Blue States Told 'No' By Federal Judge On SALT Deductions

A number of Blue States are singing the blues now that a federal judge has dismissed a case filed by four Blue States (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland) challenging the $10,000 deduction cap on state and local taxes (SALT) from federal tax returns.

They alleged that the new limit on the SALT deduction, part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, was “an unconstitutional assault on states’ sovereign choices.”

In the dismissal, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan said the plaintiff states ultimately failed to show that the SALT cap was unconstitutionally coercive or that it imposed on their own sovereign rights.

Basically, they were upset that their residents could no longer write off the high taxes they were imposing upon them which made them more visible then they had been before. It also meant that residents of low tax states weren’t going to continue subsidizing the residents of high tax states because they didn’t have the tax deductions those in high tax states enjoyed. The four states thought it should be otherwise and filed suit to prevent it. The judge disagreed.

I have a suggestion for those high tax Blue States: Stop spending money on things you don’t need or things that ‘sound good’ and stop taxing the bejeezus out of your citizens to pay for it all.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a busy weekend for yours truly, with a visit to the southern part of the state to visit some friends and stop by the local amateur radio shop to pick up some new equipment. One of my old standby rigs, a dual band HT started suffering from Alzheimer’s (none of the memory channels were working any more and replacing the memory battery didn’t fix the problem) and transmit audio has been problematic. Parts for it are hard to get (it is over 25 years old), and technology has changed considerably in the past 25+ years. So I made the decision to upgrade and get something that will (hopefully) make do for the next 10+ years or so.

Yes, I am that much of a geek and always have been.

Deal with it.

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As if we didn’t see this one coming a mile away.

Now that the threshold for felony theft has changed from $450 to $950 in the state of California, shoplifting in the Pyrite State has skyrocketed. People involved in the retail trade warned lawmakers this would happen, but the California Assembly knew better and passed the legislation that changed the threshold. The number of thefts has increased while the number of arrests has fallen.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has come into full force and retail businesses are paying the price. As their inventory is stolen, their profits shrink, if not disappear. Insurance will cover only so much before their policy is cancelled because the insurance company is tired of having to pay out claims. The business closes its doors because no one wants to keep running a money-losing business that does nothing but provide booty for thieves.

So yet another indignity is perpetrated by the Progressive State upon the middle class, making it even more unattractive to remain. Is it any wonder the middle-class have been fleeing California in increasing numbers? My only concern is that many of those fleeing middle-class Californians are bringing their Progressive voting patterns with them to their new states and will slowly turn them into clones of California. We’ve already seen that in Colorado and in Austin, Texas, just to name two places suffering from Californication.

This merely increases my support of Glenn Reynolds’ Welcome Wagon idea for folks moving in to a new state from California.

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We don’t need a crystal ball or 24/7 surveillance to figure out what the Congressional Democrats are planning when it comes to subverting the will of the people. All we have to do is listen to Maxine “Mad Max” Waters as she has no problems telling everyone what the Democrat leadership has in mind.

Her latest:

…we know that Pence is in the line of Democrat fire. Remember Maxine Waters (D-CA) stating that once Trump is gone, they’ll “go after” Pence? She said it publicly not once, but twice, and we covered it here at Legal Insurrection.

The feeling that the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot by pursuing impeachment keeps growing stronger. Rank-and-file Democrats are becoming increasingly disenchanted with their elected representatives. You know it’s getting bad when Bill Maher is slamming Democrats for their hypocrisy over Hunter Biden’s Ukraine ties which is part and parcel of their drive to impeach Trump.

You would think that losing Bill Maher would tell the Democrats that they’re on the wrong side of this.

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Some have made the claim that Trump’s environmental record is dismal as compared to Obama’s.

Nice try, guys, but you aren’t anywhere near telling the truth.

It turns out Trump’s record is just as good as Obama’s, if not better.

EIA, for instance, reported in 2018 that per-capita greenhouse gas emissions hit a 67-year low at the beginning of the Trump era. Such emissions rose to historic highs globally by the end of that year, despite nearly 200 countries signing the Paris climate accord, which Trump promised to leave in 2017.

It is ironic to see that US emissions continue to fall while emissions elsewhere keep rising, yet the emissions increase is blamed on the US by US environmental activists. I have a feeling that if they had their way, we’d have to have negative emissions in order to make up for the emissions from other countries, otherwise it would still be our fault.

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This is good news, considering it is the second decade of the 21st century.

It turns out warp drive is theoretically possible.

I think the toughest part is generating the antimatter needed to provide the energy required power the warp drive.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the fall foliage is starting to make its appearance, the weather has cooled a little bit, and where boats are being pulled from the water in increasing numbers.

Trump's Superpowers

I don’t know about you, but I know I’m tired of listening to the Left and Right talking/crowing/yelling about the Nothingburger that is Trump’s Ukraine Telephone Call and the third/fourth/fifth-hand “whistleblower” that heard from his/her brother-in-law’s barber’s cousin’s taxidermist that Trump tried to ‘Godfather’ Ukraine’s president into getting something on Joe Biden and his son.

