5/31/2021
Hymn To The Fallen
On this Memorial Day I can offer this wonderful piece by John Williams as it says more than any words I can offer.
5/30/2021
Thoughts On A Sunday
Memorial Day weekend has arrived and it was likely somewhat disappointing to a lot of visitors due to the less then stellar weather. (Oh, heck, it has been outright dismal with cool temperatures – low 50’s - and rain now and again throughout the days.) It hasn’t been conducive to regular Memorial Day weekend activities.
We did see a large number of weekend visitors arrive and make the rounds here in central New Hampshire despite the weather.
We also have seen our share of bonehead drivers ‘from away’ doing incredibly dumb things on our highways and byways, including one fellow I witnessed on Saturday who decided the traffic laws (and the laws of physics) didn’t apply to him, trying to ‘beat the traffic’ by bypassing the traffic at a stop light by using the right-turn lane to get around the line of traffic going straight ahead.
He blew through the intersection in his compact car shortly after the traffic light turned green and then tried to cut in front of a truck near the front of the line of traffic. He found out that two objects cannot occupy the same time-space coordinates and ended up slightly clipping the front bumper of the truck with his rear bumper. The truck wasn’t damaged as best I could tell, but the compact car’s rear bumper had a lengthy black scrape starting on the left side and ending somewhere near the center. The car swerved a bit after contact but continued on its way, the driver picking up speed as it did so. (I did manage to see it had out-of-state plates as it sped away.) I guess his time was far more precious to him than our safety.
Then this morning as I was on my regular pre-church Sunday morning Walmart run, a fellow in a Nissan Rogue with PRT (People’s Republic of Taxachusetts) plates came up behind me at high speed (probably a good 80mph+). On three separate occasions the fellow tried to pass me in places passing wasn’t appropriate, i.e. dangerous and incredibly stupid, and on one of those occasions he almost went head on with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. When we reached the next intersection which had a traffic light, I had to stop because the light was red. There were no vehicles waiting to cross the highway I was on as they had already done so. So what did the moron do?
He cut to my right and blew right through the red light. By the time the light changed and I could proceed, he was a good half mile down the road.
What’s ironic is I found this same fellow in the Walmart parking lot. One has to ask what was it this moron needed that he had to take the type of chances he did to get to Walmart?
As I was walking towards the Walmart I saw one of our town’s police cruisers and walked up to it, seeing the officer behind the wheel was one that I knew, and explained what had happened. I knew he couldn’t do anything about it short of following the miscreant out of the Walmart lot and seeing if there were a repeat of his actions. But the officer had a better idea.
He pulled out a PD business card and scribbled something on the back, got out of his cruiser and placed the business card under the driver’s side wiper. When he got back to his cruiser I asked him what he’d written on the card.
You shouldn’t be speeding or running red lights in our town.
I went into Walmart and did my shopping. On my way out the officer let me know the miscreant saw the card under the wiper, read it, looked around and saw the cruiser. The officer said he waved to the fellow, just a kind of “I know what you did” kind of wave.
And so it begins.
Just when we thought President Creepy Uncle Joe couldn’t get any creepier, he proves us wrong.
Writes Stacy McCain:
Black Lives Matter...except in Democrat-run St. Louis.
It seems Black Lives Matter only when it’s politically convenient, otherwise it is to be devoutly ignored.
How pathetic.
By way of GraniteGrok comes this: Is it time for a coalition of Free American States?
At this point I find I must return to the topic of holiday traffic as I experienced yet another one of the downside of folks from away flooding the area.
I took the ex-missus grocery shopping today seeing as she’s still recovering from knee replacement surgery. We headed to the local supermarket and once we reached the center of the town where she lives we realized the traffic was horrendous. It was then we decided it might actually be easier to go back to my town and hit the supermarket there, so we found a side-street and returned to my town where she completed her shopping. I then returned her to her home.
Knowing the traffic conditions near her supermarket I figure it took us less time to drive two towns over, take care of the shopping, and drive two towns back to her town than to go to her local supermarket. How sad is that?
It’s bad enough when so-called climate scientists want us to take unreasonable measures to reduce anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide. It’s worse when they set their sights on natural sources of carbon dioxide. Their new focus?
Tree farts.
I kid you not.
How is it we allow these mentally ill, deluded souls to drive the narrative? They need to be pitied...and institutionalized until their delusions can be cured.
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains are falling, the drought is easing, and where we don’t have to about Monday getting here too early this weekend.
We did see a large number of weekend visitors arrive and make the rounds here in central New Hampshire despite the weather.
We also have seen our share of bonehead drivers ‘from away’ doing incredibly dumb things on our highways and byways, including one fellow I witnessed on Saturday who decided the traffic laws (and the laws of physics) didn’t apply to him, trying to ‘beat the traffic’ by bypassing the traffic at a stop light by using the right-turn lane to get around the line of traffic going straight ahead.
He blew through the intersection in his compact car shortly after the traffic light turned green and then tried to cut in front of a truck near the front of the line of traffic. He found out that two objects cannot occupy the same time-space coordinates and ended up slightly clipping the front bumper of the truck with his rear bumper. The truck wasn’t damaged as best I could tell, but the compact car’s rear bumper had a lengthy black scrape starting on the left side and ending somewhere near the center. The car swerved a bit after contact but continued on its way, the driver picking up speed as it did so. (I did manage to see it had out-of-state plates as it sped away.) I guess his time was far more precious to him than our safety.
Then this morning as I was on my regular pre-church Sunday morning Walmart run, a fellow in a Nissan Rogue with PRT (People’s Republic of Taxachusetts) plates came up behind me at high speed (probably a good 80mph+). On three separate occasions the fellow tried to pass me in places passing wasn’t appropriate, i.e. dangerous and incredibly stupid, and on one of those occasions he almost went head on with a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. When we reached the next intersection which had a traffic light, I had to stop because the light was red. There were no vehicles waiting to cross the highway I was on as they had already done so. So what did the moron do?
He cut to my right and blew right through the red light. By the time the light changed and I could proceed, he was a good half mile down the road.
What’s ironic is I found this same fellow in the Walmart parking lot. One has to ask what was it this moron needed that he had to take the type of chances he did to get to Walmart?
As I was walking towards the Walmart I saw one of our town’s police cruisers and walked up to it, seeing the officer behind the wheel was one that I knew, and explained what had happened. I knew he couldn’t do anything about it short of following the miscreant out of the Walmart lot and seeing if there were a repeat of his actions. But the officer had a better idea.
He pulled out a PD business card and scribbled something on the back, got out of his cruiser and placed the business card under the driver’s side wiper. When he got back to his cruiser I asked him what he’d written on the card.
You shouldn’t be speeding or running red lights in our town.
I went into Walmart and did my shopping. On my way out the officer let me know the miscreant saw the card under the wiper, read it, looked around and saw the cruiser. The officer said he waved to the fellow, just a kind of “I know what you did” kind of wave.
And so it begins.
==+==
Just when we thought President Creepy Uncle Joe couldn’t get any creepier, he proves us wrong.
Writes Stacy McCain:
Certainly it is not my intent to defend His Fraudulency, but let’s admit this: No actual child molester would be so blatant about his interest in little girls. It’s almost as if Biden is campaigning for honorary membership in the National Sex Offender Registry, telegraphing to the world, “Don’t let me within 500 yards of a public school.”I figure it’s only going to get worse from here.
==+==
Black Lives Matter...except in Democrat-run St. Louis.
St Louis is our most murderous city. As of last night, there had been 76 homicides in the Gateway City . . . and 71 of the victims were black. St Louis is ‘only’ 45.3% black, but comprise 93.4% of the city’s murder victims. Of the 32 murders of blacks in St Louis, all 32 suspects are black.It isn’t just St. Louis which has little regard for black lives. Other Democrat-run cities are just as bad, one of which is Chicago which has more than its share of black-on-black murders...and the Mayor and Aldermen don’t seem to care.
It seems Black Lives Matter only when it’s politically convenient, otherwise it is to be devoutly ignored.
How pathetic.
==+==
By way of GraniteGrok comes this: Is it time for a coalition of Free American States?
