Thoughts On A Sunday

It seems New Hampshire has weathered the heavy rains and winds, though there were two fatalities associated with yesterday's storm.

The first was a kayaker who drowned after his kayak overturned on the East Branch of the Saco River in North Conway.

The second was a passenger on the M/S Mount Washington who fell overboard last night during a Halloween party cruise. Ironically, this cruise was the last trip for M/S Mount Washington this season. Searches for the missing passenger was suspended after one hour this morning due to the hazardous conditions out on the lake.

The high winds yesterday and today knocked out power all over the state, some of which won't be restored until late tomorrow at the earliest.

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The mid-term elections are 9 days away. Looking at the myriad TV ads playing for the three biggest races – governor, and the two congressional districts – it's been eye opening to see the difference in campaign strategies for these three offices. Two of them, the gubernatorial and 1^st congressional district races have been positive, for the most part. There have been a few negative ads, but they have been infrequent and tame. However, the race in the 2^nd couldn't be more of a contrast.

The incumbent, Republican Congressman Charlie Bass, has been running a positive campaign, talking about his accomplishments and his independent streak. On the other hand, his Democratic opponent Paul Hodes has been on full power negative since his first ad. Every ad slams Bass. I haven't seen one ad from Hodes that is positive in nature. It all comes down to a campaign slogan of “I'm not Bass!”

That is not a winning strategy.

If I am going to vote for someone, I want to know what they're going to do and what they want to accomplish. I don't give a rat's ass that he or she is not their opponent. It's a given.

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With the change from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time having just taken place, there is again a question about whether Daylight Savings Time should be year round. The argument goes that it would save energy because lights wouldn't have to be used until an hour later than during Standard Time, particularly in the depths of winter. One study done by the California Energy Commission suggests that we stay at one hour ahead of Standard Time during the winter and two hours ahead in the summer.

Both the year round DST and two hour jump ideas have been tried before. During the Arab Oil Embargo in late 1973 and 1974, President Nixon ordered year round DST in order to save energy. And during World War II the two hour jump was made (called War Time), in order to shift the number of activities taking place after dark in order to reduce domestic energy usage, amongst other reasons.

Both of these ideas are worth looking into.

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A neat thing I came across was that Star Trek: The Original Series has been digitally remastered, including new CGI special effects.

I recorded the latest released episode, Cat's Paw, last night. Looks pretty cool!

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Glen Reynolds links to an article that asks “Is the Euro slowly killing half of Europe?”

Considering that most economic decisions are now made in Brussels and the Maastricht Treaty lays down some rather heavy handed requirements, I'd have to say the answer is 'yes'.

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What if everything you knew about the environmental movement was wrong?

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The New England Patriots meet the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football.

I'm looking forward to that game.

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The two feline members of the WP Family, Bagheera and Cole, have been staying busy chasing bugs. In this case ladybugs. We've seen far more in the house this year than last, but the boys are taking care of them, either pointing them out to us so we can return them to the outdoors or by eating them. Of the two, Cole tends to eat them while Bagheera looks at them and occasionally 'plays' with one or two.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the winds are blowing, the leaves are falling, and where a little black cat has helped me finish this post.

Shooting Themselves In The Foot?

I can understand volunteer organizations that provide emergency support to the public wanting to make sure that its volunteers are on the up and up by performing background checks on those volunteers. But I think this one may have gone too far.

Unless I've misread the article from one of the organizations to which I belong, the American Red Cross will be doing more than running a criminal background check, the organization they have performing the background checks will also be checking credit reports and investigative consumer reports.

I'm sorry, but what the hell do those have to do vetting volunteers that support the efforts of the American Red Cross?

I don't know about you, but I am less inclined to use my knowledge and expertise to support Red Cross operations under these circumstances. They have no need to know my credit score. My credit score is no indicator of how well I'll perform my duties. Quite frankly, it's none of their damn business.

Am I missing something here?

What About Our Sensibilities?

With the situation in France with un-assimilated Muslim immigrants getting perilous, it has made me ponder possible future situations that might occur here in the US. We've already seen examples of like problems, where a local government or quasi-governmental agency seems likely to bend the laws of the land in order to appease the religious demands of intolerant Muslims trying to impose their beliefs upon the rest of us.

One of the most egregious examples of this is the case of Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis refusing to drive passengers that “offended their Muslim sensibilities.”

