Thoughts On A Sunday

As if we needed more proof that summer is finally here, we’re at the beginning of another heat wave – 3 days of temps above 90ºF – something that doesn’t really bother me...unless there is oppressive humidity. Unfortunately the humidity is quite high, with dew points above 70ºF. I felt it the moment I walked out of the house here at The Gulch this morning. (I was on my way out for my usual pre-church Walmart run.)

It was already 75º at 7:30am and the air was heavy. I didn’t resort to using anything but the 4 x 50 A/C (4 x 50 A/C = 4 windows down @ 50mph) for my trip to and from Walmart. It was more than sufficient for the trip. But the A/C was on at the house to help dry out the air.

I admit it would have been just as easy to spend time out on the lake to help cool off, but with high heat and humidity, it would only be a temporary relief. I knew the town beach would be crowded (it was), and the number of boats out on the lake would huge with so many people trying to keep cool (which was the case).

The heavy weekend boat traffic is one of the reasons I tend to stay off the lake Saturdays and Sundays, at least between late morning and late afternoon/early evening. It is not fun (there’s lots of wake-driven chop which makes for rough boating) and the number of “Cap’n Boneheads” is disproportionately higher, meaning one’s head has to be on constant swivel because someone else out there will likely not be paying attention. This lack of attention will be due to inexperience, dealing with passengers onboard, chemical overload sloshing above their eyebrows, or some combination of the three.

If the conditions are right I’ll venture out during the day on a weekend. Fortunately for me the conditions were right yesterday – cloudy with some sprinkles now and then – which kept a lot of people off the lake despite the warm and humid conditions. So I went out with some family members and we actually had a pretty good day out on the lake.

==+==

I find it ironic that it’s perfectly okay to tear down statues of historical figures in New York City...unless it’s a statue of George Floyd. Then it’s racist.

It’s just further proof that Mayor De Blasio is a hypocrite.

As one tweet regarding this issue put it, “Didn’t last summer establish this is a reasonable mode of expression?”

As we must perpetually remind everyone, if the Progressives/Leftists/Communists/Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

==+==

An issue in my little town is also being seen elsewhere in the country, that issue being local school boards/boards of education ignoring their constituents, or worse, attacking them and their characters, smearing them because they had the gall to question their actions and motives. (It isn’t that bad in out town...at least not yet.

In our town it appears our school board figures they are not required to answer the townsfolk’s questions, reply to Right to Know requests which under state law they must respond to by providing the requested information. (There are exceptions to this law, usually dealing with ongoing criminal investigations or litigation, and even then the exceptions are limited.) There have been other school boards that are trying to ram things like CRT down the throats of students, or pushing unpopular and discriminatory transgender policies which are not supported by parents, students, or in some cases, state law.

The push back by the public has been growing and I think we will see a number of members of these boards being voted out, and perhaps in some cases, being induced to step down in light of their outrageous behavior, statements, and contempt for the people they were supposed to serve.

==+==

Will we ever find out who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, the only fatality directly related to the January 6 protest at the Capitol Building? Why is the DOJ working so hard to to keep this information secret?

One of the things that's really pissed me off about this: leftists who will take ANY LE shooting as a reason to riot think this was just fine because 'Trump supporter'. God, I despise these people.

To reiterate, “If the Progressives/Leftists/Communists/Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.”

This needs to be repeated as often as possible until it sinks in.

==+==

As hard as the Left and the DNC-MSM keep pushing the “America is Racist!” meme, a sizable majority (61%) of the American people aren’t buying it and the percentage is increasing. This could be why those pushing the racist Critical Race Theory for all they’re worth have redoubled their efforts because they see people across all racial and ethnic lines opposing teaching of CRT, both in schools and businesses, because they see it for what it is: a means to further divide the American people and generate distrust and hatred between those same racial/ethnic groups opposing CRT.

==+==

I had to read this more than once to determine if this was satire or reality. Unfortunately, it appears to be reality, to whit, the Trudeau government is unable to define the term “woman”.

