Nice, though a bit cool for August on Saturday and cloudy/sunny/showery today, again with temps below normal. Usually we see temperatures in the upper 80's and occasionally the 90's in the first half of August with 70's and 80's for the second half. But instead both the 80's and 90's have been replaced by the 60's and 70's, with August feeling more like mid-September. Then again, it has been a cooler than normal summer with only a few days hitting the 90's.
It has been quite humid through the summer which has meant air conditioning has been used to dry out the air rather than cooling it, and even then we used the A/C here at The Manse sparingly.
I'm hoping the cooler than normal summer isn't a harbinger of a colder than normal winter.
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You know people aren't buying the indictment of Governor Rick Perry when even Democrats are saying it's bogus and politically motivated.I would expect the governor of my home state, Maggie Hassan, to do exactly the same thing as Rick Perry under the same circumstances and I would not consider those actions to be criminal. Perry was doing his job within the scope of his duties and everyone except the dipshit special prosecutor in Travis County, Texas knows it.
As Jonathan Adler calls it, it's “the criminalization of politics.”
It's time to disbar some of these overly ambitious and politically motivated prosecutors.
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As a follow-on to my post yesterday, there's this from Commentary showing us that the Presidency has broken Obama even as he's broken the nation. All he wants to be now is an ex-president. His timing certainly sucks considering he's been backing away from his duties just when he needs to be at the top of his game. The world is descending into chaos and all he wants to do is take his ball and go home.He apparently likes the perks and the trappings of the office but not the duties, finding them boring or beyond his abilities. But then aren't all narcissists like that?
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I must admit I have conflicting feelings over this story.Verizon has been accused of allowing its legacy copper telephone network decay in order to force customers over to FiOS, its fiber optic network.
There are a number of advantages to the the POTS (Plain Old Telephone System), the primary one being that it will still function when many others won't because it supplies its own power, unlike the FiOS system where a backup battery at each customer's home will run the equipment for only a few hours if power fails. After that battery is discharged there's no phone. In many cases that's more than sufficient, but what of the power is out for a day, a week, two weeks, or more? POTS will still work and FiOS and cell phones will be nothing but decorations.
On the other hand I can see why Verizon would be pushing to move customers off of their copper network: it's expensive to maintain and becoming more so as the numbers of people with regular landlines has been falling, and doing so for years. Up to 40% of households no longer have landlines and are using cell phones exclusively. (Mine is one of them, having dropped our landline over 4 years ago. It made no sense to pay for a rarely used landline and our cell phones, so we got rid of it.) As soon as the last of the POTS customers are switched over to fiber, Verizon can decommission their old switching systems which means they'll have that much less in the way of legacy equipment to maintain. It also means they can sell off their copper network, either to a competitor or for recycling. (The copper is worth a lot of money on the scrap metal market.)
I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't like the change over from manually switched systems (operators) to automatically switched systems (dial phone), or from dial phone systems to Touch Tone phone systems. There are always those who are comfortable with “the way it's always been.” But some of that might be habit or nostalgia, and not an deeply ingrained refusal to embrace change. I know when we started discussing dropping our landline that I was reluctant, but I came to realize it was more habit and familiarity rather than an actual need to keep it, so out it went.
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I have to agree with Glenn Reynolds on his take on casinos. They do end up having a negative effect on the local economy as well as a rise in crime.A number of Democrats here in New Hampshire have been pushing for casino gambling for years but have been held off, with a number of bills either being defeated in the legislature or vetoed by the governor. All they see is the revenues to be generated for the state but conveniently ignore or dismiss the negative effects that more often than not outweigh any economic gains.
Our present governor is all for casino gambling, having gone so far as to use projected revenues from casino licensing and parimutuel taxes as part of her budgeting process for the present biennial budget, but the legislature slapped her down, with the state senate killing casino gambling yet again.
Frankly, I don't want to see casinos in New Hampshire. I don't want it to become yet another “Me, too!” state, falling down the rat hole so many others have and finding out that gambling isn't such a great moneymaker once all of the costs are factored in.
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Meet the new “gringos.”**************
Mike over at Cold Fury delves into how Progressives have been shredding the US Constitution since 1913.It is the actions started by Woodrow Wilson that have led our self-proclaimed 'betters' to push the idea that the Constitution is a “living document”, meaning they believe it can be reinterpreted at will and that the amendment process is unnecessary and too slow. That also means that the Constitution means nothing and that the rule of law instead becomes rule by decree, something that always backfires and crushes freedom, even for those who think it's a great idea.
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Matt Walsh crushes a self-centered entitled jerk who believes that Walmart somehow owes him a lot more money for a job he admits he puts in very little effort.Yeah, like that will happen.