Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the “calm before the storm” as a Nor-easter develops along the mid-Atlantic coast. While we aren’t going to see a lot of snow up here at Lake Winnipesaukee from that storm, we will get some. The folks in southern New England will be seeing at least a foot of snow.

With a couple of small exceptions, all preparations have been made in case the storm is worse than predicted. The Official Weekend Pundit Generator has been prepositioned and was fired up just long enough to ensure it would start if needed. A stop by one of our favorite farm stands on the way home from church this morning let us stock up on storm snacks. We’re set to go.

I still have to move the trusty RAM 1500 into position in front of the garage and everything should be all set, but won’t do that until later today in case I need to run any errands.

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By way of Instapundit comes this story from the Babylon Bee:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the United States Senate progressed toward voting on the SAVE Act, Democrats warned that requiring voter ID would disenfranchise their key voting demographic of people who are too stupid to get an ID.

Party leaders made the urgent plea as Republicans prepared to bring the bill to the floor for a vote, stressing that people who were not intelligent enough to obtain legal, valid forms of identification would be locked out from selecting who should be in charge of the country.

"We cannot shut out our voting block of morons," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. "If this bill becomes law, then our most important demographics — dead people, illegal aliens, and people who are too stupid to know how to get an ID — will be lost to us. We can't allow that to happen. Total morons must have their ability to vote preserved for future generations."

I question whether this is satire…or maybe a bit of truth…or even worse, the absolute truth.

Scary to think about, isn’t it?

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Canadians are now poorer than Alabamans. Many wonder how that has come to be. All Canadians have to do is look towards Ottawa to find the answer. After all, this didn’t really “happen out of nowhere”.

When you have a government that is hostile to large scale economic engines like oil, gas, mining, and agriculture, what do you expect? It is this hostility from Ottawa that has driven the so-called “Wexit” movement by the western provinces to leave Canada and either go independent, form a new nation, or join the US. The dismantling of the Canadian economy has been ongoing since Justin Trudea was Prime Minister and has continued under Carney.

That Alabama has been working to strengthen its economy shows they are serious about leaving the bottom of the state economies list and it’s been paying off.

Canada importing millions of people from Third World countries certainly hasn’t helped things either.

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Why does this not surprise me in the least?

California Politicians Propose Law Hiding Corruption from the Public

California’s ‘train-to-nowhere’ program started with a $10 billion budget in 2009 which shot up to $135 billion with no end in sight. The Trump administration has tried to cut off billions in federal funds for the money pit on rails and there are signs that even state voters are growing sick of it.

But California Democrats had an answer.

Around the same time that the CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, was arrested on suspicion of domestic battery after an appearance with Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrating the progress of the ‘train-to-nowhere’, Democrats were moving forward a bill to ban the public from getting crucial information about the project whose budget is more than 5 times that of NASA.

The cost of returning to the moon is estimated at under $100 billion. California is spending more than that on a rail project that still hasn’t gotten anywhere and which no one is interested in.

California Democrat legislators had already become infamous for covering up their own corruption. The California legislatures claimed that disclosing how much they were spending on defending their members against investigations would “violate attorney client privilege”.

The California State Senate had refused to release records of federal law enforcement subpoenas and search warrants, claiming that “the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.”

The public interest in this case is that of members of the legislators being raided by the FBI.

Heaven forbid the public get a glimpse of how their legislators and state government officials have been wasting and/or stealing billions of dollars from California taxpayers…and constantly increasing taxes and fees to make even more money available. Is it any wonder California is becoming an economic basket case as it chases an increasing number of businesses, investors, the wealthy, and the Middle Class out of the state?

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I am working on updating something my dear brother and I have been advocating for a good 25 years or more, that being a constitutional amendment that would change how members of Congress, more specifically the House, are selected. This would also roll in a repeal of the 17th Amendment that would return election of the Senate to the state legislatures with additional provisos that would ban the use of referendum or plebiscites to do so.

While in the past it was a bit tongue-in-cheek, I have come to think it is something we need to do to fix problems we have with the existing means of filling the seats in Congress. It also removes the possibility of being a member of Congress as a career. For too long we’ve had that problem plaguing us and it needs to be fixed.

Hopefully I’ll have it squared away in the next week or so.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where winter weather is coming for another visit, thoughts of the upcoming boating season are intruding, and where many of us are getting ready for Town Meeting next month.

