Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s more like real fall weather around here, or so it’s been for the past few days and will be for the next couple of days. We might actually see overnight temps below freezing on Monday and Tuesday. However, it will warm up again and we’ll be back into temps in the upper 60’s. The foliage is well past peak, with the reds, oranges, and yellows turning brown. The leaves have been falling in increasing numbers, both the streets and our rain gutters filling with the those leaves. (I had to empty the gutters both at The Gulch and at a neighbor’s home. I both cases it was just the front gutters as the rear gutters are above the second floor, not readily reachable, and are covered with leaf guards to prevent leaves from filling them.)

Will we be seeing snow here soon? That doesn’t seem to be the case, at least here at the lake. But up north there may be some, but not enough that will accumulate or cause traffic issues. That’s fine with me. We’ll be seeing snow soon enough.

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Two downsides to the cooler temperatures have been the need to turn on the heat – mostly to take the chill off in the morning – and the tire pressure monitors on cars and trucks tripping because tire pressures have dropped. (The latter happened to both the WP Mom’s car and the trusty RAM 1500, requiring me break out the Official Weekend Pundit Air Compressor and Official Weekend Pundit Tire Pressure Gauge this morning.)

Heating season has started thought it’s going to be on-and-off for the next month or so. One of the things I like about The Gulch is that it is pretty efficient when it comes to heating and cooling. It costs a lot less to heat than The Manse, even with higher fuel prices and the fact that quite a bit of the heat for The Manse was coming from a woodstove. There are a couple of things I need to do to make The Gulch even more efficient – replacing two casement windows on the second floor and replacing the slider leading out to the porch with something better.

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Now this is just weird: Japanese village struggling with low population creates life-sized dolls to mimic feeling of bustling society.

To paraphrase what was written on Instapundit, it sounds like something out of a Twilight Zone episode.

The hamlet of Ichinono, which has less than 60 residents and only one child, is trying to fill the void with stuffed mannequins, which they dress up and place around the community — and even pose on swings and bicycles.

“We’re probably outnumbered by puppets,” 88-year-old resident Hisayo Yamazaki told AFP.

Yamazaki explained that although older inhabitants there had children, they encouraged them to attend college away from the tiny community about an hour northwest of Kyoto.

“We were afraid they would become unmarriageable if they remained stuck in a remote place like this,” she told the outlet.

“Out they went, and they never came back, getting jobs elsewhere. We’re now paying the price.”

Is this a preview of what we might experience in the US in the future as our birthrate is collapsing, already below the so-called replacement rate and heading downwards? Will this happen in our towns in the future or will we merely add to the number of ghost towns and depopulated sections of cities like Detroit?

Twilight Zone indeed.

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Is the Left blocking access to early voting sites as a means of suppressing voters in a deep red area? It appears so.

The havoc wrought by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina brought disaster to homes and families, but that has not stopped Democrats from blocking the approval of emergency early voting sites in the heavily Republican area. The refusal to act forced the GOP-led state legislature to intervene.

Democrat-run local elections boards in McDowell and Henderson counties have failed to approve additional early voting sites in the disaster-stricken area, despite increasing calls for more access to voting. Both counties voted for Donald Trump in 2020.

“Ensuring the right to vote is upheld for western NC citizens devastated by Hurricane Helene should be a non-partisan issue,” western North Carolina native Clay McCreary said, according to The Carolina Journal. McReary is North Carolina political director of Restoration of America, an organization that has been advocating for additional voting opportunities in the disaster area. “We simply cannot allow the people of western North Carolina who have lost so much to lose their voice in the political process.”

Ironically, in adjacent deep-blue counties Democrats have already taken measures to ensure there are new voting locations to replace the ones damaged by Hurricane Helene. Seems like a double standard to me.

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In a related post it appears Democrats are also trying to intimidate black voters. A Democrat Super PAC is running ads in cities with large black populations warning them that “their voter files are public.”

One of the ads, funded by Future Forward PAC, gives the false impression that it is aired by a government agency called the "National Voter Report." The ad begins with an "election alert" with the words "Who you vote for is private, but IF you vote is public information. After this election, your voter record will be updated, and your friends and family will be able to see how often you vote."