So let’s talk about Trump’s superpowers, those being his ability to make his adversaries crazy all while making them to do stupid things. After all, how else can you explain Adam Schiff’s bizarre performance during the House Intelligence Committee impeachment inquiry, when he started making up quotes from the transcript of the telephone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky?

Did Trump cloud Schiff’s mind, making him see things that weren’t there? Did he use his powers to drive Nancy Pelosi to announce the impeachment inquiry when she knew it was likely to cost her fellow Democrats dearly next November?

Yup.

Saving The Planet? Not So Fast!

As the hysteria generated by Greta Thunberg’s visit and impassioned speech increases, the call for us to “Do Something!” to stop climate change in an effort to save the planet has increased in volume. I find it interesting that the nations that have done the most to reduce their emissions are the ones being lambasted by our supposed environmental superiors for not impoverishing ourselves and returning to an 18th Century existence. (Of course we’d probably have to kill off at least 250 million people in the US alone because there’s no way an 18th century level of technology could support that many people. I figure we would eliminate the urban warmists first.)

One thing that I have a difficult time dealing with is the absolute religion-level belief that we’re headed towards a man-made climate apocalypse. No one, and I mean no one has been able to prove the veracity or source of their climate predictions. All of the models we’ve seen haven’t even come close to predicting what has actually occurred climate-wise, yet we are supposed to believe that those same defective models will accurately predict what the climate will be like in 100 years? Yeah, right.

About the only way to counter this nonsense by the true believers is to make my own “appeal to authority”, in this case the authority is none other than the late George Carlin.



Forget the Michael Manns of the world. George Carlin had it all figured out years ago.

Republican Primaries In Some States Have Been Cancelled

It appears the GOP in some states have decided to save some money in the upcoming Presidential Primary season by cancelling their primaries.

This isn’t unprecedented as both the Democrat and Republican parties have done so in the past when an incumbent from their party was running for reelection and was popular enough to be able to ‘bury’ any possible competitors. Democrats in eight states cancelled their primaries back in 1996 when Bill Clinton was running for reelection. When Obama was seeking a second term in 2012, Democrats in ten states cancelled their primaries. Republicans did the same thing in 1984 when Reagan ran for reelection and again in 2004 when Bush ran for reelection.

In the case of the Republicans in states like Alaska, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina, they see Trump’s competitors – Bill Weld, former governor of Massachusetts; Joe Walsh, former member of the House (not the rock musician); and Mark Sanford, disgraced former governor of South Carolina – polling in the low single digits and Trump showing an 80+ point lead over them, it makes sense for those states wishing to do so to cancel their primaries. The money could be better spent on down-ticket races and state contests.

Will the GOP in my home state of New Hampshire cancel the Republican Primary election?

NOT. IN. A. MILLION. YEARS.

There are two reasons for this: money and recognition. The money the New Hampshire Primary brings into the state is on the order of hundreds of millions, between what the campaigns, campaign workers, and the TV networks spend starting the summer before the actual primary. It also allows little known candidates to get some face time and gain some recognition with voters and the media, in many cases setting up for a future presidential or congressional run. There’s no way New Hampshire Republicans or Democrats would ever cancel their primaries in this state. The same is true for Iowa and their caucuses.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Summer weather has returned, with temps in the upper 70’s and lower 80’s and humid air. They were a perfect excuse to spend part of the day out on the lake. While there were a lot of boats out on the lake, there were not nearly as many as we’d usually see in the middle of summer. A lot of boats have already been pulled out of the water, winterized, shrink-wrapped, and stored away until next spring. Camps and cottages are being closed up for the season, though many won’t be done until the Columbus Day weekend.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, won’t be pulled out of the water until just after the Columbus Day weekend, a few weeks earlier than usual for me. With a number of duties for both work and town that will be taking up my time, I thought it would be a good idea to pull it out earlier than usual and get it serviced, cleaned up, winterized, and stored for the winter.

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It seems we need to rename President Trump “Teflon Don”. Between various allegations of wrongdoing running the gamut of collusion with Russia to emoluments to illicit communications with Ukraine and everything in between, nothing seems to stick to the President.

Not that he’s done anything wrong that he needs to wriggle free from. It all comes down to people who hate Trump making accusations that to this point have been found to be wanting for things such as facts and evidence.

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It appears the efforts to get Teflon Don have also extended to some of his judicial nominees. Once again Justice Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual improprieties that took place while he was in college. The problem?

The alleged victim has no recollection of any such event taking place.

Oops.

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The myth that will not die…

People keep selling the myth that cell phone use causes cancer. However, lengthy studies about RF exposure from cell phones proves just the opposite. But that doesn’t stop the “Everything-Is-Going-To-Kill-Us” alarmists from sounding the alarm and scaring the crap out of everyone.

The latest alarm bells are being sounded about millimeter-wave RF from 5G phones causing cancer and all other kinds of genetic mutations. But anyone familiar with the mechanisms of genetic damage caused by external energy knows that RF doesn’t have energy required to cause gene damage to the body’s cells. That takes electromagnetic radiation up in the UV spectrum and higher (X-rays, gamma rays, cosmic rays). The RF from millimeter-wave cell phones is not energetic enough to cause mutations that in turn can lead to cancer.

