Thoughts On A Sunday

Other than a brief respite last weekend, we’ve had 14 rainy Saturdays out of the last 15 Saturdays. Not that I am really complaining. I’m just stating fact. Others here in the Lakes Region don’t like it, particularly those who run tourism-oriented businesses. It’s just weather and it’s something we have to deal with.

The wet weather doesn’t stop us from taking care of our weekend chores, for the most part. Yes, it’s true the lawn may not get mowed until mid-week and garden work will have to be postponed for another day.

It certainly hasn’t affected Amateur Radio Field Day which started yesterday and ends today. It is an annual ‘test’ of emergency communications in the form of a contest. Amateur radio operators set up “in the field” to prove they can provide emergency communications in the event of an emergency that disrupts and takes out normal communications like phones, texts, Internet, etc. It takes place during the last weekend of every June. Field Day runs regardless of the weather, so the rain we had yesterday didn’t disrupt one of our local Amateur Radio clubs from participating.

As an aside, this will be a short workweek for yours truly as I will be taking both Wednesday and Thursday off in preparation for July 4th. I’ve got a few things to take care of prior to then, so why not burn up a little vacation time to do so?

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In my post yesterday I mentioned that the Supreme Court got it right when it came to federal judges not having the inherent right to issue nationwide injunctions. The 6-3 decision split along part lines.

What’s ironic about this is that one of the dissenting Justices, Elena Kagan, had just the opposite opinion only three years ago when she wrote:

It can't be right that one district court, whether it's in the Trump years ... the Biden years, and it just can't be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks, and leave it stopped for years — that it takes to go through the normal process.

Then why did she vote just the opposite way earlier this week? Mike Miller asks the questions:

So what was the deal, Justice Kagan? Why did you, in 2022, make a perfect case against district courts handing down decisions that stop nationwide policy dead in its tracks, yet on Friday, make a 180-degree U-turn and vote against stopping district courts from doing so?

Why, it couldn't be hypocrisy, could it?

Could it be that when such injunctions work for them the Democrats are all for them, but that when it works in the opposite direction they are against them?

In this case, the question and its answer are moot since the Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter.

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Why doesn’t this surprise me in the least? Maybe because I understand math and engineering.

‘Net Zero’ Is Collapsing in U.S. States

From New York to California, state renewable electrical power dreams are collapsing. Power demands soar, while the federal government cuts funding and support for wind, solar, and grid batteries. Renewables cannot provide enough power to support the artificial intelligence revolution. The Net Zero electricity transition is failing in the United States.

Could it be because we’ve been seeing the increasing failures experienced by other countries trying to achieve Net Zero and don’t want to go down that rat hole with them?

In the US we’ve seen large scale renewable energy projects fail to meet the energy needs, producing a fraction of the power predicted with questionable reliability and service life. We’ve been finding out that windfarms aren’t the panacea so many claimed they would be, that solar farms take up so much land area they create damage to ecosystems because trees and other vegetation must be removed. Both are vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather, and solar is only usable for part of the day. The one thing rarely mentioned by the Net Zero cultists is that renewables require backups capable of carrying the load when renewables aren’t available. The problem is that in many cases those backups don’t exist, or worse, are ‘dirtier’ than what was replaced by the renewable sources. (A lot of those backups are fueled by coal, at least in Europe.)

There are ways to reduce carbon emissions, at least for power generation, but some of them are anathema to the Greens, one of the better ones being nuclear power. It doesn’t matter that nuclear power can provide a full load 24/7/365 even when the wind isn’t blowing or is blowing too hard or the sun is below the horizon or the sky is covered by clouds.

It seems to me that Non-Reciprocal Theory of Theory versus Practice has come into play regarding Net Zero:

In Theory, Theory and Practice are the same thing. In Practice, they are not.

To quote Dennis Miller, “That’s just my opinion. I might be wrong...”

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It appears the Democrats are learning the lesson of “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”

In this case it is precedents they set for January 6 congressional subpoenas that is now coming back to bite them.

