Thoughts On A Sunday

Here it is, the last Thoughts On A Sunday for 2015, and it seems the year has passed by so quickly. I always have to wonder whether the perceived passage of time is due to age, meaning that as we get older a year doesn't seem nearly as long as they used to because we've experienced so many of them.

To kids, a day can seem like a week and a week can seem like forever. I know when I was a kid summer vacation seemed to last a really long time even though it was really just about 8 weeks in length. Today it passes in a blink of an eye and then we're back into fall. Call it all a matter of perspective.

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Gee, if human-caused global warming is real, then how do you explain the data that shows both the number of warm winter days (those over 60ºF) and hot summer days (those over 95ºF) measured at all US HCN weather stations have been declining since the 1930's?

Like some others, I figure NOAA or NASA or someone will 'adjust' the data to show that the number has been increasing rather than decreasing in order to fit the narrative.

(H/T Granite Grok)

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Feminists complain about the so-called “rape culture” here in the US, but they ignore the real rape culture that exists amongst Islamic 'immigrants'. This is something Sweden found out the hard way and Germany is experiencing now now that they've allowed thousands of 'refugees', mostly young men, into their country.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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“Male feminist”? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

No matter. They get no respect...nor should they.

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David Starr offers this advice top the presidential poll watchers – The only polls that count right now are those for Iowa and New Hampshire.

Writes David:

...after New Hampshire and Iowa everything will change.  Losers will be gone, and their loser's voters will go somewhere else, where, no body can tell.

Both Iowa and New Hampshire tend to clear out those who can't garner support no matter what they do. It helps that such candidates didn't have to spend a ton of money they don't have to campaign here. All such politicking is retail, meaning they have to go out and actually meet the voters. No amount of campaign ad buys will win them either Iowa or New Hampshire.

For those who come in a close second and/or third, it can kick their campaigns into high gear.

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I don't know how the Socialists are going to spin this, but I have no doubt they'll give it a try: Capitalism is Killing Absolute Poverty.

The Socialists always make noise about “greedy capitalists”, but they totally ignore the “greedy cronyism” that is so ingrained in socialism. Another issue with Socialists is their greed when it comes to other people's money along with making sure they keep all of their own.

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Thomas Sowell tears into the 200+ years of the Left's attempts at central planning and control of economies and shows that it never delivers what's promised. It doesn't even come close.

If the preconceptions of the Left were correct, central planning by educated elites who had vast amounts of statistical data at their fingertips and expertise readily available, and were backed by the power of government, should have been more successful than market economies where millions of individuals pursued their own individual interests willy-nilly.

But, by the end of the 20th century, even socialist and communist governments began abandoning central planning and allowing more market competition. Yet this quiet capitulation to inescapable realities did not end the noisy claims of the Left.

All one needs to do to get a modern example of just how badly planned economies fail is to look south to Venezuela to see just how bad a job the Chavez socialists did, turning a vibrant national economy into a poverty-stricken basket case.

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At least there's some good news in regards to nuclear power in the US, that being the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is revising its rules to allow nuclear power plants to operate for 80 years.

Commercial nuclear power plants in the USA are initially licensed to operate for 40 years, a time period reflecting amortization of capital rather than the design life of a reactor. Regulations allow the NRC to extend licenses for additional 20-year periods provided the reactor is deemed safe to continue operating.

A number of nuke plants were closed prematurely, one being the Vermont Yankee plant. There were some reliability issues with the outside cooling systems, but ones that could have been fixed with a new system. But the anti-nuclear movement pushed hard in Vermont, inducing the state to withdraw permission for the plant to operate any longer despite an extended operating license from the NRC.

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Those who protest Western culture here in the US must have a suicidal bent. That's all I can come up with for a reason why so many know-nothings have come to believe Western culture is more evil and corrupt than any other.

I have to wonder how many of those protesters have actually had to live under the rule of non-Western cultures, particularly harsh totalitarian/theological cultures where none of the freedoms and rights that exist because of Western culture exist.

I have a feeling many of them would find themselves missing the much-hated Western culture and the rights and freedoms that go with it were they to fins themselves in places like Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, North Korea, and other cultures that eschew our culture.

