Los Angeles Goes Stupid On Minimum Wage

It seems California hasn’t learned the lesson about raising the minimum wage to unsustainable levels. More specifically, Los Angeles has voted to raise the minimum wage to $30 at hotels and for LAX. I expect we’ll see the same outcome as when California raised fast food minimum wage to $20.

Layoffs. Lots and lots of layoffs.

It’s already starting.

1. They may not hire the worker at all. Outlawing jobs below a certain pay doesn’t guarantee higher-paid work; it guarantees unemployment for those priced out. If a person’s skills or experience don’t merit $30 in the market, this law has made it illegal for them to earn a wage at all. Consider an immigrant with limited English who might start in hotel housekeeping, dishwashing, or entry-level service jobs. At $15 – $20 an hour, an employer might take a chance and hire them, training them on the job. At $30 an hour, that same employer will likely demand a more experienced, highly productive worker for the role (if the role isn’t eliminated altogether). The rung at the bottom of the ladder gets sawed off.

2. Employers substitute and automate. When labor gets costlier, it drives businesses to find ways to get by with less labor. That can mean investing in machines or tech or shifting work onto customers or remaining staff. Many chains curtailed daily housekeeping and never restored it fully (often spinning it as “green choice” to save water, while conveniently saving on payroll).Expect more automation at the airport and hotels: kiosks instead clerks, mobile ordering in airport eateries, robotic floor cleaners. Even trash collection can be automated; Pittsburgh deployed robotic vacuum sweepers. When labor costs skyrocket, technology that replaces that labor suddenly looks a lot more attractive.

In effect, L.A. could make itself even more expensive, driving away the very tourism dollars it’s trying to redistribute.

So we’ll see a repeat of what happened when California raised the fast food minimum wage. It is insane to think it won’t happen again. Remember Einstein’s the definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result this time.”

Are there any economists left in California that are not Marxists? If there are, have they been silenced by The Powers That Be because their warnings don’t support The Narrative?

Why they think that this jump in minimum wage for this particular group will somehow solve problems that can’t be solved in this fashion puzzles me. It merely makes things cost more because the wage raise will cause the cost of services to increase. It ripples through the local economy. It’s no different than when energy costs increase, something that effects the cost of everything. Decisions made in Washington that adversely affect energy prices triggers inflation that generally cannot be offset by other measures.

Will the folks in LA realize they’ve made a mistake and rescind the wage jump? Of course they won’t because they really aren’t all that smart. Look at the people they elect to office as proof of that.

Friday Funny - Why My Wife Mows The Lawn

Thoughts On A Sunday

This will be an abbreviated post as the last of the WP Clan departed just a little while ago and I usually write this post throughout the day. ‘Regular’ TOAS will return next Sunday.

It’s Mother’s Day and the WP Clan gathered here at The Gulch to celebrate the day with the WP Mom. The weather was cooperative, being sunny and in the upper 50’s until late afternoon when it finally made it into the low 60’s. We got about 2 inches of rain over the previous five days which has made the brooks and streams run with the rainfall. Fortunately we didn’t experience any flooding due to the rain, but other parts of New Hampshire, primarily the southern counties, did see some flooding here and there. Any precipitation deficit we had is now long gone as we’ve had more rain than we usually get for the entire month in just the first 9 days of the month.

One of the downsides of the rain we’ve received is that it has prevented paving of the state road that passes by the area where The Gulch is located. On more than a few occasions preparation and paving operations have delayed my ability to get to work or get home and on occasion made it impossible to leave The Gulch so I had to work from home. I had hoped all of the paving would have been completed by the middle of this coming week, but now it looks it will take at least a week longer than that.

Welcome to Construction Season!

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It’s gotten so bad for the Dems and their MSM flunkies that the “House of Stephanopoulus” has descended to outright lying regarding President Trump. In this case ABC’s Jonathan Karl posted an outright lie that was easily disproven about Qatar allegedly giving Trump a luxury Boeing jet in violation of law. It was an easily disproven lie.

Yes, there is a Boeing jet. Yes, it used to be owned by Qatar. No, it wasn’t a gift.

Instead, it is being modifed by a Texas firm to become an ‘interim’ Air Force One while Boeing still struggles to deliver new jets for use as Air Force One to replace the aging 747’s presently being used.

I figure this is just the beginning of the new propaganda war to discredit Trump and the GOP. The truth need not apply.

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Oh, yeah, this is going to get the Left upset, not because of what this group has admitted regarding of what they’re working towards, but because of the reaction that will follow this admission.

College Palestinian Group Admits Their Job Is To Destroy The Unites States.

A Palestinian support group and domestic terror outfit that operates with impunity on many U.S. college campuses has now admitted openly that they see it as their job to destroy the United States of America by subvert our youth.

The group, Students for Justice in Palestine, is responsible for many of the racist, anti-Jewish protests at schools all across the country.

These Muslim terrorists pretend that they are supporting the human rights of so-called “Palestinians” and are protesting “genocide” being perpetrated against Gazans by Israel.

--snip--

Temple University activist Rishi Arun openly admitted that “It is our job to destroy imperialism, destroy the United States, and destroy capitalism.”

“We will do it by organizing that actively undermines and destabilizes the legitimacy and the power of [the United States],” he adds, “and the power and legitimacy of capitalism,” this terrorist added.

So he has admitted he is an active enemy of the US which means he is fomenting treason, terrorist activities, and doing so on the behalf of adversaries and enemies in the Middle East. Why is this guy still free? Somehow I doubt the First Amendment covers enemy agents working to destroy the government and doing so openly. If he is here on a student visa it should be revoked and he should be deported as an enemy alien.

Of course I expect the Left and the Dems in Congress to aid and support this enemy of the US. (Somehow I think they believe that if the support him that they will be seen as friends...but they won’t. He probably wants them dead, too.)

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While this sounds interesting, I doubt that it will actually occur.

Meet the potential 51st state: Alberta

Alberta doesn’t belong in this Canada.

That’s not treason. It’s not even radical. It’s a simple observation of cultural, economic, and political reality — a reality growing starker by the year. Albertans have known for decades that something is deeply broken in the Confederation they were born into. But it’s only recently, as Ottawa’s indifference curdled into hostility, that many have begun asking the inevitable question: What if we left?

Not just to form a new nation. But to join one that already reflects their values. A nation that respects liberty, rewards hard work, and doesn’t treat resource-producing states or provinces like piggy banks and political afterthoughts. A nation that — however imperfect — still believes in the rule of law, in constitutional government, and in the right of free people to govern themselves.

That nation is not Canada. That nation is the United States.

If it comes to that, will Alberta tell Ottawa “We’re outta here”? Goodness knows they are seeing less and less reasons to remain as part of Canada. A lot of money flows from Alberta to Ottawa and from there to some of the other “less fortunate” provinces...like Quebec, just to name one.

Albertans also dislike their political disfranchisement with Parliament set up to favor the Eastern provinces and a Prime Minister’s office that has been ruling by decree, often “in open contempt of the West.”

Why would anyone want to continue trying to live under conditions that to all intents and purposes makes Albertans nothing more than serfs to the ‘nobles’ in Ottawa.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Alberta votes to leave Canada. But I wouldn’t automatically assume they would then apply for statehood in the US.

But it could happen.

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And that’s the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been drying out, the paving is restarting, and Monday is returning yet again.

Is Artificial Intelligence A Threat To Jobs?

I saw post over at PJ Media and it got me to wondering if we were seeing yet another version of machines taking jobs away from human beings? I’d have to say the answer is likely to be “Yes”. What’s this next round of machines versus humans doing jobs?

Artificial Intelligence – or A.I. - taking over office jobs...to start with.

In light of this possibility I and going to quote something paraphrased in the original post that came from the second scariest A.I. movie I can think of:

"Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... EVER, until your job has been fully automated!" —Kyle Reese in a reboot of "The Terminator," possibly.

Some of the examples of A.I. that is already out there is already impressive. I think we’ve all seen examples from things like ChatGPT and Grok, just to name two. One friend has said he uses A.I. rather than Google to do web searches because as he said, “I get better results that are more relevant to what I’m looking for.” I have also seen examples where A.I. gets it hilariously wrong, particularly when it comes to generating images.

