It’s A Gas

Don't make gas stoves a part of your identity.

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Today’s Ruminant, a self-described “rambling, weird, incoherent hot mess,” can perhaps be taken as a reflection of Jonah’s addled brain. With his wife and daughter on a road trip, his mind has regressed into bachelor mode, and he’s begun to subsist on chicken eaten over the kitchen sink. Thankfully, he still has opinions on the biggest stories of the day, including the Biden administration’s potential ban of gas stoves, how Biden’s classified document scandal compares with Trump’s, and technological developments that could counteract climate change. Come for the punditry, but stay for the strange digression about the mating habits of deer. 

Show Notes:

– The Dispatch breaks down the battle over gas stoves

– NPR: “We need to talk about your gas stove, your health and climate change”

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  1. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    The problem with modern “environmentalism,” as it is with so many modern political movements, is the underlying assumption that humans are interlopers and any impact we may have is negative to the planet. We don’t belong, you see.

    By the way, this is a deeply conservative assumption. You’ll hear this a lot with the “invasive species” discussion where evil humans are destroying local fauna with by bringing their stupid local plants or exotic pets with them to other places, as if the delicate earth can’t handle the impact or as if the local ecosystem has to stay exactly the same no matter what forever and heaven forfend stupid humans cause any change to it.

    I’m being intentionally simplistic here to make a point. Obviously there are sound and scientific points to be made about invasive species or saving the elephants for example. But what happens is that the mob gets a hold of these arguments and bends them to their political will. And it becomes about punishing political enemies: evil hunters, evil colonialists, evil white people, evil rich people, evil suburbanites, my jerk neighbor and her stupid geraniums, etc…

    Or, in some instances, just plain evil people. How dare we exist at all while cute little animals are trying to live at peace in nature! This is closely related to the noble savage argument where some mythical native community was co-existing peacefully with nature until evil white people came along and destroyed everything with their guns and their germs and their whiskey. The jerks!

    It all seems very Luddite. I bet James Cameron can make a movie about it.

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  2. Pohl

    Et tu, Jonah? Gay marriage is one of the least conservative things proposed today. Please skip your next road adventure and take a trip through the freshwater of natural law instead, and the barnacles of bad ideas will just fall off.

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  3. Joe1776

    As far as the document issue: I think Clinton's situation is different than both Biden and Trump. Assuming these were documents that Biden was allowed to access then both he and Trump simply had documents that they were able to see. I mean if either wanted to write down notes about what was in those documents based on their memory then I am not sure there would be a crime at all. Maybe their would but I think in both of these cases it is more of a technicality. Yes his closet or biden's garage (where Hunter may have been living?) is not as secure as the whereever they are to be kept. But these people both legally had access to the information and they did not deny access to others entitled to the information (assuming they did not take the only copy).

    But what Hillary did I think was far worse. She deliberately set up an entire server to circumvent these laws. The amount of arrogance it would take to even think this is remotely acceptable is shocking. You are not going to use the government servers instead you are going to have all your government work on a private server so you have no government oversight over what is happening at your job and can control what the government does without anyone else knowing?? I am sorry that is much different than what Biden or Trump did.

    Now if we find out for whatever reason Obama said Biden shouldn't have access to certain documents that were found at his home or that either Trump or Biden were indeed trying to sell this information or otherwise use it for nefarious purposes ok that is different. But otherwise I think this is more of a technical issue for Biden and Trump. With Hillary I just find it amazing that she and apparently Obama would think that was ok.

    And yes if Trump obstructed justice that is its own thing as well. But that is a separate issue/crime.

    None of these idiots/crooks should have too much power over us. This is why I am very much in favor of drastically cutting the FBI so they focus in on crimes and only crimes and also have the head of the FBI change every 2 years. Much more transparency.

    Instead we have disgraced FBI leaders talking on our cable news channels and getting positions at universities of all places. Why would any university think our young people should be taught by people involved in corruption?

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  4. Joe1776

    I am glad you and many here at the dispatch are separating from political parties and simply giving your own political views.

    I have always thought of presidential elections as the lesser of two evils and did indeed think about bush as better than Kerry. But sometimes the way they would grow the government I had to wonder. I also liked some things about Bill Clinton for this reason although I always considered him repulsive on a personal level. I think many professional political writers are just trying make a paycheck by trying to reinforce the views of their readers. It is unclear whether they really change their views.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Pgrossjr47

    Re your comments on the deer population. One of the problems is we are still using outdated game management techniques. Deer hunting and management is geared towards bucks. But if you kill every buck save one in a 5-mile radius, you have merely made it easier for the remaining buck to impregnant the does as he no longer has to fight another buck for mating rights. Further, there are restaurants that would regularly serve venison if there were a reliable supply, but market hunting is not allowed. And I know what happened to the bison. But there is no reason, market hunters could not be licensed, it would be no different from those who trap.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I don’t care about gas stoves - I’ve used electric ranges and gas ones and never thought much about it. If I had to go with my gut, I like electric better, but I don’t care.

    That said, this whole thing is incredibly stupid. So far the right (as typified by TD and Charlie Cooke, among others) has entirely the correct take on it. The motte and bailey of overnight going to “we’re banning gas stoves get with the picture you stupid revanchists” to then overnight switching again to “we were never going to ban gas stoves stop getting your panties in a wad you moronic conservatives why would you cling to your gas stoves like guns and make them part of your identity” is inane. I don’t care about gas stoves but who the f**k gave some random bureaucrat the power to ban them? (Answer: nobody. That’s a legislative function.) Also, why do these debates have to involve going to 11 in one direction and then switching off like a schizophrenic hummingbird the next second?

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  7. Keith.Phillips4760

    Elephants are like deer... only larger and angrier.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X01aAtFkuoM

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  8. Fudrock

    I found this Politico article a fairer dissection of this idiocy than Jonah or the MSM managed: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/14/joe-biden-gas-stoves-00077944

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  9. Avatar photo
    Mkapnick

    I will give my gas stove to the Progressives when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.

    Of all the issues facing this country....for real....

    That was a bit of a rambler, but we love you anyway, Jonah.

    Ruminants are like Grateful Dead shows. Some are better than others, but we keep coming because you never know when lighting will strike and you get something truly epic. 😊

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  10. Avatar photo
    Jeff Walden

    Genuinely unsure whether to laugh uncontrollably or maintain appalled silence at the deer porn digression...

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