Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s a much better weekend this weekend in light of the fact that the boatyard where the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is stored has been informed by yours truly to have it ready to launch by the second weekend of May. It does need a little work, specifically the ring anode on the stern drive as I noticed it was broken before the boat was stored for the winter. Fortunately it is an easy repair, one I would have done myself if I still lived in The Manse, but because there is no room to work on the boat here at The Gulch it has to be done at the boatyard.

So if all goes well I can get all of the gear stored here at The Gulch cleaned up, removing the over-the-winter storage dust and grime before putting it back into the boat prior to launching it.

The only thing I can hope for is that this year’s boating season weather will be much better than last year’s, meaning we will actually have one.

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A great question I saw posted on the ‘Net that certainly had me thinking:

In the word “scent” which is the silent letter, the “s” or the “c”?

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As much as Biden, WRBA, and the Climate Change faithful keep pushing EVs as the “only way to save the planet”, motorists aren’t buying into it. Yes, some people are wholeheartedly in favor of EVs and have bought one, but most of the rest of us want nothing to do with them. There are a whole host of reasons why running the gamut of the expense, the need to install a charger in/near one’s home, the higher repair and insurance costs, concerns about the propensity for EVs to ignite themselves, just to name a few.

One of the biggest concerns, even from people who like and own EVs, is range anxiety. Range is a big issue when it comes to EVs. What causing this anxiety?

...for many EV owners or intenders, charging at home or work just isn’t that easy.

I am a perfect example of the urbanite with limited access to charging. I live in a multi-unit, high-rise condo building, sharing a garage with many other residents. It’s an older building, built long before electric vehicles were on the market. So unlike with many new-construction residences, there are no fast chargers in the garage. I can charge using the 240V outlets, sure, but it’s slow.

There are some fast-charger options nearby, at least. I can walk/drive about 5-10 minutes to a new mixed-use development that has two ChargePoint chargers in the parking garages, or go a bit farther to a Whole Foods that has a couple of chargers. It’s not the biggest inconvenience in the world, but it is still a pain.

It also means that I have to plan my charging a bit, to bake in time to drive to the charger, hook up to the charger (assuming there’s one open), pay, lock the car, and walk home. And reverse those steps when I need the car again.

How often do any of us think about having to set aside time and effort in order to refill the tank of our ICE car or truck? Even if anyone does, how much time? It takes a few minutes to fill a gas or diesel tank and then we’re on our way again. How long does it take to recharge an EV? A lot longer than it takes to fill a gas tank.

I know I can’t speak for you, but I know I don’t want to have to allow time to charge an EV, to make plans in order to charge an EV. I just want to fuel up and go, something that is impossible to do with a EV...or at least a battery EV. If we’re talking a fuel cell EV, then refueling won’t take long at all, probably no longer than it takes to fill a gas tank. FCEVs are also greener than BEVs.

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Then there’s this, the other side of the EV debate, that being the lack of capacity of our electrical grid to supply the electricity needed to meet the demand. The problem is such that even the Washington Post is noticing the grid is being pushed to the brink.

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.

In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.

--snip--

The situation is sparking battles across the nation over who will pay for new power supplies, with regulators worrying that residential ratepayers could be stuck with the bill for costly upgrades. It also threatens to stifle the transition to cleaner energy, as utility executives lobby to delay the retirement of fossil fuel plants and bring more online. The power crunch imperils their ability to supply the energy that will be needed to charge the millions of electric cars and household appliances required to meet state and federal climate goals.

I love it when I hear so many ‘greens’ say we can meet all of our energy needs with renewables when the numbers don’t even come close to adding up. The amount of land needed for renewables that can meet the demand is far more than the greens say it will take. (I’m not even going to get into the instability and variability of renewables or the need to have lots of storage to make it even close to viable.) What we really need is nuclear and a lot of I...but that’s a post for a different time.

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I have to agree with the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler that some people just need to be killed.

Seattle police unveiled fresh bodycam footage on Friday evening, revealing the moments preceding the fatal shooting of a suspected child molester at a Tukwila hotel earlier this week.

