The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout also required cleaning off as the snow did build up on it far more than I had expected. It was necessary to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower to move all the snow removed from The Boat. That was also true of the snow removed from the garage and mudroom.
Just as it started snowing (again) I ran out of gas. (No, not the snowblower. Me.) After all, I'd been at it for over 5 hours – not including a 1 hour lunch break – and I moved a lot of snow. Some of that included shoveling off two of our three decks and cutting back the snow bank just outside the garage and at the end of the driveway. I'm still not done.
This morning was spent clearing off the 2” of snow/sleet that fell overnight. With temps in the upper 30's/lower 40's there was a lot of melting and I spent a good 2 hours scraping down the driveway and chopping now-thawing frozen snow and mushy ice and removing it from in front of the garage. I also had to cut a water channel for the melt water to drain away from the driveway, preventing it frm turning into one big field of ice once the temps fall below freezing tonight.
The last of the 'dangerous' snow was removed late this afternoon. BeezleBub had to shovel off the last of our three decks to gain access to the backside roof of the mudroom and garage, where the snow accumulation was greater than anything I removed yesterday.
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The trusty Ford F150 went through its annual state inspection yesterday.It failed.
Fortunately it passed the safety inspection with flying colors. Unfortunately it failed the OBD (On Board Diagnostics) emissions test.
The “Check Engine” light came on about a week ago. I figured I'd have it checked out when the F150 was inspected. Unfortunately the fault had something to do with emissions. Bill, my mechanic, checked the codes. He recalled there had been an issue with this particular fault, that being the ethanol in the gasoline sometimes tripping a false fault code. After checking a few of the Ford forums, he found this particular fault was quite common, and rather than delving deeper into the diagnostics, he reset the codes and told me if they didn't reappear after 100 miles or so to return to the shop and he'd sign off on the emissions.
Call this Reason #4792 for hating ethanol in gasoline.
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As if we need any more proof that zero tolerance policies are for idiots (specifically administrators) there's this little tidbit from the Volokh Conspiracy.Zero tolerance policies are nothing more than crutches for the lazy and the stupid. No one in authority wants to make a decision so they create policies that let them off the hook. Unfortunately such policies tend to hurt the innocent and do nothing to stop the truly dangerous kids in situations like this.
“Police charged the 7-year-old with possessing an imitation firearm in or on an education institution – a misdemeanor and a minor juvenile offense in New Jersey.” This “was a $5 toy gun, similar to a Nerf gun, that shoots soft ping pong type balls, according to the school’s superintendent”; the video attached to the story suggests the toy looks like a real gun, but it didn’t show the toy, so it’s hard to tell.
Why all the administrative measures the school system could take are insufficient, and the criminal law has to respond, is beyond me. Nothing in the story suggests that somehow the 7-year-old had, in past incidents, proved himself unwilling to respond to administrative measures: “School officials described the child as ‘a nice kid’ and ‘a good student.’”
(H/T Instapundit)
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Bogie is having the same problem we are here at The Manse: running out of places to put the snow.We aren't the only ones suffering from this problem. Quite a few towns and cities are also having to deal with towering mounds of snow, narrowing streets, and ever shrinking parking lots. Some have been removing the snow and dumping it in fields or unused lots, but even these measures have a limit.
Ironically, we haven't seen nearly as much snow as a couple of winters ago (we had 150” of snow fall here at The Manse that year), but with what storms we've had coming so often there has been little if any time for melting to occur in between. The sub-zero temps haven't helped the melting either.
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David Starr comments on the effort to pass Right-To-Work legislation here in New Hampshire. Needless to say the state employees union is against it, as are the other unions in the state.Frankly, I think it would do us a world of good, and that's speaking as someone who was a union member for 20 years (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). With RTW, it's more likely we'll see more industry come here to our state. Should RTW come to pass that would make New Hampshire the only state in the Northeast or the “Rust Belt”with RTW.
As a side note, most of the states with RTW have done better during the recession than the closed-shop states. Gee, I wonder why that would be?
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Speaking of unions, it appears union leaders aren't pleased about the DNC's decision to hold it's 2012 nomination convention in North Carolina, a Right-To-Work state.Maybe they got better rates for their convention because of the lower costs than someplace like Detroit or Chicago?
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Gee, could it be the unusually cold and snowy weather we've been experiencing is not the result of the Al Gore Effect or anthropogenic global warming? Instead, could it be the rapidly shifting position of Earth's magnetic poles?
Unless of course Al Gore can prove the pole shift is caused by anthropogenic global warming. (I have no doubt he'll make that claim sometime in the near future.)
(H/T Maggie's Farm)
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I like this one.Sarah Palin: Obama's “3AM phone call” went right to the answering machine.
Ouch!
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It appears Congress is attempting to deal with the EPA's non-existent regulatory powers over carbon dioxide emissions.It's about friggin' time.
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Some folks thought this day would never come. Others have been working hard to prevent it. What's this earth-shattering event that will affect everyone on the planet?The Internet has run out of IP addresses.
There's only one solution to this problem.
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Renewable energy isn't all it's cracked up to be. In the long run it requires substantial subsidies, destroys jobs, and doesn't produce the energy promised in the amounts needed where needed.***********
Is it any surprise the autism/vaccine hoax has done nothing to help prevent autism and has, in some cases, killed the children of parents who bought into the hoax and didn't have their kids vaccinated?Considering the whole thing was driven by avarice and greed, the answer is a resounding 'no'.
(H/T Instapundit)
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So much for a more civil discourse in American politics.It goes back to the “You have the right to free speech only if you agree with me” jerks on the Left.