12/20/2024
Friday Funny - 2024 Has A Meeting With The South
While this is almost a year old, I found it was rather prophetic.
12/15/2024
Thoughts On A Sunday
Winter is becoming more evident, with ice appearing on the ponds and some of the smaller coves on the lake and early sunsets. It feels like it’s 10PM even though it’s barely past 6PM. Here at The Gulch the sun disappears behind the surrounding hills at 2PM. Over the past few days the daytime temperatures never saw above freezing and the nighttime temperatures in the low teens or upper single digits. (It was 9ºF at The Gulch this morning.)
At least we haven’t seen any big snowstorms, with what snow that did fall during each of the few storms that have occurred measuring 2 or 3 inches. Of course we still have another three or four months of potential snowfall to go.
One thing that surprised me this morning was the number of shoppers in Walmart at 8AM this morning. Usually there are only a few shoppers and one or two of the registers open at that time of morning. Not today. Quite a few of those morning shoppers were obviously taking care of Christmas shopping as their cart (or carts) were full to the brim with what I had to assume were Christmas presents. There were four registers open and even that wasn’t enough. I know I spent quite a bit more time waiting at the checkout than I did actually shopping. I expect it will be even worse come next Sunday morning.
Are we overdue for a Carrington Event? According to a recent study the answer is yes.
Like this is going to drive the voting public to vote for Democrats.
Incoming West Virginia state representative charged with threatening to kill GOP lawmakers.
If I were a West Virginia Democrat I would think it would be best to distance oneself as much as possible from this whack-job lest voters think Democrats agree with him.
This is something that I doubt will be covered by the Lame Stream Media:
Trump receives $15 million after ABC settled defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos and ABC prior to going to trial.
Hmm. It seems the LSM has to learn the lesson the hard way that they can’t make up stories about people as a means of influencing elections or trying to destroy someone they don’t like.
Constitution? We don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution!
It looks like yet another Congressional Democrat thinks SloJoe Biden can get around the Constitution, amending it by fiat rather than by the process laid out in the Constitution.
By way of the NYT:
I would think folks like Ms. Gillibrand would want to pay attention to the old adage “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”
What specifically is she aiming for, abortion rights? If so then her aim is off because the E.R.A. would not ensure that right at all because men have no say when it comes to abortion at present, even if it is their child being aborted.
If the E.R.A. were ‘backdoored’ then I would expect there to be lawsuits dealing with things like Family Court where divorce and child custody cases heavily favor women. There would also need to be changes in laws across the board that presently ‘protect’ women, the Violence Against Women Act being one, because they would be unconstitutional due to discriminating against men. I would expect Congress to pass a law that would make women register for the Draft. Laws would need to be changed that would eliminate preferential treatment for women of any kind, with one such example of preferential treatment being lighter sentences for women who commit the same crimes as men.
Will Ms. Gillibrand get her wish or will she learn that the Constitution means what it says?
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the boats are gone from the water, the lake is starting to freeze over, and I don’t have to worry about Monday because I’m on vacation.
At least we haven’t seen any big snowstorms, with what snow that did fall during each of the few storms that have occurred measuring 2 or 3 inches. Of course we still have another three or four months of potential snowfall to go.
One thing that surprised me this morning was the number of shoppers in Walmart at 8AM this morning. Usually there are only a few shoppers and one or two of the registers open at that time of morning. Not today. Quite a few of those morning shoppers were obviously taking care of Christmas shopping as their cart (or carts) were full to the brim with what I had to assume were Christmas presents. There were four registers open and even that wasn’t enough. I know I spent quite a bit more time waiting at the checkout than I did actually shopping. I expect it will be even worse come next Sunday morning.
==++++==
Are we overdue for a Carrington Event? According to a recent study the answer is yes.
Our Sun is not a peaceful place. It roils with convection; its magnetic field snaps, finds a connection, snaps again. It unleashes eruptions of energy in the form of violent flares, and plasma in the form of coronal mass ejections.The Carrington Event saw auroras being visible all the way to the Equator and telegraph systems being able to operate without batteries because of the induced electrical currents along the telegraph lines. What would that do to our present day telecommunications systems and electrical grids were such an event take place today? Unless such systems are hardened to withstand such a flare (which would also harden them against EMP), our 21st century civilization could be returned to the 17th overnight.