This begs the question to our Canadian brethren: What the hell is going on in Canada?

The Trudeau government does not know what a woman is. This is not rhetorical, it is what they have directly said. A ministry known as Women and Gender Equality states that it "does not use a specific definition of 'woman.'"

An organization founded by Canadian women to protect sex-based rights in the nation, caWsbar, revealed this fact earlier this month, after one of their associates asked the department of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) in Canada "I'd like to know what definition your Ministry uses to define the word 'woman.'"

In answer, the government responded "WAGE does not use a specific definition of 'woman.'" This seems odd, given that the word 'women' is part of the agency's name.

I would have to say the last sentence in the quote above is a good example of irony.

It is sad to see our neighbor to the north descending into madness, a fate that I had hoped they might escape. But it seems they have fallen deeper into insanity than we have, and that’s a shame.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is going to be hot and humid for the next few days, the beaches will be full now that school is out, and where I am glad I have A/C both at home and at work.

Institutional Racism Belongs To Whom?

Thoughts On A Sunday

We have survived another Motorcycle Week. The rumbles of thousands of bikes are fading into the distance as visitors head home, leaving their cash behind which have filled the tills of many an establishment in this area.

For the most part I have avoided much of the bike traffic. Part of the weekend was spent out on the lake on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, avoiding the motorcycle traffic filling the local roads altogether.

Four things I did take care of over the weekend in the way of chores weren’t all that time consuming, with only two of them requiring venturing out onto the roads – having the oil changed in the trusty RAM 1500 (which was almost 1000 miles overdue) and hitting the local barber shop for a haircut (which I did right after the oil change was done).

The other two were rather mundane, the first being correcting a small error I made assembling the new Official Weekend Pundit Gas Grill (which took all of 5 minutes to correct). The second was troubleshooting a problem with the garage door opener which didn’t want to be found...until the chain sprocket on the drive motor came off, snapping off the sprocket shaft right where it comes out of the motor casing.

So ended my efforts at fixing it this weekend. In the mean time I’ll be spending time online to see if I can find a replacement part.

Normally I wouldn’t be worried about getting it taken care of so quickly because the door can be opened manually, but in this case the WP Mom uses the garage and I don’t want to make it any more difficult for her than absolutely necessary. So if I can’t find the parts I need in the next couple of days I won’t waste any more time and I’ll get a new garage door opener.

And so it goes with home ownership.

==+==

As the debate about racist Critical Race Theory being forced down the throats of kids at school or adults at their places of work expands, I find that many of the proponents of CRT have absolutely no idea what it entails or its history. They only know what they’ve been told be people who do not have their best interests at heart.

While CRT has its roots in Marxism, another socialist group used it to justify the murder of millions of people they didn’t like. The parallels between CRT and the Nazi ideology of hate are striking.

Could some of the support of CRT come from ignorance, willful or not, or people’s lack of understanding when it comes to history? (I find that the two are not mutually exclusive.)

In either case, people supporting something they do not understand, something hateful and racist, will come back to haunt them when they see their children acting with racist intent that CRT was supposed to ‘cure’. They won’t understand that they’ve allowed racism to re-establish itself in a country that has fought harder than most to do away with racism.

Just how effed up is that?

==+==

Skip over at GraniteGrok brings up a good point regarding Progressives - Progressives are, in general, angrier about more things than Conservatives.

Writes Skip:

I don’t understand this other than having a Savior complex in which EVERY STUPID thing has to be taken as a crisis and everyone besides themselves and their SJW-wrapped-up ideological kin must be made into second or third class citizens (if not demoted to evil subhumans).

From the comments comes this follow up:

This is something I've been thinking about for some time, seeing the depths Progressives will sink to to elevate some trivial matter to MAJOR CRISIS! status, just so they have something to be 'for' or 'against'. They need a "cause" or they feel their lives are without meaning. They can't do the Civil Rights thing since their grandparents were at the forefront of that fight. There's not all that much left unless they truly want to put their lives on the line (which they won't because they aren't that brave). So they take that aforementioned trivial crap and blow it all out of proportion so they have that something to be 'for' or 'against'.

