Friday Funny - All Too Accurate!

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky And The Odd Pips

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s recover day from yesterday’s activities, sleeping in to almost 6:30 this morning. The normal Sunday chores got taken care of, just a little later than usual.

One thing I did notice over the weekend was the heavy traffic into, out of, and around the Lakes Region, with a lot of people getting one last summer weekend in before schools start again. A lot of schools start this week while others won’t start until the day after Labor Day. Mush as it had when I was going to school.

Speaking of Labor Day, that’s next weekend and I expect we’ll see very heavy traffic starting sometime late this coming Thursday and ending sometime Monday afternoon. Some folks will be pulling their boats out of the water and closing up their summer camps over the weekend. Others will do so over the next few weeks leading up to Columbus Day. (The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will come out of the water before the end of October.) Many of the summer food stands, restaurants, and attractions will be dialing back after Labor Day, mostly open only on weekends until Columbus Day. Others will close their doors until next May.

I have no idea where the summer went as it seems that the Fourth of July was just a couple of weeks ago.

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This sounds like it’s going to be fun!

It looks like 4chan will refuse to pay the daily UK Online Safety fines.

Basically the UK is fining 4chan because it is exercising its freedom of speech in the US, posting about the Orwellian turn of the UK government.

A lawyer representing the online message board 4chan says it won't pay a proposed fine by the UK's media regulator as it enforces the Online Safety Act.

According to Preston Byrne, managing partner of law firm Byrne & Storm, Ofcom has provisionally decided to impose a £20,000 fine "with daily penalties thereafter" for as long as the site fails to comply with its request.

"Ofcom's notices create no legal obligations in the United States," he told the BBC, adding he believed the regulator's investigation was part of an "illegal campaign of harassment" against US tech firms.

Ofcom has declined to comment while its investigation continues.

"4chan has broken no laws in the United States - my client will not pay any penalty," Mr Byrne said.

The US government has already stated the UK does not have the power to enforce their laws in the US against either organizations or individuals in the US who have not broken US laws, particularly when it comes to Constitutional Rights.

From the comments in the linking post:

If 4chan doesn't have a physical corporate presence in the UK how would the UK imagine it is in a position to extract fines?

And this one:

No mere treaty can threaten the free speech of American Citizens, and any fine trying to do so from overseas is null and void on the get-go. Being incorporated in Delaware and not having foreign operations, 4Chan can do as it wishes under our Constitution and Amendment I. Go ahead and levy meaningless fines to show just how limited you really are. Please. Make fools of yourselves so the people of the UK can see you for what you are: children trying to bash down free speech to get their way. It was never about protecting children, but about silencing adults and those in power in the UK have said as much.

Indeed.

I can almost hear George Orwell spinning in his grave and with a ghostly moan saying “I wrote 1984 as a warning, not as a how-to manual!”

It will be interesting to see how all this will play out.

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On more than one occasion I have stated that I believe that social media is not the great panacea so many thought it would be. Yes, it makes instant communications to a group of people a possibility, but it has psychological effects that very few, if any, thought about. On thing I have mentioned more than once is the anonymity that allows otherwise reasonable and nice people become absolute monsters online. Social boundaries that exist when people are face-to-face disappear when people are on social media. Their ways of thinking, their ways of interacting with people change, and not necessarily for the better.

When a healthy person has multiple roles in life, they develop what we might call “modes.” These are mental states suited to their current circumstances, such as Work Mode, Parent Mode, or Friend Mode. Colloquially, we often refer to this as “putting on a hat.”

These modes may overlap at times—a doctor might need their Doctor Mode when advising a friend about a medical issue. Recently, in conversation with two friends, I was asked to “put on my data scientist hat” and explain something about statistics. But generally, these modes remain distinct.

Healthy flexibility, called adaptive compartmentalization, allows psychologically normal individuals to shift between roles effortlessly without losing a cohesive sense of self. Their core identity remains intact, and the modes do not fundamentally conflict. Even under stress, a healthy person can usually navigate these shifts, though it may take effort—for example, a father decompressing after a stressful day at work before switching to Daddy Mode to play with his kids.

Psychological fragmentation is the unhealthy extreme of this natural compartmentalization, typically caused by trauma. At its most severe, fragmentation becomes dissociation. Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder) is the farthest extreme, where one fragment is unaware of the others.

--snip--

I posit that social media turns most of us into the worst version of ourselves because it does, under the cloak of anonymity, something unique.

It creates and facilitates a situation where, in healthy people, a negative “mode”—or, in less healthy people, a destructive fragment—can operate freely, without restraint or challenge, and often with lavish dopamine rewards.