Chief Adrian Diaz of the Seattle Police Department (SPD) disclosed that the 67-year-old shitstain, believed to be a child predator, arrived at the DoubleTree Suites hotel around 3:13 p.m. on Wednesday, under the false impression that he was meeting two young girls, aged 7 and 11.

Unbeknownst to the suspect, multiple SPD officers from the Washington State Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce were undercover and poised to apprehend him.

The task force, operating under the SPD, specializes in investigating cases of Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), which encompass activities such as the production, distribution, or possession of materials used to exploit children sexually, as well as the utilization of service provider systems in perpetrating such crimes.

The newly released video footage depicts the officers opening the door for the suspect, who promptly brandished a firearm. A struggle ensued, culminating in the fatal shooting of the suspect by the police. The suspect was pronounced dead at the scene, according to authorities.

It’s like they say in Texas, “Some folks jus’ plain need killin’”, a legal justification for putting a miscreant down for good.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s beginning to feel more like spring, the sun is setting later and rising earlier, and where once again Monday is returning.

Surface Temperature Measurements Are Still Inaccurate

About ten years ago I wrote about problems with the reporting stations used to measure temperatures around the US and how that problem was skewing the temperature readings. Comparing the readings from pristine stations, meaning “none of the stations are situated near urban areas, parking lots, HVAC exhausts, or other artificial means that will skew the temperature readings,” shows that temperature readings were suffering from the effects of Urban Heat Island effect.

One would think that with it being known that efforts would have been made to move the poorly positioned stations to better locations to get them away from the factors making accurate temperature readings impossible. But an across the US survey recently performed by Anthony Watts has shown that if anything the problem has gotten worse.

In 2009, and then again, as a follow-up, in 2022, detailed inspections with station location data and photographic evidence the problematic stations were done. Stations providing official climate data that were sited in locations where surrounding surfaces, structures, and equipment radiated stored heat or emitted heat directly biasing or driving the recorded temperatures higher than were recorded at stations in the same region, uncompromised by the well-known UHI (that is widely ignored by alarmists and official government agencies).

Of the sampling of hundreds of stations across the country Watts and his volunteer team documented in 2009, 89% were out of compliance for proper measurement practices. In 2022, with the second inspection, that number rose to 96%. The trip last week, while taking a smaller sample than the two previous efforts, approached 100% as out of compliance.

The video is lengthy, but is well worth the time to see how we really can’t trust the temperature data the “We’re All Gonna DIE!” climate cultists use to tell us we have to go back to an 18th Century existence or the Earth will become a second Venus.

Friday Funny - Voting Locations For November

Thoughts On A Sunday

I have to admit to feeling a little traumatized today seeing as I filed my Federal Income Tax return this morning. Not that it was difficult or time consuming. It was more seeing just how much of the pay I earned went to the Feddle Gummint, knowing it will be spent on stupid things while ignoring the important things. I did do a decent job ‘tuning’ my W4 a couple of years ago to ensure the amount of any refund (or additional taxes owed) would be small. I would rather have my money in my accounts rather than Uncle Sam’s accounts to use interest-free. My refund this year was in four figures...if you count two of those figures as decimal places, so I’ll leave my W4 the way it is for the time being.

To change the subject (and to get away from the tax trauma), spring cleaning has started here at The Gulch. We’re starting small, cleaning out the coat closet by taking winter coats, boots, gloves, scarves and hats out and moving them to a storage closet. Then it was a matter of rearranging some of the other contents and getting rid of the winter detritus.

After that we went through the pantry/laundry room, removing some items that were better stored away in one of the attics. (Yes, we have two attics at The Gulch, one accessible from the house and the other from the garage.) These are things like Tupperware containers, pots, pans, and other kitchen related items that are used, but only once or twice a year during one of the holidays. This freed up space and the pantry is now less crowded and it’s easier to find things and keep things clean.