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Doug Ross offers us the 10 Dumbest Political Cartoons of 2015.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where warm temps have lingered, cold temps are coming, and where the snow may fly this coming week.

Quotable Quotes

Seeing the quote at the top of the list below at Maggie's Farm a couple of days ago made me look back through their archives to pick over some of the more memorable quotes posted there over the years.

“I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.” - Anon

I don't know how many times I could have used that line over the years because it would have saved me a lot of time.

“Beware the intellectual who seeks power over our decisions and over the persuasion to which we can respond, especially when he seeks this power to prevent us from doing what he thinks we should not desire to do.” - Harold Demsetz

This is an ongoing battle that will never end and one that has caused hundreds of millions of deaths over the past two centuries.

“For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD.” - a commenter at Zero Hedge.

Call it the intellectual variant of Newton's laws of physics.

“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.” - Thomas Sowell

That's because the folks who believe it think they know how to spend your hard-earned money better than you do. They are wrong, of course.

“I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being, and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.” - Becky Gerritson

Not much I can add to that, so I won't.

“The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.” - P.J. O'Rourke

Those who can't do, criticize. It's been like that forever.

“The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” - C.S. Lewis

Could this be the reason why we see so many Western youth heading off to Syria to take up with the monstrous minions of ISIS? My guess – YES.

“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.” - Thomas Jefferson

Amen.

“Everything government touches turns to crap.” - Ringo Starr

If anything Ringo understates the problem. There's very little government does that it can do well, and the higher the level of government the worse it performs. This is not exclusive to democracy as it's even worse for socialist governments, as history has shown us over the past 100+ years.

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.” - William F. Buckley

That is the problem today in our colleges – Indoctrination masquerading as “independent intellectual exertion.” And once indoctrinated, the possibility of logical thought or the ability to “think outside the box” is almost zero. The indoctrinated become nothing but drones, programmed to infect others with the intellectual virus they carry.

“Those who inherited the leadership of the Civil Rights movement looked deep into the content of their character...and decided they'd best be judged by the color of their skin or they were in trouble.” - a Maggie's Farm reader

After all, there was far more money in it for them than if they finished the mission set forth for them by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If they had, they would have had to get real jobs.

“Never trust anyone who doesn’t eat cheeseburgers.” - Steven Hayward

I have to agree with this one as I have seen it proven out many times over the 7 decades I have been on this Earth.

“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a closer look at the American Indian.” - Henry Ford

As I have stated to many supporters of cradle to grave care by the government, abundant examples of why this doesn't work exist. All we have to do is look around at the world today and throughout the past to see how well that's worked out, which is to say that it hasn't, ever.

“It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.” - George MacDonald

Considering I am a selectman in my little town, I see the wisdom of this. I did not run for office because I wanted to. I had no intention of doing so. When the sitting selectmen asked me to do so to fill the seat of one of them who was retiring, I didn't answer right away. I didn't decide until just before the filing deadline. My 'victory' was a very narrow one, besting my opponent by only 7 votes. I always remember that when I think I'm getting too used to my position in town government. And if the time should come when I think I can do the job better than anyone else it will be a sure sign it's time for me stop serving and step down. I never want to become comfortable in an elective office where I think I know more than the rest of the people in our town. It's a mirage and a dangerous one at that.

“If a foreign country tried to impose upon Americans what the Democrats have done over the past few decades, Americans would fight a war to stop it, and be proud of it.” - a reader comment

Indeed. They keep telling us they want to help the little guy, but what they don't tell you is that they want anyone who isn't them to become little guys and to keep them there, all under the guise of 'help'.

“There are many things the government can't do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people.” - Lord Acton

Government is always inefficient when it comes to the needs of the people. That's assuming it really knows what the needs of the people are in the first place, a dangerous assumption.

“All government spending is campaign spending.” - Bird Dog of Maggie's Farm

Truer words were never spoken. Think of it as bribing the people with their own money and it becomes abundantly clear the quote above gets right to the point.

Merry Christmas

Greetings from the Weekend Pundit staff. We want to wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Now a question: Why are you reading this blog when you should be spending time with your family?

