Thoughts On A Sunday

Once again, we have had to make the change from Standard to Daylight Saving Time, something I wish we could end. Being at the easternmost edge of the Eastern Time Zone it would work better for us if we remained on DST year-round or changed from the Eastern Time Zone to the Atlantic Time Zone and remain on Atlantic Standard Time year-round. (If you cross from Maine into New Brunswick you also cross from the Eastern Time Zone to the Atlantic Time Zone.) I know a lot of folks around here are certainly tired of the twice-a-year change. It doesn’t really serve a purpose, at least not this far east in the time zone.

Another change – we will be seeing temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s over the next few days which means a lot of melting snow, shrinking snowbanks, and more potholes in the roads. Most of the snow has disappeared from the roof of The Gulch, with most of the remaining snow being on roof of the garage which is unheated. The snow on the roof of the heated portion of The Gulch is gone except for one small portion that does not receive any sunlight.

I by no means believe that we are all done with snow as I have seen too many late March/early April snowstorms that have dumped a foot of snow or more. In fact, there was an April Nor’easter two years ago that dumped almost 20 inches of snow and caused a power outage here at The Gulch that lasted almost 2 days. The Official Weekend Pundit Generator got a workout during and following that storm.

It is that storm that convinced a lot of my neighbors to spend the money for standby generators for their homes so they wouldn’t have to deal with another lengthy power outage without power. Now, over a third of the homes surrounding The Gulch have them. A few others, like the Gulch, have portable generators. A couple of them are also dual-fuel which means they can use either gasoline or propane. I primarily use propane because it doesn’t go bad like gasoline can. In the seven years I’ve had the Official Weekend Pundit Generator I’ve never had to use gasoline. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have my gas caddy filled and ready to go if needed.

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I agree with Nick Sortor (by way of Dr. Helen) on this one: Unhinged.

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A big deal was made by the media about “devices found outside Gracie Mansion” during an anti-Muslim rally and counterprotest. The media implied the devices came from the protesters, trying to paint the protesters as Islamophobic. But there’s one problem with that assertion.

It is totally false.

It turns out the “bombs” were thrown at counter protesters by Muslim men who yelled “Allah akbar” at the crowd.

So much for that narrative.

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Oh, I like the headline on this one:

40-year trail of failed forecasts: ‘If the Climate Crisis were a commercial product, it would have been recalled for false advertising decades ago’.

As they say up here, “Ayuh.”

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It seems that even the increasingly Islamist United Kingdom is feeling the effects of the war with Iran, in this case finding they only have a couple of days supply of natural gas left since their supply has been cut off.

The UK’s gas reserves have shrunk from 18,000 GWh worth last year to 6,700 GWh – enough for just 1.5 days of demand, according to new data published by transmission operator National Gas.

A similar amount is stored in tanks as liquefied natural gas. Europe, by contrast, has built up reserves of several weeks-worth of gas.

The crunch in supplies has resulted in traders charging the UK a premium for gas, exploiting its need to outbid rivals in other countries. It means the UK is now paying the highest wholesale gas prices in Europe.

Hmm. Could this be why the UK has suddenly gotten involved in the war with Iran?

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The question isn’t whether or not I am paranoid. The question is “Am I paranoid enough?”

I came across a story in an industry publication that had me sitting up and taking notice. Looking into it I decided I had to delve deeper to find out if what this article claimed was true. To what am I referring?

The Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) on vehicles can be used to track cars and trucks.

I will look into this and will post about this if it turns out to be accurate.

Great. Yet another thing we have to worry about…

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is going to be warm for the next few days, Town Meeting for a lot of towns in New Hampshire take place on Tuesday, and where I find I am back to doing some farm chores for my son while he’s away.

Proof That Cognitive Dissonance Is A Mental Illness

I came across this by way of Instapundit and figured I’d share it because everything on the list rings true and explains so much.

The Complete (And Growing) List Of Things The Left Simultaneously Believes

#1 - "My body, my choice"... but you MUST get a vaccine or lose your job, your ability to travel, and your right to eat inside a restaurant. Both things. At the same time.