States have a long history of creating partnerships with each other. Law enforcement task forces, farming cooperatives, river management boards, and collegiate sports conferences all benefit individual states through regional collaborations and are common throughout the United States. It is also common for state attorneys general to coordinate lawsuits against the federal government. Republican governors and Democrat governors meet at party retreats to strategize how best to advance their respective parties' interests. And innumerable lobbying and legal groups work every year to promote the passage of nearly identical statutory language in state legislatures across the country.If Congress won’t start taking back the states’ power then it’s up to the states to do so by forming coalitions as mentioned above. The people in power in Washington seem to forget the states are sovereign, that they are a part of a national Union, but aren’t supposed to be subordinate to it. The states make their laws, make sure those laws abide by the US and state constitutions. The federal government has been trying to suborn the states’ sovereignty for well over a century, either by legislative action, executive orders, or administrative laws created by bureaucrats who do not have the best interests of the American people at heart. (A bureaucrat’s mission is to expand his/her bureaucracy size and reach, not to serve the people. If the people are served, it is more of a side effect of the bureaucracy’s primary function.)
What I have in mind is more substantial — the formation of a coalition of free states whose explicit purpose is to reduce the power of the federal government over individual states and their citizens while banding together to lessen the inevitable retaliatory blows the federal government will initiate against the states in response.
==+==
At this point I find I must return to the topic of holiday traffic as I experienced yet another one of the downside of folks from away flooding the area.
I took the ex-missus grocery shopping today seeing as she’s still recovering from knee replacement surgery. We headed to the local supermarket and once we reached the center of the town where she lives we realized the traffic was horrendous. It was then we decided it might actually be easier to go back to my town and hit the supermarket there, so we found a side-street and returned to my town where she completed her shopping. I then returned her to her home.
Knowing the traffic conditions near her supermarket I figure it took us less time to drive two towns over, take care of the shopping, and drive two towns back to her town than to go to her local supermarket. How sad is that?
==+==
It’s bad enough when so-called climate scientists want us to take unreasonable measures to reduce anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide. It’s worse when they set their sights on natural sources of carbon dioxide. Their new focus?
Tree farts.
I kid you not.
Where there is life or has been life recently, there is carbon dioxide. CO2 was previously viewed as an essential nutrient for plants. But now that CO2 has been revealed as environmentally unclean, plants are part of the problem.While the above quote is satire, there rest of the linked article is not. I figure it is only a matter of time before the We’re-All-Gonna-DIE climate change faithful will make elimination of tree farts yet another part of their plan to ‘save’ the Earth. What can we expect from people who have deep belief in the pseudo-science of anthropogenic [place latest climate/environmental subject to blame humans for here]?
The only way to heal the planet is to abolish all life. This will also serve to eradicate racism and capitalism.
How is it we allow these mentally ill, deluded souls to drive the narrative? They need to be pitied...and institutionalized until their delusions can be cured.
==+==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains are falling, the drought is easing, and where we don’t have to about Monday getting here too early this weekend.
5/29/2021
Economic Ignorance Is Getting Even Worse
First, the economically ignorant push for huge (107%) increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25/hour to $15/hour, not understanding the economic consequences – the ripple effects of an arbitrary increase in a commodity that doesn’t affect just those making minimum wage but everyone making less than the new minimum wage. It also affects those working under union contracts with wages tied to the federal minimum wage as they will also see their wages increase.
Such an arbitrary rise in wages with a follow-on decrease in economic activity as businesses cut worker hours or the number of workers even as the higher cost of labor drive costs of goods and services through the roof, in turn fueling inflation and increasing unemployment. Why some economists think only the inflated costs of raw materials, energy, transportation, etc. can have a deleterious effect on an economy while the artificially inflated costs of labor will have little or no effect never ceases to amaze me. How can it be they can ignore the effects of meddling with the feedback mechanisms that drive an economy, believing there will be no negative outcomes from doing so, that their actions will be a net positive? History has shown over and over again such meddling only brings disaster, distorting an economy and generating second and third order effects that go beyond the initial changes forced upon the economy.
Now there’s something else that’s being looked at, something driven by a not-unexpected side effect of the whole Covid-19 debacle, something that will be just as damaging if it is mishandled (and it will be, if history is any indicator). This new something?
Four day workweeks.
The explanation for this is that a four day workweek will reduce carbon ‘pollution’...and smog in general. With the lockdowns, traffic volumes plummeted. Carbon emissions and pollution decreased worldwide.
Yeah. Right.
Such a claim goes against both my experience and human nature. Workers will not be 25% more productive during their 8-hour work day, despite what the proponents of the 4 day workweek claim. If the 4 day workweek were a 10-hour work day then productivity may not be an issue (though a 10-hour workday can be tiring and productivity may fall off during the last two hours of the day), and workers will receive 40 hours pay for 40 hours of work. Commuting is still reduced by 20%, but without the 20% decrease in economic output. (I am one of those folks who regularly work 10-hour+ workdays, sometimes 6 days a week. This is due to our department being shorthanded. A 40-hour workweek is like a vacation to me. And before you think it, no, I am not virtue signaling. It is just reality and something I hope I and my colleagues won’t have to do once we get more staff hired.)
Now add the push for a $15/hour minimum wage to the proposal and the conditions are ripe for high inflation, a severe recession, and double digit unemployment. But the ‘economists’ will keep telling us it will help the economy, create all kinds of jobs (which they can never seem to tell us how that works), and cure the heartbreak of psoriasis. (No, not really. But it sounded great, didn’t it?)
Once again we have people who have never run a business, never had to meet a payroll or deal with the myriad of state and federal regulations, fees, and taxes who are telling us how everything is supposed to work even though they have no experience having to deal with the things business owners and their employees have to deal with. It’s all theoretical, all based upon perfect conditions that will never exist that include humans that are also perfect (which also do not exist). The have fallen under the sway of the Non-Reciprocal Theory of Theory Versus Practice:
Such an arbitrary rise in wages with a follow-on decrease in economic activity as businesses cut worker hours or the number of workers even as the higher cost of labor drive costs of goods and services through the roof, in turn fueling inflation and increasing unemployment. Why some economists think only the inflated costs of raw materials, energy, transportation, etc. can have a deleterious effect on an economy while the artificially inflated costs of labor will have little or no effect never ceases to amaze me. How can it be they can ignore the effects of meddling with the feedback mechanisms that drive an economy, believing there will be no negative outcomes from doing so, that their actions will be a net positive? History has shown over and over again such meddling only brings disaster, distorting an economy and generating second and third order effects that go beyond the initial changes forced upon the economy.
Now there’s something else that’s being looked at, something driven by a not-unexpected side effect of the whole Covid-19 debacle, something that will be just as damaging if it is mishandled (and it will be, if history is any indicator). This new something?
Four day workweeks.
The explanation for this is that a four day workweek will reduce carbon ‘pollution’...and smog in general. With the lockdowns, traffic volumes plummeted. Carbon emissions and pollution decreased worldwide.
When the pandemic first forced offices to close and the number of commuters on roads suddenly dropped, the environmental impact was visible in cities like Los Angeles and New Delhi: Smog disappeared as more cars stayed at home. Carbon emissions temporarily fell. A new report looks at how some of the same benefits could come from a shift in schedules if more companies shifted to a four-day work week.One downside to the proposal linked? The proposal calls for a 32-hour workweek, but still paying the workers for 40 hours. In effect it’s a pay increase for working fewer hours. While the argument has been made that “a shorter week can boost productivity because workers are more focused and refreshed when they are in the office.” I have two words that explain my feelings about that claim:
Yeah. Right.
Such a claim goes against both my experience and human nature. Workers will not be 25% more productive during their 8-hour work day, despite what the proponents of the 4 day workweek claim. If the 4 day workweek were a 10-hour work day then productivity may not be an issue (though a 10-hour workday can be tiring and productivity may fall off during the last two hours of the day), and workers will receive 40 hours pay for 40 hours of work. Commuting is still reduced by 20%, but without the 20% decrease in economic output. (I am one of those folks who regularly work 10-hour+ workdays, sometimes 6 days a week. This is due to our department being shorthanded. A 40-hour workweek is like a vacation to me. And before you think it, no, I am not virtue signaling. It is just reality and something I hope I and my colleagues won’t have to do once we get more staff hired.)