However, there's a problem with that, that being the people now realize what they're doing and aren't willing to buy in to their latest MAJOR CRISIS! The people understand it is the fruit of people desperate to be relevant.

It seems there’s an ever growing list of things we’re supposed to be concerned about, to torture ourselves over, things over which we have absolutely no control. If we did as the Progressives demand, nothing would ever get done, the economy would collapse, people would starve to death or die of otherwise treatable diseases because there are no medicines available and...well, you get the idea.

It’s time to show the Progressive obsession with trivialities for what they are – absurdities worthy only of being ridiculed and then ignored. We all have more important things to deal with in our lives. Maybe our Progressive brothers and sisters need to do likewise.

==+==

The latest victim of Get Woke, Go Broke?

HBO-Max.

In the rush to elevate anyone shouting about the evils of white people, HBO Max is littered with basement garbage that looks like the work of college students laboring on public access TV.

HBO-Max rolled to the Left and has seen its subscriber numbers falling off, just like so many other corporations and organizations that preceded it. Pandering to a small percentage of their customer base at the expense of the majority is always a losing proposition. It has been proven again and again over the past few years, yet the corporate C-level executives choose to ignore the lessons of those who went before them and then suffer the same fate.

==+==

And speaking of Going Woke (and likely going to go broke), it looks like Victoria’s Secret has been infected with the ‘woke’ virus.

One has to wonder what the folks at Victoria’s Secret are thinking. Haven’t they seen the outcome of other businesses when they went ‘woke’? Is it something they truly believe they should do, or is it just yet another example of corporate virtue signaling? In either case, it isn’t going to help them, particularly in light of their already falling sales numbers. At worse, this will merely hasten their fall into bankruptcy.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been great, the lake keeps beckoning, and where the rumble of motorcycles is fading away.

A Few Bike Week 2021 Observations

It’s the second weekend of Motorcycle Week here in central New Hampshire. The ‘second wave’ of bikes started arriving this past Thursday, bringing with it the constant rumble of motorcycles.

While this isn’t the largest crowd we’ve seen for a Bike Week, it’s pretty darned close. Officials have already started planning for both the 99^th and 100^th Annual Motorcycle Week. It is expected the 100^th Annual Motorcycle Week will be huge.

Some have asked whether I am sick of the sound of all the bikes and I have to honestly say that I am not. That rumble means dollar signs and the hospitality industry here in New Hampshire is raking in the bucks. It means so for the entire state as Bike Week, while centered here in the Lake Winnipesaukee area, reaps benefits for other areas of the state as well since the visiting bikers travel all over the state sightseeing and attending other Bike Week related activities and events in other towns and counties.

The weather has certainly been cooperative for the most part, with rain on this past Monday and some showers early this morning and more expected late this afternoon/early evening.

Of the few bikers I have talked to, they have all enjoyed this year’s Bike Week, glad that it has fully returned.

It's Up Versus Down, Not Left Versus Right

I came across a reference to this speech by Ronaldus Magnus in a comment over at Chris Muir’s DayByDay cartoon. Ronald Reagan brought up a number of good points that are relevant even today. What’s even more interesting is that Ronaldus Magnus gave this speech back in October of 1964. One of the more poignant and thought provoking quotes from that speech is something we need to keep in mind, particularly in light of the situation our nation is facing today.

“You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”

It is a constant battle between freedom and security.

Those who fear or can be convinced to fear all kinds of things that are common in life seem willing to surrender their freedom to those who helped foster those fears to begin with. It is not a new thing by any means as we have seen this numerous times during the 20^th century alone.

The 21^st century versions of those selling fear have a more effective set of platforms to instill fear in the populace, and it helps them that most of the media is all in on helping to do so, to help push everyone (but them) down to the lowest common denominator, to give them dominion unending over those who have willingly sold themselves into slavery.