Can RF affect biological systems? Sure. No one disputes that. But affecting them to the point of causing cancer? Nope, not even close. But that won’t stop the alarmists from making the claim anyways and trying to scare consumers about something that is false.

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These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years. We have to live in them and deal with people who think it is perfectly acceptable to kill full-term babies and confessing one’s sins to plants.

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As George Santayana once said, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

This applies to all sorts of things. Certainly we know the Left ignores history on a regular basis which is why they keep making the same mistakes again and again.

The latest bit of proof of Santayana’s warning is true is a New Hampshire State Representative pushing the idea of making all schools in the state Gun Free Zones. He is conveniently ignoring that schools like Sandy Hook and Parkland were already Gun Free Zones when they were shot up by miscreants who saw those Gun Free Zones as Free Fire Zones.

Looking at mass shootings, one will find a majority of all mass shootings have taken place in Gun Free Zones. So why would someone who is so concerned about the safety of our schoolchildren work to make sure they will be more likely to be shot and killed by people who already have no regard for the law?

Oh, the New Hampshire legislator making the push to have all schools in the state declared Gun Free Zones? He’s a Democrat. He’s pissed that New Hampshire’s Republican governor vetoed legislation that did just that, legislation that was so broad that just about every law-abiding citizen carrying a firearm in New Hampshire would be violating the so-called school Gun Free Zone laws multiple times every day. But then, wasn’t that the real actual point of the legislation, banning the carrying of firearms everywhere in the state of New Hampshire? The New Hampshire Democrats have denied it, but I have a feeling such denials were just pro forma. After all, a number of New Hampshire Democrats have been pushing hard to repeal Article 2A of the state constitution which enumerates the right of the New Hampshire people to keep and bear arms.

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The New England Patriots defeated the New York Jets at Foxborough this afternoon, 30-14. Neither of the Jets’ scores were allowed by New England’s defense. One was due to an error by their special teams when the kick receiver bobbled the ball and the Jets were able to get possession in the end zone. The second was due to a Pick Six in the 4th quarter when second string quarterback Stidham threw a poor pass and the Jets intercepted it and ran it back for a TD.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather has returned, the boating has been great, and where once again Monday is returning too soon.

US Court Slaps Down California's Unconstitutional "Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act"

The wackos in California tried an end run around the US Constitution by passing legislation that required presidential candidates make public their tax returns. This was an effort to keep Donald Trump off the California ballot. However, US District Judge Morrison England, Jr. told California “Not so fast there, bucko!”

While states have control over the mechanics of voting, such as filing petitions with a certain number of signatures, they can’t impose eligibility requirements beyond what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution provides…:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

A tax-return requirement on presidential candidates bears no relationship to the mechanics of voting, and is an unconstitutional eligibility test. A state can no more limit eligibility to candidates who disclose tax returns than it could require that only candidates who can run a mile in under 8 minutes are eligible for the presidential ballot.

If California and other Blue States want to impose such a condition, then the US Constitution would need to be amended to allow them to do so. The chances of them getting such an amendment through Congress and then ratified by 3/4ths of the states before the 2020 election cycle is zero. The chances of getting it ratified at all is pretty close to zero.

The court issued a Temporary Restraining Order from the bench and Judge England has stated he will issue a final ruling by the end of the month. Of course, I have no doubt California will appeal and I expect this case will make its way to the Supreme Court where it will die a well-earned death when they tell California “Shame on you! What the hell were you thinking?”

I expect the bleating from the California Kooks to start in 3…2…1….

Books By Ikea

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

MSNBC Gun Poll Backfires

From Legal Insurrection comes this gem:

MSNBC poll about guns backfires fabulously.

The folks at MSLSD decided they would ask the people what they thought about guns in public, so they hosted a poll that asked but a single question:

Do you think people should be allowed to carry guns in public?

There were three answers to choose from:

Yes! The Second Amendment guarantees it.

No, it’s too dangerous.

Only for self defense.

I figure they were expecting to see a majority of those answering the poll to say “No”. I have no doubt the folks there were hoping to see that their dwindling number of viewers would agree with their viewpoint that guns in the hands of law abiding citizens was a bad idea.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

After more than 547,000 responses, the results showed that 92% of those voting answered “Yes”, the remaining 8% split evenly between “No” and “Only for self defense”.

I guess MSLSD doesn’t really understand the American public anywhere near as well as they thought. (That goes for the rest of the MSM-DNC as well.)

It's Not The Economy, Stupid

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed the one thing none of the Democrat presidential candidates (except one) are talking about is the economy? Could it be that they know that trying to use the economy as a campaign issue is a losing strategy?

Yeah, I’m betting they’re smart enough to know that.That isn’t stopping many of their sycophants from trying to make it an issue, even if they must tank the economy to do so.

The media has been pushing the idea that we’re entering a recession, citing some minor indicators that there may be a correction coming, despite none of the major indicators like a falloff in existing home sales, contractions in business purchasing, falling consumer confidence and spending, and decreasing business investment being present. None of that has stopped the media from pushing the idea that we’re on the verge, if not in a recession. Maybe they figure that by repeating the Big Lie often enough and loud enough that they can get people to start acting as if there is a recession, and by doing so, create a recession in time for the elections in November 2020.

