6/23/2013

Thoughts On A Sunday

Today was one of those days when the weather starts out looking as if the entire day is going to be a bust – cloudy, rainy, and damp – which usually precludes getting anything done outside. No mowing the lawn or hanging freshly washed clothing out on the line or doing more work on The Boat.

But there were stretches of sunshine during the day, starting during the late morning. While the sunny weather did allow me to dry some of the last of the laundry, the lawn was too wet to mow, meaning I'll have to get to it during the week. Unfortunately it appears we're going to be in an HHH (Hot, Hazy, and Humid) stretch of weather, meaning afternoon/early evening thundershowers are likely all week.

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It's hard to believe the year is almost half gone. Where does the time go?

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The Barrister has a post about one of the most useful tools I've ever used: the Come-Along.

I've used it over the years do all kinds of things from moving stuck vehicles (usually up to their axles in mud), to putting tension on not-so-big trees I'm cutting down to help make sure they fall in the desired direction, to pairing them up to move a new steam furnace down a set of basement stairs, to moving a barn onto a new foundation, to truing up a garage, and everything in between.

There are some that use a steel cable and others that use a chain. I've used both, but the most common one is usually use a cable. For the most part the body is made of stamped aluminum or small gauge steel, but I've seen a few very heavy duty models using forged steel housings and levers. The chain come-along is usually heavy-duty, being able to handle a ton-and-a-half or more.

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Are the wheels coming off the Obama Administration machine? According to George Will, the answer is yes and it was quite apparent during his visit to Berlin.

Obama’s vanity is a wonder of the world that never loses its power to astonish, but really: Is everyone in his orbit too lost in raptures of admiration to warn him against delivering a speech soggy with banalities and bromides in a city that remembers John Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” and Ronald Reagan’s “Tear down this wall”?

It doesn't help that his charisma has fled, assuming he ever really had any that wasn't bolstered by a fawning media. Now that they see he is nothing more than a bad retread of Jimmy Carter – and a Chicago version of a bad Jimmy Carter retread at that - more of that formerly fawning media has been turning on him.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Bogie has lost one of her feline family members, Shadow, who passed away at her home.

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AJ over at the Strata-sphere tells us how climate models are proving there is no CO2 driven warming. AJ isn't saying there isn't any warming, but puts it into perspective, looking at the Little Ice Age temperatures, which were some of the coldest temps for almost 10,000 years. Instead AJ believes we are returning to the temperatures seen during the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods, periods that may reflect more 'normal' temps.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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I have to agree with Assistant Village Idiot on this one: The past is a different country.

Some changes are brand new, others are a recapture or recasting of an older idea. It was a point of particular importance for CS Lewis that modern readers have this drummed into their heads.  Our lefts and rights, our blues and reds, our "spiritual" people and skeptics are not having the same arguments people had even fifty years ago, let alone 500. We pretend we understand, but we are largely making this up.

The issues then are not the issues now. Even if we use the same terms, they are defined differently which in turn affects the debate of any issues we're addressing today.

Or something like that.

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Here's a blast from the past from out of the Weekend Pundit archives, that discusses the Yankee Attitude.

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“President Asterisk” indeed.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where true summer weather has arrived, the lawns still need mowing, and where the summerfolk are enjoying themselves.