Friday Funny - My Wife Is A Nun

I'll Tell You The Story - A Yankee Deal In Webster

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s yet another 50:50 weekend here at the lake, with a sunny Saturday and (sorta) rainy Sunday. Not that’s it’s pouring out, but it’s light which means there’s just enough to let you know it’s raining. The good weather yesterday made sure our town could hold its annual Island Clean Up day. There are 19 islands in our town that are located on Lake Winnipesaukee, most of which have seasonal houses or camps on them. The clean up allows island residents to haul their junk to the town docks for disposal by the town DPW.

I have participated in Island Clean Up Day for a number of years now and every year there are surprising items the island residents bring to the town docks. Some of the most common items are old gas or charcoal grills or mattresses and box springs or old outdoor furniture like Adirondack chairs or windows and sliders. But we’ve also seen 300 gallon water tanks, washing machine agitators and drums, pedal boats, old solar panels, and in one case what I can only call a ‘Treasure Chest’ that looked just like the ones you always see in the movies. (No, there was no treasure in the treasure chest. We looked!)

One of the strangest things we ever saw over the years was a pontoon boat piled high with a couple of dozen mattresses and box springs. It looked just like a marine version of a Borg cube. They guy at the helm would poke his head out to the side of the boat in order to see where he was going. We still have no idea how he managed to dock his boat without running into the dock itself.

All in all it was a good day and we managed to fill all of the large dumpsters that were brought onsite to deal with the junk. There were also two dump trucks used to haul all the metal items that were brought to the docks to our dump...er…Solid Waste Center.

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This is a good step – moving departments and agencies of the Feddle Gummint closer to the people they’re supposed to be dealing with.

I remember during Trump’s first term when he moved much of the Bureau of Land Management out to Grand Junction, Colorado so they were closer the land they were managing. Of course the Biden Administration moved those bureaucrats back to Washington DC.

Now Trump is back at it, this time moving “most of the Washington, D.C. employees” of the Department of Agriculture “out of the capital and closer to the farmers, ranchers, and producers.”

Being sequestered away from the people they serve, the people they regulate is never a good idea.

Commenters to the linked post had good ideas where other government departments and agencies should be moved.

I’m hoping the Bureau of Land Management will be moved back to Colorado where it belongs.

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This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention over the past few years.

Democrats receive lowest ratings from voters in 35 years.

Considering how far the Democrat Party has shifted to the left which has had the effect of alienating more traditional Democrats and those within traditionally Democrat leaning demographics, what did the DNC expect?

From the WSJ:

The Democratic Party’s image has eroded to its lowest point in more than three decades, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, with voters seeing Republicans as better at handling most issues that decide elections.

The new survey finds that 63% of voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party—the highest share in Journal polls dating to 1990 and 30 percentage points higher than the 33% who hold a favorable view.

--snip--

Democrats have been hoping that a voter backlash against the president will be powerful enough to restore their majority in the House in next year’s midterm elections, much as it did during Trump’s first term. But the Journal poll shows that the party hasn’t yet accomplished a needed first step in that plan: persuading voters they can do a better job than Trump’s party.

Considering how the Democrats and the Biden Administration did everything they could to piss of everyone, including their fellow Democrats, the poll results aren’t exactly a surprise. Young men between the ages of 18 and 25 across all ethnic groups have shifted to more conservative viewpoints. Latinos and African Americans, usually more reliable Democrat demographics have shifted away from the party as it no longer appears to represent their wants, needs, and beliefs. The Democrats were once considered “The Party of the Working Man”. These days it looks to be more “The Party of the Woke and Perpetually Offended.” That appeals to a very small fraction of the population despite what the Party elite may believe.

==+++++==

This is a reminder: “Be careful what you wish for...because you might just get it.”

It seems Germany is getting a lesson about its ongoing Islamification, at least when it comes to the law. Int his case, and 18-year old man – a Syrian immigrant – kidnapped and tortured a 13-year old boy for hours, recording the torture.

The perpetrator’s punishment?

Two years of probation.

Oh, and the perp also demanded €1500 from the victim before he would return his cell phone after he was released.

If it had been German citizens that had perpetrated such an attack they would have gotten years in prison for the same offense.

==+++++==

I thought this might happen, but I didn’t think it would happen quite this soon.

Trump Secures Huge Trade Deal With European Union.

Was this because of the so-called Tariff War? It appears so.

The numbers speak for themselves. The European Union will purchase a staggering $750 billion in American energy, severing its reliance on Russian resources and undermining Vladimir Putin’s economic leverage. The EU will put another $600 billion in new investment into the U.S. economy, a torrent of capital poised to create jobs, invigorate industries, and cement America’s manufacturing revival. And Trump forced open European markets with a simple, powerful stroke: zero tariffs on trade, with a uniform 15 percent tariff for automobiles and other imports, ending years of lopsided trade that favored the EU.

--snip--

As for military cooperation, Trump refrained from naming a specific figure but made it clear that EU countries will be spending “hundreds of billions of dollars” on American military equipment—a move certain to bolster the security of Europe while putting American workers back on the assembly lines. It’s a two-pronged victory: strengthening NATO’s deterrent posture while further unleashing American economic might.

--snip--

Importantly, this wasn’t some eleventh-hour scramble. Trump confirmed the deal is the result of months of persistent, behind-the-scenes work, etched in real diplomacy—something his predecessors either neglected or bungled. “I think it's good that we made a deal today instead of playing games and maybe not making a deal at all,” Trump remarked, dismissing the theatrics that so often paralyze international negotiations.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to two largest economies in the world now that trade is far more open than it has been in a long time.

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Seeing the passing of a number of music icons over the past few months makes me understand why we’re seeing so many tours of music acts and bands from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s taking place.

I recently saw Cheap Trick and Rod Stewart at out local concert venue. We’ve got Toto, Men at Work, Christopher Cross, The Black Crowes, and Chicago performing here over this coming week. The Doobie Brothers, Neil Young, The Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, and Blink-182 performing here over the next few weeks.

Could it be a lot of these tours are more along the lines of farewell tours before too many members of the bands get too old or pass away? It seems that way to me, particularly in light of Ozzie Osbourne having performed his last concert only three weeks before he died.

The older WP Sister is coming up this coming Friday to attend the Chicago concert Friday night. I saw them here two summers ago and the one thing I noticed is that most of the audience was older, like me. The same was true at the Rod Stewart concert a couple of weeks ago.

The one upside to these bands and their older audience is that unlike some audiences, these are less likely to cause problems because they aren’t as energetic as younger audiences...and their arthritis makes it more difficult for them to cause problems.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re heading into another stretch of hot and humid weather, the A/C will be getting more of a workout, and where spending more time in the lake is looking pretty attractive right about now.

A Delay

Sorry, folks. I got back quite late after a very busy day and didn't have the energy to write my usual Saturday post. I'm "all tuckered out" and just want to go to bed.

Friday Funny - Wife Hack

I saw this after I had posted the Jack Nicklaus video and thought I'd post it next week, but it was just to good to wait. So here's a twofer for the Friday Funny.

Friday Funny - Jack Nicklaus Shows 'Em How It's Done

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky The Dude

Will Alberta And Saskatchewan Leave Canada?

While there’s been plenty of talk now and then about one or more Canadian province leaving Canada and applying for statehood in the US, that’s all it’s ever been. The last time something like this came to the forefront was when Quebec was looking to become independent which would have left the Maritime Provinces separated from the rest of Canada. A number of those provinces considered joining the US if Quebec became a separate nation. However, the separation referendum failed in Quebec, twice.