There is no federal or state law that compels U.S. citizens to vote. Although states keep a record of which elections individual voters participated in, such information is often difficult or confusing for the average person to access.

The more-than-$500,000 ad campaign appears to be targeted exclusively at various metropolitan areas, according to data obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The bulk of the ads are airing in the Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee markets.

It’s interesting that the ads are running in cities in swing states. Are these ads a means of forcing black voters to the polls even if they don’t want to vote? Is there a subtext to these ads, that subtext being “We’ll also know how you voted and if you don’t cast a vote for the correct candidates we’ll make sure everyone knows it”?

Charming.

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Every Republican President is Hitler.

Who knew?

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November 5th is ten days away and I’ll be glad when all of this campaign madness is over. I have a feeling a lot of people agree with me.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are falling in increasing numbers, almost all of the boats are now out of the water, and where Monday is returning...yet again.

I'm Getting Tired Of It All. How About You?

I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait for November 5th to come and go. I am sick to death of the increasingly hostile and violent rhetoric, the purposeful ‘interpretation’ of facts to make it seem actions taken by one’s political opponent appear to be the opposite and malicious rather than benign. The political ads have devolved down to the “ ‘He/She’s a poopyhead!’ ‘No! She/He’s a poopyhead!’ ” level of intellect.

In the presidential race it has fallen to the level where the Harris campaign has resurrected and expanded the “Trump is literally Hitler!!” meme, falling prey to Godwin’s Law. If Trump was “literally Hitler”, then why didn’t he do Hitler-like things during his Presidential term? It’s only now that it looks like Harris’s campaign in trouble that she goes that route. If her campaign is in trouble, then her hopes to turn the US into a Stalinesque state by doing away with the U.S. Constitution, starting with the First and Second Amendments, is also in trouble. (Yes, the previous is political rhetoric...but it doesn’t mean there’s not a bit of truth in there somewhere.)

A similar problem exists at lower level races. I know I see it at the Congressional level, Gubernatorial level, State Legislature – House and Senate – level, and County level. It is particularly hot in the Governor’s race with the campaigns going at each other “hammer and thong”, having devolved to the “ ‘She’s a poopyhead!’ ‘No! She’s a poopyhead!’ ” level. Surprisingly the race for New Hampshire’s two seats in the House of Representatives in Washington has been pretty benign. It’s pretty much the same for the State Legislature and County races.

While neither US Senate seat is up for election during this cycle, both of New Hampshire’s present US Senators, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, are former governors of our state. The GOP gubernatorial candidate, Kelly Ayotte, is a former US Senator and former New Hampshire Attorney General. There’s a certain symmetry to this.

Thank goodness November 5th is less than two weeks away.

As for me, I will be working at the polls in our town that day. We are expecting a better than 80% voter turnout. We’ve seen an approximately 85% voter turnout over the past two Presidential elections, and with this election being as contentious as it has been, I wouldn’t be surprised if see closer to 90% turning out to vote.

Friday Funny (Saturday Edition) - Explaining Golf

I didn't realize it was Friday yesterday until I woke up this morning and saw the Saturday paper waiting for me. It was a busy week and I lost track of what day it was. But better a day late than not at all, right?



About the only thing funnier was Robin Williams explaining haggis.

Thoughts On A Sunday

There was no post yesterday, obviously. I do have a valid defense, however.

I was down in the Boston area attending my high school reunion.

I didn’t have my laptop with me, hence no post. I didn’t get back to The Gulch until just before midnight and all I wanted to do was go to bed. I didn’t even get arlound to cleaning the feline contingent’s litter box until this morning. (Yes, I know that makes me a bad cat dad.)

One thing I noticed during my trip to the reunion was the very heavy northbound traffic as leaf peepers were heading into New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont to catch the brilliant fall foliage. Even southbound traffic was affected as a trip that would have taken me about two hours to the reunion venue took almost three hours, the traffic hangups taking place at highway junctions. At least on my way home there wasn’t much in the way of traffic to slow things down.

