Friday Funny - Philosophy

I will admit to being an occasional adherent to this Greek philosopher.

Twenty One Years Ago Today

It really doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago.

It was 21 years ago today that the first posts of this blog were made, my dear brother making the first post at 11:15 in the morning followed by a second post at 3:03 that afternoon. I followed later that day at 7:39PM with my own first post to Weekend Pundit.

The blogosphere was never the same.

Weekend Pundit was hosted on three different platforms over the years, starting on Blogger, moving over to the now defunct Blogmosis (Thanks, Matt and Vicky!), then hosted by the folks at GraniteGrok, and finally returning to Blogger.

For the longest time it was just my brother and I, posting almost daily despite our blog’s name. We had a number of other contributors over the years, some proffering guest posts occasionally, and others contributing on a regular basis now and then. Then it was back to my brother and I. Then a few years later my brother was busy with a second blog he started with Dean Esmay as a means of writing a novel – Methuselah’s Daughter – leaving me as the sole author.

Ironically, around the same time another Weekend Pundit blog appeared, authored by a fellow from Texas. There were a number of times we cross-posted to each other’s blogs as The Other Weekend Pundit, but a few years later that blog went dark.

As time went on I didn’t post every day because life intruded and I didn’t have nearly the time to devote to blogging, so relegated posting to weekends – Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays - much as this blog’s title implied. The occasional during-the-week posts were made if something of import took place, but for the most part I limit posting to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Looking over the stats from the three different hosts, it turns out that we posted well over 6,000 posts, have seen over 1,000,000 visits (close to 1.2 million), and have seen a few Instalanches.

How long will this blog continue? I have no idea. Frankly, I haven’t thought about. I have had a few offers to move my efforts over to a very well known blog, and I do contribute to it every now and then in an indirect manner, but this one is mine and after 21 years it would be difficult to abandon it. One thing I might try is to entice my dear brother to start posting again, even if only on an occasional basis.

For the time being this blog will continue and I will offer my thoughts, some humor, and maybe a thoughtful insight or two. Who knows, maybe I’ll write a post for the 42^nd anniversary of this blog.

Blog On, dudes!!

D-Day - 79 Years Later

The largest military operation in human history carried out by men of the Greatest Generation.

I saw this quote that said it best, which certainly applies to those who made the ultimate sacrifice during Operation Overlord:

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died, rather we should thank God that such men lived.”– General George S. Patton

Amen to that.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We had mid-summer-like weather over the Memorial Day weekend and the week that followed, but that changed over this weekend as daytime temps plummeted from the upper 80’s and low 90’s to the lower and mid-50’s. We also went from sunny skies to clouds and rain showers. It’s supposed to ‘warm up’ into the mid-60’s through the coming week. We might see 70’s and sunny skies come next weekend, something that will be good since it is the opening weekend of the 100th Laconia Motorcycle Week up here in New Hampshire. (Oh, and despite a news report that the 100th Laconia Motorcycle Week would last 100 days to celebrate the 100th anniversary, it isn’t true...even though it sounds true.)

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Here’s one thing Anheuser-Busch wishes would go away: A new term that adequately describes consumer boycotts aimed at corporations that “that cater to various ‘woke’ causes, particularly transgender issues,” that term being “Bud Lighting”.

The term derives from the spectacular implosion of Bud Light in the wake of their decision in March to enlist transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the brand. Bud Light’s sales have plummeted, averaging weekly declines of about 25 percent. Parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev has lost more than $15 billion in value. Sales of rival brands have soared, even as many retailers have slashed prices for Bud Light. Some stores are even giving Bud Light away for free—or trying to.

I am very skeptical that the Bud Light example can be replicated over the long haul, but I’m convinced that we are entering a new era of Bud Lighting on the right and left.

First, some background. The most remarkable thing about the Bud Light boycott is that it worked, because boycotts usually don’t—if your definition of success is actually affecting sales and stock price in a significant way.

