12/27/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

I don’t know about you, but I am still recovering from Christmas Day, between the travel and food. I did run some errands on Saturday morning and found I needed to take a brief nap once I was finished, something I’ve never needed to do before.

Not many people seemed to travel on Christmas Day, at least not from what traffic I saw on the highways on my way to and from the WP Sister’s. While traffic was heavier on my way home, it was still lighter than I expected.

It was a subdued Christmas celebration considering how many useless restrictions have been imposed upon the populace.

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Just when I thought 2020 couldn’t get any weirder comes this story about exploding packets of Chick-fil-A’s Polynesian sauce.

The popping Polynesian packet problem has been around for a while but came to renewed attention when additional eyewitness claims erupted on a Reddit thread.

I have to concede people have a real nonchalant attitude about it.

"They just explode."

Okay then!

"I guess that's just how it is," spoken like a 27-year veteran of the bomb squad after losing a partner.

Of course, even the greatest condiment catastrophe is only ever going to be so dire. It's less "losing a finger," than, "having to lick a finger."

The risks we must take in search of good fast food!

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If the social media giants in the US do not voluntarily stop censoring content their Progressive censors disagree with, is it likely the US government could step in to solve that problem by following the lead of Poland?

Poland is considering a new law that would create a court whose purpose would be to protect social media content from censorship. Such a court would prevent politically motivated censorship from being employed by social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and others. In the US we have Section 230 that covers these social media companies.

In the US Section, 230 defines them as platforms, not publishers, but we know better. They use force to publish their opinions alongside or in place of yours. They may limit your access to the platform or restrict who sees your ideas based entirely on their ideological preference.

--snip--

If they just wanted to join the conversation, that’s one thing. Hey, you wrote this, I wrote this, let the community work it out amongst themselves. Equal distribution, and let’s have a discussion. But that is not what they do, as you well know. They not only promote their idea at the expense of yours, but they also punish you (Facebook Jail), lock you out, or delete your account.

Read. The. Whole. Thing.

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It seems that certain of The Powers That Be in California still believe wealth is a zero-sum game. What else could explain their apparent viewpoint that wealth is being ‘extracted’ from the Bay Area rather than being created through hard work? Could it be delusions about how economies work...or greed?

…[A] moral argument for tech’s responsibility to California, and specifically the Bay Area, has recently been produced. It goes something like this: young ambitious people moved to the state, and struck gold. But rather than “give back” to the land, they’re leaving with resources they “took” from the region…

I take extreme issue with the notion that industry leaders have taken something from the “community,” defined here as the “talent,” the “incubators,” and the “mentors.” This is precisely the opposite of reality. The men and women leaving are the talent, they have started the incubators, they have built the companies, they have funded the startup ecosystem, and they have mentored countless young people. This is the “network.” They are the network. Technology workers do not “extract” value from the region, they are what makes the region valuable.

The Left pushes the idea that wealth is a fixed sum and the only way one person or group of people can become wealthy is to extract it, i.e. steal it from someone else. Their solution: steal it back. Not that their solution includes returning the ‘stolen’ wealth to those from whom it had supposedly been stolen. Instead, it will be confiscated by The State to be used by The State for purposes chosen by The State.

Yeah, that always works out.

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And that is the somewhat abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee on this Christmas Holiday, where the snow has been greatly diminished, the after-Christmas sales are in full force, and where 2020 is winding to a close.

12/26/2020

Snow Versus Rain - Rain Wins

Well, we had a white Christmas...sort of.

We had almost 39 inches of snow in our town from the storm that hit us a little over a week ago. There was a lot of snow to move, snow to pull off of roofs to prevent ice dams, to move away from vents, to clear from doorways and stairs, and so on.

When the Weather GuysTM forecast over 2 inches of rainfall that would start during the evening Christmas Eve, the warning also went out to clear snow from roofs because the rain added to 30+ inches of snow would make the snow very heavy and possibly cause collapses. With that warning in mind, I removed as much snow as I could from the roof of my mother’s home as well as two adjoining vacation homes owned by friends of mine.

The rain started as forecast, along with much warmer temperatures (in the 50’s).

Imagine my surprise when upon waking on Christmas morning I found every trace of snow to be gone from the roofs of every home in the neighborhood. By the time the rain ended a good portion of the snow was gone from the ground as well, with only the highly compacted snowbanks remaining. Over 30 inches of snow melted away in a little over 8 hours. Between the 2 inches of rain and 30+ inches of snow melting away, the equivalent of over 5 inches of rain fell over a period of ~20 hours.

It took about 12 hours for 30+ inches of snow to fall, and a week later it took about 8 hours longer than that to make most of it melt away.

Amazing.

12/25/2020

Merry Christmas

The Weekend Pundit Family wishes you all a very Merry Christmas!

12/22/2020

Points To Ponder - Voting

When I saw this my first thought was “Why?” However, my second thought was “Why not?”


I saw another related suggestion made in Disqus comments about only those citizens with a Concealed Carry Permit should be allowed to vote. There is some logic to it: American citizens need to have background checks in order to exercise their Second Amendment Rights, so why not do likewise for American citizens exercising their Right to Vote? Both are equally important.

12/20/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was a busy day yesterday.

It started with banking – transferring some money to be used for Christmas shopping from one bank to another, followed by a stop at a local bakery to order some pies for Christmas. Then it was off to the barbershop to get a haircut, then the local gun shop to pick up a couple of Christmas gifts. (Christmas shopping at a gun shop? Of course! Doesn’t everyone do some Christmas shopping at their local gun shop? I know folks around here do.)

From there it was a stop at one of the WP Mom’s favorite local eateries to pick up a gift certificate ordered by one of the WP Sisters for the WP Mom. Then the real work began.

There was snow to remove from not one, not two, but three roofs. The 30+ inches of snow piled on the roofs of many homes during the Nor’easter we experienced this past Thursday and some needed to be removed in order to prevent ice dams from forming as the snow started to melt. (Those of us in northern climes understand the problems of ice dams, so we use roof rakes to pull down some of the snow as a means of lessening the severity of, if not eliminating, ice dams.

I had noticed some incipient ice dams forming on the roofs of two immediate neighbors here and contacted them about me removing the piled snow from their homes. (They are seasonal neighbors so they aren’t around very much during the winter). I got the OK (and thanks since they hadn’t thought about that particular problem) and after finishing working on the roof of our house here at The Gulch, started on the roofs of the two neighbors’ vacation homes.

In the midst of that work I received a call from one neighbor asking me to check the heating system in their home because his remote system was telling him the temperature inside was only 43ºF despite the thermostat being set for 60ºF. A quick investigation proved that to indeed be the case. After a number of phone calls and texts we figured out that the furnace, while it would run, had an issue with the circulation pump. Fortunately the house also had one of those fancy heat-pump systems that could either heat or cool, so I enabled it and after a few hours the temperature inside the house was in the upper 50’s, so frozen pipes weren’t going to be an issue. (I had the foresight to shut off the water at the main valve just in case the worst occurred.)

A repairman has already been contacted and will be (hopefully) be correcting the pump failure some time today.

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So now Andrew Yang is suggesting yet another really stupid idea? What a surprise.

First, it was his proposal to give every American aged 18 and above $1000 a month, something that would cost $3 trillion a year to fund and which he never explained how he was going to pay for it.

Now he wants everyone to “have something like a bar code” to prove they’ve been vaccinated. That is certainly an over the top suggestion for something that has been so overblown, oversold, and mishandled by The Powers That Be in places like New York, California, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington. There are certainly historical and religious precedents that would suggest it is a Very Bad IdeaTM. As such, we know it is highly likely the Progressives will love the idea.

