Thoughts On A Sunday

The rain we had a couple of days ago certainly put a dent in the snow cover up here at the lake. It looked like we were going to have another Christmas without snow. However, the Weather Guys^TM are saying we’ll get some snow on Tuesday, somewhere between 2 and 4 inches, which means we may have a White Christmas after all.

Speaking of Christmas, the WP Mom and I will be traveling down to one of the WP sisters home on Christmas to celebrate the day. Fortunately, almost the entire trip will be on major highways well outside of Boston and should keep our travel time there to around 90 minutes.

The work to empty the Official Weekend Pundit Storage Unit continues. BeezleBub and I did make one trip between there and The Gulch to retrieve an antique dresser that had once belonged to my paternal grandparents, one I used when I was attending college and later in my first apartment when I moved to New Hampshire. While it isn’t valuable and could use a little restoration work (a knob on one drawer is missing), it will fill a need here at The Gulch.

If things work according to plan, the storage unit will be empty before New Year’s. My ex still has a bunch of furniture there and I do have a few more items to move to The Gulch except for a couple of containers of books which will be going to my town’s library to be sold during their annual book sale later next year.

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It seems the moves by universities and colleges to bolster minority enrollments, paid for by federal funds, are in fact unconstitutional. It discriminates by race, by ethnicity, by sex, giving precedence to minorities and women by giving them precedence over white men when it comes to admissions. More than one court decision has made this clear where “affirmative action” policies and regulations to give priority to minority students over white students.

One such case was in Supreme Court decision in Regents of the University of California vs Bakke back in 1978.

Allan Bakke, a thirty-five-year-old white man, had twice applied for admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. He was rejected both times. The school reserved sixteen places in each entering class of one hundred for "qualified" minorities, as part of the university's affirmative action program, in an effort to redress longstanding, unfair minority exclusions from the medical profession. Bakke's qualifications (college GPA and test scores) exceeded those of any of the minority students admitted in the two years Bakke's applications were rejected. Bakke contended, first in the California courts, then in the Supreme Court, that he was excluded from admission solely on the basis of race.

One does not cure injustice caused by discrimination by using discrimination to ‘balance the books’. Yet here we are, 47 years later, seeing that same injustice at universities and colleges being funded by the federal government in direct opposition to the Bakke decision.

The Department of Justice certainly sees a problem with the government funded race based programs – renamed “Minority Serving Institution” programs – which are just a repackaged affirmative action policy that has already been stuck down as unconstitutional.

Fortunately there are already moves in progress that would abolish such programs for good.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Quid Pro Quo indeed.

Democrats allow Somalis to commit welfare fraud in exchange for Somalis engaging in election fraud.

It will not surprise me in the least if this turns out to be the case. And if it is, some people need to go to prison, and others need to be deported…after they serve their prison terms.

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I have to wonder if this will help or hurt the Pyrite State.

California Court to Decide Whether Moonbattery Is Mental Illness

It’s going to take a court to decide this?

The correlation between moonbattery and mental illness is well established. But is it clinically accurate to say that moonbattery actually is a manifestation of mental illness? The question has legal ramifications.

--snip--

In April 2024, [Riddhi] Patel, [a 28-year-old Indian-American leftist activist who identifies as “non-binary”] appeared at a city council meeting in Bakersfield, California. She stepped up to the microphone and delivered a furious speech about Gaza, metal detectors, oppressors, and revolution. She concluded her remarks with a blunt threat to the elected officials, “We’ll see you at your house, we’ll murder you.”

--snip--

Prosecutors charged her under California Penal Code § 422, which criminalizes willful threats to commit acts that could result in death or great bodily injury, i.e. “terrorism”.

Patel’s lawyers want to refer the case to California’s mental health diversion program — that is, get her off with the insanity defense.

Did she really think she could get away with making threats like that, particularly during a public city council meeting? She must be mentally ill…or a spoiled entitled brat who needs a serious wakeup call. At this point I think it’s a toss-up. Maybe she’s both.

The case has broad implications.

Leftist activists like Patel increasingly act as though they can intimidate, or openly threaten, government officials and conservatives without fear of consequence, particularly when they believe their views are protected by alignment with the media and a dominant political party. Accountability is simply not expected.

