Thoughts On A Sunday

We’re starting to see more trees shifting from green to the reds, oranges, and yellows of fall. While peak foliage colors aren’t expected to be seen here until the first full week of October at the earliest. The “leaf prognosticators” have predicted the colors will be brilliant, but they will appear quickly in an explosion of colors, and then fade almost as quickly.

This is quite different from what we experienced last year since we had a lot of rain all summer and through early fall which meant muted colors. (If my understanding is correct, this was due to a fungus that grew on the leaves because of the wet conditions that caused the colors to appear ‘dusty’ – the expert’s words, not mine.)

While we haven’t seen the leaf peepers – foliage tourists – in large numbers, that will change shortly as the colors appear. This will be the ‘last gasp’ for tourist dollars for the year, though a lot of those tourists will be from overseas. Then when foliage season ends we won’t see much in the way of tourists until winter when the ski areas and snowmobile open. Even then we won’t see nearly as many visitors as we do during late spring, summer, and early fall.

Not that we mind all that much as we do need a breather between tourist seasons to recuperate. It allows us to visit our favorite places without the folks from away being there.

==++++==

It seems we’re getting conflicting information (or dis-/misinformation) from the media and the Harris campaign. We see MSM outlets like CNN – once fully in the pocket of the DNC, particularly during the Obama administration – slamming the Harris campaign for an increasing number of falsehoods being sold in campaign ads and speeches.

Then add on the Biden administration’s double ‘F’ grade on the White House Report Card from both conservatives and Democrats. We have to remind potential voters that Kamala Harris is part of the Biden administration and has failed to deliver (or even perform) two duties assigned to her – Border ‘Czar’ and Broadband Expansion – with the border being wide open and unvetted illegal immigrants flooding across the border with many of them being members of violent criminal gangs and other criminals that then commit crimes here, and billions of dollars in BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment) program funds sitting idle because she can’t be bothered to do that job either.

It seems the Harris campaign is trying to do as Victor Davis Hanson has posited: It’s trying to run out the clock and do as little actual campaigning as possible in order keep Kamala away from unscripted Q&A sessions because they know she’s an idiot.

Cynically running out the clock has been the overarching principle of the entire abbreviated 105-day presidential campaign of Kamala Harris—ever since Joe Biden, at the 11th-hour, dropped out in July.

Harris seems unwilling or unable to answer any impromptu question that she has not been previously prepped for. Her answers at the debate were memorized and canned. They never addressed the questions asked.

Her single, 11-minute post-debate Philadelphia interview was a shipwreck of dodging and dissimulating—even though the host was sympathetically left-wing.

Even socialist Bernie Sanders pointed out that for Harris to get elected, she must temporarily disown her lifelong leftist credentials.

As vice president, she must further deny co-ownership of the unpopular record of the Biden-Harris administration.

All we can do is hope the ‘run out the clock’ strategy fails and Kamala will be fully exposed for the lying Marxist she is.

==++++==

And then there’s this, just to add insult to injury:

The Biden/Harris administration is suing the state of Alabama in order to prevent it from removing illegal immigrants from their voter rolls.

WTF?

"The Justice Department announced a lawsuit Friday against Alabama, arguing the state’s effort to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls came too close to the November election," reports the Washington Times. "The department asked a federal judge to order Alabama to put the names — which the state says are ineligible voters — back on the active voter lists. The department said some actual citizens were sent notices that they had been moved to the inactive voter file."

--snip--

Alabama announced its plan to purge noncitizens from the rolls last month.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said at the time that his office had identified 3,251 names of people on the lists to whom Homeland Security had issued what he called a “noncitizen identification” number. His office instructed registrars to inactivate those names and “initiate steps” to remove those who were found to be noncitizens.

Mr. Allen said Homeland Security refused to cooperate with his efforts.

He said it’s “possible” that some of the people the feds had issued the numbers to had later achieved citizenship and the process he started would allow them to verify their citizenship status.

One has to wonder how states are supposed to remove ineligible voters, dead voters, inactive voters, or voters who no longer live in the state from their voter rolls? Removing them certainly makes it harder for Democrats to cheat during an election.

==++++==

I think anyone who paid attention to this politically motivated case was expecting this:

NY Judges Scrutinize ‘Troubling’ $450 Million Penalty In Trump Fraud Case: ‘No One Lost Any Money’

A New York appellate court is raising questions regarding the penalty and the justification under which AG Letitia James brought the case.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered in February former President Donald Trump to pay an approximate $450 million penalty in a civil fraud case in which there were no victims. Now, a New York appellate court is raising questions regarding the “troubling” penalty and Attorney General Letitia James’ justification for bringing the case in the first place.

James accused Trump of inflating his personal wealth to get better loan terms. Trump, for example, valued his Mar-a-Lago estate at between $427 million and $612 million, Forbes reported. Engoron, however, cited a one-off local Palm Beach County appraiser who valued the property as low as $18 million. Some experts have reportedly valued the sprawling property in the hundreds of millions.

As my colleague Mark Hemingway explained earlier this year, “Trump took out loans over several years, as real estate moguls are wont to do. For him to get approved for those loans, the banks did their own due diligence about Trump’s finances and ability to pay back the loans and decided to give them to him. Trump paid back the loans, and everyone made money.”

The process described above is pretty standard. Even the banks have said so which is why they do their own evaluation of properties to come up with an unbiased value of the properties in question. Sometimes they match. Sometimes they don’t.

The verdict in the trial, one that Letitia James said she’d pursue when running for the office of NY AG, sent shockwaves through the commercial real estate market in New York. Despite assurances from New York Governor Hochul that no one else would be targeted, investors didn’t believe those assurances which puts billions of dollars of investments in the Metro New York City area at risk. One such investor and “Shark Tank” host, Kevin O’Leary, said he will no longer invest in “loser” New York.

O’Leary issued his warning to real estate investors following [the] decision by Judge Arthur Engoron that Trump and his two eldest sons lied about his wealth and inflated the value of his assets.

“This award, I mean, just leaving the whole Trump thing out of it and seeing what occurred here … And I’m no different than any other investor, I’m shocked at this,” O’Leary told Fox Business Network…

O’Leary, a judge on the hit reality show known as “Mr. Wonderful,” said he “can’t even understand or fathom the decision at all.”

