying their housing costs. For the rest of us, housing is a cost just as essential as those for food and/or energy.

Today’s job report roared past estimates, to a reported 272,000 more on payrolls.

Of note, the “job” numbers don’t differentiate between full-time and part-time. I lose a job paying $60,000 a year with good benefits, and two kids down the street get hired on to cut grass part-time during the summer for $10 an hour and that’s a net gain as far as the government is concerned.

Similarly, if I lost the above-mentioned job, but took down two of those part-time jobs, again a net gain on the payroll report.

Further complicating things, the 270,000 gain was from the so-called “Establishment” report, that deals with feedback from businesses and adjusts it all with the birth-death model to smooth the numbers.

The births and deaths refer not to workers, but to businesses who employ people. It is ESTIMATED how many of these companies have opened or closed (were born or died) during the month.

Meanwhile, the household survey, which talks to people and extrapolates based on that, came in at a DECLINE of 408,000 workers.

And, just to spice up the statistical sundae, the unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent, which would seem to indicate fewer, nor more jobs.

There is a difference of roughly 9 MILLION between jobs numbers the establishment survey reports. vs. the numbers of the household survey, with the establishment that much higher.

Based on this ridiculous statistical soup, billions of dollars were made or lost Friday.

Next week, we get the monthly Federal Reserve meetings and interest rates announcement, usually good for more unwarranted volatility in financial markets as the irrational react and overreact on vague, generally meaningless numbers.

Meantime, we can amuse ourselves with more absurd Biden musings, of which there almost certainly will be many.

At first blush, it seems odd in the extreme that the U.S. and its European allies are so eager to provoke war with Russia.

The state of the Russian army, as to its ability to stand up to NATO forces on the ground, is open to debate. What is not open to debate, and has been pointed to directly and repeatedly by no less an authority than Vlad Putin, is that Russia possesses enough nuclear weaponry – and the means to deliver same – to turn our world into a smoldering cinder.

Surprisingly, all the climate alarmists who have been predicting incorrectly this outcome for Earth from natural forces for maybe 40 years, are some of the same leftist morons encouraging more attempts to provoke the Russian bear.

This all makes no sense unless you realize how desperate things are in many of these nations and for the leaders.

Clueless Joe may be able to unleash his Soros-anointed petty dictators in the form of local district attorneys to harass one Donald Trump, but polls indicate a sizable majority of the populace, as many as 75 percent in some examples, think Biden is inept, doing a poor job of stewarding the country, and needs to be gone yesterday.

Similar heads of state, such as France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Scholz, are just as unpopular if not moreso than the Clueless One.

A major foundation for this unhappiness is inflation, producing declining standards of living. The U.S., France and Germany also have varying degrees of internal instability due to out-of-control immigration.

The U.S. and France also have massive debt problems, as in obligations that cannot be repaid or delivered upon.

Facing elections and a wrathful populace, it is in the best interests of these proven demagogues to devolve into the ultimate misdirection. So they start World War III. At least they will still be in charge before succumbing to the carnage they have unleashed.

And, make no mistake, for these left-wing sickos, being in charge is all that matters. Damn the overall good of the people, even their survival.

History will record – if there is any history written after the fact — that Clueless Joe led us bravely into war just so you wouldn’t be able to pay attention to his many failings.

Same for Macron and Scholz, the latter of whom heads a country that reportedly has begun to draft 60-year-old men.

Can’t happen here? Don’t kid yourselves.

And if you think the West’s leaders will blink before leading us to nuclear Armageddon, that’s far from a certainty. Remember that desperate people do desperate – and stupid – things.

The word of Donald Trump’s conviction reached me Thursday even as I was trying to sort through a problem gaining title to my latest vehicle purchase.

There is a common thread here. Allow me to elaborate.

First, I’m not shocked that Trump has been convicted. It was not by accident that the case, brought by a politicized district attorney, tried under the guidance of a politicized judge and with a jury plucked from the deepest blue part of already deep blue New York State, produced the desired Deep State verdict.

Clueless Joe and his operatives have succeeded in weaponizing the courts, the intelligence network and various levels of federal law enforcement operations against his chief rival for president, one Donald Trump.

Deluded Democrats will argue until they go hoarse that none of this is true. I can only argue the facts, from the lies to judges to get wiretaps on Trump, to the clear difference in prosecuting Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents to giving Clueless Joe the senility pass on same, to the questionable acts of those ranging from FBI agents to judge Juan Merchan, Bogota, Colombia’s gift to American jurisprudence.

This sham trial is the cherry on the top of a sundae of bastardization of the legal system.

Back to my title problem. I received a letter today from the people at the state Department of Transportation that they had problems issuing me a title for the 1984 Corvette I had purchased April 9, 2024.