I will soon be starting on the house attic as there are lot of things there the WP Mom no longer needs and that she wants to give to Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul. There are also things I have there I should have disposed of prior to departing from The Manse but ran out of time to take care of prior to the move to The Gulch. Then it will be time to take care of the attic garage, but most of that work will be rearranging things that are already there, mostly Sterilite containers full of seasonal stuff. Winter stuff will go in as summer stuff comes out. (Some of that ‘summer stuff’ is gear for the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout which, if everything goes as scheduled, will be going back in the water sometime during the send full week of May.)

And so it goes.

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One has to ask how well California’s Fast Food Worker’s Minimum Wage law is working out for those who were supposed to receive the higher pay? So far, I’d have to say it isn’t working out at all, at least not for the fast food workers.

This week, your humble correspondent has witnessed another tranche of elitist Democrats ruin the lives of thousands of people and pretend everything's fine.

In California, Democrats forced a 25% pay increase for fast food workers and workers learned the hard way about being priced out of a job.

--snip--

Welcome to California, where between Bidenomics inflation and Gavin Newsom's new $20/hour fast food worker minimum wage has caused cheap fast food to become unaffordable, especially to the people who either got their hours cut or lost their fast food jobs completely.

Take a bow, fellas.

Hence, on March 25, Gavin Newsom plunged headlong into a 25% increase in the cost of labor for fast food employees.

This effort to kill small businesses and jobs harkens back to AB5, California Democrats' attempt to kill off private contracting for the sake of their union paymasters.

First, AB5 killed the so-called “gig economy”, something that didn’t need to be done. Carve outs had to be made for independent truckers because if it hadn’t been done California’s trucking industry would have collapsed and its economy with it. But still, a lot of jobs went away. Many of the ‘gig’ workers moved out of state and continued to do their work from their new homes in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

It seems all of the measures the California Assembly and Governor put forth keep punishing those who make the economy work, create job losses, falloffs in state revenues, generate huge budget deficits, and when that doesn’t work, they double down and make things even worse. However, for the California Democrats it’s working just fine because it allows them to virtue signal about how they’re helping the “little people”.

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Mike over at Cold Fury points us to a piece about The Elite War on the American Middle Class, or as Mike calls it, “another war in which there are no rules.”

Being middle class in America used to mean something—something socially transformative, something even revolutionary. The American middle class represented a form of national social order never before seen on this earth—cultural domination not by the very rich and very educated, or the political domination either by tyrants or the mob, but by a mass of people, relatively well-to-do, who felt themselves fortunate in their circumstances. That was what made the American middle class different from the French or English bourgeoisie. Its members believed, and the country believed, that they were the nation’s backbone, its true governing class, and its moral compass.

Throughout most of the 20th century, the term “middle class” signaled membership in an optimistic and growing group, most of whom had risen within memory from physically laborious jobs in farming or on factory floors to offices and small businesses they ran themselves. The middle class had enjoyed long periods of prosperity and stability, and each generation of politicians, on the left and the right, had enthusiastically pandered to it because they were the American majority, and it was from the American majority you could build a political consensus and a political coalition.

--snip--

Rather than be catered to by the elites who seek to make their living off their tastes and wants, the middle class is more likely to hear the elite talk about it as a problem: Middle-class Americans are racist, they complain too much about how expensive everything has become, and they won’t get on board either with the left’s social-engineering schemes or the populist right’s rage-driven apocalypticism.

They are told that “no human is illegal” and that their concerns about an open border are evidence of their own bigotry. They see the poor and other designated “oppressed” receive sympathetic elite attention and government subsidies and programs, and services aimed at helping them. The elite champion the rights of criminals, illegal immigrants, and destructive Black Lives Matter activists who want to dismantle the police. They tell the rest of the country that they must call the homeless the “unhoused” and ignore any quality-of-life effects from that population’s drug use or instability. When the middle class complains, the elite often chide it for having fallen prey to “misinformation” or excessive “right-wing” media consumption.

We’ve been hearing that Biden (or rather WRBA) is working hard to grind down the middle class, and while I originally thought is was rhetoric, I can no longer think that as action after action taken by the the Biden Administration continuously whittles away at the middle class.