While Oversight digs into the question of who was REALLY running Biden’s White House, the walls are closing in on Doctor Jill’s top aide.

Any of the excuses, deflections, and dodges that might have shielded Anthony Bernal from having to answer to Congressional oversight were shredded by the heavy-handed precedents set under the J6 committee.

After ignoring an invitation to testify before Congress, Bernal is now receiving a formal subpoena to appear, whether he wants to or not. And since Democrats were more than happy to throw Republicans in prison for refusing the subpoena, the precedent has been set for the same rules to apply to them.

“What goes around, comes around.” I guess the Democrats conveniently forgot that until it came back to bite them.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the heat and humidity are returning for the next couple of days, the summerfolk will start arriving one Tuesday to celebrate the Fourth of July, and where Monday is sneaking back in...again.

The Supreme Court Got It Right

I admit to feeling relieved the US Supreme Court ruled that federal judges do not have the power to issue nationwide injunctions. Judges should not have the power to do that on matters that are generally under the power of the Executive branch, and particularly on issues that are not class actions.

Some of my less cognizant acquaintances have claimed that federal judges have always have that power, but only if they define ‘always’ as since the end of the George W. Bush administration. Too many federal judges have gotten it into their heads that they are the ultimate power, that they can ignore the Constitution and order the Executive branch to do anything they want done. Some believe their rulings have power outside the US, Judge Boasberg (DC District Court) being one of the more recent examples of that when he ordered aircraft that were in international air space to turn around and return to the US and tried to stop further deportations of illegal aliens from Texas. He had no jurisdiction there either. We’ve had a federal judge in Hawaii issuing rulings and orders to districts that were well out of their jurisdiction.

It appears that other judges have decided that they can ignore or overturn US Supreme Court decisions because “they know better”. It’s time to prove to them they’re wrong with one sure way of doing that being by throwing them off the bench, if not having them disbarred. Judicial activism by ignoring the Constitution is not bravery. It is malice and authoritarianism. It is more about ‘feelz’ than it is about law. It is more about supporting The Narrative than the law.

It is something that needs to stop.

Friday Funny - First Time

Thoughts On A Sunday

The roar of motorcycle engines has been building since last weekend, with a majority of the motorcycles arriving here since Thursday. The 102^nd Laconia Bike Week is winding to a close, with a lot of the bikers having already departed from the Lakes Region for home. Some are likely to hang around for a few more days before heading home. In any case, the rumble of the motorcycles as they pass by The Gulch’s neighborhood has become less frequent and I doubt I will hear any overnight.

From what I understand officials have estimated that over 300,000 bikers made the trip to Laconia and the surrounding area. I certainly saw that the restaurants, ice cream stands, pubs, and attractions have been very busy since last weekend.

I did venture out during the week, between travel to and from work, running errands, grocery shopping, and attending to the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout.

All in all, I have no complaints.

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Something I heard at our town docks after attending to the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout:

“Look, daddy! A boatercycle!!”

The young lad pointing this out was talking about someone launching a jet ski at the ramp. It’s when I realized his term for a jet ski was absolutely perfect.

Boatercycle.

I like it!

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I don’t know about you, but I was surprised about the USAF air strike against Iran’s three nuclear weapons sites. We still don’t know all of the details of the strike, including the reason(s) for striking now rather than later.

I must say that the misdirection of having B2 Spirit stealth bombers deployed to Guam was a masterstroke. Some may wonder why they were sent there, but if one looks at a globe they would see the flight path from Guam to Iran is about 1,000 miles shorter than the flight path between Whiteman AFB and Iran. (Yes, I know both are direct path distances, but even figuring in a number of ‘jogs’ in the flight path, Guam is still closer.)

One has to wonder what intel the Pentagon and the White House had that would have prompted Trump to order the strike now.