Specifically, an accompanying notation cited a lack of a proper notary seal and signatures.

The car having been purchased a two and one-half hour drive away, this presents a problem. I called the woman who had handled the title work and we walked through the situation over the phone. I presumed – correctly – that our civil servants would have already vacated their offices.

The notary told me where to look to confirm that she had put her seal both on the title and on the accompanying paperwork. We sifted through said paperwork and seemed to find all the appropriate signatures.

So, what happened?

The notary, in speaking with others in her area, says this is a common problem in 2024, where once it was not. Some notaries merely resubmit the paperwork and, magic, it’s OK.

Simply put, the notary said, there are a lot of people working for the state who struggle to do their jobs these days in this department.

She didn’t say it, but I will: Thank you DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion.

People are being given jobs, from judge to paper shuffler, based on race, sexual orientation, gender and not the former standard of competence.

Legal experts I have seen on television regarding the Trump trial – one prominent one who is a self-confessed Hillary Clinton supporter – saw extreme errors in how the Trump judge handled the trial. Did he get the job because he ticked off a lot of DEI boxes – immigrant, non-white, leftist?

Did the person who (mis)handled my title application check some of the same boxes?

You may have read or seen that a full one-half of UCLA’s medical students fail tests of basic medical competence. But they check a lot of DEI boxes, so no problem.

Coming soon to an emergency room near you, doctors who can’t tell the difference between a sprained ankle and lung cancer.

Trump can and will appeal this ridiculous trial and verdict, and will win even if he has to go all the way to the Supreme Court to escape New York’s politicization.

I, hopefully, will get my title problem rectified in coming days, weeks or months.

But it’s time for the nation to take a stand against this rampant bias and ineptitude and the next great chance comes with November’s election. Otherwise, strap in for things to continue to worsen inexorably.

Behold the Gaza floating pier, a metaphor for the reverse Midas touch that has characterized the Biden regime.

Simply put, everything Clueless Joe and his handlers touch turns to the sort of excrement the North Koreans were floating into South Korea with balloons earlier this week.

That $320 million expenditure for the floating pier was quintessential Biden, throwing money at a problem without regard as to whether or not the solution would work. Hey, it’s all about image, not substance.

Supposedly a way to get aid to desperate Palestinians – desperate because they have ceded political control of their state to terrorists who randomly attack sovereign nations such as Israel and bring the wrath of those aggrieved parties home to roost – the floating pier lasted about two weeks.

“Rough seas” were cited as the reason the pier failed and now it is being towed to a distant beach for repairs. Apparently waves of three feet constitute rough seas for this pier, meaning it probably couldn’t operate on any significant body of water for long.

Bottom line, Biden might as well have dropped $320 million from a helicopter into the Mediterranean Sea.

But Biden and friends are always eager to waste your tax dollars, witness their penchant for vote buying with student loan forgiveness, half-baked electric vehicle tax credits, foreign aid of all stripes, supporting the hordes of illegal immigrants invited in to boost Democrat voting rolls and subsidizing various questionable Woke organizations.

As bad as the floating pier debacle has been, the push for electric cars has been worse. Trans secretary Pete Butt(whatever) got called out on the whole mess recently when it was noted that a $7.5 billion investment had produced just seven charging stations after two years, according to the Washington Post, traditionally a Democratic house organ. But similarly left-leaning Politico claims there have been zero operating charging stations built to date with the $7.5 billion bequest.

Whether it’s seven or zero, it’s not much return on $7.5 billion.

We have a modest bank of chargers at the supermarket along Osborne Street and on Tuesday I witnessed for the first time a car actually being recharged there. Maybe they predate the $7.5 billion allotment.

Regardless, Biden never met a fiscal black hole he wasn’t willing to feed with tax dollars, even though often those shaking the begging bowl are, shall we say, more than a touch ungrateful.

The other day Zelenskyy, the vertically and intestinal fortitude challenged leader of Ukraine, was lamenting the lack of aid, and blistering Biden for planning to pal around with his left-wing crank actor supporters at a Hollywood fund-raiser rather than kissing Zelenskyy’s butt by showing up at a “peace” summit next month in Switzerland.

This denies Zelenskyy yet another photo op, albeit with him needing to stand on a box, ala former actor Alan Ladd, to come close to looking the others in the eye.

Maybe those conscription gangs forcing Ukrainian men into the army and whisking them to the front to be butchered by superior Russian forces might want to snatch Zelenskyy and give him a taste of the action.

Meanwhile, Biden ought to throw a bone to Zelenskyy and offer to give him the floating pier for use in the Black Sea. The only problem is it would require somehow eliminating any waves higher than three feet, which would be about the top of Zelenskyy’s head..