That’s how much they hate Trump and we deplorables. They are willing to damage the economy, destroy millions of jobs, see other millions lose their businesses and homes, all to help the Democrats gain the White House. That’s just not just awful, it’s sick. Those pushing this narrative see nothing wrong with what they’re willing to do. But then the kind of Progressivism being pushed is a form of mental illness.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was another quiet weekend here in central New Hampshire, with summerfolk scarce and our usual hangouts back in our hands again. While the weather on Saturday was cool and rainy, today more than made up for it with warm temps and sunny skies. I even made it out on to Lake Winnipesaukee for an hour or so before getting back to The Gulch in time to watch the New England Patriots shut out the Miami Dolphins 43-0 down in Miami.

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From the Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider Department:

California’s Legislature embraces far-ranging measures that will disrupt the gig economy, depress housing markets, and destroy school discipline.

Leave it to the Kalifonia Kooks to make the once Golden State even more of the Pyrite State, further weakening its economy, it’s housing market, and destroying what’s left of its educational system. What’s worse they see it as a victory for Progressivism, for taking yet another step towards their Great Socialist Paradise. Too bad their ‘paradise’ looks more like hell.

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Who was it that made the drone strikes against Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities which affect the 5% of world’s oil supply? Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lays the blame at the feet of the Iranians.

Tehran is behind nearly 100 attacks on Saudi Arabia while Rouhani and Zarif pretend to engage in diplomacy. Amid all the calls for de-escalation, Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.

I wouldn’t put it past the Iranians to allow their proxies to take responsibility for the drone strikes they committed. It’s called “plausible deniability”.

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Will Chicago be the biggest US city to declare bankruptcy? I believe the answer is yes.

Considering it has been following in Detroit’s footsteps politically and financially, is it really any surprise that is heading for the same fate as Detroit, that fate being bankruptcy? I think the only reason Chicago has managed to survive to this point is because the state of Illinois has been bailing it out. But that revenue stream is drying up as Illinois struggles with financial problems of its own. Since the city government is so in the pocket of the unions, its hands are tied. It can’t cut back services without pissing off the unions. It can’t really raise taxes any higher than they are because they have already passed the point of diminishing returns. The high tax burden is driving residents and businesses out of Chicago, something that further stresses the city’s finances.

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It was a very busy week for me last week, between a trip back to Washington DC for my employer, numerous duties performed for my town, and family matters to deal with.

The trip to Washington DC was my third in six months, all to determine what was causing an enigmatic problem at a customer’s site. It looks like the third time was the charm as it seems we may have found a two-fold cause, something that can be corrected with a software fix (we hope).

Town stuff took half a day to deal with, something that required me to take some time away from work get to. I wish I could say that the town stuff came to a proper conclusion, but it hasn’t yet. It looks like it will take some more time to deal with.

Family matters are family matters, not usually exposed to the public. Fortunately it is nothing earth shattering or nefarious, just family stuff.

And so it goes.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re still enjoying the end of the summer tourist season, preparing for the arrival of the leaf peepers, and making preparations for the end of the boating season in a few weeks.

This Isn't The Future I Was Picturing

As cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle abandon the precepts of modern hygiene all in the name of some vague fairness/freedom doctrine, they are also seeing the return of diseases that used to plague medieval Europe: typhus, typhoid, and hepatitis. It is expected that the bubonic plague will also make a reappearance at some point. (I can picture a cart rolling down the street with its attendant calling out “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”)

Another ancient disease that may soon join the others and make a reappearance in Los Angeles?

Leprosy.

I have been covering the typhus and typhoid outbreaks that have hit Southern California as a result of the rat-infestation around homeless encampments.

Now an outbreak of a notorious disease, leprosy, is being reported. A recent study published as a Reuters Health report indicates the bacterial infection is emerging in the Los Angeles area.

Leprosy, more formally known as Hansen’s Disease, is caused by the Mycobacterium leprae bacteria. These pathogens grow slowly, and it can take up to 20 years before the first signs of the infection occur. Perhaps the most infamous aspect of the disease is the loss of fingers, toes, and other extremities if the infection is left untreated.

One has to wonder if another old thing will make a reappearance, that being a crier preceding a leper as they walk down the street, calling out “Unclean! Unclean!”, giving the populace time to avoid them as they make their ways to the leper colonies on the outskirts of the city. After all The Powers That Be in Los Angeles, as well as San Francisco and Seattle have been working so hard to bring back other historical events and activities.

Eighteen Years

It's been eighteen years.

Or was it just yesterday?

As more than one person has told me it feels like it was only yesterday, not eighteen years ago. It was only yesterday America found itself at war with an intractable, brutal enemy that recognizes no innocents, sees murder as a way to some vaguely pornographic glory, and holds life cheap.

The words that follow I wrote quite a few years ago. But I also wrote them just yesterday. They express exactly what needs to be said about That Awful Day.

It's hard to believe it's been years.

It still hurts, that heartache that never really goes away.

Remembering That Awful Day still brings tears to my eyes.

So many gone.

So many died.

So many hearts broken.

So many families torn asunder.

So many heroes that never thought twice about their own safety working hard to save the lives of so many others.

Other heroes whose last words were “Let's roll.”

