Thoughts On A Sunday

The roar of motorcycle engines can be heard day and night now that we’re in full swing of Laconia Bike Week. While there’s a pretty good crowd here already, a lot more will be showing up starting this coming Wednesday to finish out the week. We also expect a lot of motorcycle traffic in my town on Wednesday as that’s when the hill climb event will be taking place at our local ski resort. It usually draws a pretty big crowd.

One nice thing is that the weather is cooperating this year with warm (if not toasty) temperatures, plenty of sun, and any rain forecast to occur during late evening. Yes, I know forecasts can change but so far things are looking good. That will certainly bring in a lot more motorcycle enthusiasts.

The downside to all of this is that there are going to be a lot of motorcyclists around until the end of next weekend. The roads will be full of them and that means taking a lot of extra care when out on the road. While that means I may not be out and about as much as usually am, I will be out. But that will mostly be for going to and from work and two town-related meetings at the beginning of the week.

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Now that the New York Knicks have won the NBA Championship, we can pay attention to all the World Cup matches taking place across the US.

Our ‘local venue’, Gillette Stadium located in Foxborough just south of Boston, was temporarily renamed Boston Stadium. I am assuming that was done to either reduce the confusion of soccer fans attending the game being played there, or to reduce the “crass commercialism” of how we name our stadiums. Maybe it was a little of both.

In any case, it hosted Haiti vs. Scotland yesterday, the first World Cup match being played there. Scotland won that match 1-0.

If nothing else it will give we Americans a chance to meet a lot of folks from across the world and vice versa.

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Just when I thought I couldn’t dislike the delusional Left any more than I already do they come up with something else I have to roll my eyes about. Mike Solana certainly sums it up about the Left’s hatred of Elon Musk:

[L]sten up, we have to vote for the man with the nazi tattoo so he can stop the man landing rockets and curing the blind from making any more money, otherwise we’ll get fascism.

[Y]ou see how stupid you sound, yes?

I’m not sure who they hate more, Musk or Trump. Not that it really matters in the end.

==++++++==

Yup, this sounds dead on target.

Socialism is the merger of envy and government.

Just ask Bernie Sanders…

==++++++==

It seems a new study is confirming what I’ve known for a long time and is backing up the conclusion of similar studies in the past.

“Conservatives are happier than Liberals.”

As one commenter put it:

My wife spent her career as a licensed clinical psychologist and confirmed this for me repeatedly. The majority of her patients over decades, including the unhappiest, were overwhelmingly white, leftist women. Many left her care when she wouldn't agree with them or justify their complaints. Those were immediately replaced with more just like them, all complaining about how unhappy life had made them. They were mainly overweight, single and childless.

What’s even worse are the AWFLs, Affluent White Female Liberals.

==++++++==

It’s not like this is news by any means.

The Breakdown of Civilization in California

This latest bit of savagery perpetrated in the Pyrite State has become far too common. It doesn’t help that the state seems to be ‘legalizing’ crime. We certainly see that with the shoplifting mobs that hit stores, cleaning them out in moments. Even when they are caught they aren’t jailed, being released under California’s reformed bail laws where they can go on to commit more crimes. Even violent criminals are released. And of those, how many actually go to trial? Considering how many of the DA’s are so-celled “Soros DA’s” I’m surprised if any of them make it into a court. But then, that’s what Soros and so many of the lunatic Leftists want.

This is what the globalists want, the complete breakdown of civilization. This is the end-stage of toxic empathy, giving people what they say they want (e.g. drugs) and not what they need (i.e. help). 37-year-old man stabbed to death after violent dog attack on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The unprovoked attack happened on May 20 as Berry Henderson, 37, was standing at a bus stop near Hollywood Boulevard around 3 p.m.

Surveillance video showed Henderson running into the street as a dog was seen chasing him and aggressively biting him.

That’s when a group of four men, one of whom was the dog’s owner, rushed over to attack Henderson. A suspect who was armed with a machete was seen stabbing and punching Henderson.

The guy with the dog was known to law enforcement, and so was the dog.

So did this miscreant and his friends do something similar to this before? Is that how he and his dog are known by law enforcement?

Let us hope that barbaric ‘custom’ doesn’t make its way outside of the blue states. On the other hand, in a lot of the non-blue states the citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. If something like that had happened here in New Hampshire it is likely the dog, the dog’s owner, and the machete wielder would have been shot by the victim, a number of bystanders, or both.

I have to wonder if California might be heading towards a Death Wish scenario?

==++++++==

I have been seeing more YouTube videos that tout other YT videos made by Europeans who have been touring the US, both prior to and during the World Cup matches. What’s been surprising to me (and others) has been how positive they have been about the US. It seems many Europeans think the US has no culture, no heritage, and that we are all like the images of people they see in the movies and TV shows from the US. Many have been pleasantly surprised about the American people and where they live. More than a few have expressed the desire to relocate to the US, particularly the British visitors. (Gee, I wonder why?)

I’ll keep an eye open to see if this shifts as the World Cup matches continue and people are expozed to more of America.

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been more humid than expected, where heavy showers/thunderstorms are expected overnight, and where Monday’s return is refusing to “harsh my mellow”.

Brown Eggs Versus White Eggs - Part Deux

In last Sunday’s TOAS I mentioned the nonsense about brown chicken eggs having a larger carbon footprint than white eggs. It seems that a poultry farmer sees it for the nonsense it is and is debunking the claims made.

I am a poultry Breeder. The hens that lay white eggs (Amberline/White Star) DO NOT have a lower carbon footprint.

Yes they eat a bit less and produce roughly the same amount of eggs as the Brown egg layers (Bovan/Lowman/ISA Brown) but they live shorter lives, are prone to dying suddenly when startled, a flighty and nervous and because they live shorter productive lives (12 -18mnths) vs brown 18/24mnths (both commercial farmed), you have to incubate more which is increased (Electricity/gas costs) and their eggs are not the same quality.

I breed and keep 20+ different breeds, including: ISA Brown hens and White Stars. All my hens are 100% free range, Not a single barn kept bird, I have ISA browns that are 5yrs old and still laying beautiful Brown eggs, I have not seen a White star live beyond 3yrs and certainly none have laid eggs past 18-24mnths.

--snip--

You want to know about eggs, come talk to someone like me, Don’t rely on some hairbrained imagination of a buyer who’s trying to squeeze the profit margin for a few extra pennies at our expense and to the poor hens detriment.

The comments made in the second linked post certainly support the disdain from the poultry farmer in question.

And the climate cultist BS continues.

Friday Funny (A Little Late) - When Movies Get Science Wrong

Sorry for the delayed posting as I was distracted by the arrival of thousands of motorcyclists for Laconia Bike Week...and a lengthy Internet outage in my area due to a traffic accident.

But now that we have Internet connectivity again...

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a 50:50 day yesterday being a mix of clouds, spotty rain, and occasional sunshine. It was a good day for running errand because I certainly didn’t miss any of the better weather activities. I did spend a couple of hours at two different banks during the morning, making a few changes to my accounts there. I wish I could say I was depositing a couple of million dollars in each bank, but it was something more mundane along the lines of modifying the accounts.

Probably the most ‘exciting’ thing I did yesterday was watch a couple of episodes of History Channel’s new World War II series. It reminds me a bit of the BBC’s old World At War series that we used to watch on PBS. The one big difference between the new series and World At War was the original series included interviews with a lot of people who fought in World War II from both sides. I will say that I like what I have seen in the new series so far as it does cover things the original World At War did not, digging deeper into the politics before and during the war.

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When I saw this a few days ago my first thought was “Can they really be this dumb?”

It turns out they are...or at least this one is.

You wanna hear something funny?

Lemme tell y’all what Rep. LaMonica McIver just said to Secretary Mullin during the hearing. Paraphrasing but you get the gist…

“You wanna talk about racism and everything… tell me why every person locked up in Delaney Hall is a foreigner?”

Who’s gonna tell her that ICE facilities ONLY house illegal aliens?

GOOD LORD! Democrats are truly the stupidest breed out there.

The comments in the Instapundit post are brutal...and rightfully so. So are the over 4000 replies to the post in X.

Note: According to some of the Instapundit comments, it is possible Rep. McIver was not the one who made this comment. However, the sources for this refutation are suspect...at least to me.

==++++++==

I have to wonder when the exodus of the British will begin from the UK?

