Thoughts On A Sunday - Abbreviated

This will be a somewhat abbreviated TOAS post as I was busy with a number of tasks both inside and outside The Manse today and just finished the last of them (it's 9:34Pm EDT as I write this). Between running errands, trying to clean up the garage and sort through items – some to the “Throw it out” pile and others to the “I may need this but it's likely to be thrown out too” pile – all in preparation for putting The Manse on the market, it's taken a lot of my time over the weekend. It's time for us to downsize as it no longer makes sense to keep the house we've called home over the past 12 years. It's too big and the yard work is no longer easy for me to take care of (not that it ever was due to the steep slope of the property upon which The Manse sits).

*****************

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the national news because it has become quite boring, repetitive, and even more disturbing to me, predictable. The propaganda division of the DNC, aka the MSM, are devoting far too much time trying to tear down the president while ignoring everything else going on around the country. The only exception to that being stories about tornadoes, heavy rains with flooding, or brush fires, all of which have been caused by Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Accords. (Yes, it is sarcasm. I wouldn't think I would actually need to tell any of you this, but better safe than sorry.)

*****************

Sometimes people need to be reminded that if existing laws have problems, more often than not they can be corrected by legislative action. The newest jurist on the US Supreme Court offers his dissenting opinion on a case that the Supreme Court just ruled on in a 7-2 decision, and addresses this issue in a forthright and clear manner. Writes Justice Neil Gorsuch in his dissent in the Perry v. Merit Systems Protection Board mentions the plaintiff took the convenient action rather than the correct action:

Anthony Perry asks us to tweak a congressional statute—just a little—so that it might (he says) work a bit more efficiently. No doubt his invitation is well meaning. But it’s one we should decline all the same. Not only is the business of enacting statutory fixes one that belongs to Congress and not this Court, but taking up Mr. Perry’s invitation also seems sure to spell trouble. …

Mr. Perry’s is an invitation I would run from fast. If a statute needs repair, there’s a constitutionally prescribed way to do it. It’s called legislation. To be sure, the demands of bicameralism and presentment are real, and the process can be protracted. But the difficulty of making new laws isn’t some bug in the constitutional design: it’s the point of the design, the better to preserve liberty.

Indeed.

(H/T GraniteGrok)

*****************

The Left is constantly screaming at us to “check our White Privilege”, but maybe it's time for the Left to check their Anger Privilege, or so writes Sultan Knish.

If you want to know who has privilege in a society and who doesn’t, follow the anger.

There are people in this country who can safely express their anger. And those who can’t. If you’re angry that Trump won, your anger is socially acceptable. If you were angry that Obama won, it wasn’t.

James Hodgkinson’s rage was socially acceptable. It continued to be socially acceptable until he crossed the line into murder. And he’s not alone. There’s Micah Xavier Johnson, the Black Lives Matter cop-killer in Dallas, and Gavin Long, the Black Lives Matter cop-killer in Baton Rouge. If you’re black and angry about the police, your anger is celebrated. If you’re white and angry about the Terror travel ban, the Paris Climate treaty, ObamaCare repeal or any leftist cause, you’re on the side of the angry angels.

But if you’re white and angry that your job is going to China or that you just missed being killed in a Muslim suicide bombing, your anger is unacceptable.

Then again, if the Left didn't have double standards then they'd have no standards at all.

*****************

I remember when Portland, Oregon used to be a pretty nice place. Now it has poo-flinging leftist Antifa scumbags and a homegrown terrorist who likes killing people on a public bus. I wonder how far it will have to go before the Progressive mayor of Portland will crack down on these fascist s**theels? How many will have to die at their hands or how many city blocks will have to burn before the idiot in charge stops worrying about offending the antifa thugs and their ACLU buddies? This is Portland Freakin', Oregon, not Detroit, Michigan.

*****************

And that's the (greatly abbreviated) news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where a long Fourth of July weekend is on the way, the grills will be ready, and where time on the lake will take precedence over all other things.