Social media not only allows these negative fragments to flourish—it rewards and amplifies them. Over time, this persona can overshadow our real selves, fracturing our identity further.

I have seen this more than a few times. I would like to think I have managed to avoid this, for the most part.

Mind you, my only real social media outlets are Facebook, which I primarily use to keep in touch with family and friends, and some blogs. I rarely post to my own timeline on Facebook but will regularly react and comment to other people’s posts. About 90% of the time it’s a Like, 8% will be HaHa or Care replies, and the balance Sad replies. Comments are usually either informational or asking questions. I rarely, if ever delve into politics on Facebook. I save that for here or some of the other blogs out in the blogosphere.

In any case Read The Whole Thing to dive deeper into the psychological effects of social media. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in the post, but Holly makes a pretty good case about the problems with social media.

==+++++==

Who’da thunk it?

It looks like Hawaii is learning the hard way that criminals will continue to break laws.

Criminals get guns without too much of a problem in this day and age, but they did that before 3D printers were common, too. So banning it, even if it stopped the private production of firearms, wasn't going to have much of an impact. However, now officials are shocked to learn that the law didn't stop felons from getting "ghost guns."

Ghost guns are those made privately by someone other than a manufacturer or those assembled from individual parts purchased separately. There are no serial numbers on such guns. Not that criminals really care one way or the other as it isn’t like they obtain their guns legally. All guns could be outlawed and confiscated tomorrow and criminals will still have them and will still be able to obtain them from many of the same organizations that smuggle drugs into the country.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where many of the summerfolk have made their last visit to the lake this year, boats are being pulled from the water, and where once again Monday is coming along to ruin our weekend.

A Little Bit Of Small Town America

Today was our town’s Old Home Day, a day to celebrate our town by townsfolk past and present.

The day starts with a pancake breakfast at our local church and a 5K footrace that starts in our town’s “Village”, an area that is a historical district and includes homes and buildings dating back as early as the early 1800’s.

Later in the morning is a parade that starts at Town Hall and ends near our high school which is next to the big town cemetery. Once that has finished every heads to the Village Field which has food and crafts for sale, and games and amusements galore. Those activities last until early evening when a concert by our community band at the bandstand. Then around 9pm the fireworks start.

Those aren’t the only activities taking place as our local church hosts a “White Elephant” sale which has all kinds of things for sale. The WP Mom has helped deal with the jewelry up for sale for the past 20 years. There’s also a silent auction that takes place at the same time.

I can personally attest that the food offered for sale by the various food vendors was pretty darned good, having performed my duty to ensure the quality of the food being offered. There was pizza, steak and cheese sandwiches, fried dough, Chinese food, barbecue, sweet sausage, baked goods, ice cream, and a whole host of other foods for sale. The lines of people waiting to order or to pick up their food were long, but moved quickly.

There were plenty of amusements available running from bouncy houses and up through a bull-riding machine. Someone selling e-bikes was offering test drives around the Village Field.

The number of crafts for sale ran the gamut of crocheted table place-mats to mixed spices, pictures, some jewelry, and so on.

There were a lot more people attending than I’ve seen over the years. There were a lot more people both watching and participating in the parade than I’ve seen in years.

It was a darned good Old Home Day!

Friday Funny (Saturday Morning Edition) - Fluffy Checking Into A Hotel

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky And The Spice Rack

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been another 50:50 weekend up this way, with it being a nice day on Saturday and hot (90’s) and humid today with afternoon thunderstorms forecast (though not here). Ironically we get into the cooler temps (70’s) for the workweek. Not that I’m really complaining.

Last week I mentioned seeing an early start to “acorn fall” from the oaks, it starting about a month earlier than I’m used to seeing. It turns out it isn’t just acorns were seeing (or hearing), but a lot of sap from those same oaks. Seeing ‘dotting’ of sap on our windshields isn’t unusual at all. We see it in late spring and through the summer, thought it isn’t constant. However, I’ve noticed it has been heavier than I’ve ever seen.

A neighbor taking a walk around the neighborhood mentioned to me that our road feels ‘sticky’ and a quick test showed he was right. I’ve even see a sap ‘shadow’ under one of the oaks that overhangs a part of our road and what I thought might have been some condensation on the road under those branches turned out to be a layer of tree sap. I’ve also noticed that some of the leaves on the oaks in The Gulch’s back yard look like someone came by with a water hose and soaked them, but it wasn’t water.

It was tree sap.

I don’t recall ever seeing it like this.

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I have been thinking the same thing, too.

As the Instaprof brings forth via X:

Why is almost every Washington DC liberal protestor out this weekend white? 90%+.