This morning I noticed the higher than normal traffic when I was making my usual pre-church Walmart run. A lot of the ‘extra’ traffic had out-of-state license plates, meaning they were likely leaf peepers getting an early start (a little past 7 this morning) and hitting some of the diners for breakfast.

We are pretty close to peak colors here in the Lakes Region so this might be the peak leaf peeper traffic we’ll be seeing...until next year.

Oh, and the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is being pulled from the water today. My boating season is over.

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So much for ‘spontaneous’ support of Kamala in Philadelphia.

==++++==

Matt Margolis is asking the question “Is Kamala’s campaign collapsing?”

Seeing the recent shift in campaign tactics, I’d have to say the answer to Matt’s question is “Yes”.

The one that sticks out the most is her questioning Trump’s health and ability to do media appearances. That’s laughable considering Kamala (or her handlers) worked to avoid open media events.

This shift was inevitable. Kamala is a terrible campaigner who thought she could get away with not doing any interviews for weeks, and she still hasn’t done a single press conference. Yet she's trying to accuse Trump of being too "exhausted" to do media appearances. She spent weeks avoiding unscripted media appearances, and when she finally started doing them, they were with friendly networks with interviewers who openly support her. She's trying to hit Trump on his age and stamina now because, frankly, the issues aren't working for her.

The reason why Kamala changed her media blackout strategy to a media blitz strategy is that the polls were telling her that the voters wanted to know more about her and her vision. Voters know Donald Trump and have already made up their minds about him. Yet, she hasn't figured that out yet. She won't get anywhere trying to give people reasons to vote against Trump, she needs to give voters a reason to support her, and she's proving once again she has no idea how to do that.

Her entire campaign has been about attacking Trump, period. You don’t win a campaign by focusing all your efforts on trying to paint your opponent as a “poopy head”, particularly if you put zero efforts into promoting reasons for people to vote for you.

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And the hits keep on coming.

You know it’s bad for Kamala if even a cultural icon like Lizzo is saying outright that if Kamala becomes president, the country will be like Detroit. It so happens that I agree with Lizzo even if she didn’t realize she’d just thrown Kamala under the bus.

Lizzo claimed if Harris wins next month the country will look like Detroit, which is honestly not a good thing.

The singer brought up supposed voter suppression, too. She claimed people discourage youngsters from voting.

Ugh, Lizzo also reminded us that Harris has spent her entire career in the public sector. Yeah, another career politician.

How can Harris possibly understand the economy when she has no experience in the private sector?

Talk about being absolutely clueless and disconnected from society. One would think a “cultural icon” like Lizzo would know better. Instead we get someone who knows very little about how things actually work making statements that has done more to damage Kamala’s campaign than help it.

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Has Michigan been taking lessons from the city of Chicago about how to fix elections? It appears so considering the state has a lot more people on its voter rolls than there are eligible voters in the entire state.

One has to ask this question: Just how many of the dead will be voting Democrat in the upcoming election?

It’s being reported now that Michigan has way more people on their voter rolls than there are voting-age residents in the entire state and that’s a huge concern given that it’s a battleground state.

According to the report their voter rolls have nearly half a million more voters on the list than the 8 million voters in the state.

Around 8.4 million people are registered to vote in Michigan, but that’s nearly 500,000 more people than the total number of voting-age residents in the state.

The inflated voter rolls in Michigan, a vital battleground state in the 2024 election, are one of the largest imbalances in the country, Bridge Michigan reported. The Republican National Committee sued Michigan Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over the inflated voter rolls earlier this year, along with filing lawsuits over other election-related issues in the state, but Benson’s office dismissed the concerns on Wednesday, arguing that the lawsuits “lay the groundwork to overturn the results of the election if they don’t like them.”

--snip--

Secretary of State spokeswoman Angela Benander told Bridge Michigan that the GOP’s legal challenges “are an attempt to cause people to question the process.” The spokeswoman added that Michigan is expected to clear 606,800 inactive voters from the rolls, but that won’t be completed until 2027. Federal law requires voters to be removed from the rolls by state or local officials if the state is notified that they moved to a different state or if election mail sent to their home is returned as undeliverable. Voters are also removed if they do not vote in two consecutive federal elections.