Well what about our sensibilities?

How is it that the Metropolitan Airport Commission in Minneapolis-St. Paul even considered violating state laws and the US Constitution in order to appease Muslim cab drivers trying to impose their beliefs upon the public? If it had been a Jewish or Christian cab driver refusing to drive someone who offended their sensibilities you know there would have been such a new and cry by all the so-called “right-thinking people” and the ACLU that it would have deafened everyone within a hundred mile radius. The MSM would be all over the story about how a hate-mongering, politically incorrect Judeo-Christian Fascist-Nazi cab driver discriminated against someone the driver found offensive to their beliefs.

Never mind that our laws and our constitution applies to everyone living here. Nobody gets a pass because of their religious or cultural beliefs. Their beliefs end where my nose begins. If they are supplying a public service licensed by a municipality or state, they have no right to discriminate against the public they serve. In the case of those cab drivers, the appropriate agency should have sanctioned them according to the laws. In most states, that means suspending or revoking their hack licenses. Let them earn a living doing something else.

Giving way on this one issue would be just the start. What will it be next, women being forced to wear head scarves or veils just so they don't offend these same Muslims? Will they demand a separate justice system outside our constitution in an effort to promote sharia? If they do not want to live by our laws then perhaps they should consider relocating someplace where they only have to worry about other Muslims wanting to kill them because they offend their sensibilities.

They want freedom. That's fine. But they have no right to demand that we give up our freedoms in order to assuage them.

This is a trend that must be stopped now. Despite what the multiculturalists are always bleating, multiculturalism of this sort is destructive to our society and our way of life. And despite what many of these same multiculturalists believe, it is our society that is far and away better than almost all of the others because our society has striven to incorporate the best of all of the immigrant cultures over the generations. We are already a multicultural society and have always been one. But it seems the multiculturalists want to make sure that we allow immigrants to bring the worst of their cultures with them, too, and want us to be tolerant of them. How is it we must be tolerant of an intolerant culture/ideology/belief system?

It makes no sense.

UPDATE 10/28/06: Glenn Reynolds linked to a TCS report which covers a few recent incidents in the UK that show that the people there realize that multiculturalism has gone too far.

Presidential Candidates

Will these two be the candidates running on behalf of their respective parties in 2008?

That's Gratitude For You

As the saying goes, all politics are local.

And so it was when the New Hampshire congressional delegation fought hard to keep the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard from closing. Representative Jeb Bradley (R – NH 1st) probably fought harder than most to keep the shipyard open as most of the New Hampshire employees reside in his Congressional district.

The fight was ultimately successful as the shipyard was spared.

How did the grateful shipyard workers repay Jeb Bradley?

They endorsed his opponent in the upcoming elections.

Paul O'Connor, president of the shipyard's Metal Trades Council, said it was all about support of "working people." Bradley, he charged, does not support working people.

Right. Except for fighting to save their jobs. Except for fighting to keep taxes low so that more jobs are created. Except for opposing economic policies that will slow economic growth and reduce job opportunities for everyone.

It makes one wonder about the mentality of those workers. You know, the ones whose jobs were saved by Congressman Bradley?

Thoughts On A Sunday

There was a somber event in Manchester, NH yesterday – the funeral services for slain Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs. Thousands of police officers from around the nation attended.

Briggs was laid to rest with full military honors. Briggs once served in the Marine Corps.

(More reports, photos, and video can be found here.)

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Talk about irony.

The man accused of killing officer Michael Briggs was saved by Briggs after a shooting three years ago.

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The WP Family headed out in different directions yesterday.

Deb was down in the southern part of New Hampshire for the day, attending a training session.

BeezleBub and I were in Concord in the early afternoon for WP Nephew Michael's birthday. Later we headed down to the WP In-Laws in the Keene area so we could attend the annual Keene Pumpkin Festival. After sunset, over 24,000 jack o' lanterns were lit. They lined the streets, were set up on scaffolds, some of which towered into the night sky.

If you've never heard of it, it is an awesome sight. (A slide show can be seen here.)

While wandering around downtown Keene, we came across the police chief from our hometown. He and a small number of other officers from our town were helping keep the crowd of 80,000 people under control.

