4/10/2022

Thoughts On A Sunday

Ice Out was declared on Lake Winnipesaukee this past Friday, meaning I lost out on the pool. I had today as my pick, but Mother Nature came along with heavy rain and just enough wind Thursday night and Friday morning to clear out the remains of the ice from Alton Bay, Center Harbor, Moultonborough Bay, Weirs Beach, and Wolfeboro, all ports of call for the M/S Mount Washington cruise ship. There is still ice in some of the smaller coves and bays, but for the most part the lake is wide open.

I have already seen a number of boats out on the lake, a majority of them fishing boats since salmon season started on April 1st. I have also seen one heading out to one of the local islands that is within our town.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout isn’t scheduled to go back into the water for a few more weeks, but it will still be back at its slip a good three weeks or more before the rest of the boats we usually see in the lake.

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Most blogs and news/commentary websites tend to use Disqus for comments. While not perfect – it’s filtering algorithms need some fixing because they’ll remove a comment the algorithm deems offensive due to the use of certain words, regardless of context – it is a widely used.

One of the other ‘problems’ I see is bots that will automatically upvote a commenter’s post. I am not exactly sure why as it doesn’t really do anything other than slightly raise the upvote totals. But checking the Disqus member who upvoted a comment turns out to include some kind of ad. Lately I’ve been receiving instant upvotes for every comment I post. I’m talking within seconds. Checking the Disqus profile of the ‘person’ who upvoted my comment includes an ad for a dating site.

I have to wonder how many Disqus members will actually click on these ad links? My guess is very few, if any.

But it is annoying. It’s even more annoying when more than one bot is auto-upvoting.

And so it goes in the wasteland that is the Internet.

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Some anti-police/anti-establishment anti-racism ‘organizers’ have demanded that police officers wear bodycams as a means of proving cops are racist. However, that demand has come back to haunt many of those ‘organizers’ when such bodycam footage shows hate hoaxes and those idiots playing the race card.

How many other ‘hate’ hoaxes have video surveillance cameras uncovered, particularly if the alleged victim is actually the perpetrator? Too many.

I guess there isn’t enough racism to go around so they have to invent some.

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I’ve been hearing about the January 6th Insurrectionist investigations and the first few trials so far. One thing the “We’re gonna nail Trump for the insurrection and make sure he can’t run for president again” cabal has been faithfully ignoring?

Not one of the so-called insurrectionists has been charged with insurrection. Not. One.

How is it possible to have an insurrection if there are no insurrectionists? So far, the Democrats haven’t been able to answer that one.

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Too many people keep ignoring the downsides to ‘green’ energy...like the death of 150 bald eagles by the wind turbines of a single wind energy firm.


Bald eagles are a federally protected species and the company was fined millions of dollars. What good is a green energy system that is doing its best to wipe out protected wildlife? Does anyone else see a disconnect here?

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Speaking of green, here’s yet another example of how actions taken to combat climate change are worse than doing nothing.

In the 1980s, the government of the United Kingdom introduced financial incentives to promote plantation forestry. Landowners were encouraged, via tax breaks, to cover seemingly “unproductive” peatlands with uniform stands of trees for timber harvest. As a result of this policy and others, about 80 percent of UK peatlands were degraded or destroyed. “It was a disaster from a climate change perspective, as well as from a biodiversity perspective,” says Peter Smith, a soil and climate scientist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Peatlands are critical landscapes for greenhouse gas storage, explains Smith. They are sinks of undecayed organic matter, holding onto millennia of carbon dioxide and methane that would otherwise be in the atmosphere. When the UK’s peat was drained and planted with trees, the land went from carbon sink to source. It was an environmental mistake, like so many, made in the name of maximizing profit. And it’s one that the UK’s government vowed to correct and not repeat. Yet, as recently as 2020, the Forestry Commission allowed peatland to be drained for tree planting.

This isn’t the only example of good intentions ignoring the Law of Unintended Consequences. What looks good on paper turns out to have side-effects that are worse than the original problem. This happens even when interested (but opposed) parties point out the problems since those pushing the cures know better than everyone else, including folk who actually know better.

And so it goes.

(H/T Pirate’s Cove)

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When I first heard this idea I thought it was ingenious. With the Biden-imposed disaster at our southern border causing major problems in the border states, it was a pleasure to see a creative solution to a problem created by Washington DC being handed back to them, literally.

Texas Governor Greg Abbot is busing detained illegal aliens to Washington DC as a means of forcing the Swamp denizens to deal with the problem. He’s returning the problem of illegal immigration and the open border to Washington where it belongs.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wasn’t bluffing when he said he would bus illegal aliens dropped off by the federal government in small Texas communities to Washington, D.C. Apparently, DHS simply dropped the illegals off without warning and without asking permission. Many Texas towns were blindsided by Joe Biden’s “catch and release” policy and were begging Abbott for help.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki whined that Abbott’s voluntary bus rides were a “publicity stunt.” Well, duh. But immediately after Abbott’s announcement, the federal government stopped dropping illegal aliens in the towns that had been pleading for help.

Senator Ted Cruz thought Abbott’s idea was so good he introduced legislation to expand the illegal alien transport program to what he considered to be other rich, Democratic enclaves.

Senator Cruz listed those Blue enclaves which includes:
Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts
Newport, RI
Greenwich, CT
Palo Alto, CA
Scarsdale, NY
Rehoboth Beach, DE
I can think of a few other Blue enclaves that could use an infusion of illegal aliens who were detained at the border like Arlington, VA and Portland, OR and Seattle, WA and Darien, CT and….

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where we are that much closer to boating season, Good Friday and Easter are this coming weekend, and where real estate madness is continuing.