Cultural "Appropriation" Is What Made America What It Is

For months now we've been hearing the plaint about “cultural appropriation” from the Social Justice Warriors as if it were a Bad Thing^TM.

But if one looks at the history of the United States, one can see that our culture is made up of bits and pieces of cultures around the world, taking the best from each and adding it to our own. Yet to the SJW's this is some kind of theft, as if we are in some way offending other cultures by adding theirs to ours. This “theft” is used as justification for actions taken on behalf of the cultures the SJW's think have been offended. But to the best of my knowledge, the SJW's have never asked anyone from those cultures if they are offended by such theft. I bet if they did, those people would look at them like they were nuts.

One of the latest cultural appropriate “crises” comes from Oberlin College, the crisis being the horror of cuisine from other cultures being adapted by the staff of Bon Appétit, something some of the students at the college deemed inappropriate.

But not everyone on campus is offended.

Still, some students are not convinced that Bon Appétit’s menu qualifies as cultural appropriation. Arala Tian Yoon Teh, a College sophomore from Malaysia, said the dining service’s food selections are a reflection of cultural collision, not cultural appropriation. She added that she thought Bon Appétit was inspired by Asian cuisine and just made dishes with the available ingredients.

Exactly.

This is something Alexis de Tocqueville addressed in his book Democracy in America back in 1840.

Writes Carlos Lozada on the subject:

Even as you pledge allegiance to the flag, it is hard to always feel welcome in the republic for which it stands. “As Americans mingle, they assimilate,” Tocqueville assures. “Differences created by climate, origin, and institutions diminish.” But he doesn’t think those differences are all that vast; and in his time, he was right. “All the immigrants spoke the same language,” he writes, referring to English, and “all were children of the same people.” And he praises America’s homogeneity — of interests, origins, language and education — as an enabler of federalism. “I doubt that there is any nation in Europe, however small, whose various parts are not less homogeneous than the people of America.” Americans today speak of diversity with reverence, but also with the comfort of an eternal aspiration.

The differences are what make us stronger in the end.

There's no need for the SJW's to take this to the extreme, where they see any assimilation of people of different cultures into American society as some kind of crime, perhaps even genocide. Certainly de Tocqueville didn't see it that way.

He saw it as a strength, seeing such assimilation as taking the best from each and adding it to our own. That the SJW's seem to think a culture in other lands will be damaged if immigrants from those lands surrender a small part of the culture in which they were brought up to adopt that of their new land show just how ignorant they are. The cultures back where the immigrants came from will survive just fine. It isn't as if it is somehow diminished every time someone from there comes here until there will be nothing left of the original culture. You couldn't tell that from the way the SJW's overreact about cultural appropriation. It's almost as if they want to Balkanize the US in an effort to keep all of the different cultures apart as if the US were some kind of a nature preserve. They still don't get the idea that the reason we are the way we are comes from all of those from different cultures who came here to become Americans. It doesn't fit their narrative and never will, so the bitch, moan, and complain about something over which no one really has any control...unless draconian measures are taken that will dismantle this nation. Only then will they feel vindicated, that is until they become outraged about some other trivial social ill and move on and create another false crisis.

Frankly, I like that we adapt things from other cultures and make it part of our own. Otherwise many of the things that make America what it is would never have come into being and the world would likely be a much poorer and dangerous place than it is now.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Christmas preparations started here at The Manse yesterday, with a thorough cleaning before setting up the Christmas tree. We still have some decorating to do as we wanted to wait until BeezleBub got home from visiting the WP In-Laws.

One thing that was a pleasant surprise this morning – snow on the ground. Mind you, it was really just a dusting but it was a start. However it won't last as we'll be back into the 40's and 50's the rest of this week, very unChristmas-like in the way of weather, at least here in New England.

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It's official: My home state of New Hampshire has one of the lowest homicide rates in the nation. It also has one of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation and a high percentage of gun ownership as well.

I find it to be an interesting correlation, that being as gun ownership rates across the nation have gone up over the past 20 years, the number of homicides has gone down, now being 50% of what they were over that same period. Of course we must understand that correlation does not imply causality, but so far I haven't seen any other factors that might be a cause that track those two trends.

