Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the last Sunday or 2024, a year that’s been “interesting” as in the old Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times” kind of way.

We saw politics devolve into yet another “‘He’s a poopy-head!’ ‘No, he’s a poopy-head!’” kind of style of campaigning. I don’t think there was anyone who wasn’t relieved when November 5^th came and went, regardless whether or not one’s candidate won or lost. We saw SpaceX break more records with both the number of launches and the number of launches for their reusable first stage boosters. We have watched the seemingly endless war in Ukraine, with Russia sending it’s soldiers – young, old, and conscripts – to die in the meat-grinder that is Ukraine, all to make Putin’s dream of a reconstituted Russian Empire come true. We’ve seen an administration fall apart as the truth of the President’s mental competence has come to light now that the secret no longer matters to the DNC or the media. And worst of all, the New England

On the other hand, some things have been the opposite. Gas prices have been falling despite the best efforts of the present administration to do just the opposite. There seems to be a resurgence of hope and optimism across almost all strata of society, particularly after the November election. On the personal level, a dear friend has come back into my life after decades apart and it’s as if no time at all has passed.

2025 looks like it might be a good year.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this latest bit of of governmental stupidity from the state of New York.

NY Gov. Kathy Hochul Signs Law Forcing Energy Companies to Fund “Climate Change Superfund.

It all comes down to this:

New York is spending billions on illegal immigrants, and is facing a $16 billion deficit in 2028. So the NY Governor and legislature are trying to force fossil fuel companies to pay $3 billion each year for 25 years based on pseudoscience and virtue-signalling.

--snip--

Monies that once went to road improvements and other infrastructure projects has clearly been diverted, and the coffers are coming up empty. The Division of the Budget projects a growing general fund deficit that could reach $7.25 billion in three years. The Citizens Budget Commission estimates a structural deficit that could exceed $16 billion in the 2028 fiscal year.

Faced with these issues, what is a governor to do? Kathy Hochul decided the best play was to blend climate cultism and virtue-signalling to target energy companies, confiscating billions to play for the essential infrastructure projects.

Anyone paying attention knows what the end result will be, and it won’t be what Governor Hochul and the New York City Metro Area think it will be.

Even with the influx of illegal immigrants due to its ‘sanctuary state’ status, the Empire State’s population has been shrinking, with residents seeking freedom and tax relief by relocating to friendlier states, mostly Southern states. By imposing the bogus “climate change” tax all they will do is make it even more attractive to leave New York.

A commenter on the linking Instapundit post brought up an interesting point:

Bill[s] of Attainder are allowed in New York State?

Such legislation certainly might be considered one, and if it is, it is unconstitutional.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this will work out...for the people of New York.

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China certainly has a lot of exports. It turns out one of its latest exports is slavery.

Brazilian authorities have halted construction of a BYD electric vehicle (EV) factory in Brazil’s Bahia state after rescuing 163 Chinese workers from what they described as “slavery-like conditions.” The workers were employed by Jinjiang Construction Brazil Ltd., a subcontractor hired to build the plant for the Chinese EV manufacturer.

The Labor Prosecutor’s Office reported that workers were subjected to dire living conditions, had their passports confiscated and 60% of their wages withheld. Following the report, BYD terminated its relationship with Jinjiang Construction and vowed to safeguard subcontracted workers’ rights.

I think that’s one Chinese export we should skip.

==++++==

Is NPR and PBS doomed? Seeing the direction Trump wants to go with the help of Elon, Vivek, and DOGE, I’d have to say the answer is “Yes”.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a private, nonprofit organization that allocates funding to over 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations across the country, according to its website. In 2023, the federal government appropriated $535 million to support its operations.

Since the CPB’s establishment by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the political content on most public media channels has leaned heavily to the left. As a result, every Republican presidential administration has attempted to defund it—and, by extension, the PBS and NPR-affiliated outlets it distributes funds to.

During his first term, President-elect Donald Trump tried – unsuccessfully – to keep funding for public media out of his administration’s annual budgets.

--snip--

Children’s programming and public safety alerts aside, PBS – and NPR as well – present a distorted perspective on political matters. They are indistinguishable from the legacy media in that they offer readers only one side of every story.

So far, none of the Republicans’ efforts to defund the public media have succeeded. But that may be about to change.

According to The New York Times, the reason just might be Elon Musk. The Times sees the current threat to public media as being different from previous fights “because of the newfound passion and sudden ascent of Mr. Musk, who has made plain his deep distaste for traditional media.”

The Guardian reported that in April 2023, Musk referred to NPR as “state-affiliated media,” noting that is the same term they use “for propaganda outlets in Russia and China.” After NPR left Twitter, Musk wrote a post that read, “Defund @NPR.”

I have not been a fan of NPR for years, particularly since it has acted more like a media organ for the Democrat Party and the Left for years. Too many reports did present only one side of the story and ignored any data or evidence that contradicted the narrative being sold. That’s not reporting. That’s propaganda. No government, no political party should control media, be it news organizations or social media.

==++++==

Is the Left now falling apart, both here and elsewhere? That seems to be the case.

In the 1960s, the left-wing radicalism of college students drove massive changes in American politics. The primary issue was the war in Vietnam, but there was more bubbling and churning beneath the surface than just anti-war sentiment. Racial issues had been forced fully into the open. The women's liberation movement was set to explode. Class divisions were heightened as inflation took hold and unemployment began to rise.

At the same time that students were protesting in America, they were also marching in France, Germany, Great Britain, and most of Western Europe. The status quo was out. Progressivism (liberalism) was in.

--snip--

It's been a left-wing world since then.

But the ground is shifting beneath our feet, and reform and revolution are in the air. What pundits and analysts tried to pass off as "backlash," "nativism," and "neo-fascism" was actually the mass movement of minds in revolt against a status quo that didn't care about ordinary people, didn't care that the country of their birth was being systematically and deliberately eliminated for some higher purpose.

People see that Leftism isn’t working and decided they weren’t going to support it anymore. (This isn’t surprising as there are over 400 years of history to show that Leftism, or more accurately socialism, doesn’t work and has never worked.)

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s been raining, been foggy, and won’t be clearing out until later Monday.

Ukraine

The seemingly endless war in Ukraine continues, with Ukraine occupying Russian territory in the Kursk oblast and Russia occupying Ukrainian territory – Crimea since 2104 and Donetsk, Luhansk, and parts of Zaporizhia oblasts since February of 2022. Ukraine has been hitting Russian logistics and defense infrastructure with drones, HIMARS, ATACMS, and cruise missiles while Russia has been striking civilian targets in Ukraine. (Some have claimed this is pro-Ukrainian propaganda, but it actually makes sense because Ukraine has a limited supply of weapons and they need to get the “most bang for the buck” by hitting military targets while even recent Russian military history shows they have no issues hitting civilian targets.)

About the only thing we hear about the ongoing “Special Military Operation” i.e. the Ukraine-Russia War is aid being sent to Ukraine by the US and NATO members in Europe. Occasionally we’d hear stories related related to the ongoing war, the most recent being the apparent friendly-fire downing of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight by Russian air defenses.

The media has not been covering much of the day to day events in Ukraine, has barely mentioned North Korea’s increasing stake in the warm with North Korean soldiers now taking an active part in combat in the Kursk oblast, trying (and failing) to oust Ukrainian forces from Russian territory.

One unofficial media source I frequent is Warthog Defense, a YouTube news channel covering the war. While it was created about 8 years ago to cover US military news and operations, it has a number of Ukraine war videos every day. I am not foolish enough to think it is an unbiased source, but it does include video from Russian sources as well and I think it is more balanced than some of the other sources I’ve watched.

All I can say is that I hope this war will finally end, and end with Russia gaining nothing. If it does keep any of the territory it has occupied, then I do not doubt it will try elsewhere, like Moldova. There are already Russian troops occupying the Transnistria region of Moldova which is next door to Ukraine.

Friday Funny - How Not To Shoot A Deer

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was wicked cold here at the lake this morning, a frigid 3ºF, not even counting the wind chill factor. The furnace at The Gulch was running more often than usual overnight, but not all that often. Of course the fact that I didn’t turn the temperature back as much as I usually do overnight might have had something to do with it. I did start the trusty RAM 1500 a few minutes before I headed out to do my usual Sunday morning Walmart run so I’d have a little bit of heat on my trip to and from.

We might have a white Christmas up here as the Weather Guys ^TM say we’ll be getting some snow on Christmas Eve. They haven’t said how much we can expect, but just enough to ensure a white Christmas would be fine with me.