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The November 7^th elections are two weeks away and while the focus for many in New Hampshire have been the races for state and local elective offices, some are pushing hard to make sure that voters remember the two ballot initiatives that many see as far more important than who wins what office. The two ballot questions deal with amendments to the New Hampshire state constitution.

The first deals with modifying eminent domain to prevent the state or municipalities from taking private property for private development, such as happened in Kelo vs New London. The amendment would limit the taking of private property for public use only, things like schools, hospitals, roads, and so on.

The second tries to address the growing problem of towns and communities losing representation in the New Hampshire House as population grows and shifts. The amendment seeks to ensure that every community will have at least one representative in the House. (The New Hampshire House, also known as the General Court, has 400 members, making it the third largest legislative body in the West, behind only the US Congress and the British Parliament).

Each of these ballot questions require 66 2/3% of the voters voting in favor of the amendments in order for them to pass.

One group is making sure that everybody knows about the first question by running TV ads until election day in an effort to inform voters about the issue and to get out the vote.

Voters in 11 other states also will consider ballot questions next month to strengthen property rights. All are in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that let New London, Conn., take a group of older homes along the city's waterfront for a private developer who wanted to build offices, a hotel and convention center. The city wanted to bolster its sagging economy and make itself more competitive with suburban communities that have more land available for similar projects.

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Once I read this editorial in one of our local papers I knew I had to share it. It deftly defines a problem that we have today: we have become a 30-minute society.

This election season, at least as it involves seats in Congress, has taken on a myopic if not simplistic view of the problems that face the United States.

Eliminating turmoil in the Middle East is as easy as pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be solved if King Solomon simply cuts the baby in half.

Since there have been no terror attacks on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, we must be safe.

High fuel prices can be lowered by convicting Big Oil's corporate officers of price gouging and going green, overnight.

Making a college education affordable is as simple as making the government (other taxpayers) subsidize loans to students at below-market rates.

Rising health-care costs can be capped by allowing the U.S. government — the inventor of the $100 toilet seat and $10 nail — to take over the nation's health insurance system.

Everyone in Congress is corrupt and must have done something untoward to a page — or intern.

The list goes on.

One letter writer posed the theory that America has become a 30-minute society, that the problems of the world must, and can, be solved by the end of "The Simpsons" or, at worst, an hour long "Desperate Housewives."

It seems that too many people have no patience and want everything fixed now. My fear is that many will never learn the lesson that most of our problems can't be solved overnight and that to expect that they can be will leave many of them perpetually disappointed.

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If you like dogs, you'll love this. It brought a tear to my eye.

(H/T James Hudnall>

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The New England Patriots met up with the Bills in Buffalo today. Their first drive put them ahead 7-0. By the end of the game they lead 28-6. It was a tough game for Buffalo, and particularly their quarterback, Losman.

Next week the Pats go up against the Minnesota Vikings.

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The Yankees are invading the South again.

But this time, rather than Union troops marching their way through the South, it's doughnuts. In this case, Dunkin' Donuts.

Dunkin' Donuts is making a concerted effort to muscle in on Krispy Kreme territory.

From its first store in Quincy, Mass., Dunkin' Donuts has become the quintessential Northeastern doughnut shop, with working-class credentials and obsessed customers.

But now the Canton, Mass.-based chain plans to expand south and west across the country, and that begs the question: Will Southerners, with their long-standing love of Krispy Kreme's sugar-glaze, find room for another doughnut?

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Stan Parker, senior vice president of marketing for North Carolina-based Krispy Kreme, said many Southerners have grown up with their doughnuts and think of a trip to Krispy Kreme as more than just breakfast or a snack.

"For many people, Krispy Kreme has been part of their lives for a long time," he said.

Rosemary Evans was clearly in the Krispy Kreme camp as she shared a dozen doughnuts with her children on a recent Saturday morning.

"Dunkin' Donuts just don't have much flavor," said Evans, who grew up in Alabama. "These are just more moist. You can fold them up and stuff a whole one in your mouth."

Dunkin' Donuts fan Jack Lehnhart disagrees. "Wax doughnuts," he says about Krispy Kremes.

Having availed myself of both, I can say that I prefer the Dunkin' Donuts. But that's just my Yankee stubbornness, sticking with something I've known for decades.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are dropping from the trees, the last vestiges of summer have disappeared, and where preparations for winter are well under way.

Engage The Cloaking Device, Part Deux!

I posted about this bit of Star Trek technology back in May: a cloaking device.