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There have been some headlines about severe allergic reactions to the Covid-19 vaccine, implying there have never been severe allergic reactions to vaccines in the past. That is untrue, of course. There is always some small percentage of the population that will have bad reactions to vaccines, no matter what kind of vaccine.

With the Covid-19 vaccine having seen six severe allergic reactions out of over 272,000 doses given so far, that works out to approximately 0.002% of all patients receiving the vaccine so far.

What percentage of severe allergic reactions do we see with other vaccines, particularly vaccines that have been in use for decades?

Between 1 in 1000 (0.1%) and 1 in 1,000,000 (0.0001%) for childhood vaccines, depending upon the vaccine received.

The severe allergic reaction is even smaller among adults, and even then they need to be broken down between reactions to the vaccines themselves and those related to the non-vaccine elements within the vaccine solutions.

Since those receiving the Covid-19 are primarily adults, are the severe allergic reactions seen above average? Yes.

Has anyone died from those severe allergic reactions? No. Whether talking about the Covid-19 vaccine or other vaccines, it is very rare for anyone with severe allergic reactions from a vaccination to die from it.

If Covid-19 is as deadly as everyone claiming that it is such, then the risk from the Covid-19 vaccine is even smaller.

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I really can’t anything to this.

China Joe’s Climate Crisis (scam) Plan Comes Into Focus Or Something.

I’m truly looking forward to these climate activists caterwauling that all the rules and regs are supposed to apply to Someone Else, to That Guy, not themselves, because they have a family to scoot around, and the cheapest Tesla just doesn’t work, plus, seriously, for not much more they got a big ol’ Odyssey, Pilot, Highlander, or Sienna with DVD and stuff. All while Biden, Granholm, McCarthy, etc, run around in fossil fueled limos and private jets.

It always ‘someone else’ who will have to make major changes in their lives, perhaps even losing their livelihoods, homes, and maybe even families in order to let those climate scammers ‘prove’ they are doing something to ‘fix’ a climate they have absolutely no control over, do not understand, and have such a poor record of predicting what will happen with their seriously flawed and useless climate ‘models’. Yet all of their actions are based upon those bogus models and unproven (and unfalsifiable) hypotheses.

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I figured I’d close out on a high note, so I present something only regular tool users will get right away. The rest of you may take a little longer to figure it out.


(H/T Powerline)

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re still digging out from Thursday’s Nor’easter, trying to finish up our Christmas shopping, and getting psyched up for Christmas Day.

12/19/2020

Real Twilight Zone Stuff

It was very busy day today, but I won’t cover today’s activities in this post. They will wait until tomorrow.

Instead, I am going to embed this interesting video I came across that proves Rod Serling was ahead of his time.



I still catch Twilight Zone episodes when I can. It’s hard to believe the original series aired for only 5 seasons.

12/18/2020

New York And California Versus Florida - A Covid-19 Comparison

The present situation in Covid-19 America brings to mind this quote from the original Star Wars:

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” - Princess Leia

And so it is with California and New York in comparison to Florida.

It seems that the tighter Gavin Newsom in California, Andrew Cuomo in New York, and Bill DeBlasio in New York City tighten their grip on their states/city in their efforts to ‘contain’ Covid-19 using methods – lockdowns and business restrictions/shutdowns - that have been proven not to stop the spread while spreading misery, physical, emotional, and economic, among their constituents, the more people, businesses, and municipalities are defying the edicts, refusing to bow down to their destructive mandates. These groups are “slipping through their fingers”. The more these tacit dictators throw at their constituents, the more those constituents proclaim “Oh hell no!”

Now look at Florida, a state where Ron DeSantis has done just the opposite, loosening the state’s grip and refusing to lock down his state or slap heavy limitations on businesses.

Some might think that as a result that Florida would be seeing Covid-19 cases and deaths in much higher numbers than New York (Florida has a bigger population than New York and a much higher percentage of Florida’s population are in the most vulnerable demographic – the elderly). But just the opposite is true. Then if you compare Florida to California the differences are even more striking, with Florida still showing much lower Covid-19 numbers than California, even on a per capita basis.

Another striking difference between New York, California, and Florida?

Both New York’s and California’s economies in trouble, businesses are closing or relocating, and so are the people living there. Florida’s economy, on the other hand, has recovered and seen a growth in both population and economic activity.

So which approach seems to be working on both a epidemiological and economic basis?

Hint: It isn’t the draconian lockdowns and heavy economic restrictions.

12/17/2020

First Big Snow Of The Season

Four to six inches of snow in our area, they said.

A quick hitting storm that will be in and out in about 10 hours, they said.

After almost 15 hours of heavy snow we had about 30 inches of snowfall.

Thirty. Inches.

At around 11AM there was over two feet of snow here in The Gulch, as you can see from this picture of the trusty RAM 1500 4x4:


By 2PM the snow tapered off and we had 30 inches on the ground.

It was so bad that Debpool (the new blog moniker for Deb because she keeps coming back from adversity again and again, just like Deadpool, but without the loss of appendages or other body parts), couldn’t even make it out of her garage, let alone to work. Her driveway wasn’t plowed, her road wasn’t plowed, nor was the road leading to her road.

She called me a little past 2PM asking for a ride to work since there was no way she was going to be able to make it to work under the circumstances, so I logged off from work and started digging out the trusty RAM 1500 just enough so I could get it out of the driveway. An hour later (yes, an hour) and I was on my way to pick her up. About an hour-and-a-half later and I was dropping her off at work, a trip that usually takes about 25 minutes.

I got back to The Gulch around 5:30PM and started digging out the rest of the driveway so I could pull back in to the driveway...and of course one of the plow crews showed up and completed the last 10% of the driveway I hadn’t cleared yet. But at least it was cleared.



Tomorrow I get to break out the roof rake and pull almost 3 feet of snow from the roof...and shovel some more.

Welcome to winter in New Hampshire.

At least we're going to have a White Christmas this year!

12/13/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s yet another Sunday here in Coronavirus America.

The decrees are flying off of governors’ desks to shut down normal activities, cause more damage to the economy, isolate families, and generate fear, panic, and doubt...amongst the media, and disdain and mistrust for government by in increasing amount of the American people.

We’ve seen study after study showing that lockdowns don’t work, yet our state and local government figures insist on decreeing lockdowns again. It is literally insane as defined by Einstein: Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results this time. Lockdowns didn’t work the previous “x” times, so why would they work this time? If the answer is “Because”, then we can safely ignore those decrees.

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Something has been bothering me about some of the legal actions being taken by states, particularly my home state, regarding violations of state Covid-19 guidelines by businesses and individuals.

As such, I have to ask this question: How is it that guidelines can possibly be defined as having the power of laws or regulations? In every place I have looked, both online and offline, guidelines in law are defined as:

A guideline is a statement or plan by which to determine a course of action. A guideline aims to streamline particular processes according to a set routine or sound practice. By definition, following a guideline is never mandatory.

Guidelines are neither laws or regulations. As such, how can anyone be fined or otherwise penalized for violating a state Covid-19 guideline? So far I haven’t been able to find out what enables our state to do that.

I think someone in our state capitol needs to dig out a legal dictionary and look up the meaning of “guideline”.

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Now that YouTube has been deleting videos that do not meet their increasingly Progressive restrictions, or demonetizing or suspending accounts of content providers with whom their censors disagree, more people are abandoning it for Bit Chute.

Will it replace YouTube? For some folks it is the only place they can post video content that doesn’t meet YouTube’s ever changing and broadening content restrictions. I figure it’s only a matter of time before YouTube will only allow Progressive socialist and communist content which means the amount of ‘acceptable’ videos will dwindle.