Handing out Get Out of Jail Free cards in the name of the insanity defense would make unaccountability official. Presumably this would apply not only to threats but actual violence, which has always been a hallmark of leftism, as Charlie Kirk’s assassination reminds us. But at least it would also make official that leftists are insane.

The Left will use this as a defense for even the most egregious and violent behavior. If they are found mentally ill, then they should be held in a secure mental institution…forever. It should not be used as the aforementioned Get Out of Jail Free card because they believe they are entitled to perform any act in the name of their cause. It means they’re not capable of being able to tell the difference between right or wrong or that they just don’t care and should not be released back out into the public where they will cause more harm. They have to understand the concept of consequences, be they mentally ill or entitled brats who have never had to face consequences for their actions in the past.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s cold and windy, where more snow is expected on Tuesday, and if that is indeed the case, we can have a White Christmas this year.

Christmas Enthusiasm - Where Is It?

As I mentioned in last week’s Thoughts On A Sunday, “This year’s Christmas season seem more subdued than in the past.” Then, I thought it might have been just me ‘seeing’ this, but after talking to a number of family, friends, and acquaintances it isn’t just me.

Not that people aren’t out doing their Christmas shopping. Quite the contrary. But the enthusiasm I’m used to seeing isn’t quite there this year. I’m not seeing nearly as many Christmas decorations. Maybe I’m not paying attention to what’s being shown on television, but it feels like the number of Christmas specials isn’t what we’ve experienced in the past. The usual ones seem to be missing from the Big Three networks. I know some have only been available on streaming, something that I find disturbing.

Maybe I missed it this year, but I didn’t see anything in the TV listings for one of my old standbys, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Over the previous 59 Christmases it’s been shown it was the one Christmas special we never missed. I remember when it first aired back in 1965. (Yes, I am that old.) But it looks like I missed it this year.

Even shopping seems low key. People are out shopping or ordering online, but folks are taking their time, aren’t nearly as frantic as I remember them being. That may change this coming week as we close in on Christmas Day. I’ll wait and see.

I just hope what I’ve been seeing is just an off-year for Christmas, at least around here.

Speaking of Christmas shopping, I haven’t completed mine, but I have made a dent. Not that I am shopping for a lot of people this year. (That number changes from year to year – up some years and down others. This is an in-between year.) I figure I’ll have mine done by Monday afternoon as I only have a few more people to shop for.

At least some traditions within the WP family have continued. The youngest WP sister dropped off a couple of loaves of pulla, a Swedish coffee bread my grandmother used to make all the time. My sister took over after my grandmother passed away. It took a while for my sister to get it right, but she dialed it in some years ago. She drove up to The Gulch from her place south of Boston early this afternoon to drop them off.

And so it goes…

Friday Funny - Marriage Advice

I'll Tell You The Story - Binky And Megabucks

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Thoughts On A Sunday

Imagine my surprise when I woke this morning to see that it was snowing. The original forecast by the Weather Guys^TM said little about any snow up here at the lake. Not that there’s been a lot of snow with only a coating showing as I write this, but it is still snowing. (Update: We ended up with almost 4 inches of “only a coating”.) Such are the vagaries of winter weather in New England.

The trusty RAM 1500 is going back into the body shop first thing Monday morning to take care of a loose antenna mount, something they had forgotten to tighten when they replaced the front fenders a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to complete the task which is a good thing as the trusty RAM 1500 will be going back to my mechanic’s later the same day to have its annual undercoating performed. (That will be done first thing Tuesday morning as they will keep the pickup inside overnight to make sure it’s warm which helps the undercoating spread to cover everything being sprayed.)

One thing that has put a small crimp in life is that I haven’t been able to receive any mail for over a week now. New mailboxes were installed to replace the 40+ year old mailboxes that were starting to fall apart. The new mailboxes were installed about a week and a half ago…and they couldn’t find the key for our mailbox. We have no key for our mailbox, so we can’t open it. We keep getting vague responses to our queries about when (or if) we will finally get our keys from our property management company. If it comes to down to it I will inform the USPS about the situation when I go to the main post office to retrieve my mail and ask for a lock change. That will cost $50 to have performed and somehow, I think I’ll be stuck paying for it.