Testing A Gun Myth - Gangsta Style

I know I've heard the claim about how “gangsta's” can't shoot straight when they hold their pistols “gangsta style”, meaning they pistol is rotated 90º so it is parallel to the ground rather than perpendicular to it. That may indeed be the case. However legendary marksman Jerry Miculek decided to put the myth to the test, comparing normal shooting with “gangsta” to see if the 'can't shoot straight' claim is true. This is what happened:


Miculek, who holds numerous world shooting titles and records, had a couple of issues with “gangsta” shooting, the two biggest that his aim was off axis to the right and that he couldn't see any other target that might be to his right because his hand was in the way.

Another 'myth' I've heard is that with some semi-auto pistols, the “gangsta” style has another drawback, that being the ejected brass hitting the shooter in the face after each shot, something that would certainly affect one's aim. It may look cool on the street and on the TV or movie screen, but in real life most gangsta's wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn. Then again, most gangsta's don't practice shooting regularly like many legal gun owners do, and they certainly don't practice anywhere near as much as Jerry Miculek.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was the last day of the 94th Annual Motorcycle Week here in the Lakes Region. For the most part the weather has been cooperative with only one day of rain during the nine days of rally.

By the end of the day the roar of motorcycles will fade away as the 300,000+ bikers head home after another successful Motorcycle Week ends.

*****************

It has cost Wesleyan University $400,000 after it arbitrarily shut down a fraternity on campus even though it had fully complied with a mandate handed down by administrators.

It turns out the real reason for the fraternity's attempted expulsion by the university president?

He wanted their property. It was an underhanded land grab, not a punishment as the administration had said.

It seems kleptocracy exists even at vaunted universities.

*****************

I don't think the NYT has thought this one out.

The New York Times published an editorial about the need for mass deportation of native-born Americans because they don't live up to Ruling Class expectations.

Really, and just who will deport them all? Considering a vast majority of those Americans they think should be deported are well armed, with many being combat veterans, as well as red states rebelling against such a thing, it would be an opening salvo in the Second American Civil War.

Thinking more on this matter, I have to wonder whether 'deportation' is merely another word for moving the so-called undesirables to concentration camps and deporting them by way of a crematorium's chimneys? Seems this was tried in Europe and it didn't turn out so well for those behind such 'deportations'.

It's time for us to end the existence of the cancer that has become the New York Times. They are consistently showing themselves to be enemies of the American people, being nothing but a propaganda organ for the ProRegressive Left.

*****************

The vitriol and incipient violence from the Left has been making it's presence known here in the Granite State, with both Democrat lawmakers and Progressive special interest groups excoriating and trying to bully both the Republican majority legislature and the Republican governor into giving them what they demand. They seem to have no issue with twisting the truth, trying to paint legislation that's supposed to help minorities as legislation that will leave them lying dead in the streets, or using religious bigotry to try to paint a state official as some kind of monster because of some religious postings by a 3rd party that had absolutely no connections to that official. (Then again it was this same religious bigot that helped damage the state's education system, all in the name of 'fairness', in a lawsuit which then obligated the state to adequately fund education, 'adequate' being defined by this same religious bigot. Of course he didn't send his kids to public school.)

We've had a Democrat state representative state she's felt homicidal against Republican legislators, particularly male Republican legislators, then tries to play the victim card when she's called out for her violence-laden rhetoric. Then she went over the egde when she found out the shooter in Alexandria who targeted Republican representatives was a white male, then changed her tune when she found out he was a Bernie Bro.

I could go on and on and on, but it's the same story over and over again. And should their bleatings and rhetoric turn someone towards violence against Republicans, they'll either try to explain it away or blame the victims for getting in the way of Progressive ideology, as if that's all that's needed to excuse murder.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

*****************

Despite the ongoing hysteria about America's withdrawal from the seriously flawed Paris Accord, something would obligate America to all kinds of economy damaging actions while allowing China and India to continue down the path unrestricted air pollution and CO2 emissions, there are actual scientists who still do not buy into the CAGW scenario. Not one of them is a political scientist. They are actual scientists with decades of research and data analysis experience who say the whole thing is overblown and serves no purpose other than raking in millions, if not billions of dollars in the way of research grants.