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David Starr has his take on last night's Democrat debate. He breaks it down into one simple sentence: “All three of 'em are four square for tax hikes.”

Yeah, that will do wonders for an economy that has still not recovered after seven years or 'recovery' and government interference.

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Seeing the state of television these days, none of this surprises me.

Of all channels available to viewers these days by way of cable, satellite, and streaming, it turns out only three networks have seen an increase in viewership: HGTV, Fox News, and Discovery.

Other networks/channels have been experiencing declines, with TNT and History suffering double digit declines (16% and 20%, respectively). ESPN has seen viewer numbers decline by 8%.

What's ironic about a lot of this is that many of those networks in decline are demanding higher per subscriber fees from the cable and satellite providers. One of them is AMCN (AMC, IFC, BBC America, and WE TV) which has seen a 2% decline in viewers yet are demanding a 350% increase in fees as well as adding additional demands to present carriers to take on a number of its less performing niche channels as a condition for continuing to receive AMC programming.

Considering many cable operators have limited bandwidth and would not be able to carry the additional channels, it seems this is a suicidal move by AMCN.

Viacom learned that lesson not that long ago when 60 smaller cable operators refused to bow down to their extortion and stopped carrying Viacom programming. Ironically, there were very few complaints made from subscribers when Viacom channels (Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, and others) disappeared from the programming lineup.

I think the viewing public has had just enough from the pay TV content providers and are voting with their feet, metaphorically speaking. Is it any wonder the number of cord-cutters is rising?

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Voters are furious that Washington is ignoring them. The anger cuts across all party lines as a majority of the electorate think the US government is focusing on trivial matters rather than what Americans see as important – the looming threat of ISIS, a continually weak and handcuffed economy, bogus unemployment numbers, bureaucratic inaction and malice, and cronyism writ large, just to name a few.

Is it any wonder some states are no longer looking to Washington for anything other than interference and overreach? Rogue federal agencies have gone well outside their charters and pushed forth agendas that violate the law, and in some instances, the US Constitution. We have a president that actively works against the best interests of the American people, an ineffectual Congress that talks big but does little to actually solve the problems we face.

I say, throw ALL the bums out!

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Stacy McCain delves into the problem of dating for today's “empowered” women, and particularly when it comes to advice from a woman who has failed miserably when it comes to dating.

As Stacy writes:

The only dating advice young people should ever listen to is advice from happily married people. Their advice will likely be “old-fashioned.” Why? Because old-fashioned works. Old-fashioned is good.

Indeed.

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The New England Patriots beat the Tennessee Titans this afternoon at Foxborough, but at a price. Yet another group of first-string players left the game due to injuries, something the Patriots do not need.

As good as the Patriots have been this season, I have some doubts they'll make it through the playoffs unless they get some of their first and second string players back on to the field.

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Glenn Reynolds' USA Today column blasts Bernie Sanders for his “Go to college or go to jail” comment. That Sanders made such a comment shows just how disconnected from reality the Socialist candidate happens to be on this matter.

Sanders’ remarks created a similar backlash. They’re wrong on two levels: First, going to college doesn’t necessarily keep you out of jail; there are plenty of criminals with college degrees. Second, not going to college hardly puts you “on a path to jail.”

Of course this is the same Bernie Sanders who believes all college education should be free. But free is always expensive and free college is likely to cheapen any value a college education would have.

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Dr. Judith Curry tells us of a new class of climate “deniers”. No, not those who deny there is any such thing as climate change or those who demand proof that climate change is caused primarily by humans. No, these deniers are far more insidious than the first two groups. Just who are they?

Renewable energy deniers.

These are those who claim right up front that renewable energy sources can't and won't be able to meet our energy needs. Who are these “deniers”?

James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel, Tom Wigley . . . and Bill Gates.

Yup, many of the same people who have been pushing the meme that climate change is all the fault of human activity, specifically fossil fuel use, are also heavy proponents of nuclear power because they strongly believe renewable energy cannot provide enough energy to meet demand and never will.

