Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a beautiful weekend up here at the lake. Warm temps, low humidity, and just enough of a breeze to keep thinks comfortable. It certainly made it easier for the folks who attended last night’s concert at out local venue. Both Styx and Chicago performed last night, the latest acts from the Before We Get Too Old Or Die tour.

The weekend traffic here has been quite heavy, more than I recall from last year. I have also noticed that air traffic at our local airport (which happens to be right next door to our local concert venue) has also been quite heavy. I haven’t seen that many business jets parked on the airport’s itinerant ramp that I can recall. I know the FBO’s at the airport are selling a lot more Jet A fuel than they ever have. (It also helps that our airport has the lowest Jet A prices in New Hampshire.)

The WP Mom and I made a trip to out local Dairy Queen to avail ourselves of their Blizzards. I prefer the Oreo Blizzard and she prefers a Butterfinger Blizzard. This we do a number of times during the season, visiting all of the local ice cream establishments and sampling their wares...for quality control, of course.

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Why doesn’t any of this surprise me in the least?

It seems that a lot of conspiracy theorists who delved into the Covid fauxdemic were right, and that Fauci had a lot more to do with it and that he knew his ‘recommendations’ were absolute BS.

How much unnecessary suffering and economic disruption can be laid at the feet of Fauci, the CDC, etc. forcing us to take precautions they knew were worthless?

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Tell us something that we don’t already know>

It’s Hollywood’s fault that Hollywood is dying and the proposed merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers has nothing to do with it.

Far from “thriving,” theaters sold roughly 770 million tickets last year — down 37% from 2019 and less than half the 1.57 billion sold at the 2002 peak. The share of adults who see a movie at least monthly has fallen by more than half. Receipts hold up only because the average ticket now runs north of $13. Charging ever more to ever fewer people is not a thriving business; it is a shrinking one, repriced. And moviegoers will tell you why they stopped coming: nearly 2 in 5 adults who attend less often say there is simply not a good enough variety of new films worth the trip.

Count me among those who think movies are not good enough anymore. The last movies I saw in a movie theater were Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Yesterday (2019), and Downton Abbey (2019). I haven’t set foot in a movie theater for almost 7 years. These days I tend to stream them even if I have to wait for a few months before I can do so. It’s cheaper. I also already know if it’s a decent movie. Refreshments are cheaper (and abundant), and I can pause it any time I want to to either get more snacks or go to the bathroom. I don’t have to worry about loudmouths or people who are incapable of putting their damn phones away which can spoil my enjoyment of a movie.

I think Hollywood as we have known it is doomed, if not already dead. More production has been taking place well outside California because the producers don’t have to answer to the self-important ‘wokerati’ who have worked so hard to make movies unwatchable.

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It appears the ‘wokerati’ are also busy in Washington D.C., specifically at the Smithsonian Institute where they are trying very hard to ‘Erase our Founders and Reinvent American History’. After all, if they don’t there’s no way the Communists presently masquerading as Progressives and Democratic Socialists can take over and turn the US into a new version of the USSR.

The Smithsonian is supposed to be a place where America’s history is celebrated and taught. It is not a place where history is censored, reshaped, reinvented, and our Founders vilified and erased. But that is what has been happening over the last few years.

“At a time when the soul of our country is being tested, our Talking About Race portal will help individuals and communities foster constructive conversations and much-needed dialogue about one of our nation’s most challenging topics: racism and its corrosive impact,” the museum began in a July 15, 2020, Twitter thread. “As an institution devoted to learning and education, we welcome those discussions while also encouraging the public to take a holistic approach and read the information in its full context,” it concluded.

Yes, that was at the same time riots over fentanyl-riddled criminal George Floyd and his 4 funerals were taking place. Democrats were kneeling and evidently the Smithsonian museums were working behind the scenes to redesign American history into their favored DEI woke narratives, which includes an inability to define what a woman is.

If they want to destroy America, first they have to destroy our Founders, paint them as criminals, judge them against 21st Century ‘sensibilities’ which is designed to reduce their stature, if not their eliminate them entirely.