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Just when I thought college campuses couldn’t get any worse when it comes to the decay of any morality, they prove me wrong. It seems some of the top universities have refused to address the antisemitism that infests their campuses.

A U.S. House of Representatives committee report released Thursday detailed how universities likely violated Title VI by failing to protect their Jewish students on campus.

Following “a more than 7-months long investigation into antisemitism on American college campuses,” the Committee on Education and the Workforce found that administrators “refused to crack down on antisemitism,” states the 43-page Staff Report on Antisemitism.

“In fact, many colleges handed down disparate disciplinary actions for Jewish students versus their antagonists—the students who engaged in antisemitic behavior, encampments, and intimidating tactics such as campus checkpoints and tax-exempt organizations that enabled and funded violent campus protests, among other troubling findings,” it states.

The report also blames federal government departments and agencies for “entirely avoid[ing] any accountability for institutions to which they award millions of dollars annually.”

To hear some of the administrators and faculty tell it, Israel and Jews are the cause of all problems, that Israel deserved the attacks by Hamas on October 7^th, 2023 that killed 1139 Israeli men, women, and children, and another 250 men, women, and children were taken hostage by Hamas and taken back to Gaza. Many of those hostages are now dead. That seems just fine to the know-nothing on-campus supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamic terrorist groups.

==++++==

Seeing the crap that’s been coming out of Hollywood over the past decade or so, I feel no sympathy for the fact that Hollywood has been killing itself.

[Hollywood] is an orgy or narcissism and rape; casting couch feminists and private jet environmentalists. The extremely wealthy who set up “charities” named after themselves to filter income through to avoid paying the taxes they advocate should be raised on everyone else. They are largely hypocrites and just plain bad people.

They are also destroying themselves, which is something worth noting and celebrating.

Box office numbers and high-profile flops like the Joker sequel (did anyone need or want that?) are some prime examples of just how far down the toilet Hollywood has slipped. People are not interested in what they are selling.

It seems the Powers That Be in Hollywood have forgotten Rule #1 when it comes to their customers: Give the customer what they want. Instead, they are trying to tell the customers what they should want, if they knew what was good for them.

It has had just the opposite effect and Hollywood is dying.

Good riddance. My only question is how long before its suicide is complete?

==++++==

I mentioned in yesterday’s post about not following Germany’s example when it comes to its electrical grid. Germany’s problems are why we should be staying away from renewables, specifically wind.

From November 2 to November 8 and from December 10 to December 13, Germany’s electricity supply from renewable energies collapsed as a typical winter weather situation with a lull in the wind and minimal solar irradiation led to supply shortages, high electricity imports and skyrocketing electricity prices.

--snip--

The reason: The socialist/green led coalition government and the prior Merkel governments had decommissioned 19 nuclear power plants (30% of Germany’s electricity demand) and 15 coal-fired power plants were taken off the grid on April 1, 2023 alone. 4.35 billion euros of taxpayers’ money in decommissioning premiums were distributed to RWE and LEAG (East Germany). In January 2025, RWE’s Weisweiler power plant will go offline. This, of all months, will occur in January, when electricity consumption in Germany is at its highest and France may have little to supply. This is because France is the most heat-sensitive country in Europe and even small fluctuations in temperature can have an impact on electricity consumption due to the widespread use of electric heating systems. 1 degree Celsius less and consumption in France increases by 2400 megawatts!

It seems a lot of the same kind of folks who crippled Germany’s energy supply want to do the same thing here. They are also the same folks who will prevent our ability to import abundant hydropower from Canada, so we won’t have the ability to make up for lack of generation capacity which means we’d be in dire straits if we allow these “same kind of folks” to get their way.

==++++==

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

Woke, Left-Wing Michigan Democrats Make Eggs Illegal Unless they are ‘Cage Free’.

If you need more proof that the recent election has not taught Democrats that Americans hate them because they are leftist, lunatic, fascists, the Democrats in Michigan are here to remind us of their inability to learn political lessons by passing a ban on eggs, unless they are “cage free.”

You read that right, Michigan Democrats now want to ban your breakfast.

One has to wonder what they have in mind to ban next. Maybe freedom of speech? Goodness knows they’ve already tried to kill the Second Amendment.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps are wicked chilly, the lake is freezing over, and where I can ignore Monday for yet another week.

Is Nuclear Power Finally Coming Back?

As a kid I remember the promise of nuclear power – aka atomic power – being touted by scientists and power companies as the answer to all our power needs. Mind you, this was the during the early and mid 1960’s. (Yes, I am that old.) It would provide power “too cheap to meter”.

Then the anti-nuclear Luddites gathered and started working to kill nuclear power, and after decades of work, pretty much succeeded. It didn’t help that Chernobyl happened. The reactor that melted down/exploded was an RBMK graphite-moderated reactor, a Soviet era design that was thermally unstable and did not have a containment. Maybe it was hubris or arrogance, but it seems the designers figured it didn’t need a containment because “Soviet reactors don’t melt down”. That the West didn’t use that design, didn’t use graphite-moderated reactors, didn’t matter to the anti-nuclear Luddites. Nuclear power was sold as being “bad for children and other living things”, demonized, painted as being something out of Hell that needed to be banned rather than being a virtually limitless and clean energy source. It’s only now that people are realizing they’ve been sold a bill of goods.

Has the technology changed since the 1960’s? Absolutely. The new generation designs are safer, more efficient, don’t generate the amount of nuclear waste as older designs, and in some cases can use the depleted fuel from older reactors as fuel, helping eliminate the high-level nuclear waste. Some of these new reactor designs are small modular reactors that greatly reduce the cost of building nuclear power plants.

All of these things seem to be leading towards a resurgence of nuclear power, with one of the big factors being that nuclear can operate 24/7/365. Some of the newer designs can go years without needing to be shut down in order to be refueled and others never need to be shut down for refueling.

At least one state is looking to expand nuclear power, that being my home state of New Hampshire. Governor-elect Kelly Ayotte made expanding nuclear power in the state part of her campaign platform. About 60% of New Hampshire’s electrical power comes from nuclear power, in this case from the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. The rest comes from natural gas, hydro, coal, biomass, and wind. (There isn’t a lot of large scale solar here, part of that because of being so far north. It is because of the high cost of natural gas that helps make electricity here expensive, said natural gas coming from foreign sources because the natural gas pipeline bringing it into New England doesn’t have the capacity to supply the demand for both heating and power generation.)

Across the nation the demand for electrical power is growing, much of that due to the increasing number of data centers being built.

Stephen Moore, an economic advisor for President-elect Donald Trump, whom I recently interviewed over the incoming administration's economic policies, shares a similar vision and said that nuclear energy is long overdue for an American renaissance after being neglected decades ago.

"We need to get back to building new plants so that we have the electric power capacity for the next generation of artificial intelligence and other uses that will tax the grid beyond what it can provide. AI will use three to four times as much energy as the internet, so demand is going to spike and we will be at risk of brownouts," Moore told HotAir in a separate interview.

According to Moore, the U.S. gets less than 20% of its electric power from aging nuclear plants that are now on the verge of being retired after decades of service and need to be replaced fast, or the nation will face a worsening energy production deficit as demand increases.

Germany, Europe's largest economy, has seen its industries implode after deciding to shut down its last nuclear power plants during the Ukraine war and is now having a severe electricity crisis. Meanwhile, in comparison to its faltering neighbor on the other bank of the Rhine, France is now more committed than ever to nuclear power to sustain its economy.

France has had a high percentage of its electrical power from nuclear for decades, with approximately 75% of its power coming from nuclear and it is planning to increase that in the coming years. We should be following France’s example, not Germany’s. Nuclear works. Renewables don’t. And nuclear is green. And now it can be even less expensive to build.

Friday Funny - 2024 Has A Meeting With The South

While this is almost a year old, I found it was rather prophetic.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter is becoming more evident, with ice appearing on the ponds and some of the smaller coves on the lake and early sunsets. It feels like it’s 10PM even though it’s barely past 6PM. Here at The Gulch the sun disappears behind the surrounding hills at 2PM. Over the past few days the daytime temperatures never saw above freezing and the nighttime temperatures in the low teens or upper single digits. (It was 9ºF at The Gulch this morning.)

At least we haven’t seen any big snowstorms, with what snow that did fall during each of the few storms that have occurred measuring 2 or 3 inches. Of course we still have another three or four months of potential snowfall to go.