#2 - "Believe all women"... unless the woman is Tara Reade, Juanita Broaddrick, or Paula Jones. Those women apparently came with an asterisk nobody mentioned.

#3 - "Tax the rich"... said by a woman worth $120 million (Pelosi), a man worth $9 million (Schumer), and a senator who owns three houses (Bernie) — all while their stock portfolios grow on insider access the rest of us will never have.

#4 - They are outraged — OUTRAGED — about billionaires having too much power... and then accept $1.6 billion from George Soros without blinking. Quinn's Law #7: it is different when you are a Democrat.

#5 - "Defund the police"... and then hire private security for themselves. I am not making that up. Multiple city council members who voted to defund their police departments had private, taxpayer-funded security at the same time. You literally cannot invent this.

#6 - "No one is above the law"... until a federal judge in Wisconsin helped a criminal evade ICE agents and half the party defended her. Judge Hannah Dugan. Look it up. Suddenly "no one is above the law" had an exemption for people who agree with them.

#7 - "Science is real"... but a biological male who identifies as a woman is medically, biologically, and athletically identical to a biological female. Just go ahead and ignore the entire fields of endocrinology, genetics, and sports medicine while you are at it.

#8 - "We support the working class"... and then they vote AGAINST no tax on tips. And no tax on overtime. Every. Single. Democrat. Voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill. The party of workers apparently does not want workers keeping their own money.

#9 - "We need more gun control to stop violence"... but releasing violent criminals back onto the street with zero bail is compassion. The criminal is not the problem. The gun on the shelf of the law-abiding citizen is the problem. I need someone to explain that logic to me using small words.

#10 - They want a $20 minimum wage to help the poor worker... and then they celebrate the illegal immigration system that lets employers pay $6 an hour in cash with zero benefits to people who cannot say anything without being deported. That is not progressive. That is the economic model of the antebellum South with extra steps.

#11 - "We are pro-union"... and then they fought tooth and nail against school choice, which would allow poor minority children to escape failing schools. The teachers unions fund the Democrats. The children can stay in the failing building. Their priorities are perfectly clear.

#12 - "The borders are secure"... announced by Biden's Autopen while EIGHT MILLION people crossed illegally in four years. For comparison, 8 million is the population of Virginia. An entire state's worth of unvetted people. Secure.

#13 - They call DOGE "an attack on government"... but cannot name a single program it should cut. Not one. They are against cutting fraud. They are against cutting waste. They are against cutting abuse. I am genuinely asking: what exactly are they trying to protect in there?

#14 - "Reducing the deficit is important"... announced every election cycle by people who have never once voted for a budget that reduced the deficit. Quinn's Law #5 in action: when liberalism conflicts with reality, reality must give way.

#15 - They want to cancel student loan debt for people who voluntarily signed loan agreements... but they will absolutely NOT cancel your mortgage. Or your car payment. Or your credit card balance. The magical debt cancellation only applies to the demographic that votes for them. Totally not transactional. Not at all.

#16 - "Latinx"... a word that zero actual Hispanic people asked for, that grammatically violates Spanish, and that studies show roughly 3% of Latinos use voluntarily. Created by and for white progressive academics to describe a community that did not request a renaming. And they wonder why Latino voters started leaving.

#17 - "We are the party of science"... and then they told you masks did not work, then they DID work, then one was enough, then two were required, then cloth ones counted, then they did not, and anyone who asked a follow-up question was "anti-science." That was not science. That was compliance theater.

#18 - They supported Luigi Mangione — the guy who murdered a health insurance CEO — as a folk hero and a symbol of justified rage against insurance companies... and now they want you to keep the ACA, which funnels BILLIONS to those same insurance companies. I genuinely cannot keep up.

#19 - "We need to get money out of politics"... and then they raised $1 billion for Hillary in 2016 and $916 million for Biden's Autopen in 2020. The most expensive campaigns in American history. Both Democrats. The bumper sticker and the bank account are not on speaking terms.

#20 - They said the economy under Biden's Autopen was GREAT and prices were FINE... and then when the ACA COVID subsidies expired, they screamed that people would not be able to afford their health insurance. So which is it? Was the economy great, or were people so financially destroyed they could not pay their own premiums? Pick a lane.

