Thoughts On A Sunday

Between the warm temperatures and heavy rain we’ve experienced over the past few days much of the snow and ice that was still surviving in piles and shadowed areas has disappeared. Not that it’s all gone by any means as there are still sheets of ice out on portions of Lake Winnipesaukee. Ice out has not been declared yet. (Ice out is defined when the MS Mount Washington cruise ship can make all five ports of call.)

Thoughts of time out on the lake in a boat have been becoming far more frequent as the weather have been increasing every day.

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

A rather heated discussion about President Trump took place between me and the oldest of the WP Sisters yesterday.

She made it perfectly clear that she believed that Trump was an awful president, not because he wasn’t getting things done, but because of his “rude and crude” tweets.

I did remind her that Trump is not a politician, at least not in the traditional sense, and that he speaks his mind. I also reminded her that his public persona is not his real persona. It’s a suit of clothing he’s put on whenever he’s doing business, and that’s the one that so many see. He knows how to get things done behind the scenes. It’s that ability that makes him effective as a president.

A metaphor I have used on more than one occasion is that Trump is a stage magician, showing everyone the shiny object with one hand while performing the trick with his hidden hand. That’s how he’s managed to get so much done with little MSM/DNC attention. Business-killing Obama era regulations have been eliminated one by one, reducing the regulatory burdens by billions of dollars for American businesses, big and small. There are still more he regulations he is working to eliminate, many which were out in place to more tightly constrain business with no real justification for doing so other than proving that the government was in charge. (I have never understood how anyone can believe more and heavier business regulation has ever improved economic performance. I couldn’t find any instances where that’s been true.)

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

This is an idea I can get behind>

President Trump has considered relocating illegal immigrants awaiting deportation/amnesty hearings to sanctuary cities, something that had many of those ‘sanctuary’ cities crying foul because in effect Trump is calling their bluff and trying to make them live up to their rules. Now one mayor of a sanctuary city – Burlington, Vermont’s Mayor Miro Weinberger – has challenged Trump to send as many illegal immigrants as he wanted to send.

I’m sure the mayor’s constituents will just love having all of those illegal immigrants from Central and South America flooding northern Vermont and will welcome them and everything they bring with them with open arms.

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

Speaking of Burlington, Vermont, it’s former mayor and now US Senator Bernie Sanders is proving once again that facts need not apply when it comes things like renewable energy, nuclear power, and CO2 because his uninformed opinion is much more believable than actual numbers from both the feddle gummint, Vermont state agencies, and independent organizations.

Then again, socialists and communist don’t like being confused by reality, otherwise they wouldn’t be socialists or communists, would they?

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

Oh, yeah!

Do you want to Make America Great Again? Then let’s Make Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Bartend Again!

One thing that might cement AOC’s One-And-Done time as a member of the US House is the accompanying video satire pulled of by an eight-year old.

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

It seems that New York State has had a problem with state tax revenues falling by $3.7 billion.

While state officials have tried hard to lay the blame at bookkeeping changes and/or the limiting of State And Local Tax (SALT) deductions on federal tax returns to $10,000, the truth is more likely that taxes and fees have reached the point of diminishing returns. One has to wonder if the New York State tax-and-spenders will learn the lesson being learned by neighboring state Connecticut where successive tax-and-spend/regulate-to-death legislatures and governors have so damaged the state that cities are verging on bankruptcy and both major corporations and wealthy taxpayers are leaving in increasing numbers to escape the now hostile business environment.

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

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee this Easter Sunday, where church services were well attended, Easter dinners were eagerly consumed, and where almost all of the ice is gone from the lake.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather was beautiful up here in central New Hampshire yesterday, with temps just missing 70°F. I opened a few windows here at The Gulch to air things out a bit, something the feline contingent here enjoyed. It was almost as warm today, but with a little bit of rain now and again.

Still, it wasn’t a bad weekend weather-wise. However the lake is still iced over though we are seeing some open water here and there.

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

From the “Just When I thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this howler from Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR).

In true tax-and-tax-and-tax-and-spend fashion, Wyden has put forth the idea to tax unrealized capital gains on an annual basis, meaning rather than taxing capital gains when finally paid out, he would have the government tax them every year whether or not they are paid out. In other words, you wouldn’t have to sell off your stocks in order for the government to tax your theoretical capital gains, and they would do it every year. That the idea is unworkable, unwieldy, and would be expensive as hell to implement and maintain hasn’t crossed the Senator’s mind. Oor if it has he really doesn’t care because it’s not about collecting more revenue, but about punishing investors. (That investors include things like pension funds and retirement accounts seems to have escaped the Senator’s notice.)

