Thoughts On A Sunday

At first I thought it was just “one of those things” – heavy traffic on a Saturday morning, heavier than usual. Heavy traffic on Saturdays at that time of day – around 10AM - is not unusual. We see it most Saturdays which is why I do my shopping and so on Sunday mornings before church. There’s not much traffic and not too many people shopping then.

I headed out from The Gulch at 9:30 yesterday morning to run errands – take care of some banking, get a haircut, meet the ex for brunch, stop off at Ocean State Job Lots – and return home. From the moment I left The Gulch I knew things weren’t going to go well. I could go into a lengthy diatribe about all of the traffic craziness I experienced, but I’ll save you the boredom and just list them, sort of:

-Someone couldn’t decide which lane they wanted to be in so straddled the line between two lanes until they were forced to make a decision.

-Another motorist pulled into the entrance of our local shopping center...then stopped dead in the middle of the entrance, preventing any other vehicles from entering or exiting, until the driver decided where they wanted to go. By that time traffic was backed up both in the parking lot and the main road.

-Driving to the barber shop I had to deal with a driver who decided traffic lights, lane markings, speed limits, and turn signals were inconveniences to be ignored. I guess he was in a big hurry as worked his way through traffic, forcing his way into lines of traffic, running a couple of red lights, crossing over into oncoming traffic...right until one of the cars he went head to head with turned out to be a local police cruiser.

-After my haircut I headed to the nearby entrance to the local Interstate and headed north on my way to pick up my ex for brunch. A few miles up traffic dropped from 70mph to a complete stop, then continued at a slow crawl for the next 4 miles. What caused the traffic jam? A State Trooper writing a ticket, probably for speeding. I guess many of the motorists had never seen a Statie write a speeding ticket before, so they slowed to a crawl to take a look.

-At a stoplight near the ex’s place the fellow at the front of the line waiting for left turn light to turn green did not move once the left arrow changed to green. Or the second time it turned green. (No, his truck was running and wasn’t broken down.) The third time was the charm and when the light yet again changed to green he finally made the left turn. As he did so I could see the smartphone in his left hand and could see just enough of the display to realize he’d been texting.

-On the way home after brunch I was getting ready to go through one of the local roundabouts. Traffic was backed up coming from the opposite direction. There was a classic car show going on nearby and everyone seemed to be going there. One fellow waiting at the roundabout lost his patience and decided he was going to force his way through...and blocked all traffic trying to get through. Nothing moved for almost 10 minutes until a couple of local police showed up and helped get things untangled. One of the officers was having words with the miscreant who created the traffic block and I guess he said something stupid as I saw the officer’s hand go to the grip of his service pistol. Just then traffic going the direction I was headed started moving, so I didn’t see the outcome of that particular incident. One thing I did notice is that plate on the miscreant’s car was from out-of-state.

There were a few more incidents before I traveled the last 5 miles home. This had to be one of the worst (and stupidest) day for traffic that I have ever seen. It was one stupid or mindless thing after another. Thank goodness I didn’t have to run any errands today except for my usual pre-church Walmart run, and I did that at 7:30 this morning.

==+==

James Lileks rightfully fisks yet another willfully ignorant and clueless socialist about the realities of the world, including how socialism doesn’t work, has never worked, and will never work.

One would think that after 400-some years of trying to make it work and failing miserably Every. Single. Time. that the Socialists would get the message, right? But like any addict, those addicted to an idea that has poisoned the minds of hundreds of millions and broken the spirit and bodies of billions over the ages is not something easy to give up. Despite generations of data and evidence showing just how awful socialism is, the addicts can’t give it up. What’s worse is that they addict others to this amoral and unethical political system.

It needs to be thrown upon the ash heap of history, permanently, not brought back again and again like another episode of The Walking Dead.

==+==

You know it’s getting bad for the DNC when even lifelong Democrats are abandoning the party because it has shifted so far to the left. The change they were promised is not the change they are seeing, and it disturbs them deeply.

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What is it with all these conservative Republicans refusing to get vaccinated? Don’t they realize they are putting others at risk by not being vaccinated?

Wait...what? They aren’t the ones refusing vaccination? If it isn’t them, then who is it?

