BeezleBub invited a number of his co-workers at the farm to join us for supper last night and we had the Official Weekend Pundit Grill fired up, cooking burgers, dogs, and chicken for our guests. BeezleBub's friend Hobbit was among the crowd as she's also working at the farm again this year.
We can hope that this will be but the first in a long line of cookouts this year.
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Yard work was also on the agenda this weekend, with BeezleBub helping remove the last of this past winter's detritus. Hopefully we'll get everything whipped into shape over the next couple of weeks which will then let us focus on other things for the upcoming summer.***********
The state of New Hampshire is only one or two steps away from becoming the 23rd Right-to-Work state in the nation, with the enabling legislation having passed both the New Hampshire House and Senate with veto-proof majorities.Governor Lynch has sworn to veto the bill, but at this point it seems more like he'll do so just to remain in the good graces of the labor unions. It is expected that if he does veto the bill the New Hampshire legislature will move quickly to override it.
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If New Hampshire does indeed become a Right-to-Work state, I wonder how long it will be before someone like the NLRB will “pull a Boeing” and start demanding businesses move their operations to closed-shop states?I figure it will be shortly after the first company from a closed-shop state decides to expand their operations in to New Hampshire. Anyone else want to take a stab at it?
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This is all we need:It's getting harder to bring home the bacon.
And I mean bacon literally. It's not a euphemism.
One of the main causes? Ethanol.
Corn is being diverted for use in ethanol and it's driving up the costs of grain, and in turn, bacon.
Is there nothing corn-derived ethanol can't screw up?
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Investor's Business Daily asks: Is Obama's economic recovery built on McJobs?Unfortunately the answer appears to be yes.
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It appears Eric the Viking and the other seven Republicans in Massachusetts aren't fans of RomneyCare.(H/T Viking Pundit)
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Why doesn't New York City and Washington DC want WalMart to open stores in their cities?It comes down to this: unions versus citizens.
The city governments know they are beholden to unions and will do nothing to jeopardize their being re-elected to office, even if it means stiffing the rest of their constituents.
(H/T Maggie's Farm)
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What happens when science reporting is politicized by the press? Unnecessary panic, unreasonable demands for someone to “Do Something!”, questions about the ethics of the press, and even more distrust of the scientific and medical community.In this case it's the panic and furor over Bisphenol A (BPA), a substance used to add strength and flexibility to plastics. The press stirs up panic while the science folks appear to have little concern about BPA, if any at all. At least the scientific community has a number of studies and quite a bit of data to back up their opinions about BPA.
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Neo-neocon relates what happens when Skynet takes over her smart phone.(H/T Pirate's Cove)
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Also by way of Pirate's Cove comes this video showing big-government supporters are willing to talk the talk, but not walk the walk when it comes to solving the problems the Left helped create. When college students at UC Berkeley were asked to help pay off their share of national debt ($47,000 was the figure given to them), they refused. Maybe they figured it wasn't their problem.***********
If anyone needs an example of how to drive businesses out of your state, then take this lesson from Illinois, which has managed to drive businesses and residents out with its ever higher and more confiscatory taxes.
Federalism — which serves the ability of businesses to move to greener pastures — puts state and local politicians under pressure, but that is where they should be, lest they treat businesses as hostages that can be abused. According to the Tax Foundation, Illinois has not only the fourth-highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the nation but also in the industrialized world.
--snip--A study by the Illinois Policy Institute, a market-oriented think tank, concludes that between 1991 and 2009, Illinois lost more than 1.2 million residents — more than one every 10 minutes — to other states. Between 1995 and 2007, the total net income leaving Illinois was $23.5 billion.
That's billion with a 'B'. That's a lot of money to drive out because of business unfriendly policies and taxes. Too bad the governor and legislature can see no connection between the path they've taken and their ever growing budget shortfalls.
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How bad can government regulation actually become? How about so bad that a kid can't even run a lemonade stand in their own neighborhood without running afoul of the health department, tax collector's office, and licensing bureau.
These bureaucrats have far too much time on their hands. That must mean there are too many of them without enough work to do. And since they don't have enough work to keep them occupied they should be laid off to save us both money and grief.
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This just in (11PM): Osama bin Laden is dead.
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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is fast approaching, the yard work is never ending, and where we are celebrating the end of a long search for America's Number One Enemy.