#21 - "Diversity is our strength"... but every single diverse thinker who leaves the Democrat reservation — Clarence Thomas, Tim Scott, Candace Owens, Larry Elder — gets called a race traitor, an Uncle Tom, or worse. The diversity of skin color is welcome. The diversity of thought is absolutely not.

#22 - "We support women"... and then every single Senate Democrat voted against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act on January 14, 2025. Every one. Girls can lose their scholarships, their safety, and their athletic careers — but at least the Democrats have the correct bumper sticker.

#23 - They say the January 6th protesters were "insurrectionists who nearly destroyed democracy"... but the people who spent the summer of 2020 burning federal courthouses, attacking police precincts, and occupying city blocks in Seattle with an armed border were "peaceful protesters exercising their constitutional rights." Funny how that works.

#24 - "We are the party of the working man"... and they gave us inflation that cost the average American family $34,000 in purchasing power. Grocery bills up 22%. Housing costs through the ceiling. Rent to income ratios at historic highs. And they want credit for a $1,400 check they sent you with money they printed.

#25 - "We must protect democracy"... and then they tried to remove a candidate from state ballots, weaponize the DOJ against a political opponent, and indict a former president four times before an election. If a foreign government did what they did to Trump, the State Department would call it election interference.

#26 - They are horrified — genuinely horrified — that Trump talked to foreign leaders without their approved talking points... and then Biden's Autopen handed $6 BILLION to Iran, who then funded Hezbollah, Hamas, and a proxy war against American allies. But Trump's phone call. That was the threat.

#27 - "Black Lives Matter"... and the BLM organization raised $90 million in 2020 and spent it on mansions, consulting fees, and a production company. Meanwhile black communities where they marched saw record homicide increases. Quinn's Law #1: liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent.

#28 - They say voter ID is racist because minorities supposedly cannot get an ID... and in the same breath they mandate that same minority population show a vaccine card to enter a restaurant. The ID they cannot get for voting is somehow obtainable for dinner. I leave the logical conclusion to you.

#29 - "We believe in free speech"... announced right before they pressured Twitter, Facebook, and Google to deplatform their political opponents, flagged parody accounts, asked federal agencies to flag "misinformation," and colluded with social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story — which was verified and real. Quinn's Law #12: liberals do not engage in debate. They try to silence you.

#30 - They say the rich do not pay their fair share... and then they exempt the rich from their own rules. The Inflation Reduction Act — the one they said would make billionaires pay up — was written by and for corporate lobbyists. The effective tax rate on the top 1% actually went DOWN after its passage. You genuinely cannot make this up.

#31 - "Children should not be sexualized"... and then they put sexually explicit books in elementary school libraries, hosted drag performances in schools, and any parent who objected at a school board meeting was flagged as a potential domestic terrorist by the FBI under Biden's Autopen. That actually happened. The FBI memo is a matter of public record.

#32 - They say we need to "save the planet" from carbon emissions... and then Al Gore's mansion uses 21 times the electricity of the average American home. John Kerry — their climate czar — flew on private jets to climate conferences. Bernie flies private. Obama bought an oceanfront mansion on Martha's Vineyard. Apparently the rising seas only affect people who vote Republican.

#33 - "We stand with veterans"... and then every single year they vote against or table the Major Richard Star Act. This bill would stop the government from stealing retirement pay from combat-wounded veterans who were medically retired before 20 years. FIFTY THOUSAND veterans. It costs $800 million a year — a number they voted to include in a $924.7 billion defense bill the very next day. The money exists. The will does not. Sign the petition: https://c.org/29rGbKJphj @MajorStarAct @StarActEnemies

#34 - They want to "end income inequality"... and every major American city run exclusively by Democrats for decades — Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles — has some of the worst income inequality, homelessness, crime, and poverty in the developed world. Quinn's Law #3: the amount of wealth in any area is inversely proportional to the number of Democrats running it.

#35 - "Rent is too high"... announced by the same people who blocked every deregulation and permitting reform that would allow more housing to be built. Restricting supply while demand increases does not lower prices. This is not an opinion. It is basic economics. I teach this to sixteen-year-olds.