I remember Gillette’s misstep with its ad campaign pushing a ‘woke’ view of toxic masculinity, insulting a majority of their customer base, leading to a loss of over $8 billion in sales and about $5.24 billion in valuation in a single quarter.

This was one of the first examples of boycotts against ‘woke’ corporations having a measurable effect. The people are sick and tired of agendas being rammed down their throats that they see as sick and degenerate. Boycotting these same businesses is one way to make them realize they are vulnerable.

Another corporation that’s made the mistake of going ‘woke’, angering their customer base and motivating them to take their money and go elsewhere – Disney. They’re losing billions in revenues, have angered Florida’s governor and legislature to the point where they removed Disney’s special tax district, all while trying pushing the LGBTQWERTY agenda in their movies, TV shows, and theme parks. Did they honestly think there wouldn’t be consequences from kowtowing to a small percentage of their customer base and slapping their main customer base in the face?

“Bud Lighting” appears to be a growing phenomenon, one that may be able to humble the ‘woke’, if not make them duck for cover.

Will Six Flags be the next corporation to learn the power of Bud Lighting?

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this from Stacy McCain:

Chicago Group Hired Gangsters to Be ‘Peacekeepers’ and It’s Working Out Just About the Way You Might Expect

Hiring foxes to guard the henhouse doesn’t make sense. The reasoning used to justify hiring these foxes seems seems logical...on the surface. But once you dig deeper you realize it’s a just so much mumbo-jumbo and won’t have the effect proponents say it will.

In 2016, with money from Steve Jobs’ widow, [Arne] Duncan started a group called Chicago CRED (Create Real Economic Destiny). Duncan has said that Chicago CRED “proceeds from the belief that the surest way to stop gun violence is engaging directly with those most at risk of shooting or being shot and giving them a reason to put down their guns.”

--snip--

So they’re paying people not to shoot each other, and hey, it’s a “comprehensive approach,” which explains the excellent results!

Those “excellent results” meant a rise in murders to over 700 per year. It also led to the murder of one of those working to reduce violent crime in Chicago.

A man who worked to stop gun violence was killed Wednesday in a shooting outside a community outreach center. Chicago police said they are looking for two people involved.

Police said 28-year-old Ronnie Roper was in a South Side parking lot at about 12:16 p.m. when two people walked up and shot him in the head.

The shooting occurred just outside Chicago CRED’s outreach center in the Roseland neighborhood. The victim was a member of that group that works to stop gun violence. . . .

Irony writ large.

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Oh, noes! It looks like the world is going to end in nineteen eighteen seventeen days!

So says Saint Greta The Green…

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Now that the latest round of “If we don’t allow the Feddle Gummint go deeper in debt Grandma won’t get her Social Security check next month” drama has been mostly concluded, we have to ask the question why this keeps happening.

Why does our government think it can keep spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need? I know the gazillions of bureaucrats think their particular bureaucracy is vital to the nation’s continued survival/operation/existence when anyone outside the Beltway knows that it is the opposite that’s true.

Do we really need the Department of Education? No. As best I can tell it serves no useful purpose.

Do we need an overbearing EPA that seems to have no problems creating administrative laws that conflict with federal law and the Constitution? Maybe in a severely trimmed back form.

I can keep going on, asking about federal agencies and departments and whether or not they are necessary to the efficient running of our government, but this post would be hundreds of pages long...and I would getting angrier with each one I listed.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather has fled for now, Motorcycle Week starts next Saturday, and where the hated Monday once again intrudes on yet another weekend.

Going Too Far?

It’s one thing when we tip servers at a restaurant. Considering their low base pay, tipping makes sense. The better the service, the better the tip. But automatic tipping at grocery stores when a customer uses self-service check-out? What the heck is that all about?

First, big box stores like Wal-Mart introduced self-service checkout stands. You know — the ones where we shoppers begrudgingly do the jobs of the stores for free while under intense electronic and in-person surveillance and all without so much as a discount or meaningful human interaction? Well, now — thanks to the Biden economy — the newest trend at restaurants and stores with self-service checkouts is to coerce and guilt consumers into adding unearned tips to their total.