Most of this activity lacks sufficient punch to harm us… but every now and then, the Sun erupts with a flare powerful enough to do serious damage. And we don't know how often such events occur. Previous estimates have the range between once a century and once a millennium.
Well, folks, we have a problem. Because a new analysis of the eruption rates of 56,400 Sun-like stars has estimated that the Sun's superflare rate is at the low end of that scale – once every 100 years. If that's the case, we may be in trouble, since even the infamous Carrington Event that took place in September 1859 was only 1 percent as powerful as a superflare.
==++++==
Like this is going to drive the voting public to vote for Democrats.
Incoming West Virginia state representative charged with threatening to kill GOP lawmakers.
One incoming West Virginia state lawmaker on Thursday was arrested and charged with allegedly threatening to kill fellow GOP state representatives, according to state police.So this guy gets elected to the state legislature this past November, having run as a Republican, changes to the Democrat Party, and is arrested the next day for threatening to kill his former GOP colleagues? So did this guy change party because of his ‘disagreement’ with conservative Republican members of the West Virginia House of Delegates, or did he change party because he was really a Democrat to begin with? Did he think his threats to kill fellow legislators would in some way persuade them to vote differently?
Joseph de Soto, who was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in November as a Republican, allegedly made multiple threats against conservatives in the House after a recent meeting led lawmakers to discuss whether to expel him from the caucus, NBC News reported. It is not clear why state lawmakers were talking about booting him.
The secretary of state's office told the outlet he had switched party affiliation to Democrat on Wednesday.
The suspect has been charged with one count of threats of terrorist acts, a felony, and the bond was set at $300,000.
If I were a West Virginia Democrat I would think it would be best to distance oneself as much as possible from this whack-job lest voters think Democrats agree with him.
==++++==
This is something that I doubt will be covered by the Lame Stream Media:
Trump receives $15 million after ABC settled defamation lawsuit against George Stephanopoulos and ABC prior to going to trial.
Hmm. It seems the LSM has to learn the lesson the hard way that they can’t make up stories about people as a means of influencing elections or trying to destroy someone they don’t like.
==++++==
Constitution? We don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution!
It looks like yet another Congressional Democrat thinks SloJoe Biden can get around the Constitution, amending it by fiat rather than by the process laid out in the Constitution.
By way of the NYT:
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is on a mission in President Biden’s final days in office. She wants to convince him that he can rescue his legacy by adding the century-old Equal Rights Amendment, which would explicitly guarantee sex equality, to the Constitution as a way to protect abortion rights in post-Roe America.Take away equal rights for women? What rights would those be? The right to vote? The right to free speech? The right to protect themselves by way of bearing arms?
He could do it all, she contends, with one phone call.
Both houses of Congress approved the amendment in 1972, but it was not ratified by the states in time to be added to the Constitution. Ms. Gillibrand has been pushing a legal theory that the deadline for ratification is irrelevant and unconstitutional. All that remains, she argues, is for Mr. Biden to direct the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, to publish the E.R.A. as the 28th Amendment.
The move would almost certainly invite a legal challenge that would land in the Supreme Court. But Ms. Gillibrand wants Mr. Biden to use his presidential power while he still has it to force the issue, effectively daring Republicans to wage a legal battle to take away equal rights for women.
I would think folks like Ms. Gillibrand would want to pay attention to the old adage “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”
What specifically is she aiming for, abortion rights? If so then her aim is off because the E.R.A. would not ensure that right at all because men have no say when it comes to abortion at present, even if it is their child being aborted.
If the E.R.A. were ‘backdoored’ then I would expect there to be lawsuits dealing with things like Family Court where divorce and child custody cases heavily favor women. There would also need to be changes in laws across the board that presently ‘protect’ women, the Violence Against Women Act being one, because they would be unconstitutional due to discriminating against men. I would expect Congress to pass a law that would make women register for the Draft. Laws would need to be changed that would eliminate preferential treatment for women of any kind, with one such example of preferential treatment being lighter sentences for women who commit the same crimes as men.