--snip--

O’Leary said that he has heard from peers in the business world who have pledged to shun New York, which “was already on the top of the list of being a loser state.”

“I would never invest in New York now,” O’Leary said, adding: “And I’m not the only person saying that.”

That the commercial real estate market in New York has tanked since then is an indicator that this may be a side effect of the Trump verdict. New York City has other issues that have negatively affected the real estate values in the city, the large influx of illegal immigrants, a D.A. choosing not to prosecute criminals, and a bail reform law that allow criminals arrested for crimes to walk out without bail being among them.

It will be interesting to see what the NY Court of Appeals decides in the Trump case. I have a feeling they will overturn the verdict, and if not, reduce if not eliminate the unconstitutional penalty imposed by Judge Engoron. There have also been questions about Judge Engoron’s impartiality during the trial, seeing many of his statements during the trial showed a blatant bias against Trump.

It would be interesting to see the effects if the NY Court of Appeals were to rule in favor of Trump prior to the November election. I would expect the Democrats would express outrage and Kamala Harris would generate yet another word salad meant to express her disappointment that the politically motivated lawsuit failed in the end.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are turning, the weather has been nice, and where Monday will once again screw up the weekend.

It's Only Going To Get Worserer

Last week I wrote about how the campaigns for the November elections were going to get worse.

It’s only been a week and it’s already gotten worse.

The Harris campaign has cranked up the crazy by borrowing a lesson from past campaigns against Trump and piled one lie on top of another, making claims that smack so much of Hillary’s 2016 campaign misinformation and SloJoe’s 2020 campaign of nonsense.

Some of my not-so-favorites from some recent Harris campaign ads:

Trump is going to impose a 20% sales tax on everything which will bankrupt the poor and burden the middle class.

He’s going to ban abortion across the board with no exceptions.

He supports Project 2025 which the Harris ads claim will destroy democracy in the US. Neither Trump or Vance support it, something even CNN has verified.

He’ll cut or eliminate Social Security and leave millions of elderly destitute. This is also something CNN debunked along with Trump’s alleged support of Project 2025 goals. (You know it's bad when even CNN is slamming the Harris campaign's prevarications.)

And then there’s some of the same type of campaign ad lies going on in our local gubernatorial race, with Joyce Craig’s campaign digging up all kinds of things from speeches made by her GOP opponent decades ago but ignoring speeches or statements or votes made since then that disproves those claims. They also make claims about how Craig did such a wonderful job as the mayor of Manchester, NH even though she tried to raise taxes every year, mishandled the homelessness problems plaguing the city while also managing to wrangle a substantial pay raise for herself.

Am I being partisan about this?

Yes. Absolutely. I see what the Harris/Walz campaign has in store for our nation and I see the parallels to the old and long dead Soviet Union, which died for a good reason.

At the state level I see the Democrats trying to turn New Hampshire into a version of Massachusetts and leftist Vermont.

I have no doubt it’s going to get even worserer...

Friday Funny (Saturday Morning Edition) - N'Hampsha Humah - Live Free Or Die

It wasn't until I was making coffee this morning when I realized that it was Saturday morning. No, really! It was then that I also realized I hadn't posted the Friday Funny, so here it is, about 12 hours later than usual.


This was from 14 years ago, but it's still true!

Thoughts On A Sunday

This past week I had to spend Wednesday morning in the hospital for day surgery to deal with a small health issue, something I’ve been through before and will likely have to deal with again 10 or so years down the road. That meant taking a day off during the middle of the week and working from home the rest of the week. On Friday I made the mistake a taking a walk around the neighborhood to stretch my legs.

The ‘mistake’ had nothing to do with my minor health issue as the docs said I should get up and walk around in the days following the surgery. Instead, the mistake was neglecting to take an umbrella with me during that walk.

I didn’t need the umbrella for rain.

I needed it for the acorns.

My neighborhood has a lot of trees. A lot of those trees are oaks. All of those trees hang over the road and walking trail around our neighborhood. All of those oaks have generated a bumper crop of acorns this year and they are all dropping acorns. Lots of acorns.

Did you know that acorns hurt when they hit you on the head and shoulders after falling quite some distance from the upper parts of those oaks? This is particularly true when the they fall in large numbers at the same time when the wind picks up.

Hence, the need for the umbrella that I didn’t have.

==++++==

Was this a bit of a joke or was SloJoe cognizant enough to get some small revenge on Harris and the DNC for shoving him out of the campaign by donning a Trump 2024 hat in Pennsylvania?

I’d like to think it’s the latter.

==++++==

Despite what the Democrats have claimed about January 6th, it appears more evidence proves that President Trump wanted more security to “protect lives and property”. Where did this evidence come from?

By way of the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight.

Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (GA-11) revealed that days before January 6, 2021, President Trump met with senior Pentagon leaders urging them to do their jobs to protect lives and property. The transcripts released show Trump gave senior Pentagon leadership directives to keep January 6 peaceful – including using the National Guard – which the Pentagon leaders ignored. This revelation directly contradicts the conclusions drawn in the flawed DoD IG reporton January 6, 2021.

If memory serves, Trump had also asked for additional Capitol Police and Speaker Pelosi quashed that request. Then there were the FBI instigators in the crowds, something that makes me think Pelosi knew there would be trouble and welcomed it as a means of “ridding herself of that meddlesome [Trump]”.

It was a setup from the word ‘go’.

==++++==

Sometimes a new word comes into existence, one that perfectly describes something that would take more than a few existing words to do so. The new word I’ve come across?

“Democrisy.”

A perfect blend of democracy and hypocrisy, something that perfectly describes the present day Democrat Party.

The party of more and more gun control are now buying themselves more guns.

We noted, 2½ years ago, that, in the aftermath of its bloodiest year on record — 562 homicides in 2021 — even Philadelphia Magazine’s Victor Fiorillo, who is so dramatically opposed to Fox 29 News Steve Keeley actually reporting on crime, told us about Philadelphians applying for concealed carry permits at a greatly increased rate.