Seeing how they are being treated by their government and the increasing abuses being heaped upon them by “innocent” migrants that seem to have no problems committing heinous acts. And then they lay the blame on the victims with the police supporting the narratives.

3 days after his son was murdered, Mark Nowak had to fight tooth & nail to stop the police from issuing a statement claiming Henry had racially abused Vickrum Digwa.

They had no evidence of any racial abuse from Henry. The police are trained to side with foreigners by default.

What’s worse is that these foreigners are the antithesis of British culture and are in the UK to tear it down and replace it with 7th century barbarism. They are already acting like run the country.

Hmm. Maybe they already do.

That might explain why I have been seeing more and more Brits on YouTube talking about moving to the US.

==++++++==

Seeing what’s been going on in the UK, one has to ask a follow-up question: Is Saving Europe Still Possible?

Considering just how wishy-washy some of the other European countries have been when it comes to allowing ‘enemy’ migrants into their countries by the millions, I’d have to say they are teetering on the brink. If they don’t get the Muslim immigrant problems squared away they will go the way of so many other nations and empires and cultures that didn’t stop similar problems cold: extinction.

It doesn’t help that European birthrates have plummeted while Muslim immigrant birthrates in Europe are much higher. All they have to do is wait a couple of generations and the white Judeo-Christian culture will be outnumbered and doomed to dwindle away. And what’s worse is that the Europeans have been doing it to themselves. It’s not much different here.

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From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this climate change nonsense:

Brown Eggs Canceled for Offending the Climate

The advantage of a totalitarian ideology is that it can be applied to everything. For example, global warmism dictates even what color eggs should be offered for sale.

An assessment by SAC Consulting for Sainsbury’s found that brown eggs have a 12.7% higher carbon footprint than white eggs, as the hens that produce brown eggs are larger and eat more food.

Next comes the government ban on brown eggs. Next after than come restrictions on how large a hen can grow. If this fails to perfect the weather, tighter regulation will be required.

Hmm. I would have thought larger hens would be a good thing because they have more “meat” on them. Did anyone take into account the ratio of the amount of feed versus the amount of meat on the chicken carcass? What good are smaller chickens if you need more of them to provide the same amount of meat if it also means in total they’ll eat just as much if not more that the larger “brown egg” hens?

And so it goes.

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You can’t tell me there won’t be a federal investigation about the voting in Los Angeles as it seems that just about every mail-in ballot was for Nithya Raman which moved her from a a distant third place to a solid second place. This means she’ll be running against fellow communist Karen Bass for mayor of Los Angeles.

To quote Dan McLaughlin, “The machine wins. Absolutely nothing will change in LA.”

Statistically, the split in the mail-in votes should have approximated the results seen from ‘regular’ voting. But against all odds, the mail-in votes heavily favored one candidate.

If this holds up the only thing I can do is quote Ed Koch: “The people have spoken. Now they must be punished.”

I figure the exodus from LA is going to accelerate going forward and will resemble what’s been happening in New York since fellow communist Mamdani became mayor. I do have to wonder how long it will take either of those cities to look more like Detroit when it hit rock bottom.

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where now that the weekend is over the good weather will return, the roar of motorcycles will start to be heard by Wednesday, and where 300,000+ bikers will be arriving to take part in Laconia Motorcycle Week.

D-Day - June 6, 1944

It was 82 years ago today that the Allies invaded Normandy.

It was the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

It was brilliant. It was audacious. It was daunting. It was a gamble.

It worked.

I remember when I saw Saving Private Ryan with a friend, his father, and his father’s friend. I didn’t know until after we finished watching the movie and leaving the theater that both of these elderly men were veterans of D-Day. As we drove back to my home my friend’s father stated that the movie-makers had captured D-Day perfectly. His voice shook as he said this. His friend merely nodded, and I could see he was fighting back tears.

It was a few years ago when I saw this video of John Williams’ Hymn For The Fallen and even today it brings tears to my eyes. As such, I felt I had to post it here, today of all days.

It is only fitting.

Friday Funny - Immediate Regret

Thoughts On A Sunday

Looking at yesterday’s weather one might have thought we were back in mid-April with overnight temps at or below freezing, snow in the mountains, and heavy rain and winds until early afternoon. It wasn’t all that warm around here with high temps in the low 50’s late in the afternoon.

The wet weather did allow me to test out the new tires I bought for the trusty RAM 1500 on Friday. The old tires had definitely outlived their usefulness with the wear bars just barely starting to show. My only complaint about the old tires is that they didn’t wear nearly as well previous tires I’ve had on the pickup. They had been a compromise as the tires I wanted to put on the trusty RAM weren’t available at the time. I got around 30,000 miles out of those before they were worn out. The previous set to those lasted me about 50,000 miles.

One of the first thing I noticed with the new tires is that they were quieter than the old ones and the ride was much better. I also noticed it felt like there was better traction in the rain than I had been experiencing. (Not surprising considering how little tread was left on the tires.)

Things are still gearing up for summer around here, with some of the road construction on one of the main highways going on around the clock. With Laconia Motorcycle Week coming up starting June 13th, they wanted to get all of that work done prior to the 300,000+ bikers arriving. (Truth be told, the bikers will start arriving on the Wednesday before the start, meaning we’ll be hearing the roar of motorcycles starting on June 10th.)

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I promise that this was pure happenstance.

It seems that yesterday’s post about how vehicle touchscreens are awful has now been backed up by a YouTube video that I found just this morning. (The first 2:50 covers that issue.)



So far it’s only a few carmakers making the change back to more traditional controls, but I have no doubt others will follow.

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The Left is continuing to “harsh our mellow” when it comes to celebrating America’s 250th birthday, threatening celebrities who want to participate in celebrations.

What do you expect from people who have no problems coming right out and stating they hate the country of their birth, the country that hasn’t silenced their hatred by means the Left would have no problems using against those who “Are Not One Of Them”.

One of their excuses for doing so?

The ‘bad’ economy.

Writes Cynical Publius:

Anyone who claims the lack of joy about the 250th is a function of a rough economy was not alive in 1976.

The country rocked in its 200th celebration and the economy was a FREAKING MESS.

There is this Gen Z misconception that the '70s and early '80s were some sort of economic golden age of readily available, well-paying jobs, low cost housing and an all around sense of prosperity.

WRONG.

Google "Stagflation." Google "gas lines." Google "mortgage interest rates in the 1980s."

Our economy today is a golden age by comparison, without exaggeration.

Yet somehow in 1976 we could gleefully celebrate our nation's birthday without Democrats turning it into a Howard Zinn-inspired anti-history hatefest.

I remember the “bad old days” of the 1970’s and particularly during the Bicentennial. The economy was in the dumper. There were jokes about the “last people leaving Massachusetts turning out the lights” because the economic problems were particularly harsh there. Yet nobody had any problems with celebrating America’s 200th birthday.

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For anyone who’s been paying attention, the following won’t really be a surprise.

Minimum Wage Wipes Out Jobs in California

What did the people running California think would happen when the minimum wage was boosted way above a reasonable level?

Not everything Democrats do is ineffectual. Consider minimum wage hikes — via Yahoo Finance:

Carl’s Jr. is staring down the potential loss of dozens of California locations after a franchisee and its affiliates filed for bankruptcy protection — blaming the state’s staggering minimum wage. …

Friendly Franchisees Corporation CEO and Founder Harshad Dharod said the state’s $20 minimum wage in the fast-food sector contributes to the chain’s financial distress ahead of bankruptcy filing under subsidiary Sun Gir, according to Restaurant Dive.

Fast food franchises cannot stay solvent while paying teenagers $20/hour to flip hamburgers. No one expects them to. The objective of ever higher minimum wage is to saw off the bottom rung of the ladder, resulting in more government dependence and thereby more votes for Democrats.

Carl’s Jr. isn’t the only fast food franchise that has been hit hard by the $20/hour minimum wage. We saw when Pizza Hut laid off delivery drivers because of the new minimum wage. How many others like McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and others have installed ordering kiosks to replace workers because they’re cheaper?

And let’s not forget the minimum wage hike for hospitality workers, with L.A. raising the minimum wage for them to $30/hour and San Diego raising theirs to $19/hour. You can’t tell me there won’t be a fallout in the hospitality industry like that seen in the fast food industry.

Like so many others have already found out, the real minimum wage is $0/hour when businesses start shedding workers because of the now much higher wages. Everyone will feel these wage increases as they will drive up costs.