DC is 50% black or brown and Hispanic.

It seems the only people against Trump bringing in the National Guard to bring law and order back into D.C. are people who don’t live there. As Eric Daugherty asks “Who brought them in?”

Who indeed?

Notice who isn’t protesting against safe communities?

Ironically, it seems that people in D.C. are feeling safer and have been praising President Trump for his crime-fighting efforts.

We know Chuck Schumer thinks Washington doesn’t need help because he feels safe walking the streets. I would feel safe too if I had the security detail he has surrounding him.

UPDATE: Now Black residents of Chicago are asking Trump to send National Guard troops there to help stop the killing and violence.

==+++++==

So when is he going to move to Italy?

TDS Drives Jimmy Kimmel to Get Italian Citizenship.

Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland because of her TDS...and no one here in the US noticed or cared. Will anyone miss Jimmy Kimmel if he moves to Italy?

Probably not.

==+++++==

Why doesn’t this surprise me in the least?

It turns out that California, the Pyrite State, has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

I know. Shocking, right? Who’da thunk it?

KRON reports that the Golden State’s unemployment rate has edged up to 5.5 percent. In June, South Dakota had the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 1.8 percent.

California’s current governor, Gavin Newsom, is term-limited. He cannot run again. Newsom desperately wants to be President and is aiming toward a 2028 run. But, as California’s two-term governor, he has no record to run on. His state is a basket case. Hence, his emphasis on these stunts like redistricting and opposing ICE.

It appears some of that job loss can be attributed to layoffs in the tech sector, with about 12,400 jobs lost since July 2024, with some of those job losses being driven by AI. I also have to wonder if one of the other areas seeing large job losses are the hospitality industry as the state has given workers in that industry a heck of a pay raise which has led to some layoffs. It’s the same thing that happened in the fast food industry when the minimum wage was boosted to $20 – lots of people working in fast food saw their jobs disappear.

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After watching all the hoopla about the meeting between Putin and Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, I have to wonder if it may be a step to end the war in Ukraine or whether Putin will use this and subsequent meetings will be nothing more than yet another episode of maskirovka.

I get the impression that Putin’s plans to “get the old gang back together” has not changed and if he gets his way in Ukraine that Moldova will be next. There are already Russian troops in the Transnistria region of Moldova and have been for a few years. This will be just another way to achieve his goal.

I know Trump is smart enough not to trust Putin, particularly since Putin has lied to him once already.

I’ll admit I don’t like the idea of a cease fire for one reason: The Russians will use it to move more men, weapons, armor, ammo, and aircraft to the front and build or repair fortifications in preparation for a new offensive once the cease fire ends.

If plans do go forward for peace, great. But I will add a warning from Ronaldus Magnus:

Trust, but verify.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is getting cooler, the traffic is still very heavy on the weekends, and where the kids will soon be starting school again.

Now Wood Stoves Are Killing Us?

When I saw this post my first thought was “Why can’t they make up their friggin’ minds?”

It seems that now wood stoves are even more dangerous because some can release toxic pollutants.

I remember when there was a push for people to use wood stoves to heat their homes because they used ‘renewable’ and ‘eco-friendly’ fuel. We used a wood stove to heat The Manse for over 13 years, going through about 3 cords of wood between the end of October through the mid-April. It was a lot less expensive than using propane, which at one point was almost $4 per gallon. The Manse would use around 200 gallons of propane per month during the heating season if we used the furnace for heat. Using firewood, which cost us anywhere between $200 and $325 per cord over the 13 years we used it to heat The Manse, was a heck of a lot cheaper. Yes, we still used the furnace, mostly if the outside temperature was below zero because the wood stove couldn’t quite keep up. At other times we used the furnace if we were going to be away for a day or more. We still used propane because our water heater was fueled by propane as was our clothes dryer. Even then we maybe used about 50 gallons per month.

Now we’re being told it may be a Bad Thing^TM.

Research reveals that even modern eco-design stoves can emit dangerous pollutants indoors. Ventilation and fuel choice greatly influence exposure levels.

Researchers at the University of Surrey’s Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) are cautioning residents about the health risks posed by wood-burning stoves, including those built to modern eco-design standards. Their findings show that using these stoves can lead to short-term exposure to high concentrations of harmful pollutants, which may present health hazards for people living in affected homes.

Published in Scientific Reports, the study involved monitoring several homes in Guildford, Surrey, that used different types of heating stoves and clean solid fuels, such as seasoned wood, kiln-dried wood, wood briquettes, and smokeless coal. Measurements focused on pollutants including ultrafine particles (UFPs), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), black carbon (BC), and carbon monoxide (CO). The results showed that open fireplaces were the highest emitters, raising PM2.5 levels up to seven times more than modern stoves.