Could A.I. do my job, engineering, better than I can? For some parts of my job I’d have to say that it probably can, particularly when it comes to dealing with the products I help design and develop by ensuring they will meet the ever growing range of environmental regulations and requirements being generated, particularly in the EU. But when it comes to being creative, to wondering “What if?” and seeing what can be done, I would have to say that it can’t, at least not any time soon. My job has led me to file for and receive a number of patents, many of which were thought of by wondering if there were better ways of doing “This, That, and the Other Thing” which has in turn led to new products that have garnered a lot of business for my employer.

What about other jobs like bookkeeping, logistics planning, order entry, or product schedule planning, just to name a few? I’d say the answer is a qualified “Yes”, that being because it isn’t quite there yet, but it is getting there.

What about something as simple as providing companionship? A.I. is already doing some of that as we’ve seen with the phenomenon of so-called A.I. “girlfriends”. We’ve seen the fictional application of A.I. for this in the movie Her even though the A.I. hadn’t been developed for this purpose.

Is A.I. scary? Yes, part of that being we don’t really know what it will become capable of doing. We’ve seen examples of A.I. going wrong in movies like The Terminator. As I said, I thought it was the second scariest A.I. movie. The scariest?

Colossus – The Forbin Project.

The coolest A.I. movie?

A.I. Artificial Intelligence, with Haley Joel Osment as an A.I. in the form of a young boy.

Getting back to the main subject, will A.I. end up taking over your job? Who knows?

Friday Funny - Running

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky And COVID

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a somewhat screwy weekend weather-wise, between sunshine, clouds, rain – both light and heavy – as well as fog. One other thing is that the leaves have been coming out on the trees with the birches leading the way, at least around here at The Gulch. I’ve also seen the leaves coming out on the apple tree next to the house, and on maples here and there. I think the oaks will be out shortly.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be coming out of winter storage in a little less than 2 weeks. After some work like clean up and getting the gear loaded into the boat it should be back in the water a few days after we pick it up from storage.

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I have been dealing with a changeover from my old work laptop, a Lenovo P50, to my new one, a Lenovo P16, for some time now. The P16 is using Windows 11 and from my previous post on the subject you know I really don’t like Windows 11.

I spent almost the entire work day this past Friday trying to finalize the changeover and have hit a few snags, something I hope to get squared away over the next couple of days. I have made the suggestion to one of our IT head honchos that maybe it’s time to consider dumping Windows for Linux. While I heard sympathetic noises, it looks like my employer is held in thrall to Microsoft.

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Elon Musk won his first election...by a landslide!

The results: 173-4!

In this case it was about incorporating the town of Starbase, Texas.

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Just when I thought the hypocrisy couldn’t and deeper I was proven wrong. In this case it’s taking place in the UK.

The hypocrisy?

The Members of the UK Parliament have lost access to EV charging stations in the New Palace Yard’s underground parking garage, having been removed due to “health and safety grounds following a review by the Safety and Fire teams, and in consultation with the Chair of the Administration Committee.”

In other words, they don’t want anyone charging EVs – the same ones they pushed as the solution to climate charge – because they are too dangerous to be allowed to charge in a parking garage because they might ignite and cause damage and destruction to neighboring vehicles and to the underground garage itself.

It looks like they are admitting (finally) that EVs are not much more than wheeled thermal grenades with loose pins.

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As if it isn’t well known that California’s High Speed Rail project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, it seems that the Pyrite State isn’t willing to admit it’s a doomed project, one that should be canceled. From the beginning this was a doomed project, with poor planning regarding its route and which sections of the rail line would be built first.

California’s high-speed rail project is a lesson in the inefficiency of big government. The project was started nearly twenty years ago and they have not even started laying down tracks.

One of the reasons it’s in the news right now is because it has gone way over budget and the people in charge are looking for alternate forms of funding.

The current CEO, who came on board last summer, is now claiming that the project might be finished in twenty years. That would be the year 2045.

It’s going to take a total of 40 years to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco? Maybe they should have hired the guys who designed and built the TGV high speed rail system in France. It would have been done in only a few years and would have been operating for almost 15 years by now. But then, California isn’t exactly known for getting things done in a timely fashion and hasn’t been for decades. Heck, they can’t seem to repair a quarter-mile stretch of Highway 1 in Big Sur, something that’s been waiting for repair for 840 days now and isn’t likely to for another 840 days if past performance is any indicator.

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I’m not sure what to make of this. Is it calculated act to open dialogue with the US or is it an act desperation to keep its economy operating?

China EXEMPTS A Quarter of US Imports From Tariffs

China quietly exempts US goods from tariffs, covering around $40 billion worth of imports, in an effort to soften the blow of the trade war on its own economy.

Chinese officials are quietly drawing up a “whitelist” of critical U.S. goods that importers rely on to exempt them from Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs, Reuters reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The news adds to a growing number of reports from China of businesses discovering that tariffs have been waived on some goods, such as certain semiconductor and integrated circuit products.

It also shows how, underneath its tough rhetoric, Beijing is trying to mitigate the impact of the U.S. trade war on its export-reliant economy, the world’s second-largest, which was already under pressure from a broader slowdown.

Even before the trade war China’s economy had been struggling. The punitive tariffs placed an even greater burden on its economy as trade fell off. Then add in the purported demographic problems facing China and it is a perfect storm of bad economic forces.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Hmm. What do we have here?

A blast from the past, indeed.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rain is hanging around for a couple of more days, everyone is getting ready of the summer tourist season, and where we wonder where the heck the weekend went.

Bicyclist Need To Learn Traffic Laws Apply To Them Too

I saw this over at Instapundit, a PJ Media posting reminding bicyclists that the roads were built for cars and trucks. As Glenn Reynolds commented in his post, “I’m convinced that so many people hate cyclists because they’re perceived as cheaters, demanding the rights of cars when it suits them, then running traffic lights or u-turning in traffic without a thought.”

I will admit that I have seen more than few bicyclists doing what Glenn mentions, but more often that not it’s not the cyclists who are more than just casual riders – the serious die-hard cyclists – but the ‘casual’ riders who seem to think the traffic laws and “rules of the road” don’t apply to them. They’ll do incredibly dumb stuff, somehow thinking any ‘argument’ they have with motor vehicles that weigh 10+ times what they do will somehow work out in their favor. Imagine their surprise when they find out they’re wrong.

I have seen more than a few...hundred…videos on YouTube of cyclists ignoring traffic laws, taking shortcuts that cut across traffic, pretending traffic signals don’t mean them, and those incidents ended badly for the cyclists. One thing I have noticed is that an increasing number of them are riding e-bikes. I don’t if it’s because e-bikes are becoming more popular or that the clueless scofflaws are buying them. It seems most accidents takes place primarily at intersections and the cyclists ignore stop signs and traffic lights.

Another group of riders that are also increasingly putting their lives at risk are those riding e-scooters. It may be just my opinion but it seems to me they are even worse than the scofflaw cyclists, weaving in and out of traffic, hopping on and off sidewalks and weaving their way through traffic and around pedestrians. It also appears that many of the e-scooter riders are young and not yet of driving age which might be one factor as to why they do what they do.

While I haven’t seen much of the behavior described above around here, I have seen it. It makes me wonder how many of those folks are “from away” and are merely repeating the behavior used back where they come from.

Friday Funny - I'm Spanish

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a wet weekend here at the lake, having received about an inch or rain between yesterday and today. It’s something we’ve needed as we’re still a bit under the average for snowfall over the winter and rainfall for spring so far. Not that I’m complaining as the rain didn’t affect anything I had planned for the weekend. Not that there’s been a whole lot going on around here in general. We’re still gearing up for the upcoming summer season but most of that will start taking place this coming week as summer businesses open in preparation for the Memorial Day weekend crush which is the unofficial start of summer up this way. (I’m sure is just about everywhere else in the US as well.)

Speaking of summer, I have made arrangements to pick up the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout in a little over three weeks. Beezlebub and I will get it cleaned up and all of the gear loaded before we take it down to our town docks for launching on the weekend of May 17th, give or take a couple of days. That will be the official start of our boating season!