One thing that surprised me this morning was the number of shoppers in Walmart at 8AM this morning. Usually there are only a few shoppers and one or two of the registers open at that time of morning. Not today. Quite a few of those morning shoppers were obviously taking care of Christmas shopping as their cart (or carts) were full to the brim with what I had to assume were Christmas presents. There were four registers open and even that wasn’t enough. I know I spent quite a bit more time waiting at the checkout than I did actually shopping. I expect it will be even worse come next Sunday morning.

==++++==

Are we overdue for a Carrington Event? According to a recent study the answer is yes.

Our Sun is not a peaceful place. It roils with convection; its magnetic field snaps, finds a connection, snaps again. It unleashes eruptions of energy in the form of violent flares, and plasma in the form of coronal mass ejections.

Most of this activity lacks sufficient punch to harm us… but every now and then, the Sun erupts with a flare powerful enough to do serious damage. And we don't know how often such events occur. Previous estimates have the range between once a century and once a millennium.

Well, folks, we have a problem. Because a new analysis of the eruption rates of 56,400 Sun-like stars has estimated that the Sun's superflare rate is at the low end of that scale – once every 100 years. If that's the case, we may be in trouble, since even the infamous Carrington Event that took place in September 1859 was only 1 percent as powerful as a superflare.

The Carrington Event saw auroras being visible all the way to the Equator and telegraph systems being able to operate without batteries because of the induced electrical currents along the telegraph lines. What would that do to our present day telecommunications systems and electrical grids were such an event take place today? Unless such systems are hardened to withstand such a flare (which would also harden them against EMP), our 21^st century civilization could be returned to the 17^th overnight.

==++++==

Like this is going to drive the voting public to vote for Democrats.

Incoming West Virginia state representative charged with threatening to kill GOP lawmakers.

One incoming West Virginia state lawmaker on Thursday was arrested and charged with allegedly threatening to kill fellow GOP state representatives, according to state police.

Joseph de Soto, who was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in November as a Republican, allegedly made multiple threats against conservatives in the House after a recent meeting led lawmakers to discuss whether to expel him from the caucus, NBC News reported. It is not clear why state lawmakers were talking about booting him.

The secretary of state's office told the outlet he had switched party affiliation to Democrat on Wednesday.

The suspect has been charged with one count of threats of terrorist acts, a felony, and the bond was set at $300,000.

So this guy gets elected to the state legislature this past November, having run as a Republican, changes to the Democrat Party, and is arrested the next day for threatening to kill his former GOP colleagues? So did this guy change party because of his ‘disagreement’ with conservative Republican members of the West Virginia House of Delegates, or did he change party because he was really a Democrat to begin with? Did he think his threats to kill fellow legislators would in some way persuade them to vote differently?

If I were a West Virginia Democrat I would think it would be best to distance oneself as much as possible from this whack-job lest voters think Democrats agree with him.

==++++==

This is something that I doubt will be covered by the Lame Stream Media:

Trump receives $15 million after ABC settled defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos and ABC prior to going to trial.

Hmm. It seems the LSM has to learn the lesson the hard way that they can’t make up stories about people as a means of influencing elections or trying to destroy someone they don’t like.

==++++==

Constitution? We don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution!

It looks like yet another Congressional Democrat thinks SloJoe Biden can get around the Constitution, amending it by fiat rather than by the process laid out in the Constitution.

By way of the NYT:

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is on a mission in President Biden’s final days in office. She wants to convince him that he can rescue his legacy by adding the century-old Equal Rights Amendment, which would explicitly guarantee sex equality, to the Constitution as a way to protect abortion rights in post-Roe America.

He could do it all, she contends, with one phone call.

Both houses of Congress approved the amendment in 1972, but it was not ratified by the states in time to be added to the Constitution. Ms. Gillibrand has been pushing a legal theory that the deadline for ratification is irrelevant and unconstitutional. All that remains, she argues, is for Mr. Biden to direct the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, to publish the E.R.A. as the 28th Amendment.

The move would almost certainly invite a legal challenge that would land in the Supreme Court. But Ms. Gillibrand wants Mr. Biden to use his presidential power while he still has it to force the issue, effectively daring Republicans to wage a legal battle to take away equal rights for women.

Take away equal rights for women? What rights would those be? The right to vote? The right to free speech? The right to protect themselves by way of bearing arms?

I would think folks like Ms. Gillibrand would want to pay attention to the old adage “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”

What specifically is she aiming for, abortion rights? If so then her aim is off because the E.R.A. would not ensure that right at all because men have no say when it comes to abortion at present, even if it is their child being aborted.

If the E.R.A. were ‘backdoored’ then I would expect there to be lawsuits dealing with things like Family Court where divorce and child custody cases heavily favor women. There would also need to be changes in laws across the board that presently ‘protect’ women, the Violence Against Women Act being one, because they would be unconstitutional due to discriminating against men. I would expect Congress to pass a law that would make women register for the Draft. Laws would need to be changed that would eliminate preferential treatment for women of any kind, with one such example of preferential treatment being lighter sentences for women who commit the same crimes as men.

Will Ms. Gillibrand get her wish or will she learn that the Constitution means what it says?

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the boats are gone from the water, the lake is starting to freeze over, and I don’t have to worry about Monday because I’m on vacation.

Bluegoisie

I saw this term in an Instapundit post and I knew exactly what it meant: Bluegoisie.

What’s sad is that they defined themselves and “can never come back to the center”.

Everyone is now fully aware of how contemptuous, how bereft of common sense, how dishonest and incompetent they are. It won't work.

They can never build "their own Joe Rogan." The notion is ridiculous--not just because it evinces their tendency toward top-down control, but because their cult renders intellectual, political and philosophical exploration outside of narrow ideological parameters impossible.

These people have psychotic meltdowns, blacklist peers, and cut off relatives over politics. They're incapable of empathizing with anyone outside their congregation.

For all their fetishizing of credentials, their masturbatory exaltation of their educations, they're violently allergic to intellectual curiosity--how on earth COULD they "build" their own Rogan, or a Lex Fridman, whose curiosity and openness are part of their brand?

How COULD they lower themselves to understand why they're so despised?

Reality has to change to meet their expectations, not the other way around. They believe that reality must bend to their consensus, even if that consensus is delusional at best and malignant at worst.

They certainly aren’t getting any sympathy from those commenting in the Instapundit post.

Nor should they.

Friday Funny - Airline Pilot

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a snowy weekend here at the lake, with a little under 3 inches having fallen overnight. It took only a few minutes to shovel the driveway here at The Gulch. I did break out the roof rake to pull some of the snow off the roof. Not that I really needed to at present, but we do have more snow on the way on Monday afternoon.

Speaking of snow, I did get the trusty RAM 1500 back from the body shop last week after it had some incipient rust taken care of. It goes into my mechanic’s shop later this week for an oil change, tire rotation, and undercoating, the undercoating an annual ritual to help prevent rust from eating away at the trusty RAM 1500. (I didn’t do that for the trusty F150 and I lost it due to rust that was inexpedient to fix as it would have cost more than the F150 would be worth even if it was in pristine condition.) While undercoating does help prevent rust, there are places here and there where it isn’t nearly as effective, so bodywork is required to deal with any rust. And so it was with the trusty RAM 1500. I am doing what I can to make it last another 10 years as buying a new pickup to replace it isn’t within the budget of yours truly.

==++++==

The coming week is my last week of work for 2024 as I will be on vacation for just shy of three weeks to close out the year. It’s a slow period for the company I work for so there usually isn’t any reason for my boss to deny my vacation request.

What will I be doing during my time off?

Anything I want.

==++++==

If it is true that Syria’s Assad has been driven from power, then Iran has a problem. Considering Iran has been bolstering the Assad regime for decades, the loss of Syria cuts off the Iranian regime “from its proxy armies and likely ended any influence Tehran will ever have in the region.”

Iran and Russia have been moving their forces out of Syria, with the Russian navy having moved it’s ships out of Syrian ports. Hezbollah, an Iranian puppet, is also moving out of Syria, though one of the few places they can go, Lebanon, isn’t all that safe for them either, particularly since Israel has eliminated “a generation of leaders from Hezbollah, wiped out much of its deterrent value, and might have weakened the terrorists enough for Lebanon to wrest its sovereignty back from Tehran.”

There’s also this: Putin offered Assad asylum and he is now in Moscow.

But of course.