I have seen the problem when people are loading more firewood or cleaning out ashes, particularly if they do not have the chimney and air dampers open well prior to doing that. After years of using wood stoves that go back to my childhood, and quite a bit during my college years, one learns how to minimize the above mentioned pollutants from entering the living space. It isn’t perfect by any means, but once you figure it out it isn’t all that difficult.

While the linked post mentions different fuels, here in New Hampshire we tend to use seasoned or kiln-dried wood. I am not including pellet stoves in this mix because they are a different technology and are not ‘passive’ stoves, meaning they require power to operate the pellet feed and burn blower. They aren’t configured the way wood stoves are. (For full disclosure, the wood stove at The Manse did have a built-in blower that helped circulate the hot air generated by the stove which allowed it to heat a much larger area that it would otherwise.)

But do the findings in the study in the linked post really mean we have a problem? Yes, the study took place in the UK, not the US, but does that invalidate the findings? Probably not. That we have a lot of forests here in the US, and particularly in New Hampshire, wood stoves are likely to continue to be used to heat homes for quite some time.

To be honest, I am contemplating putting in a wood stove here at The Gulch. Not today. Not tomorrow. But sometime in the future. It wouldn’t need to be large, certainly a lot smaller than the one in The Manse as The Gulch is less than half the size of The Manse. We don’t use a lot of heating oil during the winter, going through between 80 and 110 gallons per month during the heating season. I do miss the ‘warmth’ of a wood stove as it always seemed different to me than heat from a furnace. Even the feline contingent loved the wood stove in The Manse as they would gather around the “warm box” during the cold winter months. So did the humans.

I’d hate to think that might go away “for our own good”.

Friday Funny - Never Too Old

I'll Tell You The Story - Hijinx With Binky

Thoughts On A Sunday

It looks like we’re back into the heat and humidity for the next four days or so, with temps expected to be in the 90’s and dew points in the 60’s and 70’s. That means cranking up the A/C again and watching the electric meter spinning like a top...again. Then again, it is summer so none of this should be unexpected.

One thing I and others have noticed over the past couple of weeks is the number of acorns the oaks have been dropping, something that is happening weeks earlier than usual. A wet spring and early summer might have something to do with it, but I don’t recall acorns falling this early.

I am also going to bring up traffic...again. I had the chance to talk with a couple of NH State troopers who live in my town and asked if they’ve seen the much heavier traffic and they both said they have. It now starts early Friday afternoon and has since mid-June. Even this Friday saw very heavy bumper-to-bumper traffic on the main highways starting around noon. It’s insane.

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Some criticism has been leveled at Trump after he fired Biden-appointed Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Erika McEntarfer after allegations she purposely provided a July jobs report that had been altered to show less new jobs than were actually created.

There might be something to this as during the Biden administration reports of the number of jobs created was over 1.5 million jobs too high. A million and a half jobs supposedly created during the Biden years never existed.

Regardless of the allegations that [McEntarfer] deliberately tried to weaken the latest jobs report to make Trump look bad, anyone who’s been paying attention to the jobs numbers over the past few years understands that numbers were reported high, then quietly revised downward. Something shady has been going on at the BLS. That’s what economist Steve Moore is trying to emphasize.

The Biden administration grossly overestimated job gains, and whereas real wages consistently went down under Biden, the opposite trend is emerging under Trump, based on the data Moore shared.

It is also worth keeping in mind that, as of the start of 2024, the touted “job gains” were going to migrants, including illegal aliens, while U.S.-born men were facing disturbingly high unemployment. While big companies, hotels, and farming conglomerates hired illegal aliens at lower wages, Americans couldn’t find any of the jobs McEntarfer and Biden boasted about.

One thing I learned from the Biden administration was to wait for the revised BLS jobs numbers a couple of months later as they reflected the reality. Not that most of the media paid much attention to the revised numbers as it wouldn’t reflect well on Biden’s policies.

As with the Biden era jobs reports I will wait for the revised jobs numbers which should be out in another month or two to find out if the dismal July numbers were real or the product of a Democrat/Deep State wishful thinking.

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First I thought it was just me, being a “old faht”, looking back to the nostalgic pre-Internet days with fondness. I have seen how, as wonderful as the Internet can be, it has also been problem, particularly when dealing with social issues. Surprisingly it appears a lot of Gen Z are romanticizing a pre-Internet era they never knew, seeing the same thing I and the rest of us Boomers and Gen X have noticed.