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This seems like an incredibly stupid idea considering they really don’t know what will happen. To what am I referring?

‘Sun-Dimming’ Aerosol Injections Into Atmosphere For Climate Change.

It seems there’s something of a disconnect here, particularly when so many of the Climate Cult faithful have been pushing for us to go more into solar power.

As Neil Oliver comments:

“I do wonder why so much money is being spent smothering the landscape with solar panels when the parallel plan is to diminish the energy available from the sun.”

Decreasing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface means a lower output from solar arrays. It also means lower temperatures, something we won’t be able to control because of the inertia involved with doing this. There will be no thermostat we can just turn up and down as needed. If these morons get it wrong they’ll be triggering another Ice Age, something we really don’t need. We’ve seen the effects of those aerosols when something like a volcanic eruption takes place, causing all kinds of debris into the atmosphere which has the effect of cooling the Earth, sometimes for decades. There have been two volcanic eruptions that were so large that they created two different “Years without Summer”. Ironically, they also increased the CO2 content of the atmosphere some small amount.

What still baffles me is how many people seem to think our present climate conditions are somehow unprecedented when they are anything but. The Climate Cultists have tried to explain away the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods and have failed to do so as they found it impossible to erase historical records from both of those time periods.

When B.E.S.T. - Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature – did a survey of land-based weather reporting stations they found that many of them that had once been ‘pristine’ weather stations were now directly affected by the Urban Heat Island effect, the Climate Cultists did their best to bury that survey because it didn’t support the narrative.

And so it goes…

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Does anyone really know what China’s population is? China says it’s 1.4 billion, but I have my doubts considering after it’s 36-year long One Child Policy. How could it’s population have grown over almost two generations when the birth rate was mandated by the Chinese Communist Party to be 0.5? In 2016 China’s government reset the limit to two children, and in 2021 raised it to three, then removing the limit later that same year.

Was the One Child Policy fully enforced over the years between 1979 and 2015? No, as there were exceptions made for some groups, but even then they weren’t given much leeway. For instance, rural families were allowed two children if their first child was female.

Some are saying China’s population is well under 1 billion, with one YouTube content creator stating that at best China may have around 900 million but she posits it could be as low as 690 million taking into account China’s One Child Policy, the disincentives for marriage, and then the debacle that was the Covid pandemic. One estimate she also covers puts China’s population as low 324 million, post-Covid, a number I think may be far too low. She does provide the reasoning behind her estimate as well as estimates made by others.

I have seen a number of YouTube videos showing empty streets, empty shops, and empty shopping malls in China’s major cities. However, I have been suspicious of them because all it takes is recording those videos during the right time of day to give the impression of empty streets and shopping malls. (I know this personally because a film I made for one of my high school classes back in 1973 had a lot of the footage I shot in downtown Boston that was taken early on a Sunday morning, showing lots of empty streets, closed shops and businesses.) But if the the estimates about China’s population being well below the official population are correct, its possible those aforementioned videos are showing exactly what’s happening in China.

Add in China’s weak economy and that adds yet another factor leading to those empty streets, shops, businesses, and malls.

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Something I came across that has me disturbed is it seems that some of our state representatives to the New Hampshire House haven’t a clue what is going on in their home towns.

How is it they can possibly represent us in the state capitol if they have no idea what’s happening in the towns (or wards) they represent? I am fortunate that at least one of the four state reps that cover our district is pretty well clued in. That could be because we talk quite often and he brings me up to speed on whats happening in the State House and I do likewise for him about what’s happening in our town. But is that the ‘exception to the rule’ or is it more common among the 400 state representatives? From the few examples I have seen, it is more the exception rather than the rule, and that’s sad.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where warmer weather is returning, more boats are being seen out on the lake, and where Monday is returning to plague us yet again...

They Are Not Above The Law

It looks like one jurist is finding out she isn’t above the law, being arrested by federal authorities after she aided and abetted the escape of an illegal immigrant from a courthouse where ICE agents were going to apprehend the miscreant.

After all, we’re talking about a sitting judge actively interfering with federal law enforcement. Instead, Democrats from Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) promptly took to social media to decry the arrest of Dugan, outraged that a “sitting judge” had been arrested—as if her job title magically excuses her from the law.

Democrats immediately pivoted to portraying her as a victim of authoritarian overreach. Instead of grappling with the serious allegation that a judge aided an illegal immigrant’s escape and sparked a foot chase by agents, Democrats accused ICE of behaving like a “Third World” police force. Time and time again, Democrats have proven whose side they are on, and that they are willing to distort the truth in the hopes of turning public opinion against Donald Trump.

It’s clear the real goal here isn’t justice—it’s politics. Democrats are once again defending the indefensible because the alternative would mean admitting that Trump’s crackdown on lawlessness is working. So they manufacture a martyr, whether it’s a “Maryland man” with MS-13 ties or a “sitting judge” caught obstructing immigration enforcement.

The left’s message couldn’t be clearer: if you’re politically useful to them, your crimes don’t matter. Your illegal entry, your gang ties, your obstruction of justice—all of it can be sanitized with the right label. “Maryland man.” “Sitting judge.”

Whatever it takes to keep the narrative alive.

It’s the double standard being applied...again. It’s OK if Democrats ignore the law and bad if Republicans enforce the law.

Another liberal judge, Boasberg, issued a court order demanding violent Tren de Arugua deportees be returned to the US despite the facts that he had absolutely no jurisdiction to do so – he’s a DC circuit judge but the affected federal district was in Texas – and the aircraft he ordered to return were in international airspace so he still didn’t have any jurisdiction, something for which the DC Court of Appeals overturned his court orders. So now he’s going after Trump for Contempt of Court for ignoring the two illegal court orders he issued. Somehow I have a feeling that will go the same way as his two overturned court orders.

Then we have Letitia James, the Attorney General of the State of New York, being investigated for bank fraud and perjury, but it seems the Democrats are trying to make the arrogant and hypocritical AG yet another victim of “Right Wing extremists”. No, what she is is a criminal, not just for breaking New York and Virginia state laws, but federal laws as well.

It seems the lawfare continues with not just very loose interpretations of the law and Constitution, but outright ignoring them by activist judges who seem to believe their rulings are absolute and cannot be questioned, even by higher courts including SCOTUS.

The law was weaponized under the Biden administration, but now that the Democrats are no longer in power they don’t like seeing their machinations being dismantled or reversed even if doing so brings things back under the rule of law and not law by decree...or in the case of the Biden administration, the law by autopen.

Friday Funny - You Better Come Back The Way You're Leaving

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was another 50:50 weekend here at the lake, with Saturday being quite warm – in the mid-70’s – but cloudy with some sprinkles of rain now and then. We had the windows open, airing out The Gulch. Overnight them temperature fell into the 50’s and the winds picked up, making it feel a little cooler than it really was, with sunny skies replacing Saturday’s clouds.

Another thing that took place over this past week was road work along the state highway that passes near The Gulch, with contractors planing down the top layer of asphalt in preparation for some repairs and repaving. If things hold to schedule all of that work should be done well before the Memorial Day weekend, around six weeks away.

We have also seen the marinas and boatyards pulling boats out of storage and preparing them to return to the water. Some are already docked at their slips. The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be joining them in about 3 weeks.

And so it goes for the start of the new boating season.

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Yesterday I posted about problems in China’s so-called “ghost cities” and issues with tofu dreg construction both in the ghost cities and elsewhere in China. However, it appears tofu dreg construction by Chinese firms is a problem in other countries as well, one of them being Thailand.


One has to wonder where else such construction practices are taking place by Chinese firms and how many people will be injured or killed by them.

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It’s time Leftist activists learn that acts of violence are not covered under the First Amendment. The latest activist to learn this lesson, a 19 year old UMass student, has been arrested for firebombing a Tesla dealership in Kansas City, Missouri.

Owen McIntire is charged with one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device and one count of malicious damage by fire of any property used in interstate commerce, according to the 21-page criminal complaint.

