Grammar Is Racist? What's Next?

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this from Rutgers University.

It seems the Rutgers English Department has declared grammar is ‘racist’.

The English Department at Rutgers University has declared that proper use of grammar is a hidden form of racism because it disadvantages students of “multilingual, non-standard ‘academic’ English backgrounds.”

--snip--

“Variability instead of accuracy” means incorrect usage of grammatical norms. It’s nice that someone speaks a foreign language, but isn’t the whole point of teaching proper grammar teaching foreigners the proper way to speak English?

Yes, but it’s white and it’s male, and it’s gotta go.

Unfortunately, Rutgers apparently missed the mark with some activists. Aside from being incomprehensibly stupid, the change is, itself, virulently racist.

Indeed. This is taking the whole ‘racism’ thing from the sublime to the extremely ridiculous. We’ve already heard from other quarters that math is racist. The 1619 Project has already declared that history is racist. I suppose every subject of study will eventually be declared as racist. That’s where all of this seems to be heading.

It never ceases to amaze me just how stupid this has become. It’s scary to think just how stupid it will become.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The heat and humidity has returned to the Lakes Region which means we’ll be seeing a lot of folks out on or in the lake over the next four days or so. I certainly plan to get out on the lake this evening after all of the weekenders have left. I figure I will do likewise over the next three days as well. (At least I’ll be working in an air-conditioned lab as the temps outside will be in the upper 90’s, so it isn’t like I’ll be suffering during peak heat.)

As an aside, although we have seen a slight increase in Covid-19 cases, The Powers That Be have stated that most of them have been in people under 40 years of age, with a lot of them being slightly symptomatic or asymptomatic. This is pretty much what I expected to see. Not that there aren’t those who are quite ill, but they are a small minority. Hopefully it will stay that way. As long as people take the proper precautions we should be able to keep the numbers from growing as wildly as we’ve seen elsewhere.

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Almost thirty years ago, friends Thomas Cooke and Joseph Feeney made a promise that if either won Powerball they’d split the winnings. They lived up to that promise when Cooke hit a $22 million Powerball jackpot and shared the prize with his friend.

Now that’s friendship!

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You know it’s gotten out of control when the President of the Portland NAACP says that the Black Lives Matter protests have lost focus. “The focus has been moved from where it is supposed to be and made to be a spectacle, a debacle.”

The ongoing unrest, which started at the end of May following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, initially began as a series of demonstrations against racism and police brutality. After federal officers under the command of the Department of Homeland Security arrived to defend the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, they became the focus of protests.

--snip--

The Portland NAACP has repeatedly denounced the actions of federal forces in Portland but has also criticized “mostly white anarchists” for inciting violence during the protests. Much of the national scrutiny in recent weeks has centered on the melee that erupts nightly after small groups of demonstrators begin a cat-and-mouse game with law enforcement.

It’s gone from protests to a nightly ritual of destroying property, assaulting federal law enforcement officers, and trying to burn down the federal courthouse those same federal law enforcement officers were protecting.

I’d say the NAACP President is right.

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If we really want to solve the problem of Covid-19 and end the issues that go with it, then I have a suggestion to make, by way of Powerline:

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After the debacle at the New York Times leading to the ‘canceling’ of editor James Bennett because he had the audacity to publish an opinion piece by US Senator Tom Cotton. The know-nothings at the Times got Bennett fired because in their minds he wasn’t ‘woke’ enough.

Staff at the Wall Street Journal tried to force a similar accommodation of ‘woke’ opinion, with 280 of its journalists signing a letter “complaining about the spread of ‘misinformation’ in the paper’s opinion section.” But unlike the Times, the WSJ editorial was having none of it.

In the spirit of collegiality, we won’t respond in kind to the letter signers. Their anxieties aren’t our responsibility in any case. The signers report to the News editors or other parts of the business, and the News and Opinion departments operate with separate staffs and editors. Both report to Publisher Almar Latour. This separation allows us to pursue stories and inform readers with independent judgment.

It was probably inevitable that the wave of progressive cancel culture would arrive at the Journal, as it has at nearly every other cultural, business, academic and journalistic institution. But we are not the New York Times. Most Journal reporters attempt to cover the news fairly and down the middle, and our opinion pages offer an alternative to the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media.