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

Another item from the “Just When I thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department is AOC’s unthinking slam against Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s (R-TX) tweet in regards to Ilhan Omar’s diminishment of the actions of Muslim terrorists on 9-11. Then again, most of what AOC does is unthinking, driven by feels and her Marxist indoctrination. Is it any wonder she’s known as Occasional Cortex?

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

Paul Craig Roberts opines that America is no longer a nation.

The America in which I grew up and lived my early adult life was a nation. Over the course of my life I have watched my country turn into a Tower of Babel. Homogeneity and shared values permitted us to understand one another. This doesn’t mean that there was uniformity or that things were perfect. A Baptist wasn’t a Catholic. A WASP was not a black laborer. A female was not a male. Blacks and poor whites had a hard time becoming middle class, but it could be done. It was possible for middle class people to become “well off,” but difficult to become rich. Immigration was controlled, and the reduction of inflows had helped the Irish and Italians to integrate into society.

Police were helpful and didn’t burst into homes with guns blazing or rough you up on traffic stops. On important issues, compromises could be reached and reforms implemented. English was the language. If you telephoned a service provider, utility, or bank, you quickly were connected to a real person capable of handling every aspect of whatever you were calling about. Today you wait through the Spanish language option for the robo-voice listing the options that might have something to do with the reason for your call. The companies save money and make profits by imposing their service costs on customers.

Technology seems to have worsened the functionality of society. Diversity and multiculturalism definitely have. It used to be that taking or giving offense was something that good manners prevented. Today members of those groups that are entitled to be offended are ready to take offense at any excuse. Today it is easy for a white person and a male to give offense without intending or even knowing that what he did or said was offensive.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

(H/T Knuckledraggin’ My Life Away)

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

I thought the possibility that President Trump would consider having illegal immigrants dropped off in sanctuary cities would be poetic justice. (It’s so much better than ‘social justice’ which has absolutely nothing to do with actual justice.)

When then-Senator Harry Reid exercised the ‘nuclear’ option in the US Senate, the Democrats chose to ignore that the rules change he made would some under the sway of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Now that so many blue cities have decided they wouldn’t help ICE by detaining illegal aliens if they were arrested for other crimes, and in some cases worked against ICE by obstructing them in the performance of their duties, it seems only fitting that they now be made to live by the rules they themselves have created. They may also come under the sway of the Law of Unintended Consequences. It would serve them right if all the illegals seeking asylum were dropped of in all of those nice sanctuary cities. Let them take care of them if they care so much about them.

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

Despite the fact that this is about a year old, it lessen the message: What White Privilege Lessons Did To My High School.

The story boils down to this: students were called into a mandatory assembly, topic unknown. A ‘panel’ of experts spent time talking to them about diversity and the evils of white privilege. At the beginning of the ‘indoctrination’ the kids were a group of high school students. At the end they were no longer high school students, but oppressors and the oppressed. Unity amongst the student body no longer existed. It was whites oppressing everyone else. Comradery was replaced by anger, recriminations, and incipient hatred.

All these ‘diversity’ experts managed to do was divide students, foster anger and hatred, and then leave, feeling they had “done something” even though that something was damaging and racially charged. No one came away better off from that indoctrination. No one. And these assholes see this as a positive.

That whirring sound you hear? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spinning in his grave now that all of his work is being undone all in the name of ‘equality’.

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

If the media didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

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

I always thought nonconformity was a paradox. This is why.

Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformists who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform to with nonconformity. – Eric Hoffer

I was something of a nonconformist nonconformist during my high school years. Everyone had long hair and wore bellbottom jeans. My hair was quite short, and I wore what are now called boot cut jeans, and either work boots or ‘cowboy’ boots. I had more than a few of my fellow students comment about my “giving in to the Man” and I usually countered with something along the line of “So you want me to be different, same as you?” They usually didn’t know what to make of that and that was fine by me.

(H/T Moonbattery)

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

One would think that state Democrats would learn the lesson from previous years and not go for ‘crazy’, but you’d be wrong. In this case the New Hampshire Democrat majority legislature decided they absolutely needed to increase state spending by a whopping 13% and boost state taxes and fees by almost 17%, ignoring the facts that closely controlled state spending increases and tax cuts have done more to help the economy of my home state recover quickly from the Obama years and have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire nation. But they felt the uncontrollable urge to undo all of that and try to bring back the bad old days of the Obama economy, and smiling while they sabotaged the New Hampshire Advantage.