Federal officials allege that while McIntire was on spring break in his home town in mid-March he used homemade Molotov cocktails to spread a fire that damaged two Cybertrucks valued at $105,485 and $107,485; two charging stations were damaged.

“ATF’s Special Agents and forensic experts recovered and analyzed key evidence—including Molotov cocktails—used in this deliberate and dangerous arson attack,” Acting Director Dan Driscoll of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms said in a statement. “This wasn’t vandalism — it was a violent criminal act. Thanks to the relentless work of ATF special agents … we now have a suspect in custody.”

Seems they believe their anger about what they think is true somehow gives them the right to act like the Sturmarbeitlung back in the bad old days of the Third Reich. Their actions remind us of a modern day Kristallnacht.

It seems that TDS – Tesla Derangement Syndrome – is the new rage.

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Is the “Maryland father” deported to El Salvador just an innocent illegal immigrant as Democrats and activists claim he is or is he a member of MS-13 and a human trafficker as the Department of Homeland Security has stated after a 2022 incident in Tennessee?

Either the guy’s a saint, even though he does have a domestic violence complaint was filed against him in 2021, or he’s a member of a murderous gang designated a terrorist organization, no different that Tren da Araugua of Venezuela.

Which is it? If he is indeed a mostly innocent guy with no actual ties to a violent international gang then he should be allowed to come back. If he isn’t then he should be brought back and deported right and proper to a different country.

I just want this to be settled once and for all, period.

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It looks like another school system has decided that electric school buses aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and are, in fact, dangerous.

Electric vehicles are not just excessively expensive and bad for the environment. They are also a safety hazard — and not only because they spontaneously burst into flames (and people get locked inside them).

A Kansas school has stopped using its electric school buses out of an abundance of caution after reports of the buses losing steering and braking, posing a threat to student safety.

Guess who paid for the buses? That’s right: you did. Federal funding was used to purchase them from Lion Electric.

Kansas was not the first state to have problems with the buses:

In May 2024, the Winthrop school district in Maine reported it took four of the Lion Electric school buses out of commission after a bus suddenly stopped working while driving. Another superintendent in Maine reported the buses can have critical battery failures, blown compressors or loss of power.

I remember the issue with the buses in Maine. What surprises me is that they would consider using battery electric buses in a state that can see winter temperatures that are well below zero, something that affects the range of the buses.

In the end, the electric buses have ended up costing far more than the usual diesel powered buses and aren’t anywhere near as safe.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the weather is all over the place, the start of boating season is just that much closer, and where Monday is coming again...again.

Another Sign Of China's Economic Problems?

While the video below isn’t all that surprising, having seen video after video after video of China’s “ghost cities”, is it surprising to see that demolition of empty apartment buildings seems to be accelerating?


One has to wonder if some of this demolition is being performed because so many of them are structurally deficient due to what has come to be called “tofu dreg” construction and if they aren’t demolished they will fall down by themselves as some already have. This isn’t just a problem in the ghost cities, but elsewhere in China as well.

China has spent trillions of dollars building these ghost cities, money that would have been better spent elsewhere in the Chinese economy, perhaps expanding its infrastructure. Instead, both the government and individuals invested their money in real estate that is now becoming worthless. Those kinds of losses must have a huge effect on the Chinese economy as people who bought apartments in these ghost cities as an investment and developers who built these cities see their money disappear as the value of that real estate collapses and developers and investment firms default on the bonds that helped finance all that construction.

Now add in the effects of the tariff ‘war’ between the U.S. and China and one has to wonder if the Chinese economy is on the edge?

Friday Funny - New York vs Chicago

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky Is Old As Dirt

A story from New Hampshire raconteur Fritz Weatherbee:

Thoughts On A Sunday

Old Man Winter is reluctant to release his grip up here at the lake, dumping a couple of inches snow yesterday. Not that it was problematic as for the most part the snow melted on the roads and only the grass, ground, parked cars and trucks, and the roofs of houses seemed to collect snow. It was pretty much over by early afternoon, but it did remind us that we still get snow in April. Last year at this time we saw an April Nor’easter that dropped about a foot of snow here at The Gulch and knocked out our power for almost two days. (Thank goodness we had the Official Weekend Pundit Generator to keep the lights and heat on.)

We were back into more spring-like weather today and it will be warmer later in the week, a nice lead up to Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

On a side note, the trusty RAM 1550 has been in the shop over the weekend. It’s nothing major but the shop didn’t have the part needed to effect the repair. The problem?

The windshield wipers would run even with the wiper switch set to ‘OFF’ and the ignition key off. The only way to shut them off was to remove the fuse from the fuse panel under the hood, something that is very inconvenient.

The guys at the shop figured out what was causing the problem, something I had looked up on the Internet before calling the shop, and what they found matched what I found on the web. So the RAM will be stuck at the shop until they can get the new part as it isn’t prudent to drive during wet weather when your wipers don’t work.

==+++++==

Was this a “mostly” peaceful protest as the Left has defined it? Or was it an act of attempted murder?

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home set on fire by arsonist while he and his family slept.

I don't care what Shapiro's political or religious leanings are, this action is unforgivable. The arsonist should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, period.

==+++++==

In line with the above, I have to wonder how it is that CNN can claim that “Only the Right has an ‘Extremism Problem’.”

I guess they can claim that if it is considered ‘extremism’ only when the Right allegedly does that but is ‘protest’ when the Left does exactly the same thing...or worse.

==+++++==

Here are 10 of the over 30 pieces of evidence the climate scam is now collapsing:

1. “Huge: A powerful climate alliance of the World Economic Forum, major companies, the UN, and banks is “at an end“.

2. “Bill Gates is giving up on climate change…Breakthrough Energy, a joint venture between Bill Gates and a handful of other billionaires… is slashing much of its policy staff.”

3. NASA GISS funding “terminated”?: “New NASA Chief Will Wind Down Climate Alarm Shop”.

4. Delicious straight talk from U.S. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin: “We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion”.

5. Wonderful straight talk from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “2050” ; he suggests climate change alarmism is “a quasi-cult religion”.

6. The Tories have ditched Net Zero by 2050.

7. Remarkably, Just Stop Oil just announced “the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets”.

8. Shellenberger/Pielke Jr: “Climate change is going to fade from view like overpopulation did…Lack of protests over Trump’s action on energy shows how little anyone every really cared about global warming”.

9. One of the longest running climate cases, Juliana v. United States, just ended in rejection at the Supreme Court.

10. A climate startup that boasted a roster of celebrity backers and arranged carbon credits for Meta, Microsoft and other large companies just filed bankruptcy.

Read The Whole Thing.

==+++++==

This is not exactly news to me or anyone else paying attention:

There is a looming energy crunch facing the US, specifically in electrical capacity.

Major US grid operators are raising the alarm about the looming capacity crunch.

Power has the story:

“Six major U.S. grid operators have raised a unified alarm about an impending capacity crunch, warning that the pace and scale of explosive demand—including from data centers, manufacturing, and electrification—poses a precarious misalignment with accelerating generator retirements and transmission constraints.

At a March 25 hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy, the nation’s top grid officials testified that the U.S. power system is under mounting strain—and that without urgent structural reforms, the ability to maintain reliable electric service could falter. Their message was unusually direct: demand is accelerating, supply is lagging, and current tools may not be enough to bridge the gap.

--snip--

All of the ten regional grids seem to be facing the same problems of increasing demand and closure of dispatchable capacity. ERCOT, for instance, who run the grid in Texas, forecast that peak demand will increase from 86 GW to 106 GW by 2030.

PJM in the Mid-Atlantic and Mid West anticipate a rise in peak demand of 47% in the next 15 years, and California’s CAISO are looking at an increase of 33% in the next ten years.

This is not a new problem. It was brought up when the ill-advised EV mandate by the Biden Administration was announced. Considering the amount of electricity that would be needed to charge all of those mandated EVs there was no way the nation’s electrical grid would be able to meet the demand. Capacity would need to be at least doubled. Then there’s the rapidly increasing electrical demand from hyperscale and AI data centers which would require an equal amount of grid expansion and you can see why there is a problem.