Will Ms. Gillibrand get her wish or will she learn that the Constitution means what it says?
==++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the boats are gone from the water, the lake is starting to freeze over, and I don’t have to worry about Monday because I’m on vacation.
12/14/2024
Bluegoisie
I saw this term in an Instapundit post and I knew exactly what it meant: Bluegoisie.
What’s sad is that they defined themselves and “can never come back to the center”.
They certainly aren’t getting any sympathy from those commenting in the Instapundit post.
Nor should they.
What’s sad is that they defined themselves and “can never come back to the center”.
Everyone is now fully aware of how contemptuous, how bereft of common sense, how dishonest and incompetent they are. It won't work.Reality has to change to meet their expectations, not the other way around. They believe that reality must bend to their consensus, even if that consensus is delusional at best and malignant at worst.
They can never build "their own Joe Rogan." The notion is ridiculous--not just because it evinces their tendency toward top-down control, but because their cult renders intellectual, political and philosophical exploration outside of narrow ideological parameters impossible.
These people have psychotic meltdowns, blacklist peers, and cut off relatives over politics. They're incapable of empathizing with anyone outside their congregation.
For all their fetishizing of credentials, their masturbatory exaltation of their educations, they're violently allergic to intellectual curiosity--how on earth COULD they "build" their own Rogan, or a Lex Fridman, whose curiosity and openness are part of their brand?
How COULD they lower themselves to understand why they're so despised?
They certainly aren’t getting any sympathy from those commenting in the Instapundit post.
Nor should they.
12/13/2024
12/08/2024
Thoughts On A Sunday
It’s been a snowy weekend here at the lake, with a little under 3 inches having fallen overnight. It took only a few minutes to shovel the driveway here at The Gulch. I did break out the roof rake to pull some of the snow off the roof. Not that I really needed to at present, but we do have more snow on the way on Monday afternoon.
Speaking of snow, I did get the trusty RAM 1500 back from the body shop last week after it had some incipient rust taken care of. It goes into my mechanic’s shop later this week for an oil change, tire rotation, and undercoating, the undercoating an annual ritual to help prevent rust from eating away at the trusty RAM 1500. (I didn’t do that for the trusty F150 and I lost it due to rust that was inexpedient to fix as it would have cost more than the F150 would be worth even if it was in pristine condition.) While undercoating does help prevent rust, there are places here and there where it isn’t nearly as effective, so bodywork is required to deal with any rust. And so it was with the trusty RAM 1500. I am doing what I can to make it last another 10 years as buying a new pickup to replace it isn’t within the budget of yours truly.
The coming week is my last week of work for 2024 as I will be on vacation for just shy of three weeks to close out the year. It’s a slow period for the company I work for so there usually isn’t any reason for my boss to deny my vacation request.
What will I be doing during my time off?
Anything I want.
If it is true that Syria’s Assad has been driven from power, then Iran has a problem. Considering Iran has been bolstering the Assad regime for decades, the loss of Syria cuts off the Iranian regime “from its proxy armies and likely ended any influence Tehran will ever have in the region.”
Iran and Russia have been moving their forces out of Syria, with the Russian navy having moved it’s ships out of Syrian ports. Hezbollah, an Iranian puppet, is also moving out of Syria, though one of the few places they can go, Lebanon, isn’t all that safe for them either, particularly since Israel has eliminated “a generation of leaders from Hezbollah, wiped out much of its deterrent value, and might have weakened the terrorists enough for Lebanon to wrest its sovereignty back from Tehran.”
There’s also this: Putin offered Assad asylum and he is now in Moscow.
But of course.
It is unfortunate that the once Great Britain is bent on committing suicide, one Leftist step at a time. And I do not mean suicide in a metaphorical sense. It appears there is legislation in the works to allow medically assisted suicide in the UK.
I don’t like the idea of MAiD. If made too easy people may kill themselves over a transitory event that, with a little time and/or help, would pass. I have to wonder how many of the suicides in Canada in 2022 may have been of that type?