==++++==

It is unfortunate that the once Great Britain is bent on committing suicide, one Leftist step at a time. And I do not mean suicide in a metaphorical sense. It appears there is legislation in the works to allow medically assisted suicide in the UK.

The British are of late more than usually intent on self-destruction. The Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer, having swept to power on an anemic numerical vote with the mandate to be something, anything but the Tories, has set to with admirable gusto, taking up consideration of whether the people it notionally represents should in fact literally go kill themselves. Kim Leadbeater, the member of Parliament for Spen Valley, in October proposed a private member’s bill legalizing “medical assistance in dying”—that is, doctor-abetted suicide—and this proposal looks set to become law.

The internal affairs of distant nations are not our usual hat, but occasionally diseases of the body politic are catching. And there are many fascinating and appalling aspects to this twist of law. Our learned friend Daniel Hitchens has admirably chronicled and written against the many merely human perversities of the bill just passed, including its lack of provisions for the undeniably mentally ill. The Canadian iteration of MAiD has in purely empirical terms been a catastrophe—that is, if you think the state should not be addressed toward killing its own citizens: Physician-assisted deaths accounted for 4.1 percent of all deaths in Canada in 2022.

4.1 percent? That seems quite high to me. One has to wonder what it is in Belgium? There’s also this:

Some 70 percent of Britons fear that people will be coerced into medically assisted suicide, and 62 percent think more information is needed about the bill under consideration...

The issue of coerced suicide is something that has been brought up again and again and I have to say that it is a big concern of mine.

I don’t like the idea of MAiD. If made too easy people may kill themselves over a transitory event that, with a little time and/or help, would pass. I have to wonder how many of the suicides in Canada in 2022 may have been of that type?

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This isn’t a surprise, but I am happy to see it.

Federal judge orders FDA to release over a million pages of Pfizer’s trial documents they wanted to keep hidden for 75 years.

Is there a smoking gun in those documents Pfizer wants to bury?

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a high-profile case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT).

The decision mandates the FDA to release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) file for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine no later than June 30, 2025.

The case stemmed from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the PHMPT, which sought comprehensive data related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA initially claimed it would need up to 75 years to process and release the requested documents. However, the Court, presided over by Judge Mark Pittman, rejected this argument, citing the importance of government accountability.

--snip--

In his ruling, Judge Pittman ordered the FDA to produce the “emergency use authorization” file, underscoring that with the pandemic’s conclusion, there is no longer a valid reason to withhold the information.

The FDA has already produced over a million pages of documents in response to the lawsuit. However, the plaintiffs argue that the agency continues to withhold critical information.

A lot of people want to know more about the COVID-19 vaccines, particularly about any adverse reactions to the vaccine, either short or long term, as well as any contraindications that the vaccine should not be administered to a patient. Under the Emergency Use Authorization, Pfizer was immune from lawsuits by patients or their families if the vaccine had adverse effects, including the death of patients. So is this action really aimed at Pfizer or at the FDA and what it knew about the adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccine being pushed upon the public, in many cases against their will as a condition of remaining employed.

The people want to know and have every right to.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow will be returning, the preparations for Christmas continue, and where I am not going to allow Monday to “harsh my mellow”.

Friday Funny (Saturday Edition) - Snow Plow Driver Mentality

No, I didn't forget. I set this up so it would publish on Friday evening...or so I thought. Didn't see it on the blog so checked and found out I had set the publish time for late tonight. Sigh

Fixed it, so here you go!

Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter temperatures have finally made themselves felt here at the lake, with below freezing lows and barely above freezing highs. There were even a couple of very light snow flurries this morning.

The Weather Guys ^TM have been saying we’re in for snow starting sometime Wednesday. They haven’t said how much to expect, but to listen to one of the network news shows this morning they’re acting like it will be yet another Snowpocalypse in the Northeast. If it is, all I can do is hope that the trusty RAM 1500 will be back from the body shop before then. (Just staying ahead of the rust.)

Yesterday I mentioned how it seems to be that the amount of aggressive driving has increased, wondering it if was just my perception or if other people have noticed it to. It turns out it wasn’t just me. A number of people I’ve asked have noticed the same thing, with some saying it’s been really bad over this past week. It has certainly been a problem here in New Hampshire with a large number of fatal motor vehicle accidents, many which make no sense unless one factors in aggressive or distracted driving.

==++++==

File this under “Why were they surprised this has been happening?”

It seems that no matter how good the the GPA is for Berkeley graduates they aren’t getting any job offers.

Recent college graduates aren't fairing any better than the rest of the job seekers in this difficult market.

A college professor admitted that he's seeing it happen to some of his former students who did extremely well but are having a hard time finding work. In a LinkedIn post, James O'Brien, a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, insisted that it's become a bleak reality for many college graduates because even though they have their degrees, a job isn't coming as easily as it should.

"Tech degrees no longer guarantee a job. Lately, I'm hearing similar narratives from students. Previously, a Berkeley CS graduate, even if not a top student, would receive multiple appealing job offers in terms of work type, location, salary, and employer," O'Brien explained in his post.

He noticed that even outstanding students with 4.0 GPAs were now reaching out to him, worried because, despite their impressive transcripts and experience, they weren't receiving any job offers. He concluded that this was happening because of an irreversible trend that is also part of a broader issue that's impacting almost every job seeker in every area.

Is what O’Brien has concluded true? Or is it true only for Berkeley computer science students? Is this a problem at MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, UIUC, Cal Tech and other university students?

Writes one commenter from the linking Instapundit post:

There’s another element to this you don’t often hear about; curriculum. I spent a 30 year career in higher ed, supporting the university in IT, as well as doing a little teaching in CS. Employers very definitely look closely at the curriculums of universities, even those with stellar reputations, if they begin to see patterns of unpreparedness in their employees from those institutions. Shadow bans, and even very public denunciations, can and do result with respect to hiring from universities whose recent grads aren’t meeting expectations.

Is this the case with Berkeley?

==++++==

It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read the following:

Hilarity Ensues After Report on a Possible 2028 AOC Presidential Candidacy

Eager to move beyond the failure of their undemocratic installment of Kamala Harris as their nominee in place of President Joe Biden to thwart another Trump presidency, speculation has already started as to who their 2028 contenders might be.

Among them is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who, since bursting onto the scene in 2018 and becoming a media darling in the process, has become little more than just another entrenched Democrat face in the crowd...

--snip--

Honestly, I don’t see it happening – but if it did, it’d be amusing to watch Gavin Newsom try to mow right over her and other high-profile candidates, including perhaps even Kamala Harris herself to get the seat he wanted in 2024 but didn’t.

If Gruesome Newsom and Occasional Cortex are the best the Democrats can bring forward for 2028, then they have a big problem.

==++++==

The once great nation of Canada has accelerated its decline into ‘woke’ (and broke) nation. It’s latest bit of foolishness (or stupidity)?

A small town in Ontario is being fined for not flying a “2SLGBTQA+” flag.

WTF?

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal is an instrument of soft tyranny that exists largely to impose degeneracy. It is punishing the township Emo (pop. 1,434) for failing to fly a flag in honor of depravity…

Borderland Pride requested Emo to declare June as Pride Month and display a rainbow flag for one week but the township refused, resulting in a years-long process in which the tribunal ruled against the township.

The tribunal ruled Borderland Pride will be awarded $15,000, with $10,000 coming from the township itself and the other $5,000 coming from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker.

Being forced to give the self-described “2SLGBTQA plus people” free money isn’t enough. The citizens of Emo must have their faces rubbed in moonbattery…

What makes this even more laughable is that the township doesn’t even have an “official” flagpole from which to fly such a flag.

The nonsense that has been forced upon the Canadian people keeps piling up and getting worse. Civil right have been whittled away one by one by a government that is increasingly hostile to those rights...all in the name of ‘equity’.

I would like to think that eventually Canadians will come to their senses and boot out the present government and Prime Minister bag and baggage, restoring sanity to the Canada.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has settled in, more snow (may) be on the way, and preparations for Christmas are under way.

Observations On Traffic

During the Thanksgiving holiday I had more than enough opportunity to make a number of observations, specifically traffic observations.