The Biden administration, stung by missing its vaccine targets and the rising COVID-19 cases, has decided to blame Republicans. That’s not surprising. But it’s traditionally Democratic groups – minorities and the young – who aren’t getting vaccinated, and it’s leftists who are the most influential anti-vaxxers on the planet.

As Politico reported recently, “the Biden administration is casting conservative opponents of its COVID-19 vaccine campaign as dangerous and extreme.”

The administration points to state immunization rates as proof that anti-vaxxers on the right are to blame for the problem. “State vaccine rates fall along red, blue divide,” is how The Hill reported it.

But wait a minute. The states with low vaccination rates also tend to have larger minority populations. And blacks are the least likely racial or ethnic group to have been vaccinated, with Hispanics the second least likely, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

So it isn’t along political lines this divide lies, but ethnic lines. Yes, there are certainly political aspects to this, but not the ones being sold to everyone. For the White House and the DNC-MSM to lay the blame entirely at the feet of Republicans is disingenuous at best, and purposely deceptive at worst. Then again, we have come to expect that from WRBA, Pelosi, Schumer, and the Communist faction of the DNC.

==+==

So, now MLB is going politically correct, changing the name of the Cleveland Indians to the Cleveland Guardians, are they?

How stupid.

One has to wonder if any of the morons pushing the change have any understanding of where the name “Indians” came from? Probably not. If they did, I doubt they would be so quick to push changing the name.

All one needs to do is look up the name Louis Francis Sockalexis. Of course this late 19^th/early 20^th Century member of the Penobscot tribe in Maine must be erased from history because he is inconvenient to the 21^st Century ‘sensibilities’ of today’s woke a**holes.

They are erasing our history one person at a time and doing it on purpose, feeling smug about it every time they succeed.

==+==

I know it’s likely you have already read this somewhere, but you know Facebook has gone full “stupid” when it censors the name of a garden tool – a hoe – because they think it is a derogatory term for a prostitute, which is spelled “H”-“O”, short for “wh*re”. Apparently their filtering algorithm is incapable of spelling.

==+==

Anyone paying attention knows that Biden’s so-called “Infrastructure Plan” has little to do with actually building any infrastructure.

This is just another version of Obama’s $878 billion ‘stimulus’, of which only $55 billion actually went to infrastructure. The rest of the money was used as payoffs to political patrons and cronies. This one won’t be any different, with even a smaller percentage (0.8% versus Obama’s 6.3%) going to actual infrastructure.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been pretty good (except for some rain this morning), The Boat has a full tank of gas, and where I’m heading out onto the lake to enjoy a couple of hours.

A Clash Of Cultures

I have been involved in a discussion in a Disqus thread regarding the lack of available housing and the rapid rise in home prices. This has also brought up the problem of folks ‘from away’ moving into their new towns and screwing things up. This brought to mind a series I posted a couple of times in the past – Weekend Pundit’s Guide To Country Living - with the latest postings (in 2019) updated to reflect the changes since the original postings in 2003.

I dug those out of the Weekend Pundit Archives to review them and realized they were still germane, but needed major updates to reflect the new conditions. So I will be going through them and making those changes, to point out to the newcomers that they are now living in a different culture and we will not change our culture to meet their demands, that they are acting like the stereotypical “Ugly American”. Call it a clash of cultures.

Hmm, maybe we could even offer classes such as suggested for the Loeb/Reynolds Orientation Institute, aka Glenn Reynolds’ Welcome Wagon idea?

Hopefully I can get them revised and posted over the coming week.

If Only...

Me: “I’ll have a Big Mac and a large chocolate shake.”

McDonald’s employee: “Do you want cartridges with that?”

Me: “Umm, yeah. Can you supersize them?”

McDonald’s employee: “Sure. Do you want want .223 or .308Win?”

Me: “.308Win, please.”

McDonald’s employee: “OK, please drive up to the first window...”

I Know It's A Parody...Or Is It?

I hate to say it, but this is probably been one of the most intelligent things I've seen from the intellectually challenged Congresscritter from New York.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We were hoping for nice weather this weekend, but Mother Nature decided to jerk us along and it’s been cloudy, cool, with rain here and there. There was heavy rain until late this morning, but even though it tapered off it didn’t end. It has certainly put a bit of a damper on NASCAR weekend down at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, affecting the Foxwoods 301 race.