Of course I expect these guys to be drummed out of the ranks of the AGW faithful any day now because they have defied the narrative.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter temps have graced us during this weekend, warmer temps will prevail during the week, and where everyone is rushing about to finish their Christmas shopping.

The Democrats Still Get It Wrong

I made the effort to watch portions of the Democrat debate tonight, hoping to hear some ideas or plans that might actually work. Too bad my effort (and time) was wasted. All I heard from the three candidates were the same stale, unworkable, discredited ideas that have been tried again and again without success.

The most telling moment for me was the answers given to the question about higher education.

Bernie Sanders' answer proved to me he hasn't an effin' clue about the actual costs of 'free' college nor who will actually be paying for it all. Then again, socialists rarely give any deep thought about the matter. Hillary's answer wasn't any better because all she wanted to do was spend even more taxpayers' money and a higher education system that was broken by “even more taxpayers' money” being out there that drove up costs and decreased both the quality and value of higher education.

After that I couldn't watch any more.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The El Niño-driven warm weather continues here in New England even as we approach Christmas. Again, we aren't complaining as it means the wood piles are shrinking and the fuel gages on oil and propane tanks falling towards 'empty' at a much slower rate. I have another 2 cords of firewood scheduled to be delivered in a little over three weeks and I'm going to have a difficult time finding somewhere to put it all. But better to have that problem rather than worrying whether or not we'll have enough fuel to make it through the winter.

The one thing that will guarantee that we'll have a below normal snowfall this winter is not just El Niño, but the new tires I got for the trusty F150. That they have a much more aggressive tread to help with traction in snow is a sure sign that we'll have very little snow this winter.

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Some people take this crap far too seriously. Moonbats get the vapors over Starbucks 'violent' polar bear cookies.

I strongly suggest they seek professional help...assuming it isn't already too late.

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At least this year they're giving us fair warning.

It appears both FedEx and UPS are struggling to deal with the shipping deluge brought forth by the large increase in online shopping.

Last year both shippers (and to a lesser extent, the USPS) had difficulties getting gifts purchased online to their destination by Christmas. Between a very high volume of gifts and a number of weather related delays, a lot of people didn't get the gifts they ordered until a few days after Christmas. This year, even with additional staff, aircraft, and trucks, they're having difficulty keeping up with demand.

Let's hope they can get caught up by Christmas Eve.

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Want to make sure your kids don't become liberal jackasses in college?

Click here.

Let's hope it will also help keep them from having to deal with the mentally ill fragile snowflakes on campuses as well.

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Dinesh D'Souza shows a progressive student at Amherst College that it's one thing to talk about social justice and racial privilege and yet another thing to actually do something about it.

The first question is about American foreign policy in the Middle East and D’Souza dispenses that issue fairly quickly. The second question has to do with social justice and racial privilege.

D’Souza dismantles the student’s argument systematically but ultimately cites the Achilles’ heel of all progressive arguments for redistribution. Why doesn’t this student give up his place at this elite institution of higher education so someone of lesser privilege may step in?

According to the Amherst College website, cost of attendance for the 2015-2016 school year is over $60,000 and attendance there is a privilege, not a right.

Somehow I doubt the student in question did anything along those lines, instead deciding to keep exercising their white privilege. They can talk the talk, but aren't willing to walk the walk.

Why am I not surprised by this?

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I guess we have to keep stating the obvious until the clueless idiots, particularly those supporting politicians like Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, come understand that Socialism doesn't work, and never has. Even the 'soft' socialism of the Scandinavian countries has been unraveling and they're backing away from it because they have come to realize it doesn't work, primarily because they're running out of other people's money.

Of course the clueless idiots tell themselves that they can make it work because they're smarter and they won't make the same mistakes...but of course they will.

The biggest mistake socialists always make is that they ignore human nature, a force more powerful than any 'dream' they can concoct. That's why socialism always fails in the end.

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This bodes well for housing in the Golden State...not.

It appears the California State Supreme Court just made an already difficult process to build lower and middle income housing even more difficult. It's all in the name of preventing climate change, of course.