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This is something we’ve been watching develop over the past couple of decades, “this” being the increasing decay of so-called Blue Zones – basically blue cities and some blue states. What’s worse is that this decay is deliberate. “There’s a lot ruin in a blue zone. People in neighborhoods work at the preservation of order while they vote for disorder.”

We see that in cities like San Francisco and Portland and Seattle and Chicago and New York. We see that in states like California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and New York. Policies, laws, and regulations that may sound good on the surface but are seriously flawed are implemented and everything goes just the opposite of what was promised. Increasingly, the Law of Unintended Consequences comes into play and then the folks that pushed the original policies, laws, and regulations double down which makes things even worse. And then they double down again.

And they’ll blame everyone else for the collapse except the person in the mirror. It always seems that way. I doubt it will be any different this time around.

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The subject of Netflix buying Warner Brothers keeps popping up and one of the refrains I keep hearing is that it will lead to end of moviegoing, or so says John Podhoretz. I hate to say it, but the number of people actually going to movie theaters to watch movies has been declining for years. Part of the cause is that movies have been awful lately with only a few hit movies scattered here and there. Another reason is the cost, between the ticket prices and price of refreshments. It’s cheaper to stream a movie even if you pay a small amount above your streaming subscription to do so, refreshments are cheap, and you can pause the movie if you need to visit the bathroom. There’s no travel involved. No worries about parking or other movie patrons causing problems while trying to watch the movie, and so on.

It is true that you don’t get the ‘shared’ experience of watching a movie with hundreds of others which can add to the experience, particularly if you are watching a great movie. I’ve experienced that again and again during my almost 70 years on this planet. Watching the original Star Wars back in 1977 was an incredible experience, one that cannot be replicated watching it for the first time on your 75” OLED 4K UHD television in your living room. It’s not the same.

I’m not saying the moviegoing experience can’t be revived, but it’s going to take some work. Otherwise more theaters will close. (A couple of movie theaters I used to frequent have closed, something that saddens me.)

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Is it just me or does this year’s Christmas season seem more subdued than in the past?

Watching the ads on TV, the holiday specials, decorations, sales flyers, community celebrations, and so on, Christmas doesn’t seem to be as festive as I remember them being. I don’t see or feel nearly the amount of wonder of the season whether we’re talking about the religious or secular holiday. It’s like the volume has been turned down and the brightness has been dialed back a bit.

This isn’t cynicism on my part as I love Christmas and always have. But something seems off about it this year, something I can’t quite put my finger on.

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I found this to be highly amusing.

It turns out the “Epstein” photo released by Democrats turns out to be Trump with Miss Universe contestants in 1996.

I have to guess the Democrats thought they finally had something on Trump with the photo showing him with a bevy of beautiful women, trying to twist it so it was ‘proof’ he’d been a customer of Epstein. What’s even more telling – Donald Trump owned the Miss Universe pageant back then.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about the photo.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where more snow had fallen, the lake is freezing up, and where I don’t care if Monday is returning because I’m on vacation!

News Coverage Of The Brown University Shootings

It was while I was watching the UConn Huskies Women’s basketball game against the USC Trojans that the “Breaking News” logo popped on the screen to report on the news of a shooting on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. At the time the news was spotty and not much of the way in details were known or available.

While you will get no argument from me about the tragedy of such a crime nor about prayers for the victims and families of the victims, you will see that I was not pleased with the quality of the news coverage. In this case it was the news team from Boston’s WFXT Channel 25, a Fox affiliate, that was covering the news.

My complaint?

The incessant reporting that they really didn’t know anything other than a shooting had taken place. Oh, there was a lot of speculation whether it was one or more shooters. There were reports of casualties, but that was it. Facts dribbled in here and there, with one of the final reports before they returned to their “regular program” after almost an hour of reporting they didn’t really know anything was that there were two confirmed deaths. There as continuing speculation about motive, suspects, and related subjects ad nauseum which added absolutely nothing to the story. What took them almost an hour could have been handled in 15 minutes with the occasional break for updates. It seemed to me that the reporters and news anchors were more interested in the sound of their own voices than providing any actual news. To quote Don Henley from his song Dirty Laundry:

We got the bubbleheaded bleach-blonde
Comes on at 5
She can tell you about the plane crash
With a gleam in her eye
It's interesting when people die
Give us dirty laundry

You don't really need to find out
What's going on
You don't really want to know just
How far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Keep your dirty laundry

It’s almost like some of the news media just can’t wait for tragedy, for death, for injuries so they can pontificate about This, That, and The Other Thing. I have no idea how any of the other news outlets handled the report, but I’m going to guess they were no different than the channel I was watching.