I don’t know about you, Dear Reader, but I grew up in an era when tipping was in direct proportion to the quality of a service rendered. Better service was rewarded with a better tip, but the service component had to be there. Not so today. When did the simple act of buying a product become a service? And it’s especially baffling when a shopper goes to the store, finds and removes the item from the shelf, takes it to the checkout, scans, and bags the item all on his own. Where exactly is the service in that transaction? There isn’t any, and yet a tip is still expected?

One has to ask “What’s next?” Forced tipping at the gas pumps? What about convenience stores? Online purchases? Vending machines?

Where does it end?

I wonder if this should be filed under “Just when I thought they couldn’t get any stupider…”?

Friday Funny - Salad

Ah, yes! A perfect salad!

Thoughts On A Sunday

There’s no doubt the ‘official’ summer season has started. Traffic coming into New Hampshire has been heavy since Thursday evening. Grocery stores have been seeing a higher than usual number of customer visits since Wednesday, at least according to some of the cashiers I talked to yesterday morning. Local traffic was very heavy most of the day yesterday, particularly at our town’s public boat ramps and docks. The line of vehicles hauling boats to the ramps for launching stretched out between the road to the ramps and the nearby state highway. This is nothing unusual as we see this almost every Memorial Day weekend.

The local restaurants were much busier than they were last weekend, not that it surprises anyone. It will be like this until after Labor Day. Then and only then will we get our restaurants back. At least the seasonal restaurants are now open to help take up some of the load.

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As if we need any more proof the Greens hate us, there’s this example (by way of Instapundit) via the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) covering the side effects of Green policies on our electrical supply.

One of the incredibly stupid and avoidable side effects is New York’s actions which will ensure blackouts.

One state that hasn’t learned from California’s green-energy folly is New York. A new state regulation will force 627 megawatts of gas and oil “peaker” plants—which can rapidly ramp up to provide power in a pinch—to shut down this year. That’s enough to power 470,000 homes. This year’s state budget requires the New York Power Authority to retire all peaker plants by 2030. New York plans to compensate by building more offshore wind farms, but they face permitting challenges and don’t provide reliable power.

One does not replace peaker plants used to fill the capacity gap when demand spikes with wind turbines. Wind turbines won’t fill the role of peaker plants for a number of reason, the two biggest being wind is not dispatchable and is not stable.

Wind doesn’t work when there is no wind blowing, so how will wind farms be able to take up the load when there’s no wind?

Power output can vary from moment to moment as wind speed varies and wind direction changes. It takes time to adjust wind turbines to compensate for the changes in speed and direction which can add to grid instability.

Then there’s Texas, an energy ‘giant’ state suffering from the nonsensical Green policies.

Texas last summer narrowly averted a power outage by leaning on businesses to curtail operations. The state has since added enough solar to power about 200,000 homes. But demand has grown by even more, and the sun doesn’t shine at night. NERC forecasts a 19% probability of a grid emergency at 8 p.m. Do Texans feel lucky?

Power plants are being shut down and, in general, being replaced by nothing...just as the Greens want.

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Speaking of Greens, they are why we can’t have infrastructure.

California’s high-speed electric train has burned through nearly $10 billion, far more than its original $9 billion bond, without building a single mile of track.

Where did that money go?

$1.3 billion was spent on environmental impact clearances.

--snip--

Every time presidents make a pitch for an infrastructure bill, they visit the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River for a photo op.

“Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge,” Obama declared with his back to the bridge. “Help us rebuild America.

After Obama, Trump came to the bridge, and more recently Biden claimed that his infrastructure bill, which spent nearly three quarters of a billion on electric cars, and little on infrastructure, would finally fix the bridge. Over $10 million has been spent on environmental impact studies going back 18 years to explain why nothing much was being done about the bridge.

--snip--

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, $5 million was needed to fund an environmental impact study to build a new bridge, another $5 million to consider building a bridge in Mission, Texas. The current status of that bridge is unclear. After wasting millions and years on environmental impact studies, projects often never move forward due to changing finances or circumstances.

