POOMA'd

By way of Watts Up With That comes something I noticed in one of the comments that I hadn't seen before but was totally appropriate . In this case it's an acronym. I have no idea if it's new or has been around a while, but I haven't come across it before.

In the case of the WUWT post I was reading, the commenter was suggesting that some numbers about the CO2 levels that will exist in the year 2100 were “POOMA” figures.

What is a POOMA figure?

Pulled Out Of My A**.

I find that to be perfectly appropriate.

Thoughts On A Sunday - Monday Edition

It was a busy weekend here in The Lakes Region, between my home town's Old Home Day 9on Saturday (an all day affair that ends with fireworks), shopping for a new Official Weekend Pundit Refrigerator, and attending the Brian Wilson concert at the Meadowbrook Farm concert venue on Sunday evening.

All in all a very busy weekend, hence a somewhat shorter version of TOAS.

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Why is it that this doesn't surprise me...or anyone else?

Just 29% of U.S voters think Hillary Clinton is “Honest”.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Here it is, 24 years since Bill Clinton's first run for the White House and the theme for this oen should be the same as it was back then: It's the economy, stupid!

This is something that should be at the forefront of the campaign, particularly Trump's campaign.

Once again, what Americans care about foremost are bread and butter issues. How is the health of the economy affecting themselves and those they know. What’s their pay look like. Does their company sound safe? What’s their cost of living. Everything else, no matter how important it seems at the time (seriously, while the Colin Kaepernick sitting during the national anthem seems huge, does it matter, or is it just a distraction?). This is what people want to know about.

Instead of making those appeals to minority voters (note: he still hasn’t made an appeal to Conservatives specifically yet), he should talk about the economics that affect them, and everyone. In all fairness, his recent speech about the state of blacks did touch on a lot of the bad economic numbers that plague black communities. Obviously, that wasn’t covered by the oh-so-neutral media. Trump should give speeches that do not include Other Things, distraction things, talking about himself things, that allow the media to focus on things other than the economy.

In the end it's always about the economy, good or bad.

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There are some bad ideas the Left never seems to let go of, and this one is one of them – Bringing back the 55MPH maximum speed limit.

It didn't do what they claimed it did the first time back in the Bad Old Days of the 70's and it won't do what they're claiming it will this time either. While this time it's aimed and trucks and buses, they are applying a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, just as it didn't the last time the NMSL was imposed upon us through the efforts of the Safety Nazis and the Anti-Destination League.

The old NMSL was one of the most universally hated and ignored laws since Prohibition. What makes them think it will be any different this time?

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This will certainly be cool if they can make it manufacturable at a reasonable cost.

New smart phone batteries with twice the battery life will be available next year.

More than one commenter stated the likely outcome of these kind of batteries will be smaller, thinner phones with the same crappy battery life rather than phones the same size as the ones we have now with twice the battery life.

Of the two, I think the first will be as common as the second, with those of us who value extended battery life will go for the latter, and those who use their smart phones more like a fashion statement will value the former.

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Sometimes those in the know get their predictions right. Sometimes they get them wrong. And some times they get them so wrong they're comical.

So it is with these worst predictions about the Internet made 25 years ago.

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And that's the abbreviated and delayed news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summer weather remains, the kids will start school in a couple of days, and where there's still plenty of boating weather remaining.

Thoughts On A Sunday....Delayed

As I just got back from the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion concert venue, I did not have time to assemble my usual Sunday post. My missus and I had a very busy day and with us also having tickets to see Brian Wilson's 50th Anniversary of Pet Sounds Tour, I had very little time to assemble a post. So rather than doing a really bad job of it, TOAS will appear on Monday.

Small Town Road Issues

I have to relate something that, in my opinion, could only happen in a small town like mine.

Like just about any municipality, one topic of discussion that always comes up is the maintenance of the roads. At some point just about everyone who lives in a town like ours gets concerned about the condition of the road on which they live. Like many towns, ours has a multiyear schedule that lists the roads that will be fixed in a given year, with some requiring just some paving while others require a complete reconstruction.

It's no surprise that some folks don't like the fact that their road may not see anything other some patching for a few years. Their road is always in dire need of being redone. They don't want to hear about how the list was assembled or that other roads in the schedule ahead of them are in much worse shape and are almost impassible. They want to be moved up on the list and let someone else's road be put on the back burner. They usually don't get their way, at least not here.