As long as our proprietors allow us the privilege to do so, the opinion pages will continue to publish contributors who speak their minds within the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse. And these columns will continue to promote the principles of free people and free markets, which are more important than ever in what is a culture of growing progressive conformity and intolerance.

Perhaps the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a host of other dying newspapers could take a lesson from the WSJ. After all, it seems these publications no longer believe in “the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse”. Instead, they believe in censorship, making those who disagree with them “unpersons”, and silencing anyone they do not consider ‘woke’ enough.

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I find it ironic that the ones against changing the name and logo of the Washington Redskins are Native Americans. If one understands the history of both the team’s name and more specifically, the logo, the ‘woke’ white folks might not be in such a hurry to push the NFL to change the name.

But then, the ‘woke’ Guilty White Liberals know better than the Native Americans the name and logo honor. They have to be ‘protected’ from themselves and it’s up to the ‘woke’ to do so, right?

And the soft racism of “low expectations” raises its head again.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is going to be extremely summer-like, the A/C will be humming away, and where going back to work on Monday may be a blessing in disguise.

Is Seattle Going To Turn To Vigilante Justice?

Call this one a twofer as it’s two, two, two stories in one. (Classical reference to a classic TV ad from the 70’s.)

Things have gotten so bad in Seattle that the Police Chief has warned city residents “We cannot enforce the law. You are on your own.”

That the police department has been ordered not to use crowd-control devices to quell riots is troubling. They cannot intercede with those breaking the law right in front of them as they protest while damaging property,setting fires, and assaulting other people because they no longer are allowed to use the tools needed to do so.

What will the likely response be from business owners and residents knowing the police will not intervene?

The left has a long track record of getting everything wrong, so it’s of no surprise to anyone that Americans of all races, genders, religious, ideological, and etc. backgrounds are scrambling to get guns to protect themselves because the police have been neutralized. (Emphasis mine.)

Who would have thunk that the left would be the driving force behind Americans arming themselves in historic and record numbers? Anyone and everyone saw this coming, and the resultant, entirely predictable, carnage lies at the feet of clueless, truly myopic Democrats.

What will the response be? As Glenn Reynolds has written on this topic:

We’ll see a lot of vigilante justice. And what are people gonna do about it? Call the cops?

Remember, in the end the police aren’t there to protect the public from criminals, they’re there to protect criminals from the public. Communities dealt with crime long before police were invented, usually in rather harsh and low-due-process ways. The bargain was, let the police handle it instead. No police, no bargain.

The city government in Seattle has done everything it can to bring about the growing lawlessness in Seattle, yet it seems to me they are seeing it as a good thing. Yet residents and business owners are likely to disagree with them, seeing their properties damaged or destroyed, businesses looted or closed down. (This is the same city council with a member that wanted to ban business owners from hosing down the sidewalks in front of their businesses to remove urine and feces as it is “racially insensitive” because the very act might ‘trigger’ someone to feel the trauma of having firehoses turned upon them like the Civil Rights activists being opposed by Bull Connor back in the 1960’s.)

Really?

Tied in with this and the similar insanity being seen in other cities like Portland and San Francisco and Los Angeles, is this warning that must be taken to heart:

I’ve seen that kind of thing here in New Hampshire where those fleeing the People’s Republic of Massachusetts have come here and voted for the very same policies, laws, spending, and taxes they fled here to get away from. Then they complain that things are getting expensive in their towns, not making the connection between what they want and what they are now paying. New state laws, new town and zoning ordinances that add to the regulatory burden no one really wants or needs are the cost of bringing that baggage with them.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We had a respite from the hot and humid weather for a few days, but we were right back into it starting Saturday and it will last until some time after Monday. It isn’t that we aren’t used to weather like that since we get it over the summer. But when the humidity reaches a level of that in the tropics, it becomes oppressive. Even thinking causes one to sweat profusely.

At least we have respites from the hot, hazy, and humid weather. If not cooling off in the lake, we do have our local swimming pool here where The Gulch is located. There is also air conditioning if one doesn’t want to take refuge in the water. There are also a plethora of cool and cold refreshments available all throughout the Lakes Region to help one deal with the weather.

All in all, I think we’ll survive in fine fashion.

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I first saw this in the comments over at Chris Muir’s Day By Day cartoon website and I realized it fit.