Now it seems that significant numbers of the American left, who have been so vigorous in their demands to infringe upon our rights to keep and bear arms, have decided to keep and bear arms themselves.

Why are they now buying guns? Could it be because they want to protect themselves from “armed right-wing extremists”? Or could it be because they know the police can’t protect them and their Soros-owned prosecutors won’t prosecute violent criminals which leaves them on the streets?

Democrisy, indeed.

==++++==

Uh-oh, it looks like the Climate Change Narrative may have change as it seems NOAA’s prediction of a busy 2024 hurricane season is wrong.

Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a very active Atlantic hurricane season for 2024.

One of the explanations for the lack of storm systems forming in the Atlantic Basin in recent weeks is due to the Saharan Dust moving across the Atlantic Ocean, scientists say. Large Saharan dust outbreaks brought widespread, intense plumes of dust and lots of dry air across the tropical Atlantic during July and much of August, Ed Nowottnick, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told ABC News.

Tropical waves have been exiting the African continent so far north that they have been pulling in lots of dust and dry air, limiting their chances for development, according to researchers at tropical weather experts at Colorado State University.

Looking ahead to mid-September, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center’s long-range Global Tropical Hazards Outlook calls for a slight to moderate chance of new tropical development over the Central Atlantic Ocean.

So, is it climate or is it weather?

I’m guessing the Climate Change Faithful will call it weather since it doesn’t meet The Narrative and therefore must be ignored (difficult) or explained away (most likely).

I expect they’ll find some way to blame Trump for this.

And so it goes…

==++++==

It seems the Harris campaign keeps coming up with one bad economic idea after another.

The latest one?

Nationwide rent control.

I’m sorry, but I can’t think of a single time that rent control hasn’t negatively affected the housing market in the long run, short-circuiting supply and demand. It’s been tried again and again, not just here, but in other countries, too. It has never worked.

One of the latest countries to try it, and fail, has been the Netherlands.

Kamala Harris wants to pass a national rent control plan that, if enacted, will only make rent more expensive and exacerbate the current housing shortage. We know this because that's what happens when rent controls are initiated. It's Econ 101: limit the supply of something and prices go up with no incentive to make more of it to alleviate the shortage.

The Netherlands enacted a national rent-control program in July. The Dutch already had rent control that covered about 80% of its rental housing. The new policy brought 96% of the nation's rental housing under the rent-control regime.

--snip--

“The sad reality is that for home seekers, it now has become harder than ever to find a rental property in an already tight market,” says Michiel Vrijman, who runs the Dutch operations of Heimstaden Bostad AB, a Swedish company.

The tight market is hitting the middle class hardest. The poor benefit from rent-controlled properties, but those in the middle find it nearly impossible to find a place to live.

"In a year, probably people will take to the streets to complain about this situation because it’s getting harder and harder to find a rental property,” says Jasper de Groot, CEO of property listings website Pararius. “The price will increase in the liberalized market because the demand is so high.”

Did anyone there stop to think what would happen to the housing market when rent control expanded? Obviously not. If they had it’s likely they never would instituted such an expansion.

Now Kamala Harris wants to make the same mistake here, ensuring that housing becomes unaffordable if it’s available at all. But then I doubt Harris really cares about it as it only affects the middle class, a group she’s shown she hates with a passion.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Fall has arrived, the acorns are still falling like rain, and where the leaf peepers will soon be arriving in droves.

It's Only Going To Get Worse

Every time I think it can’t get any worse I am proven wrong, particularly when it comes to political ads. As is always the case, the closer we get to the election in November the worse it’s going to get.

While the ads for the federal offices like President/Vice President, the House, and the Senate will get loud, often, and nasty even oftener, some of the state races are likely to get just as nasty.

While some of the ads I’ve seen for the two House races here in New Hampshire haven’t been all that numerous or loud, the ads for gubernatorial race here have gotten loud, endless, and mostly focus on one issue, one that I doubt I could care any less about than I already do. That issue?

Abortion.

The Democrats in New Hampshire are dumping millions into pro-abortion ads, slamming the GOP gubernatorial candidate, former NH Attorney General and former US Senator Kelly Ayotte, for her alleged stand on abortion. Just about every ad is about abortion, or a counter ad saying the Democrats are lying about her position(s) on abortion.

It seems the ads run at every commercial break, which means every 10 or 15 minutes. It’s annoying. It’s “All Abortion All The Time”, as if this is the only issue worth paying attention to during this election and that nothing else matters.

The Democrats are trying so hard to make this a single-issue election and in the process, pissing off a lot of people. I know it’s certainly pissing me off.

I have always had problems with single issue elections. I have an even a bigger problem with single issue voters as I find so many of them tend to be closeminded, or worse, uninformed and/or misinformed.

The only saving grace is that we only have to put up with it until November 5th.

The bad part of this is that we have to keep putting up with it until November 5th...and it can’t get here soon enough.

NOTE: I will state clearly that I don't like elective abortions. I never have. I have moral objections to it except under special circumstances. But is legal and as such protected under law. And that's all I'm going to say about it.

Friday Funny - A Husband's Letter

Thoughts On A Sunday

While the calendar and the weather say it’s still summer, one sign of fall’s approach that is unmistakable is acorns, specifically acorns as they fall from the oak trees. It happens every year, starting towards the end of August and picking up as we progress through September. Most years the number of acorns falling are nothing spectacular. But the past two years have seen huge numbers of acorns falling, sometimes so much so it sounds almost like rain. But there is also the ‘thud’ when they hit the roof, the ‘bang’ when they hit the roof of a car or truck, or the ‘smack’ when they hit the driveway or road. There are pieces of acorn all over road, crunching under the tires as we drive along the road.

Another sign of the fall’s impending arrival is the foliage starting to change color. There isn’t much in the way of change yet, but the swamp maples are usually the first to change and I’ve seen a few already starting, with some sections of the tree already changing from green to red. I’ve also seen some of the birches, those ‘stressed’ during the April Nor’easter this past spring, changing earlier than the rest of them.

We won’t see peak foliage until early October, something I plan to take in from the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout as that’s one way to see it all without having to worry all that much about leaf peeper traffic on the roads.