As Mike writes:

As are we all—everyone, that is, foolish and/or naive enough to still believe, as patriotic dupes, in the essential righteousness of a nation which in actuality bears little if any resemblance at all to the nation its Founding Fathers—whom its middle-class posterity still nonetheless justly admire and take great pride in—brought forth originally.

None of this has happened by accident, mind. The assault on and dismantling of the American middle-class and the nuclear family which is its backbone and practical foundation is Item One in the Marxist playbook, the crucial first step without which all else is pointless and futile.

If the middle class is eradicated, that will leave only the new nobility – our self-anointed Progessive elite – and the neo-serfs – the rest of us. It is the neo-feudalism of Marxist ideology and the Progressives are using every step in the Marxist handbook to erase the middle class.

Of course that might not work out quite the way they want and it is they who might find themselves on the wrong side of history...or better yet, on the ash heap of history.

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Speaking of war, one has to look at the escalating war in the Middle East with Iran getting directly involved in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Iran fired 300+ cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones at Israel. 99%+ of those missiles and drones were shot down by Israeli and US Navy anti-aircraft systems. At least Iran targeted military targets unlike their Hamas, Hezbollah, and Russian allies who have no problem targeting civilian infrastructure, facilities, and residences.

Of course SloJoe is trying to talk Israel into not striking back, something that Biden should stay away from. If nothing else it makes him sound more like he is Iran’s ally rather than Israel’s. Why is it that Israel, the country against which Hamas started a war, is the one everyone says must restrain themselves while their enemies continue their attacks on Israel.

This is a stupid war, one made possible by the Biden Administration, one that would not have happened if Trump were still in office.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice and snow from the last storm has all but disappeared, the rivers and streams are running high, and where boating season starts in a little over three weeks...for me.

Is Another Blue City Falling Victim To A Doom Loop?

It looks like another blue city is being added to the ranks of those entering the so-called “doom loop”. Joining the list that includes places like San Francisco, Portland, and Detroit is St. Louis, Missouri.

First, we must as define ‘doom loop’:

A doom loop describes a situation in which one negative economic condition creates a second negative condition, which in turn creates a third negative condition or reinforces the first, resulting in a downward spiral.

How is St. Louis entering this condition?

“The office district is empty, with boarded up towers, copper thieves, and failing retail,” reports the Wall Street Journal of Democrat-run St. Louis, Missouri. “[E]ven the Panera outlet shut down. The city is desperately trying to reverse the ‘doom loop.’”

Let’s look at the mayoral history of the doom-looping St. Louis, shall we?

Oh, look, there hasn’t been a Republican mayor in St. Louis since — not a typo — 1949. For 75 years, the people of St. Louis have voted for More of the Same, so excuse me if I don’t whip out a violin over all this unavoidable doom looping.

“Cities such as San Francisco and Chicago are trying to save their downtown office districts from spiraling into a doom loop,” writes the Wall Street Journal. “St. Louis is already trapped in one.”

I think San Francisco is already sliding into a doom loop. If New York doesn’t change course soon, particularly in light of the sham of a trial against Trump, it too will enter a doom loop. It is already seeing falling commercial occupancy, one consequence of the overblown Covid ‘precautions’ as Work From Home which made going into the office less attractive, particularly since many office jobs can be done from home as long as the employee has a decent Internet connection. (The case could be made that the WFH precaution during Covid was the first negative economic condition that started the doom loop.) That has certainly been the case in San Francisco and Seattle. What’s worse is that the commercial vacancy rate keeps climbing in all three cities. It has certainly been that way in St. Louis and increasingly in San Francisco.

The question is will these cities do what is need to stop their descent into a doom loop, or will they keep doing economically stupid stuff that makes things worse?

Something To Keep In Mind Come November

I still have my regular Saturday post in the works, but when I came across the following over at Instapundit, I knew I had to add it here, "it" being the this:

Donald Trump had Iran broke.

Joe Biden gave the Iran Regime hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, credit and cash.