Quoth the commenter:

Personally I think Klantifa is far more descriptive of the bunch.

Ayuh. I’d say that nails it.

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It may be just me, but does it seem the MSM reporting only part of the story regarding Covid-19?

With the exception of one of our local TV stations, it seems all of the news being reported is bad. You don’t hear about the continuing downward trend in deaths. You don’t hear that even at its worst, the US death rate was far below that in Europe and Asia. You don’t hear about the demographic breakdown of the latest cases. You didn’t hear about the misreported high number of new cases in one state (Florida) caused by a math error.

My biggest question about the reporting, one that must be asked of both the MSM and the CDC, is how many deaths attributed to Covid-19 were not actually caused by Covid-19? (Our local TV station did mention that in passing, related to the high number of Covid-19 deaths taking place in “long-term care facilities” in our state. But that was the extent of it.)

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One thing I and others have noticed during this summer is the lack of attention of drivers on the road and and out on the lake. It isn’t limited to folks from away, at least not from what we’ve witnessed. (Some of this was discussed with friends of mine at our boat slips early yesterday evening...at least the “on the lake” part. Our observations were similar and matched what I’ve heard from other friends and co-workers.)

I don’t recall it ever being this bad. Could it have something to do with the aftermath of months of isolation due to Covid-19?

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Has Portland, Oregon become a lawless city?

Has the mayor abandoned his duties and his oath of office by letting Antifa rioters run rampant for 51 days straight? Does his hamstringing of federal law enforcement and disdain for the Portland PD signal that he he cares more for ‘woke’ activists with a penchant for violence than for the people of his city? It’s beginning to look that way.

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DaTechGuy Blog asks the question, “What if we applied the Left’s Woke Rules to the NBA and NFL rosters?”

The left keeps insisting that we have to be hiring based on race in everything from police to orchestras so they “better reflect the communities they serve”.

What if we did this to the NBA & NFL or even MLB?

Think about that for a second.

--snip--

Oddly I don’t hear anyone arguing that since the black population is about 12% that whites are unfairly underrepresented in the NBA or the NFL. We don’t see people insisting that that cause for this discrepancy is “systematic racism” Yet the same people who scream that because the number of black coaches is closer to the actual black population of this country as opposed to the percentage of blacks in the league don’t find it odd that those same coaches and the front offices seem to be signing black players way out of disproportion to white ones.

The simple fact is this. We have, thanks to the efforts of actual civil rights leaders (as opposed to the demagogues of today) reached a point where the primary question as to the signing of a defensive back or a wide receiver or a quarterback or a center in the NBA or a center fielder is the skill set of said player rather than their race (and occasionally the price - see Cam Newton NE Patriots).

This is as it should be.

So when the racial demagogues start demanding quotas in all kinds of fields tell them you’ll consider it as soon as those same demographic quotas are applied to the high paying jobs in the NFL/NBA & MLB.

I think we can figure out what the response to that will be.

One has to wonder just how far these kinds of demands will go? How ridiculous will it get? Will it have the effects that proponents think it will, or will it cause wide ranging damage to our economy? Will it foment more racial strife rather than less, particularly if people lose their jobs solely due to their race? Would black athletes accept losing their jobs to less qualified or capable white athletes because this kind of “justice” demands a racial balance in all things?

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Something I realized I needed to add to today’s TOAS: I have been having issues posting to Blogger, with the server having difficulties saving drafts, uploading images, and publishing posts. Saturday’s post was a perfect example of the difficulties as the first time I tried to post it back on Tuesday and the server refused to save the draft or upload the image. (It wasn’t that specific picture that was problematic, but any image. It also didn’t matter whether I was using my laptop, desktop, or my work laptop – used only to test if it was a computer or location specific issue – or time of day.

Finally, Blogger accepted the post yesterday. Hopefully it will accept today’s post.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s hot, hazy, and humid, the lake is full of boats, and where returning to work on Monday isn’t such a bad thing if work is air-conditioned.

Somehow, I expected this might be coming:

I have to wonder of 7-Up is going to start adding lithium to their beverage again?

(H/T Knuckledraggin)

Thoughts On A Sunday

What a difference a week makes.

