Thoughts On A Sunday

BeezleBub and I made the rounds to a number of open houses held by some of the marinas here on Lake Winnipesaukee. While everyone was talking enthusiastically about the upcoming boating season, quite often I'd see them looking nervously at the ice still covering the lake.

Between the late snow storms and colder than normal temperatures, the ice is not receding at a normal pace. If anything, some of it is reforming. The snow on top of the existing ice is insulating it, keeping any melting to a minimum.

Even though many marinas allow those renting their slips to launch their boats as of May 1^st, it could be that many won't be able to because there may still be ice in the slips.

Want to tell me about global warming again?

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Megan McArdle wonders whether we have artificially created 'adolescence', keeping young people stuck in childhood and causing a host of problems in the process. A number of those commenting expanded on her thoughts, agreeing that we have created an incompetent 'underclass' that cuts across all social, racial, and economic lines.

I have seen examples of that far too often. One example of someone not falling into the adolescent category is BeezleBub. I can take absolutely no credit for that at all as I have only been a part of his life for the past three years. Instead, it was his mom and grandparents that had such a large influence on his life and not his peers.

Deb keeps saying he was born 40 years old. He disdains the childish behavior of his peers in school and gravitates towards adults in social interactions.

(H/T Instapundit)

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We had the chance to try out steaming audio from Meet The New Press during yesterday's radio broadcast. I was fortunate enough to be one of the five beta testers for the feed, giving feedback for adjusting the volume level and so on. It is so much better than the noisy low power AM broadcast. Let's hope that this will lead to wider listenership! It is conservative talk radio at it's best...but then I'm biased when it come to this show.

It also helped that Hugh Hewitt was a guest on the program and will be talking about both GraniteGrok and Meet The New Press.

In fact. Here's some audio of Hugh Hewitt commenting upon Meet The New Press and the melding of grassroots conservative radio and streaming technology and how it is bypassing the old media, giving the average citizen a voice they didn't have before.

Can “Shlubcam” be all that far behind?

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And speaking of conservative talk radio, a Union Leader (Manchester, NH) editorial says that the Imus brouhaha may be merely the forerunner of the Left's efforts to silence the conservative voice.

How did this offensive but comparatively tame comment get a major radio host pulled from the air? Fellow syndicated radio host Neal Boortz has a theory.

Boortz thinks that the Left has finally figured out how to bring down talk radio: accuse the hosts of racism. Unable to compete with talk radio, the Left has opted to play thought police. Racial prejudice is the last free speech taboo in America. Peg a broadcaster as racist, and you can bring him down.

It makes sense considering that liberal talk radio has failed so miserably (Air America anyone?)

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Something that I've done in the past will be coming back soon – The Paugus Diner Poll^©. As we get closer to the presidential caucuses and primaries the poll will start asking the hard questions. But this time it will cover a wider part of central New Hampshire. After talking it over with the guys at GraniteGrok, they have agreed to join me in order to expand the poll to cover a number of local diners in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.

As always, the polls we run will not in any way, shape, or form be scientific in nature. The questions asked are not carefully worded to elicit a preplanned outcome like so many of the 'professional' pollsters. We're just going to ask people's opinions about stuff.

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Fred Thompson writes about taxes and how Presidents Bush, Reagan, Kennedy and Coolidge lowered the tax rates, which always increased the revenues collected. It's a shame that the lesson must be taught again and again and again.

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The Nor'easter bearing down on New England is going to be a nasty one, particularly in light of the heavy precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, or all three) and the high winds expected to accompany it.

Personally I'm hoping that most of it will be rain...but the Weather Guys™ are saying that central New Hampshire will be getting 5” to 10” of snow before it changes over.

It's a good thing that I filled the gas can for the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower, hopefully for the last time this year.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the storage covers are still on the boats, the lake is still frozen over, and where winter refuses to leave.