The question is whether or not our GOP governor will wield his veto pen and kill off the Democrats plans to damage our economy and more heavily burden the taxpayers of our state in order to make themselves feel better about themselves for having done “something”. That kind of something we don’t need.

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

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice is thinning, work on getting boats ready for the summer has started, and where I’m hoping the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be on the lake in 4 weeks.

Thoughts On A Sunday

I got a little bit of a late start on this week’s TOAS as I am still revering from my day trip down to Washington, DC late this past week. I can say that I did the appropriate precautions, mainly making sure that I had my Beltway Mind Alteration Force Field Protection Shield (i.e. tinfoil hat) in place before entering the Beltway environs. I know it was working because as I got closer to Washington, my shield became warmer.

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

One thing I noticed from my single day down in Washington is that TDS is quite prevalent. About the only place I didn’t witness TDS was at the customer site I was visiting, techies like myself (but not like those seen in Silly Cones Valley).

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

Bernie Sanders is still getting it wrong, just as he always has. In this case he is lambasting the “right-wing authoritarians backed by a network of billionaire oligarchs,” while ignoring the left-wing totalitarians backed by a network of billionaire oligarchs, totalitarians who would have no problem eliminating Bernie once he was longer of any use to them.

It doesn’t help things that Bernie’s definition of ‘democracy’ is different from most other folks. Why he would want to inflict that kind of democracy on people proves to me that he really doesn’t like people because he certainly is doing his best to make sure everyone is going to be equally miserable, equally fearful, and equally disposable by The State.

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

If we need more evidence that even state level Democrats are totally effin’ clueless when it comes to guns and violence, all one needs to do is look to New Hampshire, where the Democrat-majority legislature has pushed legislation that will make schools and school-owned property “Gun Free” zones. The legislation is so broad that an otherwise law abiding citizen carrying a gun would be in violation of the proposed law if they passed a school bus out on the road. Anyone paying attention knows that Gun Free Zones are merely feelgood actions. They provide no security (other than a false sense of security), signal pissed off people with a grudge that there are plenty of free fire zones available to vent their rage.

The legislators have been acting as if gun violence is epidemic in New Hampshire, but New Hampshire is one of the safest states in the nation with a very low violent crime rate. It is a constitutional carry state and a large percentage of its citizens carry concealed. The only shootouts that have taken place in recent memory is one between a notoriously violent drug dealer and local and state police. The drug dealer didn’t survive, though he killed two fellow drug dealers and wounded two police officers before he was brought down by police.

Would Gun Free Zones have made any difference in this event? Of course not, but that wouldn’t stop our anti-gun legislators and their supporters from making a claim to the contrary. They don’t let data, facts, or statistics get in the way of their beliefs.

These ‘beliefs’ have also extended into other legislative areas as well, such as so-called ‘Red Flag’ laws that will violate due process for law abiding gun owners, increased fines and fees, increases in rooms and meal taxes, adding new licensing requirements for occupations that have not required them before, as well as downshifting more state costs to towns (something inherently unconstitutional) and trying to impose a stealth income tax by calling it a family leave fee to fund family leave for workers that do not already have such perks or insurance coverage. (Everyone knows the Democrats will then expand that ‘fee’ to pay for all kinds of nice-to-haves they deem as need-to-haves as a means staying in power.

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

When is property tax relief not property tax relief? When Democrats (again in New Hampshire) raise taxes and fees by $417 million and then return $12 million (a measly 0.3%) of the taxes collected to the towns. I see that as an excuse to increase taxes, not the actual reason.

It’s the old bait-and-switch.

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

And that the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice still covers the lake, snow is predicted for Monday, and everyone is prepping for summer.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather here in New Hampshire was schizophrenic over the weekend, with temps in the southern end of the state in the 60’s and in the upper 30’s in the northernmost part of the state on Saturday. It reached 45° here at The Gulch.

Such is the weather here in New England.

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

If you thought the Democrats focus on Trump would subside now that the Mueller Report has exonerated him in regard to Russiagate, you were wrong. If nothing else congressional Democrats are going to double down on stupid, continuing their witch hunt…er…investigation of Trump’s collusion with the Russians during his election campaign. The just know he had to have colluded with the Russians (even though it was Hillary’s campaign that did that). It is the only explanation for Hillary’s loss in 2016 they’ll accept.

As Senator Ted Cruz explained it to CNN’s Dana Bash:

“Yesterday, the Mueller report was going to be the end all and be all. It was going to be the salvation for the Democrats and destroy President Trump. Now, you can already see the Democrats pivoting away and saying, 'Okay, we need to do other investigations. There's gotta be someone else. There's gotta be the Southern District of New York. It's gotta be the New York Attorney General. It's gotta be Congress.'”