Last weekend, things around here were hopping. People were out on the lake, filling the beaches, patronizing the restaurants and ice cream stands, and partaking of the traditional summer activities and events. Our local airport had one of its busiest weekends ever.

This weekend, not so much. The usual Friday traffic crush was more like a slight squeeze. The airport wasn’t busy at all. Some of the folks I would normally expect to see – our local summerfolk ‘weekenders’ – were nowhere to be seen. Even the usual “10AM Saturday Traffic Because Everyone Is Grocery Shopping At The Same Time” wasn’t nearly as heavy as we usually see.

The question being asked: Is this ‘dead’ weekend because of the weather forecast – tropically oppressive humidity with showers and thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday – or have we already seen peak summer activity and the rest of the summer is going to be quiet much like it was before the Fourth of July weekend? Certainly the local business owners are asking that question.

Only time will tell.

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NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley is pointing out some harsh truths that some are choosing to minimize or ignore. They do so at their own peril.

“I think we’re missing the point about the role of sports — and the fans — in the current unrest. Without a doubt we need police reform, but that should mean ‘good cops out there policing the bad cops.’ … My concern is turning this into a circus instead of trying to do some good stuff.”

If professional sports leagues think they’ll get there by shoving the argument into fans’ faces constantly, Barkley thinks they might just talk themselves out of a job.

“They [the fans] don’t want to see a bunch of rich people talking about stuff all the time,” Barkley said.

“These people have lost their jobs, they’re struggling financially, they’re not going to get their jobs back. And the last thing they want to do is turn on the television and hear arguments about stuff all the time.”

Activist athletes are nothing new, and no better or worse than activist actors, activist authors, or even activist call-center directors. All that used to stop at the game itself, though; even the kneeling was pregame. Now, however, the NBA will turn its players into walking billboards for lectures at fans, for whom sports would otherwise be a wonderful escape from their own mounting personal and financial woes. The NFL probably isn’t far behind that curve either — if it’s not the jerseys, it will be a constant stream of social-justice PSAs in the breaks.

That the NFL has caved to the ‘woke’ - in many cases those ‘woke’ people aren’t even NFL fans - has certainly made me less of a fan. That the NBA is basically doing the same thing makes me less inclined to watch any games.

We get enough of the political indoctrination, false piety, ‘Me Too’ anti-racism racists, and other political messages 24/7. It gets old very quick. It also becomes less believable the longer this dogma is jammed down our throats. I know I am tired of it.

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So many corporations have caved to the the ‘woke’, BLM, Antifa (whether actual Antifa or Antifa-wannbes), virtue signaling pseudo-radicals, and spoiled pro athletes who figure their stature insulates them from their actions. (To be truthful, ‘spoiled pro athletes’ who figure their statures insulate them from their actions is nothing new.) The NFL has caved, The NBA has caved. A number of corporations have caved and are running look-alike/sound-alike TV ads that pander to the these folks. In some cases it sounds to me they are putting profits above principles. But there are some CEO’s who refuse to cave in to people demanding their corporation knuckle under to their beliefs du jour. Two in particular stand out.

Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue committed the unforgivable sin of offering praise for President Trump. The response from the Left was not unexpected: immediate calls for a boycott of his company.

Unanue called the pushback against him visiting the White House “suppression of speech.” Unanue said that he was previously invited to the White House for an event hosted by the Obama administration for Hispanic Heritage Month.

“So, you’re allowed to talk good or to praise one president, but you’re not allowed to aid in economic and educational prosperity? And you make a positive comment and all of a sudden, it is not acceptable,” Unanue said.

Unanue said he is not apologizing for his remarks supporting Trump’s economic policy and would not turn down other future invitations.

“I didn’t say that to the Obamas and I didn’t say that to President Trump.”

Then there’s Ford CEO Jim Hackett, whose response to demands by some Ford employees that the company stop making police vehicles as part of the “Defund The Police” movement was priceless.

“By taking away our Police Interceptors, we would be doing harm to their safety and making it harder for them to do their job. Again, this is why, given our insights, new capabilities and leadership, I believe these unfortunate circumstances present Ford with an even greater opportunity to not only innovate new solutions but also leverage our unique position to support the dialogue and reform needed to create safer communities for all.”

Shorter version: No. We’re not going to stop making police cars. Now get back to work.