What exactly do we think we’re missing? Personally, I assume that before the social Internet people behaved in more authentic and idiosyncratic ways. Social media has sped up trend cycles, resulting in an eerie uniformity across styles and personalities: we buy the same products, wear the same clothes, act in the same way, reference the same memes—even quirkiness itself or more “unique” behavior can be ascribed to trends.

I also imagine that if we weren’t on display all the time, our friendships and interactions could be less commodified. Now, spending time with friends is material to be documented and then demonstrated to a faceless audience.

--snip--

But it may be that these “negative” aspects are what young people yearning for disconnectivity actually want—we have a sense that there was a value, now largely lost, in the practical effort required for social interaction, for finding good music, or joining a subculture. Life now in comparison seems streamlined, efficient, more yassified, in a phenomenon that writer Michael Harris calls a “loss of lack”.

One of the downsides to today’s 24/7 mass connectivity is what is called FOMO – the Fear Of Missing Out – which has people clinging to their smart phones and using them with the tenacity of a junkie looking for their next fix. If they don’t have their phone within arm’s reach they start getting antsy. If they misplace it or forget it some will melt down and act almost like they’re going through a drug withdrawal cold turkey. Maybe that analogy is appropriate because some folks have become so addicted to what it presented on the screens of their phones even though most of what they think is important isn’t even real.

I will admit to a small bit of FOMO, but only because I am taking care of the WP Mom who is in her 90’s and I don’t want to be out of touch for too long in case she needs help. But I don’t spend hours and hours on my phone perusing social media. In fact, one of the apps on my phone tells me how much time I spend using my phone on a daily and weekly basis. I average 37 minutes of usage per day. That’s split between calls, texts, and Solitaire. (I have to admit that between 10 and 20 minutes a day is taken up by Solitaire.)

I remember when phones were mounted on the wall and had a long cord between the phone and the handset. I remember when dialing someone’s phone number meant actually using a dial to enter the phone number. (This was pre-Touch Tone phones.) I remember having a party line when we lived in Maine when I was a kid.

I remember when TVs were only black-and-white. Color TVs didn’t become more common until the 1960’s. TV shows quite often included the tag line “In living color!” Rabbit ear antennas were the most common. Outdoor antennas were used in the outer edge of a TV station’s coverage area. You were really lucky if you had an antenna rotor so you could pick up more than a couple of TV channels. TV stations signed off the air around midnight, usually playing the national anthem, then showing a test pattern, and eventually going off the air for a few hours.

If you wanted to send someone a letter there was no e-mail. You had to use paper and pen or pencil and write them out, fold them and put them in an envelope, address the envelope and put a stamp on it, then put it in the mailbox and raise the little red flag that let the mailman know there was an outgoing letter.

Were the old times better? Who knows? Some things were definitely simpler. I can understand why Gen Z has been looking back to those days. For lack of a better term I think of it as “Future Burnout”.

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From the Land of Oz comes this tidbit:

Great Barrier Reef in great health, but climate change is killing science institutions.

Despite record high emissions of carbon dioxide, and hottest ever temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef was again enjoying one of its best years yet. In the 40 years that AIMS has been studying it, the last four years are great results.

Judging by the data, corals are coping fine with today’s heat and CO2. But the more money we spend finding a climate crisis, the worse our science institutions get. One-sided money and monopoly science can turn any institute into a tax-grabbing-machine, that serves the Blob, not the people. Thus is it so.

The above isn’t saying the reef isn’t being affected by climate, but that it isn’t being affected to the extent all the ‘experts’ said it would. It isn’t just the reefs where we’re seeing predictions made by the experts falling to the wayside as Mother Nature has refused to cooperate. It’s being seen across the globe. Antarctica has thumbed its nose at the ‘experts’ predictions of declining ice thickness and shrinking ice sheets. Desertification hasn’t occurred. Instead the Earth has been getting greener as carbon dioxide levels have increased.

Whatever are all the science institutions receiving millions and billions of dollars of funding going to do when the funding starts being rolled back because they haven’t been able to produce relatively successful climate predictions and/or climate models? Will they end up being the victims of climate change?

==+++++==

Yes, Sydney Sweeney has great jeans. But Mike Rowe does, too.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly seen the liberal meltdown taking place over actress Sydney Sweeney’s ad for American Eagle. Innocent play on words or outright Nazi propaganda? If you’re overweight, over-tatted, and have an unnatural hair color, you’re probably screaming the latter.

Don’t get me wrong, the ad is annoying. While I could do without the vocal fry, the commercial is otherwise good marketing; it features Sweeney, who is recognizable and gorgeous, and utilizes a fun play on words to sell jeans. It’s really that simple.

