Thoughts On A Sunday

Just when we thought we might catch a break in regards to the weather, my hopes are dashed.

BeezleBub and I have spent time every day since Wednesday cleaning up after the snowstorm and we're still not done. If all of the precipitation had been snow we wouldn't have been having so much trouble. But with the sleet that came in towards the end of the storm, which then changed over to freezing rain and rain, we ended up with heavy sodden and frozen snow. It's required a lot of backbreaking work to clear it all away, making sure to make room for future snowfalls as well as ensure that melt water or rain won't work its way under roof shingle or siding.

The weather forecast says we have another bout with snow to sleet to rain coming tonight.

Sometimes you just can't catch a break.

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We're not the only ones dealing with this endless cycle of one snowfall after another.

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It appears the Battle of Berkeley goes to the pro-military protesters merely due to the calm and reasoned protests and support they gave the USMC. The Left, on the other hand, showed how out of touch and deluded so many of them have become.

While many on both sides of the issue of the USMC Recruiting Office have complained the Berkeley Police Department showed favoritism to the other side, it is apparent they handled things properly, not giving either side any excuse to escalate things and clamping down on any misbehavior.

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The housing market is still in the dumps, with sales off as much as 26% as compared to a year ago. The sub-prime/ARM debacle is still nowhere near over, with a large number of them heading for foreclosure as interest rates reset. Too many unethical lenders abetted by buyers with too little understanding of what they were getting themselves into led to this problem. Many buyers probably figured they could always sell their homes if they ever got into trouble, not foreseeing the hot real estate market would cool off, leaving them with no way to unload their homes and avoid foreclosure.

Another problem adding pain to many homeowners is some mortgage service companies lack of service, in many cases putting homeowners into default even though they've never missed a payment. The number of consumer complaints about mortgage service companies has been climbing rapidly as too many homeowners have had their homes and credit ratings put into jeopardy by the incompetence of these companies.

About the only part of the real estate market still performing well is for second homes (vacation homes). The sales pace of second homes never reached that of primary homes, with many of them on the market for six months to a year before they sold. That hasn't changed. For the most part second home sales aren't time sensitive, with sellers willing to wait to get their asking price. But the second home market is a small fraction of total homes sales, having little effect on the overall sales figures.

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Despite claims by certain Presidential candidates to the contrary, Americans have never had it so good.

Are there still problems with poverty in America? Certainly. But with few exceptions, the level of poverty in America would be considered middle class or wealthy in a lot of other developed or developing countries.

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Is modern liberalism a form of mental illness? There may be a case to made for it.

“The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,” he says. “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”

'Nuff said.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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It figures.

It seems that every winter we suffer the breakdown of one appliance or another. Last winter it was our refrigerator. The winter before that it was our clothes drier. This winter it's the washing machine. Apparently the water pump that drains the tub has failed, meaning we had to pull out a load of sodden clothes and take them over to the WP Parent's to run them through a spin, rinse, and spin cycle. Then it was back to The Manse to pop the now wrung out clothes into the drier.

The WP Mom offered to wash and dry the rest of our clothes, so we won't have to worry about running out of clean clothes before the washing machine is repaired.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter seems endless, the snow banks do nothing but get higher, and the woodpile is getting smaller all too quickly.