Now add the push for a $15/hour minimum wage to the proposal and the conditions are ripe for high inflation, a severe recession, and double digit unemployment. But the ‘economists’ will keep telling us it will help the economy, create all kinds of jobs (which they can never seem to tell us how that works), and cure the heartbreak of psoriasis. (No, not really. But it sounded great, didn’t it?)
Once again we have people who have never run a business, never had to meet a payroll or deal with the myriad of state and federal regulations, fees, and taxes who are telling us how everything is supposed to work even though they have no experience having to deal with the things business owners and their employees have to deal with. It’s all theoretical, all based upon perfect conditions that will never exist that include humans that are also perfect (which also do not exist). The have fallen under the sway of the Non-Reciprocal Theory of Theory Versus Practice:
In theory, Theory and Practice are the same thing.Thus endith the lesson. Too bad they will never learn it even when their face is rubbed in it.
In practice, they are not.
5/24/2021
Thoughts On A Sunday - Part 2
As promised, here’s the second part of yesterday’s post. It’s rare I’ve had to move a post by a day, but I have done so.
Is it just my imagination, or are the Democrat Powers That Be distancing themselves from Vice President Kamala Harris? After four months she has shown herself to be a bigger non-entity than her boss when he was Vice President, and he was a pretty big non-entity back then.
It seems she’s enjoying the perks of her position but she sure is heck is not doing the job President * or WRBA tasked her to do – border security and illegal immigrant crisis. Even the DNC-MSM has been taking notice of DaHo’s nonfeasance. Does she think she’ll be able to coast when the time comes to step in when President * is truly unable to perform his duties?
I’m surprised this wasn’t already the case.
It looks like Texas will soon become the 21st state to legalize constitutional carry.
Until this, Texas was the only Republican-led state that didn’t have constitutional carry. Texas governor Abbot has declared his state will also become a Second Amendment sanctuary state.
My home state, New Hampshire, is a constitutional carry state. There has been a push to make it a Second Amendment sanctuary state as well, though our governor doesn’t seem to be enthusiastic about the idea even though he helped push through the constitutional carry legislation.
A (hopefully not premature) congratulations to the Lone Star State for joining the rest of the constitutional carry states.
I hadn’t realized I had spent as much time out in the sun yesterday as I had. Part of that was spending time out on the lake in The Boat with my friend Katy I mentioned in Part 1.
We had gone out yesterday morning for breakfast at one of my favorite local diners and saw there was quite line waiting to get it in, so we decided to head out onto the lake for a couple of hours, figuring we’d come back later for a late breakfast.
This was Katy’s first time out on the lake so I took her to some of my favorite places on the lake that were within an hour of the The Boat’s home berth. There weren’t too many other boats out on the lake at the time so we didn’t have to deal with much in the way of wake-driven chop or any Cap’n Boneheads as they usually show up later in the day.
That time out there did cause a little bit of sunburn as we were out there a little longer than I had expected and hadn’t slapped on quite enough sunscreen.
In any case we did make it back to the diner and had a late breakfast.
One nice thing about eating at the diner – masks were no longer required to enter! This was something else Katy liked.
And that’s Part 2 of the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it has been Monday, people are already preparing for the upcoming holiday weekend, and I am looking forward to it as well.
==+==
Is it just my imagination, or are the Democrat Powers That Be distancing themselves from Vice President Kamala Harris? After four months she has shown herself to be a bigger non-entity than her boss when he was Vice President, and he was a pretty big non-entity back then.
It seems she’s enjoying the perks of her position but she sure is heck is not doing the job President * or WRBA tasked her to do – border security and illegal immigrant crisis. Even the DNC-MSM has been taking notice of DaHo’s nonfeasance. Does she think she’ll be able to coast when the time comes to step in when President * is truly unable to perform his duties?
==+==
I’m surprised this wasn’t already the case.
It looks like Texas will soon become the 21st state to legalize constitutional carry.
Until this, Texas was the only Republican-led state that didn’t have constitutional carry. Texas governor Abbot has declared his state will also become a Second Amendment sanctuary state.
My home state, New Hampshire, is a constitutional carry state. There has been a push to make it a Second Amendment sanctuary state as well, though our governor doesn’t seem to be enthusiastic about the idea even though he helped push through the constitutional carry legislation.
A (hopefully not premature) congratulations to the Lone Star State for joining the rest of the constitutional carry states.
==+==
I hadn’t realized I had spent as much time out in the sun yesterday as I had. Part of that was spending time out on the lake in The Boat with my friend Katy I mentioned in Part 1.
We had gone out yesterday morning for breakfast at one of my favorite local diners and saw there was quite line waiting to get it in, so we decided to head out onto the lake for a couple of hours, figuring we’d come back later for a late breakfast.
This was Katy’s first time out on the lake so I took her to some of my favorite places on the lake that were within an hour of the The Boat’s home berth. There weren’t too many other boats out on the lake at the time so we didn’t have to deal with much in the way of wake-driven chop or any Cap’n Boneheads as they usually show up later in the day.
That time out there did cause a little bit of sunburn as we were out there a little longer than I had expected and hadn’t slapped on quite enough sunscreen.
In any case we did make it back to the diner and had a late breakfast.
One nice thing about eating at the diner – masks were no longer required to enter! This was something else Katy liked.
==+==
And that’s Part 2 of the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it has been Monday, people are already preparing for the upcoming holiday weekend, and I am looking forward to it as well.
5/23/2021
Thoughts On A Sunday - Part 1
There was no posting on either Friday or Saturday as I was busy hosting a dear friend over the weekend, with her getting here Friday evening (when I usually post). There were all kinds of things we did and saw yesterday and today, including a quick 2-hour trip on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat. (This time out on the lake saw the inadvertent creation of a new hairstyle – the Winnipesaukee Windblown Look. It looked good on her!)
I started this only a few minutes after she departed for home in Connecticut, crafting this post as a distraction until she texts/calls to let me know she made it home unscathed.
It wasn’t a surprise to me to see how quickly Critical Race Theory has become anathema to parents, taxpayers, governors, legislators, and people in general. It seems some of those supporting it have absolutely no idea what CRT is teaching, that being government support of racism against one particular group of people all in the name of combating racism and specifically systemic racism. Yet CRT supports the idea of systemic racism if it is aimed only at one specific race. (Hint: It’s against a non-BIPOC race on one hand and against those of Asian descent on the other hand.)
Proponents keep pushing CRT as a new idea, but it is an old one dating back over a century, one no one here should want to emulate that in any shape or form. It does not address the problem of racism or a solution to the problem. Instead, it creates even more racism, pushing the idea that only one race is racist and the way to deal with it is make that race the target of racism, as if more racism will solve the problem of racism. (We’ve seen something akin to this in the past. It was call Affirmative Action and discriminated against one or two ‘races’ to the benefit of other races. It was just ‘racism used to solve the problem of racism’. It didn’t work.)
A little drama to interrupt – I got a call from BeezleBub asking for help. He was out on the lake on his jet-ski when it broke down. It was a little after 7PM and the sun would soon set. Being on a broken down jet-ski on the lake after sunset was not a good thing, so it was yours truly to the rescue.
A quick drive down to The Boat and I was on my way. I knew roughly where he was and I managed to find him shortly after I got the part of the lake where he’d broken down. It took a while to tow the jet-ski back to our town docks. A little over two hours after I left we made it back to the town docks. A half hour or so later I made it back to The Gulch.
With that in mind, I am going to truncate this post and continue it with a follow-on post on Monday as there’s a lot I still want to cover. But it’s getting late and I still have chores to perform before I shuffle off to bed.
And that’s Part 1 of the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where there was a lot of boat traffic out on the lake today, the boat yards are working overtime to get boats ready to launch before Memorial Day weekend, and where I was one of those able to spend time out on the lake over the weekend, not counting the rescue of my son and his broken down jet-ski.
I started this only a few minutes after she departed for home in Connecticut, crafting this post as a distraction until she texts/calls to let me know she made it home unscathed.
