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.

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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.

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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’.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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.