While summer doesn't end until the autumnal equinox in about three weeks, for all intents and purposes it's over. Schools are open or will be reopening this coming week. Vacations have ended and summer tourist attractions are closing their doors.
While I expect we'll still see quite a few weekenders still making the trip up here for some last-of-summer weather, including boating and swimming, for the most part it's over. The only thing we have coming up will be the fall foliage season which will see its peak here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire some time around the first week of October.
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Keith Koffler asks the very important question: “Do you want to know why there is no ISIS strategy?”Could it be our President has none because he's in over his head? He thought his job was done when he pulled our troops out of Iraq and that everyone would play nice from that time forward. Unfortunately Reality WorldTM had different ideas and is showing our erstwhile Commander-In-Chief that there are truly effin' evil people out there who have no problem slaughtering people they don't like, including American journalists, in an effort to create yet another Evil Empire.
As Edmund Burke stated, “All that's required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Somehow I doubt making statements that “he's looking into the situation” means Obama is actually doing something about anything.
I figure one of two things will have to happen before TOTUS does anything beyond dropping some bombs: either an ISIS massacre of Americans over there or another 9/11 strike by them here. Even then I doubt he'll do much other than wanting to reason with people that cannot reason, only kill.
Despite what the MSM has decided, the is not ”cool and calm in a crisis. It merely means he really has no idea how bad it is.
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Mike at Cold Fury dives into the EU's vacuum cleaner kerfuffle where the “we're much smarter than you are and you need us to tell you how to live your lives” EU bureaucracy is pushing for almost draconian home appliance efficiency standards that will make most of them perform poorly (if at all) but at a much higher cost. How is this supposed to help anyone?It seems this cancer may also make its ways to these shores as Obama, not wanting to be outdone, wants to make us suffer under the same stupid and ineffective mandates.
This is as bad as the low-flush toilets that we're forced to buy. The idea sounds great but they don't really save any water because in many cases it takes more than one flush to evacuate the bowl of the effluvia. The end result is that they end up using more water than the old 'inefficient' toilets. I find this to be particularly galling in a part of the country that has no issues with water supply, nor has it for hundreds of years.
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It doesn't take much research to see that there are two possible outcomes to cities under blue rule: Deline and decay of the cities such as seen in Detroit; or rising housing prices and decreasing supply that drive out both the middle class and the poor such as is seen in San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. Some may be blamed on draconian housing regulations, but most of the blame must be laid at the feet of the leftists running the cities.Of the second type, many of those blue cities are becoming bastions of the wealthy socialists who are becoming increasingly disconnected from the rest of America and more divorced from the realities the rest of us must face every day.
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Call this another example of Leftist projection, in this case committed by Obama:The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America...Projection indeed. Then again, from what I've observed over the past 5 years, Obama doesn't believe the rules, the law, or the Constitution apply to him.
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This is something I've known for years from direct observation both here and south of the border in the People's Republic: Massachusetts has the worst drivers.More often than not I find Massachusetts drivers tend to act as if driving were some kind of a contest or form of combat, particularly when they're up here on vacation. It's even worse once you cross the border and approach the environs of Boston.
Whenever you see a vehicle with Massachusetts plates up here it's a good idea to give it a wide berth and to anticipate the driver will do something annoying, unexpected, and stupid.
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Note to terrorists: This might not be such a good idea.Judicial Watch is saying a terrorist attack is imminent somewhere along the Mexico/Texas border.
Considering how many people are armed in Texas, that might be a much shorter – and suicidal – mission than they may have planned for. To paraphrase a line from one of my favorite original Star Trek episodes, A Piece Of The Action, “You try to hit here and you'll be opened up on from every window on the street.”
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The idea of yet another war in Europe isn't as unthinkable as it once was, particularly in light of what Russia has done to Georgia and now Ukraine as well as Obama's show of weakness in the face of conflict.As Glenn Reynolds writes, “ If I were the Poles I’d be arming up bigtime. And if I were the Baltics, I’d be doing my best to become indigestible. I think I’d try to develop a special-forces capability to wreck Russia’s oil pipelines and other facilities; that seems like the cheapest way to make a Putin invasion expensive.”
Indeed. Goodness knows they won't be able to count on us for because our TOTUS has all but gone ROAD (Retired On Active Duty) on America. Then again Obama has shown nothing but contempt for our allies and has sucked up top our enemies. If war comes, it ain't gonna be pretty and may well be worse than what Europe suffered in World War II.
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When our roof leaked this past July after a heavy thunderstorm with lots of wind and rain – it was patched temporarily - we hemmed and hawed about having our roof replaced. My biggest concern was finding someone who would do a great job, not doing a crappy one that would only have to be done again in a few years because both the work and materials were deficient.This past Wednesday we finally signed a contract to have the roof on the main part of the house replaced, including replacing some damaged sheathing. While the roof on the breezeway and garage are not in the greatest condition, it isn't in nearly as bad shape as the main house and could probably go few more years before it becomes necessary to replace them.
The work starts towards the end of September, just in time for us to get the rest of The Manse and its grounds to be prepped for the upcoming winter.