Fuzzy Thinking

As I have stated on more than one occasion, I am an engineer, working to develop and design test instruments based upon customer needs and marketing decisions. In our business fuzzy thinking can be the death knell for our company. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I came across this over at Random Jottings. It explains quite well the mindset engineers need to have in order to succeed in developing the products that are required. It also applies to life in general, whether you are talking about politics/family/your town/your country/the world, whether you are an engineer or not. John Weidner calls it a “tool for detecting fuzzy thought.”

I had written: Peter Drucker always taught that the key to making decisions is figuring out what the question actually is.

Reader Mike replied: I learned this when I started working alongside of engineers for a few years. It's probably the single most important thing I learned during that time.

Here's another key: things are defined as much by what they are, as what they are not. For example, when somebody suggests a new product that does A, B, and C, we take pains to clearly specify that the product will not do X, Y, or Z. This additional step is crucial in defining the problem we are trying to solve. In engineering terms, it's the difference between a product specification, and a wish list.

In more abstract terms, it's a great tool for detecting fuzzy thought. For example, ask a 9/11 conspiracy buff what the conspiracy could not have accomplished. What are its limits? If he says that anything was possible, then he's hoist in his own petard - "How do you know that Bill Clinton wasn't behind the whole thing?".

Well-formed thoughts have edges. Poorly-formed thoughts are like clouds that endlessly shift and fill the available space.

The "lack of limits" characterizes a lot of goofix thinking today. Whatever the criticism, people keep raising the bar, and can never be satisfied. A friend wrote to me, "I always point out that the people in the top 10% pay 66% of the taxes and then ask: How much do you think they should pay? What's the right number? I don't think I have ever gotten an answer."

The “lack of limits” is one of the problems with much of the It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-[place name of group or person they're bitching this time, here] Left. They follow such a convoluted logic path that it is damn near impossible to follow their reasoning.

The same “lack of limits” also causes problems with any engineer's job. In my company we usually see it in the form of creeping elegance, where marketing wants to keep adding features until the end result has no resemblance at all to the original specifications. There comes a point where we have to say “No, this isn't going to work. If you want all of these features we'll need to start from scratch because we can't stretch the original design to accomplish everything you want.” If we don't say that, a inexpensive tool ends up becoming a costly does-everything box that very few can afford to buy and that won't work nearly as well as smaller, less expensive individual pieces of equipment designed to perform a specific function. And so it goes with life in general.

How many times have we seen what appears to be an excellent solution to a problem on the local/state/national/international level be turned into a bloated, unworkable boondoggle because fuzzy thinking causes all kinds of 'add-ons' that twist the original idea into something unrecognizable? Far too often, in my opinion. Everybody wants to add something, even if it has nothing to do with the original problem the solution was supposed to solve. We see this happen all the time, particularly in state legislatures and the halls of Congress.

It seems that it's also true that folks come up with solutions to 'problems' that aren't really problems. Or they take a small problem and blow it all out of proportion, trying to make it appear far larger than it really is, and then demanding a solution to the problem. But the solution turns out to be far more harmful than the original problem. Their fuzzy thinking makes connections between unrelated events and comes up with a conclusion that defies all logic. (It can be said that conspiracy theorists are masters at such thinking). Therefore, their solutions make as much sense.

I think that this is a pretty good place to stop this post as my thinking is getting a bit...umm...fuzzy.

A Proxy War

As someone on one of the many blogs I read every day has stated, Israel is involved in a proxy war. Hamas is standing in for Syria and Hezbollah is Iran's Rockem-Sockem Robot.

For the moment, Israel seems to be content to go after the proxies in an attempt to diminish Syria's and Iran's influence in the area. But if it comes to it, Israel may decide to forgo fighting the proxies and strike directly at the masters.

Both Syria and Iran have made no secret about their desires to destroy Israel. Iran is far more powerful than Syria and is more likely to take direct action against Israel. Should that occur, the gloves would come off and Israel would strike hard and fast. And should Iran threaten a nuclear strike I believe Israel would strike first, pre-empting the mad mullahs.

The world watches nervously, waiting to see what will happen.

Let us hope that it progresses no further.

Laffer Proved Right....Again

Much to the chagrin of Democrats, it seems that yet again Arthur Laffer was right.

Many out there may not remember Arthur Laffer or the graph he created that bears his name – the Laffer Curve.

Basically, Laffer created a graph that shows the relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. Ste the taxes too high or too low and the amount of tax revenue the government collects falls off. The trick is to figure out exactly where the along the curve tax rates happen to be and to adjust them accordingly to maximize the revenue.

When President Bush pushed through the tax cuts in 2003, he believed that the tax rates were on the wrong part of the curve, which meant that the government was taking too much out of the economy and, consequently, discouraging investment and the growth of the economy investment spurs.

Many of the congressional Democrats thought that taxes were too low and the only ones who would benefit from tax cuts would be the rich. It turns out they were wrong.

esterday's political flurry over the falling budget deficit shows that even Washington can't avoid the obvious forever: to wit, the gusher of revenues flowing into the Treasury in the wake of the 2003 tax cuts. The trend has been obvious for more than a year...but now it's so large that Republicans are trying to take credit while Democrats explain it away.

[...]

The real news, and where the policy credit belongs, is with the 2003 tax cuts. They've succeeded even beyond Art Laffer's dreams, if that's possible. In the nine quarters preceding that cut on dividend and capital gains rates and in marginal income-tax rates, economic growth averaged an annual 1.1%. In the 12 quarters--three full years--since the tax cut passed, growth has averaged a remarkable 4%. Monetary policy has also fueled this expansion, but the tax cuts were perfectly targeted to improve the incentives to take risks among businesses shell-shocked by the dot-com collapse, 9/11 and Sarbanes-Oxley.

This growth in turn has produced a record flood of tax revenues, just as the most ebullient supply-siders predicted. In the first nine months of fiscal 2006, tax revenues have climbed by $206 billion, or nearly 13%. As the Congressional Budget Office recently noted, "That increase represents the second-highest rate of growth for that nine-month period in the past 25 years"--exceeded only by the year before. For all of fiscal 2005, revenues rose by $274 billion, or 15%. We should add that CBO itself failed to anticipate this revenue boom. Maybe its economists should rethink their models.

It appears that some of the states in the US could learn from this lesson. One in particular needs to look at both its spending and tax policies: New Jersey.

Both the New Jersey legislature and the governor, John Corzine, have forgotten that ever increasing state spending and taxation does nothing more than discourage businesses and investment in those businesses. Residents have gotten tired of the ever increasing tax burden and are leaving, voting with their feet. Unless New Jersey can get its insatiable lust for spending other people's money under control, its economy is going to fold like a cheap suitcase in the rain.

All New Jersey has to do is look at the history of Massachusetts during the 70's and early 80's to see what fate awaits them. Back then unemployment was high, even higher than the rest of the country, which was in the throes of a deep recession at the time. Businesses were closing up shop and moving, many of them to the bordering states of New Hampshire and Vermont, where the tax burdens were a fraction of that in Taxachusetts. Other businesses just folded up, closing their doors for good. Whether it was because of the recession, the ever increasing state tax burden, or both, is still debated. In either case, the state was on the verge of economic ruin. It was then that the Powers-That-Be woke up and started the realize that they were a major contributing factor of the economic problems. The people also woke up and voted to take control away from the legislature and the special interests by passing two controversial ballot questions. The first, Question 2, also called “Prop 2 1/2”, cut property taxes to 2.5% of the assessed values. The second, Question 3, removed fiscal autonomy from the school systems. (It used to be that the school systems told the towns and cities how much money they wanted and the communities had to deliver. The idea was that the schools would then be adequately funded. However, what it became was a license to steal. Some towns were driven to the edge of bankruptcy because of fiscal autonomy.)

If New Jersey wants to solve their fiscal problems, best that they get around to looking at the examples of Massachusetts and the US Government, both good and bad.

A Tribute To Syd

I've been a fan of Pink Floyd for over 30 years.

There were rarely times in my adult life when there wasn't a Pink Floyd song playing somewhere in the background. Back in my racing days our team couldn't work on our cars unless Pink Floyd was playing on the stereo in the garage.

To hear that one of the founders of Pink Floyd, Syd Barret, had died was sad news. Syd's story in itself was sad, immortalized in the song Shine On You Crazy Diamond.



We're gonna miss you, Syd.