Let us never forget that day of thunder, fire, smoke, heroic deeds, tearful goodbyes, and at the end, mournful silence.

Let us never forget.

New York Is Reaping What Its Leaders Have Sown

A lot of people have said at one time or another “New York doesn’t get half the abuse it deserves”. It is, after all, the seat of the Evil Empire (the New York Yankees), which is reason enough to be punished. But New York doesn’t need to rely on outside forces to receive its punishment because it is being punished by the very people it has elected to govern it.

The latest round of self-inflicted wounds plaguing the people of New York City? A natural gas shortage.

New York’s drive to wean New Yorkers off fossil fuels has been pushed at both the city and state level. Governor Andrew Cuomo has banned fracking in his state and killed the idea of new pipelines from being built in or through New York. His push to make New York run on 100% renewable energy sounds like a laudable goal, but anyone with any kind of engineering background could tell him it is an unachievable goal because the amount of energy required to meet needs of New Yorkers is staggering, and the needs are growing. The anti-climate-change activists inside and outside of government are working hard to ensure that energy isn’t going to be there, and they’re succeeding.

New Yorkers are now playing the price for the activism that has blocked a number of needed pipelines.

So how are things going out there in Brooklyn, Queens and the rest of Long Island? The issue of natural gas has suddenly sprung back into the news over the last week, but for a new reason — people are starting to scream that they can’t get natural gas hookups.

Among various tales of woe, one of my favorites is this one, reported at NY1, from a woman named Julie Levin from Park Slope, Brooklyn:

"I didn't know what it was until I researched it, and I actually, loving our environment, am against this pipeline, but I do need gas," Park Slope resident Julie Levin said at the news conference. "We have nowhere to go. Our lease is up in a month. We have no more money left. We need to move into our house."

Well boo-hoo! But you can’t really blame Julie. Pretty much everyone in Park Slope thinks that natural gas comes from the tooth fairy.

Needless to say, New York politicians — most particularly the ones that have been the most vociferous opponents of the pipeline and supporters of the New York “climate leadership” law — have rushed forth to blame National Grid for the crisis. Governor Cuomo led the charge.

Other politicians who were also vehemently against the proposed pipelines are now the ones raking National Grid over the coals because they can’t supply the natural gas customers’ needs. As the linked article asks, “Can the pols really have no idea that when they block natural gas infrastructure, sooner or later someone is going to be denied service?” Of course, they can. They’re totally oblivious. It is apparent they are incapable of seeing cause and effect, nor do they want to. After all, it wouldn’t serve them if they could because then they wouldn’t be able to keep their cognitive dissonance in place and wouldn’t be able to work at cross-purposes to the needs of their constituents.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the first post-summer weekend and it’s quiet here. Most of the summerfolk are gone and we won’t see them again until next May. Those summerfolk with cottages and camps will still be using them for another few weeks, with most finally closing them up over the Columbus Day weekend in six weeks. Many of the seasonal shops and restaurants are closed with a few others opening only on the weekends for the next few weekends.

Road traffic is way down as is boat traffic on the lake, but it’s still above the usual ‘non-summer’ traffic levels and will be until after Columbus Day weekend. Fall foliage season is approaching so we’ll see an uptick in traffic starting at the end of September until after Columbus Day.

While many of the local diners were as busy as usual, it was seeing the year round residents filling the seats rather than summerfolk. It’s nice to have our eateries back again!

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This week’s Comment Of The Week comes from this story about vegan protestors storming a Spanish rabbit farm and being surprised when the farmers fight back.

The comment from Pamazon:

It's almost the basic definition of the difference between Cons and Leftist. Cons just want to be left alone, and leftist DEMAND you do it their way. About EVERY freaking thing.

Yup, seems that way to me as well. I’ve known more than a few that believe it wholeheartedly. I know others who are horrified at the idea that their fellow Progressives feel that way. But the ratio of the first to the second is seriously lopsided towards the first.

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As if the A-10 Warthog isn’t lethal enough on the battlefield, there are new weapons and cockpit upgrades are on the way that will make it an even better and more lethal.

After decades of the USAF brass trying to kill off the A-10 and ground forces wondering why the USAF was stupid enough to want to do so, it looks like the Air Force has finally realized the A-10 is as effective and as lethal an aircraft as has ever been seen on the battlefield. It has even gone as far as ordering wing upgrades to increase the Warthog’s combat capability and longevity.

As ‘cool’ and as high tech the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is, it still doesn’t have the loiter time, weapons load, or survivability of the A-10. The A-10 is a close-in combat air support platform that the F-35 can’t come close to matching.

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It was time.

I had to face the fact that my old flip phone, my “Gibbs” phone, wasn’t capable of doing some of the things I need it to do, particularly since I have started travelling for work again. It uses the 3G cell network which the cell carriers are going to start shutting down towards the end of this year. (It makes sense to do so as most 3G phones have ‘aged out’ and been replaced by 4G/LTE phones.)