How in the hell does it take until 2027 to get inactive voters removed from the state’s voter rolls??? That right there is how you know Michigan officials want cheating to occur because it should only take months to do this, not multiple years.

I have to agree that it looks like the perfect setup to commit election fraud, particularly since it the state won’t purge the voter rolls until the year before the 2028 presidential elections. But by then the damage could be done and the Michigan state government won’t care. But the rest of the nation could be paying the price...and become Detroit.

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That this is just now coming to the forefront is disturbing to no end, “this” being the Left’s war on straight, white masculine men.

This is something that has been discussed in the so-called ‘Manosphere’ for years now, but it’s gotten to the point where it is difficult for even the most brain-dead person to ignore.

The Left has been waging war on straight, white masculine men for quite a while now. According to liberals, we’re the one group it’s okay to discriminate against, the one group where no one should have a voice, and the one group we need to replace in America. In fact, simply speaking out AGAINST DISCRIMINATION aimed at straight, white, masculine men makes liberals angry.

--snip--

In fact, name ANY GROUP that Democrats care less about than dudes that just want to be dudes. Particularly straight white dudes who want to be dudes. They care more about the Palestinians. More about Ukrainians. They care more about illegal aliens.

When they’ll start placing sanctions on straight, white masculine men, some twisted version of the Jim Crow laws that discriminated against our black citizens back in the Bad Old Days? Will there be restricted seating on buses, on airplanes which relegates straight, white masculine men to the proverbial ‘back of the bus’? Will they be restricted to dining in certain sections of restaurants, or banned outright from eating with people who aren’t straight, white masculine men?

Just how bad will it get?

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How long will it take for the “tax the rich into oblivion” Democrats to realize their plans to tax the bejeezus out of everyone, not just the rich, will collect less revenue than they believe will be collected?

I doubt they will ever be able to be convinced of that truth despite mountains of evidence showing that belief is wrong.

Earlier today I came across a claim from Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who said that Donald Trump's tax cuts brought in a record amount of revenue.

An old House GOP Ways and Means Committee post from April 2022 backed that claim by suggesting, "Total federal tax collections, including payroll and other taxes, are on track to reach $5.04 trillion in FY22, or 21.0 percent of GDP. This would be a new all-time high in both cases."

To your liberal friend or relative, such a number does not make sense. How does reducing taxes make more money for the government?

It's quite simple. Just ask: "Would you rather collect 20% of $100,000 in taxes or 20% of $1,000,000 in taxes?"

If they say 20% from one million, say that you, as the government, should incentivize people and businesses to make that million dollars as easily as possible. And thus, to do that, you should not tax them as heavily.

As a result, because everybody is making more money, the amount of money they pay in taxes is greater, even if they are all paying at the same rate, which also makes a flat tax more sensible than a progressive one.

Do the Democrats really want to boost revenues, or do they want to use confiscatory taxes to impoverish the wealthy who aren’t Democrats while also destroying the middle class? I am inclined to think it is more the latter than the former. If they are truly interested in boosting revenues, maybe they should look at the evidence and check out the Laffer Curve.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the trees look like they are on fire, the leaf peepers are here looking at them, and where I am still feeling the afterglow from my high school reunion.

Friday Funny - Test Drive

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s Columbus Day Weekend and the leaf peepers have arrived in droves. It isn’t near peak here at the Big Lake but it is up north in the mountains. We knew it would be a busy weekend for traffic when the youngest WP Sister made the drive up to The Gulch from her home in Massachusetts, a trip that normally takes about 2 hours. This time it was a 4 hour marathon as traffic was heavy and bumper-to-bumper...and she left her home at just past noon on Friday. Between the leaf peepers heading up early – the weather for it being very good on Friday and Saturday but not so great for Sunday and Monday due to rain – and other folks coming up to finally close up their cottages and summer homes and pull their boats from the water, get them winterized and into storage for the winter, there’s been a lot of heavy traffic. (My boat comes out next weekend as I didn’t want to get anywhere near the docks and boat ramp in our town this weekend.)

