9/14/2014

Thoughts On A Sunday

It's been cool this weekend, cloudy yesterday and sunny today.

For the first time in a long while I didn't have to hang laundry out on the Official Weekend Pundit Clothesline or make a trip down to the local laundromat to dry the wash. We finally got the last pieces in place and made some 'adjustments' within the laundry niche to get the new clothes-dryer installed. An initial test showed there was little air coming out of the vent, so the the vent pipes were disconnected and cleaned out with a mass of lint plugging up the outside vent entirely! Once cleaned out and reassembled, the air exited freely and the dryer was ready for use. I did a single load yesterday and the dryer worked just fine.

Woohoo! No more trips to the laundromat to dry clothing!

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

As the President tries to assemble a coalition to deal with ISIS in both Iraq and Syria, a number of potential partners for the coalition are balking, and rightfully so.

Why would they want to be involved when our recent history shows our President is worried more about his legacy than about doing the right thing? He says he doesn't like war, but what if the war comes to him whether he wants it to or not? What's he going to do, go play a round of golf? That's certainly the impression he's been giving both our allies and adversaries.

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

I saw a story on the local TV news that the price of firewood has gone up quite a bit since last year and that the supply is going to be tight.

I placed our order for firewood last month and was told the price had gone up by $50 per cord because of the demand. What caused the huge rise in price? Green energy.

There are more power plants burning wood chips, a renewable fuel, to produce electricity than ever before and they're willing to pay more for wood than many of the firewood suppliers. Despite our nation now producing more oil than even Saudi Arabia, the price of heating oil and propane is still sky high and likely to remain that way. Now the price of one of the last relatively inexpensive heating fuels is going up much to the detriment of those who cannot afford to pay for oil or propane to keep themselves warm over the winter.

Call this yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming around to hurt the people green energy was supposed to help.

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

Along with the above story, there's this from Powerline digging into the lies the watermelon environmentalists tell themselves in order to keep working to impoverish everyone....except themselves.

There’s an old line that environmentalists are “watermelons”—green on the outside, red on the inside. A lot of environmentalists will take great offense if you say this: No no! We like economic growth and capitalism just fine! We just want it to be “sustainable,” whatever that means. And don’t ask for specificity about what “sustainability” means in detail, unless you have a lot of time and a full bottle of hootch handy. Before long you’ll figure out that “sustainable” is just a code word for green things we like, and that it has no rigor whatsoever aside from old-fashioned factor-efficiency, which economists figured out over a century ago at least.

But anyway, environmentalists resist being called socialists.

Yet that is exactly what many of them are. They've just donned camouflage by using the environment as an excuse to institute socialism by a different means.

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

Has the time come for statehood for Puerto Rico? Their former governor certainly thinks so.

Former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuño said Congress and President Obama should make Puerto Rico a state before any immigration bill is signed into law.

“In the case of the Puerto Rican citizens that reside in Puerto Rico, you are dealing with American citizens, natural-born American citizens, so if you’re ever going to deal with illegal immigrants, which is, I’m not saying you should never deal with the issue, but shouldn’t you first deal with your own?”

In a November 2012 two-part nonbinding referendum, a majority of Puerto Ricans, 54 percent, voted against preserving the territory’s present status. In the second part, 61 percent voted for statehood as an alternative to the current status.

Fortuño certainly has a valid point.

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

Is Nancy Pelosi insane?

Yes. Nancy “You Have To Vote For It To See What's In It” Pelosi is insane. Next question?

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

Is Radio Shack on the brink of bankruptcy?

Unfortunately it appears the answer is yes. The once great brand has languished, its sales have been flat, its profit margins have shrunk, and the products it offers are available so many other places for a lower price. All of this was a formula for disaster and I believe there's little Radio Shack can do to stop it.

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

The Obama's are Tone Deaf, Blind, and Dangerous.

Gee, tell us something we don't already know!

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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

I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but a petition to put a ballot question asking whether California should be broken up into 6 different states has fallen short. More than a couple of commenters thought this first effort may have been a bit premature, but that it will come around again as California continues to punish residents of large swathes of the state for the benefit of the more affluent areas.

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

The New England Patriots played the Minnesota Vikings in Minnesota. Unlike last week's game, the Patriots handled the Vikings, beating them 30 to 7.

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

It seems Obama figures he can win the war against ISIS by use of air power alone. But as anyone who is a student of history, particularly military history knows, air power alone cannot get the job done. It takes boots on the ground to dig 'em out and kill 'em.

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

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where many of the summer places have closed for the year, some of the first frosts are expected, and preparations for the upcoming winter have begun in earnest.