I feel sorry for the folks who are here for their week or two of vacation. Rain this weekend with forecasts for showers and thunderstorms on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

This brings to mind the heatwave/drought beating the heck out of the Northwest and West and the heavy rains and flooding in Germany and Belgium. It makes one wonder if there has been a ‘weather swap’ between the US and Europe. One of my employer’s mechanical designers lives in London and he’s been telling us he’s needed a jacket just to go to church...in July.

It must be glowball warmening.

==+==

I keep bringing this up and will continue to do so until the Green Energy faithful are willing to admit this is viable alternative to the gawd-awful renewables (solar and wind). What am I speaking about?

Nuclear power.

Renewables are energy diffuse, taking up a lot of space for a given amount of energy. They cause far more ecological damage than it is supposed to prevent as a result. They require a lot more maintenance and need it more frequently than proponents claim. They do not have the longevity, efficiency, capacity, or up-time of nuclear facilities.

Depending upon the type of reactor, nuclear plants are capable of running at 100% capacity for years. Generation I and II plants need to be shut down roughly every two or three years for a couple of months for refueling. Generation III and IV plants can run for many years between refueling, with some never requiring a shutdown to refuel. (Molten salt reactors can be refueled continuously without shutting down.)

New nuclear technology is safer, easier and less expensive to build, and can be made in different sizes/ capacities depending upon where and how they are being deployed. Much of that technology has already been in use, courtesy of the US Navy. One must remember that the conditions under which Navy reactors operate are much more severe than those of commercial reactors and are a good test bed for technologies that have not yet been deployed commercially. While the Navy reactors are different from commercial power reactors, the operating principles and much of the technologies are the same.

Some of the Small Modular Reactors being developed are very similar to the reactor designs used by the Navy in the Ford-class aircraft carriers and the Seawolf and Virginia-class submarines. SMRs are one part of the future for carbon-free energy and the sooner the Green Energy faithful realize this the sooner we can see to its deployment.

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Who says there’s no such thing as karma?

It appears some of the Texas Democrats who fled the Lone Star State for Washington DC as a means of avoiding a vote on changes to Texas election laws have found that karma is a bitch – Three of them have tested positive for Covid. What’s ironic is that the fleeing Texas Democrat legislators posed maskless on the two jets they chartered to make their escape. (If we were flying commercial airlines we wouldn’t get a pass on wearing masks since they are mandated.)

One has to wonder if they could be charged with endangering Washington DC by bringing new Covid cases into the Swamp?

==+==

Speaking of elections, it appears the Arizona audits have turned up a number of irregularities that cannot be explained away as errors, just one of those irregularities being 74,000 more mail-in ballots being counted than were mailed out.

The Arizona Senate, led by Senate President Karen Fann, held a hearing on Thursday to discuss the preliminary results of the first phase of the audit in Maricopa County. The state senate heard testimony from three witnesses involved in the audit, Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, AZ audit Liaison Ken Bennett, and Ben Cotton, CEO and founder of Cytech Services. During the hearing, the auditors revealed that Maricopa County still has not provided many materials needed to complete the audit, including routers, chain of custody documentation, and images of mail in ballots.

Logan said the information on the ballots provided by Maricopa County should have matched up, but were way off the mark.

“Just to be clear, here in the state of Arizona, there are EV 32s and EV 33s,” Logan explained during the hearing. “EV 32s are supposed to keep a record of when a mail-in ballot is sent, and EV 33s are supposed to be a record of when the mail-in ballot is received.

“There should be more EV 32s,” Logan continued, “more that were sent out, than EV 33s that were received. We can tie these specifically to an individual who it was mailed to. So we have 74,000 that came back from individuals where we don’t have a clear indication that the ballot was ever sent out to them.”

This was but one of many discrepancies noted during the audit, others of which included hundreds of thousands of ballots without serial numbers, mismatches between the numbers of original and duplicate ballots (duplicates are made if the originals cannot be read by the ballot machines), and participants and who voted who were then removed from the voter rolls and others who were not on the voter rolls on November 7th but mysteriously appeared on voter rolls on December 4th and were marked as having voted in the November 3rd election.