Iran is now attacking Israel with Joe Biden’s money.

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) April 13, 2024

I’m getting angrier every hour with the Biden Administration.

They’ve ushered in multiple wars. They did this!

They must not just be defeated in November – they must be shown a humiliating defeat so that no Democrat ever supports radical Left policies.

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) April 13, 2024

It seems the Democrats are good at getting us involved in wars, directly or indirectly...and then abandoning the people we were helping (Afghanistan).

This pisses me off to no end.

(Delayed) Friday Funny - Firetrucks

Sorry about the delay but I had a bit of a brain fart and didn't realize that yesterday was Friday. I kept thinking it was Thursday...though I don't know why.

Without further delay:

Thoughts On A Sunday

The clean up after this past week’s Nor’easter continues as does efforts to restore power to the last of those still without it. Surprisingly the snow has been melting away pretty quickly, not unlike the snowstorm we had a couple of weeks ago. That we’re going to have temperatures in the 60’s on both Monday and Tuesday is certainly going to help speed things along.

One of the other things we’ll be dealing with on Monday is the total eclipse that will sweep across northern New Hampshire. Traffic traveling north is expected to be heavy both today and tomorrow as folks wishing to experience the total eclipse head into Grafton and Coos Counties to be in the path. Fortunately most of those affected by this past week’s Nor’easter were south of there so there shouldn’t be many problems caused by the storm up in those areas. It does mean lodgings are fully booked and restaurants, stores, and gas stations will be having well above normal patronage. It also means traffic will be well above normal as well.

I’ll be here at The Gulch as the eclipse starts. While not in the path of totality we will see a partial eclipse and that’s good enough for me. If I really want to see it I can catch it on our local TV channel. As long as I don’t have to travel to see it I’m good.

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One subject of discussion that has popped again in the aftermath of the widespread power outages is why New Hampshire hasn’t buried its power lines to help reduce the probability of future outages. I can explain that with one two-word phrase:

Granite State.

New Hampshire’s nickname – the Granite State – exists for a reason, that being we have a lot of granite…everywhere. That means burying things like power lines can be difficult because in a lot of cases it will mean digging, drilling, and blasting to cut the trenches needed to bury those lines. They can’t be shallow in order to ensure safety as many of the distribution lines run at 3800 volts or more, something that can ruin your whole day if that electricity ‘escapes’ because someone did something stupid. It could require thousands of miles of trenches to be dug and cut through the rock in order to bury all of those power lines that can be buried.

While it would be nice to see most of the power lines and poles that go with them disappear, the question is whether it is worth the time, and more specifically, the money it would take. Then there’s a follow-on question that needs to be asked: Who would be paying for all of those power lines to be buried?

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I found this rather amusing considering it is likely accurate.

Democrats Warned Not To Register Young Voters, ‘They’re Going to Vote for Trump.’

If that is indeed the case it means the Democrats will have to work harder to register the dead and non-citizens.

A confidential memo circulated among top Democratic donors has sparked a furious debate in Democratic circles about whether to narrow the focus of voter registration efforts to avoid signing up likely Republicans.

For decades, nonpartisan groups allied with the Democratic Party have run wide-ranging efforts aimed at increasing voter registration among people of color and young people — groups that tend to lean Democratic but have historically voted at lower rates than older and White people.

In recent years, however, there has been a marked shift among the roughly 1 in 5 citizens of voting age who are unregistered toward Republicans, raising fresh questions about how much boosting nonpartisan voter registration could help presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump heading into November.

[Strauss] also warned that efforts to gain Democratic votes among younger and non-Black people of color were often expensive — costing more than $1,200 per net vote in 2020, by one estimate — because the groups now include so many non-Democrats. Among voters of color, he wrote that “only African American registration is clearly a prime opportunity,” adding that netting Democratic voters among Black people cost approximately $575 per vote in 2020.

And where did the DNC get the money to offset those costs?

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A great quote from Lincoln Brown that gets right to the point:

What irks us is that you [Progressives] are not content to live your lives as you see fit. You demand that we live our lives as you see fit.

