12/30/2012

Thoughts On A Sunday

We were blessed with another round of snow that started yesterday around mid-morning, dumping another 5” or so here at The Manse. Fortunately this was a very light 'fluffy' snow, easy to move though not quite as easy to snowblow.

At least this time around our local TV station didn't go into a snowstorm frenzy, merely reporting the snow was coming and to take care out on the roads. (Some folks apparently didn't listen and caused a 20 car pileup on I-93 North late yesterday morning.) However some stations in Boston did a repeat performance of the Nor'easter that hit a few days ago, with their always ominous “Storm Center” graphics and matching music.

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BeezleBub and I had to make some small repairs to the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. Because we had lost some control over the burn rate we knew there was an air leak at the door. Since the door gasket was three years old we figured it would be a good idea to replace it, which BeezleBub took care of early this afternoon. There were also some missing pins on the air tubes above the firebox which allowed the tubes to rotate, meaning their nozzles weren't always pointing in the right direction. This also affected the efficiency and burn rate.

Now that everything's been fixed, we now have full control of the stove and should be able to extract the maximum amount of heat out of each load of wood we burn.

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Tom Blumer ponders whether his home state of Ohio might be the next one to become a right-to-work state. He also states that it won't be through the actions of the governor or the Republican leadership. Instead, it will be because the union leadership has been coming under more scrutiny and particularly their spending of members' dues, where less than 25% (at least in Michigan) of those dues are actually spent on representing workers. I'd have to say it wouldn't surprise me to find the ratio is the same in Ohio.

I'm still hoping there's some chance that my home state of New Hampshire will become a right-to-work, but I doubt we'll see that happen as long as we have a Democrat governor beholden to the unions.

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Frankly, I think we should work even harder to make the Saudis nervous, at least when it comes to oil and petroleum products. As the U.S. and other oil-using nations develop their own resources through fracking and other advanced oil and gas production technologies, the need for Saudi resources will dwindle, meaning they won't bet getting anywhere near as much money as they have in the past. And as Glenn Reynolds notes, “Terroristic Islam worldwide is basically a Saudi export, fueled by Saudi money. The less Saudi money, the better.”

Amen to that.

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The New England Patriots played their last regular season game against the Miami Dolphins in Foxborough, beating them 28-0. Because of this win the Patriots have a bye week in the playoffs, meaning they won't be playing again for two weeks.

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As we have been learning for a number of years, particularly since Obama took office 4 years ago, laws are for the little people. They do not apply to the 'anointed' and their minions...like David Gregory, but are applied in a capricious and, dare we say, idiotic manner that under normal circumstances we would never see.

All common sense has been driven out of the judicial system, where minor violations are seen as major felonies and the 'perpetrators' are imprisoned, while the serious offenders walk the halls of justice with impunity, knowing their fellow travelers will excuse almost any violation committed by them.

When laws cease to have meaning, chaos often follows, something the would give the Progressive totalitarian movement all the leeway they need to create yet another failed socialist state.

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What is it with cats and boxes? I've never been able to figure that one out.

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And that's the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps have been plummeting, the lake still is mostly open water, and where the woodstove will be well stoked over the next couple of days.