Maybe it’s just me, but all of this points to deliberate and blatant voter fraud, planned and coordinated. This is just one county in Arizona. What will a statewide audit show?

It will be interesting to see what the audit in Georgia will show as well as the possible audit in Pennsylvania.

One thing is clear, the November 3rd election was not clean and not fair. There were too many shenanigans, too many questionable results to believe it was a clean election.

What I find interesting, but not surprising, is that the folks who benefited from the irregularities are the same folks who want to enshrine legislation (HR1 and S1) which will make voter fraud even easier to commit and harder to prevent or prosecute.

==+==

Could the Democrats’ efforts to ‘prevent’ voter suppression be concealing their efforts to eliminate the principle of ‘One Man. One Vote.”?

Why, yes. Yes it is.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’ll be seeing rain for the next few days, our drought problems are likely solved for the time being, and where I am not bothered by Monday returning since it’s going to be raining anyways.

California's Woke Math Has Nothing To Do With Actual Math

Gee, who’da thunk it?

It seems that someone in California has come to the realization that ‘woke’ math is going to “de-mathematize math.”

That’s not a surprise to anyone who uses mathematics as part of their job. You know, engineers, physicists, chemists, accountants, financiers, mathematicians, rocket scientists, and so on. Now it appears that aforementioned ‘someone’ in California realizes politicizing math, i.e. ‘woke’ math that actually has little to do with actual math, is not such a good idea.

The California Board of Education will not implement its newly proposed mathematics curriculum after critics argued its racial equality components would “de-mathematize math.”

California is on the verge of politicizing K-12 math in a potentially disastrous way. This postponement means the State Board of Education has heard the message loud and clear. STEM leaders don’t want California students left behind by introducing politics into the math curriculum,” said Dr. Williamson M. Evers, a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, in a statement following an open letter he pinned (sic) to California’s education and political leaders.

--snip--

The letter goes on to argue that attention to non-math-related ideals — such as "environmental and social justice," "sociopolitical consciousness," and "problems that result in social inequalities" — would shift instruction away from the actual subject of the course.

“This proposed framework will discourage districts from having advanced classes for gifted students. It’s going to block the rise of talented kids to important roles in society, serving us as engineers, getting rockets in the air, and getting bridges built properly,” Evers argued in the letter.

He added: "For all the rhetoric in this framework about equity, social justice, environmental care, and culturally appropriate pedagogy, there is no realistic hope for a more fair, just, equal and well-stewarded society if our schools uproot long-proven, reliable, and highly effective math methods and instead try to build a mathless Brave New World on a foundation of unsound ideology.”

This push for ‘equity’ in math is misguided as in the end it will push ‘expertise’ in math to the lowest common denominator, just the opposite of what is needed. Why anyone thinks equity when it comes to anything in life is a good idea escapes me.

Those pushing for equity haven’t thought it through, don’t realize exactly what equity means and how it will make everything worse.

The best case outcome would be the dystopian world of Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron. The worse case would be a return to feudal society were everyone (except the elite, i.e. the ‘nobles’) would live a hand-to-mouth existence under the rule of the elite. Under either case, or anything in between, those pushing for equity and understanding what it means automatically think they will be the ones in charge. But most of them are more likely to end up as one of the unwashed masses as the elite doesn’t like competition.

Will this same push for ‘equity’ in math also apply to Science, to History, to Civics, to English, to all subjects? Lord, I hope not because then children will learn nothing of any value, but they’ll be well indoctrinated and will be qualified to be a menial laborer, but not much more.

Yeah, that’s something to strive for.

The NFL Committing Suicide

Is the NFL signing its own death warrant?

By way of Instapundit comes this: NFL 2021 Season to Dial The Woke to 11.

As if the NFL needs to become even more woke. It has already lost millions of fans, has seen empty seats in the stands (pre-Covid as this started during the 2019 season). TV viewership has been falling off since all this woke BS started. And now they’re going even harder Left? Yeah that will work out for them...NOT.

Cue the cringe – The NFL genuflected to the Race-Obsessed Left last season and looks to be promoting race-obsessed, woke propaganda to their fan base even more this season.