#36 - They say Republicans want dirty air and dirty water... and then California — the progressive paradise — has the worst air quality in the nation, has had more wildfires than any administration in history, and cannot keep its own electricity on in the summer. Their environmental policy has been in place for thirty years. The results are visible from space.

#37 - "No one should profit off of sickness"... announced by the party that fought to keep the ACA — which mandated that every American PURCHASE a product from a PRIVATE insurance company or pay a fine. They literally made it illegal not to pay the insurance company. And they called that progressive healthcare reform.

#38 - They are obsessed with "protecting our democracy" from MAGA... while 5.2 million protesters tried to override 77,302,416 votes cast in a free and fair election. That is not protecting democracy. That is a minority faction attempting to nullify the expressed preference of the majority. Madison warned about this specifically in Federalist No. 10. Look it up.

#39 - "We need common sense gun laws"... and Chicago has had some of the strictest gun laws in the nation for decades, and it also has some of the most violent neighborhoods in the country. You want to know what does not exist in those neighborhoods? Responsible armed citizens who can protect themselves. What does exist? Career politicians from the same party for fifty straight years.

#40 - They say they want to "tax the ultra-wealthy"... and then they keep giving Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street the exact carve-outs, credits, and loopholes that protect their donors' wealth. The ultra-wealthy you hear about in speeches mysteriously never seems to include the ultra-wealthy who write the checks.

#41 - "We follow the science on climate change"... and then they told you biological sex is a spectrum, that there is no meaningful physiological difference between male and female athletes, and that puberty blockers are "fully reversible." One of those positions involves chemistry, physics, and atmospheric science. The others involve ignoring endocrinology, anatomy, and a decade of clinical data. But they follow the science.

#42 - They want immigration to be "humane"... and the cities that declared themselves sanctuaries — New York, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles — screamed for emergency federal aid and started deporting migrants themselves the moment they actually had to house them. The humanity apparently has a geographic radius of exactly "not my backyard."

#43 - "We need more funding for public education"... announced by the same party that has controlled most major urban school districts for fifty years, produced some of the lowest literacy and graduation rates in the developed world, and fights viciously against any accountability measure or alternative that might actually help the children whose futures are at stake. It is almost like the children are not the actual priority.

#44 - They say anyone who questions the 2020 election is "an election denier who threatens democracy"... and Stacey Abrams denied her 2018 loss for four years, Hillary Clinton called the 2016 election stolen on national television as recently as 2022, and over 60 House Democrats objected to electoral votes in 2000, 2004, and 2016. The rule about election denial apparently only applies to one party.

#45 - "Latinx." I know I already put this one on the list. It is so spectacularly disconnected from reality that it deserves to be on there twice.

Some of these things sound like they want to rewrite reality to meet their delusional beliefs. Others sound like they’re severely mentally ill, perhaps strung out on drugs…or because they stopped taking their meds.

Some of it sounds like Orwell’s Newspeak, language that makes it impossible to express dissent. Some try to twist reality to make evil sound like good and good sound like evil. Some paint contradictory pictures of things they want versus the things they actually do.

Is it any wonder more people are abandoning their Leftist leaders? They sound crazier every day, denigrate the very people they say they want to help by pushing the soft racism of low expectations.

As many a modern philosopher has said, “Don’t listen to what they say. Look at what they do.”

Friday Funny - The Scientific Reason Your Wife Is Always Right

Being an engineer, this is something I truly understand.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a nice day yesterday, relatively warm with sun on and off throughout the day. Today is not quite as warm, with it being cloudy during the first part of the day with a few snow flurries here and there. In other words, a typical late winter weather cycle. We do have more snow on the way on Tuesday, but only a few inches.

The kids are heading back to school after last week’s February vacation. At least our town’s high school has something to celebrate with its Boys Basketball team winning a state championship on Saturday. Our Girl’s team was also participating in a state championship game but unfortunately lost. So, it was a 50:50 weekend to celebrate.

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I have been taking in the news about the US and Israeli strikes against Iran all I can say about it is “It’s about friggin’ time.”

