Thoughts On A Sunday

While yesterday provided weather we haven't seen in a while – a bright and sunny day – we didn't have as much as an opportunity to enjoy it as we might have.

I checked out the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout to make sure there was no damage caused by the series of thunderstorms that have ravaged the Lakes Region in New Hampshire the past few days. Heavy downpours dropping two or three inches of rain in less than half an hour caused flash flooding in a number of areas, and killing a 7-year old girl at a campground owned by friends of our family. Roads were washed out and tourist areas damaged, including the boardwalk and train tracks at Weirs Beach, one of the more popular summer destinations on the lake. We've had so much rain that we've already had more rainfall than is normal for the entire year.

The spring-like weather pattern given us sun in the mornings and showers and heavy thunderstorms in the afternoons and evenings. It's made for poor boating conditions for the WP family as most of our boating is usually done after work during the week and weekend and on Mondays (the only day off all three of us have off in common). We've managed a small portion of the boating we'd planned for the summer, all due to the weird weather pattern we've been experiencing for almost 2 months.

We had a sunny morning today, but by noon the thunderstorms and heavy downpours swept through the area. Some of the precipitation here at The Manse included pea-sized hail. We experienced a second round later in the afternoon.

So far the summer weather has been a real bummer.

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Is Russia's invasion of Georgia the start of an effort to rebuild the old Soviet empire? Or was the decision to do that based purely on being able to maintain an energy monopoly in Europe?

Either way, it appears the bad old days of the Cold War may return...with a vengeance.

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Speaking of the invasion of Russia, the responses of the two putative Presidential candidates illustrate one of the major differences between them. McCain's response sounded like something I would expect of a president, while Obama's was a “vapid statement that would ingratiate him with the State Department while not requiring any distraction from his Hawaii vacation.”

John Hindraker concludes his post with something with which I cannot disagree:

It is often said that Obama is not ready to be President, but I don't think this is exactly right. It seems pretty obvious that Obama, given his temperament, his self-regard, his blithe ignorance of history and of the material conditions of life on this planet, will never be ready to be President. He is not unready: he is unsuited for, and inadequate to, the office.

'Nuff said.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Dr. Helen comments about an article claiming men in Scandinavia are being feminized against their will and the fallout from those efforts.

As interesting as her post is, it is the comments where the real action takes place.

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Professor Bainbridge reports on further collateral damage from the incompetence of the Prince George County police department and their raid on the residence of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He also makes mention of the fact that the same kinds of mistaken raids on homes of those with black or brown skin are vastly under-reported by the media.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Soulmaster Isaac Hayes has died.

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Jay Tea, one of my favorite Wizbangians, gets into the definition of Orwellian, its relation to Obama, the Democrats, and efforts by leftist activists to silence dissent from the Right through intimidation and outright lies.

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The Jerusalem Post has a positive article about John McCain, character, honor, and humility...and how other Presidential candidates have little of what McCain in spades.

Is this a partisan piece? You betcha. So what?

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We've been watching the Olympics in Beijing. It's been a long time since I've had much interest in the Olympics, but this time around I've been watching whenever I can. Part of it may be the incredibly good coverage provided by NBC, some of the best I've seen in years. The rest might be explained by the location of this summer's Olympiad and the high quality of the competitors this time around.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is stuck in a spring pattern, flash flooding is a daily worry, and where we're still waiting to get back out on the lake.