What is a surprise is when the residents on a road scheduled to be completely rebuilt come to the road agent and the board of selectmen demanding that their road be taken off the list altogether. If they had their druthers, they'd prefer if the town tore up the existing pavement and return the road to its original dirt and gravel. Their reasoning?

Cars are traveling too fast on their road as it is and making it better will encourage even higher speeds.

Frankly, I don't blame them because they're right.

The posted speed limit for their road is 25 MPH. The highest speed measured by radar on that same road: 71 MPH. This road is a narrow country road with one very steep decline at one end. The road surface isn't very good as it is and someone somehow managed to go 71 MPH on that road. It's a miracle they aren't dead. The average speed is about 40 MPH, a good 15 MPH above the limit, a speed that is still too fast for some stretches of that road.

As such, their argument for not fixing the road and actually degrading its condition by returning it to a dirt and gravel surface makes sense. It will also save our town a good portion of the $250,000 budgeted for fixing their road next year.

Are they going to receive what it is they've asked for?

That's yet to be decided.

It's All About The Feelz

I found this by way of Maggie's Farm, and after reading knew I had to share it. See if you agree with this gentleman's observations.

For the age 60 and above, the early Boomers and their parents, facts remain very important and feelings, while important, are thought not very reliable. Emotions are to be controlled and overcome, they are not to be a guide.

For post-Boomers, especially those born after 1980 or so, feelings are predominant, and the younger of that group the more important feelings are. This is also the cohort that was raised in the thick of the self-esteem movement, being told they are special (you know, just like everyone else). They received praise and rewards just for showing up (participation trophies, anyone?).

They are very, very heavily into social signaling by where they live and where they vacation and by what their children do. They absolutely dominate their kids, who typically have little choice in what activities they will do and when.

The younger sets of this group, born after the early 90s, have also learned (having been actually taught) that the cult of victimhood is the most important status of all. They are on high alert for reasons to be offended and when they are, it is for slights, real or imagined, that mystify the 60 cohort.

Victimhood demands recompense so there is no hope of forgiveness unless the offender crawls on his belly like a cold reptile to beg for it. But forgiveness is never unconditional. The hatchet may be buried, but the handle protrudes skyward so it can be easy to recover.

It is very much and honor-shame dynamic where all interactions are zero-sum. Where they are on the totem pole if always of concern and they are acutely aware of who is above or below. And woe betide those whom they think are below.

I think of it as the 'Veruca Salt' generation. They are demand oriented. Their magical thinking is that merely because they want something, it should be granted. They react strongly negatively to being asked for facts and logic to support their contention because in their minds, 'I feel very strongly about this so why are you asking for facts?'

For the last group, it's all about 'feelz'. That might explain why we're seeing the intolerant, close-minded, know-nothing loudmouths demanding all kinds of things on college campuses that are so antithetical to our Constitutional Rights. The decry 'hate' speech, but indulge in it at every turn. They demand tolerance but give none. They want 'free shit' but expect everyone else to pay for it, assuming they don't believe there's a Free Shit Fairy that just gives this stuff to them. Facts, evidcne, and real world experience matter nothing to them. It might also explain why they'll buy any kind of pseudo-scientific crap thrown at them by the 'right' people.

While I have to admit that I do let my emotions sway some of my decisions, in general they don't. I want to know what the facts are and try very hard to let them help me make a decision about one thing or another. I am a member of that first group described above. I know that many of this “'Veruca Salt' generation” would be incapable of doing the jobs I do because they aren't cut out to actually do a job the demands the use of data and unemotional logic to make decisions that affect both my employer and the people of my town. It will be all about the 'feelz' and not abut what needs to be done.

What a sad commentary.

Thoughts On A Sunday

This weekend saw the Timberman 70.3 Ironman Triathlon return to Lake Winnipesaukee. It's always something of a spectacle, with a couple of thousand participants, between the first day Sprints and the second day full-on Triathlon.

About the only downside to the annual event is the disruption of traffic during the race, specifically the bicycle portion of the race. Normally I make allowances for those disruptions, but today I got caught up in one of them and I had to go 12 miles out of my way to get home from our local Walmart.

This disruption was not one of the organizer's planning, but that of the spectators'. In this case my only access to my neighborhood was blocked off because the parking along both sides of the side street was such that it narrowed the road to the point where only a very small car, a bike or a motorcycle could make it through. Even trying to do an end around was impossible, meaning I had to go back out to the state highway, head east to the next town, and take a secondary state highway that brought me back home from the other side of my neighborhood.

