Even BeezleBub is grousing about the weather. The conditions make working out in the fields miserable at best. It also has a negative effect on some of the crops they've planted.
We'll just have to wait and see how this summer's weather plays out.
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I had to go into work this morning to get a head start on finishing up calibrating some optical equipment. While I had estimated it would take all of a single day to complete the work, I was wrong, sort of.If everything had gone as planned, it would have been done on Friday. But as is always the case, Murphy's Law raised its ugly head and we had to do some of the calibration a second time.
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Scary Yankee Chick tells us about going through the process of trying to get her concealed carry permit in New York State.Thank goodness I live in New Hampshire where getting a CCW permit is relatively easy. And I don't even need a permit to carry openly.
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Labrat over at Atomic Nerds comments about Sarah Palin, the media, and her bus tour.He also comments about and links to stuff about Gordon Ramsay (Hell's Kitchen) and Dustin Diamond (Saved By The Bell)in the same post.
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I guess we can now say our worst fears are confirmed now that Timothy Geitner has said government must raise taxes on small businesses, those that create most of the jobs, in order to prevent the government from shrinking. Never mind that those taxes may end up killing some of those businesses (and the jobs they provide) that are just barely hanging on during this never-ending government-driven recession.Now we know Obama and his cronies really have no interest in curing this recession because it gives them more power over more aspects of our lives. It doesn't matter to them that they are less competent to run our lives than we are.
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Apparently it's not only the University of New Hampshire seeing a double-digit tuition increase. Add the University of Tennessee to list, with the UT board okaying a 12% tuition increase. That's about the same, percentage wise, as the expected increase for UNH, but smaller dollar wise as tuition at UNH is already one of the highest of any public university. Tuition and fees will be about $8000 at UT versus $12,060 just for tuition at UNH.Both states are having to deal with cuts in state funding as the effects of the continuing recession seriously affect their ability to fund state operations. New Hampshire's state budget is 12% smaller than the previous biennial budget (New Hampshire runs a 2-year budget cycle), with the legislature taking heed of the taxpayer's concerns about rapidly growing state spending with no corresponding increase in revenue.
As Glenn Reynolds writes, “...it does mean that students, since they’re footing the bill (often with borrowed money), need to be sure that they’re getting their money’s worth.”
Far too often these days, they aren't.
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Oh, no! Now global warming is causing a chair shortage! (Scroll down to the June 22nd entry.)(H/T Maggie's Farm)
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A major pet peeve of mine is the broadcast media's improper use of English. There are times when it drives me to shut the TV or radio off because I can't stand to listen to it. This evening's news on the local TV station almost had me throwing the remote at the TV because of the poor phrasing being used by reporters, anchors, and weather guys.Some examples of a few of the most annoying:
“Once the accident scene was cleared the road opened back up.” I'm sorry, but shouldn't that be “reopened”? How does something “open back up”? Does that mean it was opened, and then someone backed up? (I've actually written to the news editors at the TV station about this one and for a while “re-open” replaced “open back up”, but now that hated phrase has returned with a vengeance.)
“As we approach evening, the clouds will melt apart.” Hmm. I've heard of things melting together and melting away, but not melting “apart”.
And two of my all time favorites, “gonna” instead of “going to” and “ta” instead of “to”. The last is something I hear President Obama say all the time and I find it quite annoying. But then I find almost everything he says these days quite annoying.
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Legal Insurrection asks the question “Can any Republican presidential candidate withstand being Palinized?” I'm beginning to think the only one can withstand being Palinized is Sarah Palin.(H/T Pirate's Cove)
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At least someone in Pittsburgh is willing to call Obama's economic policy what it is: an (e)con job.***********
At least Subaru knows how to keep the union thugs from their doors: Zero layoffs. Zero strikes. Zero health care premiums. Zero pay cuts.The unions can't even come close to matching that. Historically, the unions tend to have just the opposite effect, and Subaru employees know it.
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As the Left here in the US is still trying to ram multi-culturalism down the throats of Americans, the Netherlands has abandoned it wholesale as a miserable failure that has done nothing but weaken Dutch culture and allowed cultural barbarians unwilling to assimilate to run rampant through their society. All multi-culturalism has done for the Netherlands is increase violent crime, create greater intolerance by Third World immigrants for traditional Dutch culture and traditions, and created a wide swath of second class citizens (by their own choice).As far as I've been able to determine, multi-culturalism by edict has never worked and has always weakened the society trying to live by it, if not destroyed it outright.
Maybe the purveyors of multiculturalism in the US should take note.
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Has Obama's stimulus managed to stimulate anything other than more government jobs and a lot of rhetoric from Democrats? It certainly hasn't had the effect he claimed it would, in effect pulling more money out of the economy needed to help it recover and using for things that did nothing to stimulate it at all. An analogy presented in the piece linked above explains it quite well.And that's the problem. Neither Obama or Congressional Democrats see the second effect, or choose to ignore it. On top of that we also must recognize that the government is the thief, and before it spends the money taken, it assesses a handling fee. Using the analogy above, that means of the $500 taken away, only $460 is actually spent 'stimulating' the economy (assuming a 10% 'handling' fee). So by taking that money from the taxpayer, they have decreased the buying power of of the dollars taken to only 90% as compared if the taxpayer had been allowed to keep it and use it for themselves. How is this supposed to stimulate the economy?
Analogy time. Consider a robber who steals a purse containing $500, who then uses the money to buy himself a new TV. It is categorically undeniable that the theft has created a sale for the TV store. Conservatives who pretend the stimulus has not created any jobs whatsoever stand in the position of an observer trying to deny the TV has been sold.
Yet the liberal analysis lacks any recognition that the purse owner now has $500 less to spend on the laptop computer she was going to buy. The theft has generated one sale only by destroying another.
The first effect is easily seen. The second is not. But only the economically illiterate would conclude that just the first effect occurred, and that therefore the way to increase consumption is to encourage more purse-stealing. So in addition to looking at the number of jobs created or saved by the stimulus, shouldn’t we also consider the number of jobs destroyed or forestalled?