While I haven’t replaced it with the latest whiz-bang Does Everything 5G phone, it is new enough (4G/LTE) for me and does what I need it to do. (It also costs a fourth of the 5G phones.) Of course, I have no doubt that some folks are probably thinking “It’s going to take that old fossil forever to figure out how to use it”, but they’d be wrong. The new phone is an Android phone and I have a few Android tablets, so it isn’t all that strange to me. The thing I’ll have to get used to is the size of the phone, seeing it’s more than twice the size of my old phone. It doesn’t fit easily into any of my pockets. I’ll have to get something that will let me clip it to my belt.

Not that I expect that I’ll become yet another Smart Phone Zombie as I still have better things to do than have my nose buried in my phone for hours on end. It is purely driven by the need to replace my less than capable flip-phone, period.

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It’s obvious to anyone paying attention that Donald Trump is a racist. After all, his efforts have brought down the unemployment rate of black Americans to record lows. By reducing the number of black Americans who require government assistance to support their families it is clear that he hates the poverty which blacks have been trapped in by their saviors, the Democrats. It’s apparent that a number of Democrats see raising black Americans from poverty as their purview and that anyone else doing so must be racist. (No, I don’t understand the logic of that belief. But then we aren’t really dealing with logic, are we?)

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Gee, it turns out a study purporting that ‘hate’ crimes increase by 226% after Trump rallies is “fatally flawed in its methodology” according to two Ph.D. students at Harvard University.

[Harvard P.h.D. candidates Matthew Lilley and Brian Wheaton] were able to replicate the initial study’s findings with respect to Trump rallies, but found an even greater increase in hate crimes in counties that hosted Clinton campaign rallies during the same period.

Once the researchers controlled for population size, the effect of Trump rallies on hate crimes became “statistically indistinguishable from zero.”

Heh.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the crowds of summerfolk have melted away, the restaurants and lake are ours again, and where we still have some summer weather to enjoy for another few weeks.

Why Socialism Keeps Raising Its Ugly Head

Einstein is reported to have defined insanity thus: “Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results this time.”

And so it is with socialism. Socialists have tried the same thing over and over again, failed miserably, sometimes spectacularly, but expect when they try it this time they will succeed.

But they don’t. Ever.

How is it they don’t realize that socialism doesn’t work? How can they believe something that has been tried for almost 400 years and has not succeeded once will do so on this attempt? It’s simple: They forget history as if it has no bearing on their closely held beliefs.

What would you say to an amateur chef who baked a cake following a certain recipe only for everyone who ate a slice to fall ill quickly afterward? Being such an enthusiastic baker, they bake the same cake a second time just a few weeks later, again following the same recipe, but this time with one or two slight adjustments. Unfortunately, the result is the same – everyone who eats the cake soon ends up feeling sick.

The cake baker repeats this more than two dozen times, always modifying the recipe a little, but the basic ingredients remain more or less the same despite the fact that their guests throw up every time. Of course, there’s no way such a thing would happen. The cake baker would soon realize that there is a major problem with the recipe and throw it away.

Yet this is exactly what socialists have done.

--snip--

The latest example of socialism’s failings is Venezuela, which just a few years ago was being hailed by leading intellectuals and left-wing politicians as a model for “Socialism of the 21st Century.”

How do they explain the failure away?

“It wasn’t true socialism!” “It was undermined by capitalist saboteurs!” “It would have worked if it hadn’t been for the boycotts by US imperialists!” “It wasn’t being run by the ‘right’ people!” “We didn’t suppress/imprison/kill enough of the enemies of socialism!”

But no matter how many excuses they come up with, it doesn’t change the fact that socialism doesn’t work.

One of the things I have learned after studying socialism and its endless failures is the reason it fails is easy to figure out. As I have stated many times in the past, socialism fails because it chooses to ignore human nature, tries to get around it, or worse, tries to change it. In the end, human nature always wins the fight just as it did during the first experiment in socialism way back in 1621.

Question About Solar Power That Need To Be Answered That Aren't Being Asked

Earlier I addressed some of the issues I have with wind power, particularly the “elephant in the room” that too many proponents choose to ignore. It is now time to turn attention to solar, a vastly overrated renewable energy source that is seen as means of ‘saving’ the Earth that has downsides that are being devoutly ignored. In my opinion those downsides outweigh the positives.

There are four issues I have with solar that too often are ignored in the rush to go green, those being cost, availability, efficiency, and the toxic elements in solar panels that require them to be disposed of as toxic waste.

Regarding cost, my big problem is that no one really knows how much solar costs. I am talking about the real cost with subsidies stripped away and without net metering supporting grid-tied systems. A lot of solar PV systems would be unaffordable without the tax subsidies, be they systems installed on homes or solar farms. Others would be find themselves being less than affordable without net metering laws forcing utilities to buy electricity from grid-tied systems, with some having to pay above market rates and driving the cost of electricity upwards. Those receiving the payments think they’re great. But those of us paying for their solar systems don’t think so.

Availability is a big issue with me. By availability I’m talking about when power from solar is available. While places with a climate that allows for high availability for solar (California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida, just to name a few) might make it more viable, a lot of places like my native New England are not conducive to solar, between short days during the winter and bad weather that can keep solar from providing needed power for days on end when it’s needed most.