The Smithsonian needs to be revamped, purging the ‘wokerati’ who have absolutely no intention of preserving our history.

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You know that judges are getting uppity and are ignoring the law when they decide they do not have to abide by the Constitution or US Supreme Court decisions because they consider themselves The Law In And Of Themselves. The latest example of that is a Biden appointed federal judge who ignored a Supreme Court ruling regarding Temporary Protected Status terminations.

A Biden-appointed judge completely ignored the Supreme Court ruling from last month which affirmed that the law does not allow for judicial review of these TPS terminations, and blocked DHS trying to end TPS for Ethiopian nationals.

This is the same judge who left ICE agents stranded in Africa last year when he blocked a plane of criminal illegals from being deported to South Sudan.

--snip--

The Supreme court ruled, in the case of Syrian and Haitian nationals, that neither were “entitled to orders postponing the terminations during litigation” because “The TPS statute bars judicial review of non-constitutional claims.”

[U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts] will most certainly be overruled on appeal.

I have to wonder if he’s a buddy of Judge Boasberg who likes to order aircraft in international airspace to land in the U.S.?

It’s time to let these rogue judges know that they must follow the law, the Constitution, and the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, or be kicked out for violating of their oaths and judicial malfeasance. They cannot create laws by fiat just because they don’t like something.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been awesome as has the ice cream, much needed rain will be moving in starting Tuesday, and where Monday should be called “The Day That Shall Not Be Named”.

Small Town Doings

It was one of those small town America things that took place in my home town today.

There was nothing political about it, though there was talk about politics now and then.

It wasn’t something that made news headlines, nor can I think of why something like this would.

What is this “thing” I keep talking about?

Island Cleanup Day.

Every year our town sets aside one Saturday in July so folks from the islands on Lake Winnipesaukee that happen to be in our town can bring junk and stuff to our town docks so our DPW can dispose of it for them.

Items they bring include pieces of lumber left over from a demolition/renovations, an old charcoal or gas grill, old doors and windows, furniture that is either broken or of no more use, box springs and mattresses, bits and pieces of concrete or old bags of concrete mix that have solidified, old kayaks, jon boats, canoes, paddle boards, and even sailboats. (One islander brought in an old small catamaran sailboat, towing it behind his 26 foot runabout.) Sometimes it’s boxes of books, old TVs and radios, water heaters, sump pumps or well pumps, old pipes – both cast iron and copper, electrical cable (including old BX armored cable), and pieces of decking or from their docks. There have also been old lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers.

This year the most common item we saw were old slider doors. Dozens of them. Why? I haven’t a clue.

Last year is was storm doors. The year before that it was old windows of the double-hung sash type.

Folks from the DPW as well as volunteers (like me) help unload the islanders’ boats and get the junk to the appropriate 30-yard dumpster or dump truck or trailer for proper disposal.

People get to hob nob, get to know the islanders and the DPW crew and volunteers. It’s something I’ve been volunteering for for over 10 years now and I intend to keep doing so for as long as I can.

I have to say that it was a perfect day for this event as it was sunny with temps in the upper 70’s/lower 80’s, low humidity and a slight breeze. I was glad to see the islanders made the best of this year’s Island Cleanup Day.

While not a town-wide event, it did show a little bit of small town America that so many of us yearn for.

Friday Funny - Hot Flashes

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a gorgeous weekend up here at the lake. Warm, not too humid, a little rain on and off yesterday, and most of the Canadian wildfire smoke diminishing yesterday and gone today. It has been quite breezy, starting sometime early this morning. I really have no complaints weatherwise.

There was another artist from the “Before We Get Too Old Or Die” tour who played at our local venue, that being Bob Dylan. I have no idea how it went or how many people attended. I can say with confidence that it is highly unlikely anyone got arrested at the concert for being too rowdy considering the age of the audience.

I can say that summer is definitely in full swing up this way and so far I am liking it. Yes, the traffic is heavy and the restaurants and attractions are busy, but it doesn’t seem quite as frenetic as I have seen over the past few summers. I wish I could say the same thing about the boat traffic out on the lake as it seems there are more than the usual number of Cap’n Boneheads out there on the weekends. It’s a price we pay for living up here.