It will be interesting to see how this is going to work out for Californians.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re waiting for summer weather and temperatures to return, the heavy rains we did receive over the end of last week and into Saturday helped reduce the rainfall deficit, and where Monday is returning again to interfere with the weekend.

New Isn't Always Better

I have mentioned more than once my dislike of modern automotive design, specifically when it comes to things like the multifunction touchscreen displays in almost every new vehicle over the past few years. Functions that used to be controlled by switches, buttons, knobs, and sliders have migrated over to the LCD touchscreens that take up a portion of the dash, mostly in the center. Some have gone so far as to replace the gauges – the speedometer, tachometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge, battery voltage, odometer, trip meter, and so on.

Is it that I am an “old faht” that doesn’t like all the new doodads and gizmos that has me writing this? Considering that I am a techie and have been one since the 1970’s, it isn’t that at all. It all comes down to the fact that some user interfaces, in this case for motor vehicles, really don’t lend themselves to LCDs and touchscreens. The newer technology, while really cool and cool looking, has one major downside to them:

The driver has to take their eyes off the road in order to use them.

It appears the UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) designers, also know as “Buttons And Stuff Engineers”, have forgotten that distracted driving is a Bad Thing^TM. Any time a driver has to take their eyes off the road means they aren’t paying attention to their driving which in turn can lead to accidents. If they have to take their eyes off the road to handle functions that used to be controlled by physical controls, the aforementioned switches, buttons, knobs, and sliders, they are driving distracted. Drivers could control many functions without having to take their eyes off the road because muscle memory let them do so without having to look at them. The fan speed control, temperature setting, and vent controls were always in the same place. The same for headlights, windshield wipers, radio volume, radio station selection, and so on. But with the new LCD touchscreens muscle memory doesn’t work.

That could be why automakers are reversing course, at least partially, bringing back those switches, buttons, knobs, and sliders that control common functions used every day by motorists, even if it is the onboard vehicle control modules that still drive those functions. They have come to understand why their customers detest using touchscreens for these functions.

This begs the question “Why did automakers switch over to using touchscreens?” The answer is simple.

Costs. Touchscreens are cheap.

They can control numerous functions from a single interface depending upon the programming and the design of the systems in the vehicle. A single data connection to a vehicles control module(s) can control all of the usual functions. There’s no need for separate wires or cables for each of those switches, buttons, knobs, and sliders. And while those touchscreen interfaces are cheap, replacing them is not. You know the dealerships and repair shops will charge a fortune for a replacement. All told, the cost of that touchscreen interface including its associated electronics is probably less than $100. But they’ll hit you for up ten times that much plus labor if it ever needs to be replaced.

And there’s also this: If the touchscreen fails your vehicle just became very dumb. You won’t be able to use any of the functions it controls. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Now about the crappy engines the automakers have been putting in their new vehicles...

Friday Funny - Baby Weight Or...

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s a rainy day today, something that doesn’t really bother me since we certainly need the rain and the fact that it’s a four day weekend for me. A lot of the weekend chores were taken care of yesterday, so other than going to church this morning, there was nothing that I needed to do. While I usually make my Sunday morning trip to Walmart for pre-church shopping, I postponed it because of the holiday weekend and the resulting heavier traffic as there was nothing I was lacking that couldn’t wait an extra day or two. Most of that shopping is for things I need for the coming week.

While out and about yesterday running errands, I did notice that the parking lots at our local Walmart, supermarket, and a couple of my favorite restaurants were full, a sure sign that the summerfolk are here. What did surprise me was that our town docks weren’t busy at all, at least when I happened to swing by there on my way to where the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is berthed. There was no line of trucks with boat trailers waiting to launch boats. Talking to the enforcement officer on duty there it seems there was a bit of a rush in the morning that tapered off before lunch and that it had been “onesie-twosie” since then. That’s not to say it didn’t pick up again later in the afternoon, but right then there was no one at the boat ramp launching their boat. However, there were quite a few boats out on the lake throughout the day.

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It looks to me (and many many others) that Spencer Pratt has a pretty good chance to become the next mayor of Los Angeles. If nothing else, campaign ads created by others not connected to his campaign have been slamming present mayor Karen Bass. Ads from his campaign have also been highly critical of her actions prior to and during the fires that burned so much of LA and her inaction afterwards.

If nothing else, it’s going to be very interesting in Los Angeles over the next few months, politically speaking.

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You have got to be kidding me. Someone, please tell me this is satire!

“White milk is undoubtedly White supremacy.”

WTF? Umm, unless I’ve missed something, isn’t most mammalian milk white in color? Talk about being totally disconnected from reality.

She says that RFK Jr. wanting regular milk in schools is ‘racist’.

This is the Democrat Party.

This is what happens when you close most of the mental institutions and the inmates are allowed to wander amongst the general population. The things I’ve heard from some Democrat politicians and party members have both amazed and terrified me, often at the same time.

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Seeing what’s been going on the the UK recently, one that is more and more resembling Orwell’s dystopia in 1964, the following makes perfect sense.

British Flock to Trump’s Free Speech Portal

Even under moonbat rule, Britons may still have free speech — thanks to the USA.

GB News reports on Freedom.gov, a free speech portal designed by the Trump Administration to allow people in repressive countries to share officially disfavored information.

Censorship has become increasingly prevalent in Europe under left-wing domination — an alarming development that the Trump Administration has taken a leading role in combatting (sic).

For now, only the landing page is live, but apparently it is already getting plenty of hits from the UK.

The UK has become increasingly authoritarian, going so far as arresting people for “offensive online comments.” The definition of offensive seems to be “Anything that disagrees with the Leftist elite in Great Britain.” We have seen the British government trying to go after people here in the US for offensive online posts on social media. The US government has informed the Brits that their laws against “offensive” speech does not apply here in the US after they’ve tried to enforce it against both Americans and British subjects here in the US.

I have to wonder if things really start getting bad in the UK that we’ll see an influx of British refugees fleeing an increasingly totalitarian state?

==++++++==

Why doesn’t this surprise me in the least?

Apparently Hakeem Jeffries has a definition of what is and is not acceptable anti-Semitism within the Democrat Party.

Just when I think I couldn’t detest this a**hat any more than I already do, he proves me wrong.

As if we need yet another example of the anti-Semtism inherent in the Democrat Party all we have to do is look to Texas Democratic congressional candidate Maureen Galindo. She has openly called for “prison camps for ‘American Zionists’ and ‘castration processing centers’ for her ideological enemies.”

Hmm. Where have we heard that idea before?

Oh, heck, I’m finding more and more of the ‘usual suspect’ Democrats are becoming increasingly unhinged, and if at all possible, increasingly racist in the “soft racism of lowered expectations” type of racism, pretending that minorities can’t possible get ahead without their helping hands because they’re too intellectually challenged to do it by themselves.

Unfortunately we are seeing more and more of this from the Democrats every day.

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s been raining all day, Memorial Day approaches, and where Monday isn’t a bother...this week.

The Start Of Summer

It’s Memorial Day Weekend which marks the unofficial start of summer. While there will be the Memorial Day ceremonies and remembrances on Monday, the crowds of summerfolk started arriving in force before noon yesterday to celebrate the start of summer.

The WP Mom and I had to run a few errands early yesterday afternoon including stops at Walmart and one of our local supermarkets for some last minute shopping. The traffic was heavy and the parking lots were full. We saw a lot more out-of-state plates than we have since last summer, with most of them being from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York.

A lot of this goes in line with the boatyards and marinas being busy since the beginning of the month getting boats ready for pick-up by the owners or launching them for owners. That was certainly true for my go-to boatyard as I had to stop by yesterday to make arrangements to store the Official Weekend Pundit Boat Trailer for the summer now that the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is back in the water. (This used to get stored next to the garage at The Manse, but I haven’t been living there since 2018 and there’s no room here at The Gulch.) The boat slips that I could see while out and about were occupied, for the most part. I expect the rest will occupied before the end of the weekend.

All of the seasonal restaurants are now open on more than just the weekends, as they have been since late April, and the few that I passed while out running errands were busy, but not “Saturday or Sunday” busy as we’ll be seeing from now until Labor Day weekend. Some of the attractions will be open just on the weekends for the next couple of weeks until schools let out for the summer.

Another sign of the holiday weekend?

Road construction ceased after Thursday (with one or two exceptions) and won’t restart until Tuesday after the “madding crowds” have departed. (I have no doubt this is true in other states as well.)