Could it be YouTube will censor itself right out of existence? It wouldn’t surprise me if that happened. They would only have themselves to blame.

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Now that the DNC-MSM doesn’t have to cover for the Bidens, stories about Hunter Biden’s shady business deals and corrupt business practices, unreported income, unpaid income taxes, ties to Chinese Communist Party members and agents, and an ever growing list of unethical, immoral, and illegal actions involving him, his dad Joe, and even Kamala Harris have been coming to light. When even nominally Democrat Party organs like the New York Times and the Washington Post are pretending to be just now noticing these indiscretions, you know it’s bad.

Is it possible these ‘indiscretions’ will be used as leverage to remove Joe Biden from office and make Kamala Harris the first Communist President of the United States? Or if she is also tied into these ‘indiscretions’ so she too will be booted from office, is this a setup by Nancy Pelosi to move from Speaker of the House to the White House?

If nothing else, the next year is going to be ‘interesting’ in the old Chinese Curse definition of ‘interesting’.

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I am dismayed that Joe Biden will be tying America’s economic hands by bringing is back into the Paris Accords fold. I am not sure he can force us to do so considering President Obama’s signing the accords was never ratified by the US Senate, something that is required for any treaty or international agreement of such scope. Then again, Obama really didn’t care because of his “I won” attitude that led him to believe he could ignore the Constitutional constraints upon his office with impunity.

It seems Joe Biden believes he too can ignore the lack of Senate ratification and use the unfair and biased Paris Accords to destroy the American economy while giving China and India a pass. This despite the US having done more than any other nation in the world in reducing CO2 emissions, and air pollution in general.

Why would we agree to institute draconian environmental regulations and measures that will do little to “save the Earth” but will profoundly and negatively affect the US economy when our foreign competitors can continue to pour gigatons of CO2 and not be required to clean up their emissions? Oh, and then there’s the trillions of dollars in climate ‘reparations’ we’ll be obligated to pay to any nation that thinks that they need bribes...er...financial incentives to think about reducing their CO2 emissions.

The Paris Accords are a con game, a so-called long con to make the US pay for our economic competitors sins while making it impossible for our economy to survive.

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This could be the literal “End Of The World As We Know It”!

What is ‘this’?

Pepperidge Farm has announced that there is a strong possibility “that a cookie shortage could arrive this holiday season.”

This could be the end of everythingRUN AWAY!

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And that’s the slightly abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where thoughts are increasingly turning to Christmas, holiday shopping is nowhere near peak, and where we might have some plowable amounts of snow later this week.

12/12/2020

Saving The Republic

This came by way of Chris Muir in the comments at Day By Day, and it gave me pause as I pondered the points it brought up regarding saving the Republic from those who have worked so hard to destroyit and replace it with a non-fictional Panem.

America is now gauging who needs to stay and who must go. We know that a large portion of our population has conspired to steal an election, lie about it, and to set in motion the political forces that will disenfranchise and subjugate us, meaning those who want the preservation of traditional America.

Donald Trump came about when America was long dead, having committed suicide in the 1860s then turned on itself again in the 1930s and 1960s, finally finishing the job in the 1990s, creating such a mess that a Bush interlude nearly saved it, then deciding instead to race back into the void.

Normal people have for decades been accustomed to the situation getting worse year after year, but being unable to do anything about it, since we now have a permanent swing vote of diversity that favors socialist-style policies and rejects Republicans.

In addition, that coalition adds the pop culture people, who are generally lost youth from broken families seeking revenge on the culture that birthed them, since they fully hate it. These people have only a will to destroy, dominate, and humiliate others. They are out for revenge.

We are learning in this cycle of history that our enemy is not government per se, but that government is one of many forms that collective will to compromise in order to achieve unity takes, and that this causes the same cycle that Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism did.

That cycle leads to a death spiral as more bureaucracy leads to fewer options and higher costs, at which point wealth cannot concentrate, precedent restricts decision, regulations make everything more slowly, and bloat consumes the system while driving out the productive.

We saw that malaise destroy the Soviet Union which had a totalitarian government that was so hide-bound in bureaucratic and ideological inertia that its economy finally collapsed, and with it, the Soviet Union itself.

We see that same malaise increasingly affecting the EU, not yet a totalitarian state though it is headed that way with an unelected and unaccountable Parliament and rapidly expanding bureaucracy. It’s one reason the UK broke away via Brexit. The UK became increasingly disenchanted with increasing tax levies, increasingly draconian bureaucratic red tape, and always increasing government interference in economic activity and local laws.

We have seen the same thing happening here at the state level and increasingly, the federal level. Some of the federal creep was staunched by President Trump, issuing a EO that for every new regulation, two regulations were to be repealed. I expect that will cease once President Harris...er...Biden takes office.

At the state level we have seen more economically stifling laws, regulations, and taxes being levied, and continuous attacks on free speech, free association, religion, education, political activities, property rights, gun rights, parental rights, and a whole host of other things that are part and parcel of American culture and history. To see the effects of those crushing actions one only needs to look at states like Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and - surprise surprise - California to see the economic and societal decline that has been taking place at the behest of our self-anointed ‘betters’, all for “our own good”. If it was truly for our own good, then can anyone explain why so many people and businesses are fleeing those nascent socialist ‘utopias’? Could it possibly be because the folks who see what is going decided to get out before it was too late?

Even in conservative Red states we’re seeing some of the same damaging activities taking place as our supposed betters work to undermine them, too.

If we who see what is happening do nothing and capitulate to the Progressives, the America we know may be irreparably damaged and will fade away to a shadow of its former self, those rights we hold so dear will be wiped away one by one until they are gone. The American people will become the New Serfs to the Progressive Political Elite, or to use more colloquial and politically correct language, the American proletariat will need to bow to the will of the Politburo, intelligentsia, and nomenklatura or end up as nothing but a zek in one of the gulags.

Some of you out there may think I have fallen into a state of paranoia, but what I am doing is looking back through history to see how things like this have happened in the past and see many of the same factors appearing this time, too. The fall of the American Republic will be just like people or businesses falling into bankruptcy: First, a little at a time. Then all at once.

It has happened before. It will happen again if we let it. Let’s not.

12/08/2020

Points To Ponder

Received via e-mail from a friend:

“The only mystery in life is why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets.” – Al McGuire

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein

“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” – Ambrose Bierce

“It would be nice to spend billions on schools and roads, but right now that money is desperately needed for political ads.” – Andy Borowitz

“At every party there are two kinds of people – those who want to go home and those who don’t. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.” – Ann Landers

“My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I’m right.” – Ashleigh Brilliant

“Have you noticed that all the people in favor of birth control are already born?” – Benny Hill

“The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.” – Bill Watterson

“As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” – Buddy Hackett

“My favorite machine at the gym is the vending machine.” – Caroline Rhea

“All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.” – Casey Stengel

“Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.” – Dave Barry

“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” – Edward Abbey

“How many people here have telekinetic powers? Raise my hand.” – Emo Philips

“If you live to be one hundred, you’ve got it made. Very few people die past that age.” – George Burns

“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.” – Benjamin Franklin

My favorite must be Einstein’s observation about stupidity and genius. We see that every single day. Our political elite certainly show an overabundance of the former and nary a bit of the latter.

12/06/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

It looks like we have survived the first Snowmageddon. No glaciers moving from out of the north. No mammoths trampling down people in the streets. There was some digging out to do, but nothing more than was expected. (Actually, it was less than expected, at least here in The Gulch. We saw all of 2 inches when 8 inches was forecast. Elsewhere in town saw up to 9 inches.) All in all, it was a typical snowstorm. The snow was heavier than we would have liked, but it isn’t uncommon for a late-fall snowstorm. The ‘fluffier’ snow is seen usually later in December on through early March because the temperatures are colder.