The post talked about a theoretical cloak. It didn't yet exist.

Now it does.

Duke University took the wraps off invisibility cloaks Thursday (Oct. 19), announcing that researchers managed to cloak a five-inch-square area from microwave detection.

The cloaking technique worked by using a metamaterial as a shield to redirect microwaves around the cloak. Duke researchers said they hope to create invisibility cloaks for other types of electromagnetic radiation, causing even visible light to flow around shielded regions.

Hmm. I wonder if I can retrofit the trusty Intrepid with one of those and dump my radar detector?

I Want My MTV...er...Satellite TV!

Bruce at mAss Backwards brings up the possibility that the city of Boston may try to ban satellite dishes from locations where they may be seen by the public.

While at first glance this may seem like a good idea, one has to wonder if the local cable franchise(s) might be behind this move. After all, the cable companies have been slowly losing ground to the satellite providers and this is one way slow down or reverse those loses, at least in Boston. Keeping dishes from the front of buildings, where they are visible, may make it impossible to use them because they depend on a direct line of sight to the satellite. Move the dishes to the rear of a building and it may make it impossible to receive the satellite signal.

But wait! There may be a problem with this plan.

As I wrote in a comment to Bruce's post, there is a federal pre-emption when it comes to outdoor antennas used to pick up 'free' or for-pay broadcast services. Any such ordinance passed by the city could be challenged in court and mostly likely struck down.

The pre-emption was created when some homeowner/condo associations and a few towns banned external TV antennas which, in effect, forced residents to subscribe to cable TV or to do without. The FCC saw that as restraint of trade and regulation of radio and TV by non-FCC agencies. Only the FCC has that power, as laid out by the Communications Act of 1934.

The city of Boston doesn't have the power to restrict or ban the use or location of satellite TV dishes. Of course I expect that they won't let that little inconvenience stop them from trying.

Anti-WalMart Groups Aren't What They Appear To Be

WalMart is in the news again. Or rather, should I say anti-WalMart groups are in the news....again..

While I can understand why some folks might not like seeing a WalMart in their community, for the most part families like seeing them because they know they mean lower costs for many of the things they need and use every day. They also mean jobs.

Many of the anti-WalMart groups try to demonize WalMart, claiming they don't pay a living wage even though they pay between $7 and $12 an hour, with an average wage of $10 an hour. But whenever WalMart opens a new store they have applicants many times the number of jobs available. If WalMart is so terrible to work for then how do they fill all of the jobs? The answer is that it is only in the eyes of the anti-WalMart groups that they are so terrible.

Who are these groups? Not the grassroots you might think they are. Instead, they are groups funded by the labor unions. Who says so? The Wall Street Journal, for one. (Subscription required)

Wal-Mart may be expanding in the People's Republic of China, but here in capitalist America the low-price retailer has become the Democratic Party's favorite piñata. The media like to portray this as a populist uprising against heartless big business. But what they don't bother to disclose is that this entire get-Wal-Mart campaign is a political operation led and funded by organized labor.

We've done a little digging into the two most prominent anti-Wal-Mart groups, and they might as well operate out of AFL-CIO headquarters. An outfit called Wal-Mart Watch was created by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), probably the most powerful union in America after the National Education Association. Wal-Mart Watch is backed by Five Stones, a 501(c)3 organization that received $2,775,000 in 2005 from the SEIU, or 56% of its $5 million budget. According to financial records, SEIU also gave Five Stones $1 million in 2004 to launch the anti-Wal-Mart group, and SEIU president Andy Stern is the Wal-Mart Watch chairman.

A second group, Wake Up Wal-Mart, is more or less a subsidiary of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). Wake Up Wal-Mart refuses to divulge its funding sources, but here is what we do know: The group was founded by the UFCW, is housed at UFCW headquarters, and its campaign director's $135,000 salary is paid by the UFCW.

And that's only a few of the unions funding a number of anti-WalMart organizations.

Union membership has been declining for years as the original reason for the unions existence has been replaced by fair labor laws and other government protections for workers of all kinds. In some cases union pay is no better and, in some cases, worse than non-union wages. But that has given the labor unions incentive to make attempts at unionizing formerly non-union occupations.