They want us to sit down, shut up, and do what they tell us to do. We won’t do that because we know they are mentally ill, live in a delusional world of Marx’s making, and will have no problem eventually imprisoning or murdering us to get their way. Sic semper tyrannus.

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Common Cents Blog asks the question “Is California Going Red?”

Possibly...but I always figured that would happen by the coastal counties being kicked out of the rest of California once they had enough of the delusional Marxists presently running the state into the ground. Every time I’ve thought the California Assembly and the Governor couldn’t get get any crazier/stupider, they prove me wrong. At some point the sane people have got to reach the point where they’ve had enough and they make those blue counties a separate entity – preferably a foreign entity – and let the red counties get back to business without interference from their self-anointed ‘betters’.

However, one thing that is giving some people hope is that a Republican – Steve Garvey – is leading the vote count in the primary race for the upcoming US Senate race in November. Could this be but the first step in California shifting back to the right?

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It looks like yet another blue city is learning the lesson of the Law of Unintended Consequences, that city being Minneapolis and their making sure Uber and Lyft drivers lose their jobs with an ill-advised ordinance that was supposed to ‘help’ those same drivers.

I want to strike a Nietzschean note in this comment on the rideshare ordinance enacted by the City of Minneapolis this past month. Under the ordinance, Uber and Lyft would be required to pay drivers a minimum rate of $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute to ensure that they earn the equivalent of local minimum wage of $15.57 per hour — effective May 1. The city council overrode the mayor’s veto to enact the ordinance.

Uber and Lyft would be required to comply with the ordinance, that is, if they are still around on May 1, but they will both be out of Minneapolis by then. Indeed, Uber will depart the entire Twin Cities metropolitan area.

The ordinance represents an exercise in the pure Nietzschean will to power. It resolves a nonproblem with a law that destroys thousands of jobs providing millions of rides. NRO quotes a local Lyft drivers speaking of his fellow contractors pushing the ordinance as “just absolutely lazy people.”

Yet another example of the willfully ignorant making economic decisions they are not qualified to make which have real world consequences for constituents they care nothing about...until the next election cycle. Uber and Lyft will be pulling up stakes with Uber also pulling out of neighboring St. Paul.

One of the ironies is that just over 60% of the drivers are immigrants, with most of them being male and African. Now their jobs are going away courtesy of the Minneapolis City Council. (The mayor vetoed the ordinance, but the city council overrode his veto.)

Another irony is that Minnesota’s governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, sees the problem and has excoriated the Minneapolis City Council for “magical thinking” that a new rideshare app will just appear out of thin air to replace Uber and Lyft.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the clean-up continues apace, preparations for the upcoming boating season have resumed, and where Monday is going to show us just how bad it can get by making sure the sun goes out in the middle of the afternoon.

Non-Winter Winter Weather

This winter that just passed was a one heck of a disappointment as we didn’t see nearly as much winter weather as we usually do up here in New Hampshire. There wasn’t nearly as much snow as is normal. We didn’t have the usual sub-zero temperatures. Instead we had warmer than normal temps and quite a bit of rain. (Actually, a lot of rain.)

Then in a period of not quite two weeks we had two snowstorms, each dropping about 18 inches of snow. The first one wasn’t all that bad with the snow being ‘normal’ snow – not the supper fluffy really cold weather type of snow but still light in weight. The second one was nasty with heavy wet snow and high winds which took down trees and power lines all over the state, with around 200,000 customers without power at one point. We here at the The Gulch were one of them. Almost 85% of our town lost power.

Our power went out around half-past 7am Thursday morning before the height of the storm. Fortunately I had prepared the Official Weekend Pundit Portable Generator ahead of time and it only took about 2 minutes to get it up and running and the power switched over. Fortunately we still had cable so the WP Mom could catch her TV shows and I could continue working from home. And then the cable went out and TV and Internet went away that afternoon. (Fortunately for me I had the foresight to be working from local copies of the documents I was creating so the loss of the ‘Net didn’t prevent me from continuing my work).