While the EV issue seems to have been diminished as the mandate has gone away, that leaves the expanding data center electrical demand that still needs to be met. Unless there is a concerted effort to update the electrical grid and build new generating capacity, those needs won’t be met. Yet it seems to me that the problem is being devoutly ignored, or if not ignored, being downplayed. Neither solves the problem.

One thing we should not do under any circumstances is follow the examples of either Germany or the UK and push renewable energy upon the populace. As we have seen there, renewables cannot meet the demands as it is neither reliable or dispatchable. Germany went so far as to shut down its nuclear power plants and replace them with wind turbines which have shown they cannot meet their electrical demands. The UK has had similar problems though as best I can tell they haven’t decommissioned any of their nuclear plants.

We should focus on things like nuclear power, particularly Gen III and Gen IV SMRs – small modular reactors – which can be quickly built in a factory, employ up-to-date nuclear technology, can use ‘depleted’ fuel from older nuclear plants as fuel, and are considered “Walk Away Safe” because they can’t melt down like the Gen II plants being used worldwide.

The question is whether we will do so or not.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is on retreat again, warmer weather is on the way, and plans for launching the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout are in the works.

Chinese Port Shipping Throughput Numbers Suspicious?

I was perusing YouTube earlier today and came across this video from the China Observer channel and came across the following video that I found quite illuminating, one indicative of some of China’s economic problems.


The part about China’s numbers not matching the activity at origination and destination ports implies the China may be lying about the actual shipping activity, something that also implies that trade is down as well. Another video delves into that aspect, stating the shipment of goods to the US from China is down 90% since the imposition of the 145% tariff on Chinese goods.

Even before this, China’s economy has been weakening with shutdowns and closures of some factories and scaled back production by other factories. How bad it really was before this is unknown so such claims should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. But if it is indeed the case then losing almost 50% of its overseas trade certainly won’t help China’s economy.

All of this aside, one has to ask the question about what brought us to this point? Some are pointing fingers at Trump, but this problem predates him by over 4 decades when the US government, particularly Congress and the administrative ‘state’, made it increasingly difficulty and costly to manufacture here in the US while making it attractive to move manufacturing overseas.

All of this makes me unsure of how all of this will shake out. At times it makes me wonder if we’re living out the old Chinese curse – “May you live in interesting times.”

Friday Funny - Arguing With An American

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s a 50:50 weekend here at the lake, at least when it comes to the weather. Cool and rainy on Saturday and a little warmer and partly sunny on Sunday. This weather is certainly having an effect on the ice covering the lake. It’s pretty thin with a number of areas of open water getting larger. One of the indicators of Ice Out – declared when all 5 ports of call for the MS Mount Washington cruise ship are free of ice – is one of the ponds here in our town. In general, when it is finally free of ice it means Ice Out will occur about two weeks later. It was ice free as of Thursday so that indicates Ice Out may occur on April 17th. Only time will tell.

I did suffer a bit of trauma today, said trauma being filing my income taxes. It looks like I have my withholding set up properly as I should be receiving just under $200 as a refund. (I don’t like over-withholding as it means the federal government gets to use my money interest-free. I’d rather have it in my accounts rather than the Feddle Gummint’s accounts.)

Now that I’ve got that out of my way I can focus on the incipient property taxes on The Gulch which will be due in June.

==+++++==

In relation to yesterday’s post comes this by way of BattleSwarm Blog: DOGE Discovers Giant Social Security Fraud.

One small excerpt:

Musk told the audience with Gracias on stage that DOGE found “20 million dead people marked as alive… Social Security database, this is too crazy, and then you’ll notice there’s a strange trend here.”

If each one of those 20 million people received $20,000 in benefits (Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid), that’s $400 billion - with a “b” - of taxpayer money being eaten up by fraud.

Read The Whole Thing.

==+++++==

You know they’re in trouble when even Bill Maher says they’re too biased.

It seems that both NPR and PBS have gone too far when even members of the Left are saying so. In this case it’s comedian Bill Maher pointing the finger at both tax-funded broadcasters.

Maher recently blasted the two networks for their extreme bias. “We’ve outgrown the era where these outlets made sense,” Maher said on his HBO show, Real Time.

“In a country this polarized, where Republicans and Democrats see each other as existential threats, there’s no room for government-funded media that clearly favors one side.”

Maher also blasted NPR CEO Katherine Maher.

“I also read my namesake, Katherine Maher — head of NPR — and, you know, she said, ‘We’re completely unbiased.’ Give me a break, lady,” Maher added.

“I mean, they’re crazy far left. So, I mean, I think we’re past, my view, we’re past the age really, where the government, first of all, why do we need to subsidize — why can’t we have outlets like this and we’re so polarized,” he added. “These outlets became popular at a time when Republicans and Democrats didn’t hate each other and weren’t at each other’s throats and didn’t think each other was an existential threat in that world. You can’t have places like this I think anymore; they have to be private.”

I agree.

Ironically, they don’t receive as much funding from the government as they have in the past, percentage-wise. They still are funded by the public through membership drives and grants. However, I have to agree with Bill Maher that maybe it’s time to stop using taxpayer money to fund media outlets that are openly hostile to the half of the population that disagrees with their political viewpoints.

==+++++==

It is understood that elections have consequences and it looks like the taxpayers in Los Angeles are going to be feeling the effects of this past one, in this case one that affects their pocketbooks.

Consumers in Los Angeles County were shocked Tuesday as a new quarter-percent sales tax, ostensibly to raise funds for services for the homeless, went into effect following a referendum in November.

L.A. voters passed Measure A, which replaced and increased an earlier county-wide sales tax for the homeless. That tax, passed a decade ago, failed to stem the growth of the homeless population and may even have encouraged it.

L.A. residents recently learned that $2.3 billion spent on homeless services in Los Angeles had been unaccounted for — and the money had come from the same sales taxes that referendums like Measure A had been designed to fund.

How does the old saw go? “Subsidize something and you’ll get more of it. Tax something and you’ll get less of it.” In this case they’ve thrown money at dealing with homelessness...and ended up getting even more homelessness. Now they’re going to throw even more money at the problem and keep raising taxes to fund it all. It sounds like a vicious cycle to me.

==+++++==

This was the perfect imagery:

Getting Rid of DEI Is Like “Getting Soap Out Of A Sponge”

“Trump is now squeezing that sponge and a lot of the easy stuff is coming out now…. But DEI is going to persist for the foreseeable future… Do this for six to 10 years. and I think you will deal mortal damage to DEI. Do it for two to three years, and they will hang on, like survivors clinging to a lifeboat, just waiting for help to arrive.”

Heh^TM

==+++++==

When I read this I thought it might be a late April Fool’s prank...but it’s not.

It turns out that Democrats used to be all for tariffs until they were against them. What’s the difference between then and now?

I would have to say it’s those who are proposing them.

For five decades, politicians on both sides, but primarily Democrats and Independents, have called for America to take steps to equalize the “Free Trade,” which was not free or working for America. There is a video of Nancy Pelosi calling for tariffs against China in the 90s. Obama placed tariffs on Chinese auto tires during his term while Bernie Sanders urged Obama and Bush to even the playing field with tariffs against any country over-taxing us with double-digit tariffs or taxes. Even Joe Biden, or whoever was actually President, used tariffs.

Now that Donald Trump is taking tariffs to a new level with a wide-scale policy against nearly every country charging us unreasonable tariffs, Democrats are now apoplectic about how Trump’s economic plan is going to cause widespread inflation and layoffs.

Where were these people when it was Democrats pushing for these kinds of tariffs? Oh, wait. It was the same people, but they’re against them now because it’s not them – Democrats - pushing for those same tariffs.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the rain has ended (for now), the sun is peaking out now and then, and where Monday is just around the corner...again.

UPDATE: UConn Women's Basketball team won the NCAA championship!

They Got It Wrong

I have been watching (and reading) some of the reports about the protests against tariffs and other Trump actions. That doesn’t bother me as it’s everyone’s right to protest, whether I (and others) agree or disagree with them. I can’t tell from what reports I’ve seen how many have been at the protests.

However, the one thing I noticed was quite a few signs stating that Trump and DOGE would be cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits. That is partially true, but not the way I think these protesters are implying.