==+==
It wasn’t a surprise to me to see how quickly Critical Race Theory has become anathema to parents, taxpayers, governors, legislators, and people in general. It seems some of those supporting it have absolutely no idea what CRT is teaching, that being government support of racism against one particular group of people all in the name of combating racism and specifically systemic racism. Yet CRT supports the idea of systemic racism if it is aimed only at one specific race. (Hint: It’s against a non-BIPOC race on one hand and against those of Asian descent on the other hand.)
Proponents keep pushing CRT as a new idea, but it is an old one dating back over a century, one no one here should want to emulate that in any shape or form. It does not address the problem of racism or a solution to the problem. Instead, it creates even more racism, pushing the idea that only one race is racist and the way to deal with it is make that race the target of racism, as if more racism will solve the problem of racism. (We’ve seen something akin to this in the past. It was call Affirmative Action and discriminated against one or two ‘races’ to the benefit of other races. It was just ‘racism used to solve the problem of racism’. It didn’t work.)
==+==
A little drama to interrupt – I got a call from BeezleBub asking for help. He was out on the lake on his jet-ski when it broke down. It was a little after 7PM and the sun would soon set. Being on a broken down jet-ski on the lake after sunset was not a good thing, so it was yours truly to the rescue.
A quick drive down to The Boat and I was on my way. I knew roughly where he was and I managed to find him shortly after I got the part of the lake where he’d broken down. It took a while to tow the jet-ski back to our town docks. A little over two hours after I left we made it back to the town docks. A half hour or so later I made it back to The Gulch.
With that in mind, I am going to truncate this post and continue it with a follow-on post on Monday as there’s a lot I still want to cover. But it’s getting late and I still have chores to perform before I shuffle off to bed.
==+==
And that’s Part 1 of the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where there was a lot of boat traffic out on the lake today, the boat yards are working overtime to get boats ready to launch before Memorial Day weekend, and where I was one of those able to spend time out on the lake over the weekend, not counting the rescue of my son and his broken down jet-ski.
5/16/2021
Thoughts On A Sunday
It’s been a great weekend, with some nice summer weather – sunny and in the 70’s. There are some popup showers expected later today, but for the most part the weather is cooperating.
The plan had been to launch the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, has been in jeopardy as it wasn’t quite ready, at least as of this morning. One last service it needed hadn’t been completed and I am not about to pay for services not yet rendered. I don’t want to have to pull The Boat back out of the water just to have this service performed, a service I scheduled back last November and reminded the boat yard of this past March when I scheduled its removal from winter storage.
We’ll see if they’ve managed to get it done by the time we’re ready to launch.
UPDATE: They didn’t, so launching The Boat has been delayed for a couple of days.
Just a heads up that this post may be a little shorter than usual as I have been working with the WP Mom to finish up our annual Spring Cleaning here at The Gulch. This is something that takes place over two or three weekends between mid-April and the end of May. This weekend was (hopefully) the last weekend required to finish this year’s cleanup. It has meant a number trips to the dump...err...Solid Waste Center to get rid of the detritus, to recycle the recyclable, and to leave some items in our town’s “goody shack” that are too good to throw away that others may be able put to use.
A quote by way of Powerline:
Also by way of Powerline comes this:
In its efforts to go ‘green’, should the US go nuclear?
Yes. Yes it should, preferably as quickly as possible.
And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where my boat still isn’t in the water, plenty of others are, and where I am becoming peeved at the situation.
The plan had been to launch the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, has been in jeopardy as it wasn’t quite ready, at least as of this morning. One last service it needed hadn’t been completed and I am not about to pay for services not yet rendered. I don’t want to have to pull The Boat back out of the water just to have this service performed, a service I scheduled back last November and reminded the boat yard of this past March when I scheduled its removal from winter storage.
We’ll see if they’ve managed to get it done by the time we’re ready to launch.
UPDATE: They didn’t, so launching The Boat has been delayed for a couple of days.
==+==
Just a heads up that this post may be a little shorter than usual as I have been working with the WP Mom to finish up our annual Spring Cleaning here at The Gulch. This is something that takes place over two or three weekends between mid-April and the end of May. This weekend was (hopefully) the last weekend required to finish this year’s cleanup. It has meant a number trips to the dump...err...Solid Waste Center to get rid of the detritus, to recycle the recyclable, and to leave some items in our town’s “goody shack” that are too good to throw away that others may be able put to use.
==+==
A quote by way of Powerline:
From energy independence for the first time in 50 years to gas shortages in 4 months.Yup, it looks like the best we can hope for under President * is a repeat of the Carter Years, only worse because in this case it’s being done deliberately. All this while we’re being told “It’s for your own good” by people who won’t have to suffer under the conditions they have created.
Quite an accomplishment.
==+==
Also by way of Powerline comes this:
==+==
In its efforts to go ‘green’, should the US go nuclear?
Yes. Yes it should, preferably as quickly as possible.
==+==
And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where my boat still isn’t in the water, plenty of others are, and where I am becoming peeved at the situation.
5/15/2021
Infrastructure On The Internet Is A Really Bad Idea
Before I delve to the issue of the Colonial Pipeline debacle, I need to state that my job involves the telecommunications industry, and more specifically, the Internet, Cable TV, Cell and Telephone industries, and particularly the physical layers of those industries which means the hardware (switches, routers, servers) and all the cabling (primarily fiber optic cabling) that makes it possible to transmit increasingly huge amounts of data.
Understanding how it all connects together, how it routes the data from Point A to Point B, how the various types of data (data files, photos, videos, phone calls) are handled, is important to making sure the systems do what they’re designed to do.
With all of that in mind, let’s turn our attention to the debacle that is the Colonial Pipeline and how any of our infrastructure like pipelines (natural gas, oil, refined products like gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, propane, etc.), electrical grids and generation facilities, water and sewer systems, communications systems (phone – landline and cell, video – linear TV and streaming, e-mail, and the Web), and transportation (traffic control, trains, subways, tractor trailers, airlines, shipping), are vulnerable to cyber attacks. How is it that all of these things are so vulnerable to such attacks?
Because they are all connected to the Internet, something that is an incredibly stupid thing to do.
‘Secure’ systems aren’t as secure as many people think they are. If they are connected to the outside world via the Internet they are vulnerable. Firewalls, a combination of hardware and software, are systems that help prevent outside intrusions into public, private, and government networks. The problem is that firewalls are not perfect, are not invulnerable, and therein lies the problem.
Because of this, connecting any infrastructure such as those listed above to the Internet is madness. It leaves them vulnerable, just as we saw with Colonial Pipeline, in this case to a multi-million dollar ransomware attack. (The Russian crackers – a criminal gang also being sought by Russian authorities - managed to get malware uploaded to the system that would encrypt all data and make it unusable unless their target, in this case Colonial Pipeline, paid a ransom to the gang. If they didn’t pay the ransom, their systems would crash, or even worse, cause the destruction of their pipeline facilities.)
All such systems should be completely isolated from the Internet, should run their own command and control networks on their own equipment that has absolutely no connection to the Internet in any way, shape, or form. There should be no wireless access points on such a network (just another way to hack into the network). This is called ‘air-gapping’ and is the best firewall to prevent outside crackers from gaining access to such important networks. While not perfectly secure, such air-gapped systems are much more difficult to attack. There are other means of uploading malware into such closed systems, but it takes a lot more effort to do so and the crackers need to have an intimate knowledge of the target system.
Attacks such as this usually involve what is called social engineering, using people’s perceptions to get them to do things that will unwittingly give the ‘bad guys’ indirect access to the target system. One example – leaving a USB thumb drive on the ground just outside the entrance of the target, on a table or counter inside the lobby, or on the counter inside a restroom. Someone picks it up, and plugs it into their computer, either from curiosity or as a means of finding who it belongs to. When they do, the malware contained on the thumb drive is automatically loaded into the computer and from there infects the target network.
What’s the worse case scenario should crackers manage to take control of our infrastructure? Returning us to the 19th century with no electricity, no cars, no Internet, no air travel, no medical care, no food. It will be a war fought and lost without a single shot being fired.