…Or is it?

Mike Rowe seems to think something more sinister is going on at American Eagle and he took to social media to discuss the blatant propaganda. The shocking part? Rowe revealed he is also a denim-wearing Nazi. Oh, heil naw.

All is not as it seems.

Jean Therapy

Long before the Nazis at American Eagle began promoting The Master Race in a series of commercials celebrating “good genes,” (with a little help from a hot model wearing some “good jeans,”) I was doing the same thing for another famous denim provider hoping to capture the attention of millions of white people. I refer, of course, to the bigots over at Lee Jeans, who asked me to help them raise some money for The American Cancer Society.

Specifically, as the official “Celebrity Ambassador of Denim Day 2011” I was asked to announce a very promising breakthrough in “gene” therapy, and then, urge Americans to forego the purchase of another pair of “jeans” they probably didn’t need, and instead, donate the cost of those jeans to The American Cancer Society. I said sure, but only if I could do so in a way that would please Adolf Hitler.

“No problem!” they said. “Go for it!”

So I called my mother, an avowed white supremacist and breast cancer survivor who taught me all I know about eugenics. We filmed the PSA later that week, and the bigots at Lee Jeans put it on the air fourteen years ago. In it, you’ll notice I’m not wearing any pants, and flaunting my genes in a way that would have made The Fuhrer proud. In other words, you’ll see me doing the same thing that MSNBC, The New York Times, and countless scolds across the Internet have accused Sydney Sweeney of doing. Accusations that, it must be noted, have led to an unprecedented level of free publicity that’s turned American Eagle into the latest Wall Street darling.

Perhaps, had the mainstream media been this diligent in 2011, those bigots over at Lee Jeans would have raised enough money to cure breast cancer once and for all.

Maybe next time.

Good jeans indeed.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the hot and humid weather has returned, the traffic is still heavy, and where Monday is coming back to screw up yet another weekend.

Texas Redistricting Kerfuffle

I’ve been watching the whole Texas re-districting kerfuffle unfold with both concern and amusement.

While it appears that Texas does have the right to do so whenever it chooses to, at least under its state constitution, the response by Democrat legislators to deny a quorum feels more like what a spoiled child does when they don’t get their way, in this case fleeing the state. That Texas law also addresses this problem by allowing the governor to declare their seats in the Texas Legislature as abandoned, just adds to the drama.

That Democrats don’t like gerrymandering whenever it works against them, but are all for it when it works in their favor, shows they hypocrisy of the system. Not that Republicans are any less hypocritical, but at least they don’t act like the aforementioned spoiled child who throws a tantrum when denied something they want.

There is something to be said for redistricting to be handled by an independent non-partisan group to implement redrawing the lines of Congressional Districts when required. We certainly don’t want it to be handled by the courts because even judges can be partisan and biased as we’ve seen over the past few years.

One of the more clueless responses was that of Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey when she threatened to gerrymander Massachusetts Congressional Districts in favor of Democrats. There’s only one problem with her threat.

There are no Republican Congressional Districts to do away with.

All nine House seats in Massachusetts are in the hands of the Democrats. Unless of course Healey is going to try to carve out a tenth Congressional District which is not within her power to do so. It must also be remembered that Healey fought against the Kinder Morgan natural gas pipeline that would have brought more much needed natural gas into New England from Pennsylvania. The pipeline was canceled. Then a few years later she laments the shortage of natural gas during this past winter, conveniently ignoring the fact that she helped cause that shortage to begin with.

California is getting into the act as well, with Gavin Newsom stating he supports independent redistricting, then with his next breath saying he “wants to pick up 5 seats in Congress” by going around the Independent Redistricting Commission in violation of California’s constitution.

Even Washington, D.C. is getting into the act with President Trump asking for a new census to be performed, this time without counting illegal aliens which can seriously skew the number of Congressional Districts in various states.

If nothing else this whole thing will be interesting to watch as it unfolds.

Friday Funny - Black Face Is Wrong

Just a warning: If you are offended by everything or feel you need to be offended on the behalf of people who aren't offended who you think should be offended, then the following is not for you.

I'll Tell You The Story - Old Movies With Binky

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve managed to escape the hot and humid weather we’ve been experiencing, with temps in the mid 70’s yesterday and upper 70’s/low 80’s today. About the only thing we’ve really had to deal with is the haze caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires coming out of the northwest. I’ve seen the reddish haze but I haven’t felt any of the effects that some folks with asthma or emphysema or other respiratory problems might. All in all it’s been a low key weekend so far and I’ve been able to get some things squared away around The Gulch, particularly in the attics as the temperatures inside them haven’t been eleventy-eleven degrees.