The do not deny that the climate has warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age. Such warming would be expected. But to attribute it to a single factor, anthropogenic CO2 is both misleading and willfully ignorant.

Who are this miscreants of science?

Richard Lindzen, Emeritus Professor, PhD Mathematics. Was a professor of Atmosphere Physics at MIT.

Harrison Schmitt, PhD Geology

Will Happer, Professor Emeritus, PhD Physics, Princeton University

Neil Frank, PhD Meteorology

Roy Spencer, PhD Meteorology, University of Alabama, Hunstville

And I'm going to add another that a commenter suggested adding, that being Dr. Judith Curry, PhD Geophysical Sciences. Until recently she was the chair of the Earth and Atmospherics Sciences at Georgia Tech.

These aren't some unknown hacks from research institutes no one has ever heard about. Two had worked for NASA in the past (Schmitt and Spencer). These aren't lightweights in regards to climate science by any means, but they are seen a heretics or deniers because the don't agree with the so-called consensus. But they are doing exactly what they should be doing by questioning the consensus because, as anyone versed in science knows, consensus isn't science. Consensus has been wrong may times before and will be again. Even Albert Einstein knew consensus wasn't science, once stating “It doesn't matter if ten thousand scientists agree with me. It only takes one to prove me wrong.”

*****************

We had the opportunity to head out on to Lake Winnipesaukee early this evening with two of BeezleBub's co-workers from the farm. While there were still a few boats out on the lake as we departed the cove where we berth The Boat, most had left the lake by the time we were making our way back to port. While breezy out on the water, it was calm, meaning no real chop or boat wakes out there. It made for a pleasant two hours with family and some new friends.

While the weather forecast doesn't look promising for Monday, we will get more than a few opportunities to make it out on to the lake later this week. It is, after all, summer (or will be come the 20th of June). We've got to take advantage whenever we can.

*****************

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been sunny, cloudy, hot and humid, where almost all of the motorcyclists have gone home, and where we look forward to our next jaunt out on the lake.

It's Time For Concealed Carry Permit Reciprocity

Considering so many states have liberalized (the old fashioned meaning) their gun laws, with some not even requiring its citizens to have permit in order to carry a concealed firearm (my home state is one of them), I can see the wisdom of passing legislation to make reciprocity – a CCW permit in one state would be honored by all other states – a reality. It's something that should have been done years ago. It already exists in regards to driver's licenses, so why not permits to carry?

While some will make the argument that the two are not the same thing, one has to remember that driving is not a right, but a privilege. Bearing arms is a right. We've certainly seen enough US Supreme Court decisions in the past decade or so that have certainly proved that the Second Amendment means what it says. So why shouldn't there be reciprocity for something that is a constitutional right?

Some may bring up the point about the Constitutional Carry states not having permits and how to handle reciprocity, but even my home state still issues concealed carry permits just for that reason as some states have reciprocity agreements with their neighbors. New Hampshire has reciprocity with 28 other states.

Should Congress pass such legislation and the president signs it, I expect the howling from the anti-gun lobbies and organizations will be deafening. They will trot out the usual “Shootout at the OK Corral” scenario and the use “rivers of blood in our streets” ploy in an effort to misinform the public. In every state that has changed from 'may issue' states to 'shall issue' states those same claims have been made. Yet those scenarios have never materialized. The same claims, though much louder and more forceful, were also used in those states where constitutional carry was made the law. Again, nothing happened...except that the violent crime rates went down.

It's time to make concealed carry reciprocity a reality.

Thoughts On A Sunday

This weekend signaled the start of Motorcycle Week here in Lakes Region of New Hampshire. With the weather looking to be sunny and warm almost all week, I expect we'll see a very large turnout. I have already seen large groups of bikers as they've made their way here to the big lake, with may of them taking advantage of the many amenities.

As many motorcyclist we have already seen, the bulk of them won't start arriving until this coming Thursday. From that point on it will be wall to wall motorcycles until they start their departures next Sunday and the following Monday.

*****************

This concept for a hybrid air taxi looks pretty cool. Almost as cool as the 'electric VTOL jet' I linked to a few months ago.