If you want a sneak peek of such a nightmare vision and what it could mean, all you have to do is watch the movie Live Free Or Die Hard. (Yes, there are explosions and gun fire, but then it is a Bruce Willis movie.)
Understanding how it all connects together, how it routes the data from Point A to Point B, how the various types of data (data files, photos, videos, phone calls) are handled, is important to making sure the systems do what they’re designed to do.
With all of that in mind, let’s turn our attention to the debacle that is the Colonial Pipeline and how any of our infrastructure like pipelines (natural gas, oil, refined products like gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, propane, etc.), electrical grids and generation facilities, water and sewer systems, communications systems (phone – landline and cell, video – linear TV and streaming, e-mail, and the Web), and transportation (traffic control, trains, subways, tractor trailers, airlines, shipping), are vulnerable to cyber attacks. How is it that all of these things are so vulnerable to such attacks?
Because they are all connected to the Internet, something that is an incredibly stupid thing to do.
‘Secure’ systems aren’t as secure as many people think they are. If they are connected to the outside world via the Internet they are vulnerable. Firewalls, a combination of hardware and software, are systems that help prevent outside intrusions into public, private, and government networks. The problem is that firewalls are not perfect, are not invulnerable, and therein lies the problem.
Because of this, connecting any infrastructure such as those listed above to the Internet is madness. It leaves them vulnerable, just as we saw with Colonial Pipeline, in this case to a multi-million dollar ransomware attack. (The Russian crackers – a criminal gang also being sought by Russian authorities - managed to get malware uploaded to the system that would encrypt all data and make it unusable unless their target, in this case Colonial Pipeline, paid a ransom to the gang. If they didn’t pay the ransom, their systems would crash, or even worse, cause the destruction of their pipeline facilities.)
All such systems should be completely isolated from the Internet, should run their own command and control networks on their own equipment that has absolutely no connection to the Internet in any way, shape, or form. There should be no wireless access points on such a network (just another way to hack into the network). This is called ‘air-gapping’ and is the best firewall to prevent outside crackers from gaining access to such important networks. While not perfectly secure, such air-gapped systems are much more difficult to attack. There are other means of uploading malware into such closed systems, but it takes a lot more effort to do so and the crackers need to have an intimate knowledge of the target system.
Attacks such as this usually involve what is called social engineering, using people’s perceptions to get them to do things that will unwittingly give the ‘bad guys’ indirect access to the target system. One example – leaving a USB thumb drive on the ground just outside the entrance of the target, on a table or counter inside the lobby, or on the counter inside a restroom. Someone picks it up, and plugs it into their computer, either from curiosity or as a means of finding who it belongs to. When they do, the malware contained on the thumb drive is automatically loaded into the computer and from there infects the target network.
What’s the worse case scenario should crackers manage to take control of our infrastructure? Returning us to the 19th century with no electricity, no cars, no Internet, no air travel, no medical care, no food. It will be a war fought and lost without a single shot being fired.
If you want a sneak peek of such a nightmare vision and what it could mean, all you have to do is watch the movie Live Free Or Die Hard. (Yes, there are explosions and gun fire, but then it is a Bruce Willis movie.)
5/09/2021
Thoughts On A Sunday
Another weekend slowly winds to a close, but I don’t mind as it gets me one weekend closer to launching the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat. The gear for the boat has been pulled out of storage and will be cleaned during this upcoming week in preparation for being loaded onboard once The Boat is out of storage and prepped for launching.
If all goes well, The Boat will be back into the water next Saturday and I’ll spend part of the weekend performing a shakedown to make sure everything is good to go for the boating season.
It’s a burden, but someone has to do it, right?
The more I watch the whole ‘Everything is Racist’ meme being pushed down everyone’s throats, the more I have to agree with Thomas Sowell’s take on the issue:
Having traveled quite a bit during the earlier years of my career, I have seen actual racism, I have experienced racism directed towards me, and I have seen ‘institutionalized’ and legally codified racism in action. The US has not been a racist nation for generations, but it seems the Progressive forces are working hard to make it one again as a means of dividing everyone. (No, I am not saying there aren’t racists in this country. There are racists here...of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. To think that one race can be racist is either self-delusion or is being pushed by the aforementioned race hustlers.)
Climate policy is being driven by climate models, models that have been proven again and again to be erroneous, with actual data showing the models do not reflect reality. Yet those mismatches are either denigrated or ignored outright. This can have political consequences, not to say economic consequences if the models are taken as gospel and the data is ignored because it goes against climate catastrophe doctrine.
The wrong actions will be pushed as a means of mitigating climate change that may not be caused by humans, actions that may have little or no effect on climate. Even the “We’re-All-Gonna-DIE-If-We-Don’t-Do-Something” true believers choose to ignore that the models upon which they depend show even the most extreme actions taken to ‘fix’ the climate will have little effect, yet they still push them for all they’re worth.
That begs the question, are they pushing ‘climate-saving’ actions to ‘Save the Earth’ or are they doing so to garner more control over the human population? To me, it seems it is more the latter than the former, seeing how the data isn’t backing up their sacrosanct models.
How many times have we heard the phrase “Your rights end where my nose begins”? How many times have any of us said that in one form or another? I know of at least one person who is basically saying this regarding Covid and those who are using their fear to abrogate our rights.
Writes Skip Murphy:
Chicks On The Right writes about the disastrous April Jobs Report and the part government handouts have been playing in this issue.
If the Feddle Gummint keeps rewarding otherwise employable people for not working, they’re not going to look for work. Some states have already cut back on the extra unemployment benefits, noting a lot of jobs are going wanting for people to fill them. Paying people to stay out of work made no sense, so doing away with the extra unemployment ‘stipend’ supplied by the Feds would certainly motivate those collecting unemployment benefits to go out and fill the open jobs.
The New York Times has gone so far to the Left they have all but disappeared from view. Their latest outrage?
Telling us we should all bathe less often in order to prevent climate change.
Now they’ve gone too damn far.
While the point was made that many of us working from home weren’t showering daily while working from home, it had nothing to do with ‘saving’ the climate. In many cases some of us didn’t because we weren’t going anywhere or seeing anyone and we hadn’t done any heavy physical work that would have meant we needed to shower at the end of the day. But now that things are almost back to normal, I don’t want to see us returning to the Age of Lice because the New York Times thinks it would be good for the climate (but bad for us). (The Age of Lice was a period in the Eighteenth Century when the nobles in Europe didn’t bathe, but used powders and perfumes to cover their body odor. They were also infested with lice, hence the ‘Age of Lice’.)
The Times needs to suffer under it’s ‘suggestion’. That’s assuming of course their staffers haven’t already dialed back on their bathing.
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where more boats appear on the lake every day, summer is fast approaching, and where Mondays are starting to feel like the movie Groundhog Day every time it comes around.
If all goes well, The Boat will be back into the water next Saturday and I’ll spend part of the weekend performing a shakedown to make sure everything is good to go for the boating season.
It’s a burden, but someone has to do it, right?
==+==
The more I watch the whole ‘Everything is Racist’ meme being pushed down everyone’s throats, the more I have to agree with Thomas Sowell’s take on the issue:
Racism is not dead, but it is on life support – kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as “racists”.One commenter put it succinctly:
Racism - The Duct tape of the Democrat Party and its' minions.I wish I could take that as a tongue-in-cheek comment, but these days it seems more likely to be true.
They try to use it to fix everything ...
Having traveled quite a bit during the earlier years of my career, I have seen actual racism, I have experienced racism directed towards me, and I have seen ‘institutionalized’ and legally codified racism in action. The US has not been a racist nation for generations, but it seems the Progressive forces are working hard to make it one again as a means of dividing everyone. (No, I am not saying there aren’t racists in this country. There are racists here...of all colors and ethnic backgrounds. To think that one race can be racist is either self-delusion or is being pushed by the aforementioned race hustlers.)
==+==
Climate policy is being driven by climate models, models that have been proven again and again to be erroneous, with actual data showing the models do not reflect reality. Yet those mismatches are either denigrated or ignored outright. This can have political consequences, not to say economic consequences if the models are taken as gospel and the data is ignored because it goes against climate catastrophe doctrine.