While some folks don’t care for the snow, I am not one of them. I love the snow, even if at times it can be inconvenient. If nothing else it helps me to appreciate summer all the more. It can also give us some bragging rights now and then. (See Blizzard of 78.)

It is particularly nice to watch the storm while sitting in the living room with a good fire going in the woodstove. I spent more than a few storms at The Manse doing just that, something I hope I’ll be able at the new Weekend Pundit digs...once I get it built.

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We are seeing more lower level government and law enforcement officials refusing to enforce “stay at home” or lockdown orders, with the latest to do so being the L.A. County Sheriff.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villaneuva has taken a stand against California Governor Gavin Newsom in defiance of Newsom's coronavirus lockdown orders.

Villaneuva has stated that he will not enforce the governor’s new statewide stay-at-home order that prohibits people from going outside for “unnecessary” activities.

In a conversation with KTTV’s Bill Melugin, Sheriff Villaneuva reportedly “tells me he found out about the new stay at home orders from Governor Newsom’s press conference, and there was no coordination with law enforcement beforehand, which he says is concerning when the Governor is expecting enforcement of his orders.”

“I want to stay away from business[es] that are trying to comply, they bent over backwards to modify their operations to conform to these orders and then they have the rug yanked out from under them, that’s a disservice. I don’t want to make them more miserable,” said Villaneuva.

Many other jurisdictions have seen resistance to lockdowns as well, with local government and local law enforcement unwilling to enforce such lockdowns, particularly in light of more than a few studies showing lockdowns don’t work, with the only effect being damage to, or destruction of businesses and/or jobs. Those effects are worse than the threat of Covid-19. So in this case #Resist has taken on a different meaning, with more people refusing to capitulate to heavy-handed government mandated shutdowns. The number of municipalities refusing to enforce shutdown mandates grows with each subsequent shutdown, and rightfully so.

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Speaking of resistance to lockdowns, CNBC’s Rick Santelli, whose 2009 rant about mortgage bailouts while reporting from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange sparked creation of the TEA Party, has a new rant, this time about the asymmetrical and unfair application of lockdowns and how they destroy small businesses yet give the big-box stores a pass.

On a panel on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” a flash of anger erupted between Santelli and co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin. Santelli questioned how people can’t get COVID at a Lowes or Home Depot, but are miraculously put in more danger by going to smaller stores or restaurants while taking the same precautions.

--snip--

Two world views. One, Santelli, pragmatic and deferential to the intelligence of the American people, and Sorkin, who apparently believes people aren’t smart enough to control their own lives without government diktats – even irrational ones like opening Best Buy but keeping the local electronics store or restaurant closed. Sorkin couldn’t win the argument and appealed to emotion about how much more he cared about viewers than … who? Santelli. It was insulting and beside the point.

It’s easy for those who are not directly affected by lockdowns to sneer and be condescending to those who deal with the effects of the lockdowns up close and personal, seeing everything they’ve worked for being wiped out due to ill-conceived and ineffective government decrees.

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By way of Zero Hedge comes this message: Positive Covid Test? Ask this question!



There are a bunch of links pointing to a number of articles and posts questioning the validity of the PCR test used to test for Covid-19. A number of them point to the problems with using the PCR test, implying the large percentage of ‘positive’ tests are wrong due to the improper application of the test.

Read The Whole Thing.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this:

More Defunding Police – Crimes Soar in Major Cities: Libs Call It “Safety For All”.

Minneapolis is proposing a “Safety for All” plan that severely reduces the number of sworn officers. Los Angeles, California, is also proposing budget cuts, which will reduce the police force by 951 officers. Seattle cut their police budget by 18% for 2021, and that was a pittance of what the radical left wanted. Portland’s 18% cut failed, and protesters vandalized the Mayor’s home over it. All of these plans come in the midst of spiking crime rates in the big cities. And not one of them will bring “safety for all.”

They have come to believe the “All our problems are caused by the police” meme being sold by those who do not really give a fig about the real problems and are working hard to make things worse. It all started with the Michael Brown “Hands Up! Don’t Shoot!” lie used to justify rioting, looting, and arson in Ferguson, Missouri. It and other incidents that were not what they first appeared to be were used as an excuse for all kinds of “mostly peaceful” protests that included the aforementioned rioting, looting, and arson. Now it appears those cities buying into it are working to make things even less safe.

I expect if things get worse we’ll see vigilantes and ‘regulators’ replacing law enforcement officers, and that won’t make things better or safer, specifically for criminals and “mostly peaceful” rioters, looters, and arsonists. It won’t be safe for anyone.

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


And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow has ended, the cleanup is in progress, and Monday has moved us one day closer to Christmas.

12/05/2020

It's Snowmageddon All Over Again

It’s Saturday and people (or should I say the local media) are losing their collective minds.

What big crisis has been driving this losing of minds?

A snowstorm.

In this case a coastal storm, and more specifically, a Nor’easter.

It isn’t like we’ve never experienced Nor’easters before. This is New England, after all, and Nor’easters are part and parcel of winter in New England. While it is the first Nor’easter of the coming winter season, it isn’t the first we’ve ever experienced. We know how to handle them. But to hear the media you’d think it was The Apocalypse, the long prophesied Snowmageddon. The TV media has broken out their ominous Storm Center music and graphics. The news anchors talk about the the coming snowstorm “with a gleam in [their] eye”, telling us how we’re all gonna DIE!!!

What gets me is that some people are acting as if we’ve never experienced a snowstorm before. The typical Saturday morning supermarket ‘rush’ saw a lot of cars filling the parking lots at the two supermarkets in town, but the number of cars was much higher than what we usually see, probably folks buying up three weeks’ worth of bread and milk for something that was going to last less then 12 hours once it started snowing.

The town and state highway departments certainly aren’t alarmed by what’s coming. They’ve been making preparations for a couple of days now, mounting plows and salt spreaders on their trucks and making sure everything works. Beyond that, they don’t seem to be concerned knowing they’ll be able to handle what the forecasters have been saying is coming our way. For them, it will be just another typical winter storm.

I know I’ve made preparations, but they are what I do prior to every Nor’easter – Make sure the Trusty RAM 1500’s gas tank is full, the 14-gallon gas caddy and 100-lb propane bottle are full (fuel for the generator), my cell phone, tablet, laptops and two-way handie-talkie were all charged, my winter gear – boots, jacket, gloves, hat – were ready to go, and spare batteries for flashlights/storm lanterns/portable radio were on hand. Snow shovels, sand, and ice melt are in the garage and ready to go. Many of the folks I know make similar preparations for storms like this. It’s what we do up here.

As I write this – just a little past noon – it has started snowing. Nothing heavy at this point. It’s still just above freezing, so that snow is still mixed with some rain, but that won’t be true for long. Now all we have to do is let the snow fall and wait for the end of it so we can clean it up and go on with our lives. No Snowmageddon, at least not this time.

UPDATE: By way of Powerline

11/29/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

It looks like we’ve made it through our Covid-19 Thanksgiving, celebrating with our self-isolated family members at the younger WP Sister’s place. While our Thanksgiving celebration was a shadow of what we usually experience, something I think most people have also experienced this year, we made the best of it. Traffic was lighter than we usually see, something also not unexpected, since not as many people were traveling this year. Even Black Friday didn’t see nearly as many people flooding the stores for deals, yet again not unexpected.