Would that more CEO’s and Board of Directors would tell the ‘woke’ to piss off.

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Is 2020 an echo of 1968, at least politically?

I’ve been thinking about the late-60s more and more often these days, for obvious reasons. As Shaidle writes, “2020 more and more resembles 1968 but with worse music.” That’s a true line and a funny one. But the parallel is also serious, and although I agree with it up to a point, here’s why I depart from it: the difference between then and now is the successful 50-year Gramscian march in-between, ironically (or inevitably?) accomplished by many people from that same fringe of terrorists turned educators and cultural “leaders” who have instructed generations of young people to follow their ideologies and have spread and mainstreamed them.

Back then, the crazies and revolutionaries and assassins and the like were on the outside, and the vast vast majority of people and institutions in the country did not support them. Yes, the antiwar protests were large, but when the draft died and Nixon initiated troop withdrawals and Vietnamization, the protests died down too.

Indeed, 1968 and 2020 resemble each other except for the music. But it’s like the difference between a pennywhistle and a Wagnerian opera.

Now the crazies, revolutionaries, and ‘assassins’ are on the inside, running our institutions and governments. It seems to me that an increasing number of them want to burn everything down, literally or figuratively, and replace it with something that hasn’t worked in 400 years of trying. They have spent decades “replacing things that work with things that sound good”, but don’t work. Then when it doesn’t work, they double down and then wonder why everything keeps getting worse.

We are indeed living in Heinlein’s Crazy Years.

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I can agree with this.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summer crowds were small this weekend, the weather a bit schizophrenic, and where the tropical humidity is hanging around for a couple of more days.

I Never Thought I'd See Something Like This

How do you define irony?

(H/T Powerline)

They Don't Make Them Like They Used To

We’ve all heard the expression, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

For the most part that has been a good thing, at least from my viewpoint as an engineer. Take autos, for example.

It used to be that cars were pretty much used up at 100,000 miles, ready for the junkyard. That started changing during the 1970’s, the time when cars were both poorly designed and incorporating more technology to help them burn gasoline more efficiently, i.e. burn cleaner.

The 1974 model years were the worst, at least when it came to emissions controls and fuel economy. Looking under the hood, all anyone could see was a web of hoses, pumps, and unidentified canisters and gizmos. The engine itself was buried under all those bits and pieces. The engines ran like crap, didn’t have much in the way of power – even the V8’s – and were a nightmare to service. One year later, everything changed.

Gone were all of the hoses, pumps, and canisters. Instead there were catalytic converters, electronic ignitions and engine control modules, and EGR valves. Carburetors could also be adjusted on the fly to maximize efficiency. You could actually see and service engines without having to work around all of the extra bits and pieces.

Since then, things have only gotten better.

Now auto manufacturers offer 10-year, 100000-mile warranties. Cars last 250,000 miles and 20 years. Carburetors are a thing of the past, having been replaced first by throttle-body electronic fuel injection and then by multi-port fuel injection systems. Today some cars and trucks use direct injection systems, further increasing both the fuel efficiency and power of the engines. They are also more comfortable, handle better, and do not require maintenance nearly as often as they used to. Cars and trucks are also safer than they used to be, with better safety features and higher crash-survivability for passengers.

A lot of other things have also gotten better over the years, doing more, doing them better, and doing them for a lower cost. The list of such things is long.

But not everything has gotten better with time.

One such item that comes to mind – washing machines.

It used to be that all washing machines cleaned clothing pretty well with enough warm water and a decent detergent. They also lasted 20+ years. (The washer I had at The Manse was 20-years old when we sold the house a year-and-a-half ago and the new owners wanted to keep it and are still using it.)

Just a few years ago Deb had thought about us replacing our tried-and-true Maytag Neptune with a new, more efficient machine. She researched some of the models she was interested in via Consumer Reports. CR didn’t recommend any of the machines she had been looking into because none of them cleaned clothing very well, even the top-of-the-line machines. The push for energy efficiency, the so-called Energy Star program, did create machines that were energy efficient. But they couldn’t clean clothes very well.

They are a bit better now, with changes made to make them clean clothes better. However, another issue has raised its ugly head.

They don’t last nearly as long as they used to.