The wrong actions will be pushed as a means of mitigating climate change that may not be caused by humans, actions that may have little or no effect on climate. Even the “We’re-All-Gonna-DIE-If-We-Don’t-Do-Something” true believers choose to ignore that the models upon which they depend show even the most extreme actions taken to ‘fix’ the climate will have little effect, yet they still push them for all they’re worth.
That begs the question, are they pushing ‘climate-saving’ actions to ‘Save the Earth’ or are they doing so to garner more control over the human population? To me, it seems it is more the latter than the former, seeing how the data isn’t backing up their sacrosanct models.
==+==
How many times have we heard the phrase “Your rights end where my nose begins”? How many times have any of us said that in one form or another? I know of at least one person who is basically saying this regarding Covid and those who are using their fear to abrogate our rights.
Writes Skip Murphy:
Frankly, I’m exhausted about having to always think about the Collective before MY outlook can be considered and I’m angry that too many people demand that they are allowed to place obligations upon me without my assent – so neither is going to happen anymore.I have to agree with Skip that if you do not want to take the vaccine, that’s your decision and we’ll respect it. But that decision does not obligate those of us who have received Covid vaccinations to go out of our way to protect you. This will be particularly true if a large percentage of the people are vaccinated. At some point it is those unvaccinated by choice who are obligated to protect themselves from exposure, to take the needed precautions. It is not up to the rest of us. They have the right to be unvaccinated, but the do not have the right to demand that we give up our rights because of their fears. Their rights end where my nose begins, period.
I’m vaccinated and I started to refuse to wear a mask a long time ago in most cases. This kabuki theater has gone on too long – and the Powers That Be...can’t get their stories straight.
The masks work.Yeah, Up Yours.
Oh, the masks don’t work, get the vaccine, it works.
Oh, the vaccines don’t work 100% of the time so put a mask on anyway.
In fact, Masks Forever!
--snip--
Folks...DEMAND that I have an obligation to others in this regard – their unrealized problem is that they’ve tried to bring that message home with sledgehammers far too often and want to make it permanent. They are, knowingly or unknowingly, are using the notion that the Collective outside of oneself is the UTMOST obligation you can have – YOU must keep ME safe.
No, YOU keep YOU safe. As I have told the detestable Moms Demand Action gun-grabbers during testimony in front a NH House Committee, my Rights don’t stop at your fears, they TRUMP your fears.
==+==
Chicks On The Right writes about the disastrous April Jobs Report and the part government handouts have been playing in this issue.
If the Feddle Gummint keeps rewarding otherwise employable people for not working, they’re not going to look for work. Some states have already cut back on the extra unemployment benefits, noting a lot of jobs are going wanting for people to fill them. Paying people to stay out of work made no sense, so doing away with the extra unemployment ‘stipend’ supplied by the Feds would certainly motivate those collecting unemployment benefits to go out and fill the open jobs.
==+==
The New York Times has gone so far to the Left they have all but disappeared from view. Their latest outrage?
Telling us we should all bathe less often in order to prevent climate change.
Now they’ve gone too damn far.
While the point was made that many of us working from home weren’t showering daily while working from home, it had nothing to do with ‘saving’ the climate. In many cases some of us didn’t because we weren’t going anywhere or seeing anyone and we hadn’t done any heavy physical work that would have meant we needed to shower at the end of the day. But now that things are almost back to normal, I don’t want to see us returning to the Age of Lice because the New York Times thinks it would be good for the climate (but bad for us). (The Age of Lice was a period in the Eighteenth Century when the nobles in Europe didn’t bathe, but used powders and perfumes to cover their body odor. They were also infested with lice, hence the ‘Age of Lice’.)
The Times needs to suffer under it’s ‘suggestion’. That’s assuming of course their staffers haven’t already dialed back on their bathing.
==+==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where more boats appear on the lake every day, summer is fast approaching, and where Mondays are starting to feel like the movie Groundhog Day every time it comes around.
5/08/2021
The COVID Insanity Of A Bank
To address just how insane the whole Covid-19 issue has become, I offer the following.
The incident in question took place in Florida (a state with lax Covid restrictions as compared to so many of the 'woke' states) at a Bank of America branch, specifically in the drive-thru teller lane, and it illustrates perfectly why the Covid protection “guidelines” are being twisted and being overused in situations that do not warrant them.
The transcript below comes from a recent video posted on the Better Bachelor YouTube channel, starting at the 9:17 minute mark.
WARNING: The linked video is from a YouTube channel that is nominally a MGTOW sympathetic channel, but covers a lot of topics unrelated to MGTOW. If MGTOW offends you, then don't click on the link. That's why I provided a transcript. If you still click on the link and are offended by the other content in this video, too bad. You were warned and you chose to click on it anyways. It's your problem, not mine. And don't even thinking of making it mine. You've. Been. Warned.
The incident in question took place in Florida (a state with lax Covid restrictions as compared to so many of the 'woke' states) at a Bank of America branch, specifically in the drive-thru teller lane, and it illustrates perfectly why the Covid protection “guidelines” are being twisted and being overused in situations that do not warrant them.
The transcript below comes from a recent video posted on the Better Bachelor YouTube channel, starting at the 9:17 minute mark.
WARNING: The linked video is from a YouTube channel that is nominally a MGTOW sympathetic channel, but covers a lot of topics unrelated to MGTOW. If MGTOW offends you, then don't click on the link. That's why I provided a transcript. If you still click on the link and are offended by the other content in this video, too bad. You were warned and you chose to click on it anyways. It's your problem, not mine. And don't even thinking of making it mine. You've. Been. Warned.
Last week, I went to the bank. I went to the bank through the drive-through. Now that means I'm in my car and the bank teller is on the other side of bulletproof glass using a speaker and that slide-out drawer you drop your stuff into. I had to make a deposit. I pulled up, rolled down my window, and she says on the speaker “Please put on a mask.”I don't blame him. Covid has infected everyone, not with the virus, but with fear, and most worrisome, with foolishness. That corporate foolishness exists to this level is troubling. While corporations are generally conservative, at least regarding their public actions, that Bank of America went to this level of stupid is dismaying.
Now, I'm in Florida. There's no mandate here for it. Anybody, any age, anybody can go ahead and get the jab if they want to. So there's no one who hasn't gotten it that wants it. So that means anybody who's worried about this stuff can get it taken care of.
She said “Please put on a mask.” I said “We're on the other side of two inch thick glass. Why?”
And she said “It's company policy.”
I said “But it doesn't make any...I don't have one. I'm in my car. I'm not getting out of my car. I'm not...I'm just in my car. I don't have one. I think you can speak to me across the speaker...through two inches of glass.”
She said “I'm sorry, but it's company policy.”
I drove home, I grabbed a mask, I came back, I walked into the bank, I closed my investment accounts, my retirement accounts, my bank account, my checking account, my savings account, I canceled my credit card. I obliterated everything. I made sure I told them why.
Now in the past...in the past, I would have gone home and I might have closed them online, or I might have said “Ah, whatever!” and gone home.
Now, I'm not saying you have to agree, but I just feel...I'm sorry. Bulletproof glass I think is a pretty good, you know, we're more than a few feet apart. She had a mask on. Everyone that wanted the jab have got it.
I'm done with this. I'm done with this foolishness.
5/06/2021
The Words Of Malcolm X - Do They Still Resonate Today?
I must admit I have had a lot of respect for Malcolm X. Even though he was radical in his efforts to ensure civil rights for black Americans, his methods and his outlook changed after making his hajj to Mecca. He came to realize we were all the same in God’s eyes and that the path to secure the civil rights of was to hear the truth...and the lies...in the words of others. The following is something we should keep in mind as much of what was true when he first stated his thoughts on this matter is still true today.
Are conservatives of the same mindset Malcolm X described almost 60 years ago? I don’t know. I would like to think that is no longer the case across the board, but I can only speak about those I know personally and know well.
Are liberals of the same mindset Malcolm X described almost 60 years ago? Keeping in mind that I am biased, much of that due to my own experiences and observations, I would have to say many of them are, and are worse now than they were then since their actions aren’t aimed just at black Americans, but at everybody.
To close this out, I am going to quote Dennis Miller, “This is just my opinion. I might be wrong.”