Of the two, give me the VTOL jet any day. But the air taxi is still cool.

*****************

While the ever present and screechy “But guns don't solve problems, they cause problems” anti-2A crowd blathers on about armed citizens being a danger to us all, here's a personal account from one of Skip Murphy's sons, a former Marine, who stopped an incipient robbery at a convenience store by walking from the back of the store and next to the checkout counter, allowing the miscreants see the 9mm Sig Sauer on his hip.

He didn't have to pull his weapon. The mere sight of gun and his attitude, being that of a Marine, motivated the miscreants to put down the merchandise they had taken, put it down on the counter, and leave.

No gun play involved. No shootout at the OK Corral. No one being hurt. Just a man with his sidearm, an attitude that showed he knew how to use it, and an incipient criminal act ended before it started.

*****************

Hey, I only believe in the Constitution when it affects me, or so it seems Bernie Sanders believes since he seems to think that there should be a litmus test for a potential office-holders religious beliefs before they would be allowed to serve in any capacity. There's only one teeny tiny problem with that proposal.

Article VI, Section 3 of the United States Constitution states:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Oh, too bad Bernie. That pesky US Constitution getting in the way of a politically/religiously correct totalitarian state...again.

*****************

Is the fifth time the charm?

It looks like voters in Puerto Rico will be deciding whether or not to become a state. The previous four attempts failed, but seeing Puerto Rico's present financial state, no one seems to know how the vote will go this time.

*****************

Oh, yeah, this is creepy indeed.

Guys Reveal The Creepiest Way Girls Have Hit On Them.

You may think it's only the guys that have lame come-on lines, but you're wrong. Some of these are totally cringeworthy.

*****************

If you need a means of describing Portland, Oregon, use this – Like San Francisco or Berkeley, but with less tolerance for non-progressive ideas, more violent 'antifa' thugs, a large dislike of freedom of speech, and a close-minded authoritarian as mayor. Oh, and it isn't hilly like San Francisco.

*****************

Uh-oh. This is going to upset the “science is settled” warmists.

I find it interesting that there are 20 new peer-reviewed papers out there that posit climate change has been driven entirely by solar changes and not anthropogenic CO2.

I can hear warmists heads exploding in rage because, after all, everyone knows we evil humans are the cause of all climate change over the past few thousand years, even on Mars!

*****************

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rumble of motorcycles can be heard, the really warm weather has arrived, and where I am anticipating a post-work jaunt on the lake tomorrow.

An Astute Observation

By way of Fred Reed comes this observation from none other than Robert E. Lee:

The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.

Never have truer words been spoken. As Fred writes in response to Lee's observation, “The man was perceptive. Amalgamation of the states under a central government has led to exactly the effects foreseen by General Lee.”

It used to be solutions to state problems were either handled by the state affected, or the state directed the federal government in regards to the help it needed. Those days are long gone>

Today it's a “one size fits all” solutions handed down by Washington DC even if the solutions don't apply to specific states. An illustration of one of the silliest solutions to a problem that really only affected one region in the country can be summed up in two words: flush toilets.

You may think I'm being facetious or playing the wise ass, but I assure you I am not. Since some time after 2001 the manufacture and sale of flush toilets that were not low water use toilets has been illegal. Under EPA regulations, flush toilets cannot use more than 1.6 gallons of water per flush. This was done to help save water, which makes perfect sense for arid and semi-arid parts of the US like California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada. But to apply it across the board doesn't. In fact, many of those low flush toilets cause problems when used with older sewer and septic systems because there's not enough water being used to make sure the 'effluvia' moves along to where it is supposed to go. That more than one flush may be necessary to get the waste from Point A to Point B is well known to those who have had the misfortune to replace an older toilet in their home with one of the new 'efficient' flush toilets.

Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

Another observation made by Fred:

In, say, 1950, to an appreciable though imperfect extent America resembled a confederacy. Different regions of the America had little contact with each other, and almost no influence over one another. The federal government was small and remote. Interstates did not exist, nor of course the internet, nor even direct long-distance telephone dialing. West Virginia, Alabama, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, and California had little in common, but little conflict arose since for practical purposes they were almost different countries. They chiefly governed themselves. The  proportion of federal to state law was small. 