When the work restarts around here in the Lakes Region some of it will be going on around the clock, with prep work taking place during daylight hours and paving being performed overnight. One of the reasons for this around-the-clock work is that Motorcycle Week starts on June 13th – which is three weeks from today - and they want to get as much road repair and construction done before then. The 300,000+ bikers expected to attend will start arriving a few days before that, hence the push to get this round of work done. Once the rumble of motorcycles fades away after that week, the road crews will be back at it.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I will not be venturing out onto the lake until late Monday or Tuesday as it is quite often too crazy and dangerous to venture out onto Lake Winnipesaukee during weekends unless it’s first thing in the morning or early evening. There are too many Cap’n Boneheads out on the lake and it can be exhausting to be out there dealing with them. It’s better that I watch their antics from shore.

Friday Funny - Relatable Marriage Jokes

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather has been great this weekend up here at the lake - sunny and in the mid-70’s on Saturday and sunny and in the lower to mid-80’s today. It was perfect weather today for working on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout.

Speaking of which, the boat made the move from the boatyard to BeezleBub’s place late yesterday afternoon. It needs a little bit of cleaning up before I start loading the gear – anchors, mooring lines, a paddle, boat hook, transom light, PFDs, cushions, fire extinguisher, and so on – so I can launch the boat sometime during this week. It will definitely be in the water before the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

The garage work still continues as I slowly dig through everything residing there to figure out what goes into the attic, what goes back onto the shelves, and what goes to the dump...er…solid waste center. I’m hoping that more than half the stuff presently residing on the shelves can go to the dump. (So far that appears to be the case, but I won’t know for sure until the job is done.)

I have been seeing the summer businesses getting ready, with many of the seasonal restaurants and ice cream stands having been open the past couple of weekends and the summer attractions cleaning up and getting everything ready for Memorial Day weekend. Friends of mine were up this way yesterday and we had lunch at one of my favorite local restaurants because I knew that starting next weekend it would be jam packed with summerfolk until after Labor Day.

And so begins another summer tourist season in New Hampshire.

==++++++==

Oh yeah, this is going to make the folks in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine happy.

Vast, Untapped Source of Lithium Found in The US Could Last 300 Years.

There could be nearly 330 years' worth of lithium hiding beneath the Appalachian Mountains, which stretch like a stony spine across the eastern United States.

New research from the US Geological Survey suggests that the Appalachians may contain around 2.3 million metric tons (2.5 million US tons) of recoverable lithium oxide locked away in pegmatites, the grainy, granite-like rocks that form as water-rich magma cools and crystallizes deep within the Earth.

"This research shows that the Appalachians contain enough lithium to help meet the nation's growing needs – a major contribution to US mineral security, at a time when global lithium demand is rising rapidly," says Ned Mamula, Director of the US Geological Survey (USGS).

I know there are large deposits of lithium in neighboring Maine, having heard that news a couple of years ago. But that there are deposits in New Hampshire and Vermont is a surprise.

I have no doubt there will be opposition against mining the lithium that resides under the mountains and China won’t have to fund any of the protests. Since I must assume that any such mining will be ‘hard rock’ mining meaning tunnels and shafts rather than strip mining, I can see where folks will be concerned about affects on ground water and aquifers as well as what will be done with the tailings. The mountains in all three states run through pristine forests, all of which contain hiking trails, campgrounds, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, and a wide range of wildlife.

Things are going to get interesting around here.

Since lithium is used in batteries there is a huge demand for it and at the moment we get a lot of it from foreign sources. Being able to source lithium from domestic sources is very attractive for obvious reasons.

However, we must keep in mind that there are other high-capacity battery chemistries under development by DARPA that could make the lithium-ion batteries obsolete, with one of the more promising chemistries being graphene-silicon that doesn’t use lithium or cobalt or manganese as part of its chemistry. That means it is also cheaper to make because the materials used are available everywhere. It also has much higher energy density and lower internal resistance than lithium-ion batteries and won’t have the propensity of igniting itself like lithium-ion batteries.

==++++++==

Being one of those engineering types, I have always been skeptical about so-called “green energy”, knowing that even while the energy – solar and wind – is free, collecting it and putting it into a usable form - electricity – was not. It also isn’t cheap, something so many of the green energy proponents keep choosing to ignore. And in many cases it also isn’t environmentally friendly between the mining of materials needed for solar panels and destruction of large tracts of land to hold these “green energy” systems.

However, it seems the luster of “green energy” has waned as the reality of that energy becomes apparent, with the biggest in-your-face factor being that it isn’t capable of meeting the growing demand and doing so cheaply. Instead, the focus has turned elsewhere with nuclear topping the list. The nuclear comeback is something that will leave green fantasies behind.

After years of efforts by radical greens to strangle America’s oil, gas, and coal industries — while forcing the nation to accept costly, land-devouring wind and solar — the U.S. is once again emerging as a global energy superpower.

And this time, it’s not just fossil fuels: In fact, nuclear power is taking center stage.

Tennessee is poised to become the world’s leading hub for nuclear innovation, thanks to Trump administration policies and state leaders willing to back real energy solutions over climate virtue-signaling. Public and private investments are now flowing into advanced reactors, uranium enrichment, and next-generation nuclear technologies.

--snip--

Together with a resurgence in oil, natural gas, and coal production, these developments will unleash American energy, manufacturing, innovation, and job creation while lowering electricity prices and reducing blackout risks for families and businesses alike. They also send a clear warning to America’s blue states: If you cling to anti-energy ideology, you will be left behind.

This cannot be said enough when it comes to nuclear power: Too many people against nuclear power today seem stuck in the 1970’s because modern Gen III and Gen IV nuclear reactors “are not you grandfather’s nuclear reactors”. This is particularly true of small modular reactors (SMRs) which can have electrical power outputs of a dozen megawatts to up to 300 megawatts output power. The days of big Gen II 1000+ MWe reactors are gone if for no other reason is that they cost a lot of money to build, take a very long time to build (mostly due to lawsuits and regulatory changes partway through construction which also adds to the cost), and they can be very difficult to site as they can have requirements for conditions that are difficult to meet. But SMRs are different.

One of the biggest differences is right in their name: They are modular. Depending upon the generating capacity they can be built in a factory in a single piece and fit in a shipping container or in less than a dozen pieces that will be fit together on the construction site. They use advanced nuclear technology which makes them safer, easier, faster, and less expensive to build. Some designs can actually use ‘depleted’ nuclear fuel from old Gen I and Gen II nuclear power plants which has the advantage of being able to use fuel that is considered waste and reduce that waste from something that needs to be stored away for 25,000+ years to requiring to be stored only a couple of hundred years or so.

SMRs can be clustered together to provide the equivalent power to the old fashioned Gen II plants or spread out to create a distributed generation and transmission grid.

I could go on and on about SMRs but there’s plenty of information about SMRs on the Internet.

One thing I can say bodes well for a nuclear power renaissance is that my state’s governor, Kelly Ayotte, has been a big proponent of more nuclear power in our state.

==++++++==

If we need any more proof that green energy and the over the top push to “Save The Planet” is failing, all we have to do is look at the EV market and see who’s either dialing back their production of electric vehicles or is throwing in the towel altogether.

The latest automaker to take a huge hit in the EV market?

Honda.

In this case Honda took its first ever loss in its history and is pulling back on EVs.

Such was the cultural vibe that giant corporations all collectively jumped off a cliff together hoping to invent a new technology fast enough to be able to land.

In the case of Honda, after 70 years of endless profits, they burnt at least $9 billion dollars, and have given up the idea of trying to get EVs to make up one fifth of their sales by 2030. The demand just isn’t there. They also thought they could shift their whole fleet to electric or fuel cells by 2030. That’s gone too.

There are just too many problems with EVs to make them popular enough to replace Internal Combustion Engine vehicles. Two of the biggest problems – the stability of Lithium-Ion batteries (and cost of replacing them) and the lack of electricity generation capacity to meet the projected demand if EVs had truly been popular and didn’t depend on government subsidies in order to drive demand.

Will EVs ever go away? Probably not. But they won’t be nearly as numerous as ICE vehicles unless the battery safety issues, and the battery replacement and repair costs are addressed. We would also need to see the electrical grid capacity expanded and charging stations to become as ubiquitous as gas pumps. Until then I think EVs will be a niche market, Tesla notwithstanding.