The restaurants have been busy, even here in the Lakes Region. While the summer businesses have been closed since just after Labor Day, the year round businesses are seeing plenty of customers, a bit more than I recall seeing this time of year. It’s the “last gasp” of the tourist season and once the fall foliage is gone so will the tourists. It will be quiet until ski season arrives around Christmas time.

And so it goes.

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One thing I have mention is that the younger WP Sister is our family’s token liberal. Talking to her while she was here made me realize she’s imbibed in too much of the Kamala Kool-Aid, as she thinks that she’s been an effective Vice President, US Senator, California AG, and District Attorney. It tells me she really hasn’t bothered to do her own research, looked at Kamala’s record, and is swallowing the MSM propaganda whole. To my dear little Sis, she walks on water and is akin to the Second Coming.

I can only hope that when or if she realizes that Kamala’s image is as real as a cartoon that it won’t crush her.

We’ll be here for her should that happen.

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I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d like Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance. After hearing about this little back and forth between Vance and ABC’s Martha Radditz, I can say I do like “the cut of his jib”.

Raddatz: "The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes… A handful!"

Vance: “Do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes were taken over by Venezuelan gangs and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris' open border?"

Only a handful? There should be none.

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This post dealing with Gen Z mental illness being a lifestyle had me thinking, and this is the comment I made:

I suffer from mental illness...not mine, but other people's. This is particularly true of the woke whose delusions about themselves drive me to distraction, if not a little crazy.

I'm too busy to spend time feeding other people's delusions.

As we all should be.

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One thing that shows the election is less than a month away?

The explosion of campaign signs.

While they have been around here since mid-August due the state primary, it seems like they have multiplied by an order of magnitude since then. They’re everywhere, particularly the ubiquitous 2ft x 3ft campaign signs that line every road and intersection.

The wide range of offices up for grabs running the range between some county offices like Clerk of Probate, to the NH House, NH Senate, Executive Council, Governor, US House of Representatives, and President and Vice President, of course. (Neither of our US Senators are up for reelection this year, but one will be in 2026.) The local office campaign signs far outnumber the rest, but then I would expect nothing less.

One of the more interesting things about all of the signs will be how long it will take before all of them have been taken down. They are supposed to be taken down within 7 days after the election, but more often than not it takes a little longer than a week for them to disappear. Some reappear come spring when the snow is finally gone, though those are few and far between.

All I know is that I will be glad when the calendar says November 6th and this election foolishness will be past us...until Town Meeting in March.

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We keep hearing that the only way to “Save Democracy” is to elect Kamala Harris. But we’ve been mishearing what Kamala and her ‘supporters’ have been saying.

We think they’re saying “democracy” when what they’re really saying is “democrisy”. The definition of “democrisy”?

A fusion of democracy and hypocrisy, something that has little to do with freedom.

This is what the Democrats and their puppet Kamala Harris have in mind for us.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where mid-fall weather has arrived a little early, the leaves still haven’t changed here yet, and where we don’t have to worry about Monday this week because it’s a holiday.

Is Mental Illness Is Just Another Path To Victimhood?

I came across this about mental illness over at Instapundit and I have to say it immediately had me nodding my head as I had to agree with the premise, that being mental illness is more prevalent today than in the past, and that too many people their mental illness “is an important part of [their] identity.” As I saw in the comments:

My generation grew up looking for frogs and sh*t.

Your generation grew up looking for a WiFi signal.

We are not the same.

I have to think that might have had something to do with it. And then there’s this:

Boomers were free-range children, outside in the sunlight.

The youth today are over scheduled and inside too much.

I have to wonder if mental illness is just another way for some people to claim victimhood, perhaps as a means of not having to grow up and be an adult.

Friday Funny (Saturday Morning Edition) - Things That Don't Make Sense To Engineers

It being a holiday weekend and having family coming up for a visit kind of screwed up my day yesterday and I didn't get around to posting my usual Friday humor post. It happens now and then, this being one of those times. But better late than never.