It is important to note that regional differences were great. In 1964 in rural Virginia, the boys brought shotguns to school during deer season. Nobody shot anybody because it wasn’t in the culture. The culture was uniform, so no one was upset. It is when cultures are mixed, or one rules another, that antagonism comes.  Such shotgun freedom would not have worked in New York City with its variegated and often mutually hostile ethnicities.

Regions differed importantly in degree of freedom, not just in the freedom of local populations to govern themselves but also in individual freedom. It made a large difference in the tenor of life. If in Texas, rural Virginia, or West Virginia you wanted to build an addition to your house, you did. You didn’t need licenses, permits, inspections, union-certified electricians. Speed limits? Largely ignored. Federal requirements for Coast Guard approved flotation devices on your canoe? What the hell kind of crazy idea was that? 

Indeed. And here's where Fred and I are on exactly the same page:

Democracy works better the smaller the group practicing it. In a town, people can actually understand the questions of the day. They know what matters to them. Do we build a new school, or expand the existing one? Do we want our children to recite the pledge of allegiance, or don’t we? Reenact the Battle of Antietam? Sing Christmas carols in the town square? We can decide these things. Leave us alone.

States similarly knew what their people wanted and, within the limits of human frailty, governed accordingly.

As Fred observes, democracy works pretty well at the small scale. I see it all the time in my home town. The townspeople decide how much the town will spend and on what, or what local ordinances they want to add or do away with.. The same goes for the school system. No input from the federal government is required or wanted. We know what we need and more importantly, what we don't need. To think that some faceless bureaucrat can have any understanding of what we need or want is ludicrous at best and deranged at worst. To think that we are a monolithic society where 'solutions' can be applied with a broad brush approach is the height of delusion (with a huge portion of arrogance thrown in). That type of approach creates more problems that it solves, pissing off a lot of people in the process.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

Fifteen Years

It was fifteen years ago today that my dear brother started this blog. Fifteen years. That's quite a bit of time.

That has brought about over 5300 posts, between here at Blogger and two other hosts when we used Moveable Type as our blogging platform. We covered everything from war, politics, plain damnfoolishness, insanity, climate change, elections, mostly true stories, tragedies and triumphs, peeks into small town life, things profound, things simple, movies, music, books, births, deaths, pets, travel, philosophy, "what if" scenarios, the media, the East Coast, the West Coast, everything in between or so-called "Flyover country", guns, fascism, political correctness, science, pseudoscience, liars, thieves, con artists, 'true' believers, good people, bad people, outright effin' evil people, and a whole host of topics that I could go on and on about for pages and hours on end. In any case, you get the picture.

In all that time the world has changed, as has our country. Some changes have been for the good. Too many changes have been anything but good. We've seen groups of our fellow citizens deluded into thinking that everything is our fault. We've seen others work to prove them wrong. We've had political leaders who thought they didn't need to follow the rules because they knew they were better than us because they were smarter than the rest of us, then they found out they were wrong. We've seen attacks on freedom of speech all in the name of "tolerance". We've watched as government sanctioned kangaroo courts stripped college students of their rights all in the name of "fairness". We've watched as people were shouted down as racists by people who were indeed the "racists in the room".

But many of us haven't given up hope. It's one of the reasons this blog still exists. And while I haven't been as prolific in posting as I once was because life intruded, I still post. I still offer my opinions. I still try to point out things that are both wrong and right about my home state and my country.

Here's to another fifteen years.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We have reached (or will soon reach) a couple of milestones here at Weekend Pundit, one blog related and one season related.

First, on June 8^th it will be the 15^th anniversary of this blog. It was started by my dear brother, partly as a means of resurrecting our old Geocities website, World Domination, Inc. (Our motto was “Subjugating humanity one individual at a time.”) It was started here at Blogger, then migrated to another host – Blogmosis – and then to yet another, courtesy of GraniteGrok, and then back here to Blogger. In that time there have been over 5,300 posts, with approximately 3,200 of them here on Blogger alone.