A couple of things that had me making these observations were the suddenly increased number of traffic fatalities in my home state and some of the more recent dash cam videos on YouTube. Because of these I have been paying more attention when I am on the road, particularly over this past week, and one thing that stood out both here and in Massachusetts was the level of aggressive driving I saw. There were numerous examples of tailgating, ‘forced’ lane changes, speeding well above the speed of the rest of the traffic, weaving in and out traffic, using breakdown lanes to get around slow moving traffic, cutting across multiple lanes of traffic to take an exit at the last second, and so on. I also noticed when drivers weren’t paying attention, drifting from side to side in their lane, failing to see that traffic had slowed down ahead of them with a few incidents ending in fender benders, driving well below the posted speed limit, not realizing traffic signals have changed and running red lights, and son.

While on my trip down to the WP Sister’s place south of Boston and the return trip to The Gulch yesterday I witnesses one incident after another of the events I described, more than I have ever noticed before. It could be that I was paying closer attention to traffic than usual or that there are a lot more incidents taking place. Maybe it’s a bit of both. All I know is that I am seeing so many more incidents like these in general and a lot more over during the trip down to my sister’s and back yesterday.

What’s causing the increase in aggressive/inattentive driving?

It doesn’t appear – to me, at least – that it is limited to one demographic. Of the aggressive driving it seems to me that most of the aggressive drivers were in a hurry to get from Point A to Point B and woe be unto anyone who got in their way. The few drivers I was able to see were young, middle aged, older, male, and female.

The WP Mom and I saw more than a few accidents on the trip down and back, with the worst being on Rte. 128, the circumferential highway around Boston, while we were on our way back home. Fortunately the accident took place on the other side of the highway. The traffic was backed up for almost 4 miles with four lanes being reduced to one lane at the site of the accident. Was it caused by aggressive driving, distracted driving, inattentive driving, road rage, or some combination thereof?

One thing that I saw during our trip was the lack of turn signals. Again and again I saw drivers change lanes without using their turn signals, expecting everyone else to read their minds and get out of the way. A couple of those incidents turned into fender benders. I also saw more than a few ‘brake checks’, one of which had a large box truck ‘bumping’ into the offending vehicle’s rear bumper.

While I wish I could say I didn’t see much of the dangerous driving in New Hampshire, I’d be lying if I said that. While not quite as prevalent as South of the Border, it was still there. I only saw one fender bender on the way home near the city of Manchester and that looked more like a “I don’t know how to merge” kind of accident, but I still I saw more than a few dumb driving incidents.

One thing that did happen prior to the holiday was New Hampshire Governor Sununu announcing the State Police would not be issuing warnings on Interstate 95, a stretch of highway has seen so many accidents and fatalities over the past few months. If a motorist was pulled over by the State Police they would be ticketed, period. I don’t know if that would help in reducing the number of accidents and fatalities, but time will tell.

Friday Funny - Life Of A Small Town Cop

Thoughts On A Sunday

It is the weekend before Thanksgiving and I did something unusual – I took off the entire week of Thanksgiving. It doesn’t mean I’ll be out doing vacation-like things. Rather, I’ll be taking care of chores that really need to be done before winter finally gets here. One such set of chores is continuing my efforts to slowly empty out my rental storage unit. Of course some of that will be hindered because the trusty RAM 1500 not is going to be available for two or three days.

First thing Monday morning it will going into the body shop to take care of some incipient rust as a means of preserving it for another 10 years. Hopefully the work will be done prior to Thanksgiving Day as it is possible the WP Mom and I will need to use the RAM to get down to the youngest WP Sister’s place as there is a possibility of snow that day.

Another chore that needs doing is helping the WP Mom make her Thanksgiving fudge. (Not to be confused with her Christmas fudge.) She usually needs help with the mixing as it is something she insists must be done by hand. I also help with quality control.

Somewhere among all of that I also need to tackle the garage at The Gulch, moving the warm weather stuff out of the garage and into the attic, the cold weather stuff from the attic into the garage, and rearranging the rest of the stuff in the garage to make it easier to deal with winter weather including moving the Official Weekend Pundit Dual-Fuel Generator to a place that will make it easier to deploy should we lose power. (Yes, we do have power outages during the warm weather months, but not nearly as often as we see in the winter.)

==++++==

If I had a way, I would tell the ‘Greens’ in Germany “I told you so!”

Germany’s dive into green energy has finally come around to bite it in the ass as it turns out that said green energy can’t meet the energy demand, particularly after abandoning nuclear power and other non-green power sources. They are learning the hard way that renewable energy isn’t reliable and isn’t always available when it’s really needed.

Since the original article linked in the Instapundit post seems to have disappeared, those commenting on this issue are saying “I told you so!” in my stead.

It all comes down to Germany is getting it “gooder and harderer” because those in power listened to the ‘feel good’ bullsh*t being sold by the Greens and didn’t actually do their homework or the math to figure out it wasn’t going to work.

And to think that Germany was once a center of some of the world’s best engineering and in a little over one generation it has fallen victim to ‘feelz’ over facts.

==++++==

Just when I thought things in Chicago couldn’t get any stupider, someone in the Windy City proves me wrong. The latest bit of insanity?

Traffic light cameras are racist.

Really?

Illinois State Rep. La Shawn Ford is again calling for change after new data shows more than 2.5 times as many red-light camera tickets were issued on Chicago’s South Side over a yearlong period than at intersections where cameras are installed on the city’s North Side.

Hmm. Could it be that more drivers on the South Side of Chicago are running red lights than in other parts of the city? Or is he claiming there are 2.5 times as many red-light cameras in the South Side as anywhere else in the city?

What about crime? If more crime takes place on the South Side is it because of racism and the laws should be changed to decriminalize some crimes? Oh, wait, they shouldn’t do that because we’ve seen what happens in places like the metro areas in California and in New York City.

Is there anything that cannot be classified as racist in order to create yet another class of ‘victims’?

==++++==

I have seen this question popping up here and there in a number conservative websites, so it makes me wonder if something may be in the offing. The question:

Is Elon Musk going to buy MSNBC?

He certainly has the wherewithal to do so. And then there’s this:

Since the election, MSNBC’s ratings have been falling dramatically with no signs of reversing. Their audience feels like they got played, especially now that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have opened communications with Donald Trump.

There are rumors swirling in media that Comcast may sell off MSNBC, so naturally people are starting to wonder if Elon Musk could buy the network. People are not asking if Musk should buy it, because obviously, he should.

Of course I was thinking Musk should buy CNN, particularly if it should lose the Project Veritas lawsuit which would likely leave it available for pennies on the dollar. For all I know, Musk could end up buying MSNBC and CNN. That would be a certain amount of irony, if one thinks about it.

If nothing else it would piss off a lot of the Left to see two bastions of Progressive Propaganda fall into Musk’s hands because no one is watching them anymore, not even the Left.

And so it goes.

==++++==

Why doesn’t this surprise me even as it surprises others?

EV owners are being advised not to use the heat in their Evs because it can “significantly reduce the range”. Really? Who’da thunk it?

Apparently the Telegraph in the UK.

Drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) have been warned they should think twice before turning on their hot air blowers during the cold weather.

Having a battery rather than an internal combustion engine (ICE) means EVs have to use more electricity to generate their own heat.

Experts have warned this could drain the batteries of their electric cars – particularly older ones – and reduce their range.

Unlike with petrol and diesel cars, owners of EVs do not get to enjoy the luxury of the “effectively free” heat which is created as a by-product of simply having the engine running in ICE vehicles.

Instead, they have to use a “more substantial” amount of battery capacity to keep warm, which decreases how far they can drive.

The warning comes as Britons brace themselves for snow, rain and gusts of 70mph in the form of Storm Bert this weekend.

Here in the US that would be even worse as it gets a lot colder here than it does in the UK, even if you’re only talking about New England where I live. It can get down to single digit temps (Fahrenheit) or even into double digit negative numbers which of course makes it worse because you can’t not use heat when it’s that cold. Then again, it is likely an EV wouldn’t want to work when it’s that cold.

The coldest temperature I’ve seen here in my town is -29ºF/-33ºC, and that’s without wind chill. I have a feeling an EV wouldn’t do that well when it’s the cold. I’ve also lived farther north where the coldest temp I’ve experienced is -36ºF/-38ºC. Even my ICE car didn’t start easily at that temperature, but it did start. I have a feeling an EV wouldn’t fare well at all. Try dealing with temperatures like that without using heat.

Not going to happen.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where only a few boats are still in the water, we’re likely to see some snow on Thanksgiving Day, and where the fudge pot will soon need to be stirred.