And now, without further delay. I present a (rather) late Friday Funny:



Being an engineer, I find I agree with everything he listed.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve been seeing fluctuating temperatures here at the lake, with them swinging between above normal and below normal high temperatures. In other words, a typical fall weather pattern. The foliage colors are changing across the area and I expect them to hit peak here right around the coming holiday weekend. This also means that my boating season has only a couple of weeks to go before the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is pulled from the water, a couple of weeks earlier than usual.

Normally the boat would be pulled out at the end of the month, but the boatyard I use to winterize and store the boat has changed hands as the original owner retired and sold his business. The new owners have a ‘cutoff’ date which is two weeks before I would usually pull the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of the water. However, I am not complaining as there have years when I’ve pulled the boat out of the water earlier than usual.

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Reading about and listening to reports on TV about the inadequate government response to Hurricane Helene, particularly when it comes to western North Carolina, has me wondering just what the hell is going on. With FEMA officials threatening volunteers with arrest if they try to get aid and help to the areas requiring such help and the FAA issuing NOTAMs (Notice To Airmen) banning flight operations in the affected area by civilian aircraft capable of delivering supplies to affected areas, I have to wonder if it is incompetence or malice driving this.

Knowing the Biden-Harris administration as we do and seeing how they have handled everything since January 2021, I have to say it’s both. Nothing else explains the weak and wholly inadequate response. Both President Biden and Vice President Harris had more important things to do than deal with the widespread destruction, like vacation and a Nevada fundraiser, respectively.

Government nonfeasance and interference reached the point where reports were appearing the North Carolina State Police and/or a number of Sheriff’s departments were threatening to arrest federal government officials interfering with ongoing emergency operations. Whether this is accurate is not known (at this point), but it sounds like a darned good idea, particularly if it’s true that FEMA has been “actively blocking shipments” of relief supplies.

On top of that, the feds have threatened to arrest one civilian helicopter pilot if he continues to fly relief/rescue missions.

The GOP should be hammering the Biden-Harris administration for its weak response and the apparent lack of interest in getting help to a disaster zone. Trump should keep reminding people at every rally and speech about the administration’s disdain for people who aren’t “them”.

And then there’s this as a possible motive for slow-tracking relief efforts, “this” being that most North Carolina voters back Trump, but will have a hard time voting come November, something which will work in favor of Kamala Harris.

Am I being cynical about possible motives to leave those North Carolina residents in dire straits? Or am I on target?

Axelrod noted that many victims of Hurricane Helene in the region are primarily Trump supporters, which could impact their ability to vote in the upcoming 2024 election. He mentioned that while Democrats in Asheville are likely to find ways to vote, those who have suffered extensive losses in western North Carolina may not be as easily mobilized for the Trump campaign.

--snip--

A number of communities in Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee have been devastated by Hurricane Helene, including massive structural damage and flooding in Ashville, known as the San Francisco of the South. The fact that Axelrod would even raise this, instead of expressing concern for the welfare of hurricane victims, speaks volumes in which he has essentially said the quiet part out loud.

It is abundantly clear that the Biden-Harris administration is deliberately delaying or preventing recovery efforts in North Carolina and other swing states as Election Day approaches. This done in hopes of gaining some sort of electoral advantage come November 5th.

Of course this could backfire, particularly if Trump makes it a topic during his campaign over the next four weeks.

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Seeing Kamala Harris’s frozen teleprompter moment reminds me of Obama, someone who was quite articulate...as long as he had a script, but foundered when he had to speak off the cuff. It seems to be a common problem with the previous Democrat president as well as the present Democrat President and Vice President. (At least SloJoe has the excuse of dementia. Harris does not...which might explain why she never speaks unscripted.)

==++++==

I saw this video this morning and I have to admit that if the woman in this video was for real, then we have a real problem.



Talk about a self-centered and selfish individual!

The YouTube guy lambasting this woman put his money where his mouth is. He understands what’s happening in western North Carolina. She’s friggin’ clueless...and entitled.

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Speaking from an engineering point of view, more people need to be aware of the downsides of EVs, particularly when it comes to safety and specifically when it comes to the batteries. EVs have their issues, one of them being that they aren’t really “green” considering the the environmental issues with the extraction of the materials needed for the batteries and the electric motors. And then there’s the human cost considering one of the materials used to manufacture the lithium-ion batteries – cobalt – is mined by children and slaves. This is something devoutly ignored by EV proponents because it is inconvenient to The Narrative.

