3/30/2014

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather has turned, with a considerable amount of rain working to melt/wash away a good portion of the snow cover here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. Some bare patches of ground can now be seen here and there, but there's still a lot of snow that needs to melt away before we can say spring has arrived.

The warmer temps were expecting over the next few days will help make a small dent in the snow cover, but I expect much of it will remain well into the middle of April.

Ice Out on Lake Winnipesaukee is expected to be quite late this year, perhaps as late as early May.

**************

We had to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove again because the furnace is still not working properly. (We tend to use the propane furnace on those days where using the woodstove would make The Manse overly warm.) Even though it was repaired, requiring the replacement of a circulator pump, it still isn't functioning properly and isn't providing heat.

A call to our HVAC contractor is in order for Monday morning.

**************

Is college a waste of time and money?

These days I'd have to say the answer to the question is yes for a lot of students. The idea that the only way to get ahead is to get a college education may have been true decades ago, but these days the courses of study being offered and the costs of doing so are insane. As we have seen over the past decade or so a lot of college grads end up working outside their field of study in jobs that require no college degree. Yet they carry a heavy student loan debt load that will take decades to pay off.

Unless a specific profession actually requires a degree, like medicine, engineering and the like, going to and paying for four years of college makes little sense. More often than not a two-year college or trade school makes much more sense.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

**************

This really helps foster trust in the electoral process.

It seems that Covered California, the state ObamaCare exchange, has been mailing pre-marked voter registration forms in letters promoting voter registration.

The party affiliation marked? Democrat, of course.

I'm not sure, but might that be considered voter intimidation or voter fraud, both of which are felonies?

Is there nothing the Obamabots won't do in order to push their agenda? Of course not.

**************

If we need any more evidence of 'tolerance' by the Left, then all we need to do is look Adam Weinstein who, in his ever benevolent tolerance of those with different viewpoints, firmly believes AGW skeptics should be imprisoned.

Mr. Weinstein should be careful as he's letting his incipient totalitarianism show through. He wants to follow the paths of his predecessors such as Stalin and Hitler in their tolerance of differing points of view.

**************

It seems that if Bogie didn't have bad luck, she'd have no luck at all.

She's still settling in to her hew home and finds out the company she's been working for is shuttering the facility where she's been employed the past 16 months and she's now out of a job.

When it rains, it pours.

**************

You know it's getting bad when a state's alcohol enforcement personnel can't tell the difference between bottled water and beer.

The victims of this law enforcement agency's overzealousness, a 20-year old coed and her two roommates, were accosted by plainclothes ABC officers, dragged from their vehicle at gunpoint, and arrested after they bought some victuals – sparkling water, ice cream, and cookie dough - for a sorority benefit fund raiser.

I hate to say it, but this kind of event is starting to become all too commonplace. I hope the coed wins the $40 million lawsuit she and her family have filed against the agency and its officers.

**************

It looks like California's bullet train boondoggle is only getting worse.

You'd think that by now the Powers-That-Be in the Golden State would have figured out that their project is doomed and would cut their losses. On the other hand, without this doomed project the opportunity for graft disappears.

**************

Assistant Village Idiot delves into the mechanism where people will double down on stupid, when their mistaken or misguided beliefs are challenged by hard evidence.

That certainly explains a number of things, particularly when it comes to some of the topics I posted about above.

**************

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is trying to hold on, spring is trying to move in, and where the snowcover is starting to look pretty ugly.