About the only downside is that the pollen count is rather high and ahead of schedule. We usually don't see this until early May. It certainly has been affecting BeezleBub as he's been dealing with his allergies. (It's ironic that a farmer suffers from hay fever!)
I will be getting to some outdoor chores today, but only some light cleanup as the ground is still rather wet and muddy in some places.
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I admit I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the presidential campaigns of either major party because I haven't been hearing anything new since the New Hampshire primaries back in February.It's all boiled down to tit-for-tat, “He's a doody-head!” “No, he's a doody-head!” type of back and forth. Between the two old white socialists who really don't care about the middle class in one party and the outsider/insider/state governor three-way race in the other party, it all starts to sound the same.
I have had some discussions with the missus, with her stating she thinks Hillary has bought the election (well, she's certainly paid a lot of money for it, and I'm not talking about ad campaigns) and me countering about how she won't be able to run for office from federal prison, to our aligned opinions about Trump (“He's a loud-mouthed spoiled bully who doesn't like it when he doesn't get his way”) to Cruz (“We got nothin'”) to John Kasich (“John who?”).
This has got to be one of the least interesting yet scariest presidential election seasons I can remember. Not one of the remaining candidates in either party can be said to pique our interests. That's saying something from someone who has been very involved in the electoral process since 1974, the first year I could vote.
I've heard more than a few friends and a lot of the smarter pundits saying that those people who could truly be great presidents want nothing to do with the office, knowing what the job entails and knowing it requires living in a city that is a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
This is what makes me think the next president should be dragged kicking and screaming into office against their will. Anyone wanting the position should automatically be disqualified.
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The first real effects of the new state $15 minimum wage is being felt in California, with a number of garment firms pulling the plug and preparing to move their clothes-making operations out of the state.One company, American Apparel, is planning to outsource clothes-making to another manufacturer out of state, making 500 jobs in Los Angeles disappear.
This will ripple through the California economy and will have just the opposite effect intended. But that won't matter to those who championed the new minimum wage because it wasn't really done to 'help' the poor, but to make themselves feel better.
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Here is a perfect example of Hollywood political hypocrisy.There's nothing I can add to that except take up Glenn Reynolds' demand that we end the Hollywood tax breaks.
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Iowahawk nails this one.“Capitalism” isn't a “system,” it's a word made up by an 1860's hipster dipshit to whine about people voluntarily buying and selling stuff.Indeed.
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Though I've seen this on a number of other much more popular blogs, I feel compelled to add it here as well.A Hippie Discovers Economics, And You'll Never Guess What Happens Next!
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Skip digs into how the socialist heart always gets broken.They also have a short memory because they keep trying the same thing over and over again but end up with the same results.
I wouldn't mind it so much if they went somewhere else and tried it, but they have infested the American culture, are turning things upside down, and still can't figure out why none of their ideas to create the “Socialist Utopia” ever come to fruition. It certainly isn't for the lack of trying.
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I have again given one of my more cynical acquaintances the chance to try what I like to call “The News Experiment”.This is where for one week they give up reading all of the 'normal' news dealing with crime, war, politics, death and destruction. Instead they can read only science and technology news for that week. Then compare and contrast the two.
The few other times I have challenged someone to do this and they've followed through, they are amazed at the difference in the outlook between the two. The science and technology news is far more upbeat and forward looking while the 'normal' news is almost always a downer.
And people wonder why I read a lot of the science and engineering blogs, magazines, and journals.
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Steven Hayward asks “Why do Democrats hate their own presidents?”Writes Hayward:
you would think that Democrats would celebrate, and hope to emulate, the success of the Clinton years just as Republicans look back to and hope to recreate the Reagan years. Instead, Democrats are rushing to repudiate nearly all of Clinton’s successes.Those successes being things like a balanced budget, a growing economy, more free trade, a major reform of a bloated and oft-abused welfare system, and a falling crime rate. Why do the Democrats hate these successes? Because it gives them even less control over the American people. Success equals failure in their eyes, because it means they will have less power over the electorate. Fewer poor means they have fewer people to bribe with government largess like subsidized housing, food stamps, and free health care (Medicaid).
It isn't just Bill Clinton they hate. They also have major dislikes of most of his predecessors going all they way back to Thomas Jefferson because “he not only owned slaves, but canoodled with one of them.”
There's just no pleasing these guys, is there?
(H/T Pirate's Cove)
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Oh, yeah, this will work out well.It is only a matter of time before someone will go a little two far and it will end up killing people, or worse, precipitate a shooting war.
Of course if we did something like along the lines of what the Russians have been pulling, I would almost rather have it be a scene out of Tom Clancy's book The Hunt for Red October, where the Soviet Navy was getting too close to US territorial waters. Fighters and fighter-bombers kept the Soviets busy on their radar while a flight of four A-10 Warthogs flew at wavetop level, then bracketed the Soviet flagship by dropping flares along each side and at the bow and stern of the ship to show them just how vulnerable they were.
As the Warthogs flew away, the flight leader got on his radio set on the guard channel and sent “This is Captain Barry Friendly. Thank you for flying Warthog Air!”
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This is something I have known for some time: The We-All-Hate-The-Evil-Humans-For-Creating-Climate-Change crowd have been ignoring a scientific fraud.The fraud? That nuclear power is too expensive to build, too dangerous to use, and won't help reduce carbon emissions.
Of the three, the first two are by far and away the most overly fraudulent claims. Then again, the Green true believers don't want anything that will improve people's lives to be used. They want us back to live under early 18th Century conditions...except for them, of course. After all, they'll have to keep an eye on us to prevent us from progressing past that point.