==++++==

We’ll be experiencing a ‘twofer’ Tuesday night with a combination of a “super moon” and partial lunar eclipse. A super moon is when the moon is closer to the Earth which makes it appear larger than usual. Add in the partial lunar eclipse which will take place for about a half-hour between 10:15 and 10:45PM and it’s a nice twofer.

==++++==

This has certainly been true around here.

Housing prices have jumped more than 30 percent under Biden-Harris administration.

The majority of voters believe in the American dream but find it less attainable, a new poll found, thanks to sky-high housing prices, which have jumped more than 30 percent under the Biden-Harris administration.

The poll, conducted in July by the Rainey Center think tank and released through a report this week, found that although 54 percent of Americans believe in the American dream, 66 percent say it has fallen further out of reach. Respondents cited home ownership as a top source of pessimism—57 percent said owning a home has become less attainable over the last decade, compared with just 19 percent who said it's become more attainable.

Home prices have skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration, with the median price for an existing home jumping a whopping 17 percent in 2021. Housing affordability has since emerged as a top issue for young voters in November's election, polling shows.

Thirty percent? Around here, it’s closer 100%.

Checking the comments from the Instapundit post that linked the above article certainly seems to back up some of what I’ve seen regarding housing costs, with prices having doubled or more. They also back up the poll’s findings about housing costs.

The out-of-reach housing costs are having a negative effect on the economy, particularly for those looking for work. How can they take a job knowing they may not be able to afford a place to live. That’s certainly been the case here as we have lots of job openings but applicants can’t afford to move here if they take the jobs. It’s a Catch-22 that I have no doubt a Harris administration will make even worse.

==++++==

You know it’s bad when CNN is blasting the Harris campaign for spreading misinformation while at the same time aligning “herself with the kind of authoritarian logic that dictators throughout history have used to justify censorship, claiming it's necessary to protect the public from so-called disinformation.” It appears to be a “Do as I say, not as I do” moment for Harris. CNN lists a number of creatively edited video clips the campaign has used to make false claims about Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance.

A couple of examples:

The first post mentioned in the article falsely implied that Trump was confused about where he was during a rally in Pennsylvania by showing him mention North Carolina. In reality, he was acknowledging North Carolina supporters in the crowd. Another post falsely implied Trump was confused about his location again during an Arizona speech, but omitted the context that he was discussing Pennsylvania’s immigration issues.

--snip--

Kamala's campaign also lied about Sen. JD Vance. The campaign posted a clip suggesting he supported privatizing veterans' healthcare, but the full quote showed he advocated for more flexibility while maintaining federal care. Another post falsely tied Trump’s monument-damage penalties to Project 2025, "But the full video of the rally shows Trump was not even talking about Project 2025 or his future plans."

There are a number of other examples of other misinformation put forth by the Harris campaign. As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

==++++==

If we need yet another example of just how off track the Pyrite State has gone, there’s this one that has caused a foreseeable problem because of its energy policies. What is ‘this’?

The Hollywood Bowl had to cancel a concert because California’s electrical grid was so strained it caused a power outage in the area.

What did they expect when California has dismantled so much of its generation capacity all in the name supporting “Green Energy”?

The bill arrived because California chose to ignore reality in order to advance green energy initiatives based on dubious climate change theories. One of the first areas hit by a recent heat wave that overwhelmed the southern California power grid was directed at a Mecca of the environmentalist movement: Hollywood.

That seems appropriate, somehow. The ones who have pushed the unsustainable ‘feel good’ policies are some of the ones who suffer from the effects of those same policies. It might also explain why Hollywood studios are “moving to Las Vegas in which Nevada does a better job of providing reliable power to residents and businesses.”

I expect the problem will only get worse as California’s grid goes fully green. On the other hand, now that in increasing flood of businesses and residents are leaving the Pyrite State for greener pastures, the problem may solve itself. At the point the last businesses and last US citizens depart California, the green electrical grid will be able to supply all the power required for the few die hards, illegal immigrants, and government tools still living there. Maybe.

==++++==

Gee, this is a surprise...NOT.

It appears that yet another point that Donald Trump brought up during the debate that was “fact checked” by moderator David Muir and declared to be untrue was actually correct.

During the debate Trump stated “Crime here is up and through the roof. Despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof.”

Trump was correct, as Crime Prevention Research Center president John R. Lott Jr. wrote in a detailed piece published the next day:

In fact, Trump was correct about the increase in crime under Biden. While violent crime fell by 17 percent under Trump, Biden has seen it rise by 43 percent.

Muir doesn’t understand what the FBI is measuring. The FBI counts the number of crimes reported to police. Trump was right that less than half of police departments are now giving that data to the FBI, but, more importantly, Trump was discussing what was happening to total crime, not just the number of crimes reported to police.

But as it turns out, new data released by Joe Biden’s Dept. of Justice on Thursday essentially made Trump’s point for him:

The DOJ’s survey from the Bureau of Justice statistics is self-reported instances of violent crime over the last six months — meaning that it includes crimes that may not have been reported to police.

The annual National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) showed total instances of reported violent crime — including rape, robbery and aggravated assault — is up from 5.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 8.7 per 1,000 in 2023.

The highest recent rate of violent crime was in 2022, when the survey tracked 9.8 instances per 1,000 people over the age of 12.

The rate of rape increased from 1.2 per 1,000 in 2020 to 1.7 in 2023, while robbery went from 1.6 per 1,000 in 2020 to 2.6 per 1,000 in 2023, and aggravated assault rose from 2.9 per 1,000 in 2020 to 4.5 per 1,000 in 2023.

This has me wondering how many other ABC “fact checks” are in error as well? We already know the Harris campaign has no problems with creative editing video to make it seem that Trump said ‘X’ when in fact he said “Y”. We also know ABC has no issues with overtly covering for Harris and inserting itself into the campaign, acting more like a propaganda organ rather than nominally neutral news media.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather remains, our boating season continues, and where Monday is coming back again.

A Tale Of Two States

This is about the contrast between two states, Ohio and New Hampshire, and specifically about how they handle voter registration.

Recently, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu signed a bill into law that removes exceptions to the state’s voter ID law and adds new requirements for registering to vote.