The endless environmental studies drain massive amounts of taxpayer money. For example, the Yeager Airport in Central West Virginia needed a $5.6 million grant for its environmental impact study. And the sheer scale of taxpayer money stolen by the green industry is not being tracked.

Millions, if not billions of dollars spent on endless environmental studies that never seem to come to any conclusions, or worse, end up requiring further “study” which costs more millions/billions. In the mean time needed infrastructure is stalled, in some cases cause far more environmental degradation that the new infrastructure would have reduced or eliminated. The same is true of much needed electrical infrastructure, particularly in light of the need to double or triple both the average and peak capacity in order to support all the EVs the Greens have been ramming down our throats.

Yet we’ll still spend billions of taxpayer dollars on even more environmental studies that will resolve nothing, no infrastructure will be built, or if it eventually is, it will cost many times the original project cost, and will not meet the needs it was originally designed to meet.

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Just when I thought MSNBC couldn’t sink any lower, they prove me wrong.

Their latest bit of journalistic malpractice?

Demanding Republicans denounce a story that doesn’t exist.

The latest bit of fake news to come out of Florida was that teenager Amanda Gorman’s 2020 Inauguration poem was banned from a school library when the reality was it was moved to the middle school section for “vocabulary” reasons. Not that MSNBC Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace cared. She teamed up with twice failed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee and election denier Stacey Abrams and PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton on Friday to decry the fact that Republicans have not denounced a story that doesn’t exist.

During their conversation, Wallace mourned to Abrams, “But to take a poet and a poem that should be held up across partisan lines and demonize the piece itself and the creator of it, I mean understand from reporting this week it was one parent that complained, but I have not seen one Republican defend Amanda Gorman or her poem.”

Then they had perpetual sore loser Stacy Abrams comment on the story that wasn’t a story which just made things worse.

So much for journalistic integrity. But then, what did we expect from a morally bankrupt and ethically deficient ‘news’ organization?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the summer season has started, the Greens are in hiding (for now), and where preparations for Memorial Day continue unabated.

Target Doubles Down On Stupid

Just when I thought Target couldn’t get any stupider after their ‘Pride’ products debacle which seemed to push a Trans agenda, something that has already cost the retail chain over $9 billion in sales and valuation, there comes this news about Target doubling down:

Target Donates To Group That Promotes Secret Child Gender Transitions, LGBTQ Books In Schools.

Really? It’s bad enough the corporate leadership has decided to “Get Woke”. Now they are trying hard to “Go Broke” due to an even stupider move.

Target has repeatedly boasted about efforts to support the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, also known as GLSEN, an entity which helps teachers place LGBTQ books in school libraries and hide their students’ so-called gender transitions from parents.

Conservatives have launched a boycott against Target after the retail behemoth marketed a female swimsuit as “tuck-friendly” and with “extra crotch coverage,” as well as hired an artist who creates Satanic items to make various designs for the company. Links between the company and GLSEN, which supports “affirming learning environments for LGBTQ youth” and activates “supportive educators,” resurfaced amid the backlash against Target.

The retail behemoth boasted last year about donating more than $2.1 million to GLSEN over the past decade, lauding the group’s mission to create “affirming, accessible, and antiracist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students.” Target also actively promotes GLSEN on its online store.

Target has no issues with interfering with parents’ rights and pushing an LGBTQ agenda in schools, yet they think there will be no repercussions for doing so?

The entire board of directors and C-level executives need to be fired.

Friday (Kinda Scary) Funny - Arnold Bueller's Day Off

This video has been making the rounds and I found it both funny and intriguing.



This is a so-called 'Deep Fake' where the face of the original actor, Matthew Broderick, was replaced with an appropriately aged Arnold Schwarzenegger. While the voice was done by the video creator, the impression was very good.

I have seen some deep fakes that were also able to recreate the voice of the person being 'faked'. This is both neat - I'm a tech geek and like stuff like this - and scary at the same time. Being able to create convincing videos of anyone saying anything means it would be easy to destroy reputations and end careers - political or otherwise - something that should scare everyone.