They must not succeed.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The roar of motorcycles filled a good portion of last evening, just as they did during the day today. The weather has been great all weekend and looks to be good all week (except for Monday, maybe). That will certainly help the visiting bikers plenty of time to enjoy the amenities (and spend a lot of money). It does mean the rest of us will likely be avoiding our usual haunts, giving them over to the visitors. (This is nothing new. While we love our local restaurants, we don’t always like dealing with the folks from away, so we tend not to visit them nearly as often between mid-June and Labor Day. The one exception is the seasonal restaurants that are only open during the summer.)

One of the important tasks I did take care of this weekend was assembling the new Official Weekend Pundit Gas Grill. I have been without a grill since we sold The Manse (the new owners wanted to keep the grill, so I left it behind), and the WP Mom convinced me it was time to bite the bullet and acquire a new one. A George Foreman grill can only go so far when it comes to grilling some nice marinated sirloin tips. A good flame does it better. All I need to do now is pick up a 20lb bottle of propane and it will be ready to go.

==+==

By way of Instapundit comes this confession by one of the people responsible for the kangaroo kourt konvictions of young male college students on vaguely defined sexual assault/sexual harassment charge, asking “How much damage have me and my colleagues done?”

The possibility that this young woman held in her hands the power to derail their son’s education, something these parents might have been imagining since he was in utero, was untenable. The possibility that the process designed to respond to exactly these sorts of accusations already appeared to presuppose his guilt — that was unimaginable.

No amount of assurance on my part convinced them that their son would be treated fairly. If that were the case, why were they already being told he had to leave campus and his classes before there was so much as a preliminary hearing? . . .

“My son’s hearing was a joke,” she said. “He never stood a chance. Do you know that the hearing officer and the investigator are good friends? And that the ‘advocate’” — she practically spit out the word — “they assigned to him was also a friend of theirs? I found them all on Facebook, attending the wedding of the person who is supposed to hear appeals. All friends. I saw them leaving together after the hearing, and in the parking lot of a restaurant heading in together. We decided to eat somewhere else.”

Thus was the “presumed guilty until proven innocent...and are still guilty even if proved innocent” attitude that came to exist on college campuses due to that damnable “Dear Colleague” letter. It also led to lawsuit after lawsuit against colleges and universities for ‘convictions’ based on nothing but an accusation, the so-called courts ignoring due process, meaning the accused was always assumed to be guilty, had little or no opportunity to question the accuser or present exculpatory evidence. The telling event about these kangaroo courts is that the plaintiffs won case after case after case against those institutions of higher learning, in some cases receiving millions of dollars in damages. Yet the kangaroo courts continued unabated and an untold number of young college men have seen their lives turned upside down based solely upon an accusation, no proof required, no actual investigation performed.

==+==

More counties (and states) are declaring themselves Second Amendment Sanctuaries, a growing trend as Americans see the federal government (including Congress and especially the President) willfully ignoring the Constitution by trying their best to eliminate one of our enumerated rights. If the feds succeed in this effort, the next one in their sights will be the First Amendment, and after that maybe the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. (Remember that President * has stated that a constitutional amendment isn’t ‘absolute’, meaning he believes the Constitution can be ignored by the government as needed. Then again we know the extreme Left Wing of the Democrat Party doesn’t believe in the Constitution and would love to be able to ignore it entirely.)

The legislature in my home state passed a bill that makes New Hampshire a Second Amendment Sanctuary state. We’re just waiting for our governor to sign it. (We expect he will as he has been a strong advocate for the Second Amendment, for the most part.) If he does sign it, I would push to see an amendment in the state constitution to strengthen the Second Amendment sanctuary status so a future Democrat majority legislature can’t remove it at whim.

If we don’t defend our Rights now, there may not be a later to do so, or it will require armed rebellion, bloodshed, and a lot of death, something none of us wants.

==+==

For anyone who’s been paying attention over the past year, this won’t be a surprise.