(H/T to Dean's World for the Pink Floyd video link)

Perpetuity?

When does “in perpetuity” not mean in perpetuity? When local government decides that it's too long.

Sunset Laws?

An editorial in the July 11^th edition of the Union Leader (Manchester, NH) got me to wondering about all the laws that are passed in legislatures throughout the nation as well as Congress. What of the laws are ambiguous? What if they are, on the face of it, totally meaningless? Or what if old laws, not seen or enforced in years, are still languishing on the books, waiting to be used in a manner the framers never intended?

There should be a way to do away with such laws without the need to resort to the courts while still leaving the control in the hands of the people's duly elected representatives.

In the past, New Hampshire had a Sunset Commission. It was tasked with reviewing laws, committees, and agencies in the state and recommending which of them should be repealed, disbanded, or dissolved. Unfortunately, it recommended its own demise, which I believe was a mistake. Other states have has sunset commissions and others have tried to institute them. Some where created for a specific and very limited purpose or for a specified period time.

There have been attempts to institute them at a federal level, but they have been met with considerable opposition. Most of the opponents think that they would usurp the power of the Congress, but I believe they would merely help Congress to do away with redundant/superfluous government organizations and poor/bad/onerous laws and regulations. Many of those opponents are also representatives of special interests, i.e. lobbyists. Sunset commissions would make their jobs more difficult, therefore they are opposed to them.

That might be one of the best reasons to create such a commission.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Alas, it is the last day of our vacation. Both Deb and I return to the weekly grind tomorrow morning.

It was a great week to take off, the weather being cooperative and all. We spent a lot of time on the lake or at the town beach, with one day trip up north in the middle of the week.

It gives me the hankerin' to take another week or three off.

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Jay Tea has the right of it in regards to Lil' Kim and the rest of his North Korean coterie.

They may or may not have nukes. They may or may not get their long range missile to work. They may or may not mate the two together. They may or may not make the mistake of firing one or more at the US or one of our allies.

Should the last occur, Lil' Kim and his buddies will learn what nuclear war is all about.

It may be time to remind him of a few facts that might have an untoward effect on his beliefs:
1) The nation he is threatening is the one that invented nuclear weapons.
2) It is also the only nation to ever use those weapons in anger.
3) He has, at most, a handful of nuclear weapons, and we are a very, very big nation.
4) We have a hell of a lot more of them, the ability to deliver them to any spot in the world, and he has a very small nation.
5) Our national resolve is largely dependent on the occupant of the White House.
6) The current occupant of the White House has already invaded and overthrown two governments who pissed us off.

So endeth the lesson.

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You know that the environmentalists are losing it when they start protesting against projects that are eco-friendly and don't add to green house gases. So many of them are all for wind power, yet once someone proposes to actually build wind farms, they decide that maybe wind power isn't such a great thing after all.

Sometimes you can't win for losing. It seems that no matter what type of alternative and “eco-friendly” kind of energy technology that people are trying to invest in and deploy, there's some tree-hugger out there that decries it as damaging, against nature, and so on ad nauseum.

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While we were partaking of breakfast at the Paugus Diner this morning, I had the chance to listen to two young women who were obviously visitors to the area comment about what they'd seen while they've been here. Unlike some of the more condescending “summah people” I've written about in the past, these ladies actually liked what they saw and experienced during their stay. The only complaint I heard them make was that they couldn't stay longer.

These are the type of summer folk we like to see here. I hope they'll come back soon.

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I don't know about you, but I haven't paid much attention to the World Cup since the US was eliminated. Not that I'm much of a soccer fan, but I do watch some of the World Cup matches every four years. After all, it's only fair. How many throughout the world watch the SuperBowl every year?

BTW, Italy defeated France in the final, 5-3.

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Jeff Goldstein's Protein Wisdom has been hit yet again with a Denial Of Service attack.

Man, I tell you, some of the more extreme left whackos have really lost it this time.

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The latest blogroll update for WP will be posted tomorrow. There are a number of changes, many of them blogs that have ceased operation or disappeared altogether.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer fun is in full swing, the tourists are spending their money, and where I...have...to...go...back...to...work...tomorrow. sigh

Speed Limits Need To Be Raised

I have been a proponent of higher speed limits on the Interstates ever since the Safety Nazis and the Anti-Destination League managed to get the 55 MPH national speed limit codified in law back in the 70's by manipulating traffic safety data. When setting speed limits was returned to the purview of the states, I, like many others, rejoiced. The dreaded and universally ignored nationwide speed limit was going to go away. Many others, including the aforementioned Safety Nazis and Anti-Destination League, screamed that doing so would create carnage on the highways at a level never seen in history.

It turns out that they were wrong, and not just a little wrong. They were a lot wrong. The carnage didn't happen. In fact, the fatality and injury rates went down.

Once allowed to do so, many states immediately raised their speed limits back to their pre-55 limits. Others, like my home state of New Hampshire, raised the limit to 65 MPH. The pre-55 the speed limit had been 70 MPH. Today the 65 MPH limit in New Hampshire is, for the most part, ignored. Most of the folks I see on New Hampshire's limited access highways are driving between 70 and 75, not 65. It's not just here in New Hampshire I see this, but in Massachusetts as well. Because of this I believe it's time to raise the limit in New Hampshire to 70 or 75 MPH. Let me tell you why.

Back in the good old days speed limits on major roads and highways were set a number of ways. One of the most prevalent methods traffic engineers used for setting speed limits on limited access highways was the 85^th percentile, meaning that the speed limit was set for the speed that that at least 85 percent of the cars and trucks on that highway were traveling.

It has been known that people will drive at the speed that is comfortable for them, regardless of the posted speed limit. They will rarely venture above or below that speed because it makes them uncomfortable to do so. (It is one of the main reasons the 55 MPH limit was universally ignored: it was too damn slow for the road conditions and highway design.) Some have argued that raising the speed limit here in New Hampshire will only encourage people to drive even faster, to 80 or even 90 MPH. But that isn't true. Remember, people will drive at the speed at which they are comfortable. For most folks, it won't be 80 or 90. It is true that there are the few speed demons out there that will drive that fast, but they are doing that already with the speed limit set at 65.

Even if the evidence that increased speed limits hasn't led to hundreds of thousands of additional deaths and maimings doesn't change one's mind about increasing the speed limit, one must keep in mind that lower speed limits decrease the capacity of any given highway. Doing that at a time when traffic totals are going up makes no sense, particularly when it is unlikely that any new highways will be built any time soon. At best all we can hope for is upgrades to existing highways to widen them. Even then there are limits as to how wide they can be made and how quickly such upgrades can be completed.

Let's set the limits to more reasonable levels, one to which a majority of the motoring public will abide.

NOTE: I had started writing this Friday morning after reading the OpinionJournal piece about speed limits but didn't finish it until today. Then I find out Glenn Reynolds had already linked to the Journal piece, so I expanded the original post to include a more personal insight to the issue.

More Information About The Causes Of Global Climate Change

There's more evidence that Dr. Henrik Svensmark may be correct in his theory that it is solar activity, not to be confused with solar luminence, that is the determining factor in global climate change.

In the words of the four solar scientists, their findings indicate that "periods of higher solar activity and lower cosmic ray flux tend to be associated with warmer climate, and vice versa," and that "the major part of this correlation is due to similar long-term trends in the data sets." In fact, both the sunspot number and cosmic ray parameters exhibit low-frequency variations that closely match the declining temperatures of the Roman Warm Period-to-Dark Ages Cold Period transition that was in progress at the start of the 1800-year records, the subsequent warming that produced the Medieval Warm Period, the following cooling that led to the Little Ice Age, and the most recent warming that produced the Current Warm Period. Hence, it would appear that the millennial-scale oscillation of Earth's climate that has given us these distinctive multi-century warm and cold periods was likely driven by a similar-scale oscillation of the solar-modulated cosmic ray flux.

This does not rule out human activity as a contributing factor to global climate change, but it does rule it out as the sole factor.

Links to other related articles and extracts can be found here.

(H/T GraniteGrok)

Superman Returns

I went to see Superman Returns at the local megamulticineplex last night. Thanks to tips from others in the blogosphere, I knew ahead of time that it takes place after Superman II, making it much more logical. It also helps me forget that Superman III and IV ever existed.

It is definitely worth seeing even though it is, as others have commented, a little too long.

Kevin Spacey was great as Lex Luthor, playing the character less as a comedic bad guy and more as the megalomaniac villain with a heart of kryptonite.