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re seeing actual summer temperatures, more boats are being seen on the lake daily, and where Memorial Day weekend is only a week away.

This Certainly Explains It

It seems that Google is using their Chrome browser to install an AI program on your computer whether or not you want it to…assuming you even know it’s there.

By way of Clownfish TV comes this story.

“It’s not just Microsoft is stuffing everything full of AI, whether or not its users want it. It is now Google as well with Chrome. Apparently, they’re stuffing AI into Google Chrome. They did not ask people. And according to Futurism, fury is erupting after Google Chrome sneakily installs a 4 gigabyte AI model on users’ PC.”

First, I must explain that Chrome is the default browser on our work computers, in my case a laptop issued by our IT department. While we can run others if we so desire, most of us use the default Chrome browser.

This might explain why at times my work laptop runs so slow.

Recently I checked Task Manager to find out how many processes were running under Chrome when I was using it. I had a single browser window open and four tabs within that window. I generally leave that window open all day as I do use it very often to get datasheets for electronic and optical components and the environmental information we are required to check to make sure our products meet US and International environmental regulations. I found that Chrome is running many processes even with only one browser window open, which certainly indicates why my laptop runs so slow at times. What did I find when I checked it?

Chrome was running 113 processes. One. Hundred. And. Thirteen.

It was also using a little over 4GB of RAM and between 10% and 40% of the CPU cycles. It has an Intel Core i7 CPU (16 cores) running at 2.2GHz. It also has 32GB of RAM. So this laptop is no slouch when it comes to performance.

Even seeing the info above I have to warn that the data seen does not automatically mean it is the AI program eating up all that RAM and CPU cycles. I need to run more tests to see if this happens all the time or only when I visit some websites. However, I do have to say I don’t see this when I use either Firefox or Brave as a browser. (A note – Brave uses Google’s Chromium as a base, but its code does not have any code that allows the download of the AI program.)

And hits keep on coming…

Friday Funny - Save You Thousands Of Dollars

Thoughts On A Sunday

Okay, here it is, the first post written on the Official Weekend Pundit Desktop since I’ve restored it’s function. It’s nice to be back to writing using my own computer rather than ‘borrowing’ my work computer to blog. Frankly, it’s more comfortable using my own computer because it is set up better than my work laptop.

It is Mother’s Day and I and the WP Sisters took the WP Mother out for lunch at one of our favorite eateries here in town to celebrate our Mom.

I am also one week closer to getting the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of storage so it can be prepped for launching.

==++++++==

I agree wholeheartedly with this, and it’s something that needs to be repeated across the nation.

A BIGGER PAYCHECK THAN HE COULD HAVE GOTTEN IN SOME SERVICE INDUSTRY, TOO

Seeing how BeezleBub worked a hard job farming from the time he was 13, how it showed him that hard work is something that needs to be done, is something that helped make him the man he is today. He now owns his own side business and between that and his regular job he has earned enough to buy his own home.

He’s not the only one who has learned that lesson.

==++++++==

One of the WP sisters showed me this campaign ad from Mike Minogue, a Republican running for governor in Massachusetts.



Frankly, I think it is a great ad.

==++++++==

Is this really a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention over the past four decades or so?

DOJ Concludes UCLA Med School Racially Discriminated In Admissions Process

An investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) has found that certain admissions practices at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) constituted racial discrimination. The DOJ announced the findings of the year-long investigation via a press release on Wednesday.

Among the specific ways the medical school discriminated, the DOJ said that leadership adhered to the “dubious contention that patients receive the best care when treated by a doctor of the same race, rather than by the most qualified.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon accused the school of focusing on “racial politics” rather than training excellent doctors.

“UCLA’s admissions process has been focused on racial demographics at the expense of merit and excellence — allowing racial politics to distract the school from the vital work of training great doctors,” stated Dhillon.

“Racism in admissions is both illegal and anti-American, and this Department will not allow it to continue.”

It seems yet another California institution has to learn the lesson the hard way that you do not fight racism by being racist. I have to wonder how long it will be before the Left comes to understand that truth. Or will they hold on their ideological belief that the only way to make up for past discrimination is to discriminate against those whose ancestors may (or may not) have discriminated against them?

And the madness continues.

==++++++==

I had to read this three times before I could comprehend it.

Houston Chronicle Publishes Non-alarmist Climate Op-ed

How did this get published? Someone must have slipped up.

Robert Bradley managed to get a climate op-ed published in the Chronicle after more than decade of being an unperson as far as the Houston Chronicle was concerned, his op-eds banned. From the time Trump was elected to his first term Bradley was banned because he refused to toe the “We’re=All-Gonna-DIE-Because-Of-Climate-Change” line. Actual science, data, and evidence were not welcome.

But things have changed.

My Houston Chronicle op-ed came out in the Print edition last Sunday. This breaks a decade-plus-long drought when the Progressive Left Chronicle ignored my submissions. A new editor with a more inclusive editorial policy (thank you Trump Nation), Evan Mintz, reached out to me after seeing my MasterResource posts critical of the paper’s bias and my documentation of the conflicted business editorialist Chris Tomlison. In any case, I was published online and in print.

There may be some hope for the MSM yet.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is being weird, more boats are being seen on the lake every day, and where yet again Monday is harshing our weekend!

More Computer Stuff

Well, I’ve got about two-thirds of the WP computer work done I’ve been working on over the past couple of weeks.

The main Weekend Pundit Linux desktop is up and running again and had most of the backup files copied over from the backup drive. I didn’t copy all files as I wanted to retain more free disk space. The older files I rarely access are going to remain on the backup drives.(I have three of those, one of which will soon be residing at my Dear Brother’s home as we both believe in at least one copy off-site just in case the worse happens.)

One of the Weekend Pundit Linux laptops has had the OS reloaded and configured. I have not yet restored the files via the backup drive because I want to make sure the installation is stable. The laptop required a new hard drive because the old one failed. It took a little time to figure that out because it wasn’t a hard failure, meaning that sometimes it would boot properly, then crash sometime later. At other times it wouldn’t boot at all. It seems to work fine now.

A week ago I delved into why it’s time to dump Windows 11. Nothing has happened to change my mind about this. In fact, I have been having discussions with the IT department where I work about switching over to Linux from Windows 11. This is not a new discussion as I have been making the case for the change for a couple of years now. The IT guys brushed me off back then. But lately that has changed as they have been seeing the same thing so many others have been seeing, particularly seeing just how intrusive Windows 11 has become. We also had issues with programs that ran well on Windows 7 and Windows 10 not running well or not running at all under Windows 11. Quite a few programs require new drivers to interface with outside equipment. Others require programming changes or a recompile to work properly. We didn’t have to do any of that for the computers we have that run Linux. (Yes, the Windows programs required a program called WINE to properly run in Linux.)

And the saga continues…

Friday Funny - Angels

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a soggy weekend up here at the lake with occasional breaks in the clouds allowing us to see some blue sky. Not that I’m complaining.

I’ve been busy inside The Gulch repacking items from big boxes and containers into smaller ones that fit through the attic door in one part of The Gulch and the hatchway/stairway in another part of The Gulch. The bigger boxes were too heavy for one person to safely handle, and the bigger containers were too big to fit through the attic entrances, or too unwieldly or too heavy for one person to handle, or both. Much of what made it into the attics came from the storage unit I emptied out at the end of March. (I still have one box sitting in the garage at the ex’s house that I will be taking care of during this coming week.)

I did make quite a bit of progress but I am nowhere near done. I still have to go though the garage to winnow out stiff we no longer use. Some of that is cookware which hasn’t been used in years and will make its way to our dump’s “Goody Shack”. From what I’ve been told, stuff like that won’t be sitting there long as it seems to be one of the more popular types of items people are looking for. Some of the rest of the stuff we no longer need will either be recycled or dumped as trash. I am trying to make room in the garage so I can rearrange things which include moving some shelves to make room so I can park the trusty RAM 1500 in the garage. I can’t do that at the moment because about a foot-and-a-half of the rear of the pickup sticks out which means I can’t close the garage door.

I am now a couple of steps closer to getting the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout back into the water. The first step was paying the winterization and storage fees and the second step was scheduling a pickup date when BeezleBub and I will tow the boat to his place so we can perform final prep which includes any cleanup required, installation of a new fire extinguisher, and loading all of the boating gear – mooring lines, anchors, PFDs, cushions, and other items - back into the boat. Once that’s done all I will need to do is put on the new registration stickers on the bow and it will be ready to launch. What day that will be is something BeezleBub and I will need to discuss.