The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man. Let me explain what I mean by the white liberal.Many of his words still resonate, though some of his definitions have shifted since he said this back in the 1960’s, with such a large portion of ‘liberals’ belonging to the Democrat Party and an equally large portion of conservatives belonging to the Republican Party.
In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives. The only people living in the past who think in terms of I’m a Democrat or Republican, is the American Negro. He’s the one that runs around bragging about party affiliation. He’s the one that sticks to the Democrat or sticks to the Republican.
But white people are divided into two groups, liberals and conservative. The Democrats who are conservative, vote with the Republicans who are conservative. The Democrats who are liberal vote with the Republicans that are liberal. The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. The same as the white conservative is a faction of white people that are jockeying for power. They are fighting each other for power and prestige, and the one that is the football in the game is the Negro, 20 million black people. A political football, a political pawn, an economic football, and economic pawn. A social football, a social pawn.
The liberal elements of whites are those who have perfected the art of selling themselves to the Negro as a friend of the Negro. Getting sympathy of the Negro, getting the allegiance of the Negro, and getting the mind of the Negro. Then the Negro sides with the white liberal, and the white liberal use the Negro against the white conservative. So that anything that the Negro does is never for his own good, never for his own advancement, never for his own progress, he’s only a pawn in the hands of the white liberal. The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros, and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have.
If the Negro wasn’t taken, tricked, or deceived by the white liberal then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man.
The only way that our problem will be solved is when the black man wakes up, clean himself up, stand on his own feet and stop begging the white man, and take immediate steps to do for ourselves the things that we have been waiting on the white man to do for us. Once we do for self then we will be able to solve our own problems.
The white conservatives aren't friends of the Negro either, but they at least don't try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the "smiling" fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.
Are conservatives of the same mindset Malcolm X described almost 60 years ago? I don’t know. I would like to think that is no longer the case across the board, but I can only speak about those I know personally and know well.
Are liberals of the same mindset Malcolm X described almost 60 years ago? Keeping in mind that I am biased, much of that due to my own experiences and observations, I would have to say many of them are, and are worse now than they were then since their actions aren’t aimed just at black Americans, but at everybody.
To close this out, I am going to quote Dennis Miller, “This is just my opinion. I might be wrong.”
5/04/2021
Respect For Other's Beliefs?
How many times have we heard the refrain “We have to respect everyone’s beliefs”?
I’ve heard it most of my life (though not from my parents), and I don’t believe it any more than I did back when I was a kid. Apparently I am not the only one with that particular point of view.
Here’s what actor/comedian Patton Oswalt thinks about it:
I don’t have to respect beliefs that include the wholesale slaughter of one group of people or another.
I don’t have to respect beliefs that include the violent and murderous subjugation of people for some twisted political and/or religious ideology.
I don’t have to respect beliefs that paint everyone ‘not them’ as some kind knuckledragging subhuman not worthy of their attention or caring, seeing them only as disposable non-entities.
I don’t have to respect beliefs that make it perfectly okay to murder millions of unborn children by whim but not okay to put cold-blooded multiple murderers to death after a trial by their peers.
I don’t have to respect beliefs of those who see themselves as our “self-anointed betters”, those same “betters” having the morals and ethics of a Caligula.
I don’t have to respect anyone’s beliefs, particularly if they are the moral, ethical, and political antithesis of mine. I will acknowledge them, but I don’t have to respect them.
I’ve heard it most of my life (though not from my parents), and I don’t believe it any more than I did back when I was a kid. Apparently I am not the only one with that particular point of view.
Here’s what actor/comedian Patton Oswalt thinks about it:
“You gotta respect everyone’s beliefs…?”There are plenty of beliefs that are outright evil, that have no place on this world, yet we’re supposed to respect them? Nope, not going to happen.
No you don’t! That’s what gets us into trouble. You have to acknowledge everyone’s beliefs. And then you have to reserve the right to go “That is f**king stupid, are you kidding me?!”
I don’t have to respect beliefs that include the wholesale slaughter of one group of people or another.
I don’t have to respect beliefs that include the violent and murderous subjugation of people for some twisted political and/or religious ideology.
I don’t have to respect beliefs that paint everyone ‘not them’ as some kind knuckledragging subhuman not worthy of their attention or caring, seeing them only as disposable non-entities.
I don’t have to respect beliefs that make it perfectly okay to murder millions of unborn children by whim but not okay to put cold-blooded multiple murderers to death after a trial by their peers.
I don’t have to respect beliefs of those who see themselves as our “self-anointed betters”, those same “betters” having the morals and ethics of a Caligula.
I don’t have to respect anyone’s beliefs, particularly if they are the moral, ethical, and political antithesis of mine. I will acknowledge them, but I don’t have to respect them.
5/02/2021
Thoughts On A Sunday
We’ve finally made it into May, surviving yet another month in Covid America.
I finally received my Covid shot, seeing as they opened my demographic – Misanthropic Surly Curmudgeons 50 Years of Age or Older – for vaccination. I got the my first shot this past Monday...and it kicked my ass.
An hour after receiving it I had a pounding headache and was feeling feverish. The next day the headache was just a minor annoyance, but the fever was still there and I was feeling achy. By Thursday the headache was gone, but the fever and achy bits were still there. Those were finally gone Saturday morning, but I still felt a bit ‘off’.
Hopefully I won’t have to deal with this after my second injection. (I had wanted to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but it wasn’t available at the time, so I got what they had on hand.)
It seems most folks having a reaction to the vaccine either have it after one or the other injections, but not both. Hopefully this means my second injection later this month will not have the side effects I experienced from the first.
One of the questions being asked at gun shops across the nation is “Where are all the guns?”
The ammo shortage seems to be easing with more common ammo (.22LR, .223, 5.56mm, and 9mm) becoming readily available with other calibers following, though not everywhere at the same time. Once more firearms make their way back into shops there will be ammo available for them.
Roger Simon induces me to ask a very important question: What would Richard Pryor have thought about Critical Race Theory?
I think I can answer that, knowing how he skewered everybody with his comedy. He would have told the purveyors of CRT “You ofay motherf**kers are out of your minds!”
Considering my son, BeezleBub, is a farmer, this doesn’t surprise me at all.
Farmers Believe In Climate Change But Don’t Think Humans Are The Cause, New Poll Shows.
His biggest concern seems to be colder temperatures he thinks may be on their way with the extended solar minimum we are experiencing. If higher CO2 levels help offset them, and helps his crops grow while using less water, he’s all for it.
I don’t know how much of a problem this is elsewhere, but it seems restaurants here in New Hampshire are having ongoing problems hiring staff, not just for the summer, but in general. I asked one of our seasonal neighbors here in The Gulch who lives down near Cape Cod if this was a problem down their way and they answered that it was, but they didn’t know to what extent.
This isn’t a new problem as I remember one local restaurant decided to close the doors at one of its two locations two summers ago because they couldn’t hire enough staff to operate properly. (Some of this had to be laid at the feet of the tighter restrictions on temporary worker visas that had a disproportionate effect on the hospitality industry in light of the extremely low unemployment rate in the US and particularly here in New Hampshire.)
It isn’t just restaurant workers that are in short supply for the up coming summer season.
Lumber and building materials are also in short supply, driving up prices and affecting construction this summer. (Have you bought any 2x4’s or plywood recently? If you have, then you know what I’m talking about.)
In New Hampshire, new boats and boat slips are in short supply, with demand even higher than last summer, and last summer’s demand was higher than anyone has ever seen. Some boats ordered last summer are just being delivered now. I’ve had lots of people asking me if I knew of any available boat slips anywhere along the big lake and I’ve had to tell them ‘no’. Even dry rack facilities are maxed out. (Dry rack means the boats are stored out of the water and only put in when the owner wants to use it. It’s also called ‘valet boating’, and while better than having to trailer a boat every time, there are disadvantages including restricted times of access.)
Housing is in short supply, with prices in my town up over 20% and the number of homes available for sale in the single digits. When they do go on the market there is a ‘feeding frenzy’ of showings over a couple of days, and by the third day someone makes an offer the sellers can’t refuse, in most cases in cash. (What makes it worse is that a more than small percentage of the buyers have no interest in living in the homes they buy, but renting them out through websites like AirBnB or VRBO, something that further decreases the supply of homes and drives up the prices.)