Brandon Routh did evoke images of Christopher Reeve, though the affected clumsiness wasn't nearly as evident as in Reeve's portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman.

One scene that surprised me was seeing the same portrayal of the Kent farm in Kansas, though I don't know if it was the actual location or a recreation of the original.

All in all, I liked it.

More On Improved Photovoltaics

Glenn Reynolds has discovered something I wrote about back in April – a breakthrough that will allow photovoltaic cells to convert the entire visible spectrum of sunlight to electricity. At the moment solar cells favor the green part of the spectrum, with conversion efficiency dropping off dramatically to either side of green. This improvement will create solar cells with conversion efficiencies above 50%, making them far more viable and less costly to use.

A Convenient Lie

And here is Part II of John Stossel Day, where one of my favorite debunkers goes after the hype about how the Kyoto Treaty can save us all, particularly if we destroy the US economy in the process.

I have long maintained that the Kyoto Treaty was a sham, particularly since it only targets successful developed nations while giving a pass to other nations that already pollute far more than the US or Western Europe.

When he was in college, atmospheric-science professor John Christy was told, "it was a certainty that by the year 2000, the world would be starving and out of energy."

That prediction has gone the way of so many others. But environmentalists continue to warn us that we face environmental disaster if we don't accept the economic disaster called the Kyoto treaty.

[...]

Christy says, "Doomsday prophecies grabbed headlines but have proven to be completely false. Similar pronouncements today about catastrophes due to human-induced climate change sound all too familiar."

But the media can't get enough of doomsday.

That's part of the problem. Doomsday sells because it generates fear, and the media wants to maintain a “state of fear”, much as Michael Crichton described in his novel of the same name.

It doesn't matter if the doomsday scenarios can't be backed up with science - theories that we have no way of testing any time soon. The media and those with the most to gain by such hysteria are pushing them for all they're worth. Who among them cares if it's true or not? It sells papers, magazines, TV advertising, and generates funding for those within the scientific and pseudo-scientific community pushing these doomsday warnings.

Such an atmosphere makes it almost impossible to have a truly intelligent debate about global climate change, its effects, and its causes. Hysteria reigns and the more moderate or dissenting opinions are drowned out, many times with the doomsayers denouncing those that have the temerity to disagree with them as crackpots, sellouts, or stooges for their corporate masters.

Crichton mentions another doomsday scenario that created quite a stir during the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries: Eugenics. Even though it was later debunked, the theory caused immeasurable harm, eventually leading to the so-called “Final Solution” by Hitler and his cronies – extermination of millions of those the Nazis considered undesirable and genetically inferior.

Am I saying that the global warming hysteria will lead to mass slaughter by those abiding by the numerous doomsday theories out there? No. But I have heard of more than one of the more extreme environmentalists suggesting that 90% of humanity should be eliminated in order to “Save-The-Earth.” Just remember that the Final Solution started out as a “what if” speculation. It's not too far a trip from idle speculation to implementation.

When Is Sexism Not Sexism?

This must be John Stossel Day as I have two of Stossel's columns to link to and comment about.

Stossel writes about the EEOC and how ridiculous it has become in its pursuit of employment equality.

You've probably heard of Hooters -- the restaurant chain known for attracting male customers by hiring waitresses who are well-endowed and dressed to show it.

The firm now employs more than 30,000 people. Some would consider this a success story, but our government didn't. Not because Hooters is using sex to sell -- but because its waitresses are -- get ready -- women!

"Discrimination!" cried the federal government's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

It only goes down hill from there.

I can understand the EEOC wanting to ensure that there is no discrimination being perpetrated by employers, but this is friggin' ridiculous. It is not unlike the EEOC to find that some business somewhere hasn't hired enough minorities in an area where minorities are in short supply. What does a business do under such circumstances? Do they import them from someplace else?

Can such a scenario happen? Knowing how the EEOC works, I'd be surprised if it hasn't already happened somewhere in the US.

Truths Remembered

Every so often we need to be reminded of simple truths, ones that we take for granted and that soon fade from our consciousness. Tom Bowler reminds us of the biggest difference between conservatives/moderates/libertarians and the so-called “progressive” left.

The conservatives, moderates and libertarians believe in equality of opportunity. The progressive left believes in equality of outcome. The problem is that ensuring equality of outcome breeds mediocrity, and ultimately, failure.

Another truth is that too many of the progressive left treat wealth as a zero-sum game, meaning that if someone gets rich that they must have stolen their wealth from the poor. But wealth is not a zero-sum game in a society or civilization where wealth is not based upon the possession of a valuable but rare commodity like gold, silver, or some other precious metal. Wealth is based upon production of some kind of goods or services that are valuable to somebody somewhere. Those who become rich are those that find a way to provide more of such goods and services than somebody else. In the process they create jobs, which allows others to share the wealth. But this is something the progressive left can't seem to grasp, something that is taught in Economics 101!

A Reminder On The Fourth

It is the 230^th birthday of our nation, one founded upon inalienable rights and laws based upon those rights. It seems that common sense was far more common back then than it is today. I'd like to think that the Founding Father's realized that this might be the case and set up our government to help minimize the effects of such a lack. That's one reason why we can amend our constitution, but why they made sure it wasn't easy to do so unless 75% of The People agreed it should be changed. While it hasn't always worked – the ill-advised 18^th Amendment is a good example – the errors mostly corrected themselves.

While people across America are celebrating the birth of our nation, there are also those within our nation actively working to dismantle or even destroy this, the greatest nation on the earth. For the most part they were born and raised here, yet they see it as their duty to take something that has worked far better than any system before it and twist it into something unrecognizable. In many cases their motivations are not evil, but they have deluded themselves into believing that in order to reach some kind of Utopian ideal that only they can see they have to destroy something they misguidedly see as evil. Almost every nascent totalitarian state has used a variation of the phrase “burn our way to a new paradise.” And every time people have been foolish enough to follow the path of those preaching such an idea they have come under the power of some group that instead brought about hell upon earth. These folks are no different, though they may not use the exact phrase above. They are still dangerous. They want to squander the hard-won freedoms so many have died to protect.

Since these misguided souls don't have armies of followers to spark a revolution, they take a different path, trying to destroy by guile, propaganda, innuendo, fabrication, and legal machinations what they cannot destroy with brute force.

These tactics have a number of names: political correctness, moral relativism, historical revisionism, speciesism, and romantic primativism.

Political Correctness: It is another form of fascism, something George Orwell warned us about in his novel 1984. By changing the language one can change thought. Political correctness allegedly seeks to make language less offensive by changing labels. But it also removes the capability to offend those that badly need to be offended because their actions are reprehensible. By eliminating the bad connotations of language, we also remove the good. Good and evil cease to be defined, meaning that evil can flourish while good whithers away. Whether they realize it or not, the PC crowd is aiming to do just this. But in our society their efforts to offend no one has ended up offending everyone. It is perhaps by this mechanism that political correctness will meet its long overdue and richly deserved demise.

Moral Relativism: Also called moral equivalence, it seeks to equate unrelated actions to each other on a moral level, such as saying that the actions of President Bush in regards to Iraq are no different than those of Adolph Hitler in Europe. But if President Bush's actions were the same, then there would be millions of dead Iraqis, bombed out cities, and death camps all over Iraq. The same type of claim has been made equating the detention center at Guantanamo Bay to Auschwitz. But there are no gas showers, no crematorium ovens, no slave labor, no starvation diets. But there is no moral equivalence. It is purely rhetorical, except to those making the claims. But then, those making the claims usually have no understanding of history, nor do they wish to.

It is these who also try to apply late 20th/early 21st Century morality to events that happened 100, 200, 300 years or more in the past. It is this that leads to....

Historical Revisionism: Taking historical events and reinterpreting them using the aforementioned late 20th/early 21st Century morality, applying modern day motives to those living in the past. I find it incredible that historical revisionists can read all kinds of present day motives into historical figures despite well documented writings – including diaries, journals, and letters – and research into historical records that show otherwise. But that doesn't stop them for making claims that at first glance appears to make sense, but once some thought is put into it, the claims are revealed for the tripe they are.

Speciesism: This ties in closely with moral relativism. This particular delusion leads people to believe that all species have the same rights as humans. To some of the more radical believers, human rights should be below that of all other creatures and forms of life. These folks show their hatred of their fellow human beings, wishing nothing less than the total destruction of humankind in order to make up for some perceived wrongdoing. One place they have found a foothold is here in America, where they have the right to spout their ridiculous catechism.

