7/13/2014

Thoughts On A Sunday

We've had yet another weekend with great weather, a big plus on a NASCAR weekend.

NASCAR is in town, or at least down at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, its first of two weekends here. (The next one is in September).

While my enthusiasm for NASCAR has waned over the years which translates as watching the races on TV rather than actually attending them, I never miss them when they're here in New Hampshire. After all, I have the best seat in the house, have instant replay, a fridge full of cold drink, and a bathroom with no line.

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This weekend also celebrates the 25th anniversary of the retail farm stand that is part of the farm where BeezleBub works. Farmer Andy and his missus had a real blowout party for all the farmhands, bakers, and retail employees.

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Dr. Roy Spencer, long a critic of the alarmism by the We're-All-Gonna-Die-If-We-Don't-Go-Back-To-Living-In-Caves Anthropogenic Global Warming proponents, asked a very important question at the recent Heartland Institute International Conference on Climate Change: What do we really know about Global Warming?

...the Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville began his July 9 address by warning attendees that the "science" of global warming really isn't much by way of science and that bias is everywhere in the field.

"Too many people think that all areas of science are created equal," Spencer said, "and that scientists objectively look for the answers, but no, there's two kinds of scientists, male and female. Other than that they're the same as everybody else, and in many instances [in the climate sciences] more biased than your average person."

He then delves into the issues that put much of the 'data' used by the alarmists into question, one of th biggest being discounting the Urban Heat Island Effect, something that has seriously skewed temperature readings over the past century.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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David Starr comments on the Federal Highway Trust Fund, its original purpose, and how it is now being used for anything but maintaining our highways. He also has some suggestions about dealing with it now that the money is running dry.

Better, would be to shut down the Highway Trust Fund altogether.  Lay off all the bureaucrats who run it. Cancel the Federal gasoline tax.  Let the states, who do the roadwork, pay for road maintenance out of state funds.  The states could even hike their gas taxes if needed.  With the Federal gas tax removed, the states could take a much bigger bite without raising the price of gas. 

Indeed.

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Nelson Abdullah presents us with some photos and tweets that show us what is wrong about liberals.

Two of their biggest problems: they often have problems telling fiction from reality; they have poorly developed critical thinking skills that prevents them from being able to tell the difference between a devout Christian mother who is pro-life and believes in the Second Amendment and an Islamofascist Pinhead woman who had no problems blowing herself up and killing three other people.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Sarah Palin again makes her case for the impeachment of President Obama, pointing out his dereliction of duty, violation of his oath to “protect and defend our Constitution.”

Between his illegal actions delaying or overturning law by decree, making recess appointments when law clearly states Congress was not in recess, selective enforcement of the law, and an almost non-existent foreign policy that endangers Americans everywhere and makes our allies doubt us, there's no doubt to me that he's committed impeachable offenses.

Unfortunately the chance Obama would actually be impeached are almost zero despite him having committed far worse acts than Bill Clinton.

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Speaking of selective law enforcement, more about the IRS oppression of conservative political organizations keeps coming to light in spite of the “my dog ate my e-mails” excuse still being sold by the IRS.

That there appears to have been coordination between Democrats and Lois Lerner is becoming even more evident as investigations continue.

Even Nixon wasn't this brazen, nor did the IRS bow to his demands to 'audit' his political enemies. However, these days the IRS is little more than an extension of the Democrat Party.

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I spent a good portion of my free time this weekend configuring Deb's new computer, a replacement for her 7-year old XP machine, The file transfer between the old and new machines went without a hitch, though a number of programs from the old machine either had to be installed or updated to newer versions. About the only program I had to purchase was Quicken as the program on the old machine just wouldn't run on Windows 7.

So far Deb loves the new computer, it being so much faster than the old machine. The one thing she noticed immediately: it's a lot quieter than her XP machine. I don't think I've heard the cooling fans run once except at initial power up.

While it only has 4GB of RAM (the same amount in the old computer), it's still much faster. Of course the 64-bit version of Windows 7 might have something to do with it.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has gotten rainy and humid at the end of the day, the NASCAR folks are leaving, and where Monday has once again returned all too soon.