This isn’t a surprise, but I am happy to see it.
Federal judge orders FDA to release over a million pages of Pfizer’s trial documents they wanted to keep hidden for 75 years.
Is there a smoking gun in those documents Pfizer wants to bury?
The people want to know and have every right to.
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow will be returning, the preparations for Christmas continue, and where I am not going to allow Monday to “harsh my mellow”.
Speaking of snow, I did get the trusty RAM 1500 back from the body shop last week after it had some incipient rust taken care of. It goes into my mechanic’s shop later this week for an oil change, tire rotation, and undercoating, the undercoating an annual ritual to help prevent rust from eating away at the trusty RAM 1500. (I didn’t do that for the trusty F150 and I lost it due to rust that was inexpedient to fix as it would have cost more than the F150 would be worth even if it was in pristine condition.) While undercoating does help prevent rust, there are places here and there where it isn’t nearly as effective, so bodywork is required to deal with any rust. And so it was with the trusty RAM 1500. I am doing what I can to make it last another 10 years as buying a new pickup to replace it isn’t within the budget of yours truly.
==++++==
The coming week is my last week of work for 2024 as I will be on vacation for just shy of three weeks to close out the year. It’s a slow period for the company I work for so there usually isn’t any reason for my boss to deny my vacation request.
What will I be doing during my time off?
Anything I want.
==++++==
If it is true that Syria’s Assad has been driven from power, then Iran has a problem. Considering Iran has been bolstering the Assad regime for decades, the loss of Syria cuts off the Iranian regime “from its proxy armies and likely ended any influence Tehran will ever have in the region.”
Iran and Russia have been moving their forces out of Syria, with the Russian navy having moved it’s ships out of Syrian ports. Hezbollah, an Iranian puppet, is also moving out of Syria, though one of the few places they can go, Lebanon, isn’t all that safe for them either, particularly since Israel has eliminated “a generation of leaders from Hezbollah, wiped out much of its deterrent value, and might have weakened the terrorists enough for Lebanon to wrest its sovereignty back from Tehran.”
There’s also this: Putin offered Assad asylum and he is now in Moscow.
But of course.
==++++==
It is unfortunate that the once Great Britain is bent on committing suicide, one Leftist step at a time. And I do not mean suicide in a metaphorical sense. It appears there is legislation in the works to allow medically assisted suicide in the UK.
The British are of late more than usually intent on self-destruction. The Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer, having swept to power on an anemic numerical vote with the mandate to be something, anything but the Tories, has set to with admirable gusto, taking up consideration of whether the people it notionally represents should in fact literally go kill themselves. Kim Leadbeater, the member of Parliament for Spen Valley, in October proposed a private member’s bill legalizing “medical assistance in dying”—that is, doctor-abetted suicide—and this proposal looks set to become law.4.1 percent? That seems quite high to me. One has to wonder what it is in Belgium? There’s also this:
The internal affairs of distant nations are not our usual hat, but occasionally diseases of the body politic are catching. And there are many fascinating and appalling aspects to this twist of law. Our learned friend Daniel Hitchens has admirably chronicled and written against the many merely human perversities of the bill just passed, including its lack of provisions for the undeniably mentally ill. The Canadian iteration of MAiD has in purely empirical terms been a catastrophe—that is, if you think the state should not be addressed toward killing its own citizens: Physician-assisted deaths accounted for 4.1 percent of all deaths in Canada in 2022.
Some 70 percent of Britons fear that people will be coerced into medically assisted suicide, and 62 percent think more information is needed about the bill under consideration...The issue of coerced suicide is something that has been brought up again and again and I have to say that it is a big concern of mine.
I don’t like the idea of MAiD. If made too easy people may kill themselves over a transitory event that, with a little time and/or help, would pass. I have to wonder how many of the suicides in Canada in 2022 may have been of that type?
==++++==
This isn’t a surprise, but I am happy to see it.
Federal judge orders FDA to release over a million pages of Pfizer’s trial documents they wanted to keep hidden for 75 years.