--snip--

Oh dear lord, what insulting, pandering, woke nonsense. The BLM organization certainly doesn’t give a flying fig about the so-called black national anthem. They are anti-American right down to anything or anyone that celebrates this nation. And, in reality, Lift Every Voice and Sing is a song created to honor Abraham Lincoln — someone that BLM has demanded be removed from the public square.

I stopped watching and attending NFL games after the whole kneeling during the national anthem nonsense started and the NFL did nothing in 2019. Then when they knuckled under to the ‘woke’ race hustlers during the 2020 season I washed my hands of the NFL. I didn’t watch a single game, including the SuperBowl. Now it looks like they’re doubling down on stupid for this season.

Will they never learn that pandering to these ‘woke’ morons never works out for them?

To quote a commenter at the Instapundit post:

To paraphrase a wisecrack a coach made to a referee that was caught in an NFL film:

“You know what NFL means? Not For Long if you keep going left and woke!”

Indeed.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Yesterday was decidedly different from Thursday and Friday, being sunny and warm compared the rain and cool temperatures. We got a little over and inch of rain over the two days, something we needed. As I mentioned here, I was waiting to hear from Katy about what she experienced down in Connecticut and she told me yesterday morning that she got heavy rain (about 2 inches) but not much wind.

There were a lot of people around this weekend, though not quite as many as we saw last weekend. I saw a lot of boats out on the lake, far more than last weekend, but then that was to be expected considering the weather was so much better yesterday and today.

==+==

One subject Katy and I have discussed briefly is dating, specifically dating regarding young men and women today. We both agreed that we would not want to be young adults (defining ‘young’ as under 35) dating today. The expectations of men and women, while different, seem to be unrealistic. I have mentioned my observations of young women discussing their relationships and plans, mentioning to her that many of the young women I observed had a ‘list’ of qualifications for their future spouses. Those expectations are unrealistic as nobody could possibly meet them. The men they want don’t exist. Katy didn’t disagree as I believe she may have witnessed exactly the same thing.

There are a number of YouTube channels that delve into this issue, and while many of them deal with this issue from the male point of view, there are a number of similar YouTube channels that look at this from a woman’s point of view...and they have come to the same conclusion: Too many women have unrealistic expectations.

There have been numerous YouTube videos and magazine articles where women in the 30’s (and 40’s) are asking “Where have all the good men gone?” What they don’t seem to understand is that they’re out there, but either they’re already married to someone totally different from the women asking this question, or these are the men they rejected earlier because they couldn’t meet their unrealistic expectations, and yet other men have given up on relationships, removing themselves from the dating pool entirely because they got burned one too many times and are focusing on everything except relationships, putting all their time and energy into their careers/businesses, their finances, their homes, and their recreational activities. What’s worse (for women) is that men in their 20’s are joining the ranks of the disaffected, doing much the same as their older brethren.

One has to wonder when reality will re-establish itself and sanity will return to our younger men and women.

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Speaking of reality, Bill Whittle and Zo Rachel delve into reality and the realities Progressives in this country will soon be confronting whether they want to or not.



As many of the Progressives in the Blue cities will find out, reality doesn’t care what they think or believe. To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “They are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.” They also aren’t entitled to their own ‘truths’ when those truths do not reflect reality.

As one commenter to this video wrote, “Victor Davis Hanson often points out that those who are the most self reliant are the ones who are most grounded. They have to take care of themselves, have higher self esteem, and know best how to handle personal failure with personal accountability.” Too many of the Progressives I deal with on a regular basis have few of those qualities. But they do have a lot of ignorant, close-minded, and intolerant opinions about everything and everyone “not them”. One has to wonder how they will react when reality finally gives them a Gibbs-slap to the back of the head, something I believe may happen sooner rather than later.

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

Kamala Harris Slammed for 'Kinkos' Comment in Discussing Rural Americans and Voter ID

Apparently Vice President Kamala ‘DaHo’ Harris has a very low opinion of intelligence of those of us not living in big Blue enclaves, thinking we’re incapable of obtaining photocopies of their ID because there are no Kinkos nearby. Another Democrat, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), has an ignorant view of proper Voter ID out here in the sticks:

Clyburn claimed "we are always for voter ID" and that "I don't know of a single person who is against ID'ing themselves when they go to vote. But we don't want you to tell me my ID is no good because I don't own a gun and I don't go hunting."