Dash-Cams - Cheap Insurance For Drivers

I have to admit one of my guilty pleasures is watching dash-cam videos on YouTube. Seeing the vehicular misdeeds and accidents of others can amuse, educate, and horrify at the same time. Watching these dash-cam videos has certainly made me more aware of what’s happening when I’m out on the road, has helped me anticipate what other drivers might do, and on one occasion prevented me from being involved in an accident because I had seen a similar situation on the more than a few dash-cam videos.

I have had a dash-cam installed in the trusty RAM 1500 for almost a year and in that time I have saved more than a few incidents that I filed away in my “Close Calls” and “Scofflaws” folders. Watching them makes me wonder what some of the drivers were thinking or doing that caused these incidents. It wasn’t until the other night that my dash-cam actually caught an accident.

I was on my way to town hall for a meeting, stopped at a traffic light waiting for it to change. At this point, I have to explain that a few months ago the traffic light programming was changed so that the traffic signal for the left turn lane will change from red to a blinking yellow light when the lights on the center and right turn lanes turn green. The only time the left turn signal turns green is if a vehicle has been sitting in the left turn lane for a certain amount of time. The reasoning behind this change is that it eliminates the need to wait for the left turn green arrow if there’s no traffic coming from the other direction. It’s supposed to save gas because vehicles won’t have to wait for a full traffic light cycle in order to make the turn. However, this feature still confuses some people.

In this particular case there was a pickup in front of me waiting to take a left turn onto the road that leads towards our town hall. The lights changed, with the left turn arrow changing to a blinking yellow. The pickup started making the left turn and when partway through the intersection was hit in the right rear quarter by a car coming through the intersection from the other direction. While I was an eyewitness to the accident, I couldn’t say for sure who was at fault. I did call the police, made sure the two drivers were uninjured, waited for the police to arrive, made my statement to one of the officers and let him know I had dash-cam video.

The police got a copy of the video for their investigation.

The next morning I took a look at the video of the accident and realized there were a lot of things I didn’t notice, things that could change who is found at fault for the accident. (I won’t go into the specifics because the accident is still under investigation by the police department.)

If nothing else it proves to me the value of having a dash-cam as it is an unbiased witness to what happened and will see things eyewitnesses and drivers/passengers either didn’t see or didn’t notice. They can have an almost 360º view, depending on the dash-cam model. It does away with the he-said/she-said problems and can prove guilt or innocence. (I saw more than few cases on YouTube where drivers involved in an accident outright lied about what happened and the dash-cam video showed what actually took place.)

Dash-cams are cheap insurance.

I have seen them for as little as $25 and as much as $350. They run from the basic front-view only models to front/rear/interior view with night vision, USB and/or WiFi/Bluetooth download, and everything in between. Most are HD though more of them are now 4K UHD. I suggest getting the one with the highest resolution you can afford as it can make it easier to see more detail, including license plate numbers. Regardless of what model is installed in a vehicle, it can make the difference between being found at fault in an accident or being found faultless. (Of course it can also mean you are found at fault, so it can swing either way.)

Friday Funny - Yoga For Yankees

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s very dry up here in northern New England as we haven’t seen any appreciable rainfall for almost two months. We’ve seen so-called ‘Red Flag’ warnings posted for the first time in a long time and no burn permits have been issued. We had a local resident decide he didn’t need to get a permit to burn and despite the high fire danger lit his burn pile. The local FD and police showed up, put out his burn pile which was on the verge of spreading, and cited him for ignoring the warnings. It’s a good thing the fire department was able to prevent any spread because if his burn pile flames had spread he would have been liable for the costs of extinguishing the brush fire he ignited. He would have also been facing jail time, too.

Some folks just don’t get it. Some folks just don’t care.

On top of that we still have a lot of leaves that have fallen and piled up as well as a lot of deadfall that was the result of last April’s Nor’easter which dropped heavy snow that damaged or brought down a lot of trees. That’s a lot of fuel just waiting for something or someone to ignite it. So far we’ve been fortunate and haven’t seen too many brush fires here in New Hampshire. It also looks like we’re in store for a couple of days of soaking rains towards the late part of this week.

==++++==

Steve MacDonald over at Granite Grok asks an important question, that being if not voting for Kamala is racist and misogynist.

If you can stand the sound of their voices or the inane things those voices say, there is a collective message to America coming from the left. If you didn’t vote for Kamala, it wasn’t because she was a lousy candidate (one of the worst ever). It isn’t her open embrace of the misery you are experiencing or the potential promise of more of that. You are a racist, a bigot, and perhaps even a misogynist.

I have a quick question for the Left and any Democrat who apes this narrative. Explain the 2020 race for me, please.

In a crowd of twenty-seven aspirants, there were six people of color. One Asian (whom you probably labeled as white), three black men, one Hispanic (not light-skinned), and Kamala Harris. The rest were white men, plus Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, and Lizard Warren (post-admission that she was less of a Native American than you are).

Before the smoke cleared, Democrats picked the oldest, whitest guy on the list. Joe Biden.

Racist? Misogynist? Bigoted?

The Democrats claiming racism and misogyny are pointing to the folks on the Right...but are forgetting the one finger they are pointing towards those they blame is being countered by the three fingers point back at them. There are none so blind as those will not see the faults in themselves and their beliefs.

Kamala was an awful candidate, period. When she ran for president back in 2020 she garnered support of less than 3% of likely Democrat voters and folded her campaign before the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire Primaries. Nothing really changed between then and 2024 other than her becoming a “poison pill” VP. She was just as vacuous in 2024 as she was in 2020...and even prior to that.

==++++==

Is Great Britain returning to Victorian era levels of poverty and hygiene?

Yes. Yes it is and it’s all being done on purpose in the name of the impossible to attain “Net Zero” energy policies.

People can live with wearing smelly, unwashed clothes and bad hygiene – our ancestors lived this way for centuries. But you cannot live without adequate warmth.

Thanks to Net Zero’s skyrocketing energy prices, Britain appears to be well on the way to establishing Victorian England levels of poverty in some communities. The poorest people in Britain have been forced to make a choice, between the humiliation of sending their kids to school in unwashed clothes, or risking their health in even worse ways by providing inadequate food and warmth.

In some ways it is worse today than it was in the late 1800s during Queen Victoria’s reign. At least the Victorian poor were allowed to burn scrap wood for warmth. Most homes in Victorian times had some kind of fireplace or hearth where people could burn wood or whatever else they could get their hands on to stay warm.

Too bad that they are no longer allowed to do so because burning wood is against the UK’s Net Zero policies. Renewable energy was sold on the basis that it was cheaper than ‘regular’ energy. However, the reality has shown that it is anything but. It also isn’t reliable, isn’t dispatchable, and is very weather dependent. Yet the UK has gone heavily into renewables and dialed back on abundant and reliable ‘regular’ energy and it is the poor residents there who are paying the price. This makes me wonder if some faceless and nameless bureaucrat, knowing that it is possible people will die because of this, is thinking like Scrooge that “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

==++++==

Is there a nuclear renaissance taking place in New Hampshire? If Governor-elect Kelly Ayotte has her way, the answer is yes.

Goodness knows we need it, particularly in a state that has some of the highest electricity rates in the US, particularly during the winter months.

Ten legislators, including two from the Concord area – Sen. Howard Pearl and Rep. Jose Cambrils – signed on to a piece of preliminary legislation “declaring the development of advanced nuclear energy technology to be in the best interest of the state of New Hamp shire and the United States.”

Ayotte, now the governor-elect, could have a chance to make strides toward nuclear energy with a newly expanded Republican majority in the House of Representatives and a supermajority in the Senate.

“This isn't an immediate play, right?” Ayotte told the Monitor in August. “But we have to position New Hampshire for these new technologies. If we don't think ahead and think forward, then we'll be behind as these newer technologies continue to develop.”

Nuclear power has emerged as a potential option to aid the energy transition; experts say it doesn’t directly produce carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas emissions. During her campaign, Ayotte proposed adding a small-modular nuclear reactor in the North Country, which she said would create jobs and stimulate the region’s economy. New Hampshire currently has one nuclear plant, in Seabrook.

While we do receive more than half of our electricity from Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, the rest comes from a mix of natural gas, hydro, biomass, and coal, in descending order. The natural gas plants have an advantage since they can be brought online quickly, either for peak load handling or for base load. But natural gas is expensive in New England because during the cooler months much of it comes from foreign sources, primarily Trinidad & Tobago, shipped into the natural gas terminal in the Boston area. Rather than being able to use cheap domestic natural gas, New England has to use foreign natural gas because the natural gas pipeline into New England has nowhere near the capacity needed.

