9/07/2014

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a fifty-fifty weekend here in the Lakes Region, with Saturday being in the upper-80's/lower=90's, humid, and showers in the afternoon and evening. Today it was much cooler, in the 70's, with much lower humidity. The A/C was shut off last night and I think it's quite possible this might be the last time we use it this year. The forecast shows the coming week being in the 70's during the day and the upper 40's at night, typical mid September conditions.

In preparation for the upcoming winter heating season, the chimney sweeps will be here Friday to perform their annual clean out for the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove. Fire wood has been ordered and will just around the time we'll need it.

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College administrative stupidity knows no bounds.

“Some of my best friends are people!” That a college might think that even that simple phrase is offensive just boggles the mind. Remember, these people run the colleges you're bankrupting yourself in order to send your kid.

Between the campus rape 'epidemic' and the stupidity displayed above, it should be considered child abuse if you send your kid to one of these institutions of higher learning.

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In a two-fer, the state of California has denied the requests of two Catholic religious universities to opt out of paying for abortion services for their employees.

This shows that California has indeed declined to the point where it can be considered nothing but a farce, where the state will force religious colleges to pay for medical procedures that go against deeply held religious beliefs. But then California has been hostile to Christianity for some time while giving a pass to deluded cults and forgiving transgressions committed by any non-Judeo-Christian belief or religion.

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Walter Russell Mead delves into the reasons why in modern America we can no longer have nice things.

It all boils down to one word: corruption.

There are many wonders in America built during the hundred years between 1875 and 1975 that would be impossible to build today. It isn't that we're technologically incapable of building them, not by any means. It's that we're politically incapable of building them because everyone wants a piece of the action which in turn drives up costs or places roadblocks in the way. There's no way we could ever build another Empire State Building that wouldn't take a decade or more to build and have cost overruns that are double, triple, or even quadruple the actual cost of building it. The Empire State Building was completed in 410 days – 15 months – from the start of construction. That could never happen today.

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It was opening day for NFL football. The New England Patriots played the Miami Dolphins in Miami. I wish I could say the Patriots won, but that wouldn't be the truth. While the Pats dominated during the first half, leading 20-10, both their offense and defense completely fell apart in the second half and Miami came back with 23 unanswered points, winning 33-20. Another thing the hurt the Patriots was a number of very costly penalties that killed any momentum they had, calling back a number of plays where they had made significant yardage.

What a disappointing start for the Patriots.

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A View From The Beach links to a post that asks if Liberals are the real authoritarians?

Yes. Next question?

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Is wearing the ISIS flag or logo on your shirt the equivalent of wearing a Nazi swastika? Absolutely, and anyone doing so should be as reviled as any neo-Nazi.

As some of these folks should be reminded, ISIS seems to think the Nazis had the right idea, but the Nazis would have put many of the very same ISIS assholes in the same concentration camps, gas showers, and ovens as they put the Jews. To the Nazis these folks are untermenschen.

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You know it's getting bad for Obama when even Fauxcahontas (Sen. Elizabeth Warren D-MA) is slamming him for his inaction against ISIS.

It appears all he has in the way of a strategy to deal with them is yet another speech.

Does he really think that if we do nothing they will leave us alone? Talk about living in a dream world! The problem is that the rest of us will be the ones paying the price for his incompetence and nonfeasance in office.

But then again, what did we expect? After all it's all about him.

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Rick Perry has the right of it.

Too bad the possibility of that happening are slim, but not impossible.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summerfolk are still hanging on, some of the sumacs and swamp maples are just starting to turn, and where Monday has yet again returned too soon.