Thoughts On A Sunday

There was never any doubt the January Thaw wouldn't last much more than a week, and the weather forecast for Monday bears that out.

A Nor'easter is forecast to start sometime early in the morning with snowfall totals in this part of New Hampshire expected to be between 5 and 12 inches. Because we live at a higher elevation we tend to get a little more snow than those living down by the lake, I'm expecting closer to 14 inches here at The Manse. The only question is, will the schools close for the day or will they shorten their day as the storm intensifies? Only time will tell.

Welcome back, winter!

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We are still suffering the aftermath of the New Hampshire Primary, feeling wrung out after the non-stop campaigning, the barrage of TV and radio ads, and the endless polls being taken or talked about by the so-called pundits. It was exhausting. At least we've got a break from all of this until October, when the national campaigns will kick into high gear.

Then once we get past the national election in November we can count on a break until...umm...two or three days after the election until the campaign for the 2012 nomination starts.

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Speaking of the New Hampshire Primary, our friends over at GraniteGrok/Meet The New Press had some visitors during their radio show yesterday.

Doug and Skip had a crew of film makers filming their radio show as part of a documentary about how the new media has a big effect on presidential campaigns.

Very cool.

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Bogie had one of those “What the hell was that noise?” moments the other night.

I can say I sympathize with her plight as BeezleBub and I had a similar experience the other evening while we were stacking our latest pile of firewood.

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Bruce gets on Boston mayor Menino's case when it comes to health care.

Apparently Hizzoner believes that only the government should be allowed to provide health care and that for-profit walk-in clinics should be banned. Just because most of these walk-in clinics can provide basic health care faster and cheaper than government run clinics (think Boston City Hospital) is no reason to allow them. After all, they'll be making a profit! Hizzoner can't allow that! It would be against his liberal beliefs that the private sector are nothing by greedy, money-grubbing exploiters of the poor. Never mind that they can do it cheaper and faster than the government.

Sheesh!

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The New England Patriots managed to squelch the Jacksonville Jaguars' Super Bowl ambitions by beating them 31-20 last night in Foxborough, Massachusetts. The Patriots managed to score on all but two possessions, one of them being a missed field goal attempt.

The Patriots will be playing San Diego next weekend.

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BeezleBub and I managed to finish stacking the firewood Deb ordered last week. The only downside to this job was collecting and cleaning up of the bits and pieces of wood that are useful only for kindling. There's a lot of kindling, so much so that we had to pile it and cover it outside the garage in order to protect it from the upcoming snowstorm. We have no other place to put it for the time being.

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John Stossel continues his interview with Ron Paul. The topic: prostitution, drugs, and gay marriage.

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The Times in the UK seems to think that the US is on the brink of financial ruin, with an oncoming recession that will drive the race for the White House. To read Liam Halligan's article you'd think we were going into a recession to rival that of the great Depression.

One cynical commenter made the claim that this recession will be worse than the one in the 1990's because “its not just GM or Ford on the ropes, its the banking sector.” How soon they forget.

During the 90's recession lots of banks failed, particularly because many of them held non-performing mortgages. The housing market tanked as a consequence of the deepening recession. Too many people were upside down on their mortgages, then lost their jobs. Once the banks foreclosed on their mortgages they held billions in property they couldn't dispose of, forcing many of them into receivership. Ford, GM, and Chrysler weren't in trouble the way the banking industry was back then.

This time around the banks are not the ones at risk. It's the investment houses. Banks are not the ones holding sub-prime mortgages. They aren't the ones holding a large number of adjustable rate mortgages. They learned their lessons from the 1990's recession and were careful about mortgage lending. The investment houses, on the other hand, saw an opportunity to develop new income paths. They gambled on the housing market. They lost.

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Many on the Left in the US have been pushing multiculturalism as a cure all for all our problems. However practical application of multiculturalism in the UK has proven to be a dismal failure, with some long time residents feeling like unwelcome aliens in their own towns.

Immigrants have failed to assimilate, creating cultural enclaves where residents speak nothing but their native languages, maintaining their native customs, and in some cases ignoring the laws of the UK in favor of the laws/customs of their native lands. It is always a recipe for disaster.

Yet this is something the Left here thinks would be just dandy.

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As the deadline for complying with the federal Real ID Act approaches, opposition to it has been growing. One major opponent is Senator John E. Sununu (R – NH), who believes the Act has civil rights problems and represents a $4 billion unfunded mandate for the states. He hes filed legislation to repeal the Act.

Seventeen states, including New Hampshire, have already voted to not implement Real ID because of the civil rights implications, the costs or implementation, or both.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is returning, the firewood has been stacked, and where I still don't need a federally sanctioned ID in order to board a plane.