On Thursday, Gov. Chris Sununu signed a much-debated voting rules bill into law.

House Bill 1569 requires anyone registering to vote in New Hampshire to prove valid citizenship with documents such as a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization papers.

The new law also removes all exceptions to the state's voter ID requirements and eliminates the affidavit ballot system.

That system, signed into law just two years ago, allowed voters without an ID to sign a sworn affidavit affirming their identity. If the voter did not return with proof of identification within seven days, the ballot could be subtracted from the final tally of votes.

The problem with the affidavit system is that too many voters who voted via affidavit didn’t return within the 7 days with proper ID which means the system wasn’t working. Why stay with a system that isn’t working well? Another thing: How did election officials know which votes should be subtracted from the vote tally? No one was able to tell me how that was achieved. As such, the change in the law does away with this flawed system.

Voting rights activists had argued the bill would disenfranchise qualified voters.

"What we have here is a phantom, non-existent problem, which is what this bill is designed to address, and on the flip side, you have legitimate eligible voters who will be adversely impacted," Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire, said.

Bissonnette said the ACLU had not ruled out challenging the law in court.

In a statement, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen chastised the governor for signing the bill and called the law "un-American."

These are the same people who support out-of-state college students voting in New Hampshire elections even though they aren’t residents, using the “You can’t deny their rights to vote” excuse to allow such an illegal action. No one’s right to vote was being denied. They had every right to vote...in their home state via absentee ballot, just like anyone else. As best I know New Hampshire is the only state that allows non-resident college students to vote in such a manner.

And then there’s Ohio.

Ohio’s problem is different, in this case Haitian refugees registering to vote in the town of Springfield. How is it non-citizens are registering to vote?

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose warned election boards to be extra vigilant in the weeks before the November election after an investigation uncovered illegal voter registration forms circulating in Clark County.

In a media advisory, the secretary of state's office noted, "The office’s Election Integrity Unit recently concluded an investigation into the origins of an illegal voter registration form translated into the Haitian Creole language. The Clark County Board of Elections reported this form to our office after rejecting its submission by a local applicant." According to the Public Integrity Division, the form had a name written on it but nothing else. Under Ohio law, anyone who commits election falsification is guilty of a fifth-degree felony.

--snip--

Clark County is home to Springfield, Ohio, where as many as 30,000 Haitians have unexpectedly migrated—most of them semi-legally after the Biden-Harris administration extended Temporary Protected Status to 300,000 Haitian migrants in June.

The mass migration to Springfield has taxed hospitals, schools, and social services as the population went from around 60,000 to more than 80,000 overnight.

LaRose's press release noted an ongoing investigation into "evidence of a pattern of fraudulent voter registration activity in multiple counties under the paid employment of a group called Black Fork Strategies."

Apparently Black Fork Strategies has a history of fraudulent voting activities.
It is described as “an Ohio based progressive organization that touts itself as ‘Building Long-Term Progressive Power’.” Gee, I wonder just who they might be supporting in the upcoming elections in November?
Last month the Ohio Secretary of State’s office ”referred a number of election fraud cases involving Black Fork for prosecution.” Why doesn’t that surprise me?

One state is clamping down to make it more difficult to commit voting fraud while the other is having problems with fraudulent voter registrations that involve a Progressive organization that seems to have no problem with ensuring Progressive power...even if they have to cheat to do it. (Sound familiar?)

And so it goes.

Friday Funny - N'Hampsha Humah - Pumpkin Spice Pandemic

One thing Fred neglected to mention is when this spreads to Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, and Aroma Joe's. That's when pumpkin spice coffee appears.

This pandemic seems to happen every year, spreads rapidly, hangs around for a while, then disappears almost without notice.

Tech Tuesday - Quantum Inertial Guidance

We are familiar with GPS – the Global Positioning System – a means of using orbiting satellites that allow for navigation on land, on the sea, and in the air. It has been around for some time, originally developed for the US military but later used for civilian and commercial purposes, even though the accuracy available to non-military uses isn’t nearly as good as that available to the military.

It’s use is pretty much ubiquitous as we see it in our cars in the form of built-in navigation systems, our cell phones for both E-911 calling location and navigation by way of various smart phone apps, in chart-plotters in our boats, and in navigation suites in our aircraft. I can access GPS info from a simple GPS Tools app on my smart phone. I can call up maps that can show me where I am and where I want to go. It’s all tied into GPS.

It isn’t just the US that has a GPS satellite constellation. Europe has their own, called Galileo. Russia has GLONASS. China has BeiDou.

However, before those satellite based systems there was LORAN – Long Range Navigation – that used land-based radio transmitters to provide navigation support for ships and aircraft. The system dated back to World War II and had its limitations, though as time and technology got better, so did the usability and reliability of the system. But it still had its limits.

In between LORAN and GPS there was what was called Inertial Guidance Systems, the original ones employed gyroscopes and accelerometers that were used to calculate position and velocity. This was a military system used in aircraft, submarines, and missiles to navigate. As long as the system knew its starting point it could help to navigate that aircraft, submarines, and missiles to a destination. As time has gone by Inertial Guidance has gotten better as the technology developed. Mechanical gyroscopes were replaced with laser gyroscopes, with each mechanical gyro replaced by a loop of optical fiber fed with a laser. Accelerometers which used a mass and inductor to measure the changes in speed in three axes have been replaced by Micro Electro Mechanical integrated circuits, also known as MEMs that were more sensitive to motion. These improvements increased both the sensitivity and accuracy of Inertial Guidance Systems.

One would think that even those systems would be replaced by GPS because of the accuracy of GPS, but you’d be wrong. The one reason Inertial Guidance is still used is because for some application GPS isn’t available. For instance, submarines can’t receive GPS signals while they are submerged. Also, during war it is possible for GPS to be jammed which can make it useless. That’s why the military still uses Inertial Guidance System in bombers, submarines, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, just to name a few. But as good as the modern Inertial Guidance Systems are, they still have inaccuracies that will increase over time, something called drift and something that has plagued such systems since the beginning. But those days may soon come to an end if the efforts of the US Naval Research Lab comes to fruition.