That's poor planning on someone's part. (Yes, I could have made my trip to Walmart later in the day or the next day, but there were things I needed in order to perform some of my weekend chores. I would have gone on Saturday, but I didn't know I needed those things until last night. So sue me.)

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Seeing the latest ad slamming US Senator Kelly Ayotte for not being truly independent per the sound bite they play at the beginning of the ad, using that sound bite to illustrate she isn't truly independent because she has given support to Donald Trump, makes me wonder what their definition of 'independent' happens to be.

Is it because she's basically ignored the GOPe and their disdain for Trump or because she hasn't gone along with all of the other 'independents' who have decided Trump is persona non grata.

Isn't that like the old saw that goes “Be different, same as us!”

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If the above gives you the impression that I am a full on supporter of Kelly Ayotte, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. I haven't decided who I will be supporting other than it won't be the presumptive Democrat nominee, Maggie Hassan.

I merely want to point out the absurdity of the ad, and hope to keep doing so for every ad for whatever candidate I see that includes any such paradoxical, disconnected, hypocritical, or asinine claim or comparison.

Neither party has a monopoly on those kinds of ads.

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I keep seeing the news, both local and national, touting the medal count at the Rio Olympics.

Frankly, I don't care. Without Russia involved, even with their cheating, it doesn't mean as much as it might have otherwise.

This has to be the one Olympics where I have not bothered to watch a single event. Not one. Whether it's the poor coverage or a total lack of interest due to other factors that has me underwhelmed by the Olympics, the end results are that I really don't care.

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From the Truth Hurts Department.

When Austin (TX) City Councilman Don Zimmerman told a group of visiting students it was in their best interest to buckle down, finish school, learn a trade or go to college, to do something useful with their lives “so you don't have to live off others,” boos arose from the audience.

Another council member derided Zimmerman's implication that those who are “fully capable of providing for themselves but make choices that keep them dependent on extracting wealth from wealth-producers (via the government tax collectors) are not productive.”

They aren't. They're leeches, making others support them when they are fully capable of doing so themselves.

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Are today's feminists worse than lynch mobs?

Why yes, yes they are.

All it takes is an accusation with no evidence, no investigation, and no police involvement for them to destroy someone's life. It can also leave the accusers and any enablers open to lawsuits, as more than a few colleges have found out the hard way. Private and public groups are just as much in jeopardy as the colleges have been in this regard.

To accuse someone of being a serial rapist with “multiple” victims “over the years” is a very serious thing. The previous three paragraphs took me a lot of work to write because, as a journalist who spent decades with a copy of The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual on my desk, I know that you have to be careful in reporting such serious accusations, especially when there are no official law-enforcement sources

to quote. Carefully read any newspaper story about an arrest or an investigation or a trial, and you will notice that everything in the story is attributed to some official source — “according to the affidavit,” or “police said.”

Imagine some newspaper put up the following headline:

SERIAL RAPIST AARON GLASER PREYED ON WOMEN IN NEW YORK COMEDY SCENE, ACCORDING TO SOMEBODY ON FACEBOOK

No newspaper would ever publish a headline like that, because Aaron Glaser’s attorney would sue their asses into bankruptcy. No reporter in his right mind would try to sneak a story like that past the copy desk. Some old-school editors I’ve known would probably clobber you over the head with a copy of the AP Stylebook: “FACEBOOK? YOU’RE QUOTING A G–DAMNED FACEBOOK POST ABOUT A RAPE CASE?”

In effect, that's what's happened to Aaron Glaser. He was accused in a Facebook post. That's it. No police reports filed, no criminal investigation performed, no indictments filed, but he's been branded a serial rapist by a group theater project and his reputation destroyed.

Welcome to the new lynch mob, same as the old lynch mob, but with better social media accessibility.

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Yes, the Religion of White Guilt is a leftist cult, and a nihilist one at that.

And because [Professor James Wellman] has sadfeels about being white, all other people should give up their freedom and bow to Government. But I notice his White Guilt has not led him to quit his well-paid, taxpayer funded sinecure as Chair of the comparative religion department at University of Washington and give it to a native person, a gay person, a black person, an Iraqi or a woman.

It's only other White People who should have to do that since the professor gets a pass because he's an academic and has the proper politically correct outlook.

He's also a clueless self-hating ass.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we have one more week of summer left before the kids go back to school, summerfolk are trying to cram as much vacation into the remaining days, and where the lake's waters will be returned to us (at least during weekdays).

Koch Brothers? What About Soros?