Old Fashioned New England Winter

Back in November I said I hoped that the coming winter would be an old fashioned New England winter.

It looks like I got my wish.

The only thing that wasn’t part of the ‘old fashioned’ winter has been the well below normal temperatures we’ve experienced. But that has helped preserve the snow that has fallen. The Weather Guys^TM mentioned last week that so far, we’ve seen a more normal amount of snowfall but did remind us that winter is not yet over. They also mentioned that some of the heavier snowfalls we see tend to be in late February and through much of March.

We had about 5 inches of snow here at The Gulch between Friday evening and Saturday morning. It was a heavy snow because the temperature was close to freezing overnight. Much of that snow is still hanging on the branches of the trees, though I have been seeing it falling of the trees as the sun has warmed things up.

However, we have more snow on its way as a Nor’easter is predicted to hit New England overnight starting Sunday night. While we’ll see maybe 4 to 6 inches of snow here at the lake, southern New England will see a lot more. Katy, my friend from Connecticut, told me they’ve predicted between 12 and 18 inches of snow down her way.

I had mentioned to here how this was turning out to be a more normal winter for us and she replied “Maybe more like a winter when I was a kid!”

While I will be making the usual preparations for a big storm – the Official Weekend Pundit Generator being moved from the rear of the garage to the front and some extra storm snacks to be bought when I head to Walmart Sunday morning – I won’t be doing anything out of the ordinary in case the Nor’easter tracks a but farther north than predicted.

NOTE: I realize this post hadn’t been published last night until I started on my usual Thoughts On A Sunday post. I hit ‘Save’ rather than ‘Publish’, so it’s a day late!

Friday Funny - Highest Rate Of Divorce

A Snapshot

Seen in the comments to this Instapundit post about NYC getting it good and hard from their new mayor:

NYC residents are about to learn the meaning of an average day - Worse than yesterday. Better than tomorrow.

This Is An AI Movie I Can Get Behind!

Unlike the AI generated movie highlighted on Instapundit, the one below is one I can get behind without reservation!

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been quiet here at the lake. The weather has been decent with little or no precipitation. It’s been sunny but just below freezing which means we have been getting some melting on the roads and roofs. It’s also meant cars and trucks are covered with salt which has in turn meant the local car washes have been busy. I will admit that I have not as yet run the trusty RAM 1500 through the car wash nor has the WP Mom’s Nissan been washed. I may get both of them washed a little later this week in order to make room for more road salt to be deposited. It is one of the things that we up here in the snowy north must put up with during the winter.

It’s a small sacrifice.

The only thing we must be cognizant of is the temperatures of the upcoming night (and days) to prevent a newly washed car or truck from having its doors and windows frozen shut should the temps drop well below freezing.

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, it seems our local concert venue is hosting a lot of acts and artists dating back to the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, or as I called it the “Before We Get Too Old Or Die” Tour. I thought we’d seen enough of that over the past two years, but it appears that tour will be continuing during this upcoming concert season as I’ve been seeing announcements about who’s going to be appearing this summer. Some of the artists on the list so far:

James Taylor

Paul Simon

Motley Crue

Chicago

Styx

Out of the 21 acts already booked, 6 are part of the “Before We Get Too Old Or Die” Tour. I cold have added one more - Weird Al Yankovic – but he’s still current and I think he’s a lot younger than those in the other six acts, so I didn’t count him as a member of that tour.

Generally our local venue books between 35 and 50 acts per season, so I have no doubt we’ll see at least a few more added to the “Before We Get Too Old Or Die” Tour.

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In my TOAS post back on January 18th I mentioned I was seeing a lot more AI ‘hosts’ reporting news, specifically news about the goings on in California.

This is what I wrote back then:

The one thing (other than California) that they all have in common?

They are all hosted by AI “talking heads”. The image you see, and voice you hear are all AI generated.

I didn’t notice at first. I was more interested in what was being talked about. It wasn’t until after I started paying closer attention to the videos that I realized the images were AI generated as were the voices.

I did say I would dig deeper and provide some examples. I bookmarked almost two dozen examples I was going to use to show what I meant, stitching small segments together to show the weirdness. Imagine my surprise when I found that all but one video is now “unavailable”. The only one I found still available is this one which covers the self-inflicted gas station crisis, and I have no idea how long it will still be available. You’ll see the ‘reporter’, Ava Sterling. Is AI generated. Her facial expressions and head movements aren’t natural.