But now some of the western provinces have had enough of Ottawa draining them dry while at the same time making it difficult for them to farm, mine, drill for oil, and so on. It looks like two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, have had enough and they want out.



Will they go independent and form their own nation, or will they look south and join the US? So far, it seems that about a third of the residents in both provinces see joining the US as a viable option.

Will it happen? Who knows?

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a 50:50 weekend here at the lake, with low humidity and temps in the upper 70’s yesterday and humid with temps in the upper 80’s today along with some thunderstorms here and there. I’ve been out and about both days, visiting friends in a few different parts of our town, doing a little shopping at one of the local farm stands, and having lunch at one of our little known town parks on the shore of the lake. About the only chores I attended to was a little vacuuming, loading and running the dishwasher, and also doing one load of laundry – bed sheets – and that’s about it. We did have visitors yesterday – my dear brother, his wife, and one of his granddaughters – who were up for just a couple of hours and then on their way home before parking opened at our local music venue for the Brad Paisley concert.

All in all, it’s been a low key weekend for yours truly and that suits me just fine. However, next weekend will be busy, at least on Saturday, as our town will be having its annual Island Cleanup Day. That’s when island residents can bring their junk to our town docks and the DPW will load that junk into dumpsters and dump trucks, said junk to be hauled away to our dump...er…Solid Waste Center for disposal. You would be surprised to see what comes off of the boats for disposal...or maybe not. But it will be busy at the docks while it’s taking place and yours truly will be there to help with the effort just as I have for the past 8 years or so.

==+++++==

I have been seeing the laments from the Left about Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show being canceled by CBS when his contract expires next year. Some have claimed it is an entirely political decision to stifle the First Amendment and others that it’s because of the $16 million CBS had to pay Trump as a result of his lawsuit.

But could it be that the viewership just isn’t there and as a result CBS is losing $40 million a year on the show? It doesn’t help that the show has a top heavy staff and a shrinking and aging viewership. (When Colbert took over The Late Show the average age of the viewership was 60 years of age and it’s now 68 years of age.)

Now if we could see the same thing happen to The View on ABC as it is just outright awful and is more deserving of being canceled than Colbert.

==+++++==

You know it’s bad when NPR had to issue a warning that the Declaration of Independence “contains offensive language.”

==+++++==

The anti-ICE moonbats are taking their ‘protests’ even farther, this time by slashing the tires in ICE vehicles. In this case the perpetrator was pepper-sprayed and tackled after he slashed the tires of a number of vehicles used by ICE during a raid in California.

==+++++==

Seeing what has been happening in England over the past few years, one has to wonder if those in charge have been using Orwell’s 1984 as a how-to guide rather than as the warning it was meant to be. This begs the question “There will always be an England, but will it be free?” If things keep going like they have been the answer will be “no”.

Does England mean as much to the ruling establishment as it once did? The words “free” and “freedom” are repeated several times in “There’ll Always Be An England.” That’s the theme, the hope, the conviction: that Britain would triumph because of its native love of freedom.

How do things look now? Let me introduce you to two recent developments that would have astonished Messrs. Parker and Charles—police tracking of “non-crime hate incidents” and a so-called “banter ban” that is on the threshold of becoming the law of the land.

The practice of recording “non-crime hate incidents” by the police became law in June 2023.

Ponder this:

Where there is no criminal offence, but the person reporting perceives that the incident was motivated wholly or partially by hostility, the incident will be recorded as a non-crime hate incident. Police officers may also identify a non-crime hate incident, even where no victim or witness has done so.

--snip--

Just in case the recording of people saying mean or “hostile” things is not enough to stifle free speech, Britain is about to pass a Labour-sponsored law banning hurtful or possibly hurtful “banter” in pubs and other public places.

This isn’t going to end well.

==+++++==

It appears the energy problem in the Netherlands is getting worse...and it’s being done on purpose.

The Netherlands is rationing electricity as its overloaded power grid buckles under the pressure of rapid electrification and ambitious climate goals.

More than 11,900 businesses are stuck in a queue for access to the network, alongside public buildings including hospitals, schools and fire stations.

Thousands of new homes are also waiting to be connected, with some areas warned they may have to wait until the 2030s.

The crisis has emerged as the country scrambles to cut carbon emissions.

And now experts are warning that Britain, as well as Belgium and Germany, are all ‘in trouble.’

The countries should ‘definitely’ see what is happening in the Netherlands as a warning, says Zsuzsanna Pató, from Brussels-based energy think tank RAP.

After shutting down production at the massive Groningen gas field last year, the Dutch government has pushed a fast transition to electric heating, solar power and battery storage.

But the national grid has failed to keep pace, creating widespread bottlenecks and driving up costs.

What’s worse as this is a preview of what awaits Belgium, Britain, and Germany if they stay on the course they’re following. They have become an object lesson, one that we should take to heart. We see what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t work. We have seen that the various solar and wind projects where billions of dollars were poured into them and see them fail, not providing the amount of power promised nor when needed. The energy is expensive, even taking into account the taxpayer subsidies. If these power systems were viable they should be able to do without any taxpayer money once they are online, but too many of them aren’t.

It must also be understood that neither solar or wind are carbon neutral, nor are they environmentally friendly despite what the climate change cultists claim. Better that we spend money on a nuclear power renaissance as nuclear can supply electrical power 24/7/365 for years on end and is not dependent on weather.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where thunderstorms are popping up here and there, the A/C is running, and Monday is waiting in the wings.

Learning Lessons From The War In Ukraine

I am not going to get into the politics involved with the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia since anyone paying attention and a firm grasp on history will understand what’s going on and why. I feel no need to reiterate all of that in this post.
Instead, I am going to focus more on the lessons being learned because of that war, specifically when it comes to military matters.

For full disclosure, I worked in the defense industry for almost 20 years, my experience covering everything from radar systems, missile guidance systems, aerospace electronics, as well as some ‘off the books’ projects for unnamed Three Letter Agencies. This does give me a little more insight about what’s going on than those who have never been exposed to military equipment and their capabilities, but nowhere near as much as those who used that equipment for the purposes for which they were designed. With that caveat out of the way I’ll continue.

One of the first things I noticed during hostilities which started three-and-a-half years ago was the differences in capabilities between Russian military equipment versus Ukraine’s. While a lot of the equipment Ukraine used in the beginning was of Russian origin, that changed as the war dragged on, with a lot of equipment from NATO nations being sent to Ukraine. Artillery pieces and the ammo that goes with them, rifles, shoulder-launched anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, antiaircraft defense systems like Patriot, armored vehicles including M1A1 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, M113 APCs, MRAPs, MLRS systems including HIMARS and ATACMS, air-to-ground missiles, cruise missiles, precision guided bombs, then later, fighter aircraft.

What must also be noted is that a lot of that equipment that was sent to Ukraine wasn’t new, top-of-the-line materiel, but stuff that was older equipment on the verge of being scrapped. One example is the M1A1 Abrams tanks, a model that hasn’t been part of the US Armed Forces arsenal for years. It was replaced years ago by the M1A2, the most recent version being the M1A2-Sep3. Much of the other equipment sent were older versions that were being stored prior to disposal or replaced by newer versions.

Even that ‘old’ equipment showed just how over-matched the Russian equipment was. How well would up-to-date equipment fare against Russian equipment?

One of the biggest and most important lessons to be learned?

Drone warfare.