One other thing: We must also remember that we have been in a de facto state of war with Iran since 1979, either directly or through proxies. Iran has had no problems attacking shipping, and particularly US Navy vessels, in the Persian Gulf for decades. They have had their proxies, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, doing likewise in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea over the past few years.

What’s the fallout from this strike going to be? I could posit all kinds of scenarios, most of which would be absolutely wrong, but frankly, I haven’t a clue. We have heard from ‘experts’ stating everything from widespread terrorist attacks across the US by Iranian commando teams who entered the US illegally when the Biden Administration opened the boarders and allowed 9+ million people to enter the US illegally and unvetted, to a complete collapse of the Iranian Islamic regime, and everything in between.

Was this strike a good idea? I’ll admit that I don’t know because I just don’t know enough one way or the other. But then, neither does the other 99.9999999999% of the US population. I would like to think there was a damn good reason for it rather than it being a capricious move by the White House. Only time will tell.

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Yeah, this has worked out so well.

I particularly have an issue with Assistant Chief Larson’s attitude. If that’s what she thinks then maybe she should step down from the LAFD.

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Oh, NO!!

Dr. Demento has retired!!

I used to listen to Dr. Demento on the radio when I was driving into work on Sunday nights. It was there that I heard some of Weird Al Yankovic’s first songs like Another One Rides The Bus and My Bologna. Then there was Fish Heads by Barnes and Barnes.

I guess 55 years is long enough for any radio DJ.

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This isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention:

Former Democratic Adviser Says Party Has No Agenda Beyond Hating Trump

Dan Turrentine is a former adviser to the Democratic Party, and he had some tough words for his fellow Democrats during a recent appearance on Jesse Watters Primetime.

Turrentine pointed out that the party lacks an agenda and vision beyond hating Trump and suggested that this might be related to their recently reported fundraising troubles.

Turrentine thinks the Democrat Party is focusing on the wrong things, saying “they’d rather, unfortunately, be talking about ‘kings’ than talking about Iran right now.”

They have also forgotten that at one point they used to be the “Party of the Working Man” and are now the party of the Woke, the Progressive elite, the Socialists, and an endlessly growing list of “victims”. Demographics they could once count on are now abandoning the Democrats much as the Democrats have abandoned them.

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While I was attending to some work on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout I had the opportunity to talk to a few of folks living along the shore where I dock the boat. One was the wife of the guy from whom I rent the slip every season. Another was a fellow who lives next to the dock where I berth the boat and keeps an eye on things. We talked about all kinds of things including Bike Week, the start of summer now that all of the schools are out for the summer, changes to some of our local restaurants – renovations, expansions, menus and so on – and one of the perpetual topics of discussion, that being property taxes.

No one thinks we’re paying too little. I know I haven’t liked the increases, much of which can be blamed on expanded town and school spending.

School spending is always the largest expenditure we see, with it being between 60% and 70% of all spending in town. Town spending is between 20% and 25%, and the balance is split between the county and the state.

At least the folks I talked with had voted at Town Meeting this past March so they had every right to complain. I doubt it will be a surprise to anyone that those who complain the loudest are often those who couldn’t be bothered to take the time to vote at Town Meeting. They expect us to ‘fix’ things after the fact even though that isn’t how it works.

After wrapping up the tax discussion we all commented upon and lamented the ever growing number of Cap’n Boneheads we see out on the lake. We’ve all seen the dumb stuff boaters are doing out on the lake and it seems to get worse every summer. It’s one reason I rarely will go out onto Winnipesaukee on a summer weekend. Most of my summer boating takes place during the week after work. It’s safer...and more relaxing. Once we get past Labor Day I start boating on the weekends as most of the Cap’n Boneheads are gone and we can enjoy our boating in peace.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rumble of motorcycles is fading away, the number of boats on the lake is increasing, and where it looks like Monday is going to be “a scorchah” with temps in the upper 90’s with high humidity.

I Have Seen The Past

I don’t know how many times I have quoted or paraphrased Thomas Sowell who said “The past four decades have seen things that work being replaced by things that sound good.” Of course it is closer to five decades today. As I was going through the Weekend Pundit Archives I came across this from just a couple of years ago, something that echos what Sowell told us.