The WP Mom bought a new washing machine last year, replacing a 25-year old top-loading machine that had become increasingly unreliable. She’s had the machine for a little over a year and it just broke down. It had been acting up for a month prior to finally becoming inoperable. Checking online, I found that both this product line and a number of other related product lines (under different name plates) have had the same problem.

Digging a little deeper I’ve been finding that appliances like our washing machine, clothes dryers, dish washers, and refrigerators don’t last nearly as long as they used to. Where we once got 20-years out of our white goods (i.e. appliances), we’re lucky if we get 5 to 10 years before they need to be replaced. They also appear to require more maintenance than the older appliances.

They certainly don’t make ‘em like they used to.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a busy Fourth of July for the WP crew, between the heavy holiday traffic and the festivities. Even with the ongoing coronavirus precautions, the beaches were busy, the lake had lots of boats plying its waters, the restaurants were busy, and the supermarket parking lots were full. It was an entirely different atmosphere than existed this past Thursday.

One thing that was definitely affected was the traditional Fourth of July fireworks, at least on this side of Lake Winnipesaukee.

Normally, we attend the fireworks at Weirs Beach at 12:01AM the morning of the Fourth, anchored off the beach along with a couple of hundred other boats. However, this year the group that usually sponsors the fireworks pulled the plug on their entire fireworks summer schedule. Another group stepped in, made the arrangements, and fireworks were seen at the beach 9:30PM last night.

We also had fireworks within a stone’s throw of The Gulch, with one of the lakeside residents having ponied up the cash for one of the professional fireworks firms to put on a fireworks extravaganza. All we had to do was go down to the end our street and watch from the road.

While we didn’t partake of some of our usual Fourth of July traditions, primarily grilling burgers and hot dogs, it was still a decent celebration. Yes, a little more sedate than what we usually experience, but under the circumstances, understandable.

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It’s amazing how attitudes about gun ownership change when things go to s**t and people realize the police will not be able to protect them. (Article is paywalled.)

Patricia and Mark McCloskey are the couple made instantly famous—or infamous—after a video showed them wielding firearms as they fended off protesters who had trespassed on private property outside their St. Louis home.

--snip--

If soaring gun sales are a guide, millions of Americans are with the McCloskeys. This week the FBI announced a record 3.9 million background checks for June, the highest monthly total since the FBI began keeping the statistic in 1998. Adjusting to reflect checks only for gun purchases, the National Shooting Sports Foundation says this works out to 2.2 million, a 136% increase over June 2019. NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva says about 40% of these checks are for first-time gun buyers.

This is a warning to the Defund the Police movement about unintended consequences. The more progressives push policies that mean cops won’t be around when people need them, the more they are inviting Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect themselves.

Some of this has been coming back to bite the anti-gunners in the butt. They’re finding out it isn’t as easy to buy guns as they have been told. It’s the old “What goes around, comes around” curse hitting them where it hurts.

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We have been told by many that the “only way to save the planet is switch everyone over to electric cars.” The reasoning is that it would wean the world off of using oil for fuel. Of course a lot of the folks promoting this have chosen to overlook a few things. But have no fear, the UN has come to the rescue, telling us that electric vehicles will cause devastating environmental side effects.

While the shift to electric cars reflects ongoing efforts to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, the UN warns that the raw materials used to produce electric car batteries are highly concentrated in a small number of countries and their extraction and refinement pose a serious threat to the environment.

The U.N. trade body, UNCTAD, has issued a new report breaking down some of the unintended negative consequences of the shift, which include ecological degradation as well as human rights abuses.

The report notes that metals such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, and minerals like graphite “play a significant role in energy-related technologies such as rechargeable batteries that are used in a variety of applications ranging from electronics to electric vehicles as well as in renewable energies such as nuclear, wind, and solar power.”

Lithium is the one key element in high demand for Lithium-Ion batteries, the technology that makes electric vehicles practical. The problem is that lithium is only easily available and extractable in a couple of places. After that, it becomes much more difficult and expensive to procure. There isn’t nearly as much lithium available to meet the demand if we switched over to electric vehicles. If we add the projected demand for storage tied in with renewable sources like solar and wind, all bets are off. (I suppose storage for renewables could use lead-acid batteries since size and weight isn’t as much of an issue for stationary batteries, but they have their own environmental issues.)