Their solution: Quantum Inertial Navigation. (Note: This link takes you to a page that includes a number of articles but the referenced article is on the right-hand side of the page.)

Quantum inertial navigation is a new field of research and development that can increase inertial measurement accuracy by orders of magnitude.

"Our interferometer operates in a different regime than most other modern implementations of an atom interferometer," said Jonathan Kwolek, Ph.D., a research physicist from the NRL Quantum Optics Section within the Optical Sciences Division. "By operating with cold, continuous atoms, we have opened the door to a number of advantages as well as novel measurement techniques. Ultimately, we would like to use this technology to improve inertial navigation systems, thus reducing our reliance on GPS."

--snip--

Depending on the measurement platform, errors in the location estimation will accumulate and result in loss of accurate position information. Current commercially available inertial navigation systems, for example, can navigate with an error accumulation of roughly one nautical mile over 360 hours. NRL intends to develop new technologies to extend that time such that navigational drift does not limit mission duration.

"The field of inertial navigation aims to provide navigation information anywhere GPS is unavailable," said NRL Associate Director of Research for Systems Dr. Gerald Borsuk. "The advent of atom interferometry allows for a novel approach in inertial sensing, which has the potential to address some of the deficiencies in current state-of-the-art technologies."

GPS has become a backbone to the functionality of both our civilian and military world, providing high-accuracy distributed position and timing information anywhere in the world. However, there are certain battlespace environments in which GPS cannot function, such as under water or in space, as well as an increasing threat to GPS availability in the form of jamming, spoofing, or anti-satellite warfare.

With an increase of orders of magnitude in accuracy, that means the error of present commercial systems of 1 nautical mile over a period of 360 hours could be reduced to 0.01 or 0.001 nautical miles over that same 360 hours, or even less.

It delves into what we in the engineering game call ‘FM’ – Freakin’ Magic. As the late great Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve gotten a little taste of fall today with cooler temperatures along with a breeze. At least it was a sunny day. We’ll be back to summer weather later this week with temperatures in the 80’s, perfect boating weather!

This will also be a busy week, with our State Primary for county, state, and federal offices running the gamut of County Commissioner, Clerk of Probate, New Hampshire House and Senate, Governor, and the US House of Representatives. I will be spending all day Tuesday at our local polling place. I have no idea how many of the registered voters in our town will actually cast their votes as this is one of the ‘weirder’ elections we have, and it will be the third of four elections held this year which started with the New Hampshire Presidential Primary in February, then our Town Meeting in March, the State Primary this week, and the National Election in November. It means a lot of hours while the polls are open and a few more after they close to tally the votes.

==++++==

I saw this and I knew I had to include it in today’s post.

Frankly, it didn’t surprise me at all that the California Democrats are trying to lay the blame for their policy failures upon California Republicans. Considering the GOP makes up only 21% of the California Assembly and 22% of the California Senate it would seem impossible the GOP could be responsible for any of the self-inflicted ills plaguing the Pyrite State as the Democrats hold super-majorities in both chambers of the California legislature.

It sounds like they’re trying to blame the ‘victims’ for the insanity of their policies and the damage they have caused across the board.

What bothers me is that this attitude isn’t limited just to the Democrats in California.

==++++==

This is a question we need to start asking, that question being “Will Tim Walz do to the nation’s education systems what he did to Minnesota’s?” Sultan Knish brings to light that under Governor Walz, a former high school teacher, less than half of students in Minnesota can read.

The recent release of the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCA) test scores for 2024 by Education Commissioner Willie Jett, a Walz appointee, were described by the Minnesota Star Tribune as “stagnant with only about half of students meeting or beating grade-level standards in math and reading.” The paper struggled to describe an empty glass as half-full.

The actual numbers showed that 49.9% of Minnesota students reached grade-level proficiency standards in reading, only 45.5% did so in math and only 39.6% managed it in science: a more accurate description would be that well less than half of Walz’s school students are proficient.

The educational glass in Minnesota isn’t half full, it’s more than half empty.

A majority of Minnesota students aren’t proficient in math or science and a little less than half can read at grade level. These are catastrophic numbers that show a school system that has failed at its most fundamental function despite billions of dollars in runaway spending.

Is this something we can expect to see coast-to-coast under a Harris-Walz administration? Not that it isn’t already happening, but under the auspices of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz might we expect the trend to accelerate? After all, an undereducated populace is easier control and rule.

This would be yet another reason to homeschool our children.

==++++==

By way of Pirate’s Cove comes this list of Stupid People of the Week from This Ain’t Hell.

Taking a look at the list I’d have to say the folks who made the list are indeed quite stupid.

==++++==

Honestly, this didn’t surprise me in the least, particularly in light of so many other people of note who have been abandoning the Democrat Party because it has become the de facto Communist Party.

Who is the latest to tell the Democrat Party adios?

That bastion of civil liberties, Alan Dershowitz.

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz announced his departure from the Democratic Party, citing several "anti-Jewish" lawmakers that make up the ranks of the party and the recent Democratic National Convention in which Vice President Kamala Harris became the party's presidential nominee.

Speaking with radio host Zev Brenner on "Talkline with Zev Brenner," Dershowitz cited the DNC, which he said gave legitimacy to anti-Israel speakers, and anti-Israel protesters outside the gathering.

"It was the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention I've experienced," he said. "I was disgusted at the Democratic National Convention. Absolutely disgusted."

Seeing how the Democrat Party has become increasingly antisemitic and is openly supporting groups whose only purpose is to see Israel destroyed, it is the only smart move. While Dershowitz has stated he will become an Independent, he has not stated for whom he will cast his vote for president, at least not until after November 1st.

It’s interesting to see how many old-style classic Democrats are abandoning their party since it no longer represents Democrat ideals.

==++++==

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

Illinois Democrats Crack Down on Shampoo Bottles.

Shampoo bottles? Really?

Freedom is a current theme of Democrats. By “freedom,” the Party of Government means freedom to indulge in degeneracy and kill any children who result. Everything else is to be tightly regulated by Big Government — even shampoo bottles:

The days are numbered for small shampoo bottles in Illinois hotels because of a new law signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Hotels with more than 50 rooms are banned from providing single-use plastic bottles of shampoo, mouthwash and other toiletries starting July 1, 2025.