Then again, there will be little need for more housing as the jobs that would normally pay for them are leaving California as the costs and regulatory burdens have gone past the point where businesses and the jobs that go with them abandon California for greener pastures.

This isn't much different from Portland, Oregon's 'smart growth' initiatives that made housing unaffordable for most folks.

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Do they really think anyone will notice?

It appears the DNC has shot itself in the foot by booting New Hampshire's biggest TV station – WMUR - from televising the Democrat debate scheduled to be held in the state because of an ongoing labor dispute with the union representing a number of TV station employees. But even if it weren't banned from carrying the debate, I doubt many will be watching it as the debate starts all of 20 minutes before the kickoff of the New York Jets – Dallas Cowboys game.

As Sun Tzu (and Napolean and a few others) said, “Never interrupt your adversaries when they're making a mistake.”

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David Starr laments the lack of push buttons and knobs in today's cars and trucks. I have to agree with him that far too many automotive designers overlook the fact that drivers shouldn't have to look away from the road in order to adjust controls that do everything between changing a radio station or music volume to turning on the heat and shutting off the A/C, and everything in between. BeezleBub has complained about the touchscreen setup on the 'entertainment' center in his F350, stating that it is not driver friendly. It is this reason that he primarily uses it in conjunction with his iPod and practically never uses the radio. It takes too many menu selections just to change the radio station.

I remember when all controls could be operated without looking away from the road and one control performed a single function. Some knobs were concentric so that more than one knob could be placed in the same location and each of those knobs performed its own function. Now there are buttons and touchscreens that call up menus that cannot be read by the driver unless they look away from the road or pull off to the side. Controls are no longer intuitive and that's bad design. It doesn't matter if they have a new wizbang look and can perform all kinds of functions if it is otherwise difficult or dangerous to use while under way.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been much warmer than normal, no one is complaining much about it, and where we're making preparations for nasty winter weather anyways.

COP21 Misleads

I was watching Saturday's World News on ABC when the weekend anchor crowed about the 'agreement' reached in Paris at the COP21 meeting. That the newsies at ABC fervently believe the non-binding agreement will in some fashion have any effect on climate is no surprise. They take anything from the Left, particularly the watermelon warmists, as gospel.

But in the end the agreements do nothing. It is no different from the Kyoto Protocols signed by President Clinton, which the US Senate refused to ratify by a margin of 95-0. The US ignored Kyoto...and reduced its air emissions and CO2 emissions more than any country that was a signatory. And it did it all without crippling its economy, something Kyoto would have required.

The COP21 agreement isn't any different, replacing relatively inexpensive and plentiful energy sources with those that are expensive, unreliable, and subsidized to ridiculous levels because they aren't otherwise viable. At least China and India aren't buying into this pseudo-green crap. Neither should any of the other developing nations because all any of this will do is hold them back. Some of them are expecting big bucks from the West to help offset the costs of renewables. Too bad most of it will go into the pockets of those in power and the people will, as usual, get screwed.

What makes this even sadder is that these folks actually buy into the fable of AGW even though data over the past 18 years or so show the doomsday predictions made many of the so-called climate 'scientists' have failed to materialize. Others are using the AGW doomsday scenario as a means to gain power, both economic and political, and the climate be damned.

Now that COP21 is done, all of the dignitaries, AGW faithful, and their hangers on can get back into their private jets and fly home while generating more CO2 than many families will in two years.

It's all “Do as I say, not as I do” with these people.

To quote Glenn Reynolds, “I'll start believing it's a crisis when the people telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis.” I haven't seen that to this point and I doubt very much I ever will.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The El Niño driven above normal temperatures continue here in New England, with the high today here in central New Hampshire expected to be well in the 50's. Not that we're complaining as they allow us to use much less firewood and propane to keep The Manse at comfortable temperatures.

Deb and I managed to get our Christmas shopping started yesterday, though we're nowhere near finished as we aren't ones to go out and get it done all at once. I figure we'll be at it piecemeal over the next couple of weeks. It helps that some of it can be done online, eliminating the need to go searching for some gifts.

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You know the Progressive Left have shown their true colors when they start lambasting people for publicly expressing religious feelings - their “thoughts and prayers” - after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino.