Friday morning dawned and power was still out. I had to venture out to get more propane for the generator and fortunately the roads were in good shape. The only time I had to use 4WD was getting out of the driveway.

Driving down to our local Tractor Supply Company store to refill the empty propane tank was easy...but the number of trees I saw that had torn free from the ground or broke off above the ground was mind boggling. That certainly explained the power/cable/telephone outages. (Yes, I called the TSC store on my cell phone to see if they were open and able to fill propane tanks before I left The Gulch.)

On my second foray out later that morning I did a little exploring and found the where the power lines and fiber optic cables that feed out part of town were taken out. A huge tree had broken off about 8 feet up the trunk and took out the lines...and the two power poles to either side of where it came down.

It was amazing to see what heavy wet snow and wind can do between downed trees and power lines, blocked roads, and damaged homes.

We were fortunate that our power and cable were restored early yesterday evening so we were out for a day-and-a-half. Others are still without power and many will not see power back until Sunday at the earliest.

This is one of the problems with spring snowstorms, particularly if they are Nor’easters. They are often just like what we experienced on Wednesday and Thursday – heavy wet snow, high gusty winds, and widespread power outages.

Hopefully we won’t see any more between now and when I put the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout back into the lake in mid May.

Friday Funny - What Is This "We" You're Talking About?

This post almost didn't take place as we were still recovering from a Nor'easter that dumped 19 inches of heavy wet snow and knocked out power and access to the Internet. Fortunately both were restored a couple of hours ago after being out for a day-and-a-half.

Thoughts On A Sunday

This is an abbreviated edition of TOAS as I spent today with members of the WP Clan celebrating Easter.

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A week ago we were cleaning up after receiving 18 inches of snow here at The Gulch. Today, much of that snow is gone, between warmer temperatures and a couple of says of heavy rain. Not that the snow is gone, but there isn’t a lot of bare ground showing. Driveways and roads are clear and most roofs are also snow free.

Yesterday saw high winds with gusts of 40-50 mph. The winds generated white caps and two foot swells out on the lake.

I wish I could say we’re past any winter weather, but the Weather Guys^TM have said we’re likely to see snow starting Wednesday and on and off on Thursday and Friday. Winter isn’t over yet...at least according to Mother Nature.

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Oh good grief!! Is there nothing global warming can’t do?

First, it’s going to turn Earth’s surface into something that will resemble Venus and we’re all gonna die. Then it’s going to usher in another Ice Age...and Venus-like temperatures at the same time and we’re all gonna die. The latest claim about the power of global warming?

Global warming will increase plastic pollution.

This is what is going to kill us this time:

Typically viewed as unrelated problems, global warming and plastic pollution are instead inextricably trapped in a “vicious circle” where one feeds the other, researchers in Sweden report in Nature Communications. The mutually-reinforcing relationship escalates global warming, the degradation of materials, plastic waste and the leaching of toxic chemicals into the biosphere.

Plastics that we rely on every day will deteriorate more rapidly because of rising global temperatures, and one effect will be a demand for more plastics. Xinfeng Wei, a researcher in polymeric materials at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, says meeting that demand will further compound greenhouse emissions that drive up the global temperature.

“A self-reinforcing cycle is formed, creating a vicious circle between climate change and plastic pollution,” Wei says.

In 2019, plastics generated 3.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, or about 1.8 billion tons, mostly on account of their production and conversion from fossil fuels, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). By 2060 that amount is expected to more than double.

Everything generates greenhouse gases, not just plastics. But one has to ask whether plastics can be re-engineered to reduce emissions as well as toxic chemical runoff? Do all plastics cause this problem or just some of them? If plastics were actually capable of being properly recycled would this reduce the problem, have no effect, or make the problem worse?

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Equity Based Algebra?

Just when I think California can’t get any stupider it proves me wrong.

When the woke claim things like math is racist, one has to figure they’ll also come up with some nonsense as a means of fixing the problem, one that doesn’t exist. So here’s California’s latest bit of delusional silliness – equity based algebra.