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I am generally pretty careful with my money. I’m not a Scrooge, but I try not to spend money without a lot of thought going into any purchases and so on.

One of the things I have done to help protect myself is freezing my credit reports, meaning anyone wanting a copy of my credit report from the three credit bureaus – Equifax, Experian, and Transunion – will be rejected because of that freeze. I did that some years ago because of some suspicious activity reported to me by those bureaus. I unfreeze it if I need to allow someone to pull a credit report, something I needed to do recently.

Have you ever put something away in a safe place and then forget where that safe place was? That happened to me, specifically when it came to my login name and password for access to my accounts on those three bureaus. It took a few days of looking before I found them.

You may ask why I had them written down rather than saving them using one of the password managers. There’s two reasons: 1.) I don’t trust them as they are storing the logins and passwords electronically. 2.) If I have a computer meltdown I may not be able to recover them. (I have experienced this already as I had a major computer meltdown a few years ago which is why all of this is stored on a piece of paper, handwritten, and stored “someplace safe”.)

Take this lesson for whatever you will, but that’s why I never save or create a login and password list electronically. I want them fully airgapped. Hence pen and paper. Sometimes old school works best.

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I have no doubt the number they are reporting is too low.

250,000 Non-citizens Found Too Be Registered To Vote In Four States.

Considering just how lax some states are when it comes to registering eligible voters, it wouldn’t surprise me if millions of ineligible people are registered to vote here in the US.

From Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin comes this:

"We've identified 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote in just four states… We also worked with proactive states to identify 28,000 noncitizens on their voter rolls, PLUS 400,000 individuals that are still registered to vote that are deceased."

Well, we know most dead voters vote for Democrats, a time-honored tradition in Illinois, specifically in the city of Chicago. How many times have we seen lawsuits by the Democrat Party or their mouthpieces to stop the purge of deceased voters from voter rolls? I’ve stopped counting.

It isn’t just non-citizens I have problems with voting, it’s non-residents. My home state – New Hampshire – allows non-resident college students to register to vote here which can (and has) affected elections in this state more than once. It is a loophole in state law that still needs to be addressed by our state legislature despite claims by Democrats that it would violate the students’ right to vote. Changing the law here wouldn’t prevent them from voting, it would just mean they couldn’t vote here. They will still be able to vote in their home state via absentee ballot.

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The debate continues about the US remaining on Daylight Saving Time year round. Some are for it (like me). Some are against it. Some just want to stop having to change clocks twice a year and spend a week or two after the change dealing with the effects.

There's a bill sitting in Congress right now that could end the twice-yearly ritual of changing the clocks and keep us on daylight saving time. The strangest thing about it is that Democrats and Republicans actually agree on something. I’m almost shocked that Democrats haven’t come out to say that not changing clocks is racist or transphobic or something. But the bill passed with strong bipartisan support, the White House is on board, and after years of talking about this, it may actually happen.

But first it has to make it through the Senate and I don’t have much hope there. I figure someone there will make the point in the quote above that not changing the clocks is “racist” or is a “display of white supremacy” or misogynist or fattening or something.

As I have stated elsewhere, I am in favor of it because I live on the extreme eastern edge of the Eastern Time Zone. If you look at a Time Zone map for North America you will see that the Eastern Time Zone in the US is the widest one in the Lower 48 states, with New England being at the extreme eastern edge. I would rather see some sunlight later in the afternoon during the depths of winter rather than starting work in the dark and ending my work day in the dark. Folks at the western edge of the time zone would probably want to remain on Standard Time year round. Those in the middle of the time zone are probably of two minds about it.

One commenter brought up one of the arguments against the time change:

Us geezers may remember when the government tried permanent daylight savings time during the early 1970s energy crisis. Kids going to school in the dark did not work.

Another countered it with this:

Except it does in the northern latitudes both here and in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.

School districts can adjust their class schedules if the parents want them to.