The Ukrainians took drone warfare to an entirely new level. That they were able to repurpose commercial off-the-shelf drones into precision weapons shows just how necessity fuels innovation. They have been effective against Russian armored vehicles and supply trucks, supply depots and other logistics systems caught a lot off people off guard. Even Ukraine’s marine drones, basically remotely operated boats and jet-skis, shut down Russia’s ability to operate freely in the Black Sea. It appears someone in the Pentagon has been paying attention seeing as a deal was recently stuck for Ukraine to sell some of their drones to the US military for evaluation and deployment. It shows that such equipment doesn’t need to be MilSpec and very expensive in order to be effective. That the drones are cheap, can be made in huge numbers, and easily deployed has proved to be one of their strengths. That Ukraine was also able to strike targets deep inside Russia using shipping containers to get them close to four Russian air bases and then launching them to attack Russian strategic and tactical bombers to great effect shows how they can be used when other more tradition means may be difficult to pull off. It also warns us that such tactics can be used against us too, and that we need to create the means of defending against such attacks. We’ve seen variations of some of these commercial drones modified to use fiber optic links that are immune to electronic warfare jamming. We’ve seen drones modified to plant anti-tank mines in fields and on roads. It appears there are applications for these war drones that are still being developed.

It’s going to be interesting to see what might be coming next.

Friday Funny - Pro Marriage Tip

I'll Tell You The Story - Webster Webster And Binky

Thoughts On A Sunday

I didn’t get to taking care of my usual Saturday post, it being a busy day yesterday...and quite frankly I nodded off for a few hours in the late afternoon/early evening and found I was really dragging, so I didn’t get to it.

Some of it might be attributed to my very busy and lengthy day on Friday which included dinner at BeezleBub’s followed by the Rod Stewart concert at Meadowbrook that evening. (The opening act was Cheap Trick.) It was an awesome concert and Rod looked fantastic for performer in his 80’s. I was up early yesterday morning and was pretty much busy all morning and afternoon. It was not like one of my usual summer weekends.

The weather this weekend has been less than optimal, being cloudy and cool Saturday and the same this morning. However, the sun did make its appearance this afternoon and it actually reached 80º. Monday is going to bring us heavy thundershowers, particularly in the afternoon. Then we’ll be back in the heat with temps in the 90’s and high humidity...again.

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I have to wonder how those with student loans feel about starting to make payments again? How about those who will see the Feddle Gummint coming after them for defaulting on the loan payments they hadn’t made prior to those payments being suspended by the Department of Education in 2020 “due to Covid”?

I have to wonder if the latter were hoping they wouldn’t have to pay back their loans in light of Biden’s unconstitutional loan forgiveness move? Heck, it shouldn’t be a surprise that even those who haven’t defaulted feel the same way.

I’ve been listening to the debate between those who believe student loans should be forgiven and those who don’t. Despite what the first group wants, those loans do have to be repaid but they will be repaid by the American taxpayers. That’s you and me, boys and girls. It’s ironic that some of those loans paid for useless college degrees that qualified the recipients to be baristas at Starbucks, bartenders, Uber or Lyft or DoorDash drivers, convenience store clerks, or wait staff and those who took the loans owe as much as some people owe on their mortgages. It’s equally ironic that those holding those degrees could have worked those same jobs without a degree and without the 6-digit loan debt that went that degree. They also would have had 4 years more earnings if they hadn’t wasted those four years studying for their useless degree.

I have to lay some of the blame for this on the colleges and universities that created many of the useless courses of study as so many of them saw the oceans of cash made available by the student loan programs and wanted some of it.

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Umm...really?

It appears that Israel had supernatural help overcoming Iran’s defenses which allowed it to prevail in its recent 12-day war with Iran as well as the success with the US taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities, at least according one senior Iranian official. That help?

Jinn. (Link may be paywalled.)

How did Israel, a country of fewer than ten million people, prevail in the recent twelve-day war over the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has nine times more people and thirty times more land than Israel? A senior Iranian official, Abdollah Ganji, who formerly headed a daily newspaper, Jovan, that was a primary mouthpiece of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is convinced that it wasn’t simply a story of Israel’s having a superior strategy, better weaponry, and help from the U.S., with its bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Ganji contends that the Israeli secret weapon had supernatural help, and not the good kind.

Iran International reported Friday on what Ganji called “a strange phenomenon.” Ganji claimed that “after the recent war, several pieces of paper were found on the streets of Tehran containing talismans with Jewish symbols." Uh-oh. And as if that weren’t enough, he added: "A few years ago, the Supreme Leader said that hostile countries and Western and Hebrew intelligence services use occult sciences and jinn beings for espionage."

Indeed he did. Back in March 2020, the Ayatollah Khamenei told his countrymen in a televised address that the Islamic Republic was facing “enemies from among both jinn and human beings.” This apparently inspired a good deal of ridicule, as Iran International notes that “the quote was later removed from some official transcripts.”

Another prominent Iranian ayatollah, Hojatoleslam Mehdi Karami, said in Oct. 2024: “Given the Zionists’ history of controlling jinn, many of their missions are carried out through them.”

So we’ve been wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on defense spending when we could have been using the jinn, aka genies, to defend ourselves?

Yeah. Right.

==+++++==

This doesn’t surprise me in the least.

I’ve been hearing the stories about the problems that are occurring for those wishing to rebuild their homes in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton areas of Los Angeles that were devastated by the fires that destroyed thousands of homes an businesses. Permitting is taking a long time and can cost $20,000 or more, a cost that isn’t always covered by insurance. Insurance payouts have been iffy as so many homeowners lost their insurance prior to the fires. But don’t worry, Governor Newsom has the answer!

Slums! Or as I saw it written in the linked post “Gentrification in reverse.”

Six months after the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires, California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled $101 million in funding Tuesday for “multifamily low-income housing development” that will “contribute to a more equitable and resilient Los Angeles.” The priority is for “geographic proximity to the fire perimeters of the Eaton, Hughes, and Palisades fires.”

--snip--

California state law and a local Los Angeles ordinance require fire-destroyed rent-protected housing — which includes all apartments in the city built before October 1978 — be replaced with low-income housing. Because the affordability requirements use county-level income data, not more local incomes, definitions for “low” and “very low” income housing reflect much lower incomes than the norm for the affluent Palisades community.

--snip--

What a beautiful locale to build an equitable slum at public expense.

To qualify as Supportive Housing Multifamily Housing, a project must provide at least 40% of its units for the homeless, or individuals who have spent at least 15 days in “jails, hospitals, prisons, and institutes of mental disease.”

So by using county level income data rather than neighborhood level income data, California taxpayers will be on the hook to build low income housing in areas that used to have million and multimillion dollar homes. Does this mean that some of the former homeowners will be lucky to lose only a portion of the value of their homes rather than all of it?

As the article states, does this mean “California has succumbed to the Democrat Death Spiral”? It certainly seems so as government at the state and city levels appear to have been doing everything they can to make sure California becomes unaffordable and unlivable.

==+++++==

Better late then never.

It appears the UK newspaper The Telegraph has discovered that wind farms don’t work when the wind doesn’t blow.

This is something Germany discovered both during heat waves and cold spells when there wasn’t much wind that wind could not be counted on to provide needed electricity. Britain is finding out during the recent heat wave that wind farms cannot be counted on to provide electricity when it is most needed. (It actually isn’t the first time, it’s just the most recent one.)

It isn’t just in Europe that this lesson is being learned.

Texas found out during one particular cold snap a few years ago that their huge wind farms in west Texas couldn’t provide power because the cold affected the wind turbines, particularly when the blades on some of the turbines needed to be de-iced before they could be used, which meant they couldn’t be used as they had no means of doing so. At times there also wasn’t much in the way of wind to turn the turbines in any case. Call it another lesson that is being ignored by the climate change cult.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where thunderstorms are in the forecast, another heat wave is on its way, and where we’re trying our best to ignore Monday.