“But, Dana, my point is, you ask Congressman Nadler whether the House is going to impeach the president and I'll answer that for you. Yes. They fully intend to impeach the president and they don't care about the basis," Cruz explained. "Twice Congressman Nadler said something remarkable. He said, 'Listen, the special counsel's focused on crimes. We're not all that concerned with crimes. Our focus is – this is Democrats in the House – is much broader than crimes.' What they're basically saying is they're going to impeach the president for being Donald Trump and they don't care about the evidence, they don't care about the substance."

Cruz is absolutely right. The House is going to move forward with impeachment proceedings, regardless of what is found. Just remember: we had freshman Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) talk about "impeaching that mother f**ker" on her very first day in Congress.

Democrats won't be happy until Trump is no longer in office. And now their witch hunt will continue.

One has to wonder whether this obsessive need to “get Trump” will become so all consuming that House Democrats will abandon the rest of their congressional duties to do so. If so, President Trump will have them right where he wants them.

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

Ed Driscoll gives is a Spring Fascism Preview, a head’s up for the upcoming Earth Day and Venezuela’s involuntary participation in Lights Out for Earth Hour.

Then again, Venezuela has been participating in Lights Out every day for weeks now and it looks like they will continue to participate for weeks to come.

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

At least one prankster is finding out the hard way that “swatting” someone is not a prank.

In this case, Tyler Barriss, a gamer living in California, called the Wichita, Kansas police, “pretending to be a deranged man with a gun holding members of his family hostage, giving what he believed was the target's address.” The problem beyond trying to swat a fellow gamer, Shane Gaskill of Wichita, is that he gave the police the wrong address.

The police arrived at the home of Andrew Finch, someone in no way connected to the dispute between Barriss and Gaskill. In the end Finch was shot dead by Wichita police as one officer thought he was reaching for a gun as he came out of his front door.

Barriss was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for Finch’s death in a Kansas federal court. It seems like justice has been served, right? Maybe not.

It isn’t that Barriss is getting off easy. He’s not. Barriss isn’t going to a nice “country club” federal prison, but a “take it up the butt” federal pen. One other thing he’s not: remorseful.

"I love swatting kids who think that nothing's going to happen," Barriss said in a YouTube interview hours after Finch's death.

In April, the incarcerated Barriss briefly gained access to the Internet—and he took the opportunity to demonstrate that he had learned nothing from his time behind bars.

"All right, now who was talking shit?" he tweeted on April 6, 2018. "Your ass is about to get swatted."

Barriss is an ass, one that who still hasn’t learned that actions have consequences, that life isn’t a game of Call of Duty (which is what prompted the dispute between Barriss and Gaskill to begin with) where one can push ‘reset’ or start a new game if things don’t go right. I have a feeling he’s going to learn the hard way that he isn’t all-powerful in prison. Instead, he’s going to end up being someone’s “bitch”.

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

Just when I think congressional Democrats couldn’t get any more arrogant (or clueless), one of them proves me wrong. In this case, Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), one of my state’s senators, has decided that her Senate seat belongs to her and, more specifically, to the Democrat Party in perpetuity. She has also branded anyone that doesn’t support her as ‘thieves’. From Shaheen’s office:

This is it, friends. The GOP is starting to build up its operation to steal this seat and protect its Senate majority.

After CNBC one of the two most endangered Democratic senators in the country, an out-of-state, right-wing group started running attack ads against us. Not long after, Ted C ruz started trying to recruit a far-right conservative to run against me.

And the worst part of it all? It’s working. A recent poll showed me tied with right-wing Gov. Chris Sununu. And if we lose, it will all but guarantee a Republican majority in the Senate for another two years. (emphasis in original – ed)

She only seems to dislike out-of-state groups if they aren’t supporting her. Double standard much, Senator? That she seems to believe that her senate seat belongs to her and the DNC shows her belief that the Democrats are a permanent ruling class and anyone that wants to disabuse her of that notion are criminals. The thing is, if she gets her way, anyone disagreeing with her or the DNC will become criminals and will be disposed of accordingly.

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

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the lake is still iced over from shore to shore, more thoughts of the coming boating season are intruding, and where Mondays keep ending our weekends all too soon.

MSM-DNC And Their Lackeys Scrambling To Find Something On Trump

After watching a couple of days worth of the MSM-DNC reactions to the Mueller Report and all I can say that it appears the media is trying to spin things around to still make President Trump guilty of something. They couldn't get him on collusion with Russia (though it looks like that might be something Hillary and the DNC might have to worry about), so now they want to see him fall based upon obstruction of justice charges, something Mueller couldn't pull off after 22 months of investigation.

