10/25/2015

Thoughts On A Sunday

This was a fifty-fifty weekend, with cold temperatures on Saturday and warm ones today. Not that I'm complaining, but I almost wish the order had been reversed because most of my outdoor activities were yesterday.

One thing that took place yesterday was the 25th Annual New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival which, for the first time, took place in the city of Laconia. In previous years the festival took place in southwestern New Hampshire in the city of Keene, but the riot in one of the local state college's off-campus housing areas not far from where the festival took place caused Keene's city council to not license the festival for 2015, hence the move.

There were a few glitches at last night's festival, but minor in nature and to be expected for the first one held there. That Laconia has plenty of experience in handling large events, specifically the annual Motorcycle Week held in June, made organizing for the Pumpkin Festival easy in comparison.

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Zero Hedge has a post that tells us how to stamp out cultural Marxism in a single generation.

There are very few legitimate cultural divisions in the world. Most of them are arbitrarily created, not only by political and financial elites, but also by the useful idiots and mindless acolytes infesting the sullied halls of academia.

It is perhaps no mistake that cultural Marxists in the form of "social justice warriors", PC busybodies and feminists tend to create artificial divisions between people and “classes” while attacking and homogenizing very real and natural divisions between individuals based on biological reality and inherent genetic and psychological ability.

We've certainly seen that done by the present occupant of the White House, saying one thing - “I'm a uniter, not a divider” - while doing everything possible to create rifts within our society which he then exploits to justify more draconian measures, usually by fiat rather than legislation.

It's time to stop the madness.

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Gee, could it be the changes we see in climate has more to do with the sun, specifically the Gleissberg Cycle, than anything we Evil Humans are doing?

Of course I expect it to be ignored by the Warmists because it doesn't fit their narrative and upsets the “Science Is Settled” apple cart.

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Speaking of climate, it's been 10 years since a hurricane Category 3 or higher has made landfall in the US.

And, no, you can’t deflect to Hurricane Patricia. Even NPR knows that it really had nothing to do with “climate change”. It virtually mirrored a storm from 1959, when CO2 was at a “safe” level of 315ppm.

That little fact will be ignored because once again it doesn't fit the narrative. An example: Slate's article stating just the opposite.

You know it's coming apart when two different media outlets on the Left take diametrically opposed viewpoints on the same issue.

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What if I told you....

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Those who believe in our First ans Second Amendment rights can strike another restaurant off their list of places to go, that being K. O'Donnell's in Phoenix, Arizona.

Apparently one of their 'tolerant' patrons didn't like the topics of discussion at the local “Breitbart's Meetups” held at the restaurant and prompted a call to the local PD. Both the Phoenix and nearby Scottsdale police showed up, including a police helicopter. The police were confused as to why they had been called to what was by all accounts a peaceful gathering.

I guess the PC disease has so infected the Phoenix area that a single patron can dictate to 200 others what they can and cannot discuss. Any establishment that allows a few 'tolerant' PC buttheads to dictate who they will and will not tolerate deserves to see its number of customers dwindle away as they take their money elsewhere.

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Ed Driscoll delves into the dearth of affordable housing the San Francisco Bay area, pointing to a number of initiatives pushed by environmentalists that took a lot of land off the market and severely restricted construction of new housing. It's the same type of feel-good crap that infected Portland, Oregon and choked off the housing market by making it impossible to build any new housing.

We have a descriptive term here in New Hampshire that explains the phenomenon: drawbridge mentality. Once the folks move in they don't want any changes to be made, in effect raising the drawbridge to prevent change or anyone else from moving in and 'ruining' things. The difference here is that we don't tolerate any such foolish notions and make sure they die aborning.

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This is yet another sign that the New York Times is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Through twisted logic the Paper of Record is implying that people are advocating for non-consensual sex, something no one can take seriously. Do they really think there are people out there supporting rape?

“Students advocate for consensual sex,” reads the current subhead of a New York Times article. The article’s URL indicates this was originally the main title, but was changed to “Making consent cool.” The implication from the original title is that there are those out there advocating – or at the very least, tolerating – non-consensual sex.

This is simply not true. No one is advocating for non-consensual sex. The fact that that even needs to be said shows just how extreme and dishonest activists have become.

There are those out there, however, who are advocating against a narrow definition of consent that defines nearly all sex as rape by default unless a specific and unworkable set of rules are followed. High school students can’t figure out those rules. The person teaching those high school students can’t figure out those rules. Vice President Joe Biden can’t figure out those rules.

And yet, those rules will be used to brand as rapists those students who fail to adhere to them perfectly. The Times article even addresses the difficulty students are having in parsing the new rules.

Many of these so-called consent rules and laws are nearly impossible to enforce and are so narrowly defined as to make any form of sex, consensual or not, a form of rape.

I could have sworn the Left, who supports these non-nonsensical requirements, fought very hard decades ago to get government out of our bedrooms. Now we know what they meant was to get government other than that run by them out of the bedroom. Frankly, many of the Left I know are some of the biggest prudes I've ever come across.

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Related to the above, Margaret Wente asks the question: “Why are young feminists so clueless about sex?”

Ironically, today’s feminists are serious about consent but casual about sex. And to their shock, they’ve discovered that there’s an awful lot of bad sex out there. They did not expect this. They’ve been told they are supposed to be having a super-positive sex life – unconflicted, joyous, casual and abundant. They’ve been told they should be able to have as many partners and initiate sex just as often as men do. And they’ve tried that. And it hasn’t worked out very well. Instead of feeling super-positive, they feel sexually dissatisfied, emotionally disconnected and more than a little used.

The surprise is that so many young women are surprised by this.

The trouble isn’t men, of course. Nor is it the culture. The trouble is that these women have been sold a lie. They’ve been told that the profound sexual and behavioural differences between men and women are merely matters of individual preference, which would largely dissolve if we ever managed to shed our noxious cultural baggage.

Much of this expectation ignores the hard truths of biology, that being no matter what drivel has been pushed by Third Wave Feminists, men and women are different and no amount of propaganda and close-minded ideology will change that. I'm not claiming one sex is better than the other because each has its strengths and weaknesses. It's merely that they are different and always will be.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where warmer temps have returned for a while, the leaves are still turning (and falling), and where Halloween is less than a week away.