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits will be cut...for those who aren’t eligible for them, receiving them fraudulently. That includes those who are well over 120 years of age, illegal immigrants who aren’t eligible , and ‘ghost’ recipients who are collecting benefits for multiple people who are deceased, i.e. their deaths were never reported to federal government. The fraudulent payments are projected to total in the billions of dollars which means those who are receiving the benefits due to them are being ripped off.

Either those making these claims about cut in benefits to legitimate recipients are believing this erroneous information or are lying themselves.

I am not focusing on the tariff issue as I have already made my opinion about them known. But I am going to add this one last thing about DOGE that I saw elsewhere:

It’s wild to see people who have been robbing us blind trying to justify being upset at us catching them.

Is DOGE the only way we can get our federal spending under control? I hate having to say this, but it may be our last hope. Congress certainly isn’t going to do it as they have no real incentive to do so. Too many in Congress are compromised, not because they are evil but more that they ‘owe’ others ‘favors’ in exchange for helping them get elected. Some are evil, seeing the budget as a means of filling their pockets and those of their friends and families. I wish it weren’t so, but there are far too many members of Congress that have become quite wealthy, taking in far more money than their salaries and speaking fees can account for.

Call me cynical...because I am.

Friday (Scary) Funny - My Reflection Moves By Itself

Thoughts On A Sunday

Old Man Winter has been showing us he isn’t quite done yet, sending snow, sleet and freezing rain our way since early yesterday. While we haven’t seen much more than an inch of snow here at The Gulch, there has been quite a bit of sleet and mixed in with some freezing rain now and then. A close friend of mine in a town northwest of here has received over 6 inches of snow. However, another friend living just north of New Haven, Connecticut was telling me it was 76ºF down her way yesterday while we were getting the snow and sleet. And so it goes in New England.

The roads are slick, hence our church canceling in-person services and resorting to an online church service this morning.

But wait, there’s more!

It looks like all of this precipitation will be changing to rain sometime tonight with some of it being heavy. I have no doubt the snow and sleet will all be melted and washed away by tomorrow’s rains.

==+++++==

What happens when men are denigrated, marginalized, stuck with nonsensical “toxic masculinity” accusations, told they aren’t needed, are blamed for all the ills in the world, and deemed expendable in this modern world?

For some men it means nothing. They soldier on, ignoring the vicious and ignorant diatribes. For others it means they see themselves as nothing but a burden and withdraw from society. And for others, it means they see themselves as useless and they end themselves, slowly through drug and alcohol abuse or quickly through suicide. What’s worse is that some of the more vacuous members of our crumbling society see it as a good thing.

What many of those vacuous members seem to overlook is that without men, modern civilization and all its amenities will die. As one commenter on the linked post explained it:

What amuses me is how many modern women believe the trope that "they don't need men."

But then their car breaks down or a pipe springs a leak or their house needs a new roof or...well, you get the idea. They also don't seem to understand that it is those 'men they don't need' that make their comfy lives possible, that build and maintain the infrastructure upon which they are totally dependent.

The willful blindness about these issues both baffles and disappoints me. This is something that can come back to bite those same ‘vacuous members’ in the butt.

==+++++==

Could it be that preventing and treating Parkinson’s Disease is as simple as taking extra B vitamins?

Researchers have suspected for some time that the link between our gut and brain plays a role in the development of Parkinson's disease.

A recent study identified gut microbes likely to be involved and linked them with decreased riboflavin ( vitamin B2) and biotin (vitamin B7), pointing the way to an unexpectedly simple treatment that may help: B vitamins.

"Supplementation of riboflavin and/or biotin is likely to be beneficial in a subset of Parkinson's disease patients, in which gut dysbiosis plays pivotal roles," Nagoya University medical researcher Hiroshi Nishiwaki and colleagues wrote in their paper published in May 2024.

It’s seems to be turning out that a number of degenerative diseases may be tied to the human gut biome. If Parkinson’s can be prevented or treated via nutrition, be it by supplements or a change in diet or both, then this is groundbreaking.

There has also been some connection suggested between gut biome and Alzheimer’s. If that is also the case then we might see the scourge and heartbreak of Alzheimer’s disappear.

==+++++==

Oh, yeah, this will be a winning team for the Democrats to push an increasingly Socialist agenda.

There are just some things so ridiculous they defy parody. Putting 83-year-old-shakes-fists-at-clouds, communist Bernie Sanders or finds-math-hard AOC as the new face of the Democratic Party for 2028 is even beyond The Babylon Bee’s imagination.

Who knew this Marxist interpretation of Burns and Allen would be traveling the nation on an “Embrace Covetousness Tour” so soon after the majority of citizens made it clear that it rejects Leftwing ideology which, over the last several decades, has made life worse for proletariat while delivering goodies to the Inner Party.

--snip--

The AOC/Bernie populism goes about promoting values — like males can be women by declaring it — that an overwhelming majority, even among Democrats, reject.

Kinda puts lie to populism, eh?

So, the cabal that runs the DNC has decided to double and triple down on a narrative that a growing number of Democrats are rejecting, figuring that somehow it will return them to power? As I have asked before, will the Democrat Party end up going the way of the Whigs?

==+++++==

It seems that Germany is suddenly taking military spending and readiness seriously. Is it the Trump Effect?

During his first term, President Donald Trump was mocked when he wanted our European allies to spend more on their defense while relying less on Russian energy. Ironically, After Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many European countries moved in the direction Trump tried to get them to move years earlier. Conversations about Europe in the leaked text did not appear to be what Europe wanted to hear either. The Europeans may be starting to get the message that they need to increase their own capabilities instead of taking advantage of their arrangement with the US.

Germany has increased military spending, meeting the 2% of GDP required under NATO and slowly exceeding that amount. It has also been providing more military equipment and armaments to Ukraine. The first is something that Trump brought up during his first term, castigating our European allies for not meeting their military spending commitments and coming to depend increasingly on the US military umbrella and the US taxpayers that pay for it all. It looks like that is coming to an end as other NATO nations have been increasing their military spending and readiness as well.

==+++++==

So, how did the “We Hate Elon And Tesla” protests on Saturday go for the Left?

Not so great.

The left built up March 29th as some epic, anti-Elon Musk, anti-Tesla day of rage… The so called “protests” turned out to be complete and total flops.. Not only was attendance at these hate rallies much lower than the left was expecting, but these bone headed communists needed to read their chants off large font scripts, you know like Hollywood liberal actors.. What a complete and total failure!

Not that I really expected there to be a big turnout or the effects the Left was hoping for. It looks like the whole thing can be summed up with one word:

“Meh.”

‘Nuff said…

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rain has been just rain for the past few minutes, the ice has melted away on the trusty RAM 1500, and where Monday is returning...again.

Save The Movies And The Theaters

Movie ticket sales have been dropping for years. Part of that can be laid at the feet of Hollywood because they decided to go woke and started making preachy movies that no one wanted to see. So what does one of the ‘Hollywood’ magazines, Variety, suggest as a way to solve the problem?

Allow patrons to smoke pot and text during the movie.

Really? They think that will fix the problem rather than showing movies people actually want to see? This, just when I thought they couldn’t possibly get any stupider.

“Imagine how much better Barbie or Deadpool & Wolverine would be if you could see it” while smoking a joint, asks Variety rhetorically. “Selling weed could bring fresh revenue and new customers to theaters.”

What?

Both of those movies were monster hits, the top grossers of their respective years. Who in their right mind believes allowing pot smoking and texting in the theater would have improved their box office?

Granted, Variety’s idea is to have exclusive screenings for potheads and texters. Nevertheless, the entire theater will still stink of that crap.

Here’s Variety lobbying for texting: “Although cinephiles might object, if movie theaters want to attract younger audiences who refuse to give up their devices during the two-hour running time of most films, they might need to stop banning phones.”

Of course Variety does ignore something that would stop the smoking of pot in theaters, that being that smoking in theaters, be it tobacco or pot, is illegal in most states. But what they’re really trying to sell us is that the only way to make gawdawful movies palatable is if the movie patrons are stoned. However, I have an ever better idea.