Of course the Congressional Democrats want to pick up the mantle, desperate to find something with which to charge Trump and members of his administration. That they hate Trump with a passion, are pissed off at him because he beat Hillary (How dare he!) is not in question. It is something they cannot hide, nor have they tried very hard to do so.

Those who lambasted Trump, wringing their hands at the prospect of impeaching him are now scrambling, trying to change the narrative to make it seem as if they weren't really after Trump's hide. Some have even gone as far as to condemn their brethren for the rhetoric they spewed over the past 22 months.

It's been pathetic.

In response to Hillary's loss in 2016, the Democrats are trying very hard to change election law to make sure that no one but Democrats will ever win the White House or Congress again. Democrats on the state level have been trying to subvert the Electoral College with legislation that basically strips the voters in their states of their voices. As I have mentioned in other posts, Colorado has pushed legislation that will award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of the election results in Colorado. The Democrats in Colorado have basically just told their citizens that their votes for president don't count anymore, that heir electoral votes will be decided by voters in other states. I have to ask yet again, how can that be constitutional?

I see a trip the United States Supreme Court in the future for the Attorney General of Colorado to defend such an anti-American piece of legislation.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s frost heave and pothole season here in New Hampshire and it’s a bumper crop of both. With the wet winter and the few bouts of warm weather (defined as any time the temps are above freezing), our roads have taken a beating. Even the state roads are pretty beat up. Most of the local roads are posted with weight limits to keep heavier vehicles from tearing up the already damaged roads.

With warmer temps (50’s) forecast for the coming week, there will be a lot of snow melt. Night time temps will be below freezing, meaning the frost heaves and potholes are only going to get worse. The only ones that might like those conditions are the tire stores and repair shops who will be replacing bent wheels and performing front end alignments.

This is one of the seven seasons we experience here in northern New England. Right now it’s mud/flood season, to be followed shortly by spring, black fly, almost summer, summer, fall, and then winter.

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

I was going through the Weekend Pundit archives and came across this post from 2006 that addresses the Electoral College and the efforts by the Leftist know-nothings to do away with it, either through ignorance or malice aforethought. I’m inclined to think it’s both, with the malice having helped create the ignorance of the importance of the Electoral College and the reasoning behind it.

The arguments made back then to abolish the Electoral College are the same ones being made today, except that the people making the argument today are even more willfully ignorant than those 13 years ago and their arguments are even less logical, at least to me.

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

Want to know just how bad the affordable housing problem is in California? It’s this bad.

California has seen a proliferation in RV and vehicle living in some of the state’s most expensive areas and cities, such as Palo Alto, in recent years. (Palo Alto is the Silicon Valley area – ed.

The rise of mobile homes lining streets has been fueled by excessive rents and house prices, though numbers are hard to pin down.

I have read about and heard first hand accounts from people I know talk about making six-figure salaries but not being able to afford to buy or rent anyplace anywhere near work. Two or three hour commutes aren’t the answer. Who wants to spend 4 to 6 hours a day on the road? It doesn’t help that the various communities have very restrictive regulations that make building new affordable housing difficult, with lengthy application, review, and permitting processes. Those processes tend to preclude building affordable housing because the return on investment in both time and money isn’t worth it. Upscale housing is one of the few places where the time and effort pays off.

Is it any wonder why otherwise well off professionals are reduced to living in RVs, campers, or their cars?

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

I have seen the Mueller Report described as many different things, but this one is the best: A giant crap sandwich for the Democrats.

It’s not often I, like most of America, make a point to watch MSNBC or CNN. If I want to know what leftists are thinking I just imagine something so incredibly insane that there’s no way an educated adult would actually believe it, then double it and I’m there. But Friday night was an exception, I had to see how they responded to the news of the Mueller Report’s submission to the Attorney General and no further indictments coming. It was glorious.

You rarely get the chance to watch someone have to choke down a crap sandwich of their own making in front of the people they’d been force-feeding one to for years, but that was Friday night on cable news.

--snip--

Everyone on those two channels should have been apologetic, gaslighting the country for 2 years before having the curtain ripped back so thoroughly should have been met with some humility. They should have been begging their audience for forgiveness. They were not.

I’m still waiting for heads to start exploding.