==++++++==

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about dumping Windows, here’s a video that covers Germany’s decision to ban Windows 11 because of the privacy issues that Microsoft ignores.

==++++++==

Since I mentioned recycling above, I figured it might be worthwhile to link this post at Instapundit which in turn links to another blog posts that gets into the economics of recycling.

It looks into whether recycling is worth it. I can certainly see where recycling some materials like metals – iron, steel, copper, aluminum, etc. - makes perfect sense. But what about plastics? Are all of them worth recycling or only certain ones? What about glass? Paper? Cardboard?

My little town used to do single-stream recycling, meaning that for the most part everything went into a single dumpster. The only thing we required going into a separate dumpster was cardboard because it otherwise took up a lot of space in the dumpster and partially full dumpsters would be hauled away, but we still had to pay the cost of a full dumpster being picked up. Even so, single-stream recycling cost our town far more than anything we might receive for our recyclables.

Once our town changed over to separate-stream recycling, meaning certain plastics went into one place, paper into another, paper into another, cardboard into yet another one, and glass into another. (We don’t except all plastics.) Aluminum beverage cans went into yet another place, but other aluminum cans – cat food cans, for example – and tin cans went into another. Steel and iron went into other very large dumpsters. We also started accepting Styrofoam as we could process it on-site which greatly reduced its volume.

Our town went from losing money, meaning our tax dollars were paying the cost for recycling, to making money which means our recycling system was paying for itself as we received full value for our recyclables and we didn’t have to pay to have them hauled away.

Other towns will charge their residents to dump their trash and recyclables, usually requiring their cars or trucks to be weighed coming in and going out. This determines how much they pay as the fees are based upon the weight of the materials deposited. Cities, big and small, likely do curbside pickup of recyclables. That is usually paid for either through taxes or through the purchase and use of the properly colored bags.

There is no perfect system that covers all recyclables and does so profitably. Some recyclables have no market or must be paid for separately only to be landfilled because of that lack of a market.

==++++++=

Somehow, this doesn’t surprise me in the least.

France: New Real Estate Browser Extension Provides Immigration, Insecurity, and Islamization Data Directly to Property Listings

A French website and real estate browser extension for Chrome is promoting an unusual data offering, which includes information on immigration levels, insecurity, and Islamization rates — all factors that real estate buyers may want to take into consideration before they make an investment.

The OVMF assigns various scores “automatically in real estate ad photos,” according to the company behind the extension, which is free and collects no data from its users, according to the website.

The OVMF also promises to highlight certain facilities in the area or neighborhood, which some real estate buyers may want to be aware of, such as asylum accommodations, troubled QPV districts, and the number of mosques in an area.

The OVMF site appears to have an enormous amount of data, such as the number of migrants in accommodation facilities, the number of different religious groups, and immigration levels for each neighborhood.

I have a feeling this will spread well beyond France. I expect we’ll see something like this in the UK and Germany next and for the same reason.

==++++++==

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this:

Neighborhood Watch Signs Taken Down For Being Expressions Of Exclusion

Yes. You read that right. I even checked it three times just to make sure I hadn’t misread it or that it was some kind of typo.

Neighborhood watch programs help prevent crime. But preventing crime is racist.

Excuse me? Preventing crime is RACIST?? What kind of woke B.S. is this?

Consequently, as the New York Post reports,

A woke Michigan city shelled out a staggering $18,000 to rip down hundreds of neighborhood watch signs after lawmakers branded them racist.

Neighborhood watch signs are “expressions of exclusion,” according to Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor.

Yeah. Right.

I wonder if there’s something in the water causing this mass delusion? What’s the cure for this kind of asinine reasoning?

Maybe we have to nuke it from orbit just to make sure…

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where the rain is playing hide-and-seek, spring cleaning is continuing apace, and where Monday is coming around to screw up the weekend…again.

Is It Time To Dump Windows?

As any of my dozen or so readers know, I have spent time restaging two three of the Weekend Pundit computers. One failed due to delaying some updates that ended up ‘breaking’ the boot sequence on my Linux desktop and laptop once I let them install. If nothing else I learned not to let updates build up and then do them all at once. The most recent one had both a hardware and OS failure, it being an older PC running Windows I hadn’t used for some time.

I was able to restore both Linux computers after making sure I had pulled the important data from them by booting to Linux via a USB key and backing up all of the data from both machines onto an external hard drive. One of those I was able to ‘repair’ using the ‘Restore Boot’ function on the USB key. However, I still had to restore some things from the backup. The other Linux machine required me to reload the OS in its entirety. The process was painless and with a few small unimportant exceptions, I didn’t lose any data, and that was restored from the backup I made. While I have only been using the restored Linux computers on a limited basis as I verify everything is running properly, I haven’t seen any issues with either machine.

The old Windows PC, however, had a number of problems, with the biggest being Windows acting up, particularly after a set up updates were downloaded and installed. After struggling with his machine for some time I decided I had spent enough time trying to restore Windows and blew away the installation by installing Linux. So far, I haven’t seen any issues. While I was researching fixes to ensure I was taking the right path I came across a number of videos that looked at Windows, specifically Windows 11, and outlined why you might want to consider dumping Windows and installing Linux.

One of the big issues brought up is that Windows 11 is quite intrusive, storing private data from your computer on their servers and doing so in unencrypted files. It has also been moving away from users paying for and owning the copy of Windows on their computer and finding out they are only renting it. This is something Linus Torvalds, the ‘father’ of Linux, has been warning us about for over 20 years. Then to add insult to injury it turns out that Windows 11 updates have been increasingly causing computers to crash and users to lose files:



And then there are the changes to Windows mentioned above that are “making it mandatory” to switch from Windows to Linux whether you want to or not:



There are several different flavors of Linux to consider. I use two different versions of Linux -Linux Mint on two of my desktops and Ubuntu on another desktop and my laptop.

Linux Mint is very Windows-like in appearance and function which would make the switch from Windows to Linux a little less difficult. There’s also another Linux distribution known as Zorin OS, the version of Linux that HP ships with the computers it sells to folks who don’t want to deal with Microsoft that is also very Windows-like in appearance and function. (A note: Both Linux Mint and Zorin OS use Ubuntu as their base.)

Linux offers a lot of free software that provide the same type of programs as that used on Windows. There are a number of Office suites out there that I have found to be every bit as functional as Microsoft Office. They may not do everything Microsoft Office, but probably 90% of the users would never notice what these Linux programs don’t have compared to Microsoft Office.

I have used both LibreOffice and OpenOffice and have found them to be very good. Both will open just about every type of Microsoft Office file. I also found that LibreOffice can open both old WordPerfect and Lotus WordPro files with no problems. (I used Lotus WordPro for a lot of years because I didn’t care for Microsoft Word as it didn’t have the functionality of WordPro. I still have a lot of old WordPro files!)

Another thing that you may find attractive is that Linux can run many Windows programs. Many Linux versions require installing something called WINE which allows Linux to run those programs. There are a few Linux versions that can run Windows programs without WINE.

When it comes to accessing the Web, just about every web browser out there has a version that runs on Linux. (I use both Firefox or Brave on my Linux machines.)

Okay, I could keep beating the drum for making the switch to Linux, but that would get boring pretty quick. But keep in mind that both individuals and some businesses and corporations have been making the changeover. That ought to tell you something right there.

A Note: I forgot to mention something about Linux that might get you to try it: You can boot to Linux on your present Windows machine from a USB key. You don't need to install it to try it out!

Friday Funny - Red And Green Flags

Thoughts On A Sunday

Here we are, the last weekend of April. How time flies.

We had Ice Out on the lake just a little under two weeks ago. More boats are appearing on the lake and boat slips. I see other boats being “de-winterized” in preparation for being put back in the water. (Mine is one of those boats.) One of my favorite seasonal restaurants has opened again, though only on weekends and only the ice cream stand is open for now. Our local Dairy Queen has also reopened. We have also seen road repair/reconstruction starting up again, with one of those roads affected being one I take to get to and from work. More yard work is being done, cleaning up the detritus of the past fall and winter. (I still haven’t started on yard work here at The Gulch…yet.)

We’re slowly shaking off the last reminders of winter.

Heck, I might even run the trusty RAM 1500 through the car wash later this week.