I think that last was something that was overlooked when President Nixon order DST to remain in place all year as an energy saving measure. There wasn’t enough planning or thought put into the temporary measure. I can see pushing back the start and ending times for school, particularly for the elementary school children. In the depths of winter we do have some kids having to catch the bus in the dark and we haven’t seen any issues with that. Why would it be any different if we stayed on DST year round, at least up this way?

Both my state and neighboring Maine have talked about making the change to DST year round or switching to the Atlantic Time Zone and remaining in Standard Time year round. I do know that if we stated on Eastern Standard Time year round we’d be seeing sunrise at around 4AM during the summer. Thanks, but no thanks.

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If anything, I think he’s underestimating the figure>

RFK Jr.: Medicaid Theft Costs $100 Billion a Year

Add into that SNAP fraud, CHiP fraud, Social Security fraud, and a few others and we’re probably talking closer to $500 billion a year.

We already know about the billion or so tax dollars being lost to non-existent child-care and “Learing Centers”.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is nice again, the summerfolk are spending their money, and where the prospect of Monday’s return doesn’t seem quite as awful as usual.

They Regret Visiting Anerica...

I have found it entertaining to watch the reactions of World Cup fans here in the US finding out that everything they’ve been told about America isn’t true. I covered this to some extent almost two weeks ago, putting up some videos showing European and Aussie World Cup tourists discovering all kinds of things about America. Many are heard apologizing to the US for believing their media’s portrayal of the US being negative to an extreme. The reality hasn’t even come close to matching the hatchet job sold to these folks.

A lot of those World Cup tourists have since returned home to Europe and are finding out that they miss America and the things they experienced here and wish that they had back home.



I can certainly understand their reactions after having been in the US for a few weeks. I know I missed the “conveniences” when I was in the UK and a few other European countries. There are more than a few ‘regulars’ I see on YT that talk about making the move from the UK to the US, and two are in the process of house-hunting in Tennessee after visiting and touring America for a few years now.

One thing I have heard more than a few of the World Cup tourists say is that the World Cup in 2028 should also be held in the US. So many of them were amazed at the stadiums and their amenities. (They really liked the air-conditioned stadiums considering the temperatures and humidity were much much higher than what they are used to.)

I have to wonder if the discoveries made by the World Cup tourists will stimulate increased tourism to the US going forward? More than a few of them have already said they’d be back to see more of America because they want to discover even more about the country they didn’t have time for during their first visit. The only regrets they have expressed about visiting America is that they wish they had come earlier and that they had to go back home.

Friday Funny - Wife Priorities

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather up here at the lake has been delightful this weekend, with temps in low 80’s and relatively low humidity. That’s meant the A/C wasn’t used, the windows were open, and it’s been comfortable all weekend. The Weather Guys^TM are saying we’ll likely be back into the hot and humid weather starting on Tuesday, but it is summer, after all.

The summer crowds are here without a doubt. Both our town beach and the beach at the state park down the road from the town beach have been busy, with parking lots full before noon. Lots of boats out on the lake. (It’s one reason I prefer to use the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout during the week – less Cap’n Boneheads out on the lake!)

Our favorite ice cream stand has been busy as well, and not just during the weekend.

Concerts at our local venue continue, with the latest one from the Before We Get Too Old Or Die tour being The Guess Who this past Friday and Bob Dylan playing there next Saturday night. Sarah McLachlan, she of In The Arms Of An Angel fame is playing there tonight, though she is not part of the Before We Get Too Old tour.

I will be at BeezleBub’s late this afternoon to help him christen his new grill, though my help will mostly consist of staying out of his way. That works for me!

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I heard early this morning that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) passed away last night.

He was a quiet powerhouse and came through when the Democrats were holding a “sham hearing against Brett Kavanaugh” and rallied the troops to fight back against the witch hunt and saved Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

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When I first heard this story I can honestly say it didn’t surprise me in the least.

That Gay Cruise Ship Denied Entry Into Turkey? Egypt Just Said “No” Too.

It amazes me that ‘woke’ and ‘enlightened’ folks from here assume their sensibilities and beliefs carry weight in foreign countries. Then they’re dismayed, shocked, or pissed off when they find out that isn’t true.