I have to admit the news about Covid-19 has been sounding dire, making it sound like people were dropping in the streets. Yes, it has been “spreading like wildfire”, but one thing I’ve noticed is that neither the number of hospitalizations or deaths has tracked the increase in positive cases, a promising statistic.

Tomorrow, reality will reimpose itself. It will be time to go back to work, to experience another Monday, something most of us dread in the best of times.

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


Turning to the election results, Roger Kimball asks some very important questions that need to be asked, questions the Democrats are trying very hard to quash, to make go away. They don’t want any inquiries about voting irregularities, the so-called “unsubstantiated accusations” line the media keeps shoving down our throats. (To me, “unsubstantiated accusations” equates to “uninvestigated allegations”.)

Inquiring minds want to know, how is it possible that voter turnout in just those key cities in just those key states was so high: often 90 percent or more? How is it possible that Joe Biden, who barely campaigned, garnered more votes in just those spots than even Barack Obama had done? How is it possible that, as everyone was getting tucked into bed on the night of November 3, Donald Trump had notable leads in almost all of those states and then, suddenly, all at once, in the wee hours, floods of votes poured in and—wouldn’t you know it—they were overwhelmingly, sometimes exclusively, for Biden? And what about those voting machines from Dominion: are we confident that they are secure?

If the situation were reversed, the Democrats would be screaming “Vote fraud! Vote fraud! VOTE FRAUD!!!” at the top of their lungs, the media would be pushing hard for the investigation of every allegation 24/7, and there would be investigations. But because the fraud helped them win and was committed on their behalf (if not by them directly), it has to be quashed, stamped out, eliminated in its entirety. No investigation of any allegation, even those which have the math to back them up, will be allowed if the Democrats get their way. The media will keep selling the lie that there was no fraud of any kind.

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


I was reminded of this quote from C.S. Lewis over in the comments in today’s DBD.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

It seems the “moral busybodies” – our Progressive ‘betters’ – will be doing everything they can to make our lives a living hell with constantly shifting rules and definitions of right and wrong, pushing social justice causes that have nothing to do with actual justice, creating entire classes of untermenschen at whim or at need to help support their belief in their own superiority over the rest of us.

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


It seems our political class is finding out there are Constitutional limits on their power regarding public health.

I’ve heard the argument made that public health trumps all, but “public health” can be used as an excuse to restrict or even eliminate one Right after another, all in the name of the pubic good. We’ve seen that on a small scale when restrictions on public gatherings have been placed on religious institutions but not social justice groups, including those who protest...and riot, and loot, and burn. Too bad for them (and good for us) that the US Supreme Court disagrees with them.

When the Supreme Court blocked New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's restrictions on religious services this week, it was the first time the justices had enforced constitutional limits on government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision predictably provoked hyperbolic reactions from critics who seem to think politicians should be free to do whatever they consider appropriate during a public health crisis.

Describing the Court's emergency injunction in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo as "the first major decision from the Trump-packed court," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that "it will kill people." He added: "The bad logic is obvious. Suppose I adhere to a religion whose rituals include dumping neurotoxins into public reservoirs. Does the principle of religious freedom give me the right to do that?" Krugman averred that "freedom of belief" does not include "the right to hurt other people in tangible ways—which large gatherings in a pandemic definitely do."

There are several problems with Krugman's gloss on the case, starting with his understanding of the constitutional right at stake. The Court was applying the First Amendment's ban on laws "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion, which includes conduct as well as belief. Krugman, of course, is right that the Free Exercise Clause is not a license for "dumping neurotoxins into public reservoirs"—or, to take a more familiar example, conducting human sacrifices. But it is hard to take seriously his suggestion that holding a religious service during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of the safeguards observed, is tantamount to poisoning millions of people's drinking water.

--snip--

Cuomo's restrictions on religious gatherings were much more onerous than the rules for myriad secular activities that pose similar risks of virus transmission. That point was crucial because the Court has held that laws are presumptively unconstitutional when they discriminate against religion. At the same time, it has said the Free Exercise Clause does not require religious exemptions from neutral, generally applicable laws, which obviously would include statutes that prohibit mass poisoning or murder.

Indeed. By Krugman’s and other critics’ reasoning, actions up to and including those taken by Kodos The Executioner would be appropriate if it ‘protected’ public health.

I stopped listening to Krugman years ago once I realized his Nobel Prize in Economics had gone to his head and that he had lost any reasoning ability whatsoever. He isn’t even any good in economics any more, particularly in light of his prediction of economic collapse after Trump’s election win in 2016 was proven to be so wrong on so many levels. Why would anyone listen to him on this topic?

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


Now for some relevant and much more useful information: Do not let moose lick your car.

It apparently has to do with moose liking the road salt that is deposited on the body panels of cars and trucks since it gives them easy access to the salt.

...it is also against the law that prohibits people to feed or disturb wildlife in national parks, with violators facing fines of up to $25,000.

So if a moose licks the salt from your car or truck, you are in fact violating Canadian law and could be fined for allowing them to do so. Somehow, I find it difficult believing the RCMP or local police departments would issue citations because a moose decided to partake of the road salt deposited on your car. At least, I’d like to believe they wouldn’t do so.

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


And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re experiencing a bout of good weather before the heavy rains arrive late Monday, partaking of Thanksgiving leftovers, and girding our loins for a return to work on Monday.

11/27/2020

Covid-19 Deaths Aren't Necessarily Caused by Covid-19 or "Where Have All The Excess Deaths Gone?"

Talk about synchronicity!

On more than one occasion I have commented that too many deaths have been attributed Covid-19 that were not in fact caused by Covid-19. Yes, some patients who have died had Covid and it contributed to their demises. There were others who tested positive for Covid but were not symptomatic and it had nothing to do with their passing. Then there were those who never tested positive for Covid but had it listed as cause of death on their death certificates. Many have castigated me for making such claims, but when I challenged them to prove my claims were unfounded, they couldn’t.

Now comes a piece from Johns Hopkins University by Genevieve Briand, assistant program director of the Applied Economics master’s degree program at Hopkins, where she delved into the effect of COVID-19 on U.S. deaths using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The conclusion from her analysis?

Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.

The linked piece includes the breakdown in deaths from 2014 to 2020. I have also included a link to a webinar covering this topic.

One thing I must mention about this is that JHU made the article by Dr. Briand “disappear”. The links to the article and webinar came from Archive.org. (I guess JHU hasn’t realized that “The Internet is Forever.”)

On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University explained that they deleted the article on the study because it “was being used to support false and dangerous inaccuracies about the impact of the pandemic.”

They did not, however, challenge the accuracy of the data or its conclusions. In other words, the article was deleted because it didn’t fit the proper narrative.

When studies are retracted, there are usually detailed explanations for the retraction. But JHU’s ‘explanation’ was along the lines of “Though making clear the need for further research, we just didn’t like the conclusions reached, so we spiked the article.”

11/25/2020

11/24/2020

What The Covid-19 Numbers Are Actually Telling Us

The Covid-19 “crisis” is a gift that keeps on giving…to the federal, state, and local governments.

Here in New Hampshire we have been seeing a rapid increase in the number of positive cases, with an average of 435 new cases a day over the past few days. That is far above what was seen during the first wave back in April and May, which saw about 65 new cases a day back then.


One would think the numbers would imply that we would also see a big spike in the number of deaths every day considering the number of new cases, but you would be wrong.


Instead we are seeing approximately 40% the number of daily deaths from the peak of the first wave even though we’re seeing 667% the number of daily new cases. What conclusions can we draw from those two different sets of numbers?

