10/20/2013

Thoughts On A Sunday

The warmer weather has turned cooler and with it the winds have picked up, making it feel even cooler. The winds have also been stripping the now past peak leaves from the trees, leaving at lot of bare branches.

With the cooler temps it means today was probably the last day I'll be able to use the Official Weekend Pundit Clothesline to dry the laundry. The breezy conditions help dry the laundry but it still takes a while because of the cool temps.

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The cooler temps also prompted me to pull out the screens from the storm doors and install the winter glass panels. This still allows the feline contingent to 'watch' what we call Cat TV, but just the video. No more audio or olfactory channels will be available until next spring.

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You know it takes a big man to admit his mistakes and Alan Greenspan is a big man. While many blame his polices for the housing bubble, something he has rebutted and has a number of economists backing up his rebuttal, he admits that it wasn't until after the Fed's financial models failed to predict the crisis that he understood that “there is more to forecasting than numbers.” In effect, Greenspan discovered the human factor when it comes to the financial markets, something not easily accounted for in computer models and something his late friend Ayn Rand had warned him about back in the 1950's.

One of the more disturbing trends that Greenspan came across was the relationship between increasing entitlements and decreasing domestic savings. As savings decline so does the amount of capital available needed for capital investments which is why we now have $5 trillion in foreign owned debt.

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Watching the New England Patriots play the New York Jets was painful. With the injuries on both offense and defense plaguing the Pats, many of the positions have been filled by rookies and they aren't quite up to speed. Even with the return of Rob Gronkowski to the line-up and the high number of penalties by the Jets, the Patriots struggled throughout the game.

The Patriots managed to get the game to go into overtime with a last minute field goal at the end of regulation. But a costly penalty by one of their rookies during overtime, one even the commentators said they've never seen before, cost them the game when the Jets were able to kick the game winning field goal. Again, the injuries to their veterans and the inexperience of their rookies has come back to haunt the Pats.

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Both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post published stories in the past claiming that Boomers were abandoning the suburbs for the cities, but it turns out they were both wrong. Instead many of them have been heading for greener pastures away from the cities, at least according to census data from the 2010 census.

Cities hoping to attract retiring and “empty nest” Boomers had better rethink their plans because it is the young single people who are flocking to the cities.

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One of the biggest problems with the debate about climate change? Historical perspective.

Too often all we see are charts showing global temps over the past few hundred years. It gives a distorted view of temperature change by ignoring global temps prior to that time. Once we take a look back a couple of thousand years or so we see that the temperatures we're seeing now and might see in the next couple of hundred years are not going to doom us, but are typical of the past once you get past the Little Ice Age.

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I think David Starr has a good idea when it comes to the rules Congress uses to move legislation.

At the moment it seems the rules change with every bill that makes it on to the floor of the House and Senate which is wasteful of time and taxpayer money. Instead David has proposed 6 rules that would stop the foolishness and help expedite up or down votes. Everyone might not like them and I have a feeling most of the veteran Congresscritters will hate them. But it's time for the Congressional shenanigans to stop and for Congress to start representing the People again.

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Liberal racism strikes again.

This is no surprise to me as I have seen it in action for decades. The latest bit of this insidious stealth racism?

Trying to get the Washington Redskins to change their name.

What's interesting is there doesn't appear to be any of the American Indian tribes demanding the change, just the guilt-ridden white liberal elites.

Maybe we should change the name of the team as suggested by a commenter on another blog (who's name escapes me at the moment) because the name is demeaning. So from now on we should refer to the Washington Redskins as just the Redskins. Problem solved. The Redskins will no longer be demeaned by any association with Washington DC.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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In relation to the post just above, I seem to recall some students on a college campus showed a good sense of humor when they decided to name their intramural basketball team the Fighting Whities some years ago. The team was made up of American Indians, Latinos, and whites.

Of course no one but the liberal elite racists thought it was a bad idea.

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Staying on the topic of racism for a bit longer, Legal Insurrection tells us how a lie about a supposedly racist blog post spread around the world in a short time.

What makes this ironic is that the alleged perpetrator was none other “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher. What makes this stupid is that Joe linked to a column written by Kevin Jackson of The Blacksphere. Yes, Kevin Jackson is black.

The topic of Jackson's column? That fear of being accused of racism has stifled the ability to have an open dialogue regarding Obama’s many faults. And in the case of the Black community, Jackson argued, free rein has been give to black race card players.

Have these liberal racists have no shame? Obviously not.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps are falling, the days are getting shorter, and where the old woodstove is going to be fired up any day now.