One of their biggest targets has been WalMart. Never mind the fact that WalMart tends to pay higher than many of the unionized store chains. Big Labor wants a piece of WalMart's pie, seeing a potential payoff of hundreds of millions of dollars in union dues. And those extra funds can be used to pay lobbyists to push forward legislation that would benefit unions at the expense of non-union workers.

I don't know about you, but that smacks of mob-like extortion to me. “Hey, you pay us or you don't work!”

Sound familiar?

A Hero Falls

A criminal scumbag gunned down a Manchester, NH police officer who, with another officer, responded to a domestic disturbance report just before 3 AM. A few minutes later Officer Michael Briggs lay in a pool of his own blood, shot in the head by alleged shooter, career criminal Michael Addison.

Earlier today Officer Briggs died. But not before his alleged shooter was captured in Dorchester, Massachusetts, just south of Boston.

Listening to the news reports this evening, I was not surprised to hear that the New Hampshire Attorney General will seek the death penalty for Addison. I was not surprised to hear that Addison will fight extradition to New Hampshire. I must admit that I was surprised to hear some of Addison's close friends and relatives express shock and dismay that he was being charged with murder. More than one stated that he was a 'good man', and didn't believe he was capable of such a thing.

Yeah, a good man with a lengthy criminal record and a history of violence.

While New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939, it still has the death penalty on the books. Capital murder has a very narrow definition in New Hampshire and no one has been in jeopardy of the death penalty since the murder of Epsom police officer Jeremy Charron nine years ago. Murder of a public official while performing their duties is one of the four capital crimes in this state. Addison fits the bill.

Of course any trial or arraignment in New Hampshire may be delayed for some time because Addison is fighting extradition. That's not a surprise considering he could end up with a rope around his neck or a needle in his arm if he's convicted. Of course he could avoid the death penalty if he pleads guilty, just as Officer Charron's killer did.

But somehow I don't think he'll cop a plea.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Two events of great import took place yesterday – the Blog Free Or Die Con and the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout – aka 'The Boat' – was pulled from the water, bringing about the official end of summer.

The blog con took place at the Common Man Restaurant in Concord, NH, a WP favorite. We met blog friends old and new at the gathering, including Jay Tea of Wizbang, TJ of Better Living Through Chemistry, and personal friend Jay Solo of Dispatches from Blogblivion.

Well before the festivities at the gathering, BeezleBub and I saw to it that The Boat was pulled from the water, hauled to its place next to The Manse, and prepped for winter. The cooling system was flushed, the oil in the engine and stern drive was changed, as were the fuel and oil filters.

There's still plenty of work to do on The Boat, but mostly of a cosmetic nature. There will be a need to haul it to one of the marina's sometime before next boating season in order to have some mechanical maintenance attended to, but nothing that needs to be done immediately.

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Hawaii was hit by an earthquake at 7AM this morning Hawaii time. It measured 6.6 on the Richter scale.

There are unconfirmed reports of injuries and one of the main highways on the island of Hawaii was closed due to debris caused by a landslide blocking the road.

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With out a doubt this election season's campaigning has a far nastier tone to it that I have seen in the past. Not that there haven't been election battles that turned downright unforgivable and nasty in the past. (Election campaigning during the mid to late 1800's and early 1900's was far nastier and personal as compared to today.)

It's gotten so bad that one of the local newspapers has noticed it, even here in New Hampshire.

While there are no high-profile offices up for contention, in the past week or so the campaigning for the governor's office and the two congressional districts has become nasty on both sides.

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It seems that Senator Chris Dodd (D – CT) needs to check his history.

By equating some of the actions that the US has taken against illegal combatants and terrorists to the what Nazi Germany did to its own people and evoking the Nuremberg Trials as well means that he has missed the point entirely. People seem to forget that illegal combatants and terrorists aren't covered by the Geneva Conventions, nor should they be protected by those rights enjoyed by American citizens and residents, particularly habeas corpus.

These are enemies of the US who do not abide by our laws or the protections laid out by the Geneva Conventions. Never in our past have enemy aliens been afforded the rights as guaranteed in the US Constitution. It is only now that such protections been pushed forward by the US Supreme Court, something I believe to be a grave error.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer dreams have finally ended, the foliage has just hit peak color, and where we will see very few summer folk until next May.