Romantic Primativism: This is related to historical revisionism. In their hatred of modern times, the Romantic Primativists have come to believe the lie of the “Noble Savage”, living in harmony with nature rather than defiling it. The problem is that the Noble Savage exists only in literature. Primitive human existence can be described in three words: brutal, short, and nasty.

They have every right to believe what they believe, even if it is short-sighted and destructive in ways they are incapable of understanding. They have little understanding of human nature and believe that everything would be perfect if everybody thought the same way they do, or worse, that everybody already thinks the same way they do.

But let's not let that bother us today. Today is the day to celebrate the creation of something unprecedented in history:

A successful republican democracy that has stood the test of time.

A Great Day At The Lake

It was one of the best days of the summer, so far.

BeezleBub and I were out on the water by 7:15 this morning, on our way over to the south end of Paugus Bay to fill the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout's tank with gas. That early in the morning there are few boats out on the lake, making it a joy to be out there. We also wanted to get to the marina just as the gas dock opened in order to 'beat the rush' to gas up, as happens so often on weekends.

We were back out on the main part of the lake by 8:45 and already the water was getting choppy, the boat traffic having quadrupled compared to an hour earlier.

Later in the day BeezleBub and I headed to the town beach. Needless to say there were a lot of people there as the photo below can attest. But at least it wasn't overcrowded like so many other public beaches can be.





One thing I can say after spending a couple of hours observing all of the folks at the beach is that there are definitely some women that should not, under any circumstances, wear a two piece bathing suits. Some women at the beach should have given up the practice a decade or two ago. Others should never have started. One such would have made my lovely wife Deb look like a refugee from a concentration camp.

One young lass, maybe 17 or 18 years of age, needed to gain about 20 pounds. She was so underweight that we could see every one of her ribs, her face looked shrunken, and every tendon, ligament, and sinew was clearly visible under her skin. It made me want to scream at her “Eat Something!!” Even if she did, I have no doubt that we would be able to see what she ate as it made its way through her digestive tract.

Not that women were the only ones guilty of underdressing. There were plenty of men out there who were guilty of wearing something only a competitive swimmer should wear. I saw quite a few men of all ages wearing Speedos while suffering from Dunlap Disease, as in “My belly done lap over my shorts.” Not a pretty picture. There were plenty of other beach fashion faux pas committed by the male visitors at the beach, some of which are far to disturbing to mention here.

But none of that ruined the day as the weather was quite cooperative.

Even as I post this, our day is not done. We will be heading out once again on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout to enjoy some fireworks at Weirs Beach. We, like hundreds of others, will anchor off the beach to watch the display. Heck, I might even get a few photos.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a day off yesterday for this member of the WP team.

Yours truly, Deb, BeezleBub, and the WP Parents headed south of the border into the People's Republic of Massachusetts to spend the day with the youngest WP Sister. It was a gathering of the clan to celebrate the Fourth of July as well as my own 50^th birthday (even though it doesn't occur until later in the month).

There was plenty of good food, good drink, great conversation, as well as a handy dandy swimming pool in the back yard.

We made it back into the safe haven of the Live Free Or Die state before 9PM without running afoul of the PRM's Revenue Enhancement Squads. I guess the new cloaking device is working well.....

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Speaking of traveling south of the border yesterday, we all witnessed the very heavy traffic heading into New Hampshire along I-93 and US-3. It was literally bumper to bumper traffic from the junction of I-95/Rte 128 in Massachusetts to at least Concord, a run of something like 60 miles. It wouldn't surprise me to find that the traffic jam extended another 20 miles to the north of Concord into the Lakes Region.

It made me glad that we were heading in the opposite direction.

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As Brent posted earlier, Discovery had to postpone launching yesterday due to weather conditions. They were unable to launch today for the same reason. NASA will try again on Tuesday.

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I caught an opinion piece by Daniel Schorr on NPR this morning about the MSM. He still thinks that it is the media's duty to expose secrets, though he seems to pooh-pooh the idea that by revealing such secrets, particularly those dealing with the War On Terror, that people will die.

And people like Schorr wonder why the MSM has become more and more disliked by the American people.

Charles J. Hanley, and AP reporter, writes in the New Hampshire Sunday News, that around the globe reporters, media outlets, and “leakers” are coming under more governmental and legal pressure. (Sorry, no link available)

“It's grotesque that at a time when political rhetoric is full of notions of democracy and liberty that we should have this fundamental right of journalists to investigate and report on public interest matters called into question,” Aidan White, general-secretary of the Belgium-based International Federation of Journalists, told the Associated Press.

But others counter that national interests requires stopping of leaks of classified information, and that some media reports endanger lives by tipping terrorists to government tactics.

“We cannot continue to operate in a system where the government takes steps to counter terrorism while the media actively works to disclose those operations without any regard for protection of lives , sources, and legal methods,” Sen. Pat Roberts said in Washington.

The media claims that the people have a right to know. I agree. But my counter to that argument is that they don't always need to know right now.

But an editorial from the Sunday Citizen (Laconia, NH) disagrees with me.

But then, I have a little more faith in a local paper than the New York Times.

Joe's Dartblog chimes in on this subject, too.

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The New Editor looks at how the definition of bigotry has been broadened by the so-called “progressive” Left. This is the same progressive Left that has become the most bigoted bunch since the KKK.

(H/T The Instaprof)

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While this article about average families in Maine and New Hampshire having a tougher time making ends meet, the same could be said about average families throughout the US.

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GraniteGrok covers one of my favorite all-time topics of discussion – Tyranny Of The Minority.

I have covered this before, something that has been going in the US on for far too long.

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Michael Yon writes about the use of picture taken by Lucian Read of wounded Marine Brad Kasal by Time magazine. Unfortunately someone at Time decided to use it in conjunction with a story about Haditha, something that Sergeant Major Kasal had nothing to do with. Though Time didn't say that he had, the implication was there nonetheless by use of the photo, in my opinion.

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Cold Fury has a post called Another Day, Another Leftist Threat To Slaughter Conservatives

Need I say more to get you to click on the link?

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Bill Whittle has promised Chapter One of his new book will be posted in the next day or two. The chapter is titled The Web Of Trust.

The introduction – Rafts – has been substantially rewritten and reposted. You might want to check it out before reading the first chapter.

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Risawn is spending the summer in Yellowstone Park and appears to be having a great time. She has plenty photos to prove it. Just keep scrolling.

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Even though it's summer, we've been making preparations for next winter. Considering the cost of heating fuel – in our case, propane – we decided to take steps to lessen our heating costs.

This past Friday we had a wood stove insert installed where our fireplace used to be. We'll be heating a good portion of the Manse with firewood next winter. We already have over a cord of wood dried and stacked with another half cord waiting to be split. We will probably pick up another cord before fall rolls around. We have no idea how much wood we'll use, but I'd rather have too much firewood on hand rather than too little.

We easily spent close to $3000 on propane from May 2005 to May 2006. We hope to spend a fourth of that between May 2006 and May 2007.

There are still other steps we plan to take to decrease our heating costs, including replacing one or both of the sliders leading out onto our decks with real doors. While that won't happen this year, it is in our plans that cover the next three or four years.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the Fourth of July is being celebrated over 4 days, the weather is cooperating, and where I'm still on vacation.....

The Stella Awards

Mudge – the WP Dad – sent me an e-mail with a list of the Stella Award winners. The awards, named for Stella Liebeck, are given yearly to those who somehow managed to win court cases and damages for really dumb stuff. In many cases the plaintiff was the cause of the injury or incident that caused them harm, physical or emotional.

In case you aren't familiar with Stella Liebeck, you might be familiar with her lawsuit. In 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee onto her lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages. While many have lambasted the judgment of the court, Stella has been wrongly abused by many out there.

Getting back to the e-mail from Mudge, the list he forwarded to me turned out to be bogus. Even so, they sounded pretty interesting. However, I have the real list for the 2005 Stella Awards, released back in January 2006.

2005 Runners-Up and Winner:

#7: Bob Dougherty. A prankster smeared glue on the toilet seat at the
Home Depot store in Louisville, Colo., causing Dougherty to stick to
it when he sat down. "This is not Home Depot's fault," he proclaimed,
yet the store graciously offered him $2,000 anyway. Dougherty
complained that offer is "insulting" and filed suit demanding $3
million.