Here’s my take on them:

1.The number of new positive cases is inflated, either through false positive test results caused by over-amplification of samples performed during the PCR tests, a huge increase in the number of tests being run compared to this past Spring, or some combination of both.

2.The number of new deaths is low because of better and more aggressive treatments, better isolation of vulnerable populations, or the inevitable attenuation of the virus meaning it isn’t nearly as strong or as deadly as what was seen this past spring, or some combination of all three.

3.Lockdowns did little to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

4.Most masks provide little actual protection and are more of a psychological crutch to give people a false sense of security. If the masks being used by people are not N95 masks and are not properly fitted, they are not effective. Even then, they should be used by the infected to protect the uninfected, not the other way around.

However, looking at these numbers, the increasingly tightening restrictions being placed upon New Hampshire residents make no sense on the face of it. Yes, we’re seeing an increase in positive cases, but are they a real increase or an artifact caused by the conditions listed in Point #1 above? (This likely applies to people in other states, but I can only speak to the case here in New Hampshire.)

We aren’t watching people drop dead in the streets. We don’t have anyone on a horse-drawn cart riding down the street calling “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” There are no mass graves or large funeral pyres to dispose of the mounds of dead. Yet our government leaders are reacting to this as if it were a repeat of Black Plague in the 1340’s or the Spanish Flu in 1918 even as we ignore the lessons of those deadly diseases.

Isolating the vulnerable should have been and should remain the top priority, not locking everyone else away, shutting down the economy, forcing businesses to close (in too many cases, permanently), and forcing people out of their jobs. The Powers That Be got it wrong and are continuing to get it wrong.

11/23/2020

Shoved Down The Memory Hole

Remember when Democrats castigated President Trump for his claim that a coronavirus vaccine would be available before the end of the year, telling everyone the earliest we would see a vaccine would be mid to late spring?

The first US immunizations are likely to be here on December 12th.

I expect Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer will take credit for that.

11/22/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

Here it is, the weekend before Covid-19 Thanksgiving, and some folks are freaking out. No, not because of Covid-19, but because state governments are freaking out, announcing mask mandates and travel restrictions before one of the biggest holidays in the nation. The question is, how many people will abide by these restrictions and how many will tell their governors to “Sod off, Swampy!” because they are both tired of Covid-19 restrictions and know that many of the precautions are more feel-good measures rather than an effective means of preventing the spread of an increasingly virulent and weakening coronavirus?

Count me as one of the folks telling our governor and the governor of neighboring Massachusetts to “Sod off!”

With an growing number of studies showing masks and lockdowns don’t work, people are increasingly questioning the measures being taken by their local and state governments. They’re tired of the constant fearmongering, the “We’re all gonna DIE if we don’t lock ourselves away and cower in fear!” take on the news, and ‘experts’ pushing narratives we already know are pure BS.

They’ve had enough.

So have I.

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


I wonder how long it is going to take for schools, colleges, and universities to learn that the First Amendment applies to everyone, particularly at public schools, colleges, and universities? Numerous Federal courts and the US Supreme Court has ruled these institutions of higher learning do not have the power to the restrict speech of students, faculty, and staff. Speech codes and arbitrary restrictions on speech have been struck down on First Amendment grounds again and again and again. Yet these educational institutions keep trying to work their way around the Court rulings so they can silence speech that does not meet the Progressive narrative or that they see as ‘offensive’ to their sensibilities or the sensibilities of some unnamed ‘others’.

They fail. Every. Single. Time.

Their latest fail?

Two Wisconsin school districts found out the hard way that they aren’t immune to the First Amendment.

Officials in two Wisconsin school districts came up with a novel way around the Tinker precedent: redefine what counts as “speech.”

A federal judge swatted down this move in a consolidated case brought by students whose gun-themed clothing was banned on school grounds. Officials claimed the clothing “fail[ed] to convey a particularized message,” so it wasn’t constitutionally protected.

“Not only did Plaintiffs intend to convey a clear message in wearing their shirts, it also seems clear that school authorities understood the message Plaintiffs were intending to convey, at least to the extent their message included an appreciation for the right to own firearms,” U.S. District Judge William Griesbach wrote in a short ruling earlier this month.

I expect the school districts will appeal, but I can see this going all the way to the US Supreme Court if needed, particularly since the students’ messages used the First Amendment to support Second Amendment rights. I also expect the those hating both the First and Second Amendments will continue their efforts to make both of them go away, clearing their way to eliminate the rest of our Constitutional Rights.

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


It was 57 years ago today that three shots rang out from a seventh-floor window of the Texas Book Depository on Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, wounding Texas Governor John Connally and killing President John F. Kennedy, changing the course of history.

Everyone alive at that time knows where they were when JFK as assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. I was in our living room in our house in Auburn, Maine. The television had nothing but coverage of the assassination on all three channels - ABC, CBS, and NBC (remember, this was the pre-cable TV days of rabbit ear antennas) – and I remember my mom being upset, on the verge of tears most of afternoon and evening. While I knew what was going on, I didn’t grasp just how momentous and terrible an event it was at the time.

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


The Democrats keep saying the voting machines are secure and couldn’t be hacked, so the vote totals are correct.

Here’s something that blows that lying narrative away, showing that it takes only 1 minute to hack in and change the results. (A backup link to the YouTube video should Twitter realize anyone is watching the video and suspends the account.)

Of course I expect the fraudsters and their clients to vehemently deny any such hack could possibly take place. No one would need to hack the machines in private as all it would take is the assistance of one partisan election official to look the other way to make it happen.

While the video is two years old, a work colleague to whom I sent the video (who is an experienced coder with years of experience and a few post-grad degrees) says the machines are as vulnerable now as they were two years ago, primarily because they are using the same operating system they were using two years ago.

(H/T Chris Muir)

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


I have to agree with the Feral Irishman on this one.

That’s The Shortest Recession I’ve Never Lived Through... (He also delves into Election Year 2016 and the issues seen then.)

You hear der Bidengaffer talking about getting the economy back on track as if Covid-19 had nothing to do with the recession we’ve experienced, one that had a V-shaped recovery, and that was all Trump’s FaultTM.

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


If our deluded youth want to experience the joys of Socialism then perhaps they should listen to those who grew up and lived under a socialist system. One such person can be found at The People’s Cube and he’ll tell them that the real definition of socialism is “Do as I say or else.”

The real definition of socialism is: Everyone does exactly what I say or else.

The reason socialists can never be pinned down to say exactly what they mean by "socialism" is that it actually means: "You will do exactly what I tell you to do or else."

This is really simple and straightforward. Once you understand what they mean when they say "socialism," everything else about socialists and socialism becomes clear.

There is no deep meaning to the idea, nor any substance to the word "socialism," nor any other outcome other than a person or a small group ruling (in every sense ruling) over the rest of society.

It is Rule. It is dictatorship. It is the end of self-governance, of consent of the governed, and of everything else that we need to live as humans on a human plane of living.

Socialists are criminals on a social scale and they know it. Hence they don't like to say who they are and refuse to be nailed down to exactly what they mean by the word "socialism." Which is, "Do exactly what I tell you to do or else."

The ‘modern’ socialism of Marx has always been a killer, literally (that’s the “or else” part), and a totalitarian system, something Marx never really talked about all that much. Then again, he tried to create a social system that was more reminiscent of the insect societies of ants, bees, and termites, where the Queen ruled all and all of the rest were replaceable, faceless and nameless workers. Replace the term ‘Queen’ with ‘Elite’ or ‘Intelligentsia’ or ‘Nomenklatura’ and replace ‘workers’ with ‘the proletariat’. That’s Marx’s socialism.