What were they thinking, scheduling a gay cruise to visit Muslim countries? It’s not that Egypt or Turkey is exactly a craphole—both have been centers of civilization at times, and neither is crushingly poor in the way that Conan O’Brien’s and Anderson Cooper’s favorite vacation destination, Haiti, is.

I wonder of they’ll learn the lesson...this time? My guess is no.

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It seems the EU is doing everything it can to make sure that it fails and will be a financial basket-case. Increasingly harsh environmental regulations that make it increasingly difficult to run a business in the EU or to do business in the EU aren’t helping things. (I have to deal with those growing environmental regulations at work and they are taking up an increasing percentage of my time with little to show for it.) But one of the things I think is really going to hurt the EU is their push for deep “financial surveillance” by approving the creation of a digital Euro.

Europe has just taken a major step toward creating the digital euro, a project that could soon open the door to leaving Europeans’ financial freedom at the mercy of Brussels.

On Thursday, July 9th, the European Parliament’s plenary adopted a text on the creation of the EU’s own CBDC (central bank digital currency), sending the file to the final stage of interinstitutional negotiations before the digital euro’s planned issuance from January 2029.

That could mean that every single financial transaction will be open to scrutiny by Brussels, be it something as simple as paying for a morning espresso or closing a multimillion Euro business deal and everything in between.

Since the details are still a bit sketchy, I have to wonder if that means they will phase out actual physical money and all transactions will be electronic? If so, I can see a number of problems such an all electronic form of currency transactions will create. One of the biggest being that if the electronic exchange fails due to buggy code, hacker activity, or something as simple as a power outage, everyone depending on it will be poor because they won’t be able to access their money. It will in effect all be locked away in a digital vault that can not be opened. You can’t tell me that won’t affect people if/when it happens.

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Could it be that the folks who have been telling us that a 200ppm increase in atmospheric CO₂ would cause up to a 0.5ºC increase in the average global temperatures have been wrong all this time? According the some of the latest environmental lab research, it may be that climate sensitivity to CO₂ is nowhere what has been claimed.

New lab experiment research shows that the addition of 100,000 ppm (10%) CO2 – a volume orders of magnitude greater than today’s 425 ppm (0.0425%) – leads to a temperature change of about 1.0°C.

--snip--

“With an initial temperature of the earth plate of +30°C, a temperature increase of 1.0°C can be observed after adding [100,000 ppm] CO2.”

But this CO2-induced (or Ar or HCG) temperature change (~1.0°C) is accomplished when assessing only radiation heat transfer effects and excluding the effects of convection. In the real world, heat is not transferred solely via radiation. In fact, convection, not radiation, dominates the heat transfer process here at the surface and throughout the lower troposphere.

So when convection is included as a contributing factor in these lab experiments (see also Wagoner et al., 2010 or Seim and Olsen, 2020), the temperature effect of adding 10% CO2 is reduced to just 0.1°C. This temperature change is so negligible that it is effectively below the resolution of the measurement sensors.

Is what they are saying is that previous estimates of the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide ignored convection and focused entirely on radiation? If that is indeed the case, then the climate cult faithful have some explaining to do...and a lot of money to return.

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And that is the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is now in full swing, the ice cream stands are busy, and where even Mondays don’t seem all that bad...for now.

Iran Cannot Be Trusted

Once again I have been hearing that Iran can’t seem to keep its promises about the Straits of Hormuz, with the IRGC firing on cargo ships transiting the straits. The US Navy then retaliates, taking out military targets along the Iranian coast, some of those targets being locations from which the IRGC launched their strikes.

As I have mentioned more than once, either the Iranian government is lying when they say they will abide by the ceasefire arrangements or the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) is ignoring the government because various factions within the government are still fighting over who’s in power.

It still comes down to we really don’t know who is “running the show” in Iran, so making any kind of deal with whoever claims to be in charge is a crapshoot at best, and so far we haven’t seen any real ‘ceasefire’ at all. And then of course Iran fires at a number of the Persian Gulf Arab countries, tryibng to rack up as much destruction and civilian casualties as it can. Basically the strikes are terrorists attacks. Not that it’s surprising considering Iran has been a huge supporter of Islamic terror groups since 1979.