The CMF (California Math Framework) is a series of policy and curriculum "suggestions" designed to bring "equity" to the math scores of minority students. Some of [the] outrageous suggestions already adopted are almost beyond belief. Julia Steinberg has listed a few in The Free Press.

-Most students won’t learn algebra until high school. In the past, when that was expected of middle schoolers, the CMF tells us, “success for many students was undermined.”

-This means calculus will mostly be verboten because students can’t take calculus “unless they have taken a high school algebra course or Mathematics I in middle school.”

-“Detracking” (ending advanced courses) will be the law of the land until high school; students will be urged to “take the same rich mathematics courses in kindergarten through eighth grade.”

Also, "letter grades will be discouraged in favor of 'standards-based assessments.'" It's not very clear what "standards-based assessments" are, but it sure sounds academic and harmless, right?

The worst of it boggles logic and reason.

It only gets worse from there, pushing equity which in this case means pulling students down to the lowest common denominator. That is not how one ensures success of students. It just makes sure they all fail...but at least it will be fair, right?

What a bunch of pure, unadulterated woke bullsh*t.

Read The Whole Thing.

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And that’s the (abbreviated) news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re going to be swinging back and forth between spring and winter weather, there are already some boats back in the water, and where yet again we will not be able to escape Monday.

Yeah, Like This Is Going To Work Out

The Biden Administration (well, actually WRBA) keeps trying to ram electric vehicles down the motoring public’s throats. It’s using the EPA as a means of doing so.

But per usual the one thing that is being devoutly ignored is that electric vehicles require electricity to charge them.

Little mention has been made about where all this electricity needed to charge them is going to come from. Yes, some noise has been made about using renewable sources to do so, but the truth is that renewables will never be able to do so. Too many renewables true believers cannot seem to do math, cannot figure out that the amount of land needed to provide the electricity just to charge EVs, let alone for other uses also being mandated by WRBA. They can’t be built fast enough nor will they provide anywhere enough electricity when it’s needed.

Lo and behold, when you push people to electrify everything in their lives – cars, cookers, heating systems – while bribing them to go all-electric with lavish government subsidies, it turns out they use more electricity. Who would have thought? I guess this is why we need all those brainiac experts to analyse the ultra-complicated technical details of environmental policy.

One such expert worries in the Times: ‘The numbers we’re seeing are pretty crazy.’ America’s paper of record warns that in the past year the nation’s utilities have nearly doubled their estimates of how much more power they’ll need to provide in the next five years, during which an extra California’s worth of demand will be dumped on the US grid. So allow me to lead you through all the ‘well, duh’ bullet points of this hugely entertaining piece.

Electric vehicles need electricity. Surprise! Apparently simply stippling the landscape with new EV chargers, which Joe Biden’s farcically titled Inflation Reduction Act is meant to finance, isn’t quite enough. Gosh, darn it. Nobody pointed out that the chargers have to be connected to actual electricity. So far, it looks as if no one in government has worried about where it will all come from. Oh well. That’s understandable. These important people have so many other weighty matters on their minds.

Burning fossil fuels to not burn fossil fuels is a tad inconsistent.

Making electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines requires electricity.

When you throw trillions of government dollars at reviving manufacturing, you get more manufacturing.

Manufacturing requires electricity.

Intermittent wind and solar power require fossil fuel backup.

There are other points brought up that dismantle the argument for forcing everyone into EVs, and switching heating/cooling, stoves, clothes-dryers, and so on to electricity. Our electrical grid can’t possibly meet the demand all these changes require.

The environmentalists won’t let the utilities build the power plants we need to build – nuclear – be they SMRs of traditional design or molten salt reactors that are much safer to operate and can use ‘depleted’ fuel from older reactors – uranium and plutonium – burning them until all of the long-lived radioisotopes are gone. Generating electricity from diffuse sources is never cheap. It also isn’t reliable. It is also variable, something electric grids really don’t like. (This is something South Australia found out the hard way when they went full renewables after shutting down their last coal-fired plants.)