Check out the post to see photographic evidence of the wonders of socialism in action.

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


Sometimes you can’t get around the math or the data. In this case, there was an unusual pattern and ratios in ballot data for votes cast in Philadelphia. What do these patterns and ratios show?

An interesting review of Philadelphia ballot uploading results indicates a pattern of manipulated results according to an independent researcher looking at raw data. The results are discussed within a video upload explaining how the data-sets were organized and manipulated in a series of timed events.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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


And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather can’t seem to make up its mind, the people are trying to figure out how they’re going to pull off Thanksgiving, and where I am taking some time off from work.

11/21/2020

Why Most Masks Don't Prevent The Spread Of Covid-19

We’ve been hearing more and more about mask mandates, particularly here in New Hampshire. So many people seem to think masks are a cure-all for preventing the spread of coronavirus. But the cloth masks and disposable masks most folks use are ineffective, and there’s a good reason why.

Bacteria are something the masks most folks use will readily block. Viruses, being about one-twentieth the size of many bacteria, will pass through those masks. The manufacturers of the masks understand this which is why they include warning labels on their boxes of masks, the warning usually being something along the lines of:

These masks help protect against certain particulate contaminants but do not eliminate exposure to the risk of any disease or infection. (Emphasis mine – ed.)

As best I know only N95 facemasks are capable of filtering out viruses. This is the type used by medical personnel. This is not the type used by most people.

The mask mandates are really more of a psychological action to make people feel better, not a means of actually preventing the spread of Covid-19. How long will it take before people realize most masks really don’t work? They aren’t designed to filter out viruses and never were.

11/20/2020

Promoted From (Another Blog's) Comments

Seen in Disqus comments over at Granite Grok:

Do you know the real difference between a Socialist and a Communist?

A Communist has been issued a rifle.

'Nuff said.

11/19/2020

Governor Sununu Buys The B.S.

I was sure our governor wouldn’t fall for the pseudo-scientific bulls**t surrounding Covid-19.

I was wrong.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu issued a statewide mask mandate earlier today which takes effect tomorrow.

Sununu made the announcement Thursday during his weekly briefing on the coronavirus. The new emergency order comes as the state has recorded its highest totals of current COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic.

--snip--

The emergency order applies to anyone over the age of 5 in indoor public spaces and outdoors when social distancing cannot be maintained.

What’s ironic is that more studies are showing that mask use does not prevent spread of Covid-19, one of the latest being published in the New England Journal of Medicine. This same study also showed that lockdowns were ineffective. Hopefully our governor won’t be stupid enough to do that...again. We suffered enough from the first one.

What’s ironic is that while we’re experiencing this second wave with Covid-19 spreading rapidly, the virus has become weaker and not nearly as deadly. This isn’t unexpected as that is how most viruses mutate, becoming more virulent (meaning it spreads more easily) while at the same time becoming weaker and less deadly. That’s where we are now.

Are we still seeing deaths? Yes, but we’re not seeing anywhere near the same number even though we have more active cases now than we did back this spring.

Where are the majority of the deaths taking place? In long-term care facilities, i.e. nursing homes. As I have mentioned in a number of other places including Disqus, most people in those facilities aren’t there to get better. They’re there for end-of-life care which means many of them are already vulnerable to any opportunistic infection. They are the most vulnerable and that’s where we need to focus prevention efforts. Instead we focus on everyone else, cause disruptions, economic chaos, and scaring the bejeezus out of the public with mis-/disinformation, and the vulnerable people still die.

What a waste.

The Cure For A Peristent And Deadly Virus

11/15/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

We returned to more normal temperatures for mid-November here at the lake, something not unexpected. We were hoping the unseasonably warm weather would hang around a bit longer, but it was not to be.

With the change in the weather we have been seeing a big upswing in Covid-19 cases, something that wasn’t a surprise as the prognosticators had predicted we would see a second wave, and we have. Of course it isn’t just here, but across the nation. I have to admit it is affecting how I am handling some of my business, working from home as much as is practical to reduce any possible exposure to the WuFlu. There are two reasons for limiting any possible exposure – the WP Mom, while being I excellent health, is 86 years old, one of the more vulnerable demographics; and prepping for a small family gathering on Thanksgiving Day, trying to reduce the probability of carrying or catching Covid-19.

This has also limited contact with some family members, particularly my ex-missus. She works at the one of the local long term care facilities, a facility that has seen its first Covid-19 cases just this past week. She is working with the affected patients, meaning she is limiting her contact outside of work. She’s not going to her gym for the time being, doing a on-line spin class instead. She isn’t going to be going to her folks for Thanksgiving. She won’t be visiting our son and his girlfriend, or coming to The Gulch to visit me and the WP Mom. We are in constant contact via text and phone calls as I know she’s feeling isolated.

I have a feeling we will not be making the trip to the younger WP Sister’s on Thanksgiving Day if this second wave intensifies. As sad as that will be should it come to that, better safe than sorry.

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


Something else of a personal nature: It was 6 years ago the WP Dad passed away. It doesn’t seem that long ago.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss him.

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


Why Trump supporters are here for good.

If people living in Trump country seem like they live in a different world from that inhabited by Silicon Valley executives and the editors of The New York Times, there is a reason for that: They do.

--snip--

Some of the snoots living in Blue America sneer that the inhabitants of Red America are ignorant, living in a fantasyland. But in many ways, Red America understands Blue America better than Blue America understands Red America. It doesn’t have much choice: The news media, the entertainment business, technology and social media, and the commanding heights of big business live in Blue America and largely share Blue America’s biases, assumptions and points of view. Some of them are at least a little aware of their ignorance — Dean Baquet, the editor of The New York Times, confessed in 2016: “We don’t get religion. We don’t get the role of religion in people’s lives.” He might have added guns, farming, and much else to the list of things his staff doesn’t get.

--snip--

Blue America is feeling triumphant at the moment. But vanquishing Donald Trump is not quite the achievement they think it is, because Trump has always been much more a symptom of our Great Divide than a cause of it. That may not be obvious to an intellectual class that knows more about the Uyghurs than it does about Southwestern Oklahoma, but those who are interested in understanding the other America rather than merely sneering at it have a lot of homework to do.

The question is whether or not they will be willing to do that homework or will they allow their willful ignorance to go unchallenged and continue to believe the propaganda and mis-/disinformation being disseminated by their leaders. Will it be “Déjà vu all over again”, with our self-anointed ‘betters’ recreating the atmosphere of the Germany of the 1930’s? Will they corral antifa and turn them into their version of the Sturmabteilung? Will the Blue “sleepers” finally awake from their ignorance and come to realize they’ve been lied to for decades before it’s too late?

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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


There are voting irregularities still being investigated despite claims by the DNC-MSM that reports of vote fraud were “unsubstantiated”, meaning they haven’t been investigated yet, not that they did not happen. (The Michigan Legislature called a special joint session of the Senate and House Oversight Committees to call election officials in 53 Michigan counties to appear before them to answer questions about voting machines in their districts swapping votes, this being but one inquiry.)

There are others looking into voter registration irregularities in six contested states that may affect 1.25 million voters.

[Matt] Braynard has assembled a team to look for inconsistencies in the six contested states—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.

So far, they’ve identified 1.25 million voter issues that they’re following up on through phone calls and against other databases.

The largest issue they’ve found so far is with voters who had submitted a National Change of Address form to the post office indicating they moved out of state, yet appear to have voted in 2020 in the state they moved from.

--snip--

In Georgia, the team found 17,877 early or absentee voters who had filed out-of-state move notices—a higher number than the current vote differential in the state. The current vote tally in Georgia as of 1 p.m. on Nov. 13 shows Democratic nominee Joe Biden ahead of Trump by 14,164 votes.