My biggest concern is that Iran will overstep which will mean the US military will pull off the kid gloves and go all in, hitting not just military targets but going after all of Iran’s infrastructure like the electrical grid, water supplies, refineries, bridges, highways, factories, and so on. We have been trying not to go that route because we know Iranian civilians with no connection to the mullahs, Basij, or IRGC will suffer. They are as much victims of the Iranian government and IRGC as anyone in the Persian Gulf states. But if the “mad mullahs” and the IRGC escalate, we may have no choice.

And once again, I am going to remind you that we have been in a de facto state of war with Iran since 1979 when they invaded the US embassy in Tehran which is considered an act of war.

Let us hope we won’t have to go that far.

Friday Funny - A Happy Relationship Will Ruin Your Life

Thoughts On A Sunday

The Fourth of July fireworks started Friday night, with some towns having them Friday night and others last night. One of my neighbors who lives on the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee had his own fireworks show Friday night which meant all I had to do was sit on a next door neighbor’s deck to watch the show. He’s been holding this show since the Bad Old Days of Covid and certainly all of the folks in this part of town have certainly appreciated it. While neither I or the WP Mom did much on Fourth, though we did partake of the Boston Pops Fourth of July concert on TV, something we’ve been watching on and off for years on those nights when we didn’t attend a fireworks celebration in person.

One thing that was nice was that Saturday wasn’t nowhere near as hot as the previous four days, being only in the mid 80’s, though the humidity was still a bit on the high side. Today was a little cooler but the humidity was down quite a bit. All in all, I have no complaints about the weather.

One the really hot days during this past week I managed to get most of my errands and chores taken care of during the morning hours before it got too hot. In a few cases that meant I was out and about a little after 6:30am and back at The Gulch before 10am. (I took a couple days off from work to give me a five-day holiday weekend. Most of my vacation time is used to extend holiday weekends by a day or two.)

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Seen over at Powerline in it’s “The Week In Pictures” feature are these two gems:

“White Time”: Dutch professor argues that time itself is racist.

and

Expecting people to be on time is part of “white supremacy culture”, Duke Medical School proclaims.

Just when I thought the Left couldn’t get any crazier and/or deluded, they prove me wrong.

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I will admit that I haven’t seen the trailers for this movie, but after hearing review after review after review, I won’t be adding it to my “Must See” list...ever.

Woke Supergirl Movie Belly Flops In Movie Theaters

The semi-sequel to last year’s Superman stars Milly Alcock as the hard-partying Krypton cousin scrambling to find the antidote to her drugged dog Krypto.

Yes, that’s the film’s plot, and the dog in question was obviously CGI. That may partially explain the film’s tepid reception. This failure is far from an orphan, though.

Let’s start with the main character, a minor player in the DC Comics universe. Alcock, a relative unknown, introduced the character via a boozy cameo at the end of Superman.

Apparently it all goes downhill from there. It seems Hollywood still hasn’t gotten the message that people want to be entertained, not preached to. It has forgotten the lesson of the late 1960’s/mid 1970’s that ‘message movies’ do not sell and is not learning it today.

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I have enjoyed Rick Beato’s YouTube channel for years. He’s a musician, producer, and educator about all kinds of things musical. One of the first videos of his I watched was one of his regular features - What Made This Sing Great - with the first one I caught being about Boston’s More Than A Feeling. I’ve seen him do interviews with all kinds of musicians, songwriters, and producers about a wide range of musical topics. One of my favorites was with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, an out-of-this world guitarist and songwriter.

But the video I am writing about today is one that Rick posted a couple of days ago about AI and how too many people are using it to copy or rip off YouTube content creators.


I have to agree with Rick on this.

I have seen more than a few AI generated ‘talking head’ reports about one timely topic or subject or another. It’s one thing if they are labeled as being AI generated, but too many of them aren’t. As I have mentioned in a few other posts, all it takes is paying attention to head movements, eye blinks, and if their hands are visible, the hand movements as the AI speaks as they do not match what the AI is saying as far as cadence or tempo is concerned to determine if the talking head is AI generated.