Start making movies that people actually want to see rather than the crap that’s been coming out of Hollywood over the past few years or so. Then the theaters would be full, the concession stands would be doing well, and the studios would stop losing money.

As I have mentioned before, Hollywood fell into a similar trap back in the late 60’s and unto the mid-70’s. They started making so-called ‘message’ movies that tried to preach to their audience rather than entertain them. The moviegoers stayed away in droves and the studios lost money on those stinkers. Then they stopped making those movies and returned to entertaining their audiences with great movies. One of those was Star Wars which came out in 1977 and was an absolute smash hit.

The ‘message’ movie was dead...until woke Hollywood decided to give it another go. It seems like it will have to learn the same lesson it did back in the 70’s, but with a modern twist. That lesson?

“Get woke. Go broke.”

Friday Funny - Things You Can Say About Your Car, But Not Your...

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s officially spring and Lake Winnipesaukee and other bodies of water in the area are showing that as the ice covering them recedes. I noticed there were more openings in the ice on Winnipesaukee and open water in a some of the coves and along one of the state beaches. Fortunately I haven’t seen any stranded bob-houses out on the ice, at least not on the southern part of the lake. It would be difficult and dangerous to retrieve them if there were as the ice is quite thin and incapable of supporting much weight.

It was quite warm yesterday, having reached the mid-50’s here. However, that warm weather has been driven out and it was in the low 20’s this morning along with some brisk winds. There’s snow forecast for tomorrow though not large amounts. Here at the lake we might see between 1 and 3 inches before it’s all over and even then most of that snow will accumulate on the grass and not the roads...maybe. The rest of the week looks like it will be closer to normal temperatures for late March – in the mid to upper 40’s – with some chances of rain here and there.

==+++++==

I’ve been seeing this meme pop up here and there, both on blogs and FB posts and there is a ring of truth about it. There are variations but they all pretty much say the same thing. (I wish I could post one of the pictures of the meme, but Blogger still won’t let me post pictures.)

We disagreed with a Anheuser-Busch’s values, so we stopped buying Bud Light.

The Left disagrees with Elon Musk regarding DOGE, so they decide to vandalize and set Teslas on fire, shoot at Tesla dealerships, and dox Tesla owners.

We are not the same.

‘Nuff said.

==+++++==

In line with above comes this from Washington State where a man chased down and blockaded a woman’s car, then accosted her because she was driving a Tesla.

Seeing the video, watching his actions, and seeing that the man was masked, my reaction would have likely been pulling my piece and telling the miscreant to get down on the ground. I then would have called the police to report an attempted carjacking.

==+++++==

Yeah, I’ve been hearing this line from Democrats for decades now and it’s just as phony today as it was “way back when”.

“One of the Swamp’s favorite debating tricks is to pretend that the only way to meaningfully cut the deficit is to cut Social Security.”

That’s the lazy way and it always gets folks riled up. That’s why they make that claim. It’s also a blatant lie.

The way to do it is to cut all the “waste, fraud, and abuse” line items through the entire budget. Of course if we leave that to Congress it will never get done, or if they actually try it will take them years and even then they might only get rid of 10 percent of that “waste, fraud, and abuse”...while adding on 20 percent more in the process.

And the Democrats wonder why so many Americans support DOGE.

==+++++==

Is it time to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War?

In what can only be described as an unusual move, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has sparked debate over potentially renaming the Department of Defense back to its original name: the Department of War.

Hegseth took to X to conduct an informal poll that garnered roughly 170,000 votes in just 18 hours. The results show Americans narrowly prefer "Department of War” over “Department of Defense.”

While I like the idea I do have to ask this question: How much will it cost to do so? Signs will need to be changed. Stationery will need the letterhead changed as will many publications.

I think it would be better if we don’t make the change because we’re trying to cut government spending, right?

==+++++==

Is this yet another sign that Europe is becoming more of an Islamic state?

Middle school students assigned book that glorifies jihad and the Islamic State.

What did the EU think would happen if they allowed large numbers of Muslim immigrants into their respective counties? Many of them are already seeing the negative effects with so-called “No Go” zones in some towns and cities, a rapidly increasing number of rapes of women being committed by Muslim immigrant males, the push for Sharia to replace long standing laws, attacks on Christians and churches. I have to wonder just how much longer the EU will exist if they don’t stop this madness.

==+++++==

Here’s one from the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department.

It seems Australian universities are urging the Prime Minister to declare a state of emergency after the Trump administration has informed them that funding from the US taxpayer will likely end.

The US has been funding Australian universities?

One particular quote from within the Sky News article below seemingly encapsulates the mindset of the situation in the land down under:

AUSTRALIA […] Last week after it was revealed the universities had been asked to justify their funding, the National Tertiary Education Union called on the government to “guarantee Australian researchers would be protected”.

“The federal government must push back on the Trump administration’s blatant foreign interference in our independent research in the strongest possible terms,” NTEU president Alison Barnes said.

One would think the NTEU would be happy for an enhanced opportunity for “independent research.”

Excuse me? Whose money is it and why is the US in any way obligated to fund Australian universities? It’s one thing if the research being performed was being done on the behalf of the US government. But it’s sounding like this is not the case.

Entitled and arrogant much, are they?

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the ice is slowly breaking up, winter isn’t really over yet, and where Monday will prove that with some snow.

I Hate Greatly Dislike Windows 11

How can I put this delicately?

I detest Windows 11.

First, I have to state that there are only two computers in The Gulch that use Windows, both of them being laptops I use for work and came from my employer. The first is an almost eight-year old Lenovo P50 which originally came with Windows 7 and was later upgraded to Windows 10. The second is a Lenovo P16 laptop that is replacing the P50. It came with Windows 11 and I really don’t like it, “it” being Windows 11.

The other four computers at The Gulch use Linux, with a Lenovo W510 laptop and my 12-year old HP Pavilion tower using Ubuntu, and the two newer mini-PCs from Ace Magic running Linux Mint which uses Ubuntu as its base.

The only problem I ever had with Linux was with my laptop which wouldn’t boot properly after a Linux update. It was easily fixed when I used a bootable USB key to force another update which fixed the problem.

I received the new work laptop about 3 weeks ago and have been spending my own time on weekends configuring it and loading the programs I needed in order to do my job. The new User Interface (UI) looks nice, but it isn’t really all that intuitive, particularly if I need to look for a specific program that does not appear in the ‘Start’ window. One thing I liked about both Windows 7 and Windows 10 is that the ribbon that opened when when the ‘Windows’ key was pressed made it easy to find even rarely used programs. That’s not true with Windows 11.

One of the biggest problems I’ve had is that some programs I use under Windows 10 don’t/won’t work in Windows 11 without a lot of tweaking. I’m still struggling with a couple that I use all the time.

Another problem was configuring the display settings so the dual displays I use will show my desktop properly. It isn’t as straightforward as with Windows 10 or Linux. A co-worker has been struggling with this problem for over a week now as it seems that his laptop, the same model as mine, doesn’t seem to remember the settings and he has to reset them every time he boots his laptop. I haven’t had that problem, but it has taken a lot of time to get the displays set up the way I like. Neither Windows 10 or Linux had that issue.

I have found that the Office 365 suite on my new laptop does have a few quirks, but nothing major. The only thing that surprised me was that the ‘new’ Outlook isn’t nearly as friendly as the version I’ve been using on my old laptop. This isn’t just my opinion as I have asked others I know who are using Windows 11 and they made the same observation.

It seems Microsoft has forgotten the lesson of Windows 8. It was an awful version of windows, the UI set up more top look and act like a tablet even though the computer it was being used on wasn’t a tablet and didn’t have a touch screen. That’s the reason Windows 8.1 was released as people liked the ‘old’ UI used on Windows 7. Windows 10 returned to that UI. Why Microsoft thinks they have to redesign the UI with every new version is necessary baffles me. I can see a tweak here and there if there is a problem, but why change everything if what you have works and works well?

And so it goes.

Friday Funny - When You Realize You're An Old Fart

Thoughts On A Sunday

While the calendar says spring doesn’t start until the end of the week, spring weather is certainly here. We saw almost 60ºF yesterday and might see that today despite the cloudy weather and rain we’re going to experience today. It’s meant I haven’t had to crank up the temperature on the thermostat nearly as high as usual, and not at all on the second floor thermostat.