#6: Barbara Connors of Medfield, Mass. Connors was riding in a car driven
by her 70-year-old(!) son-in-law when they crashed into the
Connecticut River, and Connors sank with the car. Rescue divers
arrived within minutes and got her out alive, but Connors suffered
brain damage from her near-drowning. Sue the driver? Sure, we guess
that's reasonable. But she also sued the brave rescue workers who
risked their lives to save hers.

#5: Michelle Knepper of Vancouver, Wash. Knepper picked a doctor out of
the phone book to do her liposuction, and went ahead with the
procedure even though the doctor was only a dermatologist, not a
plastic surgeon. After having complications, she complained she never
would have chosen that doctor had she known he wasn't Board Certified
in the procedure. (She relied on the phonebook listing over asking the
doctor, or looking for a certificate on his wall?!) So she sued ...the
phone company! She won $1.2 million PLUS $375,000 for her husband for
"loss of spousal services and companionship."

#4: Rhonda Nichols. She says a wild bird "attacked" her outside a home
improvement store in Fairview Heights, Ill., causing head injuries.
That's right: OUTSIDE the store. Yet Nichols still held the Lowe's
store responsible for "allowing" wild birds to fly around free in the
air. She never reported the incident to the store, but still sued for
"at least" $100,000 in damages. In January 2006, the case was thrown
out of court.

#3: Barnard Lorence of Stuart, Fla. Lorence managed to overdraw his own
bank account. When the bank charged him a service fee for the
overdraft, he filed suit over his "stress and pain" and loss of sleep
over the fee. A few hundred thousand bucks, he says, will only amount
to a "slap on the wrist", whereas the $2 million he's suing for is
more like being "paddled". Kinky!

#2: Wanita "Renea" Young of Durango, Colo. Two neighborhood teens baked
cookies for their neighbors as an anonymous gesture of good will, but
Young got scared when she heard them on her front porch. They
apologized, in writing, but Young sued them anyway for causing her
distress, demanding $3,000. When she won(!!) $900, she crowed about it
in the newspaper and on national TV. Now, she's shocked (shocked!)
that everyone in town hates her for her spite, and is afraid she may
have to move. But hey: she won.

AND THE WINNER of the 2005 Stella Award: Christopher Roller of
Burnsville, Minn. Roller is mystified by professional magicians, so he
sued David Blaine and David Copperfield to demand they reveal their
secrets to him -- or else pay him 10 percent of their lifelong
earnings, which he figures amounts to $50 million for Copperfield and
$2 million for Blaine. The basis for his suit: Roller claims that the
magicians defy the laws of physics, and thus must be using "godly
powers" -- and since ROLLER is god (according to him), they're
"somehow" stealing that power from him.

TO CONFIRM THE VALIDITY OF THESE CASES, get more information on the True
Stella Awards, or sign up for a free e-mail subscription to new cases
as they are issued, see http://www.StellaAwards.com/2005.html

Copyright 2006 www.StellaAwards.com . This message may be forwarded as
long as it remains complete and unaltered.

You've got to love the stupidity that sometimes manifests itself in our legal system.

Burying Power Lines

Glenn Reynolds asked the question. Well, someone that Glenn read over at Slashdot asked the question first:

Why aren't power lines underground?

've thought about it many times, as has Glenn. After reading the numerous comments and replies to the Slashdot post, I realized that I had come to the same conclusion as many of those commenting.

In certain areas and certain applications it makes perfect sense to do that. In other areas and circumstances it makes no sense whatsoever.

For the most part, burying power and utility lines makes sense for a local neighborhood, the so-called “last mile”. This is particularly true of new construction, where the cost of burying the utilities will be a fraction of what it would cost after the fact. Retrofitting can be very costly and, unless circumstances demand, not very cost effective. In urban areas it is the de facto standard.

But burying the higher voltage feeder lines entail their own problems and costs. In this case it makes no sense to do so unless there are some overriding need that must be met.

Let's face it, nobody likes those ugly telephone poles and power lines, nor the high tension lines that stretch across the countryside. We all like to see neighborhoods and country lanes devoid of them. But they are a necessity.

A Message To Feminazis - Shut The Hell Up!

Raven touches upon a subject that has been a sore spot for me for a very long time – Feminazis. Actually, Raven does more than touch upon it. She beats it to a richly deserved death.

As she writes, “Feminists have ruined sex for what it's supposed to be.”

They have, over the years, tried very hard to revictimize women, saying that they aren't capable of consenting to anything a man might propose. Don't they realize how many women fought for equal rights over the decades in order to make their own choices, good or bad? Now they want to throw all of that away, insisting that women can't make those choices. Instead, it is men who must change, to become more like the women these radical feminists say women are: weak and unable to make their own choices.

That's just plain stupid.

Russians Looking For Payback

I wasn't surprised to hear that Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has directed the security apparatus of the FSB (successor to the old KGB) to find and kill the murderers of four Russian diplomats in Iraq.

This may be nothing but urban legend, but if I recall correctly this won't be the first time that Russia, or in this case, the old Soviet Union has sought retribution for attacks against their diplomats.

It seems that some time during the 1980's that some members of one of the many groups vying fro control of Lebanon kidnapped and killed one or more members of the Soviet embassy in Beirut. Legend has it that the KGB tracked down the perpetrators and their families, then killed and dismembered them all, leaving the remains where they would be found. It was a message that terrorist organizations and their supporters understood loud and clear:

Kill our diplomats and we will kill you and your families. Don't screw with us.

After that, everybody left the Soviets alone.

I wonder if this will be a lesson the Russians will teach these Islamofascist Pinheads...again?

Harry Takes A Trip

Harry of Squaring The Boston Globe ventures into the belly of the beast – a tour of the Globe's facilities on Morrissey Boulevard.

A brave man is Harry.

Net Neutrality At Risk

Whether you realize it or not, the telecommunications carriers (ye olde telephone companies, or telcos) are trying very hard to make many of us second class citizens while at the same time charging us more for the privilege. They want tiered service for Internet services even though ISPs are already paying differing levels for service depending upon the bandwidth being provided. This is being pushed by the telcos in order to increase profits, in and of itself not a bad thing. But there are many who believe that such tiered service will be an act of “neutricide”, something that would be a Bad Thing™ for us all.

One such person trying to maintain net neutrality is Cory Doctorow.

Phone and cable companies are looking for the right to charge popular Internet sites like Google and Yahoo to carry data to customers. The big Internet companies, they argue, are getting a free ride, using lots of bandwidth to get to customers and not paying a fair price for it. This will only get worse, they say, as multimedia content becomes more popular, demanding more bandwidth.

This argument is rubbish. Internet companies already are paying for bandwidth from their providers, often the same companies that want to charge them yet again under their new proposals. And for these providers to be screaming for the protection of the free market is sheer hypocrisy--they themselves are creatures of government regulation, basing their business on government-granted extraordinary privileges.

Something must be done to protect net neutrality from phone and cable companies seeking to commit neutricide. These companies must be required to grant equal access to the Internet for all traffic. But these regulations will be tricky to write. Done badly, they'll stifle the competition they're trying to protect.

Why does network neutrality need protecting? Craigslist co-founder Craig Newmark addressed this point in an editorial he wrote for CNN.com: "Let's say you call Joe's Pizza, and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza."

It's a dumb idea to put the plumbers who laid a pipe in charge of who gets to use it. It's a way to ensure that incumbents with the deepest pockets will always be able to deliver a better service to the public, simply by degrading the quality of everyone else's offerings. If you want to ensure that no one ever gets to creatively destroy an industry the way that Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo, and others have done, just make paying rent to a phone company a prerequisite for doing business.

I don't know about you, but it would certainly rankle me if the 'net ended up something like what was described above.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The summer solstice has come and gone, meaning we are actually in summer now.

It's about time.

We have plans to spend a lot of time out on the lake over the next three months. We made a pretty good start today, with over three hours out on the lake with one of Deb's friends and her daughter. We even managed to take a dip near the Ellacoya State Park beach.

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Cap'n Ed links to and comments upon posts made by Michael Ledeen and Andy McCarthy about the media's War on War, and particularly about the New York Times' effort to damage national security by telling the jihadis/harabahis how the government is tracking them through bank transactions.

Way to go, NYT.

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And speaking of the NYT debacle, Michelle Malkin has a number of interesting photoshopped posters that gets the point across.