Really? What does owning a gun or having a hinting license have to do with voting? Does he think that a CCW permit or hunting license are the only acceptable IDs out here in Flyover Country? (Not that it would necessarily be a bad idea, but it isn’t workable...at least in many of the Blue states.)

==+==

Legal Insurrection asks a necessary question: Why does anyone think traditional policing being handled by un-uniformed ‘contractors’ in unmarked vehicles is a good idea?

It’s starting to sound an awful lot like a modern version of the old Geheim Staatzpolizei or the Komitet Gosuderstvennoy Bezopasnosti, isn’t it? Do we really want this kind policing taking place in the US?

No. No we do not.

==+==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where sunny weather has returned (until tomorrow), it really now feels like summer, and where once again Monday has returned all too soon.

Hatin' On The Cable Company

I have to admit I had to take a half hour or so to calm down before sitting down and writing this screed as I spent more than an hour trying to work my way through phone tree hell as I tried to get some technical support from one our local cable companies. (We have two cable companies to hate in our little town – Atlantic Broadband and Comcast.)

In this case I was dealing with Atlantic Broadband, trying to get some technical support for an issue I’ve been having with my cable modem, specifically shutting down the built-in WiFi because 1.) I don’t use it and 2.) I have other WiFi routers I use and have full control over and 3.) I can’t access the built-in WiFi as the security access passwords don’t work and never have. As such, the cable modem WiFi is eating up spectrum better used by other WiFi routers. (In my neighborhood I can see 40+ wireless access points on the 2.4GHz band at present, and 4 access points on 5.8GHz, of which three are located in my home – the two wireless routers I mentioned earlier and the aforementioned cable modem.)

Normally I could handle this myself, but I do not have the administrator password that would allow me to take care of this myself. (The FAQ tells me the password is on the bottom of the cable modem, but ‘Assembled in Taiwan’ didn’t work.) I was trying to get Tech Support to either access the modem remotely (which they can do) in order to shut off the WiFi transceivers, or to set a password so I can take care of it. Instead, I got the phone tree from hell which sent me in circles.

Do you think I could talk to an actual human being? Nope. Neither yesterday (Friday) or today. The phone tree would keep pointing me to the Support web page which included not one bit of information I could use. There was no opportunity to speak to an actual human being as a means of resolving my problem.

This was not an issue prior to Atlantic Broadband acquiring the local cable company. Back then an actual human being answered the Tech Support line. If they were swamped they would take my number and call me back. But now that ABB is running the show, that level of service doesn’t seem to exist.

It’s not like I’m asking for the moon, for crying out loud. I’m asking for help to shut off the WiFi transceivers in the cable modem and that’s it.

There is a second issue I do need to address as I’ve been having a problem with my e-mail, that problem being that about a third of the e-mails sent to my e-mail address bounce. (I haven’t been able to successfully send an e-mail from my work e-mail to my home e-mail for a couple of months now. Some friends have also told me they’ve had e-mails they’ve sent to me bounce, with messages that the e-mail domain wasn’t valid.)

I have to wonder just how long it will take to resolve that problem.

The Aftermath Of Elsa

The remains of Tropical Storm (formerly Hurricane Elsa) has departed from New Hampshire.

Up here in central New Hampshire we just got rain – around an inch-plus between a weather front that came through yesterday and from Elsa today – little wind and no flooding or “ponding on area roads”. The southeastern part of the state got as much as 3+ inches, some flooding, and some wind. Massachusetts saw more widespread heavy rain and flooding, but nothing to the level seen along the rest of the Eastern Seaboard.

I haven’t yet heard from Katy how much rain she received in southwestern Connecticut (she resides not all that far from New Haven), but speaking to her last evening she said they weren’t expecting more than two inches of rain where she lives.

Some have been making claims this was one of the worst tropical storms we’ve experienced in decades, all driven by climate change. I guess they have really short memories because Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy in 2012 was far more damaging, widespread, and deadlier. It hasn’t even been a decade since that storm.

One upside to all this rain up here has been easing the drought we’ve been experiencing. Not that it will do away with it, but it has helped put a pretty good dent in it.