What’s the old saying when it comes to news?

If it Bleeds, it Leads.

Am I just being cynical? Yup. But then I earned the right to be cynical after almost 70 years on this earth.

Friday Funny - Dishwasher Is Broken

I'll Tell You The Story - Fern's Tattoo

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s a relatively warm day here at the lake, ‘warm’ being defined as “in the low 30’s”. I was out, performing my usual Sunday morning shopping at Walmart when I realized it really didn’t feel all that cold. But then, the temperature wasn’t in single digits. It’s been sunny, something that will certainly help some of the remaining ice on the driveway, making room for some more snow overnight (though it will likely only be a dusting here) as well as some more snow forecast for Wednesday.

I have three more days of work – Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday – and I will then be on vacation until January 5th. I hadn’t paid attention to how much vacation I used this year and realized I had almost 3 weeks of unused vacation left, so rather than losing it I figured I’d take it now. Not that things are all that busy at work in December as it is one of our ‘slow’ months.

I won’t be slacking off by any means as I have a long list of “Things To Do” while I am on vacation, one of them being emptying out the Official Weekend Pundit Storage Unit which contains some of the last items from The Manse that I had no room for here at The Gulch. My ex and I have been slowly emptying it out and the few things that remain are primarily furniture that the ex-wife plans to sell. Ony one furniture item is mine – a 200+-year old dresser that was my grandfather’s - and it will be coming here to The Gulch. Rent for the storage unit will be one expense I will not be sad to see go away.

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Here it is, Pearl Harbor Day, “a day that will live in infamy”. It was 84 years ago today that the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and brought the US into World War II. Like 84 years later, it was also a Sunday. Everyone who was alive back then knew where they were when they heard the news, just like those alive on September 11th, 2001 knows where they were when they heard the news about the attacks on the World Trade Center towers.

I’d like to think that we will never have to experience such events again…but I’m not that naïve.

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I heard about Netflix purchasing Warner Brothers and my first thought was “Netflix has enough money to buy them? Really?”

I must admit I really don’t have any feelings about this one way or the other as compared to some folks. I stopped paying attention to the doings in Hollywood, particularly after Disney sold out and went woke as well as Hollywood churning out so-called “message movies” that preach progressivism to audiences rather than entertaining them. (As I have mentioned a number of times before, it looks like Hollywood needs to relearn the lesson that message movies aren’t popular for the reason mentioned above and that they always lose money.)

However, the real question is whether the acquisition of Warner Brothers will be a good thing or a bad thing? Only time will tell.

While I haven’t been in a movie theater for years, I do stream movies now and then or pull out one of the DVDs or BluRay disks from my library. I have Netflix membership so it will be interesting to see what they will offer going forward.

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I mentioned in yesterday’s post that it looked like we’d be seeing an old-fashioned New England winter this winter and it looks like the folks at MIT are saying it could be the harshest winter in the US in 12 years.

I have no real problem with a real old-fashioned New England winter. I’ve lived through enough of them over the past 60+ years and I’m still here.

Heavy snow? Check.

Blizzard conditions? Check.

Sub-zero temperatures? Check.

High winds and drifting snow? Check.

Hunkering down and watching the snow fall while sitting in front of the woodstove? Check.

A 4x4 pickup with great AT tires, tire chains, and a full tank of gas? Check.

Snow shovel, snowblower, and roof rake? Check.

Generator and fuel for same? Check.

Yeah, I think we’re pretty well set for a traditional New England winter.

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This is why we need to really tighten our controls over immigration, particularly when it comes to criminal immigrants (and I don’t mean illegal immigrants in this case):

Muslim Migrant Rapes Woman to Death On Church Steps After Nashville Freed Somali Rapist 16 Times

Excuse me? Sixteen Times?