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This ought to give Holocaust deniers something to think about.

(H/T D.C. Thornton)

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Want to see the real cause of the oil shortage? Sacred Cow Burgers has a pretty good idea.

(H/T D.C. Thornton, again!)

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BeezleBub and I managed to catch two movies over the weekend, one in the theater and one on DVD.

We caught Cars at the local megamulticineplex. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The nice thing about it is that it was entertaining on two levels – one that kids understand and one that adults get. It is definitely a family movie.

We watched Eight Below on DVD. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's based on a true story about a team of sled dogs that were abandoned at an Antarctic research station. Six of the eight dogs managed to survive the Antarctic winter on their own. It may not sound like much of story premise, but it was one heck of a good movie.

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I like animals. I really do. But I'm not willing to put the lives of people I don't know in to jeopardy in a misguided effort to save a turtle. But somebody else didn't seem to mind doing just that.

Some folks have absolutely no smarts whatsoever.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the 600 foot no wake zone has been repealed, boating season is in full swing, and where someone's vacation begins next weekend.

An Important Voice In Iraq Speaks

While many of the U.S. Senate Democrats are still discussing withdrawing our troops from Iraq, setting some kind of timetable, the Iraqi Foreign Minister says, “Nobody is for a withdrawal, even a timetable, for the troops.”

Though he says that the coalition has made mistakes, overall he believes things are going in the direction they need to in order for Iraq to emerge as a self-sufficient democracy.

The worst thing we could do is to pull out prematurely before Iraq is ready to stand on its own.

War For Oil? Yeah, Right...

How many times have we heard that the war in Iraq was a “War for Oil”? But looking at the facts, anybody should be able to figure out for themselves that Operation Iraqi Freedom was anything but.

In case you are one of the folks out there that still believes that Iraq was indeed a War for Oil, the other Weekend Pundit (Texas style) gives us some points to ponder.

1) Did the original Gulf War open additional oil reserves to the U.S.? Answer: No, in fact it tightened the market by reducing oil output from Iraq, previously a top supplier of U.S. oil.

2) Has the current war resulted in increased oil production in the Middle East? Answer: No, instead it has reduced Iraq’s oil output even further because of insurgent attacks on the oil industry in an effort to starve the fragile new government of a key resource.

3) Have oil prices improved as a result of either war? Answer: No, prices have skyrocketed as a result of a tightening market and increased worries over Middle East stability, terrorist attacks and U.S. military ambitions against Iran, Syria, Libya and other possible targets.

If this was a War for Oil, then we've failed miserably.

They Take All The Fun Out Of Fun

Anybody who has lived here in America for any length of time knows that Americans are probably the most litigious people on the face of the earth. We'll sue just about anybody at the drop of a hat. Heck, we'll sue the person that dropped the hat, the manufacturer of the hat, and the city where the person who dropped the hat happened to drop it. There are plenty of scumbag lawyers out there willing to help you do just that for a hefty cut of the winnings, of course.

That means that other lawyers need to prevent any possibility of anybody suing anyone for any reason by making sure that any condition that might cause injury, real or imagined, must be eliminated. That's the reason why we see so many warning labels in multiple languages telling us not to do so many different stupid things: Many of these 'stupid things' happen to be something that someone somewhere actually did, and then sued somebody else when they were hurt because they did the 'stupid thing'.

The problem is that now many of these preventative measures are sucking the joy and fun in life. As Steve Moore writes in this Opinion Journal piece, even the traditional use of a diving board at the local pool is in jeopardy.

I'm now an official victim of the trial lawyers. So are my kids and the 800 members of our community pool that opened this summer without a high diving board.

The three-meter board had been a fixture of our pool at Chesterbrook Swim Club in Fairfax County, Va., for as long as anyone can remember. But the county has declared that it can no longer afford to pay the liability insurance for it--and so we've been grounded.

Most of the parents and kids share my disappointment at being cheated out of one of the great joys of summertimes past. No high board means no more "atomic" cannonballs, can openers, jack knives and watermelons, the kind of attention-grabbing dives that boys love to perform, sending a quarter of the pool's water spraying onto unsuspecting sunbathers nearby. And no more graceful teenage girls either, performing double flips with a twist, entering the water with hardly a ripple.

So why can't we just have a sign that reads: "Jump off this board at your own risk"? Some of our club members, many of whom are lawyers, say the elimination of the high board is for the safety of "the children."

How long will it be before they go after floating lounge chairs, bicycles, rollerblades, or worse, walking shoes? Where does it all end? There are only a few ways to fight back.

One possible solution is one that Shakespeare had suggested.

“The first thing we do, let's all kill the lawyers.” - Henry V, Part II, Act IV, Scene II

Yes, a bit drastic, but I certainly have been tempted.

Maybe we need tort reform, or better yet, taking into account the intelligence of those actually filing suit. If the plaintiff is of average or above average intelligence and has done something stupid and injured themselves, they lose. That they failed to exercise common sense and tried to use a lawnmower to trim the hedge, in the process severing some fingers, does not give them license to sue the manufacturer or retailer of the lawnmower. Instead, it means they get nothing. Not one red cent. No one should be rewarded for their lack of common sense.

The mindless litigation must be stopped, otherwise we might all end up looking like Bib, the Michelin Man because of all of the protective gear and clothing we'll be forced to wear in order to even walk out our front door.

An Attempt To Pull The Rug Out

I've been listening with interest to the debate in the U.S Senate about our troops in Iraq and proposed troop withdrawals. Two bills, one requiring troops to leave Iraq in 2007, the other asking for a draw down with no deadline for total withdrawal, caused lively debate among the members of the Senate. The first bill, sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D- MA) and Russ Feinstein (D-WI), drew the most ire from both Republicans and Democrats.

Called the “Cut and Run” bill, it was lambasted by Democrats and Republicans alike, and voted down 86-13. But that hasn't deterred John Kerry from pushing for abandoning the Iraqis to the tender mercies of the insurgents. It seems he's forgotten what it is we did to the Vietnamese. He's also forgotten the 61 years that American troops have been stationed in Europe. That's 61 years after the end of World War II.

But then he's an expert at bailing out of a conflict. He certainly showed his savvy when he managed to come up with three Purple Hearts in only 4 months during his service in Vietnam, giving him a ticket home eight months early. At least one of those Purple Hearts came under questionable circumstances. Once he was home he then lied about the activities of troops in Vietnam during the Winter Soldier hearings, claiming to have witnessed atrocities in locations he'd never been. (Yes, I'm slamming Senator Kerry. Then again, he has proven himself to be a less than honorable veteran. It looks like he wants to extend his 'philosophy' to cover the men and women serving in Iraq.)

The second bill, derisively labeled the “Cut and Jog” bill, called for a reduction of troop strength in Iraq, but with an open ended commitment. It too received much deserved derision on the floor of the Senate. It was also defeated by a 60-39 margin, with much of the voting along party lines.

Listening to the statements made by a number of senators on the Senate floor, it became quite obvious that too many of the Democrats truly had no understand of how damaging these bills were. I also got the impression that a few of them didn't really care. It also became obvious to me that they didn't understand the will of the American people or that of the troops in Iraq.

Sen. Harry Reid (D- NV) says that “the direction of the war in Iraq must change direction, and change now.” The only directional change that I can see that he's talking about is to move away from victory and towards defeat. But isn't that what some Democrats and many of the Left want? I get the impression that they would shed crocodile tears if our efforts in Iraq failed as long as they got the chance to say “See? We told you so!” Is it possible that they can't stand the idea that maybe, just maybe, the US did the right thing in deposing a brutal dictator with dreams of becoming the next Saladin?

Over the next few months I expect to see the more leftist Hate-America-First Democrats show their true colors. As the mid-term elections approach, those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome will go over the edge and most of America will see that they don't have Americans' best interests at heart.

The Dems Ignore History At Our Peril

It was George Santayana who said “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”It appears that Rep. John Murtha and Senator John Kerry, among a host of others, have chosen to ignore the lessons of Beirut and Somalia.

Every time we have cut-and-run from a seemingly difficult situation involving radical and/or ruthless totalitarian/fascist/militant groups, we have paid the price for such withdrawals with greater death and destruction at the hands of these groups, or those like them.