While I do not post nearly as often as I used to, I still post at least twice a week, mostly on weekends (hence the apropos name “Weekend Pundit”). Life intruded and other activities took precedence, reducing the amount of posts from daily to two or three times a week. I have no doubt that the level of posting will vary now and then, but I am still plugging away, adding my 2¢ worth on topics of interest (at least of interest to me).

Second, our boating season has officially started with the launch of the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat. BeezleBub swung by The Manse after work early Friday evening with his semi-trusty F350 to tow The Boat and trailer to our town docks. By 8PM The Boat was tied up at its summer berth, ready for a spring/summer/fall of boating. The weather was cooperative early this afternoonn, meaning I was able to take The Boat out on the lake for an hour for its shakedown cruise, making sure everything worked and that nothing leaked.

*****************

Is the US education system producing a society of “Smart Fools”?

Yes, says Cornell University psychologist Robert Sternberg.

...Sternberg sounded an alarm about the influence of standardized tests on American society. Sternberg, who has studied intelligence and intelligence testing for decades, is well known for his “triarchic theory of intelligence,” which identifies three kinds of smarts: the analytic type reflected in IQ scores; practical intelligence, which is more relevant for real-life problem solving; and creativity.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

*****************

Who says there's nothing new under the sun?

The combination of a modern ballistic fabric and a good old fashioned mixture of corn starch and water may be the answer to light weight body armor.

It was an Air Force cadet who came up with the idea, then presented it to one of her Air Force Academy professors.

[Cadet] Weir's idea was to combine anti-ballistic fabric with what's known as a shear thickening fluid to create a less heavy material to use in body armor. She demonstrated the principle to [Professor Ryan] Burke by combining water and cornstarch in a container and asking the professor to jam his finger into the paste-like goo.

"I jam my finger right into this bowl, and I almost broke my finger! Hayley's laughing because I've got this finger that I'm shaking and I'm saying, 'You know, that's pretty impressive stuff.'"

Once they had the proper combination they tested it at a firing range, using both 9mm and .44 Magnum pistols against the armor. None of the rounds penetrated the ¼ inch design. Considering the new armor weighs a third of that of contemporary body armor, it could be a real game changer.

*****************

Reported by way of the Instaprof, it appears one of the first effects of America's withdrawal from the Paris Accords is being felt: Oil prices are falling.

The real, measurable impacts of Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement are going to be few and far between, but the first one we’ve seen thus far has been a drop in the price of oil. This won’t hurt Trump with his voters: market participants think that the U.S. will now pump more oil, leading to long term lower oil prices. . . .

Let’s not give the White House too much credit here, though. The Obama administration, for all of its gesturing towards renewables, was remarkably friendly towards the shale industry. The recent growth we’ve seen in American production is the result of innovation and falling costs in shale drilling, rather than the rolling back of regulations.

But perceptions matter to markets, and Trump’s announcement yesterday has further strengthened analysts’ belief that this Administration will do everything it can to help out America’s oil and gas industry (even though the natural gas boom is responsible for knocking Old King Coal off his throne in the U.S.).

Russia is paying close attention to U.S. oil production these days, and the CEO of the state-owned oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin, publicly expressed concerns that surging American supplies could overcome petrostate efforts to cut production and push prices back up.

To quote the Professor Reynolds “That would be terrible.”

Heh.

*****************

This certainly falls within the realm of something Glenn Reynolds has stated more often than not, that being “I'll believe it's a crisis when the folks who keep telling me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis.”

Moreover, many voters don’t see Democrats acting like people who believe we’re facing an extinction level event. For instance, why aren’t we talking about adding hundreds of new nuclear power plants to our energy portfolio? Such an effort would do far more to mitigate carbon emissions than any unreliable solar or windmill boondoggle –certainly more than any non-binding international agreement. Maybe there are tradeoffs, who knows.

Read the whole thing.

Skip Murphy shows us an image about the Paris Accord withdrawal that sums quite nicely why President Trump pulled the US out of that P.O.S. Agreement.