Illinois Democrats couldn’t find a reason to make shampoo bottles mandatory; therefore, they are forbidden.

Providing guests with the convenient bottles will result in fines of up to $1,500.

From big ways to small, Democrats never rest from their mission to make your life worse.

I have to wonder who’s brilliant idea this was and why they thought it was needed.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summerfolk are gone, the leaf peepers will be arriving starting in a few weeks, and where I’m still enjoying my boating season.

Smart Phone Bans Make Sense In Classrooms - Maybe It's Time To Disconnect Now And Then

When I saw the headline of this post I had no reason to doubt the veracity of it’s claim as I had seen some of the effects first hand.

Growing Body of Evidence That Phone Bans in Class Can Make a Big Difference in Student Performance.

Banning smartphones in class improves student performance, especially for lower-income students, and forces kids to interact with each other in ways they never did before. These conclusions and others are from a spate of academic studies that are just now being published after a few years of phone bans in several states.

--snip--

Pete Etchells, a professor of psychology and science communication at Bath Spa University in England says that “parents, schools, and policymakers are being scared by some really unhelpful rhetoric in the media.” He believes that parents and educators are looking for “immediate solutions because it feels like we’re in an emergency and need to do something quickly.”

Etchells is wrong. Students attended school for hundreds of years without the distraction of smartphones. And we are in an emergency. The plunge in test scores is alarming and needs to be addressed.

I have to agree that smart phones are a problem and have done so for a long time, whether it’s in schools, at home, at work, or out with friends or family. As I have written elsewhere, “I find it ironic that a technology that was seen as being able to bring people together instead separates them.”

I can’t count the number of times I have walked into a break room, cafeteria, or restaurant and seen them filled with people...and none of them are talking to each other. Instead they’re texting, web surfing, on Facebook or Instagram or Snapchat. Their heads are bowed almost as if in prayer and their attention is focused entirely on the screens of their smart phones and not the people they’re sitting with. They don’t actually talk to each other. They’ll text the person sitting next to them rather than talk to them.

It’s no different in classrooms.

Banning smart phones in classrooms makes sense as it brings students’ attention back to their teachers, their education, and away from the addictive environment portrayed on the screen.

There is a movement afoot to keep the distraction of cell phones out of classrooms, and it is rare these days of division. People and politicians on both sides are lining up to take action on a shared goal. Make Cell phone use in the classroom a thing of the past.

--snip--

Is it better than nothing? I don’t know, but cell phones are undoubtedly a distraction, and I can’t say I wouldn’t be paying more attention to it than classroom instruction…

The classrooms have problems of their own, but smart phones add to the problem.

As I mentioned earlier, I have seen just how distracting and isolating smart phones can be. I have seen – personally and on YouTube and Rumble and Locals – a couple at a restaurant and one of them has their nose buried in their phone, texting away. Their attention is not on their dinner companion at all. Their companion might as well not be there. I saw on more than one occasion the ‘invisible’ companion realizes their date wasn’t paying any attention to them, so they got up and left.

On the two occasions I witnessed personally, the woman was oblivious to anything but her phone and the man she was with finally had enough and left. On one of those occasions the man just left and on the other the man stopped long enough to pay the bill before leaving. And on both of these events the woman didn’t realize her dinner companion had been gone for some time. That’s sad.

Of course you probably want to ask me if I have a smart phone? I do. I tend to use it for four things – making phone calls, texting (generally a couple of times a day), taking pictures, and as a paperweight. That’s it.

Then again I grew up in the pre-cell phone/pre-Internet era, so my peers and I didn’t have to deal with the level of distractions kids and younger adults experience today. I don’t have that Fear Of Missing Out that so many others have. I don’t need to be connected all the time. I don’t feel naked or anxious if I don’t have my phone with me.

I guess I’m a throwback to a simpler time despite the fact that I work in the telecommunications industry.

Friday Funny - N'Hampsha Humah - Live Free Or Die

Ayuh. Everything he said is true. Some of our liquor stores even have their own exits off the Interstates!

Tech Tuesday - Something 'New"

Many years ago I used to do a semi-regular post about technology, explaining the new technology in use or coming down the road. Some was groundbreaking while some was an upgrade to older technology that made it better. After a number of posts in a local forum dealing with the differences between the different Internet technologies in use or being installed here in New Hampshire, I remembered that I used to post about such things here and that maybe it was time to start doing so again. Maybe it’s the lecturer in me or maybe it’s that so many people have absolutely no idea how the technology that people use every day actually works. It used to be that most people had at least a basic grasp about how things they used daily – incandescent lights, cars and trucks, radios, TVs, telephones, and so on – actually work.

It used to be that our cars and trucks were something most of us could work on, performing oil changes and chassis lubrication, doing tune-ups which often included installing new spark plugs, plug wires, rotor, distributor cap, points, and condenser as well as setting the ignition dwell and timing, changing out wheel bearings or brake shoes, replacing a starter relay or a defective generator/alternator, and so on. A lot of people were “shade tree mechanics”, handling a lot of car maintenance on their own. Those days are long gone as cars and trucks have become much more sophisticated, more complex, and for the most part, a lot better. Oil changes and tuneups were done frequently, usually every couple of thousand miles for oil changes. Now oil changes are required every 7 to 10 thousand miles and tuneups as we knew them might be done every 100,000 miles and that usually entails just changing the spark plugs. Back then cars were ready for the junkyard after 100,000 miles on the odometer. Now they’re barely broken in with that many miles.

Telephones used to have dials rather than buttons and were connected by wires to the wall or baseboard in our homes. There was no such thing as caller ID, speed dial, or voice mail. Only the wealthy had mobile phones, not to be confused with cell phones which only came into use in the 1980’s. Those mobile phones and 1980’s cell phones could only make calls. There was no texting. These days cell phones are ubiquitous and landlines are fading away. Cell phones are also ‘smart’ which allows you to text, browse the web, take digital photos, shoot HD video...and make phone calls! While cell service isn’t quite ubiquitous (and won’t be unless such service becomes available by way of low earth orbit satellites) they are more numerous than landline phones.