A lot of the people against this “illegal” war action weren’t alive back when the fledgling Islamic State of Iran declared war on the US, invading the US embassy and holding diplomatic personnel hostage for 444 days. That in itself was an act of war. That war never ended…until now. Time has also shown what a brutal theocratic dictatorship it was.

Ironically, as one post on ‘X’ put it:

Muslim countries that support today's U.S strike on Iran: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, Bahrain

Muslim countries that DO NOT support today's U.S. strike on Iran: France, United Kingdom

If you don’t believe that Iran was a brutal dictatorship, look at this little bit of life in the Islamic Republic:

Now I want to introduce you to a brave Iranian woman who understood America better than you ever will.

Her name was Sara Saeidi.
Born and raised in Iran.
39 years old.
A mother of two daughters, 19 and 6.

She was hot in the head for the “crime” of peascefully protesting while wearing a sweatshirt that said MANHATTAN, with the American flag beneath it.

While you stood in Congress under that flag, she carried its name on her chest, not as symbolism for a photo opportunity but as a dream.

She was addressing Ilhan Omar’s tweet about “No War With Iran”. Talk about hypocrisy! Look up the term “hypocrite” and you’ll see Omar’s picture next to it as we know she’s been working hard to undermine America from within and has no intention of keep her oath of office.

This is something that has been brewing for a long time and I hope that it is the beginning of the end of brutal Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Do we need any more proof that Virgina Democrats don’t really believe in the US Constitution, particularly the 2nd Amendment?

Virginia Democrats are advancing a bill that would prohibit adults under the age of 21 from owning, purchasing, or transporting certain types of firearms in the state.

Virginians aged 18–20 will no longer be allowed to possess handguns or any guns liberals have decided to call “assault firearms.”

The National Rifle Association pointed out that the prohibition would apply to “those who already own such firearms.”

So first they restrict the right of 18- to 20-year-olds to own, buy, or carry handguns and “assault firearms” unless they are in the company of an adult. However, Virginia law defines adults as anyone who is at least 18 years of age. Talk about a contradiction. If they redefine adults as those who are at least 21 years of age, then does that mean that 18- to 20-year-olds would no longer be allowed to vote? After all, they would no longer be adults under Virginia law.

If they manage to weaken the 2nd Amendment, I expect they will go after the 1st Amendment next.

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To quote the Instaprof, “They Aren’t Even Hiding It”:

Think about this:

Leftists cheered the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and condemned the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Good. Evil.

They chose evil.

‘Nuff said.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is trying to make up its mind, Town Meeting is getting closer, and where Monday is returning to ruin our weekend.

The Hypocrisy Is Reaching A New Low

When I read the following, I was not surprised:

The New York Times ran a piece on their homepage about a guy getting deported even though he had lived in the US since a teenager and had been here for 20 years, and waited until the end of the article to mention that 19 of those years were spent in prison for murder. (Emphasis mine.)

The comments thread in the linking Instapundit page did provide some links to the NYT post as well as related stories about others who were “here for ‘x’ years” but most of that time was spent in prison for felonies they committed after arriving in the US.

I find it hypocritical that the Propaganda Department of the DNC, i.e. the MSM, are working so hard to paint these illegal immigrants as victims of our immigration policies when what they really are is convicted felons who shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

We can see that even our media are all for protecting illegal immigrants - using a false narrative to do so - and not American citizens.

And while the media keeps trying to paint the anti-ICE sentiment is nationwide we’re finding that it is primarily limited to just a few cities – blue cities – and trying to convince people that the American people are against the Trump Administration’s efforts to undo the damage done by the Biden Administration’s open border debacle. But it turns out that a good majority of the American people, including a good many Democrats, are in favor of expelling the millions of illegal immigrants, particularly those who are murderers, drug traffickers, sex traffickers, rapists, pedophiles, and so on. It seems the only ones who want them to remain are the true believers in the Democrat Party leadership and the Progressive financed organizations working hard to dismantle the US and turn it in to yet another socialist dystopia.

Friday Funny - I Couldn't Believe My Ears

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.

==++++++==

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.

==++++++==

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?

==++++++==

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.

==++++++==

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.