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

Nikki Haley has the right of it in regards to the Mueller Report. The problem is that the Democrats just won’t let it go and want to continue their own investigation. As if they will do any better job than the 22-month long Mueller investigation. They won’t, and they won’t be unbiased by any means. They aren’t looking to see if Trump violated the law. They’re looking to prove what they think (or hope) he did. Basically, they want to continue the witch hunt they’ve been supporting over the past 22 months. They want Trump’s head and will not stop until they get him, even if they need to make stuff up or twist innocent events into something sinister.

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

It looks like Washington State is working hard to make itself over as a northern version of California, in this case by expanding their existing sanctuary state rules. This shows me they are as shortsighted as California’s state government and are only borrowing trouble at the expense of their citizens. It also makes me wonder if the various county sheriffs will choose to not enforce the law just as they have announced they will not enforce Washington’s unconstitutional gun laws.

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

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where warmer weather has returned, March Madness is getting interesting, and where we have to play very close attention to what our Democrat majority legislature is trying to take away from us this time.

Any Minute Now - The Mueller Report

Now that the Mueller Investigation report has been handed over to the Attorney General, and the AG is going to present the findings of the report to Congress, I expect there will be tearing of hair and rending of clothing by those who were licking their chops at thought the report would show collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

That not one jot of that report has been leaked to the media so far tells me that the report is not the so-called smoking gun the Democrats, 'Democratic' Socialists, Progressives, Never-Trumpers and anti-fascists have been so desperately hoping for. If it did implicate Trump and prove (or at least imply) that he was guilty of such a transgression, illicit copies would have made their way to ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, the New York Times and Washington Post and would be the top story 24/7. That not one word has made its way to the MSM/DNC from Deep State operatives in the DOJ is telling. The report is likely a great big juicy nothingburger.

Once the report is finally made public as President Trump wants, I expect to see heads to start exploding...


'Nuff said.

Why You Need A Gun - A Short Story

As the gun-grabbers dial up the rhetoric, trying very hard to disarm law-abiding citizens while ensuring gun-toting criminals will have free reign in government imposed gun free (aka free fire) zones. They try very hard to convince people that no one needs guns and that the government can protect them. But they can't. The question also begs, who will protect us from the government?

By way of The Smallest Minority comes this piece that was originally posted on Facebook that delves into the “Why do you need a gun” question.

A couple years ago I was working security at a bar in northern Virginia. I overheard a table of college kids arguing about gun rights and gun control and it was getting far too emotional so I did what any sane combat veteran would do and attempted to exfiltrate. I must not have withdrawn as surreptitiously as I intended, because I was stopped in my tracks when a 5-foot-nothing brunette seemingly leapt in front of me and blurted out "Excuse me, can you help us?"

I'm sure I must have looked irritated as I cycled through the possible quips and excuses I considered available to me but being uncertain that she wasn't some Senator's daughter, I caved: "What's up?"

She basically leads me to this table of two other females (probably both named Karen) and a very soft looking male.

Becky: "So, we were just talking about current events and, you know. So, you look like you're probably in the military, right? Like the Army?"

(When you accuse someone of being in the military you probably don't need to give an example.)

Me: "Similar.. yeah."

Becky: "Right. Okay. So, do you think civilians should be allowed to own guns?"

Me: "Most of us. Yes."

Becky: (Clearly not happy with my answer) "Okay, so, why do you think you need a gun?"

(At this point it's almost 2AM and I've just given up on patience. Hold my beer.)

(With intentionally overt condescension): "Oh, honey, I don't. I don't need a gun."

Becky stares at me blankly, so I continue, but with a more serious tone: "I could follow you home, walk up your driveway, and beat you to death with the daily newspaper. I could choke you to death with that purse. I could take a credit card, break it in half, and cut your throat open with it. With enough time and effort I could beat your boyfriend here with a rolled up pair of socks. I could probably dream up six dozen other ways I could easily end your life if you gave me an hour or so. If I wanted to, I could wrap my hand around that beer mug and kill all four of you before you could make it to the exit. The worst part is, in your Utopian little fantasy land, there ain't a thing any of you could do about it.”

“I don't need a gun. You need a gun. You need a gun because of men like me."

Call me a jerk, but if you want to keep your guns, these are the conversations we all need to start having.

(Formatted and edited for clarity – ed)

Here in my home state of New Hampshire, the Democrat gun-grabbers have been writing and passing legislation to make buying and owning guns very difficult. What's ironic is that New Hampshire is a constitutional carry state, has a high percentage of gun owners, has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, and doesn't suffer from mass shootings and wholesale slaughter seen in places like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and a whole host of other blue state cities with highly restrictive gun laws. Our 'compassionate' legislators are incapable of seeing that they are trying to impose solutions for problems that do not exist. Our only hope is that our governor, a Republican, will veto all of the legislation and preserve our Right to Keep and Bear Arms under our state constitution. It is far more detailed than the US Constitution's Second Amendment and more restrictive of government's power over the right of our citizens to own and carry guns.

