Thoughts On A Sunday

It's been raining for two straight days here at Lake Winnipesaukee, with two different storm systems dumping rain from the Atlantic well inland. Even though there have been flood warnings in this area, we haven't seen any of the type experienced in August.

But rainy weekends let us be a bit less productive without the guilt. After all, it isn't easy to do things like mow the lawn or weed the garden or rake leaves when it's raining.

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If you thought it was the Republicans at fault for not reforming or reining in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, think again. Instead, it was the Democrats doing their darnedest back in 2004 to make sure they failed this year. But you won't hear about that from the MSM.

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Charles Martin refutes yet another lie being told about Sarah Palin, this one about being able to see Russia from Alaska. But it turns out she's absolutely right.

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The link above also makes a case for Palin's experience, or non-experience, with foreign policy. (Scroll down) As Beldar points out:

1. No job fully prepares anyone for the foreign policy and national defense responsibilities that attend the office of POTUS because no job shares more than a fraction of those responsibilities — including jobs like "Secretary of State" or "Secretary of Defense" or "U.S. Senator."

2. No new occupant of the office of POTUS has to undertake those responsibilities alone. Each is surrounded by advisers, including career professionals from the State and Defense Departments. In particular, any vice presidents who is suddenly elevated to the presidency is surrounded by advisers originally selected by their immediate predecessor, which would mean in the case of a hypothetical ascension by Sarah Palin to the presidency, advisers chosen by John McCain. As a former naval aviator and, then, commander of the Navy's largest air wing, and as a long-time senator with oversight responsibilities, active participation on the Senate Foreign Affairs committee, and — extraordinarily even for Senators — direct involvement in international negotiations (as when he led the United States' efforts to negotiate the resumption of diplomatic relations with the same regime that once tortured him as a POW) — John McCain's own foreign affairs and national defense credentials are among the most impressive held by anyone ever to run for president.

Anyone in the Democratic Party want to try again?

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The New England Patriots have a bye week this week, so we won't be seeing them play again until next weekend.

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If you want a snapshot of housing issues around the US, point your browser to the Housing Bubble Blog. It covers foreclosure stats, real estate pricing, and housing demand from sources all over the country. If nothing else it's a good place to find out what's really happening with the housing market.

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Granite Grok tells us why the bullseye should be on politicians and not on capitalism in regards to the mortgage and banking meltdown.

I'd say Skip is dead on with this one.

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I've seen this trend developing over the last few years: more homes without wireline phones.

A number of my younger friends and acquaintances gave up wired phones (also called landlines) and use cell phones exclusively. For those people that move regularly (every couple of years or so) eschewing landline phones makes sense. With a cell phone you never have to change your phone number no matter where you live. It can make staying in touch a lot easier.

This move to cell phones has affected the landline usage, with the number of residential landlines dropping. Some of the drop can be attributed to cell phones, while the rest may be because of the wider use of VoIP, whether it's something like Vonage, Skype, or cable MSO's offering digital phone service.

We changed over the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Manse from landline to VoIP a couple of months ago, the main reason being the cost differential. Our full service landline from FairPoint Communications (before that, Verizon) was costing us about $70 per month. That same service costs us less than $40 per month from our cable provider. We could have gone to Vonage, which costs about $25 a month, but they aren't local and with our cable MSO we can get same day/next day service for problems.

Most businesses will remain wired, using either traditional landline or VoIP services becauae they don't follow the same patterns as residential users, remaining in one place for long periods of time.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains have returned, Hurricane Kyle has missed us, and where Monday has returned all too soon.