What makes things worse is that the one new pipeline project that would have increased the amount of natural gas needed was killed after a well organized opposition movement stopped it. The same happened when not one, not two, but three powerline projects that would have brought clean, renewable, and cheap hydropower into New England from Quebec were also killed. Ironically, many of the same people who protested against all of these projects were the first to complain about how much they’re paying for electricity. I guess they weren’t able to make the connection between their actions and their higher electricity bills. Then again, they rarely connect their actions with outcomes.

Such it is with ‘true believers’ of the climate cult.

==++++==

Is Whoopi Goldberg getting a taste of karma?

It seems the bakery on Staten Island Whoopi accused of refusing her service because of her political views did no such thing.

...Whoopi Goldberg suddenly went missing from The View today after the owners of Holtermann’s Bakery on Staten Island came out to tell their side of the story.. They didn’t “refuse” service to Goldberg because of her politics, they had a boiler break down and couldn’t make anything… Holtermann’s has been in business on Staten Island for over 145 years. I seriously doubt they would refuse service to ANYONE as that would not be a type of business model that keeps you in business since the 1800s.

If I were Holtermann’s I would sue Whoopi for defamation and take her for every penny they could get. She let her political beliefs cloud her judgment and either she read something into Holtermann’s not being able to take her order that wasn’t there, or she saw an opportunity to ‘punish’ someone she thought richly deserved it. I would like to think it was the former and not the latter. Or she’s slid so deeply down the Leftist slope that she’s seeing things that aren’t there and ignoring things that go against her viewpoint.

In either case, I lost respect for her a long time ago.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s very dry and we desperately need rain, the nice sunny and (relatively) warm weather continues, and where Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away.

History Is Repeating Itself

We’ve heard this said a number of ways –

“Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” – George Santayana

“A generation that ignores history has no past...and no future.” – Robert Heinlein

“History doesn’t repeat itself. It rhymes.” – Albert Einstein

It seems too many today are ignoring a dark period in our history and by doing so are seeing a repeat of a part of that dark history. What am I referring to?

Kristallnacht.

We have seen anti-semitism growing in places it should never see the light of day. It’s in our college campuses. It’s seen at protests by our ignorant Progressive youth. It’s seen in public when mobs of Hamas supporters attack Jews in Amsterdam. It’s seen in Washington DC when the modern day version of ‘Nazis’ smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant on the anniversary of Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass – which took place in Nazi Germany in 1936. It was the start of the pogrom that would see over 6 million Jews methodically murdered in places like Bergen-Belson, Sobibor, Dachau, and Auschwitz, just to name a few of the German death camps. It was the Holocaust.

It seems too many people today are headed towards recreating that hateful time on our history.

On the week of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, rabid pro-Hamas radicals in Amsterdam and the USA are proving that too many Westerners do not know even recent history and are terrifyingly repeating it.

Pogroms in the streets. “Wanted posters” of Jewish intellectuals. Windows shattered on Jewish businesses. Mass protests calling for the genocide of Jews. These are not only scenes from Nazi territories and the Holocaust in the 20th century but from modern-day America and the Netherlands, as well as too many other Western countries. Within living memory of the horrific Nazi Kristallnacht pogroms, we are seeing the same organized antisemitism that led to genocide unfolding before our eyes.

--snip--

Even more dangerously, both before, during, and after the Kristallnacht anniversary, the Netherlands — once a scene of mass arrests and killings of Jews by Nazis — has made international headlines as Muslim migrants and other pro-Hamas rioters launched anti-Jewish attacks. The violence, which began last week with attacks that injured dozens of Israeli soccer fans, grew so horrible in Amsterdam with “Jew hunts” and genocidal chants that they were labeled “pogroms.”

--snip--

Speaking of Westerners who support genocidal jihad, too many U.S. college campi continue to be hotbeds of hatred not only against Israel specifically, but against all Jews. At the New York University of Rochester, pro-Hamas radicals put up “wanted” posters featuring the pictures of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother and other Jewish faculty, according to The Times of Israel on Nov. 13.

One thing that many of the pro-Hamas supporters choose to ignore is that the present Hamas-Israeli war was not started by Israel. It was started by Hamas. They killed over 1700 Israeli citizens on the first day and kidnapped hundreds of others, many who were later murdered by their Hamas captors. Once Hamas realized they were likely to lose they started playing the sympathy card, making sure to show as many casualties as possible, even with Hamas ensuring there were casualties by using so many people ruled by them as human shields to increase the number of dead and wounded. This is a tactic Hamas has used on the past to good effect.

If Hamas wants the war with Israel to end there is an easy way to do that.

Surrender.

But as long as they have the support of the modern version of Nazis, they won’t. The war and hatred will continue.

And history will repeat itself.

Friday Funny (on Saturday) - Anesthesia Truth

I cannot believe I did it yet again. I put the post together, got everything together...and forgot to click on 'Publish'. Imagine my surprise when I opened my Blogger web page and saw it showed my Friday post was in 'Draft' status.

So here goes:

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a quiet weekend, even with the older WP Sister and my Dear Brother up visiting today. We did dine out after church, but even with that it’s been an uneventful weekend. About the only ‘exciting’ thing that took place was the Patriots-Bears game today.

One thing that needs to be done around The Gulch is removal of all of the leaves. They have piled up and even with the efforts of yours truly and my neighbors, there are still far too many to pick up. We do have a landscaper that is supposed to be here with leaf blowers and leaf vacuums to pick up the above average crop of leaves, but so far they haven’t made an appearance. I just hope they’ll get things cleaned up before the first snowfall.

An upcoming event that will help prepare for winter is the trusty RAM 1500’s trip to the body shop. I am trying to stay ahead of the rust, hence the trip to the body shop. This time it will be for two new front fenders as the body shop owners said they could repair them, but that I’d be back in a couple of years to have it done again. While a little more expensive to have them replaced, they should be good for another 10 years. Next year it will be some body work at the rear of the truck next to the tail gate. That should do it for rust.

After its trip to the body shop it will be going to have its annual undercoating taken care of to help hold the rust at bay. I am hoping to get another 10 years out of the pickup. At least it is in good mechanical shape, but then I have been staying on top of the maintenance. About the only thing that will need to be replaced any time in the next few years will be the tires...I hope.

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As a follow up to yesterday’s post there’s this from Ed Driscoll: We Need A Mental Health Checkup On Millions Of American Leftists.

Is something I thought was a send up actually a reflection of reality? Just how many on the Left have had a mental meltdown over the results of the November 5th election?

If this is for real then we have a bigger problem than I thought. What’s worse is that we may not have the mental health resources to deal with it.

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In light of the blatant and violent antisemitism shown in Amsterdam, I have to agree with Datechguy: This is why we need the 2nd Amendment.

This morning I woke to the news that there were folks in Amsterdam who used the excuse of a soccer match to start a pogrom against Jews:

They’re beaten, kicked, run over, thrown in the river. In one instance, a fan was reportedly held against his will until he said ‘Free Palestine’. When terrorist sympathizers chant globalize the intifada, this is what it looks like. Every one of these are anti-Jewish hate crimes, plain and simple.

The Dutch authorities apparently no longer having the courage or those who fought the Nazis or Michiel de Ruyter are apparently sitting this one out…

I’ve heard some people state “That could never happen here”. They’re wrong. We’ve already seen examples of blatant institutional antisemitism in our colleges and universities. It isn’t all that far for that antisemitism turn into violence, to become another pogrom.

Self defense against such violence is a must and why we must preserve, if not strengthen the 2nd Amendment. The Jews in Amsterdam have no such means to protect themselves. Jews in America do.

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Oh, this is going to work out well...NOT!

Reverse-Discrimination and DEI Now Part of NY State Constitution as Proposition 1 Passes.

The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) was the first to sound the alarm about Part B of Proposition 1 in NY State, the misleadingly-named Equal Rights Amendment. Under the guise of protecting abortion in NY State — which was not threatened — the Democrat legislature added not only a wide swath of new protected categories such as ‘gender expression’ giving rise to concerns about parents’ rights and girls sports (Part A), but also a completely new Part B that embedded core concepts of reverse-discrimination and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the constitution.

That someone thought codifying reverse-discrimination and adding the racist concepts of DEI into a state constitution seemed like a good idea completely baffles me. Do the proponents of New York’s Proposition 1 (Part B) think that SCOTUS will let something like that stand considering it is so blatantly unconstitutional? If I had to guess, those supporting Proposition 1 were mostly in the Metro NYC area and along the I-87 corridor to Albany. Those opposing it were mostly outside that area.