Only time will tell if these legislators will succeed or if our citizens will finally tell them to “Sod off, Swampy!”

Renewables Aren't Going To Save Us

We've been hearing for some time now how the only answer to save the planet was to switch all of our electricity over to renewables, ditching coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. Most of those making such claims obviously haven't done the math, haven't figured out that it is impossible for all of our energy needs to be met with renewables unless they are willing to allow widespread ecological damage that will be required in order to realize the 'dream' of renewable energy. An example I used in one of the Disqus comment threads laid out the problem, running a rough calculation of what it would take to replace a single nuclear power plant, specifically the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in Seabrook, NH with solar.

Seabrook is a 1300MW plant. The grounds take up about a square mile of land on the New Hampshire seacoast. A 1KW solar panel is about 18 square feet in area. It would take 1,300,000 panels to equal the output of Seabrook. But that would only be the instantaneous output.

To provide the equivalent of a Seabrook 24 hours a day, 7 days a week would require many times that number, assuming that sufficient power storage capability existed. For the purposes of this exercise we will assume that it is close to the equinox, so there would be 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness. We can assume that maximum effective generation takes place for about 4 hours every day, but to be overly generous, we'll assume 6 hours. To provide enough power for 24 hours you would need 4 times as many solar panels since you'll need to generate a full 24 hours worth of electricity in only 6 hours, with one-fourth for immediate use and the other three-fourths being stored for use later in the day when there is little or no sunlight. So that increases the number of panels needed by a factor of 4 which brings the total needed to 5,200,000. But wait, there's more!

You also have to take into account that it isn't always sunny during daylight hours, so there will be a less than 100% sunlight available during the 6 peak hours. Again, we'll be generous and assume that any deficit will be only 30%. That means there will need to be 30% more panels to make up the deficit. That takes us to 6,760,000 panels. There are still a lot of other factors that would need to be taken into account, but I'd need a bigger blog to address even a few of them, so we'll go with the 6,760,000 panels for the rest of our calculations.

Since each panel is 18 square feet in size, that means the total area of the solar array will be 121,680,000 square feet in size. That equates to 4.36 square miles, and that assumes all of the panels are built with no gaps between panels. Since that isn't practical, it's more likely that there will need to be space between rows of panels to allow for maintenance, rain and snow run off, as well as thermal expansion. So let us assume that there will be one panel's length between rows. That doubles the area covered to 8.72 square miles. So in order to replace a Seabrook, we'll need almost 9 times the land area, and that's assuming almost ideal conditions. Seeing as we are almost halfway between the equator and the North Pole, the useful amount of sunlight available to the solar arrays will be less than what I've calculated here. The area needed to provide adequate electricity equivalent to the Seabrook nuclear power plant, at least during the winter months, is likely to be double of what I've already calculated, meaning 17.44 square miles. Now multiply that by the number of Seabrook power plant equivalents – nuclear, coal, and natural gas plants, and you'll see the problem.

There's also the matter of severe weather that can damage or destroy large portions of the solar arrays.

Then there's wind, something I've always found intriguing, but also troubling considering the large amounts of land they require, the documented health problems associated with them, and their deleterious effect on birds and bats.

Keep in mind that my calculations above are merely back-of-the-envelope estimations. I know I've left out a number of factors that can affect the numbers. But when the We-Can-Replace-All-Of-Our-Energy-Needs-With-Renewable-Energy believers choose to ignore major factors, including the vastly increased demand for electricity that is supposed to replace fossil fuels, I have to get my three cents worth in. (Where do they think all of the electricity needed to charge all of those wonderful electric vehicles is going to come from?)

Then there's this:


'Nuff said.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Our first hint of spring weather – two days of temperatures in the 50’s and 60’s – has ended and we’re back into more winter-like temperatures. The colder temps will slow the melting of ice and snow, reducing the possibilities of ice dams and flooding in the area.

The ski areas in New Hampshire have reported that business was up this year with the weather cooperating by providing more than sufficient snowfall throughout the ski season. While there were no big storms dumping feet of snow, the series of small storms with snowfall totals between 3 and 8 inches gave us more than enough snow to keep ski conditions perfect throughout the season. Our local ski area will be closing on April 7th, a bit earlier than some of the other areas in the state. Since it is a three-season resort they close earlier in order to start making preparations for the summer season.