WTF is wrong with these idiots?

First they want to cripple free speech, and now they want to eliminate any public demonstration of religious beliefs. In other words they have no belief in the First Amendment, particularly when it comes to anyone expressing opinions or beliefs different from their own.

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David Starr gets to the heart of the matter when he delves into what he calls an “academic deathwish.”

Some college student demonstrators are calling for more "ethnic (black) studies" programs.  Talk about self destructive impulses.  Although a black studies course may make blacks feel better about being black, they won't do a bit of good when it comes to finding a job.

I will take it a little bit farther than he did by stating any major whose title ends in “Studies” is a loser right out of the gate as it will be a useless degree outside of academia. It won't prepare a student to survive in the real world. All such majors do nothing but create yet another bunch or permanently aggrieved Social Justice Warriors who will end up having to take menial minimum wage jobs because they won't be qualified for any other kind of work.

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The ongoing battle between one of our local farm families and one of their neighbors – the neighbor being someone “from away”, in this case the Boston area - has reached an interesting point. The town's Zoning Board did not give the neighbor what they wanted, that being their desire that absolutely no activity that they deem disruptive or within their sight be allowed. Considering the farm in question has been operating under one owner or another since the late 1700's I think the Zoning Board made the right decision. What makes the neighbor think they should have control over someone else's livelihood? If they didn't want to be next to a working farm then perhaps they should have done their due diligence and bought a home somewhere else in town.

This isn't the first time this kind of issue has raised its ugly head, both here in New Hampshire and elsewhere in the US. I doubt it will be the last.

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Why liberals have deluded themselves into believing that jihadist attacks in the US can be used to persuade the American public that it's in their best interests to disarm themselves is beyond me. I have to wonder: What color they sky is on their home planet?

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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I think this is a perfect example of exactly what the Progressive Left wants for the US.

Venezuela: A Dictatorship Masquerading as a Democracy.

I'm sure the Left would love to have control over all media, the economy, speech, elections, and a whole host of other activities that go against their narrative. Then again, that's been their aim since the days of Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

That such control in Venezuela has turned a once wealthy country into a economic basket case, has all but eliminated all human rights, all while letting its oil infrastructure crumble away is to be devoutly ignore by the Progressive Left in this country.

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This would certainly have use in combat conditions, particularly when the bad guys outnumber you. If you you think mini-guns (Gatling guns) are bad-ass, this centrifugal gun, called the DREAD, will make it look like a flintlock. Gatlings are capable of firing up to a rate of 6000 rounds per minutes. The DREAD can fire at a rate of up to 240,000 per minute and can vary the velocity of the rounds it fires.

Another plus: the DREAD is almost silent because it doesn't use an explosive to fire each round unlike the Gatling guns.

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I watched in horror as the New England Patriots folded in front of the Philadelphia Eagles onslaught. I don't know who those guys in the Patriots uniforms were during the second half, but they were totally ineffective against the 4-7 Eagles, losing 35-28.

If the Patriots can't get things back on track for the next game I have a feeling they'll end up 10-6 for the season.

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There appears to be more calls for a revival of nuclear power due to its carbon free nature and high reliability and availability. Assuming the federal government can get off it's ass and streamline the draconian regulatory and licensing process as well as give the necessary approvals for new, safer designs in a timely fashion.

Thorium-based nukes do not have the problems that plague uranium-based reactors, the biggest one being the issue of nuclear waste. Thorium reactors can use the waste products of uranium-cycle reactors for fuel. Thorium is plentiful and do not require the expensive processing that uranium requires.

As much as people push for renewable sources of energy to power our technological society, the hard truth I that renewables can't provide the power needed to for today's society. To equal the power provided 24 hours a day by a single 1000 MW nuclear plant located on a square mile of land renewables would require 120 square miles of land. (The nameplate capacity of renewables is at best a third of its instantaneous capacity so you need three times the amount of renewable capacity to equal that of a single nuke plant.)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Christmas shopping as proceeding apace, Christmas decorations are starting to appear on homes throughout the area, and where Christmas Day will arrive all too soon.