This Is A Major Disconnect

This needs to be repeated again and again...and again...and again until the Democrats running all of these crime-ridden cities realize that they are the problem because they refuse to admit the problem lies with people and not guns.

I have a feeling this will need to be repeated ad nauseum and perpetually or this cognitive dissonance will never end. We must make them pay for their corrupted narrative.

Sunday Night At The Fireworks

Last night we managed to catch the fireworks display out on Meredith Bay on Lake Winnipesaukee despite the rain that fell on and off all day yesterday and into the early evening. The sun had popped out a few times during the day, giving us false hope the evening would have similar weather – broken clouds and no rain.

We were wrong.

Rain started falling again late afternoon/early evening, dashing any hopes there were be no further rain. Despite the rain, and then drizzle, Katy, BeezleBub, and I headed down to the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, meeting up with two of BeezleBub’s friends – Alex and Lauren – loading the boat, and heading out onto the lake and to Meredith Bay.

As we exited the cove where I dock the boat, it was drizzling quite a bit. I could see there was a ‘hard’ line in the lower cloud layer to the north, exposing the peaks of the mountains in that direction. There were also breaks in the upper cloud deck even further to the north. This filled us with hope that the weather would cooperate and the fireworks show would go on.

There were very few other boats out on the lake though those we saw were heading in the same direction as we were, telling us that we weren’t the only ones crazy enough to head out in rainy weather for fireworks. The closer we got to the bay, the less drizzle there was, another promising sign.

As we entered Meredith Harbor we could see the flashing blue lights of a couple of Marine Patrol boats and the flashing red lights of a fire boat. There were already a few boats anchored around the harbor and we joined them, dropping anchor within 150 yards or so of the fireworks barge. At the time we dropped anchor there were about 45 minutes before the show was supposed to start, so we were able relax a bit, despite the very light drizzle still falling.

More boats arrived over that 45 minute wait, with maybe another 50 dropping anchor. Normally one could expect 200+ boats to be anchored in the harbor, but the iffy weather obviously cut back the number, but the weather didn’t seem to attenuate the number of people along the shoreline.

I won’t go into the details of the fireworks show, but I can say it was spectacular! It was worth braving the damp weather.

After the show’s finale we waited a while before raising anchor and heading back down the bay, allowing time for most of the other boats to leave and for their wakes to fade away. We took our time heading home.

Looking up at the sky on the way home we found we could see the stars, meaning the upper cloud deck had cleared away while we were watching the fireworks.

We pulled in to at our dock just before 11PM, and Katy and I departed as BeezleBub said he’d button everything up on the boat, and got back to The Gulch 10 minutes later. About a half-hour later Katy, the WP Mom, the WP feline contingent, and I were in our beds and asleep. It had been a long day.

Katy departed for home late this morning, a 4-hour drive back to Connecticut ahead of her. She took some baked goods from our local farm stand with her as well as some items she picked up at a craft fair this weekend. She had experienced her first fireworks show from a boat, got to sample some of the best marinated steak tips ever, and found someone to make her some custom side tables at the craft fair.

All in all, she said she had a great weekend, the rainy weather notwithstanding.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a cool and cloudy Fourth of July weekend so far. It rained all day Friday, almost all day Saturday (which saw a high temp of 56ºF, a record low high temp), and some this morning. Tomorrow is actually supposed to be nice, sunny and warm. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some time out on the lake or at the beach.

Despite the less than stellar weather this weekend, we experienced record holiday traffic for folks coming into New Hampshire. I can attest to some of this as during my little adventure on Friday the traffic northbound into the Lakes Region and White Mountains was quite heavy, and that was at around 2:30 in the afternoon. From the news reports, it got even heavier after 5PM. I also saw a lot more traffic Saturday morning as I was running some errands in anticipation of the arrival of Katy. (I’ve mentioned her before – an old friend living in Connecticut with whom I have become reacquainted due to a serendipitous event.) Of course I do have to make mention that I normally would have taken care of all those errands on Friday, but the previously mentioned adventure made that impossible.

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Is George Soros the most dangerous most dangerous man alive?