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Can Gavin Newsom get any more clueless than he already is? After seeing this, I have to say he can most definitely get even more clueless than he is now.

He “goes to Germany and compares American law enforcement to Nazi stormtroopers.” Hmm, it seems to me he’s pointing his finger to the wrong group as antiFa seems more like the Nazi SA than US law enforcement. (Yes, I know the SA weren’t the stormtroopers, but they sure as heck act and sound like them.)

Does Governor Hair Gel really think he is appealing to anyone outside of the West Coast Blue enclaves?

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I figure they’re going to find a way to blame Trump for this and paint it as Bad News.



After all, if it wasn’t the Democrats who pulled this off, it must be bad by definition because it doesn’t fit The Narrative.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re going to be seeing some warmer daytime temps (above freezing), there’s no snow in the forecast…for now, and Monday is returning.

New Hampshire Going Nuclear? I Hope So.

Despite claims by people who support so-called “green energy” like wind and solar, we’re finding out that neither technology can meet the growing demand. It doesn’t help that both are heavily dependent upon taxpayer money in order to be built and that they never meet the energy demands or provide the return on investment promised by proponents. On top of that, even though these are claimed as “clean and green energy” technologies, we’re finding that they are neither clean or green.

Proponents keep pushing the “energy is free” meme and even though that is true, it is the cost of harnessing that energy that is expensive, something they choose to ignore. If they are cognizant of the actual cost, they downplay it because they can’t have facts contradicting the green energy narrative.

New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte is well versed in the green energy promises and is smart enough to know they don’t work anywhere near as well as proponents claim. She understands that a reliable energy supply is needed for economies to keep operating efficiently. But it seems that over the past couple of decades there has been a war on more traditional energy supplies like natural gas, hydro, and even coal. (New Hampshire has the last operating coal powerplant in New England.) When the governor of a neighboring state, Massachusetts, worked hard to kill not one, but two new pipelines that would bring much needed natural gas into New England, and then complained when there was a natural gas shortage last winter, you know the leadership needed to ensure adequate electricity supplies is lacking, or worse, they are bought and paid for by the green energy true believers. (It’s gotten so bad that not one, not two, but three powerline projects that would have brought clean, renewable, and inexpensive hydropower into New England were killed off by the same people who then complain about their ever rising electricity bills.)

This is where Governor Ayotte differs from the governors in the other New England states, something that become evident during her recent State Of The State address back on February 5th:

Which brings me to an area of our lives here in New Hampshire that is not where we want it to be – and that is our electric rates. Let’s understand why we are here: Our neighbors, that govern a lot differently than we do, are busy pushing up regional rates with their net zero religion, and lack of pragmatism and consideration for the consumer.

While at the same time they are battling to block new energy projects that would lower costs for all of us by delivering much-needed energy into our region, such as the Constitution pipeline.

Here at home, our Public Utilities Commission has been too willing to go along with the wishes of the big utilities boosting their bottom line instead of being focused on keeping rates as low as possible for the residents of our state. The Commission must provide transparency to residents when it comes to their electric bills and put the needs of ratepayers first.

Looking toward the future of energy in New Hampshire, we can build on the successes of our homegrown power. There are numerous groups, lawmakers and stakeholders looking into the next steps of Nuclear. Today, I am directing our Department of Energy to build pathways to foster the next generation of nuclear power generation here in New Hampshire. I have asked the Department to bring together stakeholders, lawmakers and organizations focused on nuclear generation to ensure our state is at the forefront of this pivotal technology.

She understands that our future when it comes to electricity is going to be nuclear. Whether people want to admit it or not, nuclear power can be a lot cleaner and greener than what we have been told over the past 50 years or so. Too many of those against a nuclear renaissance are stuck back in the 70’s and 80’s when it comes to nuclear technology. Modern Generation III and Generation IV reactors are safer, more efficient, easier and less expensive to construct via Small Modular Reactor (SMR) designs, and some of the new reactor designs can use ‘depleted’ nuclear fuel from Generation II reactors for fuel, eliminating the need to store long half-life depleted fuel for 25,000 years or more. What’s not to like?

