Thoughts On A Sunday

I can't believe I've made it this far. I figured I'd be long dead and buried by now. But somehow I have survived to the ripe old age of 50 (which is, of course, the new 30). One of the WP sisters has told me she isn't going to allow me to be 50. Instead, I will be celebrating the 10^th anniversary of my 40^th birthday. It isn't so much me she's doing this but rather herself. She's only two years behind me and is dreading the idea of entering her fifth decade.

Chill out, Sis. It ain't that bad.

Of course, it turns out that the lovely missus conspired to get a photo of yours truly back when I was a young tyke over to the folks at Accidental Verbosity, where they are playing up my having reached the Big Five-Oh.

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Deb at Right Truth has an interesting analysis about the motivations of Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and Islamofascist Pinheads in general in regards to Israel and the double standard being applied.

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Raven thinks that too many parents are doing too much for their kids, creating a generation that will be incapable of doing anything for themselves.

She may be right.

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Thomas Sowell has some thoughts about pacifists and 'peace movements' and how they've caused more wars than they've stopped. More than one commenter to Sowell's piece has warned about not confusing a cease fire with peace. They are two entirely different things, something many of the peace movements fail to understand.

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It looks like a break in the weather, with drier air now above us for the next day or two. That means the A/C will be off and the main deck off the back of The Manse will be comfortable enough to use.

We're also hoping to get out on to the lake sometime after work tomorrow.

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Matt posts an interesting illustration showing the differences between Israeli soldiers and Hamas/Hezbollah guerrillas.

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Outside The Beltway opines that the DNC is front-loading the primary/caucuses schedule so much that by 2016 they'll begin sometime in 2015.

It seems the DNC hasn't learned the lesson of the 2004 campaign: front-loading hurt the Democratic Party in so many ways, one of them being that their nominee ended up being John Kerry, a candidate with deep pockets rather than a coherent message. Front-loading gives the advantage to those campaigns with a lot of funds to burn and places those candidates with much smaller funds but better ideas and messages at a major disadvantage. By compressing the schedule, campaigning is reduced to sound bites and campaign ads while “pressing the flesh”, i.e. retail campaigning, falls by the wayside. This means that many otherwise viable candidates won't be heard.

Let's hope that the RNC won't make that mistake and will resist front-loading the primaries and caucuses, even if it means running a separate schedule that does not coincide with that of the Democrat's. By actually getting out and meeting the people one-on-one, the GOP can one-up the Dems and show that they are more in touch with the American voting public.

Over the past ten years it seems that no matter what they do, the DNC come up with more interesting ways of shooting itself in the foot. Repeating the front-loading fiasco, but to a higher degree, is just another shot into an already bleeding foot.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where drier weather has arrived, so has the dumber/ruder boaters, and where I still plan to spend as much time out on the lake as is possible.