Murtha wants us to repeat the mistake made in Somalia when we pulled out before the job was done, giving the Islamofascist Pinheads the impression that we couldn't stomach a fight. That action led directly to the attacks on our embassies in Kenya and Mozambique, the bombing of the USS Cole, and then the attacks on 9/11. He seems to believe that repeating that particular mistake when it comes to Iraq will somehow keep us safe. It seems he is intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, making sure that all of the effort, all of the sacrifices made to rid Iraq of a brutal dictatorship and bring democracy to Iraqis should be in vain. He wants a repeat of what we did to Vietnam – abandoning the people under our protection and leaving them vulnerable to the mercies of those who have no mercy.

This is not the action of someone looking out for the American people. This is the action of a collaborator, someone more sympathetic to the enemy than to their own countrymen, despite their protestations to the contrary.

Murtha's kindred spirit, John Kerry looks like he wants to do the same thing. But the Senate slapped him down, letting him know that they are not amused.

Over in the Senate, meanwhile, former Democratic standard bearer John Kerry was embarrassed Thursday when Republican Mitch McConnell offered for a vote on the floor the text of a withdrawal resolution that Mr. Kerry had been promoting. Democrats cried foul and helped reject the resolution by 93-6. But the vote was useful for exposing Democrats who say the U.S. should leave Iraq but don't want to be responsible for the consequences of their proposal.

Responsible for their actions and the consequences of those actions? My goodness, the Dems can't have that!

Should the lose-at-any-cost Dems ever get their way and force premature withdrawal of US armed forces from Iraq, they will of course feel they've done their duty, though it could be millions of Iraqis who will pay the price for such a stupid action. Somehow I doubt those same Democrats will feel any responsibility for delivering the Iraqi people into the hands of militant Islamists or unrecalcitrant Ba'athists.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Deb and I headed out on The Boat and over to Weirs Beach yesterday to walk Lakeside Avenue and become part of the thronging crowd at Laconia's Motorcycle Week. The photos seen in the post prior to this were taken during that outing.

We were also glad to make it up to Thurston's Marine in order to meet the hosts of our favorite morning radio show, Free Wings and Hot Beer, Free Hot and Beer Wings,....uh...Free Beer and Hot Wings. The local radio station, WWHQ - the Hawk, hosted them, setting them up so that they had a view of most of the activities from the radio station's RV.

Not a bad job if you can get it!

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One of the downsides to Motorcycle Week is the lack of consideration by folks up here for the festivities, at least those who happen to be staying with friends who live nearby the activities. In this case our new neighbors, the ones that like to keep their place lit up like Fenway Park all night, had friends from south of the border staying with them during the weekend. That in and of itself wasn't the problem. It was the incessant noise – yelling, foul language, and motorcycle burnouts – that lasted until well past 3AM.

This morning's escapades required us and a number of other neighbors to call the local police to complain. When I called, I explained the problem to the dispatcher and, at one point, held the phone out the window so that she could hear it for herself. The noise was that loud.

Less then three minutes later a police cruiser pulled up their driveway. We could hear the police officer explaining the facts of life to the rowdy bunch. There were a few loud vocal complaints about having to quiet down, but in the end peace and quiet returned to the neighborhood by 4AM.

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Today was also the day we installed the air conditioners here at The Manse. It was a 'Triple H' day in the Lakes Region – Hot, Hazy, and Humid.

We also spent part of the day out on the lake on The Boat, one of the better ways to beat the heat. A lot of other people had the same idea. Normally we don't venture out onto Winnipesaukee during weekend afternoons due to the rough water created by the wakes of the numerous boats out there, but we made an exception this time, keeping the speed slow and steady while enjoying the cooling lake breezes.

I know that Jay and Deb sought refuge at Jay's air conditioned office as it's even hotter down in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.

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By 5PM many of the motorcyclists were packing up and leaving for home. By 6PM Lakeside Avenue was looking a bit bare on the TV.

And so ends another Motorcycle Week in Laconia.

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Believe it or not, there are some Muslim clerics in Iran that get it. One of them is the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's grandson. He believes that the ruling mullah's have sold out the Iranian people and are addicted to holding power and will do what is necessary to stay in power.

(H/T Hud's Blog-o-rama)

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Summer TV is looking interesting.

Both The 4400 and Dead Zone have returned on USA.

ABC Family debuts a new series, Kyle XY. It debuts next week.

I think these series will keep my withdrawal symptoms from Lost, Smallville, Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica, to a minimum.

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I wonder if Rep. Jack Murtha realizes that he has become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the deluded Left? To quote Bryan at Hot Air, “When does it become legitimate to question not only Rep. Murtha's patriotism, but his loyalty and even his sanity?”

I believe we are far beyond that point.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is here a few days ahead of the solstice, the roar of motorcycles has faded off into the distance, and where we can finally have some peace and quiet.

Rafts

As promised, Bill Whittle has posted the first chapter of his new book, An American Civilization.

The first chapter is titled Rafts.

At the end he asks one poignant question:

Which way are the rafts headed?

An excellent point to ponder.

Go there now. Read. Enjoy!

An American Civilization

Bill Whittle is back!

He has promised to start posting chapters of his upcoming book, An American Civilization, starting sometime later today. I, for one, will be waiting eagerly to see what this brilliant essayist has come up with this time.

A Brief Report - Bike Week Friday

While we didn't make it to the center of all of the Bike Week action, mainly Lakeside Avenue at Weirs Beach, we did motor on by on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka “The Boat”. We even managed to snap a few photos, which you can see below. (Unfortunately we had another mission at hand that took priority – putting gas into The Boat. We headed to the south end of Paugus Bay where the cheapest gas on the lake can be found. We paid $2.92/gal at Lakeport Landing while everyone else was selling it at between $3.25 and $3.29/gal.)

But be not disheartened as we shall return to the Weirs tomorrow morning with digital camera in hand. We plan to take loads of photos that will be posted here, somewhere. Of course, Deb has an ulterior motive for returning to the Weirs tomorrow – she wants to see Free Beer and Hot Wings, hosts of a syndicated radio morning show that we both listen to during the week. They will be broadcasting from the Weirs tomorrow and she wants to see them.

While the number of motorcyclists seemed below what we usually see at the beginning week, those numbers have swelled since Thursday morning to what we normally see during the latter half of Bike Week.



Motorcycles Parked At Endicott Park At The Weirs




A View Of The Festivities On Lakeside Avenue At The Weirs As Seen From The Lake




Balloon Rides At The Weirs Give A Birds Eye View


Click on images for larger picture

A Moving Tribute To Fallen Marines

I read about Karla Comfort and her tribute to her fallen son, Lance Corporal John M. Holmason, and his comrades who died with him in Fallujah last December.

As Lee at Right Thinking wrote:

Note to Cindy Sheehan: This is what normal mothers do when their children die in a war. They honor them. They don’t go cavorting off to South America to stand in solidarity with communist dictators.

Amen.

Bike Week Update

I've been remiss in my coverage of Motorcycle Week here in the Laconia area. I plan to make the trip to Weirs Beach over the next two days and take lots of pictures.

In the mean time, here are a number if links to articles covering a few of the activities:

Start of a new “tradition” for Bike Week – Bike Bash. The rain kept attendance down on the first day.

The hillclimb at Gunstock in Gilford was a rousing success, with spills, thrills, and few, if any, injuries. However it was the girls who were the big hit at the hillclimb.

Graffiti is one thing, but graffiti art is something else, particularly if this guy is the artist.

And a potpourri, including signs, worship services, gator meat, sharp objects, and sanctuaries from the occasional showers.

Search Engine Queries

Ben Kepple has another edition of “Your Search Engine Queries Answered”.

Just don't be drinking anything you don't want squirting out of your nostrils while reading his latest post.

The War On Terror And The U.S. Legal System

Jay Tea at Wizbang has inadvertently followed up on a thread that I wrote about here. Well, at least a tangential connection.

The left, over the last few decades, has grown more and more dependent on using the legal process to win their battles. Repeatedly rebuffed through the electoral and legislative systems, they now find their greatest successes when they can persuade one or a few judges to accept their arguments and impose their rulings on the populace. Witness the rise in prominence of advocacy groups like the ACLU, which pour the lion's share of their resources into litigation, not legislation. Or consider how gay marriage came about in Massachusetts, when four of seven justices on a single panel made a decision for an entire state of about 6.3 million people. Or in California, where ballot measures overwhelmingly passed by the people are struck down.