Efficiency is a problem in general. Today average solar panel efficiency is around 20% which means that it takes 5 watts of solar energy to produce 1 watt of electricity. Considering a 1000-watt solar panel is 18 square feet in size and taking into account a number of factors like availability of sunlight throughout the year (this includes hours of daylight and weather conditions throughout the year), using solar to replace a 1000 MW nuclear power plant would require between 4.5 and 6 square miles of solar panels at minimum. How is that efficient?

Finally, there’s the issue of disposing of old solar panels once they’ve reached the end of their service life (usually between 10 and 20 years depending upon operational conditions). The materials like cadmium, selenium, gallium, antimony, lead, and other materials used to make solar panels and contained in solar panels are quite toxic. When panels are taken out of service they must be handled and disposed of as toxic waste. The one thing no one seems to want to talk about is the costs associated with that disposal. I haven’t been able to come up with any consistent details or projected costs of doing so, and that’s something that should bother everyone, proponent or critic.

Like wind, solar is a diffuse energy source. Sunlight is free, but the means to convert it into a useful form – electricity – is not, costing many times what conventional power generation sources cost to generate an equivalent amount of power. Both take up a lot of space. Both are variable sources that are not dispatchable. Both require other traditional sources of power as back up when they aren’t available.

While solar power sounds great, the reality is far from being great.

5G Service Is Coming...Or Not

We’ve all seen the ads: “5G Is Coming!” We’ve seen the various cell companies hawking their latest 5G phones, even though it’s really only partially 5G. (More on that later.) It’s going to be the end all and be all of cell service, at least until 6G comes out. (Yes, they are already working on 6G even though 5G hasn’t been even been deployed yet.)

While 5G is the latest and greatest in the way of cell technology, it is unlikely that many of us will be enjoying everything 5G has to offer, including 1 Gigabit connectivity to the ‘Net. The reason this will be an issue comes down to one simple thing: bandwidth.

Initial 5G deployments will use the existing cellular radio bands in 600MHz, 700MHz, 800MHz, 1.9GHz, 2.5GHz and the new 3.7GHz band. The present 3G and 4G/LTE cell services use some of these bands. (It is my understanding the cell carriers will start shutting down 3G services later this year as 3G phones are aging out and they are being replaced by 4G/LTE and 5G phones.)

One of the aspects of 5G is the use of new millimeter-wave radio bands that offer more bandwidth that existing cellular radio bands cannot provide. With frequencies allocations in the 28GHz, 36GHz, 40GHz, and 72GHz bands and making use of phased array antennas to steer signals towards 5G enabled phones. While having some of the same characteristics as the MIMO style antennas used with some 4G systems where the antennas can be used to do some limited signal steering, phased array antennas used for 5G can steer signals in both azimuth and elevation, creating separate signal beams for each phone or groups of phones in range of a 5G cell station. This is one of the enabling technologies of 5G that will help it provide the services 4G cannot. However, this is only the plus side of the use of millimeter-wave frequencies.

The down side?

One of the biggest problems with the millimeter-wave frequencies being used for 5G is the high signal loss over distance, it being higher than that seen in 3G and 4G. Because of that higher path loss, the number of 5G cell sites required to provide coverage similar to present 4G systems is greater, somewhere on the order of 5 to 20 times the number. There are presently somewhere around 350,000 3G/4G/LTE cell sites in the US. To provide the same coverage using millimeter-wave frequencies would require 1,750,000 to 7,000,000 cell sites, something that isn’t likely happen any time soon. As such it’s a pretty good bet that 5G millimeter-wave cell sites will only be deployed in urban and more heavily settled suburban areas. Deployment in more thinly settled suburban and rural areas is probably a money loser for carriers so it is unlikely we’ll see such deployment in those areas any time soon. Those of us living in those areas will have to settle for slower data speeds because we’ll be relegated to the existing cell phone bands. Then again how many of us really need 1 Gigabit/second service, at least at this point? Many of us don’t even have that kind of service from our ISPs and we don’t seem to be suffering too much. (For full disclosure, I do have that type of service available from my ISP, but I don’t want to pay that kind of money when 100Mbits/second seems to work just fine. Better that we see an improvement in latency (time delay) which can have a bigger effect on effective data speeds than the raw data speed itself.

Another issue that has raised its ugly head is the possible health effects of the millimeter-wave radio signals on biological systems. There have been many claims regarding the biological effects of exposure to millimeter-wave radiation running the gamut of headaches to cancer to having kids with three heads. (OK, so maybe I am exaggerating about three-headed kids.) However, there have been some concerns with the effects of millimeter-wave radiation on human health and some doctors and scientists have been calling for a moratorium on deployment of millimeter-wave 5G systems until further studies have been completed. The problem could lie with the RF radiation from the cell phones, not the cell sites if there is indeed a problem.

Not much in the way of 5G millimeter-wave cell sites have been deployed as there have been some technical issues with the ability of the phased array antenna systems to track faster moving mobile customers and maintaining connection with the cell phones. There have been a small number of cities that have been used as testing sites by the cell carriers, but widespread deployment hasn’t really started as best I have been able to determine.

5G is coming…but it’s coming really slow.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the last ‘official’ summer weekend, meaning it’s Labor Day weekend. With a lot of schools having moved their starting dates to after Labor Day (as they were for decades and decades) the number of folks making the best of the last week/weekend of summer.