==++++++==

As I was driving to and from my Sunday morning pre-church shopping at Wal-Mart, I saw the electronic billboard for our local concert venue advertising another act that will be appearing this summer. The act?

Bob Dylan.

Yet another member of the Before I Get Too Old Or Die Tour making an appearance.

==++++++==

It has become more apparent that there is no one party “running the show” in Iran. That certainly explains the conflicting messages everyone is getting from Iran. It also points to the possibility that Trump is playing 4-D chess while the various Iranian ‘government’ factions are playing checkers. (Ironic considering chess was likely a Persian invention and the term “checkmate” comes from the Persian Shah Maht which translates as “The King is dead”.)

As Roger Kimball notes, “Trump isn’t negotiating with Iran—he’s dismantling its regime piece by piece, leaving a hollow state with nothing left but bluster and collapse.”

I wonder if the thugs and theocrats who have been plundering Iran for the last 47 years have read Chekhov. If so, I conclude that they are slow learners. In January, the Iranian authorities slaughtered more than 40,000 protesters—Iranian citizens, mind you, who were fed up with the oppressive death cult that has been oppressing Iran since the dour clown Ayatollah Khomeini waddled off that plane from Paris in Tehran in 1979. Over the course of about a month this past winter, the US assembled a huge military presence in the waters around Iran: two aircraft carrier strike groups and innumerable air assets.

An update: There are now three aircraft carrier strike groups in the waters around Iran. The US military has sunk every ship in the Iranian navy, is using A-10 Warthogs to take out Iranian gunboats firing on ships or laying mines the Straits of Hormuz. They have blockaded Iranian ports to prevent ships from entering or leaving those ports. Iran has no income, cannot ship oil anywhere, and can’t receive aid in the form of military arms from the likes of China or Russia. They are in a weak negotiation position.

And then there’s this:

The Iranians have been engaged in a Persian version of the Lobster Quadrille, blustering, pretending to negotiate, then walking off in a huff. As I write, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are en route to Islamabad, Pakistan. They were supposed to be going in order to negotiate with the Iranians. But, as usual, the Iranians, once negotiations were announced, are playing hard—not hardball, mind you, but their coquettish version of hard to get. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Pakistan. For talks? Yes. Wait, make that No. Witkoff and Kushner were supposed to go to negotiate. But Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency says that no talks are slated to take place. Vice President JD Vance was “standing by,” just in case the negotiations turn out to be serious for once. In the event, they didn’t. At the last moment, Kushner and Witkoff got out of their 17-hour plane ride and JD got to go to the White House Correspondents Dinner.

My question about this is just who we would be negotiating with? The nominal civilian government, of which there seem to be more than one faction? The IRGC which seems to have factions within that organization? Who would we be negotiating with, and if we did would they have the power to honor the terms of any agreements reached?

If previous performance is any indicator, then I doubt it.

More of those in power in Iran need to be removed one way or another before that will happen.

==++++++==

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this gem:

British Internet Providers May Have To Ration Access Due To High Energy Prices

Really? Something sounds fishy.

Mobile network operators have warned they could be forced to ration phone signal access to combat soaring energy prices triggered by the war in Iran.

In a stark warning to the Government, telecoms giants including VodafoneThree, Virgin Media O2 and BT-owned EE said they were drawing up emergency contingency plans after being excluded from Rachel Reeves’s energy support scheme.

These include rationing access to their networks or slowing down speeds to help reduce energy use. Another option is surge pricing, which would charge customers an additional fee at peak times.

Is this really due to higher energy prices? Or is the UK government using this as an excuse to start limiting access to the Internet under the guise of saving energy? I think it might be both, though the bigger portion of that is rising energy prices. While they have been laying much of the blame for this on the Iran War, much of it must be laid at the feet of the UK government and their push of their Net Zero policies.

The British government appears disconnected from the reality of energy expenses and seems unwilling to address the economic distress affecting what remains of Britain’s industrial base. Their repeated promises that affordable renewable energy solutions are imminent, or that their grid-ready nuclear fusion facility in Nottinghamshire will be operational by 2040, primarily resonate with those already committed to climate-focused policies rather than convincing skeptics or addressing immediate business concerns.

What good does a nuclear fusion facility do today when it might be ready 14 years from now? They need energy now. They know how get the energy they need, but are ignoring them in favor of renewable energy sources that are too variable and not readily dispatchable. I have three words for the Brits when it comes to this:

Small Modular Reactors.

‘Nuff said…

==++++++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where were seeing more amenable spring weather, the trees are starting to bud (and some already have leaves showing), and Monday is rolling around again to bring an end to another weekend.

Guilty Pleasures

I have a confession to make.

I am a YouTube junkie.

While I look at all kinds of videos running the gamut from New Hampshire stuff to cat videos to military news to the goings on in China to the history of World War II to the relationships between men and women, there are videos covering two particular subjects I like watching above all the others, those being dashcam and reaction videos.

If nothing else I like dashcam videos because the show us just how clueless, idiotic, dangerous, lucky, or good some drivers can be. Some of the incidents are not much more than fender-benders. Some have me wondering how anyone survived some of the worst accidents depicted. Yet others have me shaking my head when road rage incidents take place for no reason I can figure. And yet others have me scratching my head wondering how so many accidents take place at certain intersections.Two intersections in particular make it onto YouTube constantly, one on the East Coast and the other on the West Coast.

The East Coast intersection is in Charleston, South Carolina. There is a webcam located at 783 Meeting Street pointed at an intersection next to that address that shows accident after accident after accident. Two side streets have stop signs while the main road – Meeting Street – does not. Vehicles constantly run the stop signs on the side streets and are either hit by vehicles on Meeting Street, or they hit vehicles on Meeting Street. Sometimes there are multiple collisions at the same time. But as many accidents that take place there, the West Coast intersection has even more accidents.

The West Coast intersection is in Fresno, California where Friant Street and Shephard Avenue meet. It is a tee intersection with Shephard being the side street and Friant being the main drag. What makes this more ‘interesting’ is that there is a traffic light at that intersection and people on Friant Street moving away from the webcam run the red light there with regularity. You will see that sometimes the videos from that webcam are labeled as “Friant Roulette”, an apt title. For the life of me I can’t figure out why motorists run that red light constantly. I haven’t seen any of the vehicles approaching the webcam in the other direction ever run the red light. I haven’t seen any videos showing vehicles on Shephard running that red light. (Yes, it could be that they do take place, but with nowhere the frequency we see in the ‘dangerous’ direction.) While there have been only 42 collisions on record between 2020 and 2024, I have seen dozens of accidents well above that number showing up on YouTube.

The reaction videos cover both music and movie clips. I admit that I really enjoy music reaction videos when Gen Z and Millennials listen to music or watch music videos of songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Probably the biggest reactions I see are when they react to music from Pink Floyd, ELO, Queen, and Boston. More than a few have made the observation that their own music sucks. Then again, back then there was no auto-tune, artists had to be good, and synthesizers either didn’t exist or were in their infancy. They are amazed at how good the music was back then.

The movie clip reactions are also fun, seeing people react to scenes from movies they have never seen or watched years ago but barely remember. I think some of the most popular movie clip reactions I’ve been seeing recently come from Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, SpaceBalls, John Wick, The Avengers, Thor, the Jack Reacher movies and TV series, and Ghost Rider.

I also like some of the so-called HFY stories (HFY = Humans, F*ck Yeah) where humans are feared not because they’re an evil race, but because they come from a Death World (a world where everything is trying to kill them – the weather, the flora, the fauna, bacteria, viruses, earthquakes, floods, and other humans) and survive things that would kill alien races. They are also very good at war.

One other thing that has been popping up on YouTube are AI generated videos showing Chuck Norris showing up in all kinds of other movies. Some of them are quite good.

I could go on and on ad nauseum, but I think you get the idea.

Frankly, I am more entertained by some of the YouTube videos than anything I see on TV.

Friday Funny - The Secret

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been raining all day here at the lake, something we’ve needed statewide as the ground is quite dry and flammable. There have been brush fires here and there due to the dry conditions, but this day-long soaking rain will certainly help reduce the fire risk, at least for now. It has also meant that any outside work at The Gulch has been postponed. Not that there’s a lot to do, but it looks like it isn’t going to be taken care of until next weekend. It also means that I couldn’t move some of the last pieces of furniture from my ex’s garage to BeezleBub’s house. At least he and I can take care of that sometime during this coming week.