Everyone on the Left keeps trying to make the Koch Brothers the 'big money' bad guys even though they are pipsqueaks compared to the cash doled out by guys like Warren Buffet, Tom Steyer, and George Soros. Because they don't give money to the 'correct” candidates and don't support giving more power to the government, the political class, and the elite, they are painted as being nothing more than businessmen trying to buy elections and subverting candidates.

But you never ever hear about the millions being spent by some of the worst the corporate bag men and corrupters around. The worst by far – George Soros.

The Left forgives his slush money and bought and paid for lobbyists and politicians because he supports all the 'correct' causes, including those that would see more Americans enslaved to the State, one that has no use for freedom of any kind for anyone not one of the elite.

What proof of this is there?

Hacked documents from George Soros' own archives.

The worst of it? Pressure on the US Supreme Court in regards to opening the immigration floodgates, trying to buy European elections, anti-Israel initiatives that would help destroy the one truly free nation in the Middle East, funding the Black Lives Matter movement, and spending $200,000 on a smear campaign against conservative activists, for starters.

But what do we hear from the usual suspects in the MSM?

Nothing but the sound of crickets.

Compare And Contrast

I find it interesting that Country/Pop star Taylor Swift is far more responsive to the disaster in Louisiana than The Won.

No Longer A Hyphenated American

An interesting comment made in response to Andrew Klavan's Lying Black Folks To Death opens up a whole new train of thought, one many black Americans should take to heart.

Writes Fred Caplo:

There is a great book by Keith Richburg - "Out of America". As an African-American who felt under-appreciated and wanted to find out how much respect he gets as a black man from black men in Africa. Spoiler: after his return to America he removed the hyphen and defined himself as "American".

It is the 'hyphenated' Americans that have helped divide this nation, a division encouraged by the Progressives in this nation as a means of controlling them.

Give Andrew Klavan's post a read and pay attention to the many comments. Then consider reading Keith Richburg's book.

Why Yes, Yes We Will

I've seen this before, but it bears repeating.

And don't think we won't....

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was another fifty-fifty weekend here at Lake Winnipesaukee, with cloudy and rainy weather on Saturday and hot and humid weather today. We certainly needed the rain, though we didn't get nearly what we'd hoped, it having been quite dry since May.

Generally not much in the way of outdoor work got done over the weekend.

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Back in the days of the so-called Robber Barons, many of those moneyed people gave great sums of their cash to all kinds of charities and philanthropic organizations, built libraries, hospitals, churches, schools, colleges, orphanages, and a host of other socially significant institutions. While some had inherited their wealth, most earned it, starting with nothing and becoming captains of industry. They were ruthless, not letting anything or anyone stand in the way of their success. But they also understood that financial success alone would not make them memorable, hence their philanthropy.

But what of today's 'Captains of Industry'? Have the followed their in their predecessors' footsteps, or have they taken a different path?

Unfortunately, they are not like those who went before them. They are far worse than the robber barons were at their worst, and are unapologetic about their forays into politics, social engineering, and dare I say, their intolerant totalitarian bent.

Now from San Francisco to Washington and Brussels, the tech oligarchs are something less attractive: a fearsome threat whose ambition s to control our future politics, media, and commerce seem without limits. Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Uber may be improving our lives in many ways, but they also are disrupting old industries—and the lives of the many thousands of people employed by them. And as the tech boom has expanded, these individuals and companies have gathered economic resources to match their ambitions.

And as their fortunes have ballooned, so has their hubris. They see themselves as somehow better than the scum of Wall Street or the trolls in Houston or Detroit. It’s their intelligence, not just their money, that makes them the proper global rulers. In their contempt for the less cognitively gifted, they are waging what The Atlantic recently called “a war on stupid people.”

In this case their definition of stupid people is “those who are not us.” It allows them to do things and take actions that hurt millions because, after all, those millions are “not us”, and therefore don't count.

That's going to come back to haunt them as it always does because even though they are 'smart', they aren't wise. Without that wisdom they create the conditions of their own downfall.

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This could certainly create a constitutional crisis.

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As if the above isn't enough, there's also a question about Hillary's health.

One possible ailment that might explain a series of health issues she's dealt with over the past few years is Parkinson's Disease.

Hillary Clinton (HRC) has suffered a variety of health issues. Unfortunately, she has declined to make her medical records public. In July of 2015 her personal physician released a letter asserting her “excellent physical condition.” Unfortunately, multiple later episodes recorded on video strongly suggest that the content of the letter is incorrect. This discussion is designed to sort through the known facts and propose a possible medical explanation for these events. In keeping with Occam’s Razor, a single explanation that covers everything is preferred.