It turns out everything President Trump claimed prior to the election last November was true. Even the DNC-MSM is now admitting he was right, though reluctantly.

==+==

You know it’s bad when a member of a foreign government friendly to the US states Biden “is so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him.”

Those of us paying attention have known that for well over a year, ever since SloJo started running for the Democrat nomination. He’s displayed classic symptoms of dementia, has had limited exposure to the public, calling a ‘lid’ on his appearances early in the day. He has memory lapses that can’t be covered up, even by the leftist DNC-MSM. He appears confused, doesn’t seem to know where he is from one moment to the next, and has difficulties with his vocabulary, and you rarely, if ever, see him evenings. (Those suffering from dementia tend to be worse late in the day/evenings, something called ‘sundowning’ or ‘sunsetting’.)

How can anyone believe SloJo is running anything if he’s having problems dealing with everyday activities? When our allies comment on SloJo’s diminishing capacity, one has to think they are seeing the same things we are, but up close and personal.

==+==

I’m sure the business owners in San Francisco are pleased as punch about the ‘new normal’ when it comes to selling their goods, that being looting/shoplifting. California’s changing the definition of felony theft by setting a much higher felony threshold for the value of goods stolen ($950) has certainly helped fuel the problem. Then there’s also this:

An organizer for Black Lives Matter has informed us that such activities are to be regarded not as theft but as “reparations” owed to those who are oppressed according to liberal doctrine.

What has been the unintended consequences of the new normal?

Walgreens has been closing stores because it is effectively legal to shoplift in Democrat-dominated California. Thieves are expected to limit themselves to swiping less than $950 worth of merchandise at a time. However, if you allow any crime, you get a lot.

This was the insight behind the Broken Windows approach to police work that allowed Rudy Giuliani to clean up New York City, which has since slipped back into dysfunction thanks to liberal rule. The current War on Police and ever more lenient treatment of criminals puts Broken Windows into reverse by encouraging crime.

Then when crime is rampant and society is coming apart, they will ‘crack down on crime’ using draconian measures, with crime being redefined to mean anything they want it to mean, including exercising the freedom of speech. Then again, that’s exactly what they want, as most incipient totalitarians do.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rumble of motorcycles is constant, the weather is great, and where The Day That Shall Not Be Named has returned...again.

Motorcycle Week Has Returned!

It started yesterday just prior to noon.

At first it was just an occasional rumble passing by my place of employment. Over the next few hours the occasional rumble became a steady stream, passing from south to north. It was interspersed with occasional light showers lasting only a few minutes.

No, it wasn’t lines of thundershowers working their way through central New Hampshire.

It was thousands of motorcycles making their way to Laconia for the 98^th Annual Laconia Motorcycle Week. Today marks the beginning of 9 days of celebrating the love of motorcycles.

Laconia Bike Week is one of the Big Three gatherings of motorcycle enthusiasts taking place in the US every year – Daytona, Laconia, and Sturgis.

Last year’s celebration was delayed due to Covid, taking place in a greatly attenuated form during the fall. Less then 25% of the usual number of attendees made the trip, something understandable under the circumstances.I have a feeling this year’s attendance will be close to a record as people are shaking off the last vestiges of Covid lockdown/lockout from their systems.

We’ve certainly seen record numbers for vacation bookings in this area this year, with every seasonal rental booked months ago from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and heavy bookings between Labor Day and Columbus Day. The restaurants, food shacks, and food trucks are all busier that we’ve ever seen. That leads me to believe this will apply to Motorcycle Week as well. I am certainly seeing more motorcycles on a first Saturday than I recall seeing during previous Bike Weeks. All parking lots at some of my favorite breakfast eateries were full of motorcycles. There were a lot of bikes in the Walmart parking lot late this morning. The same was true of the lots at our two supermarkets at the edge of town.

Things are getting back to normal. It’s about time.