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I was born in the 1950s. I’ve lived in seven decades, two centuries, and two millennia.

My generation had the fastest cars, the prettiest girls, drive-ins, soda fountains, and happy days.

You could understand the words in our music, and you could dance to it.

We carried knives in our pockets, and guns in our pickup trucks, and nobody got killed.

I have seen the past.

And it works.

Amen.

Friday Funny - If Mom Was A Marvel Superhero

I'll Tell You The Story: Buckaburger-Dollahdog Menu

Thoughts On A Sunday

Yesterday was the start of the 102^nd Laconia Motorcycle Rally week, with thousand of bikers arriving here in central New Hampshire to enjoy a week of celebration and activities. While a majority of the bikers won’t start arriving until this coming Thursday, there are already a large number here as we can hear the roar of their engines almost everywhere we go. There can be anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 bikers attending Motorcycle Week. While most of the activities will be taking place in Laconia and surrounding communities, there are some taking place all over New Hampshire.

It’s going to be an interesting week.

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One other thing taking place is our first “pool party” in our neighborhood, celebrating the start of the summer season. It’s nothing big, just a bunch of us bringing snacks and drinks down to the pool, talking with our neighbors - year-round and seasonal – lying about how great our lives are going, as well as other topics of interest. (I get quite few people asking me about town stuff since I am so involved with our town functions and activities.)

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Is the ‘Progressive’ social media site Bluesky failing because the Left are “humorless scolds”? Sci Fi author John Scalzi certainly thinks so.

He posted, “It’s been a year since I left the former Twitter, in terms of posting there, but I kept the account active so that tweets that were linked to from elsewhere would still be active, and to keep anyone from using my handle there, since it’s been identified with me for 16 years and I wanted to keep an impostor or troll from picking it up and pretending to be me.”

“But you know what? In both cases, I don’t really care any more,” he continued.

He didn’t care so much that he had to post about it. Much like he apparently doesn’t care at this point about BlueSky losing a lot of its following as most people realized the engagement levels on the site are zero because of the echo chamber.

An article from Fortune was released this week saying, “Bluesky is backfiring. Mark Cuban says the ‘lack of diversity of thought’ is actually pushing users back to X.”

The article details how the echo chamber failed to generate any meaningful engagement, and Mark Cuban has noted a change where the extreme left userbase has started to turn on themselves saying the site has gotten “ruder and more hateful.”

Those normal folk on the other side of the aisle who have been targets of the left’s ire for years can only help but smile knowingly at how rude and hateful the BlueSky crowd can be.

Cuban continued saying, “Engagement went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist. We are forcing posts to X.”

While originally meant as a counter to Twitter – aka ‘X’ – after Elon Musk purchased that platform, it appears it has devolved because, as Scalzi mentioned above, it has become an echo chamber. If you have the audacity to disagree with ‘opinions’ on Bluesky you become a non-person because you are obviously “not one of them”.

I have to wonder if it will still exist a year from now. I’m guessing that it won’t.

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I almost shot coffee out of my nose when I read this:

The New York Times complains Florida taxes are too low.

Why is the NYT getting involved with this? Because it has to do with NHL teams and how much players for those teams pay in taxes depending on where they are located.

Canada’s Benjamin Franklin—Lord Stanley of Preston— once said. “In this world nothing is certain except death, taxes and the NHL.

OK, maybe I made that up but it is befitting the manufacture of a controversy of the New York Times and others that live in states with high state income taxes. Their NHL teams suck while the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights, Nashville Predators, Dallas Stars, and Seattle Kraken all flourish in states that do not tax income.

Canada has not won a Stanley Cup in 32 seasons although the Edmonton Oilers may break that that spell this year now that Canadians rid themselves of Justin Castreau after President Trump humiliated him.

But Canada’s taxes remain the same.

