10/19/2025

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather has been nice up here at the lake, warmer than it has been over the previous few days. One thing that nicer weather made easier was pulling the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of the water, something BeezleBub, our friend Bruce, and I took care of yesterday afternoon. My boating season is officially over.

The boat presently resides at Beezlebub’s as I have some work I need to take care of before it’s winterized and stored away for the winter. Today was spent taking care of those last things: emptying the boat of all the gear, making sure the ‘well’ drains are open and all the water is gone, removing the mooring lines, removing the anchors, wiping down the interior surfaces, vacuum the carpeting in the cockpit, and removing any of the mildew or mold that has accumulated. The boat will be moved to the boatyard for the aforementioned winterization and storage on Tuesday afternoon. It will reside there until early May when the boat will go to the fiberglass shop for some minor repairs before it is put back in the water.

One thing I must mention is that ‘leaf peeping’ season is still in full swing, being we are at or just past peak here at the lake. I have to say that the colors have been somewhat muted, due primarily to the drought we’ve been dealing with since early June. The leaves still change but do so less evenly than we usually see, once changed they do not last nearly as long, and they fall off the trees sooner than usual. But that hasn’t stopped the tourists from visiting and spending their time and money here.

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I have been hearing the news about the No Kings protests and I have to wonder how big were they, really? One viral video supposedly showing a large number of protesters in Boston has one little problem…

It’s actually from 2017.

One giveaway? Not one of the trees shows even the hint of fall foliage colors which should be quite visible in Boston by now.

Is this one of those instances of “Fake But Accurate” reporting once touted by former CBS anchorman Dan Rather?

I do like Speaker Johnson’s take on the whole “No Kings” protests.

He didn't just call the protests ridiculous. He pointed out the obvious: if Trump really were the autocrat Democrats claim he is, none of those protests would have been possible in the first place. "If President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now," Johnson said. "If President Trump was a king, they would not have been able to engage in that free speech exercise out on the Mall."

Ayuh.

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Umm, doesn’t this go against the very thing they’re trying to ‘fix’?

100,000 Amazon Trees Chopped Down to Build Road for COP30 Climate Conference

Wouldn’t it be better if they used a place that was already accessible?

Spare a thought for the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt as he considers his upcoming trip to the Brazilian city of BelĂ©m to report on COP30. Saving the world and its environment is his gig so how will he face the prospect of travelling down a new four-lane highway cut through the dense Amazon rainforest to help speed him and his 70,000 other political activists to their luxury hotels? Based on trees per acre, an estimated 100,000 mature specimens have been chopped down and logged to build the eight-mile Avenida Liberdade causing untold disruption to local wildlife. Happily, all is not lost in despair. If he wishes, the BBC’s activist-in-chief can consider recent findings published in Nature Plants that increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have led to substantial growth in the remaining Amazon forest, with mature trees growing by over 6% a decade. Perhaps he could start promoting on the BBC the enormous benefits of CO2, rightly known as the gas of life. He could front a campaign to assuage his dented COP conscience along the lines: ‘Forward with Carbon Dioxide, not Chainsaws.’

This eight mile long road seems like a paradox, particularly in light of it being built to support the COP30 Climate Conference. Talk about hypocrisy. Then again, I have become convinced a lot of what goes on at COP is to support the worldwide scam that is climate change, allowing billions, if not trillions of dollars to be ‘obtained’ to spend on ‘fixing the problem’ even if that problem really doesn’t exist.

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This doesn’t surprise me in the least.

Rhode Island Public Schools Sued for Discriminating Against White Teachers

White students are not always welcome in public schools. White teachers aren’t either:

A lawsuit recently filed by the U.S. Department of Justice alleges that the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and Providence Public School District (PPSD) violated federal law by establishing a loan forgiveness program that is open to every ethnicity—except whites.

How many times does this have to be repeated?

You don’t cure racism by using racism.

Maybe the Department of Education needs to learn that too:

EPP Presses Education Department to Expose Hidden DEI and Discriminatory Aid Programs

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It looks like we’re in for some heavy – and much needed – rain starting Monday afternoon. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we haven’t seen much rain since the beginning of June. It has had the water level of the lake a good foot-and-a-half below normal which has made it difficult to navigate the waters in some portions of Lake Winnipesaukee. Getting into the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout required me to sit on the dock in order to be able to step down on its transom. Getting out at the town docks was also problematic as it was a long way up onto the dock.

The ramp at the town docks was also problematic as some trailers couldn’t go deep enough down the ramp without going off the lower edge of the ramp in the process. This made pulling some of the larger boats out that much more difficult.

What gets me is that the state is still talking about what is called “draw down”, lowering the level of the lake before winter. We’re already seeing water levels that equal what we’d see after “draw down” and they want to drop the lake level even more?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where boats are coming out of the water, the rains are coming...as is Monday. Again.