--snip--

The 2009 fall where HRC broke her elbow suggests that she had working protective reflexes, and her arm took the brunt of the fall. But three years later, she had a catastrophic fall where her reflexes were unable to help her. It is notable that this fall took place at home, where she would have been unstressed and in a familiar setting. Failing reflexes are common in PD. Poor balance is also common in PD, and a fall without working protective reflexes is a prescription for head injury. Her subsequent concerns with transverse sinus thrombosis are plausibly related to the fall. Her need for fresnel lens glasses also fits with post-concussion syndrome.

Having a relative who suffers from Parkinson's, I have to agree that it's quite possible HRC may also have that ailment, and it's only going to get worse. What many don't know is that PD can also affect mental processes, so having a leader who has this condition is not a good thing.

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Skip over at Granite Grok shows us this little gem that more parents with school-aged kids should read and take to heart. I think it would solve a good portion of the problems school kids have with the course work at their schools.

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This was a shorter post than I thought it would be. I ended up making a trip to southwestern New Hampshire with the missus and the WP Mom to meet up with some cousins we hadn't seen in over a year. All work at The Manse (and on this post) was put aside in order to make the trip, hence the abbreviated post.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're back into the three H's (Hot, Hazy, Humid), we're preparing for the Timberman Triathlon next weekend, and where our clandar is quickly running out of summer days.

Envy Or Growth?

Despite the media feeding frenzy about Donald Trump's multiple faux pas and their over the top and unabashed water carrying for Hillary Clinton, the true battle in regards to the upcoming election is going to boil down to this question:

What do you want going forward – envy or economic growth?

Despite all of the other rhetoric making the rounds, this is what this election boils down to.

...Hillary is stuck in the past.  American corporate tax rates haven't changed since her husband was president. Her business plan, which she will unveil in Detroit on Thursday, actually hikes business taxes.  She's obsessed with making corporations pay “their fair share.”

Her definition of 'fair share' is always “more than they do now.” She really sees no connection between increasing business taxes and slowing or stagnant economic growth.

As Trump pointed out Monday,  "the one common feature of every Hillary Clinton idea is that it punishes you for working and doing business in the United States."

Clinton  advisor Neera Tanden says it's unnecessary to reduce corporate taxes because “the U.S. has been doing pretty well when it comes to competitiveness.” Huh? Indonesia, Spain, Poland, India, and China to name a few, are growing several times as fast as America's anemic 1.2% growth.

Obama will be the first president in the modern era that didn't have a single year where economic growth was 3%, a growth rate seen during at least one year during the administrations of his predecessors. Even Hillary's husband, Bill Clinton, saw multiple years of 3% (or better) economic growth. And now we have had three successive quarters where U.S. productivity has declined, something we haven't seen since the malaise of the Carter years. This is a possible sign that we may be slipping into another recession (or deepening the existing one since we haven't really recovered from the one that started in 2008). Another bad sign – business investment has also dropped over the past three quarters.

Hillary's plan to deal with this?

Double down on stupid.

Businesses that don't invest in more trucks and computers can't hire more drivers and office personnel.  Though the jobs report announced last Friday was hailed as a positive, declining investment makes future job growth shaky.

In the "Fair Growth" plan Clinton is set to unveil, there is no private sector growth.  Nothing in her plan will promote business investment, according to Moody's.

Her plan amounts to a $275 billion public works program -- a throwback to the 1930's -- paid for by more business taxes. As we learned then, and endured again with Obama's failed "shovel-ready" boondoggles, government can't spend its way to prosperity.

Clinton and the Democrats may tout the lower unemployment rate, but it is smoke and mirrors. The U3 unemployment rate is an indicator of how many people who are still collecting unemployment benefits and is not a true measure of how many people are unemployed or underemployed. (Underemployed means working part time rather than full time or working outside their normal occupation, like a business executive working as a clerk at a grocery store, for example.) The true measure of the unemployment rate is the U6 rate which comprises those counted under the U3 rate and those who no longer collect benefits, are underemployed, or have stopped looking for work.

It used to be that the difference between the U3 and U6 rates was usually around 3 to 4 percentage points. Under Obama that difference has averaged 7 percentage points.

As of July of this year, the U3 unemployment rate was 4.9% and the U6 rate was 10.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I expect under Hillary we can expect both of these rates to climb again as she strangles the economy with more taxes, more deficit spending, and more obstructive rules and regulations. I expect she'll keep trying to sell us the line that it's for our own good even though she hasn't a friggin' clue what's good for anyone...other than herself.