Another thing in short supply? Chicken. Apparently the supply of chicken is down for a number of reasons including high demand via takeout orders (lots of comfort Buffalo Wings?) and transport issues.
One thing in short supply that I wouldn’t have expected – pool chlorine.
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where food workers/boats/lumber/chicken/chlorine is in short supply, where the rains have been easing what’s left of our drought, and where I am one day closer to launching my boat for the summer.
I finally received my Covid shot, seeing as they opened my demographic – Misanthropic Surly Curmudgeons 50 Years of Age or Older – for vaccination. I got the my first shot this past Monday...and it kicked my ass.
An hour after receiving it I had a pounding headache and was feeling feverish. The next day the headache was just a minor annoyance, but the fever was still there and I was feeling achy. By Thursday the headache was gone, but the fever and achy bits were still there. Those were finally gone Saturday morning, but I still felt a bit ‘off’.
Hopefully I won’t have to deal with this after my second injection. (I had wanted to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but it wasn’t available at the time, so I got what they had on hand.)
It seems most folks having a reaction to the vaccine either have it after one or the other injections, but not both. Hopefully this means my second injection later this month will not have the side effects I experienced from the first.
==+==
One of the questions being asked at gun shops across the nation is “Where are all the guns?”
If you walk into any gun store these days, you are likely to hear this question uttered across the counter. With more than five million law-abiding citizens making their first purchase, it is no wonder that we are seeing a shortage of just about every type of firearm on the market. The follow-up questions, of course, are “Why's it taking so long to recover?” and “What is being done to replenish the market?”The article goes on to question a number of manufacturer’s to find out their plans for meeting the skyrocketing demand, and for the most part those they quizzed had all cranked up production to meet the unprecedented demand, adding production staff, adding overtime, and going to seven-day-per-week production schedules.
The ammo shortage seems to be easing with more common ammo (.22LR, .223, 5.56mm, and 9mm) becoming readily available with other calibers following, though not everywhere at the same time. Once more firearms make their way back into shops there will be ammo available for them.
==+==
Roger Simon induces me to ask a very important question: What would Richard Pryor have thought about Critical Race Theory?
I think I can answer that, knowing how he skewered everybody with his comedy. He would have told the purveyors of CRT “You ofay motherf**kers are out of your minds!”
==+==
Considering my son, BeezleBub, is a farmer, this doesn’t surprise me at all.
Farmers Believe In Climate Change But Don’t Think Humans Are The Cause, New Poll Shows.
A new poll shows farmers overwhelmingly believe climate change is real and will create significant weather problems but do not think it’s caused by human actions.As BeezleBub’s boss Farmer Andy once asked, “How do these climate idiots explain away the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s? According to them it should have returned 20 years ago because of people.”
The latest annual Farm and Rural Life Poll, conducted by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and the Iowa State Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology, indicates 80% of farmers believe climate change is occurring, and more than half are concerned with its impact on their operations.
The study also indicates only 18% believe human activities are causing climate change. That comes as there is an increasing focus from the Biden administration on agriculture’s role in mitigating the problem.
His biggest concern seems to be colder temperatures he thinks may be on their way with the extended solar minimum we are experiencing. If higher CO2 levels help offset them, and helps his crops grow while using less water, he’s all for it.
==+==
I don’t know how much of a problem this is elsewhere, but it seems restaurants here in New Hampshire are having ongoing problems hiring staff, not just for the summer, but in general. I asked one of our seasonal neighbors here in The Gulch who lives down near Cape Cod if this was a problem down their way and they answered that it was, but they didn’t know to what extent.
Restaurants across New Hampshire are having difficulty finding waitstaff and kitchen staff as temperatures outside climb.Some restaurants are offering incentives to potential new hires and to their existing employees as a means of retaining them.
--snip--
Somers said people may not be joining the food service workforce because they are collecting unemployment or have found different jobs.
Great N.H. Restaurants CEO Tom Boucher said the phenomenon is causing headaches for those looking to hire.
"This labor crisis — and yes, I'm calling it a crisis — could be worse than the pandemic for restaurants," Boucher said.
This isn’t a new problem as I remember one local restaurant decided to close the doors at one of its two locations two summers ago because they couldn’t hire enough staff to operate properly. (Some of this had to be laid at the feet of the tighter restrictions on temporary worker visas that had a disproportionate effect on the hospitality industry in light of the extremely low unemployment rate in the US and particularly here in New Hampshire.)
==+==
It isn’t just restaurant workers that are in short supply for the up coming summer season.
Lumber and building materials are also in short supply, driving up prices and affecting construction this summer. (Have you bought any 2x4’s or plywood recently? If you have, then you know what I’m talking about.)
In New Hampshire, new boats and boat slips are in short supply, with demand even higher than last summer, and last summer’s demand was higher than anyone has ever seen. Some boats ordered last summer are just being delivered now. I’ve had lots of people asking me if I knew of any available boat slips anywhere along the big lake and I’ve had to tell them ‘no’. Even dry rack facilities are maxed out. (Dry rack means the boats are stored out of the water and only put in when the owner wants to use it. It’s also called ‘valet boating’, and while better than having to trailer a boat every time, there are disadvantages including restricted times of access.)
Housing is in short supply, with prices in my town up over 20% and the number of homes available for sale in the single digits. When they do go on the market there is a ‘feeding frenzy’ of showings over a couple of days, and by the third day someone makes an offer the sellers can’t refuse, in most cases in cash. (What makes it worse is that a more than small percentage of the buyers have no interest in living in the homes they buy, but renting them out through websites like AirBnB or VRBO, something that further decreases the supply of homes and drives up the prices.)
Another thing in short supply? Chicken. Apparently the supply of chicken is down for a number of reasons including high demand via takeout orders (lots of comfort Buffalo Wings?) and transport issues.
One thing in short supply that I wouldn’t have expected – pool chlorine.
First it was toilet paper. Next, it was disinfectants, followed by face masks and other personal protective equipment. Then, it was a whole array of different items, ranging from yeast to condoms to kettlebells to jigsaw puzzles to aluminum cans, not that all of these items are necessarily used together at the same time. Now the latest shortage that the U.S. is facing is, let’s pool our guesses together: chlorine.All of this cycles back to Covid-19. It cures all kinds of diseases like cancer, heart disease, liver disease, kidney disease, COPD and a whole list of other terminal diseases. It has created shortages of personnel, building materials, boats, boat slips, and housing. And now we can add shortages of chlorine to that list.
--snip--
The latest shortage is chlorine, which can come in the form of tablets, powders, and liquids. Chlorination may sound like something you do when you put a crown or tiara on someone’s head. But instead it is the process of putting the right amounts of chlorine in a swimming pool, a hot tub, a jacuzzi, or basically any similar container of water where your hot bod may go. Chlorine is important because swimming pools and similar receptacles can otherwise be filled with algae and dangerous microbes like cryptosporidium, legionella, and brain-eating amoeba. In general, it’s a good idea to stay from anything that has the words “brain-eating” such as brain-eating politician, brain-eating cat, or brain-eating pizza.
The shortage appears to be the result of two issues. One is that the pandemic has seemed to boost demand for chlorine.
The other issue is supply. As reported by Liz Hampton and Jessica Resnick-Aultright for Reuters last August, the Biolab Lake Charles facility in Louisiana erupted into flames after Hurricane Laura hit. This led to the shutdown of one of the major chlorine suppliers until the spring 2022, leaving only two current manufacturers of chlorine tablets in the U.S.: Occidental Petroleum and Clearon Corporation.
==+==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where food workers/boats/lumber/chicken/chlorine is in short supply, where the rains have been easing what’s left of our drought, and where I am one day closer to launching my boat for the summer.
5/01/2021
An Inconvenient Statistic
Now for an entirely and completely politically incorrect and inconvenient statistic regarding gun deaths, there’s this:
I bet that makes the old sphincter tighten up, doesn’t it?
I bet that makes the old sphincter tighten up, doesn’t it?
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