And then there’s the safety issues which have been increasingly in the media, with the batteries being one of the major ones.

It is now, or should be, common knowledge that electric vehicles—cars, trucks, buses, bikes, scooters—under conditions of even low humidity or water damage, are prone to catching fire, owing to the unstable nature of the lithium-ion battery. As Chris Morrison writes at The Daily Skeptic, EVs are known to explode “with the force of a bomb blasting super-heated jets of flame, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere.”

Jammed into underground parking garages or packed in ferries, EVs are harbingers of almost unimaginable disaster—ecological and safety menaces to which the Net Zero fanatics among our political leadership are comatosely indifferent.

We have witnessed lethal battery explosions in South Korea and elsewhere with significant loss of life. QBE Europe reports that such fires are increasing at a worrisome rate and explains: “Lithium-ion fires are the result of thermal runaway, where batteries start to irreversibly overheat, usually due to impact damage, over-charging or over-heating... The resulting explosive fire incidents are significantly more energetic [than ordinary fires], causing extensive damage, and potentially injury or even death.” They cannot be readily put out and will often re-ignite.

While proponents claim EV fires aren’t nearly as numerous as claimed, one has to remember that there aren’t all that many EVs on the road compared to ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles. As mentioned in the quote above, “they cannot be really put out and will often re-ignite”, something local fire departments have found out the hard way when dealing with EV fires. They have to douse the burning vehicles with tens of thousands of gallons of water, not to extinguish the fire but to keep it from spreading to other vehicles or nearby structures until it finally burns itself out. That the number of EV fires has been increasing doesn’t help.

A lot of parking garages won’t allow EVs to park on lower levels, requiring them to park on the top level if it is open to the sky in case there is a fire. Chargers are located on the top level for the same reason.

As I have mentioned on more than one occasion, a work I am the “Battery Guy” in our engineering department. I remind my colleagues the lithium-ion batteries we use in our instruments are really unstable incendiary grenades with a loose pin. We over-designed the battery charging, management, and safety systems to help reduce the possibility of a catastrophic battery failure, and even then we wonder if it will be safe enough. Those are generally single cell battery packs.

Now picture EVs with thousands of battery cells, and all it takes is for one of those thousands of cells to fail, overheat, and ignite to start a cascade failure that turns the EV into an incendiary bomb. That cell can be one that is weaker than the thousands of other cells, was damaged while the battery pack was being built or installed in the EV, or was ‘tweaked’ during an accident that eventually caused it to fail and ignite.

Yeah, I think I’ll stick with ICE vehicles as they seem to have less of a propensity to spontaneously ignite.

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That’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are continuing their change to their fiery fall colors, the traffic on the lake is a fraction of what it was a month ago, and where we’ll be spending as much time out on and around the lake looking at the colors as we can.

How Convenient

When I heard the September jobs report on last night’s local news, my first thought was “Oh, how convenient for the Harris campaign.” Considering how many times over the past three-plus years jobs reports have been revised downwards, in some cases by quite a bit, I am skeptical that new jobs are suddenly well above expectations. The timing is suspicious, at least to me. I have to wonder if those wonderful September jobs numbers will be revised heavily downwards the day after the election?

If those job numbers are not artificially inflated, then I have to ask whether they were because of the actions of the Biden-Harris administration or in spite of them? Seeing the employment numbers track record of the present administration I am heavily inclined to believe it is the latter rather than the former.

The latest report states the U3 unemployment rate is ~4.1% and the U6 rate of 7.3% which includes the U3 rate (unemployed but collecting unemployment benefits) plus those who are unemployed but no longer collecting benefits and those who are underemployed (working but in jobs that pay less then their previous jobs or only working part time).

It will be interesting to see what the job numbers look like after the election on November 5th.

Friday Funny - Vintage SNL - Point/Counterpoint

This is from when Saturday Night Live was relatively new and cutting edge comedy.