Television was analog and you were lucky if you could pick up TV stations from the three major networks – ABC, NBC, and CBS – and even luckier if you were able to pick up PBS or some of the ‘independent’ TV stations. Some TVs used so-called ‘rabbit ear’ antennas located on top of the TV. You were lucky if you had an outdoor antenna mounted on the roof, and even luckier if it also had an antenna rotor so you could steer the antenna to point in the direction TV station’s transmitter. Cable TV didn’t really come into play until the 1970’s and satellite TV until late 1980’s. Digital TV started replacing analog TV in the 2000’s and analog TV transmissions ended in 2009. Today TV service has so many options between ‘traditional’ cable TV, Fiber To The Home (FTTH) offered by the telephone companies, some electrical utilities, increasingly some cable TV operators, and satellite services like DirectTV and Dish. Traditional “over the air” transmissions still exists, but not quite the same as back in the Good Old Days of analog TV as the new digital transmission format allows more than a single channel to be transmitted simultaneously.

Having dealt with technology in a number of areas over the past 50+ years or so does give me some small insight into that subject, past, present, and future. Hopefully I can actually make my posts interesting, and most important, understandable and relevant.

Look for my first Tech Tuesday post next Tuesday, September 10th. Be mindful that these posts will not occur every week, but will happen more often than not.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’re getting another taste of summer weather today as we’ll expected to see temps in the 80’s along with higher humidity. Not that I’m complaining. I doubt we’ll see more than a few more days like this between now and Columbus Day. I won’t make it out on the lake today as I’m waiting for the summerfolk to depart before I venture out. To all intents and purposes the lake will be “ours” again and I’ll be spending quite a bit of time out on its waters from hereon out. It will be particularly nice during foliage season as it is easier to catch the fall colors from the lake and to see them from places that can only be reached by water.

It’s true that a number of the summer businesses will be closing after this weekend though others will remain open for a few more weeks, though mainly on the weekends. (One such place, one of my favorite local ice cream stand/restaurant will only be open weekends from now and will close for the season before the end of September.) The summer traffic will soon be replaced by foliage tourists, also known as “leaf peepers”, as the colors of the leaves change from green to the reds, oranges, and yellows that draw tourists from all over the world. Around here the peak foliage usually appears around the first or second week of October and along with it peak tourist traffic. It still won’t be as heavy as we see during the summer, but it does mean tourist dollars will be flowing into the area. Then it will taper off and our area will be ours again. Yes, there is also plenty of winter tourism as folks come up ‘from away’ to go skiing, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, ice skating, and ice fishing, but nothing like we see during summer.

Despite my opinions on all of this, I do have to say that this summer passed by far more quickly than I expected. It feels like Memorial Day was just two weeks ago and the Fourth of July was last week. Where did the summer go?

==++++==

As much as I have expected the political campaigns for the various state and federal offices to go negative, I have to admit surprise to see just how negative they have become in a relatively short period of time. One of the nastiest turns has been for the Democrat race for New Hampshire governor, with the two major candidates going at each other “hammer and thong”. Not that the GOP front runner has been able to escape negative ads, though a majority of those have been put up by an allegedly non-partisan pro-abortion group.

Seeing as our state primary election is in a little over a week, I expect the levels of negativity to skyrocket the closer we get to primary day.

And so it goes.

==++++==

Speaking of negative campaigns, I have to wonder if these observations will be used to slam Kamala since they show her true colors:

- Harris has never spoken to any family member of the Abbey-Gate bombing. Trump was at Arlington at their request, as was his photographer. This is pretty gross.
These families have been ignored by the media, ignored by Harris, stood by while Biden checked his watch during the…

- Harris will send your kid to war ignore it if they get killed then whine about someone else laying the wreath to remember them.

- Kamala Harris conducted a more in-depth investigation into Trump comforting the grieving family of a soldier killed on her watch than she has into why those 13 soldiers died.

- It takes a special level of sociopathy for Kamala Harris to get on her high horse and wag her finger about respecting Arlington National Cemetery when the people she’s lecturing were there because *she* got people killed.
The moral vapidity of DC perfectly illustrated.

- NBC SHOULD BE ASHAMED.
NBC News asked Gold Star mom Kelly Hoover if it was “appropriate” for President Trump to visit Arlington National Cemetery.
"Are you in my shoes? I invited him. My son was murdered under the Biden-Harris administration."

Read the whole thing, particularly the comments.

There’s more on this here and here.

==++++==

Might this be a new trend with TDS – Trump Derangement Syndrome – in Hollywood, that being spontaneous healing taking place in some members of the Hollywood Left?

Whether it’s the thought of Comrade Kamala forcing price controls, the realization that the senile president of the United States has likely been vacationing on a beach the past three and a half years, or that inflation is quite literally out of control — no one can be sure.

But Hollywood actor Michael Rapaport is sure of one thing: that he was wrong.

“I was the first in line talking s**t about Trump,” Rapaport told Sage Steele in an interview. “I was all day every day.”

It shows us there’s some hope, even in Hollywood.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

==++++==

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

”Son” and “Daughter” Deleted From Newspeak Dictionary

Vermont public health officials are encouraging teachers and parents to ditch the phrases “son” and “daughter” this back-to-school season in the name of classroom equity.

“Use ‘child’ or ‘kid’ instead of ‘daughter’ or ‘son,’” reads an Inclusive Language for Families document published Wednesday on Facebook by the Vermont Department of Health.

The inclusive language guide is part of the department’s initiative for health equity, the central pillar of the state’s five-year strategic plan for health improvement.

Why doesn’t his surprise me in any way, shape or form? I figured it would reach this level of stupidity way back when ‘politically correct’ speech started being a thing, seeing it as a different name for 1984’s Newspeak. I’m sorry to see that I was right. Anyone pushing any of this, particularly in schools, needs to be fired for inflicting us with this divisive nonsense. They say it’s not offensive language, but I am thoroughly offended by the rape of our language and the logic behind language being replaced because of feelz.

Friggin’ morons.

==++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s the “last gasp” of summer, people are partying like it, and where this coming Monday is a holiday!