At least we haven't seen temps or heat indexes like that. We also have the nearby lake helping cool things off as well as occasional showers and thundershowers cooling things off as well.
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The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, is finally ready to again ply the waters of the lake. A considerable amount of work was needed before it was seaworthy and the work wasn't completed until this past week. It now sits on its trailer waiting for me to perform the last tasks needed before we put it back into the water, that being putting the various cushions and seat covers back into place, checking the anchor rodes (no, that isn't a typo) and replacing them is need be, locating the mooring lines and getting them back where they belong, replacing the horn, and one or two other minor bits of work.I hope to launch The Boat this next weekend.
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Have you noticed that a lot of modern cityscapes are starting to resemble the dystopian visions of a number of science fiction stories and movies?Science fiction cityscapes have awed audiences since Metropolis debuted in Germany in 1927. These amplified skylines provide a visual shorthand for change, depicting a sort of physical and political accretion. The future Los Angeles of Blade Runner (and Blade Runner 2) implies the end of nationalism. The flooded New York of Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence implies climate change and loss. The upper middle class verticality of Spike Jonze’s Her implies the economic and cultural results of widespread automation. These cities aren’t just predictions, they’re caricatures of our culture that eventually inform real world decision making.The article is eye-opening, so Read The Whole Thing.
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I think we can call this either an oxymoron or a paradox.Hillary has pledged to “end the epidemic of violence” while Obama says crime is down substantially. So which is it?
Could it be the media is playing up any act of violent crime, making it bigger than it is as a means of giving Hillary a talking point? Once she's elected, much of this reporting would fade away, giving everyone the impression that she's somehow brought down the crime rate. The first reaction might be “The news media would never do that!” But as we've come to see, much of the MSM are merely Democrat operatives with bylines. They don't report the news. They shape opinion, even if it's wrongheaded or even based upon a lie. (Two examples – the Black Lives Matter movement and the many times disproven Gender Pay Gap.)
So what's the truth? You won't find the answer from the news media.
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On the other hand, City-Journal's Heather MacDonald delves into the other side of the coin, that being the big part of the crime rate story the rest of the media is purposely ignoring.It is remarkable how little black lives matter when they have not been taken by a police officer. The mainstream media is foaming at the mouth over Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s warnings about rising crime during his Thursday night convention speech. Trump pointed out that homicides were up nearly 17 percent in the largest 50 cities. (The latest research actually shows a nearly 17 percent increase in the 56 largest cities). There have been more than 2,000 shooting victims this year in Chicago, he said, and more than 3,600 killed in Chicago since President Obama took office.If the Black Lives Matter movement were truly serious about saving black lives, it is these crimes they would be protesting about and working with the police to stop. But we hear nary a word which tells me that to BLM, black lives don't really matter as blacks killing blacks is perfectly OK with them.
The overwhelming majority of the victims in this post-Ferguson shooting and homicide surge have been black. In Baltimore, for example, 45 people were killed in July 2015 alone; 43 of them were black. Baltimore’s per capita murder rate was the highest in its history in 2015. In Chicago, 2,460 blacks were shot in 2015—lethally or non-lethally—or nearly seven blacks a day. By contrast, 78 whites were shot in Chicago, or one every 4.6 days. Twelve cities with large black populations saw murders rise anywhere from 54 percent—in the case of Washington, D.C.—to 90 percent, in Cleveland.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
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Another paradox? It appears Tim Kaine, Hillary's running mate, took some common sense and perfectly constitutional measures to address gun violence when he was the mayor of Richmond, Virginia that brought the firearms homicide rate down in that city by 41 percent.Of course some of the die-hard liberals see him as being racist for supporting the laws that put people in jail for illegally possessing firearms.
Seems like a pretty good idea. Convicted felons, at least ones that have been convicted of violent crimes, shouldn’t be allowed to own or possess a weapon. Nor are they. Increasing the penalties certainly won’t stop all illegal activities….murder is illegal but people still do it….but, if it brings down the crime rate, that is a good thing, right? Right???Kaine's move defined illegal possession of firearms by convicted felons a federal crime, meaning they went to federal prison and were incarcerated for longer than they would have been under state law. All Kaine did was refer the cases to the federal prosecutors and they did the rest.
Of course the usual suspects tried to paint the move as racist since a majority of those convicted under the federal law were black. But they chose to ignore the little fact that these were convicted felons in possession of firearms, something that was already illegal.
Yet another example of the liberal double standard.
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Toni Airaksinen is telling feminists that the feminist war on college men must end. If it does not, everybody loses.One of the biggest issues is the fallout from the Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, where due process was set aside in order to ensure more college men were found guilty of sexual assault based solely upon mere accusation. Two problems with this is that the definition of sexual assault on college campuses has been broadened to the point where it is meaningless, and if a true assault took place, it should be a matter for the local police and judicial system to deal with, not a star chamber tribunal where guilt is assumed and innocence is rarely found.
These two issues have already cost a number of colleges and universities their reputations, and in some cases, large sums of money after male students accused and expelled sued their colleges and were found to have been railroaded, then suspended or expelled without cause while damaging the reputation of the accused student.
This isn't going to end well if this nonsense doesn't stop.
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Despite years of propaganda pushing the meme “Keep it in the ground”, the American people aren't buying it. They're saying 'Yes' to energy, and 'No' to keep it in the ground.There are still problems to be addressed, particularly the rabid NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Neat Anything) that have worked hard to kill any energy project, including renewables and/or the power lines needed to get that electrical power from where it's generated to where it's needed, or pipelines that bring much needed natural gas to power plants, factories, and homes. They have bought into the know-nothing propaganda with little or no thought.
These deluded souls seem to think that the electricity that comes out of their outlets appears because of magic and not because of power plants, power lines, and transformer/switching sub-stations. They are also the ones who scream the loudest when they throw that power switch and nothing happens. But they'll still fight any project that adds capacity to our increasingly stressed power grid.
They also don't like the idea of fossil fuels in any form even though there is nothing they can propose to replace them. Even electric cars require power from the very same power grid they want to make sure becomes less capable every day.
I think these folks need a much needed dose of reality. Maybe then they'll come to realize that they are the cause of many of the energy problems we have. However, I'm not holding my breath.