Thoughts On A Sunday

The two-and-a-half weeks of summer we've experienced came to an end yesterday, with cool temps and heavy rain that started early Saturday morning. At least today is supposed to be warm and sunny, meaning there's a possibility we might actually make it out onto the lake later today.

*********

This past week was BeezleBub's last full week of work at the farm for the season. From here on out he'll only be working on Saturdays until the farm closes its retail operation some time in November (the farm stand closes at the end of October, but the firewood business continues until November). He'll also work a few evenings at the farm's corn maze during October.

*********

The entire PC vs. Mac debate has been dragging on for some time now. The misconception about the differences between the two platforms has been that it's about the hardware, implying that PC hardware is somehow inferior to Mac hardware. But the debate is really about the differences between two operating systems, Windows versus MacIntosh OS-X.

Ironically, the both operating systems will work on PC and Mac hardware, showing it isn't the hardware.

I've been using Linux on some of the machines here at The Manse for some time now and haven't had any problems with the operating system. While still not quite as user friendly as either Windows or Mac OS-X, Linux has been a solid performer. It has never crashed. Unless there are updates to the Linux kernel, updates do not require system restarts, which is not true of Windows. (I don't know enough about OS-X other than it's UNIX-based to comment one way or the other on this issue.)

If nothing else, the PC vs. Mac ads are amusing.

(H/T Instapundit)

*********

Town Hall meetings around the nation are still contentious, as Congressman Rush Holt found out at the meeting he held in his district in New Jersey.

While Holt's meeting wasn't as restricted as Rep. Carol Shea-Porter's (D-NH) town hall meetings when it came to the number of people allowed in to the meeting, it was limited to a little over 230.

At least Holt's meeting wasn't packed with bused-in ObamaCare supporters as has happened at other town hall meetings.

*********

The Barrister makes the case for not sending a majority of high school grads to college, but sending them trade schools instead.

I've always believed far too many college students really don't belong there, spending time and money on courses of study that have little to do with actually getting a job after graduation. At the link in the Barrister's post is one quote that makes perfect sense to me:

One of my readers, Penny Alfonso, of Glendale, California, shared a conversation she had with her daughter. “I told her I won’t pay the tuition for any classes that end in the word “studies.”

Can anyone tell me what majors such as those mentioned above actually provide?

America will always need nurses, plumbers, carpenters, glaziers and mechanics. What nobody needs is some 21-year-old schnook who’s wasted four years and most of his inheritance majoring in black, Hispanic or lesbian, studies. And, then, to make matters worse, because like the Scarecrow of Oz, they have a sheepskin, they’re actually convinced they’re smarter than their parents.

I've run across that particular conceit on more than one occasion over the years. And over those years it's gotten worse. I've come across far too many college grads with a degree in hand and large student loan balances that don't really know anything.

To quote from Good Will Hunting, “You dropped 150 grand on an [effin'] education you could have gotten for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.”

*********

Let's hear it for liberal talk radio and their latest smear campaign: The Right is responsible for the deaths of JFK and RFK.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

*********

Gee, could it be global climate is influenced by solar radiation variations?

Who'd a thunk it?

*********

Why are Nancy Pelosi's lies about the CIA going unchallenged by the MSM?

Oh, that's right. The CIA is always evil, always wrong, and always at fault. My bad....

*********

The fallout from the failed Massachusetts cross-border tax grab is still being felt.

When the state, knowing it doesn't have the facts, nonetheless tries to tax you on "circumstantial evidence" and "presumption," how is that anything short of tyrannical?

Blessedly, even if Massachusetts changes its law to allow tax collections based on the "presumption" of in-state use, New Hampshire vendors are protected.

This summer legislators passed a law barring businesses from revealing customer information to other states that seek it for the purpose of collecting taxes. So Massachusetts might eventually be able to collect sales taxes in Maine or Connecticut, but not here.

Maybe it's time for sales tax free states to take the same measure as New Hampshire to protect their vendors from cross-border tax grabs as well.

If nothing else this whole thing has made for interesting theater.

*********

Barack Obama and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: two sides of the same coin?

*********

Dick Cheney lets us know what he thinks about Attorney General Eric Holder re-opening the investigation of the CIA.

*********

Rasmussen poll: 57% of registered voters want to replace the entire Congress.

Count me as one of them.

*********

Peter Foster had the audacity to voice his apostasy, saying he has doubts about the sainted AlGore's gospel of Anthropogenic Global Warming.

If one were to think of current candidates for the most disastrous of faux pas, surely none could be greater than “The Man Who Expressed Skepticism About Catastrophic Man-made Global Warming.” Not merely do mouths gape, but eyes roll at any dimwit’s failure to grasp that there is “consensus” on the issue. Indeed, to dissent is seen not merely as evidence of mental deficiency but moral turpitude.

I once attended a dinner party thrown by a corporate executive who — like his guests — was astonished at my apostasy, which was met by the requisite mime show of shock from other guests. The following day he e-mailed me a news item about melting Arctic ice. That, presumably, would put me straight.

Shocking! Shocking, I say!

*********

Rachel Lucas has a real sandbag story to tell. There's also a dirtbag involved, too.

At least this one has a happy ending.

*********

Megan McArdle links to an excellent piece about health care rationing.

One of the premises of this piece is that the amount of health care is finite, and that is true at any one particular point in time. However, the amount available isn't static. It can go up or down depending on a number of factors. But health care rationing has had one unforeseen effect in countries that have implemented it: even less care becomes available as health care workers bail out of their chosen profession. The work conditions change, usually for the worse, meaning the workers leave, and the quality of health care plummets as those experienced workers are replaced by inexperienced (and often less capable or competent) workers. All one needs to do is look at how hospital care has deteriorated in the UK to see how this has played out.

Is this something we really want to do to our populace?

*********

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive reports a US Navy helicopter was fired upon by Somali pirates. The copter did not return fire.

As Jimbo wrote:

Why the hell didn't the crew return fire? Why isn't this boat now an artificial reef? If it's crew is still on board as hostages, why aren't we rescuing them? Why do we allow these jackasses to get away with the s**t they are? What in the world is the point in having a Navy if we allow these clowns to openly operate a pirate mothership? WTF? Over.

I'm with Uncle Jimbo on this one.

*********

Neo-neocon writes about the Democrats' misconception about Republican recalcitrance in regards to health care reform, calling them 'obstructionist'. They see Republicans as unwilling to work on a bipartisan bill. However, the Democrats have a strange definition of bipartisan.

Neo writes:

Democratic Party leaders and Obama have an odd notion of legislative bipartisanship, however. The term used to mean the crafting of a bill with input from both sides and almost invariably involved concessions that would include the dropping of provisions either side found too extreme. But the new definition of bipartisanship seems to be: “We get to write a controversial bill exactly the way we want to, and you get to say ‘yes’ to it.”

I noticed this quite some time ago, though I didn't put it as politely as she did.

*********

Sultan Knish shows us that tolerance is vastly overrated and those demanding tolerance are the least tolerant people on the planet (usually politically correct morons).

...tolerance can be the product of mutual respect or cowardice. When there is no mutual respect from the other party, tolerance reveals itself as mere cowardice and appeasement. Why "tolerate" someone who refuses to tolerate you, unless you're afraid of them?

Unfortunately it appears the kind of tolerance being touted by the politically correct morons is that of cowardice. They don't care if those we're being told we must tolerate do not tolerate us or respect our ways in return.

Europe's Muslims started out being "tolerated" out of condescension. Today they are tolerated out of fear.

See how that's working for Europe? Not very well, is it?

*********

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been schizophrenic, the end of summer is closing in, and where school starts on Tuesday.