I am hoping to get out onto the lake late today after the weekend folk have departed. The observations about traffic that I made in yesterday’s post also applies to the lake, so when the weekenders are gone so is much of the boat activity on the lake.

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I have to add to yesterday’s post about traffic. I asked some friends and family members and dropped the question about traffic on one of the Facebook groups I frequent and without fail, every single response I got – 26 39 102 153 in total - confirmed what I noticed. It wasn’t just in New Hampshire that people have noticed the increased traffic, but in a number of 13 different states.

==+++++==

I have to agree with Sarah Hoyt about this: It’s about friggin’ time.

One of the biggest mistakes made in US history was JFK’s executive order that authorized federal employees to unionize. (Some states had already done so for state employees.) Allowing federal employees to unionize was something that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and labor leader George Meany were against and warned about as they both knew it was inherently corrupt as it meant that the government was “negotiating with itself” when it came unions and that since the money paying for the wages and benefits came from the taxpayers and not the earnings as was done with labor unions in the commercial world.

However, that mistake may soon be corrected.

A federal appeals court lifted a judge’s order which originally prevented President Trump to end union bargaining for federal employees. The appeals court ruling will now allow the President to do so.

U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco in June had issued the injunction blocking 21 agencies from implementing Trump's March executive order exempting many federal agencies from obligations to bargain with unions.

Donato concluded Trump's order retaliated against unions deemed critical of the president and that had sued over his efforts to overhaul the government, including the mass firings of agency employees, violating their right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

But the 9th Circuit panel said Trump's order on its face "does not express any retaliatory animus," and it agreed with the Trump administration that the president "would have taken the same action even in the absence of the protected conduct."

The 9th Circuit panel included U.S. Circuit Judge John Owens, an Obama appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judges Bridget Bade and Daniel Bress, two Trump appointees. Another federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., had in May paused a similar order that had also blocked Trump's order.

This has been long overdue as it has been proven over the past sixty-plus years that FDR and Meany were right. The ‘negotiation’ process has been corrupt since day one.

==+++++==

In meteorological terms, it’s a blink of the eye.

It seems that a number of Nordic countries are in the midst of an unprecedented heat wave with temperatures in the 30’s (Celsius), breaking records “going back to 1961.”

Umm, that’s 64 years which is nothing in meteorological time.

However, there are accounts of an expedition back in 1927 by a group of women trying to drive to the Arctic Ocean but they weren’t able to make it because “hot weather, melting permafrost and forest fires forced them to abandon their expedition.”

...the motor party journeyed to 270 miles north of the Arctic Circle, prepared for freezing weather. To their continued astonishment the temperature was never less than 90 degrees F (32ºC) in the shade.

The intention was to reach the Arctic Ocean, but 40 miles of marsh country on the coast prevented this. An average of 210 miles a day was made on the journey, which was arduous in the extreme, and at one time the car had an actual race with death among the forest fires in Sweden over terrible roads.

As best I’ve been able to determine most weather records go back maybe 200+ years, and then only in certain parts of the world. The British Royal Navy has records from the logbooks of their ships going back maybe 400 years, and again they don’t cover everywhere. So when someone says some weather conditions are “record breaking”, be aware those records only go back maybe 200 years, if that.

Like I said, a blink of the eye.

==+++++==

Another thing that has definitely been a scam being funded by taxpayer dollars is offshore wind farms. They are expensive to build, expensive to maintain, require much more maintenance than land-based wind, and don’t have anywhere near the service life of land-based wind. Not that land-based wind farms are much better as they have failed to deliver the benefits promised by the climate cultists. It’s not cheap. It’s not reliable. And it’s not dispatchable.

Now it appears the Trump Administration is going to “restore sanity” when it comes to the off-shore wind farm scam.

The Trump administration’s move to rescind all designated Offshore Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) in the United States is being characterized as a “major policy reversal,” but what it truly represents is a refreshing application of rationality in a field too long dominated by dogma, groupthink, and the wishful economics of green technocracy.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced the decision to rescind every single federally designated wind energy area on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf, which brings to an end the federal protection of more than 3.5 million acres previously targeted for “offshore wind development.” The scale of the reversal cannot be overstated: this is not a minor adjustment or a routine regulatory tweak. This is, in the words of the article, the effective “end” of offshore wind leasing in the United States—at least for the time being.