I have heard some people who are against nuclear power make the claim that we have no experience with modern technology, particularly SMRs, that it’s all still just theoretical. I beg to differ as there is plenty of experience with the newer nuclear reactor technology. Who has experience with that technology, you may ask? One of the largest users of nuclear power in the world: The United States Navy.

Between nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines, there is plenty of experience with the technology. The Virginia-class nuclear submarines employ an advanced Generation IV reactor, and I have no doubt the new Columbia-class submarines will do so as well.

Nuclear powerplants run 24/7/365, and the newer Generation III and IV powerplants will be able to run for even longer as some of the designs do not need to be taken offline for refueling like the old Generation II plants.

I have a feeling I’ll need to dig into this technology a bit deeper as I don’t want a topic like this to be dismissed because “It’s just his opinion. What does he know about the technology?”

Friday Funny - Who's Stronger

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was -2°F here at The Gulch this morning. It helps make sure the ice on Lake Winnipesaukee is good for this weekend’s Ice Fishing Derby. There are lots of bob-houses out on the lake, something that is needed as the wind chills are brutal if you don’t have any shelter from the wind.

We’re expecting overnight temps to be around 0°F or a little higher over the next couple of days, though the daytime temps might get close to freezing. Maybe.

I still have to clean off the couple of inches of snow from the trusty RAM 1500, seeing no reason to do so until it gets a little warmer outside as I have no plans to go anywhere today. About the only plans I have is to take care of a couple loads of laundry and to watch the SuperBowl early this evening.

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It is SuperBowl Sunday and the New England Patriots are trying to win their 7^th Lombardi Trophy. All the TV news has been covering over the past 2 weeks has been the SuperBowl. Almost every report includes some reference to the game. Over the past couple of days about 50% of the news coverage has been about the SuperBowl. Frankly, I’ll be glad once it’s all over. Mind you, I’ll be particularly pleased if the Patriots beat the Seahawks.

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After the recent layoffs at the Washington Post, I have to wonder how much longer Jeff Bezos will hold on to that money-losing fish wrapper? As more than one comment at the linked post has said, they brought it on themselves.

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I’ll admit that Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) has had me confused over the years. Between some rather bizarre behavior and a stroke, I’ve had a tough time figuring him out.

However, it seems that Fetterman has been shifting his political views away from the Left and more towards the center. As the Babylon Bee stated “Weird. Man Becomes More Conservative As He Regains Brain Function.”

Maybe not so weird.

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This is a really abbreviated TOAS as I am going back downstairs to watch the SuperBowl!

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And that’s the (abbreviated) news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s back in the single digits, the winds have been brutal, and where Monday is returning…again.

Before We Get Too Old Or Die Tour

I was perusing Instapundit this morning when I came across this post about a number of music artists and groups canceling tours due to health issues, advancing age along with health issues, or possible political disagreements.

Among the artists/bands canceling upcoming tours have been Neil Young, Twisted Sister, and the Rolling Stones. What gets me is just how many artists and bands from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s are still out there touring. That their music is still popular, particularly among much younger people – Millennials and Gen Z – affirms to me that good music is good musing no matter how old it is.

To quote myself using one of my nom du wordprocessors about this:

At our local concert venue, we've been seeing a lot of the older acts and artists over the past couple of seasons. I've been calling it the "Before We Get Too Old Or Die Tour." This past summer I saw Rod Stewart's farewell tour concert. The opening act was Cheap Trick. I saw Chicago two summers ago and they were back this past summer. It may have been just me, but it seems half the acts performing at our local venue over the past couple of years have been part of the "Before We Get Too Old Or Die Tour".

Not that I'm complaining as it seems a lot of people want to see the old acts, including a lot of younger people. As I've heard my Millennial son say, "You guys had all the great music!"

One of the other things I’ve noticed is how many younger people have been making reaction videos on YouTube, reacting to music from ‘back then’. As I also mentioned in one of my comments, “Probably the two groups that have had the most enthusiastic reactions have been Pink Floyd and Boston. Two PF songs that bring out a lot of positive reactions have been Great Gig In The Sky from the Dark Side Of The Moon album and Comfortably Numb from the 1994 Pulse concert with one of the best guitar solos ever, Dave Gilmour's 4 minutes of guitar solo heaven.”

Dark Side Of The Moon came out in 1973 and Boston’s first album came out in 1975 and they are both still very popular.