While Canada’s top marginal tax rate is 33% and America’s is 37%, the top marginal rates for its provinces range from 11.5% to 21.8%.

The combined provincial and national tax rates top 50% in 8 provinces. Who is going to argue for $2 million more a year just to receive less than a million more? Take the lower pay and sign with Tampa Bay for the better weather.

So the NYT is claiming it’s unfair that some states have lower taxes which makes it more difficult to get professional hockey players to sign on to teams in places that will tax the heck out of their income? I would like to think this was more a tongue-in-cheek opinion, but knowing the NYT they are likely quite serious. If they really want to level the playing field (no pun intended), then perhaps they need to address the states and provinces that are taxing the bejeezus out of people’s income to drop their tax rates. I have a feeling that would be a lot more popular.

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I find it interesting that as the Israelis struck Iranian targets with airstrikes and missile barrages the Iranian people were not chanting “Death to Israel”.

Instead they were chanting “Death to Khamenei.”

I expect we will see a lot more of this as the regime falls. People in Iran have done this before, taken to the streets in the cause of freedom, and were brutalized and killed by the tens of thousands.

“The Israelis just gave the Iranian people a reason to believe”. Not my words, theirs.

Read The Whole Thing.

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Senator Alex Padilla denies staging his outburst at DHS Director Christ Noem. The problem is that no one, including Democrats, believe him.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), whom most people couldn’t pick out of a line-up before last week, wants America to believe his little performance during a Homeland Security press conference was totally spontaneous. Just an organic moment of righteous frustration, he claims. But we know better—his whole stunt reeked of a desperate cry for attention, and the more he tries to explain it away, the more obvious that becomes.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Padilla tried spinning his headline-grabbing antics as an innocent attempt to get information. “You can’t script this in Hollywood,” he said with dramatic flair, insisting he just happened to be near the press conference while waiting for a briefing and spontaneously decided to pop in, wearing plain clothes and lacking his Senate Security pin. He was apparently stunned—stunned!—that the press conference didn’t meet his expectations: “Surprise, surprise, no substance came from that press conference, just political attacks.”

It was theater, pure and simple. It was bad theater and no one wants to back up his claims.

Maybe he should get some tips from Bernie Sanders.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the motorcycles are roaring, the summerfolk are returning now that schools are out, and where once again Monday is returning.

She Got It Wrong

I had thought to post something lengthy and profound today, but listening to one of the news reports about the “No Kings” protests figuratively stopped me in my tracks.

If memory serves, I heard one of the protesters state that she believed in the Constitution and that what the President and ICE were doing regarding illegal immigrants was illegal and unconstitutional, and that a majority of Americans agreed with her .

What?!

This told me that the protester had absolutely no idea what either the law or the Constitution said about immigration, the powers of the Executive Branch, or the limitations of the Judicial Branch. She only knew what someone else, some one who was either as clueless than she was or who outright lied to her. I doubt she even realized that what she was supporting was ignoring the rule of law and instead promoting law by fiat and, even worse, anarchy. I also have no idea what polls she’s been looking at, but a “majority of Americans” don’t agree with her. It’s just the opposite.

Some, including one or two of my family members, may question why I hate immigration. I don’t. I have no problem with immigrants who came here legally, filled out the paperwork, waited their turn, and then entered when the government said “Come on over!”

I do have problems with immigrants who broke the law to get here, crossing the border illegally or coming here for a visit and then overstayed when their visas expired. That over 9 million illegals crossed out borders, with a large portion of them being criminals before they even crossed the border, bothers me. That a sitting President, even if he was just a figurehead, opened the border and let them come flooding across with absolutely no vetting of any kind is one hell of a criminal act in and of itself. That his successor has to clean up the mess and that a small percentage of the population has decided to riot, burn, and loot as a means of trying to stop the clean up of Biden’s mess tells me all I need to know.

It’s not a protest. It’s a rebellion fueled by our Progressive ‘betters’...who are anything but.

Friday Funny - Repeat After Me