*****************

And speaking of a crisis, remember when all of the warmists warned us ad nauseum that we'd see an increasing number and more powerful hurricanes because of AGW? I certainly do. All kinds of dire predictions were made about how bad it would be. But what's the reality?

There have been no increases in either the number or intensity of hurricanes.

In fact, the number of hurricanes has been decreasing, an 'inconvenient truth' for the warmist camp. But they will claim, if they haven't already, that the problem will develop some time in the future. That's what would be called a sucker bet because we know at some point that will be true....just as it was in the past. We've had more hurricanes and more intense hurricanes in the past which most folks would take to mean we'll likely have them again in the future. But attributing this 'future' to AGW is disingenuous at best, and a con game at worst.

*****************

Steve MacDonald has coined a new phrase that is quite fitting for defining “pseudo-intellectual leftists that can be used in polite company”: Intelleftuals.

It's so good that it really doesn't need to be defined because it defines itself. I think I'll be using it from now on.

*****************

Considering where this took place, it is not surprising to me at all. The only surprise was how long it took for someone there to actually come out and say it.

Apparently for some of the oh-so-tolerant Leftists in Seattle it is taboo to be friends with a Republican. One Seattle city council member has boasted in public that “she doesn’t have any Republican friends.” Isn't that special?

Kshama Sawant wasn’t having any of that. She stood up and said Burgess wasn’t speaking for her with this “our Republican friends” stuff. Because, she assured the crowd, she doesn’t have any Republican friends.

Yay, cheered the crowd.

Now it’s hardly surprising that Sawant, a socialist, isn’t having GOPers over for mint juleps. But it’s pretty unusual to my ears for a politician to boast that her tribalism excludes even the possibility of warm feelings toward political opponents, even as humans.

What I find ironic about Ms. Sawant's claim is that there is a heavily Republican neighborhood in the district she represents. Does she answer their phone calls or e-mails if they have questions about Seattle 's policies, spending, or other governmental duties? Or does she act just like Democrat Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter who has declared on more than one occasion that the Republicans in her congressional district aren't her constituents? If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably the latter.

*****************

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where it's feeling more like October than June, the rain has returned (again), and where for once I don't mind going into work on a Monday because the weather is so cool and rainy.

Hysteria Abounds Around US Withdrawl From Paris Accords

Over the past few days I have watched the outcry from the “We're-All-Gonna-Die-If-We-Don't-DO-SOMETHING-Like-Impoverish-Ourselves-While-Everyone-Else-Eats-Our-Lunch” envirowackos after President Trump announced the US is withdrawing from the Paris Accords. You'd think he had ordered the Black Helicopters to swoop in, take away the envirowackos' children, and use them as fuel to power his financial empire.

More than a few of the more level-headed environmentalists have stated that even with all of the draconian measures we could possibly take will not affect the wholly unreliable pie-in-the-sky projection of a 2.0ºC increase in global average temperatures, with all of a 0.015ºC difference. In my profession, 0.015 out of 2.0 would be considered signal noise. One must also remember that the oft repeated 2.0ºC increase is based upon climate models that have already been shown to be absolute crap as they don't even come close to matching the actual temperature data, NOAA's 'massaging' of previous temperature data notwithstanding.

Many of these same hysterical envirowackos have also conveniently forgotten the outcome of the Kyoto Protocols. Even though President Clinton signed on to Kyoto, the US Senate refused the ratify the treaty by a vote of 95-0. We didn't even come close to implementing the actions to which we would have been obligated under the conditions of the treaty, but unlike the signatories to Kyoto, the US saw its CO2 emissions drop to a much greater extent than they might have under Kyoto. In fact, some of those signatory nations saw their CO2 emissions rise and others that had garnered exemptions from Kyoto, primarily China and India, saw their CO2 emissions rise at a rapid rate.

I think the Trump did the right thing in withdrawing from the Paris Accords because as best I could see there was nothing but a downside for the US if it were to abide by them while giving our economic rivals a pass. And if history is any guide, I have a strong suspicion that we will again outpace the signatories of the Paris Accords in reducing our CO2 emissions footprint without the need to hobble our economy to do it.