These incidents are symptoms, I believe, of the over-litigation of our society. The court system is seen as the panacea for all ills. Whatever the issue, the best solution is to simply take it to court and get a judge (or panel of judges) to decide.

[...]

By design, our legal system is reactive. It is punitive. It most often intervenes after a wrong has been committed, and acts to right it.

But in the war on terror, those are simply futile.

We know the names and identities of the 19 men who carried out the terrorist attacks in 9/11. By the legalistic model, they should be arrested, tried, and upon conviction punished for their deeds. But unfortunately, during the course of the attacks (indeed, as an essential part of the attacks), they placed themselves irrevocably beyond the reach of our legal system. They are literally answering to a higher authority.

Likewise, this mentality has been playing out over the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. We found the terrorist leader and dropped a couple of bombs on him. He's dead. End of story.

But not to the supporters of the legalistic model. Why didn't we try to capture/apprehend/arrest him? Were any of those others killed innocents? How long did he live after the bombing? Did we try to give him medical treatment? Did we abuse him and make him suffer more during his last moments of life? Did we beat him? Did we execute him?

I have the same answer to all those questions: I don't care.

I think that many of those that Jay describes are living in some kind of a dream world. Most of the rest of us probably have the same reaction as Jay: We don't care.

Zarqawi is dead. We are alive. That's the way we wanted it.

Being Nice Doesn't Cut It

Jonah Goldberg illustrates once again why being nice to those wishing to kill you will not stay their hand. Instead, it merely shows them how weak you are and how unworthy of the death they will inflict upon you. It's something Canada is learning the hard way.

The presence of a profoundly evil, homegrown terror cell in Canada has understandably provoked a lot of soul-searching to our north. As one Canadian editorial put it: "We are Canada, peacekeepers to the world, everybody's nice guy. Who would want to harm us, and why?" Or as Audrey Macklin, a University of Toronto law professor, confessed to the L.A. Times, Canadians "picture themselves as being thought of as nicer than the United States." Why on earth would terrorists want to hurt a "nice" country? Well, for starters, nice isn't all it's cracked up to be. The frog who carried the scorpion on his back in Aesop's fable was nice. It didn't make the scorpion's sting any less poisonous.

Indeed, there's good reason to believe that niceness is part of the problem, not the solution. Many Canadians (and Americans and Europeans) cling to a deep-seated belief that more multiculturalism, more interfaith dialogue, more "understanding," more Western apologies, more acceptance of Sharia, more "niceness" will fix the problem.

Indeed. In fact this incident in Canada shows how multiculturalism has failed, breeding hatred and violence. Many of the problems that people came to places like Canada, the U.S. and western Europe to get away from have followed them to their new homes. In some cases the problems are even more virulent than from where they fled.

Being nice isn't the answer, as many have found. We shouldn't be tolerant of those wishing nothing more than to subjugate or kill us. We should be as intolerant as hell. If someone is offended by something that is part of our culture, that is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, then that's just too damn bad. It isn't up to us to adjust our culture to appease the sensitivities of the followers of a brutal ideology. It is up to them to either live with it or to go away. Somehow many of these Islamofascist pinheads have come to believe that they can bomb and burn and kill their way to Paradise. It is a fallacy that has been used again and again to justify brutal, uncivilized acts all throughout history. They are just the latest deluded fools to fall for it, to buy the lie. It isn't until it's too late that they realize that they weren't doing God's work, but the work of His adversary, if they come to realize it at all. And if history can be used as a guide, they won't.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It wasn't the sound of an alarm clock that woke me this morning. Nor was it the sound of the wind rustling the leaves or the cries of impatient cats waiting to be fed.

It was the distant rumbling thunder of motorcycles.

Despite a rather slow start to Laconia's Motorcycle Week yesterday, they are out in force today. Of course, it helps that the weather is better today – no rain so far – and that it's expected to be drier, warmer, and sunnier of the next couple of days.

We might make it over to the center of activity sometime later today, Weirs Beach, coming in by sea rather than land. I will also be taking a few days off from work starting Wednesday to enjoy the festivities. As always, the Official Weekend Pundit Digital Camera will be with me, allowing me to share a few of the more alluring...uh...attractions at the rally.

******

As much as I enjoy being out on Lake Winnipesaukee, it's idiots like this that make me cringe when I hear about or witness their exploits.

What a putz.

We managed to head out onto the lake today and swung by where the incident linked above took place and I have a question: How are they gonna move that thing?

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The Law of Unintended Consequences may come back to haunt Senator Ted Kennedy (D- Chivas).

In his efforts to kill the Cape Wind wind farm project off of Cape Cod, he may have derailed a number of other vital wind turbine projects elsewhere in the US.

So much for being a proponent of alternative energy projects.

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I heard about this controversial film clip by movie maker Tim Alexander on NPR this morning. Titled “Diary of a Tired Black Man”, it raises the issue of why many black women are having problems maintaining relationships or marriages with black men. Tim Alexander explains:

First-time filmmaker Tim Alexander, who enjoys being provocative, says there's a disease out there that he calls the "angry black woman syndrome." He says it must be identified, diagnosed and treated.

Alexander believes African-American women who grew up in fatherless homes, hearing their aunts and grandmothers saying black men are no good -- and hearing that opinion reinforced in the media -- are now angry adult women.

"They grow up, deal with the wrong men, finally meet the right guy and don't know how to turn it off," Alexander says. "They are so used to fighting; it's the only way they know to have a relationship. So when a man is a good man, they think he's a punk."

Alexander has poked a sore spot within the black community, with many agreeing wholeheartedly with his take on the subject, and just as many vehemently disagreeing with it.

Is he on target with his film, or is he overstating the problem?

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George Will writes that Al Gore is self-contradictory when it comes to two things: the consensus about human-caused global warming and whether he will be a candidate for President in 2008.

So what else is new?

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The Democrats were courting bloggers at the YearlyKos blog convention in Las Vegas. Whether this will help them in the upcoming elections in November is anybody's guess. They should also be aware that bloggers aren't as easy to manipulate as the MSM. Any attempt to do so, by either party, is likely to backfire on them.

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I made contact with an old friend I hadn't talked to in a few years. I was reading through posts on the Winnipesaukee.com forums and noticed that one particular participant on one of the forums dealing with cell service in the Lakes Region seemed familiar somehow. Reading her posts, she made references to a number of things that rang a bell, so I sent her a message and, lo-and-behold, I found out it was indeed my friend.

We plan to get together very soon and catch up on a number of things. It helps that she and her husband live right on the lake, meaning we can go by land or sea to get to their house.

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It's dangerous for Deb and me when we watch HGTV. We get too damn many ideas of what we'd like to do here at The Manse. Things like a new bathroom, a new island for the kitchen, new counter tops, and so on. If we were both working three jobs we might be able to afford all of the things we'd like to do.

Like that's going to happen.

******

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Motorcycle Week is in full swing, the weather has cleared up, and where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is still dead.

Let's Be Careful Out There

It's the start of Motorcycle Week here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. This is the 83^rd Annual gathering of motorcycle enthusiasts here in the Laconia area.

It can be a great time. Unfortunately, it can also be a deadly time.

Three motorcyclists one their way here from Connecticut and Massachusetts were killed in an accident in Stoddard, New Hampshire yesterday. While a few newspaper reports implied it was the accident was caused by a motorist driving an SUV, the state police reported that one of the motorcyclists had crossed the the double yellow line into the path of the SUV. The resulting collision caused a domino effect, resulting in all but one of the group of motorcycles to collide.

Folks on two and four wheels have got to be careful over the next ten days.

Back Up And Running

The main Weekend Pundit blog site is now back up and running!

Back Up Site

I doubt anyone will find this back up site any time soon, but that won't stop me from posting here. This is a bare bones blog. No comments. No trackbacks. Just posts. It will be the regular backup site for Weekend Pundit from now on. This site will contain identical posts to the main site, sans a few photos here and there.

Let's just hope that it won't take too long to get Blogmosis back up and running.

A Limited Renewal

It appears that our problems with the hosting service that carries Blogmosis should be cleared up soon. It was a PayPal conflict that has temporarily shut down the main Weekend Pundit blog site. (And people wonder why I hate PayPal!)

Since it seems that it's always a good idea to have backups, we're going to borrow an idea from Instapundit and use this site as our backup site

Is This Thing On?

It appears that I may have to revive this blog site as our regular Blog Hosts, Blogmosis, seems to have gone away. Stay tuned for further developments.