Friday Funny (Saturday Edition) - Men Are Simple

Yes, I did not post this last night as I have a great excuse - I was at the Rod Stewart concert at our nearby venue last night. The concert was part of his farewell tour.

Now, without further ado:

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky And The Unmentionables

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a long holiday weekend with those wanting to celebrate the Fourth of July holiday up here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire making their appearance. From Wednesday evening onward the traffic was heavy, heavier than I can ever remember it being. The WP Mom and I went grocery shopping Thursday morning, figuring we’d beat the rush.

We were wrong.

It usually takes us about 5 to 10 minutes to make the trip between The Gulch and the local supermarket. (If we have to stop at all 4 traffic lights during the trip it takes us 10 minutes.) It was closer to 15 minutes before we pulled into the parking lot in front of the supermarket. The lot was full. Even though we were able to park in a handicap parking space, it was out in the East Overshoe section of the lot which meant it was a bit of a hike for the WP Mom.

Once inside the supermarket chaos reigned.

Surprisingly it didn’t take us as long as we thought it might to finish our shopping as the market had every checkout lane open and baggers on each lane. We made it back to the car in about 20 minutes...but then it was almost 20 minutes before we made it back to The Gulch as the traffic had gotten even heavier and slower.

In general, traffic was heavy all weekend. I didn’t see nearly as much traffic this morning when I made my usual Sunday morning Walmart run. But then, I made that shopping run almost an hour earlier than usual – 7 am rather than 8 am.

I will be heading out again later today to run a couple of errands so it will be interesting to see how heavy the traffic is this afternoon.

==+++++==

On Wednesday I saw a Facebook post made by a distant cousin (who shall remain nameless in order to keep her from being flamed) that claimed that the June job numbers showed a first time loss of jobs and laid the blame on Donald Trump. I did ask where she got her job numbers but I never heard back from her. The official jobs numbers from the Labor Department for June showed 147,000 new jobs filled which was 37,000 more than predicted.

Yes, I understand that monthly jobs numbers are almost always adjusted a month or so later once all the reports have been tallied, either upwards or downwards. But it seems that every jobs report since Trump started his second term have been revised upwards while they were almost always revised downwards during the Biden Administration.

The Wall Street Journal reports that even though some “manufacturers have paused hiring amid tariff uncertainties, the unemployment rate fell partly because fewer people are looking for work.” (The link may be paywalled.)

U.S. job growth continued at a steady pace last month, surprising economists who had predicted a slowdown in hiring amid uncertainty over trade and fiscal policy.

The country added 147,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported Thursday, above the gain of 110,000 jobs economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% from 4.2%.

Revisions showed that hiring was stronger in prior months than previously thought. The number of jobs added in April and May was a combined 16,000 higher than prior estimates. Job growth was heavily concentrated in state and local government and in healthcare.

That much of that job growth in April and May was “heavily concentrated” in state and local government bothers me seeing most of them were in education, though the growth in healthcare jobs is promising.

On a local note, I know our school system has a problem when it comes to jobs, that being that even as our school population has shrunk by 15% over the past 15 years, the number of school employees has grown by 40%. Why?

If the non-education growth in local government jobs was due to growth in the population in towns and cities, I see that as more of a positive. I’ll admit some skepticism to the growth in state government jobs being a positive things.

It will be interesting to see what the adjusted jobs numbers for June will look like in a month or so.

==+++++==

What sounds true isn’t always actually true, particularly when it comes to illegal immigrants and taxes.

Liberals Claim Illegals Pay Taxes and Add to Society… The Numbers Don’t Show That at All

Liberals are always quick to say that illegal aliens pay taxes from their paychecks and add to American society, however, the actual numbers don’t make their case at all. Indeed, the numbers show that, overall, they don’t add anything but, instead, take from is all.

Democrats even go farther in their support for illegals and claim that they really don’t benefit from our system at all and that WE are the ones that reap all the benefits from illegal aliens.

--snip--

...yes, some of them pay taxes. But are they really a plus for us? The answer to that is a resounding no. And the reason for that is because they take far more in government services (both federal and state) than they ever pay in taxes.

The Center for Immigration Studies noted that 59 percent of non-citizen households are on welfare of one sort or another. That is compared to only 39 percent of citizens.

From the quote above one could make the argument that the non-citizen households include legal immigrants, but if one looks at the charts included in the linked article, it is stated that “59% of households headed by illegal immigrants, also called the undocumented, use at least one major program.” Only 52% of legal immigrant households do so.

This is something that needs a deeper look and the numbers better defined. If it is indeed true that the Democrats’ claims about illegal immigrants and taxes is not true, then we must make sure their their claims are exposed. This isn’t something that should be relegated to the “Everyone knows” category of misinformation.

==+++++==

What does the Left always seem to root for the bad guys?

Could it be because the bad guys do the things that they’d like to do, but are too chicken to do themselves?

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re recovering from the holiday weekend, the heat and humidity have returned, and where Monday is coming back to plague us again.

Friday Funny...On Saturday - A Twofer

Seeing as I am still recovering from celebrating the Fourth of July...as well as the Fifth, I'm hitting you up with two 'funnies' today.

The first is a clever cover of Thunderstruck:



And then there's this:

July 4th - This Must Be Remembered

July 4, 1776

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

I'll Tell You The Story - Jumanji In Keene And Other NH Movies

Thoughts On A Sunday

Other than a brief respite last weekend, we’ve had 14 rainy Saturdays out of the last 15 Saturdays. Not that I am really complaining. I’m just stating fact. Others here in the Lakes Region don’t like it, particularly those who run tourism-oriented businesses. It’s just weather and it’s something we have to deal with.

The wet weather doesn’t stop us from taking care of our weekend chores, for the most part. Yes, it’s true the lawn may not get mowed until mid-week and garden work will have to be postponed for another day.

It certainly hasn’t affected Amateur Radio Field Day which started yesterday and ends today. It is an annual ‘test’ of emergency communications in the form of a contest. Amateur radio operators set up “in the field” to prove they can provide emergency communications in the event of an emergency that disrupts and takes out normal communications like phones, texts, Internet, etc. It takes place during the last weekend of every June. Field Day runs regardless of the weather, so the rain we had yesterday didn’t disrupt one of our local Amateur Radio clubs from participating.

As an aside, this will be a short workweek for yours truly as I will be taking both Wednesday and Thursday off in preparation for July 4th. I’ve got a few things to take care of prior to then, so why not burn up a little vacation time to do so?

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In my post yesterday I mentioned that the Supreme Court got it right when it came to federal judges not having the inherent right to issue nationwide injunctions. The 6-3 decision split along part lines.

What’s ironic about this is that one of the dissenting Justices, Elena Kagan, had just the opposite opinion only three years ago when she wrote:

It can't be right that one district court, whether it's in the Trump years ... the Biden years, and it just can't be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks, and leave it stopped for years — that it takes to go through the normal process.

Then why did she vote just the opposite way earlier this week? Mike Miller asks the questions:

So what was the deal, Justice Kagan? Why did you, in 2022, make a perfect case against district courts handing down decisions that stop nationwide policy dead in its tracks, yet on Friday, make a 180-degree U-turn and vote against stopping district courts from doing so?

Why, it couldn't be hypocrisy, could it?

Could it be that when such injunctions work for them the Democrats are all for them, but that when it works in the opposite direction they are against them?

In this case, the question and its answer are moot since the Supreme Court has already ruled on the matter.

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Why doesn’t this surprise me in the least? Maybe because I understand math and engineering.

‘Net Zero’ Is Collapsing in U.S. States

From New York to California, state renewable electrical power dreams are collapsing. Power demands soar, while the federal government cuts funding and support for wind, solar, and grid batteries. Renewables cannot provide enough power to support the artificial intelligence revolution. The Net Zero electricity transition is failing in the United States.