Yes. Yes he is because he doesn’t believe in American democracy and is putting his money where his mouth is by funding political campaigns to place anti-law and order DAs and county/state attorneys with “Let the woke SA wannabe’s burn everything to the ground and arrest and prosecute anyone stupid enough to defend themselves against them” prosecutors.

Of course you’ve heard the name “George Soros,” often invoked as a sort of folk demon on the American and international right, it’s likely that you have some vague notion of why you think he’s a bad guy, or maybe you think the whole thing is a bunch of hype.

However, if you’re a freedom lover, there’s nothing “hype” about the influence that George Soros has around the world attacking your freedom. Indeed, you probably vastly underestimate the influence that he has on politics.

From the perspective of someone who values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there is no more dangerous man today than George Soros. This is not hyperbole, it is the simple truth. While we don’t plan to paint a picture of a man standing behind the scenes, rubbing his hands together and cackling as he plays puppet master over each and every attack on freedom around the world, Soros acts as a strawman and a caricature of what is actually going on in the world.

One must remember that he was a Nazi sympathizer back in the day and he’s never met a socialist he didn’t like, and in some cases, fund. We’ve seen the effects of his interference in places like Portland, Seattle, and Minneapolis where rioters are not charged and released, but police and citizens protesting themselves from those same rioters are brought up on charges.

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Katy and I attended a crafts fair held at one of our local resorts, picking up a number of items and making contacts with a number of local craftsman for possible future purchases or commissions. Katy has been looking for a new side table to go with her new couch and found one similar to what she’s been looking for and finding the creator can make one for her to fit her needs:

If for nothing else, our visit there paid off for her.

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We’re heading out on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout later this evening and heading over to one of the local bays to enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks.

Despite the less than great weather yesterday and the rain that greeted us this morning, the weather got better as the day progressed and the sun started breaking through the clouds which meant we’d be able to attend the fireworks. Of course that would be well after we finished our glorious Fourth of July repast of grilled steak tips along with the fixin’s.

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Since it is the Fourth of July, this edition of TOAS is going to be a bit abbreviated.

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s rained since Friday, the weather has been clearing, and where tomorrow will be a beautiful day to spend at the beach or out on the lake.

An Emergency Visit To The Vet

It was disturbing, seeing one of the feline contingent here at The Gulch in distress.

Cole, the oldest of our feline members of the WP clan, went from waking up from one of his many naps to running around the house, hyper-salivating (foaming at the mouth), and constantly meowing in a manner that suggested “Help me!”

It only took me a couple of minutes to wrangle him into the carrier after calling our vet, who in turn referred us the emergency veterinary clinic in our state capitol city. A quick call to them and they told me to bring him right down.

It was a tense 45 minute drive in heavy holiday weekend Friday traffic, a trip that would have normally taken 30 minutes.

The drive down had me wondering why he had gone from cool to in trouble like someone flipped a switch. I knew it wasn’t rabies since he’s been vaccinated and it doesn’t present that way. I wondered if he got into some of the rodent bait our exterminator had set out the other day. (We’ve been having a mouse problem, the first time since the WP Parents moved into this house 18 years ago.) Another related possibility was he ate something that either disagreed with him or something that bit him back.

The folks at the emergency clinic took him right in, ruled out rabies and poisoning. Six hours later I was on my way home with him. It turns out he made the mistake of trying to eat a wasp and it stung him under his tongue. The vet treated him for the sting which caused some ulceration at the site of the sting, gave me some more medicine for him to reduce pain, and told him in no uncertain terms “Bad Cole! Don’t eat any more wasps or bees, okay?”

Today he seems okay, though he is a little off as the discomfort in his mouth has him eating only wet food (no chewing required). The only other sign of his misadventure was a ring of fur on one of his front legs that was shaved down so they could insert an I.V. while they were treating him.

Cole is not a young cat, being almost 15 years old, so any health issue can become life-threatening in short order. This one scared the heck out of me, seeing how quickly it came on and and how much distress he was in.

Some may say “What’s the big deal? He’s only a cat.” Of course those ‘some’ probably never had a cat or dog, and don’t understand that these furry critters are part of the family for many people, including me.

I’m just glad it wasn’t a worse case scenario and that he’s home safe and sound, even if a little more subdued than usual.