As history has shown us, reverse-discrimination does not solve the problem of discrimination. You don’t solve racism by committing reverse-racism. You stop it by not being racist, period. You stop discrimination by not discriminating.

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And this is the (abbreviated) news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are piling up...even more, the last few boats are being pulled from the water, and where I’m still recovering from the long long day of Election Day.

Over The Top?

I have to admit some of the reactions to Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump caught me by surprise. I expected the more usual responses such as disappointment, dismay, some sadness, even some anger. But some reactions I’ve seen go beyond the pale. It makes me wonder if some of them are purposely over-the-top as if to make it seem that we have a dearth of fainting couches. This one in particular had me wondering if the reactions were real or were made just for TikTok.

The first one had me looking for a tranquilizer gun as she appeared to be on the verge of going Hulk, turning green and smashing everything in sight. Some of the others had me watching them again and again to see if their tears were genuine or non-existent.

I’m still not sure.

Some may claim I am not being empathetic to their feelings, but are their feelings real or are they playing it up? If their reactions are real, something I have to question, then they need some help. Seriously. I don’t remember seeing people reacting like this to election results, ever. Is it a new phenomenon or have I been missing people reacting like this over the past 60 years or so?

Friday Funny - Sam Kinison Sings

Thoughts On A Sunday

What a difference a day makes.

Friday was warm and in the 70’s. Yesterday was cool and in the 40’s. This morning it was 31ºF here at The Gulch, the first morning below freezing since this past spring and it will reach the mid 40’s in the afternoon.

It was breezy over the past three days so we saw a lot of leaf fall. Most of the trees have shed their leaves and they are piled up all around The Gulch and the neighborhood. Now that the winds have died down raking will be taking place.

One thing I have done to help with leaf removal, at least from the front rain gutters on The Gulch and a neighbor’s home is purchase a set of ‘leaf grabbers’ that makes it easy to clean out those gutters from the ground, no ladder required. While not perfect for the job, they should suffice for those days when ‘old’ leaves (mostly oak leaves) have clogged the gutters during mid-fall and early/mid spring.

I have also been moving Sterilite containers from my rental storage unit into my garage attic, a few at a time, all in an effort to make the rental unit unnecessary. Hopefully I will have it emptied out before the end of the year. I am expecting to make a big dent in this effort over the Thanksgiving holiday.

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We have left Daylight Savings Time and ‘fallen back’ to Standard Time, something I have come to dislike intensely. Living on the eastern extreme of the Eastern Time Zone means there are days during winter when I start and finish work in the dark. I would prefer to stay on Daylight Savings Time as it works better for us up here in New Hampshire and Maine.

It’s ironic that Standard Time lasts for a little more than 4 months while Daylight Savings lasts 8 months, so why not just stay on DST year round?

Of course there is one group that cares nothing for time zones or time changes, that group being the feline contingent here at The Gulch and elsewhere. They know breakfast time, dinner time, and snack time, none of which have anything to with the time on the clock. I have no doubt the same is true of those with canine members in their households.

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After all the back and forth with people claiming Trump was saying Liz Cheney should be executed, there’s this from someone who doesn’t like Trump at all:

Folks, Trump didn't threaten to execute Liz Cheney. He actually was calling her a chickenhawk, something liberals said about her for ages.

Look at the context — Trump is talking about giving her a weapon. Typically, people put in front of firing squads aren't armed.

“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained in her face.”

“They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building, saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops right in the mouth of the enemy,’” he added.

That’s quite a bit different from what the MSM, the DNC, and the rest of The Usual Suspects have been trying to sell to the electorate. But then what’s new about that?

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This is a comment I posted to this Instapundit post about missing mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania:

As best I have been able to determine, we are one of the only nations using mail-in voting. Other countries used it and abandoned it because there was too much fraud. Why anyone thought this was a good idea baffles me...unless of course that what The Powers That Be in the DNC wanted and are using it to generate massive distrust of the voting system so they can get rid of voting altogether.

One of the other commenters added this:

France banned mail-in voting in 1975 – due to fraud.

Mexico banned mail-in voting in 1992 – due to fraud.

Belgium banned mail-in voting in 2018 – due to fraud.

Sweden does not permit mail-in voting.

Italy does not permit mail-in voting.

Ukraine does not permit mail-in voting.

Russia does not permit mail-in voting.

Japan does not permit mail-in voting.

No Middle Eastern country permits mail-in voting.

No Latin country permits mail-in voting.

So why is the US using mail-in voting when we know it’s biggest ‘plus’ is that it makes it easier to commit voting fraud? It makes no sense to me...unless one of the major political parties wants it so they can commit voter fraud as needed in order to ensure they remain in power.

Mail-in voting isn’t legal in my home state. It was used once, illegally, when the New Hampshire Secretary of State ‘allowed’ it during Covid even though he had no such power to do so. Only our legislature, with the consent of the governor, can do so and that isn’t likely to happen any time soon.

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Yeah, I’d say this is a sure bet.

If Trump wins the popular vote watch the Left suddenly sour on the National Popular Vote Compact.

I have been arguing for an awful lot of years that the National Popular Vote Compact is an attempt to disenfranchises votes of individual states so that elections can be fixed on a national level.

The left has pooh poohed this and deep blue states like California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, New York, Illinois, Vermont, Connecticut and yes disgracefully my state of Massachusetts went along and signed this idiocy sure and secure in the knowledge that no Republican would every be popular enough and no Democrat so unpalatable enough that it would bite them in the ass.

--snip--

Now I still maintain that this disenfranchises individual states but I have a feeling if the Kamala collapse continues I will suddenly find a lot of leftists from an awful lot of blue states and a ton of media will suddenly have my back and rush to the Supreme Court to have all of these laws stuck down. The irony of course is that I expect all three liberal judges will be with me on this one at the very least.

Now with Kamala collapsing so badly that the Washington Post and LA Times won’t endorse her it might be moot so I don’t know if this will be the result but if it is, it will be glorious!

If it doesn’t work for them then why would they want to keep pushing it. The Founders understood about the dangers of democracy, of the tyranny of the majority, and set up Congress and the Electoral College to keep the big states from dominating the small states.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any More Desperate” Department comes this gem from New York Governor Kathy Hochul (Clueless – NY):

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently appeared on MSNBC and said that if you vote Republican, you’re anti-woman and anti-American.

It has been amazing in this election cycle, how Democrats have become so comfortable insulting and degrading their fellow Americans for the crime of disagreeing with them.

Their deranged rhetoric makes them look very desperate, like they know they’re losing.

This from someone who believes in lawfare, doesn’t believe in the Constitution, and thinks that if we don’t vote for someone based purely on their race or sex that we’re racists and/or sexists...and anti-American?

What an idjit…

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where boats are still being pulled out of the water, and where I’ll be spending all day Tuesday working at the polls.

Are The October Jobs Numbers A Death Knell For The Harris Campaign?

Remember the job numbers for September the Harris campaign touted to show just how well Bidenomics is working? My first thought was “How much will those job numbers be revised downwards?” Jobs number revisions usually occur about 2 months after the release, so we can look forward to the September jobs number revision in December. However, we may not need to wait that long considering the dismal October job numbers that were released yesterday.

US hiring slowed significantly last month, in what marked the weakest jobs growth reported under President Joe Biden.

Friday’s downbeat employment update, released just days before the US election, revealed just 12,000 non-farming jobs were added in October, down from 223,000 a month earlier.

This marked the slowest rate of growth since late 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as analysts blamed the impact of hurricanes and strike action at Boeing.

While hiring slowed, America’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.1pc.

The closely watched report will be sure to draw scrutiny from both presidential candidates before next Thursday’s election, as Kamala Harris and Donald Trump battle to convince voters of their ability to improve the economy.

The administration was expecting job growth to be around 121,000 new jobs, but the preliminary numbers for October are a tenth of that. Kamala Harris is going to have a tough time explaining those numbers away and certainly can’t blame Trump for them. They certainly won’t be revised until January, two months after the election is in the history books. But I figure the Harris campaign will do its best to lay the blame on Trump somehow since it looks like its attempted smear of Trump regarding his comments about Liz Cheney has backfired big time.

One has to wonder what the Harris campaign will try next considering the election is three days away. Considering the crap that was thrown at Trump in 2016 and 2020, nothing would really surprise me.