Is there a smoking gun in those documents Pfizer wants to bury?
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a high-profile case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT).A lot of people want to know more about the COVID-19 vaccines, particularly about any adverse reactions to the vaccine, either short or long term, as well as any contraindications that the vaccine should not be administered to a patient. Under the Emergency Use Authorization, Pfizer was immune from lawsuits by patients or their families if the vaccine had adverse effects, including the death of patients. So is this action really aimed at Pfizer or at the FDA and what it knew about the adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccine being pushed upon the public, in many cases against their will as a condition of remaining employed.
The decision mandates the FDA to release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) file for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine no later than June 30, 2025.
The case stemmed from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the PHMPT, which sought comprehensive data related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The FDA initially claimed it would need up to 75 years to process and release the requested documents. However, the Court, presided over by Judge Mark Pittman, rejected this argument, citing the importance of government accountability.
--snip--
In his ruling, Judge Pittman ordered the FDA to produce the “emergency use authorization” file, underscoring that with the pandemic’s conclusion, there is no longer a valid reason to withhold the information.
The FDA has already produced over a million pages of documents in response to the lawsuit. However, the plaintiffs argue that the agency continues to withhold critical information.
The people want to know and have every right to.
==++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow will be returning, the preparations for Christmas continue, and where I am not going to allow Monday to “harsh my mellow”.
12/07/2024
Friday Funny (Saturday Edition) - Snow Plow Driver Mentality
No, I didn't forget. I set this up so it would publish on Friday evening...or so I thought. Didn't see it on the blog so checked and found out I had set the publish time for late tonight. Sigh
Fixed it, so here you go!
Fixed it, so here you go!
12/01/2024
Thoughts On A Sunday
Winter temperatures have finally made themselves felt here at the lake, with below freezing lows and barely above freezing highs. There were even a couple of very light snow flurries this morning.
The Weather Guys TM have been saying we’re in for snow starting sometime Wednesday. They haven’t said how much to expect, but to listen to one of the network news shows this morning they’re acting like it will be yet another Snowpocalypse in the Northeast. If it is, all I can do is hope that the trusty RAM 1500 will be back from the body shop before then. (Just staying ahead of the rust.)
Yesterday I mentioned how it seems to be that the amount of aggressive driving has increased, wondering it if was just my perception or if other people have noticed it to. It turns out it wasn’t just me. A number of people I’ve asked have noticed the same thing, with some saying it’s been really bad over this past week. It has certainly been a problem here in New Hampshire with a large number of fatal motor vehicle accidents, many which make no sense unless one factors in aggressive or distracted driving.
File this under “Why were they surprised this has been happening?”
It seems that no matter how good the the GPA is for Berkeley graduates they aren’t getting any job offers.
Writes one commenter from the linking Instapundit post:
It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read the following:
Hilarity Ensues After Report on a Possible 2028 AOC Presidential Candidacy
The once great nation of Canada has accelerated its decline into ‘woke’ (and broke) nation. It’s latest bit of foolishness (or stupidity)?
A small town in Ontario is being fined for not flying a “2SLGBTQA+” flag.
WTF?
The nonsense that has been forced upon the Canadian people keeps piling up and getting worse. Civil right have been whittled away one by one by a government that is increasingly hostile to those rights...all in the name of ‘equity’.
I would like to think that eventually Canadians will come to their senses and boot out the present government and Prime Minister bag and baggage, restoring sanity to the Canada.
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has settled in, more snow (may) be on the way, and preparations for Christmas are under way.
The Weather Guys TM have been saying we’re in for snow starting sometime Wednesday. They haven’t said how much to expect, but to listen to one of the network news shows this morning they’re acting like it will be yet another Snowpocalypse in the Northeast. If it is, all I can do is hope that the trusty RAM 1500 will be back from the body shop before then. (Just staying ahead of the rust.)
Yesterday I mentioned how it seems to be that the amount of aggressive driving has increased, wondering it if was just my perception or if other people have noticed it to. It turns out it wasn’t just me. A number of people I’ve asked have noticed the same thing, with some saying it’s been really bad over this past week. It has certainly been a problem here in New Hampshire with a large number of fatal motor vehicle accidents, many which make no sense unless one factors in aggressive or distracted driving.