However, I know that Old Man Winter can throw us a curve now and then with a Spring snowstorm. We certainly saw that last April when we experiences a Nor’easter that dropped almost a foot of snow here at the lake. It knocked out power here at The Gulch for almost two days. (Thank goodness for the Official Weekend Pundit Generator which kept the lights and heat on!)

But for now it looks like it will be pretty decent weather with rain here and there over the next few days. The snow banks are melting away, but I think they’re still going to be around for a couple of weeks at least.

==+++++==

This certainly doesn’t surprise the Conspiracy Theorists in the least.

It turns out the lockdowns during Covid were neither needed or effective.

That isn’t news to me seeing as how countries that neither locked down or took draconian measures such as mandatory masking and vaccinations to prevent the spread of Covid - Sweden and Denmark coming to mind – had nowhere near the number of cases or deaths seen per capita that were seen in countries that did.

‘Nuff said.

==+++++==

Yeah, this isn’t good news.

Syria’s President Signs New Constitution Establishing the Country as an Islamic State

There is not much that can be said in favor of the Assad regime in Syria, but it did generally protect the rights of Christians, Alawites, and others who were not Sunni Muslims. Those days, however, are gone forever. In recent weeks, every day brings new evidence of the violent persecution of Alawites and Christians in Syria, and there is no end in sight. And now the country’s interim president, former (and possibly current) jihad leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, has signed a provisional constitution that could seal the second-class status of religious minorities in Syria, as it establishes the country as an Islamic state.

I figure the persecution of Alewites and Christians will continue, if not escalate. I figure we’ll also start seeing public executions of members of the LGBTQ+ community, be it by hanging or being thrown off a roof like happens in Iran.

==+++++==

Has the federal Department of Education actually improved educational outcomes?

This is a question I would like to see answered, too. As I have read in a couple of different places, the US used be be #1 in education in 1976. This is before the Department of Education came into being. Almost 5 decades later we’re now #40 and falling.

What evidence is there that the federal Department of Education, or that the Democrats being in charge of education, has had any positive effect on actual student achievement? We previously noted then candidate for the Democratic mayoral nomination Helen Gym, who was supported by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, campaigning in front of the Edward T Steel Elementary School, telling us how she saved that school from ‘going charter,’ but Steel Elementary, was ranked 1,205th out of 1,607 Pennsylvania elementary schools. 8% of the students scored at or above grade-level proficient in reading, and a whopping 1% of students scored at or above in math.

There is simply no evidence that the education bureaucracy in this country has improved actually educating students.

The left love the federal Department of Education for two main reasons: it has enabled the policies from liberal districts to be imposed on schools in conservative areas, and has allowed the liberal advocates to have to lobby only one set of bureaucrats, at the federal level, rather than fifty state education boards and thousands of local school districts for the policies they prefer.

It seems the Department of Education has little to do with actual education and more with indoctrination. After all, it is easier to program and indoctrinate students if they remain deficient in reading, writing, arithmetic, and critical thinking skills.

==+++++==

You’ve probably heard that a US District judge has ordered the government to stop deporting illegal immigrants, particularly violent criminal members of a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.

On Saturday, without giving the Trump administration any time to respond, Judge Boasberg issued an immediate temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking DHS, Customs and Border Patrol and ICE from deporting illegal aliens and narcotrafficking gang members belonging to Tren de Aragua (TdA), a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Boasberg ordered the flights of criminal gang members to turn around and immediately bring the criminals back to the USA to enjoy a life of criminal conduct and terrorism in the USA. National security is secondary to the rights of criminal aliens to sell drugs, continue child/sexploitation, murder American citizens and rape their targets.

The problem with Judge Boasberg? He is apparently as corrupt as the system he’s protecting.

This is the same Judge Boasberg who sat as presiding judge on the FISA court. The same Judge Boasberg who gave FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith a slap on the wrist for manufacturing evidence used in the Carter Page FISA application that defrauded the court. The same Judge Boasberg who appointed former DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord as amicus curiae advisor to the court, after she knowingly and fraudulently submitted the FISA application to the court.

This is the same Judge Boasberg gave J6 FBI agent provocateur Ray Epps a sentence of probation. This is the same judge who, on his vacation, went to sit in the DC courtroom to observe defendant President Trump who was forced to appear in DC court. This is the same Boasberg who established a horrible precedent in forcing Vice-President Mike Pence to testify before a DC grand jury about his conversations with President Trump (breaking executive privilege).

It appears Judge Boasberg twists the law into an unrecognizable shape in order to let the Deep State get away with actions and crimes that would get anyone else sent to prison. It seems that The Narrative must be preserved even if it means ignore the law, ignoring the Constitution.

==+++++==

I have to wonder if the following is a case of “Too little too late.”

Colleges are finding out they are in trouble and that they don’t have many allies.

What did they expect after years of supporting causes many Americans find abhorrent, protesting on behalf of regimes, organizations, and ideologies that are murderous, genocidal, and would have no problems killing the very people protesting on their behalves?

Columbia University is just the start of a long-brewing backlash. On Monday of this week the Trump administration's Department of Education put 60 schools on notice that they will lose federal funding if they don't do more to crack down on antisemitism on campus.

--snip--

On Friday the DOE sent another letter to more than 50 schools warning them that discriminatory DEI programs would no longer be tolerated.

--snip--

Colleges are clearly getting the message which is why many of them put hiring freezes in place this week, in anticipation of being short on cash very soon.

--snip--

Unfortunately for many of these schools, they are only now realizing that they don't have a lot of friends to take up any slack if their budgets are cut.

When alumni with deep pockets start backing away from supporting their alma mater because it has become too radical, have lost their reason to exist, you know a college is in trouble. We saw that happening at Harvard as alumni stopped funding endowments because of its apparent support of blatant antisemitism. How many other colleges will see donors stop giving because those institutions of higher learning have instead become institutions of indoctrination for heinous ideologies and wholly against Western Civilization?

Are our colleges finally learning there is a price for taking and supporting such positions?

Let us hope so.

==+++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the snow banks are rapidly melting, thoughts of the upcoming boating season are starting to intrude, and where we’ll see plenty of rain on Monday.

Tariffs - Carrot and Stick Diplomacy?

Listening to a number of people debate as well as letters to the editor of our local paper and plenty of opinions on the Web, I have come to the conclusion that far too many people haven’t a clue about tariffs, what they are, how they work, and that the US isn’t the only one that uses them. In fact, you will see that a lot of our present trading partners have them on US goods coming into their countries with some of them being outright draconian. Yet somehow tariffs are only bad if it’s the US imposing them, at least according to the Left and the clueless...who are often the same people.

Yes, tariffs can be punitive. Some can be responses – tit fo tat – to tariffs imposed by other countries. And others can be used as tools of diplomacy, in many cases so-called “Carrot and Stick” diplomacy. What we’ve been seeing from President Trump has been more of the third type followed by the second type.

According to Victor Davis Hanson the “Carrot and Stick” application appears to working.

President Donald Trump is not using tariffs for their historical purpose, which is to protect and promote domestic industry. Instead, Trump, as Victor Davis Hanson argues, is using tariffs to hold countries, like Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, and China, accountable. And it’s working.

On this edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson dispels the Left’s hysteria over President Trump’s tariff policies:

“So, if you take Venezuela and Colombia, he's saying that ‘you people deliberately emptied your jails and you sent them to the United States—sent them being felons—violent felons. And you're not going to do that anymore’.

And they said, ‘we're not taking them back’. He said, ‘you're going to take them back, or I'm going to put a tariff’. So, it was a lever of diplomacy, and it worked. They backed down completely.”

That’s just one instance of it which took place back in February. The EU is trying to punish the US so it imposed tariffs on US whiskey and other spirits and the US has responded with tariffs on EU wines, champagne, and distilled spirits. Will tariffs on Canada and Mexico work? Only time will tell if Trump will get his way. The same goes for China which has heavy tariffs on US goods and has had them for a long time.

This is going to be interesting.