Proposed New Gun Legislation - New Hampshire

This is a comment I made to an Instapundit post dealing with the aftermath of the shooting in Boulder, Colorado three months ago. Seeing as it is likely our governor is going to sign a bill that makes New Hampshire a Second Amendment Sanctuary State, I thought I would bear repeating as a proposal for new gun legislation here in the Live Free Or Die state, to whit:

"Every able-bodied adult not otherwise restricted by law (convicted felons and those under Domestic Violence Restraining Orders or Mental Health Orders) shall be required to carry a loaded firearm when out in public. Accommodation will be made for religious belief exemptions. Those who cannot afford firearms or ammo will report to their nearest police station where loaner weapons and ammo can be signed out for not more than 4 days. Loaner periods can be extended but the requests must be made in person and cannot exceed 28 days. Loaner weapons and ammo will be returned to the PD in the same condition as they were issued. The cost of any loaner ammunition expended shall be reimbursed to the PD within 90 days of use."

Yes, it needs some work, but I figured I could lay out the basics here for your perusal. As comments [still] aren’t working, you can e-mail your suggestions to the e-mail address in the ‘Contributors’ link to the right.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a typical summer weekend, being hot and humid (more so today rather than yesterday). Plenty of summerfolk were about over the weekend, though it wasn’t as crazy this weekend as it was over the Memorial Day weekend even with the better weather these past two days.

We are also likely to see our first official heat wave (three consecutive days of temperatures 90ºF or above) which started today and is supposed to last through Tuesday. The hot and humid weather is likely to generate thunderstorms each day, a not atypical effect of this type of weather. It will mean keeping an eye on the sky, particularly while being out on the lake. Being caught out on the lake in a thunderstorm is no fun. (I can speak from experience about this.)

I am still surprised to see how many boats are still in storage at some of the local boatyards/marinas and how many slips are still not occupied despite there being a shortage of available slips. The pier where I berth the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout – aka The Boat – would normally have all of the boats tied up at their usual berths. But as of today mine is the only boat there, one of the last things I expected to see at this point. Usually all the berths are occupied before Memorial Day.

It is a paradox – a very high demand for boat slips, a lot of boats still in storage, and a lot of boat slips are still empty. The boat yards and marinas are very busy trying to get the boats still in storage ready to launch. They had a bit of a head start since the winter weather was pretty much done by mid/late March. (That’s when I called the boat yard that stores and services The Boat and made arrangements to have it pulled out of storage and readied to launch by the second weekend of May. They weren’t able to get it ready until the third weekend!)

I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot of paradoxes this summer.

==+==

The housing crunch continues, both here in northern New England and elsewhere in the rural and semi-rural areas, so-called ‘Flyover Country’.

People are fleeing the cities...blue cities… and blue states for red states and cities and Flyover Country to escape the effects of Covid, the overbearing taxes, the high cost of living, the rising crime, the spreading mental illness of the ‘woke’, increasing populations of homeless, and a whole list of other self-inflicted blue state/city ills. By doing so, the demand for housing in the non-blue areas has skyrocketed.

We’ve certainly seen that issue here in New Hampshire, with folks from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York buying homes here and driving up the prices since they seem to be willing to offer well above asking price to get a home they want. Of the three groups, it surprises me that a majority of those folks ‘from away’ are from Connecticut and that most of those are not from the cities. Please be aware this is anecdotal data, some from people whom I asked directly, other info from the real estate transaction data, and yet other data from a few realtors I know – though not from my realtor – so take my claim with a grain of salt. The balance come from Massachusetts and then New York and the few I know of personally from New York came from Upstate New York, not the Metro New York Area.

I have seen selling prices going through the roof, whether that’s because the folks ‘from away’ didn’t grasp that property prices here were a lot lower than where they came from or they want to make sure they get the house they’ve set their sights on. Perhaps it’s a mixture of both. All I know is that home prices have gone way up, locking a lot of locals out of the market. There’s also the the huge increase in the cost of building materials which is making things even worse.

