8/19/2012

Thoughts On A Sunday

The dry weather has returned to the Lakes Region which means that once again I can get some work done around the outside of The Manse. It also looks like the weather will continue through next weekend, meaning I will finally get the chance to stain the main deck!

Of course I wish I'd been able to do this at the beginning of summer rather than the latter half of it, but there was far more work involved in setting things right that I had thought.

And so it goes with the joys and obligations of home ownership.

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Traffic around the southern side of Lake Winnipesaukee has been disrupted by the annual Timberman Triathlon, one of the qualifying events for the famed Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. Fortunately I was able to get all my errands completed yesterday, working around the bicycle portion of the Half-Timberman. (The full triathlon is today.)

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President Obama visited New Hampshire yesterday, making a campaign swing through parts of the southern tier.

I have only one question for the Obama campaign in regards to this trip: Will the towns be stuck with the costs of providing extra security as has been the case in the past, or will it pay up as does the Romney campaign? It doesn't seem fair to stick local taxpayers with the cost of a campaign trip.

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Eric the Viking gives us an interesting comparison between the paradigms of GM and Volkswagen.

As Eric writes, “More than anything, the Volkswagen chief's pique illustrates the difference between car companies gaining market share (VW) and those losing the market (GM).”

Indeed.

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We're already seeing the effects of the entitlement/dependence culture being promulgated by the Obama administration and the Left. Two examples come to the forefront, one in Brooklyn, New York and another right here in New Hampshire.

In Brooklyn, a patron slashed the face of a deli clerk when he refused to sell the man a beer he wanted to buy with food stamps. The clerk had seen the man receive cash from a teenaged girl outside the deli and knew the beer was for her. The man obviously wanted the cash, which is why he tried to use his food stamps. (New York recently passed legislation that makes it illegal to use their taxpayer-funded benefits for cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, or strip clubs.)

In late June in New Hampshire, a man tried to buy cigarettes with his EBT (Electronics Benefit Transfer) card. The clerk refused to sell them to him because he was using the card. The clerk was fired because it is perfectly legal for welfare recipients to use their EBTs for this purpose. However New Hampshire is looking into restricting the use of welfare benefits to essentials and banning their use for cigarettes, alcohol, and other non-essential items or services. Federal law already requires states to pass legislation that prohibits the use of welfare benefits at liquor stores, casinos, and adult entertainment venues.

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You know it's really getting bad in Detroit when a pizza joint has to impose a “no deliveries after dark” policy in order to protect their delivery drivers.

But then it's not been a good idea to go out in the dark in Detroit for some time, particularly when they have been shutting off street lights in order to save money.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Bill Whittle has some real issues with the lease on his new place of residence in California.

I have to agree with him on this one: Savages!

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This ought to get the watermelon environmentalists knickers in a twist: US Carbon Emissions Hit 20-Year Low.

And to think we did it without the need to resort to carbon trading schemes, draconian government intervention, or buying into the Kyoto Treaty. Yet other signatories have seen their carbon emissions go up, and those 'exempt' from those limits (China and India, to name two) have seen their emissions skyrocket.

How did this happen? Natural gas, that's how.

For years, American greens have pushed carbon-trading as the best way to reduce carbon emissions. Yet now carbon emissions are dropping, thanks not to an intrusive government tax on carbon, but to the brown industry and fracking technologies greens vociferously oppose.

It appears the greens only want renewable sources that don't provide the energy needed when it's needed and work against building the power distribution systems required to use the very alternative energy sources they've been promoting.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is getting short, the kids will be back in school in a couple of weeks, and where there's still plenty of summer chores to do around the house.