A 34-year-old woman was raped to death on the front steps of a Nashville church, in public, under streetlights, caught in progress by firefighters.

Her accused killer?

A 39-year-old Somali repeat offender with multiple identities and 16 prior charges for sexual battery, indecent exposure, trespass, drug offenses, and more.

--snip--

Authorities can’t even agree on his real name – Mohamed Mohamed, Mohamed Abdi, “Mdamed” Mohamed, or Ceter Mohammad.

If the courts can’t identify him, how are they protecting anyone?

Despite raping a woman to death, the judge set just $75,000 bond per rape charge, meaning he could have walked free again. The only thing stopping his release was an ICE detainer.

This wasn’t an accident.

It was the direct result of judges, prosecutors, and politicians choosing leniency over public safety.

If this had happened up here in New Hampshire he wouldn’t have been set free on bail after the first rape. And since he killed his latest victim during the commission of another felony, he would be ineligible for bail. One thing Tennessee has that New Hampshire no longer has is the death penalty. I hope this ‘miscreant’ gets the death penalty once he’s properly tried and convicted. Then there will be no need to deport him.

Of course, this assumes a Tennessee judge doesn’t release him on bail…again.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is making itself at home, the lake is freezing over ahead of schedule, and where Monday is returning all too soon.

It's Going To Be A Normal New England Winter

I don’t know about you, but I have been looking at forecasts for this coming winter and I am beginning to think that the ones predicting a colder and snowier winter here in New England may be right.

Here at the lake we’ve seen temperatures well below average, with one overnight low reaching 0°F just a couple of days ago. (It was 2°F here at The Gulch that same morning.) We’ve seen quite a bit of snow, receiving just shy of 11 inches of snow here earlier this past week. Our local ski resort opened this weekend, with plenty of natural and manmade snow on the trails. We’ll be seeing single digit temps and more snow this coming week.

Another indicator is the ice on the lake and some of the local ponds. One such pond has had ice on it from shore to shore for the past three weeks, well ahead of when we usually see it. The cove where the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is docked during boating season is also frozen over, again weeks ahead of when we usually see it.

My little town’s road crews had a chance to try out their plows and sanders to make sure everything was ready for the coming winter. We’re also hoping the town’s ice rink will be ready sometime after Christmas after undergoing some major renovations.

Going back to the ski resort for a moment, I’ve seen the major resorts here in New Hampshire as well as Vermont are ready to go, with quite a few of them already open. There’s also more than enough snow around for some of the snowmobile trails to be open, but I don’t know if any are open at the moment.

The heavy winter drapes went up over the slider here at The Gulch last weekend and I’m glad I got them up because we certainly needed it on the single digit temperature nights. I also dug out the el cheapo humidifier I use to keep the humidity inside at a reasonable level which makes it feel warmer. (Humid air retains heat better than dry air and feels warmer even at the same temperature.)

I’ve seen more than a few cars have already mounted their snow tires in preparation for winter snow. It’s something I always suggest, particularly to newcomers who have never had to deal with a northern New England winter. The ubiquitous “All Season” tires are a poor compromise at best and don’t have anywhere near the traction of actual snow tires. I proved that when I used to have my trusty Dodge Neon and after a couple of winters decided I needed snow tires and had it shod with Nokian Hakkapeliitta’s, some of the best snow tires I’ve ever used. I could navigate snowy roads better than some 4x4’s shod with All Season tires. (The trusty RAM 1500 is shod with Cooper AT’s at the moment and I have found them to be pretty effective during the winter.)

One other preparation I’ve made is ensuring the Official Weekend Pundit Generator is ready to go, having changed the oil and firing it up to make sure it works. Hopefully I won’t need it, but when we get an ice storm or a Nor’easter with heavy winds, you can almost guarantee a power outage.

For the moment we’re almost ready to handle the winter. The only thing left to do is to get the trusty RAM 1500 an oil change which will happen this coming week and its winter undercoating which will take place in another week-and-a-half.

Now all I need to do is find the tire chains for the trusty RAM 1500.

Friday Funny - Three Nuns