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Somehow, I think this is not sending the right message...and it is a paradox to me.

‘White BLM activist’ caught on video, accused of assaulting black man who was removing ‘Black Lives Matter’ signs.

Is anyone else bothered by this?

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History is being purged due to sins of the past that in many cases, weren’t sins back then. Now that insanity is making its way through science, purging the names of scientists who do not meet 21st Century “sensibilities” and were not “woke”.

The great geneticist Clarence Cook Little is getting erased for having held views that have since become politically unfashionable. His name was removed from a science building and a transit hub at University of Michigan in 2018.

This week, the University of Maine, Orono, followed UM’s lead, announcing on 29 June it would strip Little’s name from a building. “Little made an enduring positive contribution to science,” a university task force wrote. However, it added, “Major areas of his professional life violate the ideals that are central to the educational mission of the University of Maine and its commitment to the public good.”

--snip--

Absolute political purity is retroactively required of all past figures if they want to escape the memory hole. Let’s hope Albert Einstein never smoked a cigarette; we might have to cancel his theory of relativity.

“Absolute political purity is retroactively required of all past figures if they want to escape the memory hole.” Doesn’t that sound insane?

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Climate Change has so damaged and skewed the climate and the resulting weather that we saw record maple syrup production in 2020. This is the same maple syrup production we were told years ago would be gone by now and never see again.

“Whether that that makes you happy or unhappy have some pancakes. There’s plenty of Maple Syrup.”

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’ve manged to pull off a Fourth of July celebration, folks have had a good (but socially distanced) time, and where we’ll have to go back to work tomorrow because it’s Monday...again.

Is It Summer Yet?

It was while the WP Mom and I were out and about this afternoon that the subject of summer came up, or to be more accurate, how summer really doesn’t feel like summer this year.

Yes, the summer weather is here. The farms are growing crops. Beaches are open (for the most part). Boats are out on the lake. Ice cream stands are open and doing a lot of business. But something is missing.

The usual exuberance isn’t there and it feels like people are just going through the motions. Many of the usual summer activities aren’t taking place – summer camps either aren’t opening or are doing so with a lot of restrictions; movie theaters, playhouses, and concert venues have not reopened and those that have have cut back greatly on their schedules and number of shows; Fourth of July celebrations have been canceled, and those that will be taking place will be subdued as compared to previous years.

Our summer has certainly been ‘off’. I have usually been spending a lot of time out on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout by now. But I can count on the fingers of a single hand how many times I have been out on the lake since The Boat was put back in the water back in May. If it were just me I would chock it up to me just being contrary. But talking to a number of my fellow boaters – about two dozen of them - I have found I am not the only one that has been off-pace. Most of those I asked haven’t been spending nearly as much time on the lake as is usual for them. Some have also stated than when they do go out, they haven’t been out on their boats for nearly as long as they usually are.

We haven’t grilled yet, something very unusual for us. No burgers, dogs, or steak tips. No potato salad. No nothing up to this point.

While we have dined out a couple of times over the past few weeks, once for dinner and once for breakfast, it was under coronavirus precaution conditions. It didn’t feel the same.

Just prior to noon today I ran an errand over the my ex’s place a couple of towns over, repairing an appliance that had stopped working properly. On my way over and back I saw the usual summer attractions around Weirs Beach open and ready for business. The only thing missing were visitors. No one at the arcades. No one on the go-kart tracks. No one taking advantage of the lazy river attractions or mini-golf course. Only a few people on the beach. None of this is what I would ever expect see around here during the week leading up to the Fourth of July. While I didn’t expect the place to be jammed like it would be during a weekend, I expected to see someone taking advantage of the summer attractions. But there was no one in any of those places that I could see.

It was eerie.

It will be enlightening to see how the upcoming Fourth of July Weekend plays out. Will what I’ve observed continue or will summer finally ‘start’?

It Needs To Be Brought Forth

Sorry, but I couldn't resist this in light of the times in which we find ourselves.

If a white man walks through the woods alone, is he still racist?

I had to use the blockquote because the server refused to upload the image. I don't know if it was just a server error or if the image had been flagged.

Why this post? Because I am finding the people screaming the most and the loudest about racism tend to be the biggest racists in the room. (Here's a hint: Most of the folks doing this are not our minority brethren.)