I found myself explaining the Memorial Day Holiday weekend to granddaughter No. 2 the other day, and it reminded me of how far this nation has slipped.

Begin with the concept of some holidays being rescheduled to Mondays, the better to provide three-day weekends to the masses.

I first noticed this sort of push with Thanksgiving. I know, it has yet to be relocated to Monday, but Thanksgiving creep has engulfed Mondays, and many other days.

As a youth, antlered deer hunting season often began the Monday following Thanksgiving and, no, we didn’t get Mondays off back then for the holiday. But, many of us went hunting and in the case of students at Greater Johnstown High School, that meant standing in a massive line down the hall from the Room 422 attendance office Tuesday morning to have one of the curt attendants there let you back into school after an UNEXCUSED absence.

It would be no problem now, because Thanksgiving holidays, in schools and the work world, have swelled to almost a week away from things. Now, many have off the Wednesday before because, well, it just makes sense.

Of course almost all are off the Thursday of the holiday itself. But Friday is a given now, too, because, I mean, why come back to school or work for a single day?

Just add in an off day Friday and we’re into the Saturday and Sunday traditional weekend off days. We’re at four days off, and counting.

But it’s such a downer to have to go back to work on a Monday after a prolonged off stretch, so what the heck, take Monday off, too.

Bumping traditional holidays to Mondays are mini-examples of such holiday creep.

It wouldn’t be so irritating if somewhere along the line people remembered what holiday we are observing, and why. In the past such things were taught in schools. Today, not so much.

Granddaughter No. 2 having recently had only her kindergarten graduation, I knew she would have learned little about Memorial Day in school. So, I pointed out it’s a day to celebrate the military service of those who have worn the uniforms of the various armed services.

From my son’s best friend, to other family friends, to fathers, uncles, grandfathers and cousins of the family who have served, I told her this is a holiday to honor that. For those who didn’t return, it’s time to reflect on how some have paid a great price to protect the freedoms and opportunities we take for granted.

She listened politely and probably forgot about it even before my words had stopped echoing around the SUV.

But I tried. And, in advance of our Saturday holiday cookout, I put out a fresh American Flag. She noticed what I was doing and, again, I gave her the brief meaning of Memorial Day.

Maybe not now, but my hope is someday she might recall what I said and observe the holiday as something more than a component of a three-day weekend.

We’re into the third round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and what have we learned?

• Defense still wins, witness the way the Florida Panthers shut down the New York Rangers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference final series Wednesday night. The Penguins and their fans might want to take note before expecting to contend for the Stanley Cup again anytime soon.

• Out west it’s a similar story, where the depth and defensive prowess of Dallas has the Stars taking on high-flying Edmonton in the conference finals there. Dallas should advance to the Cup Finals from that series.

• The Boston Bruins coaching staff and players all should spend the offseason taking remedial math classes that they might learn to be able to count to five. The Bruins were hit with a playoff record seven penalties for too many men on the ice and in just 13 games, to boot.

• Goalie interference is the NHL’s pass interference, in that even the so-called experts can’t agree on what to call and what to let pass without penalty. In Game 1 of the Rangers-Panthers series there was yet another situation with a goal scored despite physical contact of the goalie with the opposition (no initial interference call at the time), a challenge by the Rangers, another video review and, during the lengthy delay, the announcers came to the conclusion they have no idea which way these calls will go. That apparent Florida goal was disallowed due to interference.

• Another curiosity of NHL officiating is the high-sticking call. If a player hit by the high stick can provide evidence the blow drew blood, it’s a double minor, four minutes or less of playing short-handed vs. the customary two or less. This blood can be from a slight nick. On the other hand, a player could be knocked unconscious and be suffering terminal internal bleeding on the brain. But, no external evidence of bleeding, just two minutes.

• Hockey, with the arrival of high-definition television, is a great sport to watch on TV and playoff hockey is even greater. Yet NHL ratings for the first two rounds of the playoffs, while up 9 percent from last season, are still only a modest 1.16-million average viewers. NBA playoffs ratings for two rounds are down 12 percent, but still dwarf those of hockey, averaging 4.03 million viewers. So, NHL ratings are poor, unless you compare them to CNN, the Certainly Not News network, whose primetime programming (8 to 11 p.m.) has hit a ratings low since 1991 with only 494,000 average viewers. Sure, NHL ratings are poor, but not CNN poor.

• Edmonton is the final Canada-based team alive in the Stanley Cup playoffs, looking to end a drought that extends to 1993 and Montreal for the last Cup win by a franchise from Canada. It probably won’t happen. But does it really mean that much? As the broadcasters noted often during the Edmonton-Vancouver series, the Vancouver team (based in Canada) had as many Latvians in its game lineups (two) as Canadians. There were eight American-born players performing for Vancouver.