The article goes on to describe a number of double votes detected. They also contacted people who had been sent absentee ballots that had not been received back, asking them if they had received, filled out, and sent their ballots back, and if so, when. So they are also looking into the possibility that legal absentee ballots were never received, either through loss by the USPS or by deliberate diversion by unknown third parties.

And the hits keep on coming…

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


And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where mid-fall weather has returned, schools are switching back to remote learning, and where we’re getting mighty tired of having to deal with this damned virus.

11/14/2020

Would A National Mask Mandate Be Obeyed?

Has anyone out there wondered what might happen if Biden does indeed become president and he issues a nationwide mask mandate? How many states will tell der Bidengaffer to “Sod off, Swampy”?

I know of at least one: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

As former Vice President Joe Biden proposes a nationwide lockdown and a national mask mandate in response to resurgent coronavirus cases in several states, at least one Republican governor is promising she will not comply.

In a statement made to the Argus Leader, a South Dakota newspaper, Gov. Kristi Noem's office said that Biden, as president, would lack the authority to impose a nationwide mask mandate on state governments.

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Though Biden cannot constitutionally compel state governments to adopt a mask mandate, senior advisers on his presidential transition team reportedly say the presumptive president-elect will begin contacting governors and prominent mayors asking for local governments to impose mask requirements. Currently, 33 state governments have some sort of mask requirement for people who go out in public.

My state is unlikely to impose heavy mask mandates since they didn’t last time. The state and the municipalities issued mask mandates this past spring for those entering state or municipal buildings, something well within their purview, but for the most part didn’t requires masks across the board. Businesses had the right to require their personnel and customers to wear masks if they entered their buildings. Again for the most part the state didn’t order them to do so. The only exception were restaurants and bars/pubs, once they reopened after the initial lockdown. (Indoor seating wasn’t allowed and many restaurants switched over to pickup and delivery service during the lockdown. When they reopened for service most seating was outdoors, with towns easing liquor license restrictions to allow them to serve alcohol outdoors, something that usually requires additional endorsements.)

How will other states react should a national mask mandate come to be? I figure many of the Blue states will likely fold and do what der Bidengaffer tells them to do., assuming the haven’t already told their subjects to wear masks under penalty of fines and/or arrest. Some of the Red states will refuse. The rest of the Blue and Red states are a toss-up.

The same will be likely if Biden tries to order a lockdown. (Not that I think that he’d be foolish enough to order one, but one can never tell.) Many states will choose to ignore such a mandate, even under threat of losing federal funds, seeing it as an unconstitutional grab for power...because it would be.

Lockdowns have also been shown to be ineffective for stopping/slowing the spread of coronavirus. But they are quite effective at damaging the economy and destroying small businesses, but little else.

Hopefully neither mandate will ever come to be.

11/08/2020

Thoughts On A Sunday

I have a confession to make: I haven’t been paying any attention to the national news in relation to the elections. Call it election fatigue, bulls**t overload, or feeling no need to listen to the DNC-MSM propaganda..err...news as I have been exposed to it far too much over the past 4 years.

I will admit to feeling exhausted as I headed home from the polls Tuesday night. It had been an almost 16 hour day, helping ensure the almost 6,000 ballots cast in our town all made it into our ballot boxes, were properly counted and accounted for (we have to count all of the ballots cast to ensure that number matches the number counted by the machines which do not include the hand-counted ballots), count the write-in votes, tally them, box up and seal all of the ballots, and wait for the official results for our town to be announced.

With all of that the only election results that interested me were the state elections (Governor, Executive Council, NH Senate, and NH House) and I was pleased to see the end of the Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. Maybe now we’ll be able to fix problems the Democrats tried hard to create as well as eliminate our voter registration loophole that allows out-of-state residents to vote in our elections.

As an aside, the weather this weekend has been warm and sunny, making me wish I had waited one more week before pulling the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of the water. It would have been great to be out on the lake this weekend. But it must be kept in mind that the weather could have just as easily been winter-like, so having the boat already winterized and stored away until next spring isn't a bad thing.

The warm weather also gave me the opportunity to clean the garage here at The Gulch, getting rid of the detritus collected over the past year or so. It also gave me a good excuse to repair the overhead pull-down stairs leading to the attic over the garage. The repair also allowed me to move some of the stuff in the garage up into the attic, freeing up space in the garage.

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This isn’t good.

It appears an election watchdog group found over 21,000 dead voters still on Pennsylvania’s voter rolls, along with some voting activity seen after the voter had died.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, says 92 percent of the registrants died more than a year ago. The group also says there is evidence of voting activity after death. The findings were mentioned in an amended lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of State over its failure to maintain accurate voter rolls.

The PILF says that as of October 7, 9,212 registrants have been dead for five years, 1,990 registrants for 10 years, and 197 registrants for 20 years. "Pennsylvania still left the names of more than 21,000 dead individuals on the voter rolls less than a month before one of the most consequential general elections for federal officeholders in many years," the group said.

--snip--

The complaint further claims 114 individuals registered to vote after death, and hundreds of votes were cast by deceased individuals in the 2016 and 2018 elections.

One has to ask how many of the dead in Pennsylvania cast votes in this election?

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Now that it’s ‘official’ that Joe Biden has won election, I can safely start ignoring the news to my regular level rather than the ‘no contact whatsoever’ level I’ve been exercising since Tuesday evening.

Hearing Joe talking about uniting the country reminded me when Barack Obama said exactly the same thing after he won his first term. This is the same Barack Obama who showed he was divisive rather than uniting, and let slip his racist leanings more than once, had no use for the Constitution, and when he said he would work to reach compromises with the other side, he didn’t tell anyone his definition of compromise was “Sit down, shut up, and do what I tell you.” He was the 21st century version of Woodrow Wilson who was the first Progressive president who was hostile to the Constitution.

Will Joe repeat the prevarications of his Democrat predecessor?

More importantly, will Joe last in office long enough to unite the country before Kamala and Nancy make their move and use the 25th Amendment to remove him? It would certainly leave the way open for Kamala to push her socialist agenda. (We know she already has no use for the Constitution seeing just how much she ignored it while she was the Attorney General of the People’s Republic of California.

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One has to ask “When will the purges begin? When will the gulags be built and populated by those who had the audacity to support Donald Trump?”

Think it won’t happen? Then why are they making lists and taking names? All one has to do is remember the Democrats doing something very similar during the Obama administration, using the FBI, IRS, and the other government agencies to go after ‘enemies’, meaning Republicans who opposed Obama’s damaging programs and EO’s. Today’s Democrat leadership is even more vindictive than it was during the Obama years after being egged on by four years of TDS.

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Alex Trebek has passed away after fighting pancreatic cancer for almost 2 years. He was 80.

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Is the Covid-19/Bat Soup-CCP virus pandemic now over? Seeing how the Democrats gathered to celebrate the still unofficial Biden win, it must be.

Every Trump campaign rally we heard nothing but how dangerous and irresponsible it is to gather together in large numbers during a pandemic. But that’s all over, now, because Trump lost and therefore so did Covid-19. It was defeated at the ballot box!

Yeah, no. It wasn’t. And neither was Trump, yet, considering no “official sources” have declared him winner, which is the criteria Twitter used to censor Trump’s tweets.

Yes, it’s definitely hypocrisy day on the left. Which we expected. And here’s the proof in the pudding.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer-like weather has returned, there are boats out on the lake, and where we are all glad the 2020 elections are in the review mirror (even if the results aren’t final yet).