Road traffic has been very heavy as has boat traffic on the lakes. (This last is why we tend to go out on to the lake during the early evenings on weekends – little boat traffic – unless we’re planning on going to one of our favorite places on the lake and anchor for some swimming, eating, and recreating.) The seasonal restaurants and food shacks have been busy since Friday afternoon. Some are closing for the season after Labor Day and others will be open only on weekends until Columbus Day weekend.

It’s been a great summer up here in New Hampshire, probably one of the better ones we’ve had for some time. The weather has been cooperative. Visitors had more money to spend and they certainly did so. Restaurants were busy. (The only exception I can think of is one that closed for the summer because they couldn’t get the help they needed to be able to operate. They had less than half the staff they required to be able to meet the needs of their customers and the owners decided it would be worse to be open and not be able to serve their customers than to be closed for the summer.) Campgrounds were full. Other tourist attractions saw big crowds all through the season.

Despite that, a lot of us are looking forward to having our towns, our roads, our lakes, and our hangouts returned to us now that many of the summerfolk will be gone. We’ll still be out on the lakes for another few weeks.

About the only complaint I have is that summer passed by so quickly. It seems as if Memorial Day was only a couple of weeks ago and the Fourth of July was just this past week. Where did the time go?

In the meantime we’ll be preparing for the invasion of the leaf peepers once the foliage starts changing into its fall colors.

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As I write this the National Weather Service has declared Hurricane Dorian is a Category 5 hurricane. Of course, I expect the AGW faithful to declare that Dorian is proof that climate change is All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans and that we must act NOW to ‘save’ the Earth. That we haven’t seen the number or severity of hurricanes the AGW faithful said we’d be experiencing means nothing to them. If anything the number and severity of hurricanes has been decreasing, but they won’t let those facts get in the way of the narrative.

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It appears the backlash from the #MeToo movement is worse than some researchers thought it would be. Anyone paying attention to what’s been going on, particularly on many of our nation’s college campuses, knew just such a response was coming. It’s called “survival” and that men (and some women) have been taking precautions to prevent the possibility of even a hint of impropriety. While some people have ridiculed the so-called “Pence Rule”, many are embracing it if for no other reason than to protect themselves from false accusations or misperceived words or gestures being turned into sexual assault or harassment accusations.

It has led to tighter scrutiny in hiring, particularly of female applicants. It has led to the reluctance of male executives to mentor female executives trying to work their way up. It has led male executives refusing to make business trips with female colleagues. Ironically, it has hurt the hiring prospects for attractive women in some industries, with HR not wanting to hire someone that could be a target of harassment or bait for creating false harassment/sexual assault claims.

That #MeToo supporters didn’t see this coming shows just how shortsighted they’ve been and continue to be.

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What gets me about the shootings in Midland and Odessa, Texas that took place yesterday is that the gun-grabbers went into full “We gotta DO SOMETHING!” mode. They want to make it even more difficult for anyone to buy guns, this before anyone knows anything about the now-dead shooter.

The whole thing started when Texas state troopers made a traffic stop and the driver of the vehicle they were stopping opened fire on the officers. From there it turned into a mobile shooting rampage, with the shooter firing randomly from his vehicle. Some of the wounded are police officers, shot by the miscreant.

What prompted the shooter to open fire on the police officers? Were there arrest warrants out for him? Was he a wanted felon? Was he an ex-convict carrying a gun he shouldn’t have had? Was a he a drug courier carrying drugs, cash, or both? Or was he someone who was pissed off at the entire world and wanted to go out in a blaze of gunfire? Nobody knows at this point. Nobody.

Yet that hasn’t stopped the same folks who have little or no respect for the US Constitution, either the First or Second Amendments, from going into full meltdown mode in an effort strip even more of our rights from us. No crisis is too good to pass up if it promotes their cause. The truth of the matter is unknown yet they will push the narrative that the shooter represents every gun owner in America.

Yeah. Right.

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Speaking of guns and how bloodthirsty all of us gun owners are, there’s this little disconnect from that narrative that shows just the opposite.

The three states in the US that are supposedly “lawless” regarding gun ownership and the right to carry are three of the safest states in the country.

Those three states have something else in common. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. They are all next to each other, and they all have Constitutional carry.

With armed citizens wandering about sans the consent and constant annoyance of busy-body liberals trying to turn them into victims.

The Safest States in the nation. Again! And New Hampshire, making the list (again) in the same year it passed Constitutional Carry into law.

No wild west, no blood in the streets.

You have to go to places like Detroit or Chicago for that. Where they have plenty of the restrictions for which New Hampshire Democrats are pining. And record-high crime, violent crime, property crime, and (no coincidence) Democrat party leadership. Proudly riding high on their superiority complex as everyday citizens suffer under their brutal regulatory mandates.

If there is any connection between gun ownership and crime, it is this. The more law-abiding gun owners, the fewer the crimes.

These stats disprove the narrative that law abiding citizens cannot be trusted with guns and must be stripped of their rights. Leaving citizens defenseless does not decrease violent crime rates as the crime statistics in places that have very restrictive gun laws show us every day.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where folks are enjoying the last weekend of summer, cash registers are ringing, and where we’re looking forward to the peace and quiet that will return to us on Tuesday.