Could it be because we’ve been seeing the increasing failures experienced by other countries trying to achieve Net Zero and don’t want to go down that rat hole with them?

In the US we’ve seen large scale renewable energy projects fail to meet the energy needs, producing a fraction of the power predicted with questionable reliability and service life. We’ve been finding out that windfarms aren’t the panacea so many claimed they would be, that solar farms take up so much land area they create damage to ecosystems because trees and other vegetation must be removed. Both are vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather, and solar is only usable for part of the day. The one thing rarely mentioned by the Net Zero cultists is that renewables require backups capable of carrying the load when renewables aren’t available. The problem is that in many cases those backups don’t exist, or worse, are ‘dirtier’ than what was replaced by the renewable sources. (A lot of those backups are fueled by coal, at least in Europe.)

There are ways to reduce carbon emissions, at least for power generation, but some of them are anathema to the Greens, one of the better ones being nuclear power. It doesn’t matter that nuclear power can provide a full load 24/7/365 even when the wind isn’t blowing or is blowing too hard or the sun is below the horizon or the sky is covered by clouds.

It seems to me that Non-Reciprocal Theory of Theory versus Practice has come into play regarding Net Zero:

In Theory, Theory and Practice are the same thing. In Practice, they are not.

To quote Dennis Miller, “That’s just my opinion. I might be wrong...”

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It appears the Democrats are learning the lesson of “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.”

In this case it is precedents they set for January 6 congressional subpoenas that is now coming back to bite them.

While Oversight digs into the question of who was REALLY running Biden’s White House, the walls are closing in on Doctor Jill’s top aide.

Any of the excuses, deflections, and dodges that might have shielded Anthony Bernal from having to answer to Congressional oversight were shredded by the heavy-handed precedents set under the J6 committee.

After ignoring an invitation to testify before Congress, Bernal is now receiving a formal subpoena to appear, whether he wants to or not. And since Democrats were more than happy to throw Republicans in prison for refusing the subpoena, the precedent has been set for the same rules to apply to them.

“What goes around, comes around.” I guess the Democrats conveniently forgot that until it came back to bite them.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the heat and humidity are returning for the next couple of days, the summerfolk will start arriving one Tuesday to celebrate the Fourth of July, and where Monday is sneaking back in...again.

The Supreme Court Got It Right

I admit to feeling relieved the US Supreme Court ruled that federal judges do not have the power to issue nationwide injunctions. Judges should not have the power to do that on matters that are generally under the power of the Executive branch, and particularly on issues that are not class actions.

Some of my less cognizant acquaintances have claimed that federal judges have always have that power, but only if they define ‘always’ as since the end of the George W. Bush administration. Too many federal judges have gotten it into their heads that they are the ultimate power, that they can ignore the Constitution and order the Executive branch to do anything they want done. Some believe their rulings have power outside the US, Judge Boasberg (DC District Court) being one of the more recent examples of that when he ordered aircraft that were in international air space to turn around and return to the US and tried to stop further deportations of illegal aliens from Texas. He had no jurisdiction there either. We’ve had a federal judge in Hawaii issuing rulings and orders to districts that were well out of their jurisdiction.

It appears that other judges have decided that they can ignore or overturn US Supreme Court decisions because “they know better”. It’s time to prove to them they’re wrong with one sure way of doing that being by throwing them off the bench, if not having them disbarred. Judicial activism by ignoring the Constitution is not bravery. It is malice and authoritarianism. It is more about ‘feelz’ than it is about law. It is more about supporting The Narrative than the law.

It is something that needs to stop.

Friday Funny - First Time

Thoughts On A Sunday

The roar of motorcycle engines has been building since last weekend, with a majority of the motorcycles arriving here since Thursday. The 102^nd Laconia Bike Week is winding to a close, with a lot of the bikers having already departed from the Lakes Region for home. Some are likely to hang around for a few more days before heading home. In any case, the rumble of the motorcycles as they pass by The Gulch’s neighborhood has become less frequent and I doubt I will hear any overnight.

From what I understand officials have estimated that over 300,000 bikers made the trip to Laconia and the surrounding area. I certainly saw that the restaurants, ice cream stands, pubs, and attractions have been very busy since last weekend.

I did venture out during the week, between travel to and from work, running errands, grocery shopping, and attending to the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout.

All in all, I have no complaints.

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Something I heard at our town docks after attending to the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout:

“Look, daddy! A boatercycle!!”

The young lad pointing this out was talking about someone launching a jet ski at the ramp. It’s when I realized his term for a jet ski was absolutely perfect.

Boatercycle.

I like it!

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I don’t know about you, but I was surprised about the USAF air strike against Iran’s three nuclear weapons sites. We still don’t know all of the details of the strike, including the reason(s) for striking now rather than later.

I must say that the misdirection of having B2 Spirit stealth bombers deployed to Guam was a masterstroke. Some may wonder why they were sent there, but if one looks at a globe they would see the flight path from Guam to Iran is about 1,000 miles shorter than the flight path between Whiteman AFB and Iran. (Yes, I know both are direct path distances, but even figuring in a number of ‘jogs’ in the flight path, Guam is still closer.)

One has to wonder what intel the Pentagon and the White House had that would have prompted Trump to order the strike now.

One other thing: We must also remember that we have been in a de facto state of war with Iran since 1979, either directly or through proxies. Iran has had no problems attacking shipping, and particularly US Navy vessels, in the Persian Gulf for decades. They have had their proxies, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, doing likewise in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea over the past few years.

What’s the fallout from this strike going to be? I could posit all kinds of scenarios, most of which would be absolutely wrong, but frankly, I haven’t a clue. We have heard from ‘experts’ stating everything from widespread terrorist attacks across the US by Iranian commando teams who entered the US illegally when the Biden Administration opened the boarders and allowed 9+ million people to enter the US illegally and unvetted, to a complete collapse of the Iranian Islamic regime, and everything in between.

Was this strike a good idea? I’ll admit that I don’t know because I just don’t know enough one way or the other. But then, neither does the other 99.9999999999% of the US population. I would like to think there was a damn good reason for it rather than it being a capricious move by the White House. Only time will tell.

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Yeah, this has worked out so well.

I particularly have an issue with Assistant Chief Larson’s attitude. If that’s what she thinks then maybe she should step down from the LAFD.

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Oh, NO!!

Dr. Demento has retired!!

I used to listen to Dr. Demento on the radio when I was driving into work on Sunday nights. It was there that I heard some of Weird Al Yankovic’s first songs like Another One Rides The Bus and My Bologna. Then there was Fish Heads by Barnes and Barnes.

I guess 55 years is long enough for any radio DJ.

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This isn’t a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention:

Former Democratic Adviser Says Party Has No Agenda Beyond Hating Trump

Dan Turrentine is a former adviser to the Democratic Party, and he had some tough words for his fellow Democrats during a recent appearance on Jesse Watters Primetime.

Turrentine pointed out that the party lacks an agenda and vision beyond hating Trump and suggested that this might be related to their recently reported fundraising troubles.

Turrentine thinks the Democrat Party is focusing on the wrong things, saying “they’d rather, unfortunately, be talking about ‘kings’ than talking about Iran right now.”

They have also forgotten that at one point they used to be the “Party of the Working Man” and are now the party of the Woke, the Progressive elite, the Socialists, and an endlessly growing list of “victims”. Demographics they could once count on are now abandoning the Democrats much as the Democrats have abandoned them.