At least Trump knows what ails us in regards to the economy, having had to deal with the effects of increasing taxes, regulations, and bureaucratic red tape, and having had to deal with it for decades.

Will Trump be a good president? I don't know. But I think he knows how to get the American economy growing again. Clinton, on the other hand, will continue with the Democrat agenda, making pie-in-the-sky promises about 'fixing' the economy that are not based upon reality and will continue to strangle economic growth. And she will continue to harangue the 'makers' for not paying their 'fair share' when they already pay more than the rest of us combined.

So, what's it going to be – Envy or Growth?

Victims Of Mortgage Fraud Still Waiting For Justice

If you thought the fallout from the housing bubble was over, you'd be wrong.

It appears a lot of home-owners (and former home-owners) are still fighting against the foreclosure fraud that saw a lot of homes being foreclosed on by financial institutions that didn't hold any of the supposedly delinquent mortgages, or worse foreclosed on homes that had no mortgages or equity loans against them. This was also known as the 'Robo-signing' fraud.

What makes this worse?

The federal government abandoned them, washing their hands of the entire affair and condemning untold thousands of home-owners with no home, no redress, and empty bank accounts.

They seek answers that I mostly don’t have and support I mostly cannot provide. Outside of referring them to legal aid, I cannot solve their foreclosure problems. I cannot convince a judge disinclined to rule in their favor, or a bank disinclined to see them as anything but a financial asset to be plucked, to change their minds. I can only note in sorrow that the massive netting of fraud laid by the mortgage industry over a decade ago continues to capture people like them.

It’s impossible to expend the time and resources necessary to verify these and the hundreds of other stories I get daily. I can’t even get through all the names of these victims. But I can paint a picture of the type of people who write them, which is nothing like the one the industry frames, a tale of deadbeats and losers who miss mortgage payments and try to scam banks into acquiring a free house.

Fraud, forgery, false filings, 'missing' paperwork, and the infamous robo-signing of foreclosure paperwork on homes that are not in default, and not one bank or financial officer has gone to prison. It is theft writ large and the judges and courts are letting them get away with it. It also means that if they got away with it once they'll do it again.

And the government (and the banks) wonder why nobody trusts them.

Why The Right Is Right

Because we make and they take. Seems straightforward to me.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It's been another fifty-fifty weekend here at The Manse, with hot and humid weather on Saturday (including a small downpour around 5:30 PM), and warm and much drier today. No complaints from me on that combination.

It did mean that many of the indoor chores were done yesterday and the outdoor chores today.

Not a bad way to go through the weekend.

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You know PC has really taken hold in Washington DC when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is considering banning the Gadsen flag in federal workplaces as “racist”. What drove this review by the EEOC?

A complaint from one single solitary federal worker. One.

Reading the follow up, it appears this aggrieved federal employee, whose race will not be divulged by me (but you can probably guess) didn't like the fact that a fellow employee was wearing a hat bearing the Gadsen flag since Gadsen “was a slave trader & owner of slaves.”” What will be next, Old Glory? How about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution? Many of the same arguments could be made about our nation's flag and the documents which are such a major part of our history and who we are.

The aggrieved federal employee isn't showing himself to be a 'victim' of racism, but just another “I'm a victim” jerk with a means stirring up bad feelings because he can. Or if he really believes what he's saying, then maybe he needs to get some help because he's taking the victim crap too far.

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As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

In this case the holier-than-thou greens pushed for more renewable fuel sources and now they've got them in spades. But the problem is that there has been a serious downside to that success and it has far worse effects than if they had done nothing at all. That has led many of them to reconsider their stance on the Renewable Fuel Mandate.

"The big green groups that got invested in biofuels are tacitly realizing the blunder," said John DeCicco, a research professor at the University of Michigan Energy Institute who previously focused on automotive strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund. "It’s really hard for the people who really -- shall we say -- hate oil viscerally, to think that this alternative that we’ve been promoting is today worse than oil."

The Natural Resources Defense Council used a 96-page report in 2004 to proclaim boundless biofuel benefits: slashed global warming emissions, improved air quality and more wildlife habitat.

Instead, farmers plowed millions of acres of prairie grasses to grow corn for making ethanol, with fertilizer runoff contributing to a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists warned that carbon dioxide emissions associated with corn-based ethanol were higher than expected. And alternatives using switchgrass, algae and other non-edible plant materials have been slow to penetrate the market.