To understand the gravity and necessity of this move, let’s remind ourselves how we got here. The Obama and Biden administrations, along with their European counterparts, threw unprecedented support behind offshore wind, an industry that—despite the tidal wave of public subsidies—has shown a knack for floundering economically and technologically whenever taxpayer money is not propping it up. In fact, the very need for designated wind energy areas is itself an admission that offshore wind cannot compete on a level playing field; it requires the full faith, credit, and political muscle of government to exist.

Supporters keep playing up the “Energy is free” side of wind, choosing to downplay if not ignore the great costs involved with ‘collecting’ that free energy. The costs and subsidies for offshore wind farms are even greater than for those land-based wind farms and the cost per kilowatt-hour is quite high compared with ‘traditional’ power sources. Proponents push the low carbon footprint of wind, but choose to ignore the carbon output of the entire manufacturing, construction, maintenance, and operation chain and finding it isn’t nearly as green as is claimed. And then there’s the power factor which is defined as actual power produced versus the plate capacity of the wind turbines/wind farm which is somewhere around 30%. Coal, natural gas, and nuclear are much higher with nuclear being somewhere above 90%.

Wind sounds nice, but the reality doesn’t come close to matching the promises made by its proponents. If it did, then taxpayer subsidies would be unnecessary and the costs per kilowatt-hour would be lower than the more traditional power generation sources.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the road traffic is high, so is the boat traffic, and where Monday has returned yet again to “harsh our mellow”.

Traffic, Lots And Lots Of Traffic

I decided to forego any politics today as it’s been a great day and I have no wish to “harsh my mellow” (or anyone else’s) for the most part. That doesn’t mean I won’t complain, bitch, and moan about one subject or another as goodness knows there are plenty of topics to choose from.

Today’s target...er...topic is traffic.

No, I am not talking about the traffic coming to Weekend Pundit. It seems to be fine, though it comes nowhere near matching Instapundit. (Frankly, I wouldn’t want it to because at that point posting becomes a job rather than something I like to do.)

I am, of course, talking about the traffic we see on the roads, streets, and highways. At first I thought it was just me, but it seems to be a lot heavier this summer than any other I recall, and not just here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. We all expect traffic to be heavier on the weekends, usually starting sometime Friday afternoon and dropping of starting Sunday afternoon.

But the levels I’ve been seeing over the past couple of months have gone beyond what I remember from pre-Covid days.

The older of the WP Sisters and her boyfriend came up from their home just outside Worcester yesterday (Friday), departing at noon for the approximately 90 minute trip up here to The Gulch. It took them over 4 hours to get here. From the time they got on I-495 to the time they got off of I-93 in Concord, NH it was bumper to bumper. No accidents, no construction, and no traffic enforcement seen seen along the entire trip, yet traffic was moving slowly. It can see if this had been a holiday weekend as folks would get an early start, but this wasn’t one of those. There weren’t any really big events taking place like a NASCAR race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon. It was just a typical summer weekend.

I noticed heavier than usual traffic this morning as I made my way to our local Walmart at 7:30 to take care of my share of the weekly grocery shopping. The trip between The Gulch and Walmart takes less than 10 minutes if I hit the three sets of traffic lights between here and there just right. It took me almost 20 minutes. Ironically the parking lot at Walmart didn’t have nearly as many vehicles I expected to see early on a Saturday morning and I was able to get in and out in less than 20 minutes. In that 20 minutes the traffic had become heavier, but it still took me about 20 minutes to make it back to The Gulch.

A couple of hours later my sister’s boyfriend and I made a dump run and found the traffic was even heavier and slower. We dropped off the recyclables and trash and looked through the pile of old street signs that were collecting outside the rear of the recycling building, and then headed home. I took a different route back to The Gulch which cut a couple of minutes off our return trip.

Not too long after lunch my sister and her beau headed home, the return trip taking a little longer than the usual 90 minutes, but they hadn’t hit heavy traffic on their southbound trip. However, they did see that northbound traffic was bumper to bumper just as it had been on their trip up. It looks like a lot of people were leaving Massachusetts and heading to New Hampshire and Vermont. (One route into Vermont from the greater Boston area takes folks through New Hampshire to I-89 which goes into Vermont.)

The heavy traffic may also explain the higher than average number of traffic accidents and fatalities we’ve been experiencing.

I have noticed that traffic even during the week seems to be heavier than normal though I haven’t checked with friends at the NH Department of Transportation to find out what the traffic volumes have been over the past few weeks.

In the mean time I will stick to the back roads and byways as much as possible to get where I need to go without having to deal with the heavy traffic on the main roads and highways.

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.

==+++++==

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.

==+++++==

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.

==+++++==

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.

==+++++==

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.

==+++++==

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