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While I was attending to some work on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout I had the opportunity to talk to a few of folks living along the shore where I dock the boat. One was the wife of the guy from whom I rent the slip every season. Another was a fellow who lives next to the dock where I berth the boat and keeps an eye on things. We talked about all kinds of things including Bike Week, the start of summer now that all of the schools are out for the summer, changes to some of our local restaurants – renovations, expansions, menus and so on – and one of the perpetual topics of discussion, that being property taxes.

No one thinks we’re paying too little. I know I haven’t liked the increases, much of which can be blamed on expanded town and school spending.

School spending is always the largest expenditure we see, with it being between 60% and 70% of all spending in town. Town spending is between 20% and 25%, and the balance is split between the county and the state.

At least the folks I talked with had voted at Town Meeting this past March so they had every right to complain. I doubt it will be a surprise to anyone that those who complain the loudest are often those who couldn’t be bothered to take the time to vote at Town Meeting. They expect us to ‘fix’ things after the fact even though that isn’t how it works.

After wrapping up the tax discussion we all commented upon and lamented the ever growing number of Cap’n Boneheads we see out on the lake. We’ve all seen the dumb stuff boaters are doing out on the lake and it seems to get worse every summer. It’s one reason I rarely will go out onto Winnipesaukee on a summer weekend. Most of my summer boating takes place during the week after work. It’s safer...and more relaxing. Once we get past Labor Day I start boating on the weekends as most of the Cap’n Boneheads are gone and we can enjoy our boating in peace.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rumble of motorcycles is fading away, the number of boats on the lake is increasing, and where it looks like Monday is going to be “a scorchah” with temps in the upper 90’s with high humidity.

I Have Seen The Past

I don’t know how many times I have quoted or paraphrased Thomas Sowell who said “The past four decades have seen things that work being replaced by things that sound good.” Of course it is closer to five decades today. As I was going through the Weekend Pundit Archives I came across this from just a couple of years ago, something that echos what Sowell told us.

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I was born in the 1950s. I’ve lived in seven decades, two centuries, and two millennia.

My generation had the fastest cars, the prettiest girls, drive-ins, soda fountains, and happy days.

You could understand the words in our music, and you could dance to it.

We carried knives in our pockets, and guns in our pickup trucks, and nobody got killed.

I have seen the past.

And it works.

Amen.

Friday Funny - If Mom Was A Marvel Superhero

I'll Tell You The Story: Buckaburger-Dollahdog Menu

Thoughts On A Sunday

Yesterday was the start of the 102^nd Laconia Motorcycle Rally week, with thousand of bikers arriving here in central New Hampshire to enjoy a week of celebration and activities. While a majority of the bikers won’t start arriving until this coming Thursday, there are already a large number here as we can hear the roar of their engines almost everywhere we go. There can be anywhere between 300,000 and 500,000 bikers attending Motorcycle Week. While most of the activities will be taking place in Laconia and surrounding communities, there are some taking place all over New Hampshire.

It’s going to be an interesting week.

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One other thing taking place is our first “pool party” in our neighborhood, celebrating the start of the summer season. It’s nothing big, just a bunch of us bringing snacks and drinks down to the pool, talking with our neighbors - year-round and seasonal – lying about how great our lives are going, as well as other topics of interest. (I get quite few people asking me about town stuff since I am so involved with our town functions and activities.)

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Is the ‘Progressive’ social media site Bluesky failing because the Left are “humorless scolds”? Sci Fi author John Scalzi certainly thinks so.

He posted, “It’s been a year since I left the former Twitter, in terms of posting there, but I kept the account active so that tweets that were linked to from elsewhere would still be active, and to keep anyone from using my handle there, since it’s been identified with me for 16 years and I wanted to keep an impostor or troll from picking it up and pretending to be me.”

“But you know what? In both cases, I don’t really care any more,” he continued.

He didn’t care so much that he had to post about it. Much like he apparently doesn’t care at this point about BlueSky losing a lot of its following as most people realized the engagement levels on the site are zero because of the echo chamber.

An article from Fortune was released this week saying, “Bluesky is backfiring. Mark Cuban says the ‘lack of diversity of thought’ is actually pushing users back to X.”

The article details how the echo chamber failed to generate any meaningful engagement, and Mark Cuban has noted a change where the extreme left userbase has started to turn on themselves saying the site has gotten “ruder and more hateful.”

Those normal folk on the other side of the aisle who have been targets of the left’s ire for years can only help but smile knowingly at how rude and hateful the BlueSky crowd can be.

Cuban continued saying, “Engagement went from great convos on many topics, to agree with me or you are a nazi fascist. We are forcing posts to X.”

While originally meant as a counter to Twitter – aka ‘X’ – after Elon Musk purchased that platform, it appears it has devolved because, as Scalzi mentioned above, it has become an echo chamber. If you have the audacity to disagree with ‘opinions’ on Bluesky you become a non-person because you are obviously “not one of them”.

I have to wonder if it will still exist a year from now. I’m guessing that it won’t.

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I almost shot coffee out of my nose when I read this:

The New York Times complains Florida taxes are too low.

Why is the NYT getting involved with this? Because it has to do with NHL teams and how much players for those teams pay in taxes depending on where they are located.

Canada’s Benjamin Franklin—Lord Stanley of Preston— once said. “In this world nothing is certain except death, taxes and the NHL.

OK, maybe I made that up but it is befitting the manufacture of a controversy of the New York Times and others that live in states with high state income taxes. Their NHL teams suck while the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Vegas Golden Knights, Nashville Predators, Dallas Stars, and Seattle Kraken all flourish in states that do not tax income.

Canada has not won a Stanley Cup in 32 seasons although the Edmonton Oilers may break that that spell this year now that Canadians rid themselves of Justin Castreau after President Trump humiliated him.

But Canada’s taxes remain the same.

While Canada’s top marginal tax rate is 33% and America’s is 37%, the top marginal rates for its provinces range from 11.5% to 21.8%.

The combined provincial and national tax rates top 50% in 8 provinces. Who is going to argue for $2 million more a year just to receive less than a million more? Take the lower pay and sign with Tampa Bay for the better weather.

So the NYT is claiming it’s unfair that some states have lower taxes which makes it more difficult to get professional hockey players to sign on to teams in places that will tax the heck out of their income? I would like to think this was more a tongue-in-cheek opinion, but knowing the NYT they are likely quite serious. If they really want to level the playing field (no pun intended), then perhaps they need to address the states and provinces that are taxing the bejeezus out of people’s income to drop their tax rates. I have a feeling that would be a lot more popular.

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I find it interesting that as the Israelis struck Iranian targets with airstrikes and missile barrages the Iranian people were not chanting “Death to Israel”.

Instead they were chanting “Death to Khamenei.”

I expect we will see a lot more of this as the regime falls. People in Iran have done this before, taken to the streets in the cause of freedom, and were brutalized and killed by the tens of thousands.

“The Israelis just gave the Iranian people a reason to believe”. Not my words, theirs.

Read The Whole Thing.

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Senator Alex Padilla denies staging his outburst at DHS Director Christ Noem. The problem is that no one, including Democrats, believe him.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), whom most people couldn’t pick out of a line-up before last week, wants America to believe his little performance during a Homeland Security press conference was totally spontaneous. Just an organic moment of righteous frustration, he claims. But we know better—his whole stunt reeked of a desperate cry for attention, and the more he tries to explain it away, the more obvious that becomes.

Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Padilla tried spinning his headline-grabbing antics as an innocent attempt to get information. “You can’t script this in Hollywood,” he said with dramatic flair, insisting he just happened to be near the press conference while waiting for a briefing and spontaneously decided to pop in, wearing plain clothes and lacking his Senate Security pin. He was apparently stunned—stunned!—that the press conference didn’t meet his expectations: “Surprise, surprise, no substance came from that press conference, just political attacks.”