I’ve postponed starting construction on The New Manse because lumber costs have gone up over 300%, and plywood prices are up over 400%, making it financially untenable for me to even consider building anytime soon. That’s true for a lot of other families wanting a new home. Developers aren’t necessarily going to dive in at this time either for the same reason. They know the demand and prices will fall, just like they always do, and they don’t want to be left with overpriced homes they can’t sell.

It’s not that new homes aren’t being built. They are. However, they tend not to be ‘spec’ houses but higher end homes that a lot of middle class families can’t possibly afford. Therein lies the problem.

The other problem is that corporations are also buying houses in ‘resort’ areas, turning them into short-term rentals listed via AirBnB and VRBO, just to name two online rental sites. That means homes that would normally house a family, be it year round or seasonally, is no longer being used as a normal residence. This has also driven up housing prices as these LLCs are willing to outbid other buyers as they see the home as a source of revenue. (We recently saw an ~1700 sqft chalet with a gravel driveway, no garage, and no view that would normally sell for ~$240k went for $700k to an out-of-state LLC who plans to use it solely for short-term rentals. In that general neighborhood there are just shy of 100 homes that are now short-term rental only. That’s 100 less houses available as residences for families.)

==+==

Over the years I’ve had more than a few people ask me if I believe in UFOs. I have asked them in turn if they meant ‘Unidentified Flying Objects’ or ‘Little Green Men’.

If they reply with the first, I say “Yup. I’ve seen more than a few in my time.” If they reply with the second, I say “I’ve seen something, but I can’t say if it’s Little Green Men or not.”

Are they secret government craft? Are they of alien origin? Is it the “Russkies”, the Chinese, or someone else? (I’m thinking it’s Elon Musk and his SpaceX guys pulling it off.)

All we do know is that US Government is saying “We don’t know.”

The report concluded that the vast majority of the incidents did not originate with the American military or other advanced U.S. government technology. That some of them might have is an intriguing possibility. Just what is it that the U.S. military is flying around up there?

It should be noted that the intelligence agencies mostly examined incidents involving Navy pilots. Most of the incidents occurred at sea while a few of the occurrences were recorded by Navy vessels in the open ocean. A few other incidents studied came from foreign militaries.

Are they telling the truth? “We don’t know.”

So, basically they’re saying the same thing they did back in 50’s and 60’s with Project Blue Book: “We don’t know...and we wouldn’t tell you even if we did.”

==+==

Maggie’s Farm asks “How far can social insanity go?”

I don’t think we’re anywhere near peak social insanity yet, but we’re getting there. When we do, it’s going to be ugly, and, unfortunately, likely to be deadly.

==+==

Twitter is getting slapped around, being hoisted upon their own petard after the government of Nigeria banned it in their country because of the platform’s partisan censorship.

Twitter’s ‘policy police’ fired back with an unwittingly ironic response, stating “We are deeply concerned by the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria. Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right in modern society.” The fact-deficient response to Nigeria’s action unleashed a well deserved flood of “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black” responses.

Lauren Chen’s tweet slapped Twitter’s ‘thought police’ right upside their collective heads:

So why are you depriving President Trump, Laura Loomer, Mike Lindell, Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones, and countless others of this "essential human right"?

I expect Twitter will ignore Ms. Chen’s tweet...or delete it for violating their ‘Terms of Use’ policy.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer has actually arrived despite what the calendar says, where I’ll be spending time out on the lake, and Monday is once again interfering with spending even more time out on the lake.

Will New Hampshire Become The Newest Second Amendment Sanctuary State?

First, we were an Open Carry state.

Then we became a Constitutional Carry state.

Now, with the passage of SB154 in the New Hampshire House, we are going to become a Second Amendment Sanctuary state. (This assumes our governor will continue his track record of supporting the 2^nd Amendment and sign the bill.)

More states are sending a signal that they will not tolerate or support the Progressives in federal government efforts to erase the Second Amendment, and with it the ability to protect the rest of our constitutionally enumerated rights.

(H/T GraniteGrok)

Throw This One At Them

I think I can use this as a counter to the gun-grabbers' argument.