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

It didn’t take long for the clueless Progressives to lay blame for the mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand on both Donald Trump and Chelsea Clinton. (I never thought I’d use those names together in the same sentence because of their identical experiences.)

First, Alexandria Occasional-Cortex blames Trump and the NRA for the actions of the racist Maoist-leaning Australian. Then Chelsea Clinton is accosted for her condemnation of anti-Semitism which her pro-Palestinian accoster equated to Islamophobia, and hence the cause of the shooting in New Zealand. (No, I don’t understand that logic chain either, but then a lot of Progressives don’t really ‘do’ logic, they do ‘feelz’ and programmed talking points. No thought required...or tolerated.)

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

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern figures she knows how to prevent another such shooting: ban all semi-automatic rifles.

The problem?

While the guns used by the shooter were legally purchased, they were illegally modified. This goes to a problem that many in government always choose to ignore, that being if someone really wants a firearm, there are always ways to get them, legal or not. If the shooter in this case hadn’t had access to legal firearms he could modify, he could have gotten them through illegal means. Most gun control laws apply to law-abiding citizens, not criminals. Criminals don’t care about the law and won’t be cowed by such laws.

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

Is CNN doomed?

Yes. Yes it is.

Keep in mind that a lot of its viewership is captive audiences at airports. That is not a formula for continued survival.

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

It seems that one effect of the Trump economy is that the number of job openings is greater than the people available to fill them. But don’t worry, the Democrats have a plan to fix that problem and reverse the dynamic, returning us to the bad old days of the Obama economy – high unemployment, low economic growth, high taxes, and business-killing regulations.

But don’t worry, the Democrats will find some way of telling you you’ll be better off with the loss of jobs and confiscatory taxes.

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

Are things falling apart in France? If what’s been going on in Paris is an indicator, it’s quite possible.

The Yellow Vest protests are again growing in size and the violence that goes with them is growing as well. When President Macron is only paying lip service to the issues that have fueled the protests did he really expect the protests and protesters to go away? That the protests have also spread to a few other countries within the EU is also telling anyone paying attention that the EU is in trouble.

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

If the Democrats can’t beat Trump at the ballot box, they’ll do what they can to keep him off the ballot entirely by making it a requirement for presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns. While a federal law is unlikely to ever make it through Congress and past a presidential veto, that hasn’t stopped the Democrats in two states from trying do just that.

Donald Trump didn’t release his taxes. He refused to bow to liberal media pressure. Yet, for New Jersey, they’re advancing legislation to keep any presidential candidate off their ballot if he or she didn’t release their tax returns. In Washington State, they’re trying to do the same thing last week.

I’m not sure the legislation passes the smell test. Can states force candidates to divulge private information like tax returns as a qualifier for being allowed to run for public office? Is it constitutional? How far will the Dems take it? Will they require disclosure of phone records, text messages, and e-mails next? What about sexual history? How far with these butt-munches go in order to disqualify their opponents from running against their candidates?

One has to remember that the Progressives are all about power. They may use the language of democracy, free speech, privacy, and civil rights, but they are not in favor of any of those things. Their actions prove that want unrestricted power over the populace and will do anything to get it. We’ve already seen their street thugs, Antifa, use violence to intimidate or silence their opponents. Now making sure that only people they approve of can run in elections is another indicator of what they plan to do.

One has to remember that the first president to reveal their tax returns was Richard Nixon. There is no law or requirement for presidential candidates to reveal their tax returns. None. Nor should there be. All a tax return will do is allow the Democrats to point out every trivial ‘deviation’ as some kind of indicator of high level corruption even though those deviations are no different from those of millions of other taxpayers.

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

If we need another justification of why we need to get our southern border under control, look no further than the latest outrage by way of MS-13. In this case MS-13 gang members stabbed a teen over 100 times and then set their victim on fire.

These are the type of immigrants congressional Democrats are ‘protecting’ with their opposition to tightening border security and extending the border wall. Even though the victim was affiliated with MS-13, that doesn’t give the Democrats a pass on stopping the flood of illegal immigrants crossing the border.

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

If you need another indicator that spring is closing in, I just secured my boat slip for another boating season and have put in a repair order for work to be done on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, before it goes back into the water in May. It doesn’t need a lot of work, just routine maintenance (oil change and tune-up) and changing the bar and ring anodes on the stern drive.

Hopefully The Boat will be back in the water by the second weekend in May.

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

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where spring is just around the corner, the snow and ice are melting away, and thoughts of warm days out on the lake are starting to intrude.