It was theater, pure and simple. It was bad theater and no one wants to back up his claims.

Maybe he should get some tips from Bernie Sanders.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the motorcycles are roaring, the summerfolk are returning now that schools are out, and where once again Monday is returning.

She Got It Wrong

I had thought to post something lengthy and profound today, but listening to one of the news reports about the “No Kings” protests figuratively stopped me in my tracks.

If memory serves, I heard one of the protesters state that she believed in the Constitution and that what the President and ICE were doing regarding illegal immigrants was illegal and unconstitutional, and that a majority of Americans agreed with her .

What?!

This told me that the protester had absolutely no idea what either the law or the Constitution said about immigration, the powers of the Executive Branch, or the limitations of the Judicial Branch. She only knew what someone else, some one who was either as clueless than she was or who outright lied to her. I doubt she even realized that what she was supporting was ignoring the rule of law and instead promoting law by fiat and, even worse, anarchy. I also have no idea what polls she’s been looking at, but a “majority of Americans” don’t agree with her. It’s just the opposite.

Some, including one or two of my family members, may question why I hate immigration. I don’t. I have no problem with immigrants who came here legally, filled out the paperwork, waited their turn, and then entered when the government said “Come on over!”

I do have problems with immigrants who broke the law to get here, crossing the border illegally or coming here for a visit and then overstayed when their visas expired. That over 9 million illegals crossed out borders, with a large portion of them being criminals before they even crossed the border, bothers me. That a sitting President, even if he was just a figurehead, opened the border and let them come flooding across with absolutely no vetting of any kind is one hell of a criminal act in and of itself. That his successor has to clean up the mess and that a small percentage of the population has decided to riot, burn, and loot as a means of trying to stop the clean up of Biden’s mess tells me all I need to know.

It’s not a protest. It’s a rebellion fueled by our Progressive ‘betters’...who are anything but.

Friday Funny - Repeat After Me

Thoughts On A Sunday

The drenching rain that plagued us at the beginning of the weekend has departed, leaving us with sunshine and temps in the 70’s today. Other parts of New Hampshire were affected more by the rains with flooding and washouts, but fortunately it wasn’t widespread. I am looking forward to exploiting today’s weather to get some cleanup done around The Gulch and some follow-on cleanup on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout. Heck, I might even venture out onto the lake for a brief jaunt before the end of the day.

While the ‘summer’ season is not yet in full swing – that won’t happen until the schools are out – it’s been pretty busy, even with the rain we’ve seen for the past 12 weekends. The summer eateries are open as are the ‘amusements’. The local restaurants are busier than they were a few weeks ago, the local beaches are seeing visitors, there are a lot more cars and trucks “from away” around, and the campgrounds are getting busy. The upcoming Motorcycle Week which starts next weekend will be signaling the switch to full ‘Summer’ mode. It is a time I both love and dread simultaneously. I know I’m not the only one in the Lakes Region that feels that way.

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There are a couple of links over at Instapundit dealing with the anti-ICE riots taking place in Los Angeles. One of the not so surprising things about them is that there is heavy evidence that they are being paid for via government funds.

People need to go to prison for this and that government funding needs to be investigated. That’s a perfect job for DOGE.

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Something the Left and the MSM have missed, or are more likely ignoring, is the reason Musk left DOGE: He was a temporary government employee and as such he would have had to “jump through the bureaucratic hoops” to stay longer as ‘regular’ government employee. Temporary government employees are limited to 130 days in service. Musk left on day 130.

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While I may have mentioned this in passing once or twice over the past few years, I am a town official in our small town, something that is both great and terrible at the same time. As such, I get to do lots of things for our town, one of those being assisting in the updating and revision of out town’s Master Plan. More specifically the Telecommunications portion of that Master Plan. It helps that I work in the telecommunications industry as that gives me insight as to what it can and cannot do, both technologically and regulatory.

Dealing with this duty has brought up a lot of questions I have as to how telecommunications – phone, Internet, cell service, cable TV, and so on – are handled at both a local, state and federal level. A lot has changed over the past 25 years and I have to say that there are a lot of regulations that haven’t kept up with the realities.

One of the biggest changes has been with differences between the traditional telephone companies – Telcos - and cable TV multi-system operators – aka MSO’s – have shrunk to the point that they provide the same services but operate under different regulations and laws. Those services include video, Internet, phone – both landline and cell service. The two may handle video differently with cable offering traditional “Linear TV” and Telcos offering streaming services, though even cable also offeres streaming services as well.

Why do they operate under different rules if they are, to all intents and purposes, providing identical services? Maybe it’s time to change that.

One of the biggest differences in the how they are treated. Telcos are treated like a utility, no different than electricity, water, sewer, or natural gas. Cable operators are treated as a service provider, something that is ‘optional’ as compared to traditional utilities. Unlike utilities, cable operators have to have a franchise agreement, a contract, with the towns and cities they serve. They have a limited term meaning they they expire after a number of years. (It’s ten years up this way. It may be different in other states.) Power utilities and telephone companies don’t. Depending upon the terms of the franchise agreements, cable operators aren’t necessarily required to provide services to everyone in a community while telephone companies are. As the differences between services offered by Telcos and cable MSO’s disappear, shouldn’t the different laws and regulations that cover them do likewise?

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This has got to gall a lot of people who really don’t understand why Trump won the election last year:

Trumps Approval Rating Jumps 8 Points In May.

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Yeah, this is going to play well and win voters in California big time:

California Assembly Approves 50-65 Cent Gas Tax Increase Under Low Carbon Fuel Standard – Gas Prices Could Hit $8.44/Gallon in 2026 in the state.

If Gavin Newsom is serious about running for president in 2028, this is one bill he should veto. Making it increasingly expensive to live in California is no way to win the hearts of the electorate, particularly outside the Pyrite State. Too many people will think “If he’s willing to impoverish the residents of his state based on a scam, what will he do to the rest of the country if he were to become president? No way I’m going to vote for this jerk!”

Doesn’t anyone in government in California understand they are sowing the seeds of the state’s destruction? Or is it that they really don’t care...as long as they are in charge?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is somewhat better, summer traffic is getting heavier, and where Monday has found its way back to us...again.

Has It Really Been 23 Years?

I was looking back through the WP archives and I realized that today is the 23rd anniversary of Weekend Pundit.

My dear brother and I had been blogging on Geocities, the blog back then called World Domination, Inc. where our motto was "Subjugating Humanity One Individual At A Time." That effort was mostly my brother's and I contributed now and then. But then we discovered Blogger and the rest is history.

Weekend Pundit has resided on three different platforms over the years. One - Blogmosis - was provided by a couple of our readers (Thanks, Matt and Vicky!!) and then on space provided by Skip over at Granite Grok. We ended up returning to Blogger years ago and have been here ever since.

In that time we have made over 6,000 posts, seen over 1.7 million views (with 1.24 million of them here on Blogger alone). My brother and I used to post just about every day. Then he departed as there was something else he wanted to devote time to - writing a novel with Dean Esmay - and I kept posting. However, family and work commitments took up more of my time and I dialed back my postings to weekends only which was the intent of this blog to begin with, hence "Weekend Pundit".

It's been fun. It's been frustrating. It's been wonderful. It's been daunting. And I plan to keep doing it as long as I can as I do enjoy it.

Social Media Driving Depression In Children?

Knowing how the lives of teens and pre-teens can be quite stressful, particularly when it comes to their social lives, is it really any surprise when it turns out that social media can make it worse and lead to more depression amongst kids? The revelation isn’t much of a surprise to me.

