Snow removal has become a never ending chore, a reminder of a winter some years ago where it seemed we had snow every few days or so, and recorded a total snowfall of 150 inches here at The Manse.
It's a small price to pay for living in New Hampshire.
At least we dodged a bullet here, with the forecast that had originally said we were due for some snow today and Wednesday changing to say we weren't likely to get any.
That works for me.
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It looks like Bogie has been having fun with our winter weather as well. In this case she's been concerned that is the snow gets any higher/deeper she'll have to resort to using a shovel because her snowblower can't throw the snow high enough to get it over the existing berms.**************
The events in Ukraine have certainly shown the cracks in areas we may have thought were politically stable, with Western style democracy having replaced the old totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet era. But with 'strong men' trying to use the ballot box to reestablish the the Soviet-style regimes, those democracies are in peril. Ukraine has shown that the individual people are in truth the power to be reckoned with, willing to die rather than allowing Ukraine to return to being nothing but a Russian puppet. (Many countries that had been democracies became dictatorships by way of the ballot box, not the gun. Remember, Adolph Hitler was elected, as was Peron, Chavez, Morales, Kirchener, and a whole host of other 'saviors' that turned out to be anything but, leading their nations into bondage and economic collapse.)There have even been some talk of partitioning Ukraine, letting the ethnic Russian population become 'Eastern' Ukraine aligned with Russia, and the Ukrainians to become 'Western' Ukraine, aligned with Europe. But somehow I doubt Vladimir Putin will allow such a thing as I believe he wants control of the entire country and its economy.
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Next on the list is Venezuela and the end of Chavismo, the Cuban-styled socialism that has all but destroyed Venezuela's economy, brought even more widespread poverty and misery to the people, all but eliminated the middle class, and led to a cascading failure of the country's infrastructure, including both its electrical grid and wealth-generating oil industry.Despite it's oil wealth, Venezuela is acting more like a poor Third World nation with nothing going for it. And to think it was all done on purpose by a third-rate Castro wannabe who turned his nation into an even poorer version of Cuba.
Is it any wonder its people have said “Enough!” and are rebelling against the Maduro regime?
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Andrew Thomas gives us the ironic journey of two avowed socialists who fled New York for Orlando even as it becomes a socialist “utopia” led by self-avowed communist Bill de Blasio.Writes Andrew:
These are two otherwise intelligent, educated, and well-spoken individuals, as are many other left-leaning people. The only characteristic that seems to stand out in all of them is a streak of apparent emotional immaturity I would describe as "willful naiveté".Somehow I doubt they will. Instead, it is likely they will try to spread their poisonous thinking. However, should they finally come to the realization that they have been lied to about the wonders a glories of socialism, I expect they will become more like Main Street Americans who just want to be left alone by government, seeing it as the problem and not the solution...but I ain't holding my breath.
Please do not give me the analogy of rats leaving a ship they helped to sink, only to help sink the lifeboat. I prefer not to think of [them] in those terms, as apropos as they might be.
My only hope is that someday the irony will become apparent to them. That the reason they chose to escape their socialist paradise of NYC is because it doesn't work, and that the personal success and freedom they desire are only achievable in the capitalistic free-market environment they so disdain.
(H/T Maggie's Farm)
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Gee, things didn't turn out so well for the UAW in their bid to unionize the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, with the workers rejecting the unionizing effort by a vote of 712-626.Now the UAW wants a re-vote, mostly because they didn't get their way, running to the NLRB and claiming there was “interference by politicians and outside special interest groups”.
Considering that VW even helped the UAW in their organizing efforts, the workers “no” vote should stand. It is apparent they saw just how much the UAW 'helped' the Big Three, driving two of them into bankruptcy, and wanted no part of it.
Even with the NLRB being in the hands of Big Labor, I doubt they can find grounds to force a revote. Not that they won't declare the vote null and void and order a new vote anyways, being nothing but an Obama-sanctioned lawless government organization. But should that happen I expect a blizzard of stay orders from local, state, and federal courts as well as law suits to block such a move.
It's funny when a labor organization that borders on being nothing more than an organized crime protection racket doesn't get its way that it “runs home to momma” claiming the other side won because they...they...won!
About the only ones who do not understand that the raison d'etre of the labor unions passed away a long time ago are the unions themselves.
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Here's more discussion (and comments) about the proposal to break up California into six separate states.Reading some of the comments proves to me there are a lot of deluded, misinformed, and/or ignorant people out there who have no understanding why the federal government was set up the way it was, particularly when it comes to Congress.