Frankly, I find it annoying.

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The World Cup has been in the news for some time and I will admit I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to it once Scotland was eliminated. But one thing I have been paying attention to is the World Cup fans who have discovered America, finding out they’ve been lied to about it all these years. I have seen numerous YouTube videos from these fans who have come from all over the world, showing their shock and amazement about what they’re experienced here in the US, including experiencing America’s 250th birthday celebration on the Fourth.







This is but a small sampling of what’s out there on YouTube about foreign visitors discovering that America is not what their news media has been portraying.

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I have to agree with the following sentiment.

The ‘transgendered’ would find their lives far simpler if they’d stop trying to make their beliefs other people’s business

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Living on a rural farm, in a small, mostly rural county, in a very politically conservative state, I only rarely see the ‘transgendered.’ I saw one such gentleman pretending to be a lady, as a customer, in the Corto Lima restaurant in downtown Lexington several years ago, and another such gentleman working as a waiter in the now-several-years-closed Applebee’s on Bypass Road in Richmond. I thought such was humorous, because neither one came anywhere close to ‘passing’ as a real woman, but I had no interactions with either of them. They were doing what they wanted to do, in a manner which had no impact on me at all. Unlike the “Party’s” most essential command, I accepted the evidence of my eyes.

That, of course, was simple: these gentlemen who thought they were ladies weren’t trying to force me to accept them as ladies. The problem today as that so many of the ‘transgendered’ are attempting to compel the rest of us to accept their delusions.

And therein lies the problem. So many of them get in everyone’s faces about their transgenderism to the point where it is intrusive and annoying. That is not how one wins over the general population. Instead it tends to have just the opposite effect and it pisses people off. Then those same transgendered individuals claim they are being oppressed and vilified and that people don’t like them. They claim victimhood for being annoying a**hats.

Read The Whole Thing.

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I was wondering when someone was going to mention the following:

Europe’s Heat Wave Isn’t The Crisis — Energy Poverty Is

I admit I have had difficulty understanding Europe’s hatred of air conditioning, or more accurately, the various European governments’ hatred of air conditioning, particularly in light of the brutal heat wave they suffered last week. Knowing that some European countries’ electrical grids cannot handle the load due their conversion towards “Net Zero” systems, it really isn’t all that surprising, is it?

When temperatures elevate in Europe, political rhetoric rises even faster. Within days of the June 2026 heat wave, familiar voices rushed to assign blame. John Kerry, speaking to the BBC, labeled the current U.S. administration “dangerous and reckless” on climate.

U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell declared that “Europe’s savage heat wave has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it; it’s the latest price to pay for fossil fuel pollution baking our planet.”

This hyperbole has no scientific basis. The urgency of assertions that carbon dioxide (CO2) is overheating the atmosphere is never matched in reports about cold snaps that are at least as dangerous.

The imbalance reflects an apocalyptic narrative that prioritizes fear and ideology over nuance and evidence.

Seeing how many electrical grids no longer have the on-demand capacity to meet electrical demand should air conditioning be used, it certainly makes sense that the climate cultists would aim hatred and animosity towards air conditioning. It keeps them from having to answer the real question, that being “How come we don’t have the capacity to support such lifesaving equipment during heat waves?”

If they can lay blame on the US for those heatwaves it shifts focus away from the real issue. (I have to mention here that if the Euro-climate cultists want to blame carbon dioxide emissions for their heat wave problem, they should be focusing on China and not the US seeing as China has many times the carbon dioxide emissions of the US, Europe, and most of Asia. It doesn’t help that their emissions keep on climbing.)

Maybe Europe needs to get rid of the “Net Zero” nonsense and start building more nuclear. Their windmills aren’t going to be able to meet the demand, particularly when they aren’t running because there’s little or no wind.

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the heat and humidity have dropped, the A/C is turned off, and where once again Monday is coming to harsh or weekend mellow.