I don’t know how many times I have stated either here on the pages of WP or in comments to other posts that social media is an addiction, one that paints false pictures about real life. What we see on social media is rarely as good or rosy as some people try to claim. For kids it can be even worse.

As rates of depression and suicide among young people continue to rise, a question has captured experts’ attention: Does social media make kids more depressed, or are kids who are already struggling simply spending more time online?

A new study from UC San Francisco is shedding light on the issue. Researchers found that when preteens increased their social media use, their depressive symptoms also rose. Interestingly, the opposite was not true. Higher levels of depression did not lead to more time spent on social platforms.

The numbers are eye-opening. Over the three years of the study, kids’ daily social media use jumped from just seven minutes to 73 minutes. During that same period, their depressive symptoms climbed by 35%. The study, supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was published in JAMA Network Open.

I find it interesting the study found that depression “did not lead to more time spent on social platforms.” One would think depression would lead to more time on social media. But that might be a saving grace. However, with more social media use adding to depression, I stand by my statement above that social media too often paints a picture that is an illusion. Comparing one’s life to that of someone on social media can certainly lead kids to the conclusion that their own lives are awful in comparison.

One other negative aspect to social media when it comes to kids is cyberbullying which can be worse than the more traditional forms of bullying.

The study found kids aged 11 to 12 years who were cyberbullied were 2.62 times more likely to report suicidal ideation or a suicide attempt one year later. Additionally, those kids were also 2.31 times more likely to experiment with a substance (4.65 times more likely with marijuana, 3.37 with nicotine, and 1.92 with alcohol) in the following year.

Increasingly, the youngest generations find themselves facing a catch-22, with growing evidence that social media is associated with depressive symptoms and risky behavior, yet it is also a primary area for them to connect and communicate with friends.

It is a balancing act to deal with both the pros and cons of social media with kids. I know the ex and I had to deal with that with our son. While smart phones weren’t all that prevalent back when he was in high school, we worried about issues with cyberbullying via text and our son did not get a cell phone until his senior year. He’d seen what some of his friends were going through with that and he didn’t want any part of it.

What’s the answer to the problem? I’m not sure. But on thing I think we can do is emphasize again and again that much of what kids see on the screens of their phones is not real life. It isn’t even close. We also need to make sure they know it is perfectly okay to block others and, if things get worse, to tell their parents, their brothers or sisters, or their school counselors. Too often they keep these things to themselves which can make things feel even worse.

Friday Funny - Women Can Do Anything Men Can Do?

D-Day: All Gave Some. Some Gave All.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weekend up this has been very wet, seeing almost 2 inches of rainfall with most of it falling yesterday. If the Weather Guys^TM are right we should see much, if any rain today. But it will only be in the 50’s today.

BeezleBub moved the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout from the boatyard to his place late yesterday. We will be spending a portion of the day today performing any last minute cleanup and getting the gear stowed on board in preparation for launching it and getting it tied up at its slip. This is considerably later than we usually do so, but the weather during the weekends of this just departed May has not really been conducive to doing so. Usually the boat is put into the water around mid-May. If things go well today we should be able to launch it sometime tomorrow. We would have done that today, but it is far too windy which would have made docking a lot more problematic.

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Here’s an interesting little tidbit that had an effect on me and the trusty RAM 1500 in an unexpected way way.

First, I have to mention that the New Hampshire Department Of Transportation repaired and repaved a stretch of state road that passes by The Gulch, something that required me to take a roundabout route to get to and from work for about three weeks. This circuitous route had me passing near the previous abode of yours truly – The Manse – twice a day. However, that isn’t the interesting tidbit by any means.

It was as I was taking this route to work one morning that the always dreaded “Check Engine” light came on with an ominous ‘ding’ announcing its presence. A quick check of the dashboard’s multi-function LCD didn’t show anything blatantly wrong, but I did notice that the oil pressure was considerably lower than I usually see it.

Once I got to work I called my mechanic, told him what I saw, and later that afternoon dropped off the trusty RAM 1500 at his shop for diagnostics. To make a long story a little shorter, it was found that the oil pressure was indeed low, though not so low as to cause any damage to the engine, but it was out of range to ensure the Variable Valve Timing – or VVT - would work properly on the 5.7L Hemi powering the trusty RAM 1500. A number of possibilities for this condition were brought forward, the worst being the oil pump was failing. If it was indeed the cause, my mechanic informed me I would have to take it to another shop because he didn’t have an engine hoist, something that would be needed in order to replace said oil pump. I contacted one of the shops he suggested that could handle the job and made arrangements to have the work done, if needed. Now here comes the interesting tidbit:

Did you know that oil filters can actually be too efficient? I certainly didn’t.

It turns out that a lot of the newer ‘better’ aftermarket oil filters can be too good, too efficient and can cause a restriction in oil flow in some engines. That was the case with the trusty RAM 1500. The shop in question, in this case a RAM dealership, had seen a number of pickups with the Hemi engines with exactly the same problem over the past six months or so. Chrysler had issued a Technical Service Bulletin outlining the failure and cause. The cure?

An oil filter change using one of the less efficient oil filters.

As soon as that was performed on the trusty RAM 1500, the oil pressure was back where it was supposed to be.

I did pass this on to my mechanic along with the technical service bulletin that covered it, so going forward I won’t have to worry about a “too good” oil filter being used during my next oil change.

Does this affect other makes and models of cars and trucks? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case.

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To quote Glenn Reynolds, “I was told this was impossible.”

And then there’s this impossible thing, too.

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The media hammered the Trump administration after it canceled the controversial Energy Start program, something I have always thought sounded good but didn’t deliver on its promises. However, the criticism over the cancellation of the program ignores “several inconvenient facts.”

Several news outlets have recently reported that the administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to eliminate the Energy Star program, while seeming to gloss over criticism of the program and the fact it received multiple unsatisfactory reports from federal government audits. While Energy Star has reportedly saved American households and businesses over $500 billion in energy costs since 1992, some experts have warned that the program can negatively impact consumers, such as by pushing them to purchase less effective appliances.

I have mentioned more than a few times my experiences with Energy Star compliant appliances that did not adequately perform their functions. I have discussed a past experience with looking for a new front-loading washing machine to replace one that had been lightning damaged. My then-wife had spent time going Consumer Reports and other evaluations of Energy Star washing machines and found there wasn’t a single one that either CR or the other reports could recommend because none of them properly cleaned clothes. We ended up spending money to repair our old machine even though it cost us more than buying a new one because at least the old washing machine cleaned clothes. When I replaced the dishwasher at the WP Mom’s I found it used more electricity than the machine it replaced, taking over three hours to wash a load that took the old machine a little over an hour. Yes, the new machine used less water, but the cost of the lower water use did not offset the higher energy usage.

We had to replace the washing machine here at The Gulch and found we had to have the water level sensor ‘adjusted’ on the new Energy Star washer to allow a higher water level in order to make sure a load of clothing was properly washed.

What good are energy efficient appliances if they don’t work, don’t actually save energy?

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This next one doesn’t surprise me in the least as this is not the first time I’ve heard this.

It appears that Electric cars lose half or more of their value after two years.

Two. Years.

Yes, there are issues like heavily discounted prices for new cars that one might think might be depressing the value of used cars, but that turns out not to be the case. The EVs are still competing against ICE cars and people seem willing to pay more money for used ICE vehicles than electric cars. Of course some of that might be explained by the high cost of replacing the battery pack of an EV when the time comes.

While the post linked above covers the used EV market in the UK, the same thing can be seen with the used EV market here in the US.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the marinas are full, the weather hasn’t been cooperating, and where it’s hard to believe that the Fourth of July is a little over 4 weeks away.