One of the reasons cellulose-based ethanol hasn't made as much headway is the cost, which can be considerably higher than corn-based ethanol. Some of that is due to the more complicated methods required to turn cellulose into sugar, and then into ethanol. While cellulosic feedstock is more readily available, the conversion process is more involved, takes longer, and costs more, hence corn's reign as the feedstock of choice.

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Speaking of renewables, here's a word of warning from Robert Tracinski, who tells us to beware the era of “Green Energy” hype because so much of it ignores the actual costs of using them, choosing to pretend that none of it would even exist if it wasn't for government subsidies.

It all comes down to this: the money 'saved' by using things like solar power is far outweighed by the costs of purchase, installation and maintenance, meaning they wear out long before they pay for themselves.

And then there are electric cars.....

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They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means. (With apologies to Inigo Montoya.)

What most people consider 'moderate' and what the Palestinian Authority (specifically Fatah) considers 'moderate' are two entirely different things.

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Was Microsoft built on stolen goods?

Could be.

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This is something I've known for some time.

Helen Raleigh delves into why access to the China market can be a form of suicide for US companies.

It can be explained in four words: Theft Of Intellectual Property.

China is not known for strong intellectual property rights protection. Since taking over China in 1949, the Communist Party successfully wiped out private property rights, so there’s very little distinction between what’s “yours” versus “mine.” Wholesale “copy and paste” of foreign companies’ intellectual properties has been rampant in China and is rarely prosecuted.

My employer has seen that first hand when knockoffs of three of our most popular products started being sold in Asia and Europe by a Chinese manufacturer at cut-rate prices. When we bought some and did a teardown we found the circuit boards, component layout, and electronic parts were absolutely identical to ours. Even one of our custom logos made it onto the knockoff circuit boards. Any differences were cosmetic, meaning the cases on the products used different colors and one had some decorative ribbing added to change the shape of the exterior.

Now multiply that by the millions for all of the US designed goods being built in China, and you have billions of dollars in lost revenue. What's worse is when a knockoff company then applies for and is issued a Chinese patent for your intellectual property, then sues you, the original company, for patent infringement. That's what's happened to Apple and its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

It may be cheaper to build things in China, but in the end you may lose far more than you saved when a Chinese company starts selling knockoffs of your products to your customers for a much lower price.

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It appears the SJW insanity activism on our college campuses is having an effect. But it isn't the one the clueless fragile snowflakes were wishing for with all their tiny little hearts.

The SJWs have been going off the rails with demands for all kinds of stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with educating them in preparation for surviving in the real world. They get so hung up on gender issues (which nobody really cares about one way or the other), racism issues (which everyone ignores because it is the SJW's themselves who are the biggest racists on campus), LGBTQ issues (which has everyone asking WTF?), and rape culture issues (which exists only in their tiny little minds), they forget the real reason why they are supposed to be attending college to begin with. As such, a lot of alumni are disgusted with what has been going on at their alma mater and the spinelessness of the college administration and they have been showing their displeasure by closing their wallets and withdrawing endowments, both present and future. I bet the SJWs didn't expect that little bit of rebellion from those who have been helping to pay their way through college. They are finding out the hard way that actions have consequences, and their actions are hurting the institution of higher learning they have been trying to take over with their over-the-top protests, anti-constitutional efforts to destroy free speech, and their deluded belief that the free exchange of ideas and the debate that goes with it must be quashed because they don't like hearing things they don't like, even if they are true.

Welcome the real world, comrades!

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And that is the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been fine, the boating fantastic, and where Monday is once again intruding into time that could be better used out on the lake.

Time To Take A Step Back

Though this was posted originally at my other New Hampshire oriented blog, I figured it would probably make a decent post over here as well. If nothing else, it would stand as an object lesson about how not all ideas to 'improve' government actually do so and the time comes undo the improvement.

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New Hampshire's state legislature is unique in many ways, one of the most prominent being its size – 400 members of the House and 24 members of the Senate. That makes it the third largest legislative body in the world, with only the UK's Parliament and the US Congress being larger.

One of the other things that used to make New Hampshire different from many other states was that its legislature only met every other year. That meant the legislators had to 'take care of business' because they knew they had limited time to get everything done before the legislative session ended.

That all changed in 1984 when a group of citizens and legislators made a pitch to switch to annual legislative sessions. Their reasoning behind the change was that the 5 to 6 month biennial session was too long and that shorter annual sessions would be less of a burden.