Thoughts On A Sunday

This week’s TOAS got a late start as I spent a good portion of the day working on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, basically cleaning it up, loading the gear – cushions, PFDs, transom light, spotlight, mooring lines, fenders, air pump (for the 3-person tube), fire extinguisher, charts, Marine radio, and so on – and getting the new registration stickers on the bow.

I wish I could say the boat was perfectly clean but it needed a lot more cleaning than I expected, meaning I still haven’t finished it. I had hoped to have the boat in the water before this, but between other folks having better use for my time and a heavier than usual workload, I wasn’t able to get the prep work done in a timely fashion. That the boat needed a lot more cleaning than I expected also set me back. I’m hoping to get the boat launched later this week, well before the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend.

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Most of the summer businesses have reopened, mostly for weekends until after Memorial Day. One of our favorite seasonal restaurants has been open for the past few weekends though they have only been serving ice cream. The rest of the restaurant doesn’t open until Memorial Day weekend.

I certainly expect the boat ramps will be busy all weekend as a lot of summerfolk will be putting their boats in the water for the summer. Our restaurants, even the year-round establishments, will be busy until after Labor Day when we’ll get ‘our’ restaurants back.

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It seems that yet another corporation is learning the “Get work. Go broke,” lesson Anheuser-Busch recently learned the hard way. This time it’s retailer Target.

Target is already facing boycotts for selling "tuck-friendly" bathing suits and LGBTQ onesies for babies. Now it has been revealed that Target is selling LGBTQ Pride products from a designer that appears to promote violence, drug use, and Satanism.

Target sells three items by the brand Abprallen – a "We Belong Everywhere" messenger bag, a 'Too Queer For Here" messenger bag, and a "Cure Transphobia, Not Trans People" shirt. The LGBTQ items are available on the Target website and in its stores.

It seems Target is already starting to feel the heat and if it follows the path A-B did I expect we’ll see retail sales be affected as the 90%+ of their customer base decides they no longer want to do business with a company that supports more radical Trans agenda, grooming, violence, with Satanism thrown in for good measure.

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This seems to be a repeating headline in one form or another.

Is San Francisco Doomed?

I added my two cents worth in last Sunday’s TOAS post, but it seems the question about San Francisco’s accelerating decline won’t go away.

What makes this decline tragic isn’t something from outside the city. Instead it has been self-inflicted by the city’s government, the same government the people of San Francisco keep electing.

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Speaking of San Francisco - well, really the Bay Area - it looks like California jurisprudence has yet again been set aside by a woke DA who decided a “Person of Color” convicted of setting students on fire at UC Berkeley should be not be punished and released him.

A man who was found guilty of lighting UC Berkeley students on fire at a boba shop near the Cal campus in 2020 has been released from custody without prison time or probation after agreeing to participate in a diversion program for veterans, court records show.

In late April, according to records reviewed by The Berkeley Scanner, Brandon McGlone was convicted of multiple felonies in connection with the boba shop attack as well as felony assault and gun charges from a separate domestic violence case.

The resolution to the case was the result of a plea deal between the Alameda County district attorney’s office and the public defender’s office.

As a result of the deal, McGlone was referred to Veterans Treatment Court, according to Alameda County Superior Court records.

If he completes that program, Judge James Cramer said during the April 28 hearing, the cases against McGlone “would be dismissed.”

So a guy with a series of violent crimes to his name including trying to set people on fire is going into treatment. If he can control himself long enough he gets to walk. I’m betting he doesn’t make it though and will eventually kill someone.

The DA is not exactly held in high esteem, particularly by members of the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. Two veteran prosecutors have recently resigned from their positions because of the DA’s overly woke approach to law enforcement.

Law enforcement and the justice system in California is being dismantled and the Progressives running things are cheering this from the sidelines.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summerfolk are being seen in increasing numbers, preparations for Memorial Day continue, and where Monday is already knocking on the door.