I saw Boston play in our local concert venue some years ago with Tommy DeCarlo as lead singer. (This was a few years after their original lead singer Brad Delp died.) I saw Pink Floyd in 1990 in Berlin, Germany – The Wall 1990 concert – courtesy of my then employer because they sent me there for business.

Our local concert venue has already been advertising the acts that will be playing in the upcoming concert season and it looks like it will be a continuation of the "Before We Get Too Old Or Die Tour".

I can’t wait!

Friday Funny - Pick The Right Wife

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a long stretch of cold weather up here at the lake, with many mornings having temperatures in in the single digits below zero. This morning it was -6°F here at The Gulch and -8°F down at the lake itself. (The Gulch is approximately 140 feet higher in altitude than the lake, so it tends to be warmer.) Monday morning will be the first day when it will be above zero in the morning. Over the past two weeks we’ve only had two days where it was above zero in the morning, and on those two days it was snowing. (We got about 20 inches of snow out of that storm.)

One thing that colder than normal weather has brought is increased heating bills. I know we’ve used more than the usual amount of heating oil at The Gulch as well as my neighbor’s home. (I keep an eye on the place as it is only their seasonal home, and they mostly come up from the Boston area during the summer months.) I’ve had to leave the thermostat turned up to keep the inside temperature from dropping to 60° overnight and taking hours to get back up to 68°. That’s not something we usually have to worry about. But with the lengthy bout of below normal temperatures and overnight temperatures being below zero, it has become the reality.

One thing that did give us a piece of mind was that just before the snowstorm arrived last weekend our local heating company topped off our oil tank. Our neighbor’s tank was also topped off right around the same time by a different heating company, meaning we were good to go for heating fuel despite higher use due to the frigid weather.

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New York City’s new mayor has barely been in office and he’s already having to backtrack on many of the promises he made during his campaign. Frankly, none of that surprised me as his understanding of economics was crippled by the usual socialist indoctrination in Marxist economics.



There won’t be all those free buses he’s promised. Rent control is likely to remain as it exists now. Those ‘free’ daycare centers won’t come into being. All the folks the mayor was going to tax the heck out of to pay for all those things are leaving New York and taking their businesses and money with them. (Gee, where have we been seeing happening recently?)

Anyone paying attention to history, particularly when it comes to socialism/communism economics, know that they have never worked. Ever. Yet somehow it was going to work this time?

Welcome to the real world, Mayor Mamdani. Oh, and when New York City goes bankrupt, don’t waste you time calling the White House for a bailout because it ain’t gonna happen.

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I wonder when someone will draft a Constitutional Amendment that allows the use of ellipses to modify the Constitution and its Amendments as needed? Oh, and add a Press Immunity clause to the First Amendment so ‘media’ can be excused from committing crimes if they have their press credentials on them?

As one of the commenters stated:

The freedom of the press does not protect an individual leading a riot to shut down a religious service, or any other crime by the individual. Freedom of religion is also a Constitutional right Lemon was abridging.

Indeed.

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And speaking of Don Lemon, there’s this:

DOJ Charges Don Lemon With Federal Civil Rights Crimes

The Department of Justice (DOJ) charged former CNN host Don Lemon with federal civil rights crimes after he live streamed anti-ICE protesters storming a church in Minnesota. Lemon, who was arrested on Thursday, was charged with “conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshipers during a January 18 protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul…

--snip--

Everybody’s joking about the insane argument that being a journalist provides carte blanche to defy any law whatsoever.

This is going to be interesting, to say the least. It certainly opens up the limits of press immunity, particularly when it is used to deprive people of their First Amendment rights regarding religion and free exercise thereof.

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I have to wonder how long it will be before the whole anti-ICE conspiracy falls apart? Seeing some of the polls about the whole illegal immigration issue, and particularly about ICE enforcing federal law, show a majority of the American people are in favor of deporting the millions of illegal immigrants that flooded across the border when the Biden Administration opened the borders. This is particularly true of the criminal illegal immigrants who have been found guilty of criminal acts back in their home countries, in the US since they’ve been here, or both, I find it hard to believe anyone would support not deporting them…or even imprisoning them.

They are acting like these criminals are somehow above the law merely because they entered the US illegally.

Somehow all of this is going to backfire on them and those funding them, particularly should some of those convicted criminal illegals commit even more heinous acts going forward.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s still colder than normal, the ice is pretty much thick enough to drive on, and where ice fishing has been in full swing.