They sold us a pig in a poke.

Those 5 to 6 month long biennial sessions have turned into 5 to 6 month long annual sessions. The promise of shorter annual sessions never materialized. The cost of annual sessions was more than twice that of the biennial session. In that time a lot of useless legislation has been filed and wasteful spending has been passed. There were no savings in either time or money. Annual sessions are far more of a burden on both legislators and taxpayers than biennial sessions.

We were conned and I think it's time to do something about it.

It's well past time to amend the state constitution, specifically Part II, Article 3 - When to Meet and Dissolve - and go back to biennial sessions. Annual sessions have failed to live up to the promises made by its proponents and it's time to admit that we made a mistake. It's time to take a step back.

I already know the argument will be made that we can't go back now, that we can't possible handle the state's needs meeting only every other year. But I can counter that by looking at the biggest state in the continental US – Texas - which has a single 90-day legislative session every two years and it seems to be able to handle all of its business in that time. New Hampshire is a fraction of the size of Texas (9,349 sq miles vs 268,596 sq miles) with a fraction of the population (1.33 million vs 27.97 million), but we won't be able to handle the state's business in 5 to 6 months every 2 years? I'm not buying it. That implies that either the people in Texas are a heck of a lot smarter and work harder, or we've gone stupid and are incapable of doing what we once could do. I'm not buying that either.

The 'experiment' of annual legislative sessions has failed. It's costing us money and not living up to its promise. It's time to declare the experiment over and get back to something we know works and works well.

A New Metal Alloy

Just when we thought there wasn't much else we could discover in the field of metallurgy a new alloy has been developed which creates a metal four times harder than most steels. It's two constituent elements:

Titanium and gold.

Titanium is the leading material for artificial knee and hip joints because it's strong, wear-resistant, and nontoxic, but an unexpected discovery by Rice University physicists shows that the gold standard for artificial joints can be improved with the addition of some actual gold.

"It is about three to four times harder than most steels," said Emilia Morosan, the lead scientist on a new study in Science Advances that describes the properties of a 3-to-1 mixture of titanium and gold with a specific atomic structure that imparts hardness. "It's four times harder than pure titanium, which is what's currently being used in most dental implants and replacement joints."

It's interesting that a relatively soft metal, gold, can help make an already hard metal even harder and more durable.

Ain't science wonderful?

Quote Of The Day

A great quote, one that should be used by every parent with their child.

If you want to see a person's true character, notice how they treat someone who can do absolutely nothing for them.

From a comment at this post at PJ Media.

Are "Too Big To Fail" Banks Headed For Another Bailout?

If you're of an age, you'll remember what happened about 8 years ago when the housing bubble finally deflated and banks started failing one after the other. Some had long been bastions of financial power, yet they found themselves holding billions of dollars worth non-performing loans and toxic assets.

The-Powers-That-Be decided that these financial institutions were “too big to fail” because if they did it would cause a panic and cause an economic collapse. So they decided to shell out billions in taxpayer dollars to shore up these banks and head off an economic calamity.

Seeing what happened you'd think these banks and financial institutions would learn a lesson and not take on such risks again.

You'd be wrong.

The financial crisis of 2008 happened because the banks were too big, they were too opaque and they were engaging in risky business practices. Where are we now? Many of the banks are much bigger, they’re still opaque and they’re still engaging in risky business practices. This is a recipe for (another) disaster.

“We don’t actually know a lot of what goes on in banking,” Anat Admati, a professor of finance and economics at Stanford University, told Salon. “We don’t have good monitoring of it.”

Admati said a lot of what banks do is deeply buried in vast financial records, so it’s extremely difficult to follow what industries banks are involved in and what they’re doing. She said the banks benefit from this opaqueness, because it means they can get away with risky business practices while no one knows what’s going on.

That is a formula for disaster, and I have no doubt the banks are yet again taking risks they shouldn't because they know the US government will bail them out again. As more than one financial pundit has said, it's a rigged game where profits are privatized and risks are socialized.

That has to end.

If these big banks find themselves in the same position again, then they shouldn't be bailed out...until they've been broken up into smaller entities and all of the chief level officers have been fired and banned from serving as a officer in another financial institution for a minimum of 4 years.

Why four years? Because they'll be able to use their time off to learn about how not to run a bank and shouldn't be involved with them until they can prove they've learned how things should be run.

Endless bailouts of crooked financial institutions does not fill anyone with confidence in our economy because it shows they are nothing more than a con game writ large.