I’ve noticed some of the summerfolk have been up, opening their summer camps/cottages/houses. I have no doubt some of that is purely to determine if any repairs are required after the ‘normal’ winter we experienced may have caused some damage. I have also seen a few more boats tied up at a few slips in the cove where the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout is berthed during boating season. I don’t expect to see a big surge of boats being launched for at least a few more weeks starting about one or two weekends before Memorial Day. (It still amazes me that almost one-third of 2026 is already gone!)

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One thing I have been seeing and hearing about is why it is not a good idea to buy new cars, between some of their vulnerabilities older cars do not share and dealerships not really wanting to sell new vehicles for cash.

Addressing the second issue first, it seems that too many car dealerships are more interested in selling the financing for a new vehicle rather than the new vehicle itself. I have seen a couple posts and videos about this (I couldn’t readily find them to link as I wasn’t smart enough to bookmark them at the time), as it seems the dealerships make more money through the financing rather than just the sale of the vehicle. There was more then one account of dealerships trying to discourage cash purchases of new vehicles and pushing customers hard to finance their purchase instead. Why would they do that unless there were some kind of financial incentive to do so?

Then there’s the problems with newer vehicles as they aren’t as reliable or as hardy as those that are 20-years old or older. Most of the older vehicles either have less computerized control of all functions or none at all. The powertrains in older vehicles were designed and built to last. The vehicles in general are easier (and cheaper) to service then newer vehicles. Most do not have touchscreens that are ubiquitous in today’s vehicles and that’s a good thing. It explains why smart drivers are buying 20-year-old cars without screens.



One of the reasons I have been working to keep the trusty 2014 RAM 1500 running has been the replacement cost. As I have mentioned in other posts, it would cost me about $80,000 to buy a 2026 version of my RAM. That’s more than three times the cost of its original MSRP in 2014. However, my salary hasn’t increased more than three times since then and paying about $1100 per month in payments is not appealing to me…or anyone else, for that matter.

It is cheaper for me to pay for repairs to keep the trusty RAM 1500 running than to buy a new one. Even though I have laid out about over $7500 over the past 4 years for repairs and body work, it’s a lot cheaper than new truck payments. There is one more thing that needs repair and will be taken care of later this summer is replacing the heater core which has become clogged. (There is an aftermarket fix to prevent it from happening again once the core is replaced and that will cost me an extra $100 to have installed.) I keep up with all the scheduled maintenance, abd have had it inspected every year per state law. (That law was repealed so annual inspections would no longer be required, but I would still have a ‘wellness’ inspection done every year to make sure everything was in good condition.)

Another reason to get an older vehicle is that most of them use switches, dials, and buttons to control vehicle functions like heat/AC, fan speed, temperature, headlights, windshield wipers, radio volume and tuning, and so on. Too many of the modern vehicles require use of a touchscreen to control most of those functions. However, switches, dials, and buttons are making a comeback as the auto industry has found that: 1.) Motorists hate using the touchscreen for standard functions; and 2.) it’s dangerous using the touchscreen while driving because the driver must take their eyes off the road to use them. So-called ‘muscle memory’ that lets us use those switches, dials, and buttons without needing to look at them doesn’t exist when it comes to touchscreens.

I must make a note that while my trusty RAM 1500 does have a small touchscreen, it only controls the radio/media player (but not volume or manual selection) and some settings like date and time. There is no built-in GPS navigation system. Also the ‘cell phone’ function (mentioned in the video above) that allows the automakers to collect data from your vehicle no longer functions in my RAM because it was a 3G system and that system was shut down years ago.

I think I’ll keep my pickup, thank you very much.

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I have been listening to the media reporting that Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and doing so with glee. They see it as a failure on the part of President Trump. However, I have a different take on this that I doubt the media would care to ponder:

The Iranian government is fractured, and no one knows who the heck is running things.

One faction negotiates with the US, agrees to open the Strait. Another faction, likely the IRGC, says “No it isn’t! Everyone pays a toll and we’ll blow up any ship that tries to transit the Strait.” That would certainly explain the disconnect.

I think it’s time to send the A-10C’s back into the air and start sinking Iranian gunboats again.

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Just when I thought the media couldn’t get any stupider, they prove me wrong.

In this case it’s The Atlantic that has decided to commit suicide by publishing a story making all kinds of accusations against FBI Director Kash Patel with absolutely no proof whatsoever. They can cite nothing that proves any of the allegations.

The response?

The FBI denied every word of it before the article ever went live. Attorney Jesse Binnall sent a formal letter to The Atlantic and Fitzpatrick ahead of publication, putting them on notice that the claims were "categorically false and defamatory."

--snip--

The bureau's response was even more direct: "Print it, all false, I'll see you in court — bring your checkbook."

They printed it anyway.

I have a feeling this could be the beginning of the end for The Atlantic.

You know it’s bad when the National Enquirer is a more reliable and believable source than much of the rest of the media, including The Atlantic.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains are now fading away, the temps are getting a little cooler, and where Monday is returning to plague us again.

Up And Down And Around

It has been a very “up and down” week this past week, at least when it came to the weather up here in New Hampshire. Some days the daytime temps were in the 60’s or 70’s in central parts of the state and others only in the lower 40’s. Nighttime temps ran anywhere from just above 32°F to somewhere in the mid-50’s. The windows at The Gulch were open on more than a few days…and nights. And now we’re headed for cooler temps over the next couple of days and then back into 50’s and 60’s. It’s been sunny on most of the warm days…but fully cloudy, too. We also had thunderstorms sweep through right around bedtime just the other night. (It was really kind of neat seeing the flashes of lightning lighting up the lake and the surrounding hills and mountains as they swept across the lake and hearing the rumble of thunder echoing off the hills and along the lake.)

I’ve seen the landscaping crews that take care of the neighborhood around The Gulch cleaning up the post-winter detritus. Some neighbors have already picked up mulch to spread around their homes. (It’s mostly mulch around the homes here so there’s no lawn to mow.) I will be doing likewise once I take care of few things prior to picking up some mulch.

Starting next week, I’ll be prepping to get the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee out of storage, get it cleaned up, mount a new fire extinguisher near the helm, install a new out-drive angle indicator, ‘new’ being a relative term seeing as I bought it from a salvage yard. There will also be some cleanup in the cockpit as I wasn’t able to remove all the dog hair from the carpeting before the boat was stored for the winter. There are also a few small fiberglass repairs that will need to be taken care of before the end of the boating season, the damage being cosmetic rather than structural. If things work out then I’ll be launching to boat sometime during the second week of May.

The last of the work needed to restore the two WP computers is almost done, having made sure that I have downloaded the last of the configuration files I need so I won’t have to reconfigure the desktop and apps manually. I am also making sure I have copies of all the files from both computers backed up on external drives. I have been taking my time as I didn’t want to screw anything up that might cause any issues. I have also been looking at resurrecting another desktop computer with the idea of turning it into a backup server for all computers here at The Gulch with the exception of my work laptop. That gets backed up to the servers at work and any active files I’m working on are copied to a separate external drive “just in case”. (That’s saved me more than a few times when our work network was down or when I lost my Internet connection due to bad weather.) I hope to have everything back up and running by next weekend.

And in other technology news, I finally made the changeover from my old Samsung Galaxy A50 to the new Galaxy A54 I picked up a few months ago. My carrier had offered me one heck of a deal, and I couldn’t turn it down. My A50 wasn’t in the greatest shape but it worked. But it got to the point where I was having some problems and the battery didn’t have the capacity it once had, so I made the changeover. It wasn’t bad as Samsung had clear instructions about how to activate the new phone and deactivate the old one. There was also an app that allowed me to transfer over all of the settings, apps, files, photos, messages, contacts and so on from the old phone to the new one. There were also a couple of YouTube videos I watched that ran through the process step by step.

The difference between the A50 and A54 isn’t anything startling. Yes, the menus looked a little different. The A54 is a 5G phone while the A50 is a 4G/LTE phone. I haven’t really noticed any difference in connectivity to the cell network so far, but then I didn’t really expect any. I don’t have any better connectivity to the cell network here at The Gulch than I did before and will still rely heavily on my WiFi network to make calls and to text.

One last thing, that being gas prices. My ‘go to’ gas station where I buy my gas for the trusty RAM 1500 reached a high of $3.89/gallon for regular before it fell to $3.71 towards the end of last week. It will ne interesting to see where it will be when I pass by Monday morning while on my way into work.