==++++==
File this under “Why were they surprised this has been happening?”
It seems that no matter how good the the GPA is for Berkeley graduates they aren’t getting any job offers.
Recent college graduates aren't fairing any better than the rest of the job seekers in this difficult market.Is what O’Brien has concluded true? Or is it true only for Berkeley computer science students? Is this a problem at MIT, Carnegie-Mellon, UIUC, Cal Tech and other university students?
A college professor admitted that he's seeing it happen to some of his former students who did extremely well but are having a hard time finding work. In a LinkedIn post, James O'Brien, a professor of computer science at UC Berkeley, insisted that it's become a bleak reality for many college graduates because even though they have their degrees, a job isn't coming as easily as it should.
"Tech degrees no longer guarantee a job. Lately, I'm hearing similar narratives from students. Previously, a Berkeley CS graduate, even if not a top student, would receive multiple appealing job offers in terms of work type, location, salary, and employer," O'Brien explained in his post.
He noticed that even outstanding students with 4.0 GPAs were now reaching out to him, worried because, despite their impressive transcripts and experience, they weren't receiving any job offers. He concluded that this was happening because of an irreversible trend that is also part of a broader issue that's impacting almost every job seeker in every area.
Writes one commenter from the linking Instapundit post:
There’s another element to this you don’t often hear about; curriculum. I spent a 30 year career in higher ed, supporting the university in IT, as well as doing a little teaching in CS. Employers very definitely look closely at the curriculums of universities, even those with stellar reputations, if they begin to see patterns of unpreparedness in their employees from those institutions. Shadow bans, and even very public denunciations, can and do result with respect to hiring from universities whose recent grads aren’t meeting expectations.Is this the case with Berkeley?
==++++==
It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I read the following:
Hilarity Ensues After Report on a Possible 2028 AOC Presidential Candidacy
Eager to move beyond the failure of their undemocratic installment of Kamala Harris as their nominee in place of President Joe Biden to thwart another Trump presidency, speculation has already started as to who their 2028 contenders might be.If Gruesome Newsom and Occasional Cortex are the best the Democrats can bring forward for 2028, then they have a big problem.
Among them is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who, since bursting onto the scene in 2018 and becoming a media darling in the process, has become little more than just another entrenched Democrat face in the crowd...
--snip--
Honestly, I don’t see it happening – but if it did, it’d be amusing to watch Gavin Newsom try to mow right over her and other high-profile candidates, including perhaps even Kamala Harris herself to get the seat he wanted in 2024 but didn’t.
==++++==
The once great nation of Canada has accelerated its decline into ‘woke’ (and broke) nation. It’s latest bit of foolishness (or stupidity)?
A small town in Ontario is being fined for not flying a “2SLGBTQA+” flag.
WTF?
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal is an instrument of soft tyranny that exists largely to impose degeneracy. It is punishing the township Emo (pop. 1,434) for failing to fly a flag in honor of depravity…What makes this even more laughable is that the township doesn’t even have an “official” flagpole from which to fly such a flag.
Borderland Pride requested Emo to declare June as Pride Month and display a rainbow flag for one week but the township refused, resulting in a years-long process in which the tribunal ruled against the township.Being forced to give the self-described “2SLGBTQA plus people” free money isn’t enough. The citizens of Emo must have their faces rubbed in moonbattery…
The tribunal ruled Borderland Pride will be awarded $15,000, with $10,000 coming from the township itself and the other $5,000 coming from Emo mayor Harold McQuaker.
The nonsense that has been forced upon the Canadian people keeps piling up and getting worse. Civil right have been whittled away one by one by a government that is increasingly hostile to those rights...all in the name of ‘equity’.
I would like to think that eventually Canadians will come to their senses and boot out the present government and Prime Minister bag and baggage, restoring sanity to the Canada.
==++++==
And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has settled in, more snow (may) be on the way, and preparations for Christmas are under way.
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