Immigrant Assimilation...Or Lack Thereof

I have nothing against immigrants. Really, I don't. My grandparents were immigrants, coming to the US from Finland in the 1930s. Like so many immigrants before them, they sought the American Dream, to become American citizens, and to raise their kids to be Americans. In all of this, they succeeded. They made the decision to accommodate US customs and mores, to be assimilated by American society. They did keep a few customs from the Old Country, but for the most part they were Americans through and through.

If that were only true for some of today's immigrants. Some have no desire to fit in to American society, dragging many of their ill-fitting customs and beliefs with them and trying to make us conform to their beliefs. Jay Tea of Wizbang gives a perfect example of this, linking to and commenting on a story about Muslim cab drivers in Minneapolis refusing to drive some passengers because they offended their Muslim sensibilities.

Blind people with "unclean" seeing-eye dogs, people carrying liquor, folks with ham or sausage -- basically, the cab was being declared "Muslim territory" and all who entered had to abide by Muslim law and tradition. And the airport was on the verge of making concessions and accommodations to indulge this conduct.

The response was quite fierce. Passengers started refusing to ride with Muslim cabbies. There was talk about boycotting Muslim cabs entirely. There was even talk about lawsuits against the cab companies who allowed their drivers to act thusly.

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I think that, as a general principle, folks have the right to a certain level of bigotry and bias and prejudice -- such things tend to be their own punishment.

But in this case, the law is clear: if you provide a public accommodation, you have to accommodate the public -- all of the public. A cabbie, like a restaurant or hotel, has NO right to refuse passengers purely on the basis of religion -- either the customer's or the provider's. Cabbies that wish to serve the public damned well better take ALL of the public, or surrender their hack license and find a new line of work.

While not all of these cabbies are immigrants, most are. They came here to be free, or so I must assume. So who the hell are they to tell us that we must conform to their rules, religious, social, or cultural? It works the other way around, friends. If you move here you abide by our rules, our laws. You left yours behind when you came here.

While there's nothing wrong with immigrants bringing parts of their culture with them when they immigrate, it's best for all concerned if they bring the best of their cultures, not the worst.

No Freedom Of Speech Here

I find it interesting that more and more, leftist college students and faculty try hard to redefine what constitutes free speech on campuses around the nation.

Anyone that disagrees with their viewpoint is either a fascist or a thug. Freedom of speech only exists for them. And should someone have the audacity to call them on it, they respond with bad manners or, even worse, violence.

This was the attitude at Columbia University, where a guest speaker invited by the College Republicans was harassed and shouted down, his voice silenced by the so-called defenders of free speech.

This is not freedom of speech by any means. It smacks more of totalitarianism. If these leftist morons are willing to promote violence in order to protect their twisted version of politically correct speech, how much will it take before they take that one more step and start killing those who disagree with them, those they see as 'impure'? It isn't all that much of a stretch. After all, there's plenty of historical precedent. (The “Weather Underground” split off from a leftist student organization and later became a domestic terrorist organization, bombing buildings and planning mass casualty attacks on military installations within the US.)

Really, what would it take for some of these 'progressive' students to cross the line, to maim or kill someone they disagree with? I'm beginning to think that it won't take much at all.

But should it come to pass, I'd like to think that it will be enough to shock the students and academics back into reality, to make them realize that they've taken the wrong path. I'd like to think that. But somehow I have a feeling that it would have little effect on those the most infected with the leftist PC mindset.

Mark Warner Drops Presidential Bid

The first casualty of the 2008 Presidential race has occurred.

Former Virginia governor, Democrat Mark Warner, has decided not to pursue a campaign to be the 2008 Democratic nominee for president. Citing the strain that such a campaign would put on his family, he decided not to run for president this time round. However, he has not ruled out running for a Senate seat or the governorship of Virginia again.

Warner said he arrived at his decision over several weeks. He said neither his wife, Lisa Collis, nor his daughters, ages 12, 15 and 16, discouraged him from running. In a written statement, he said he made the decision after celebrating his father's 81st birthday and taking his oldest daughter on a college tour.

"I know these moments are never going to come again," Warner said. "This weekend made clear what I'd been thinking about for many weeks — that while politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge, at this point I want to have a real life.

Warner is not expected to be the only presidential hopeful from either party to roll back their aspirations to the highest office in the country. He is only the first.

Winter Weather Forecast

The feds have come out with their forecast for the upcoming winter season, saying that it will be a warmer than normal winter, thought not as warm as last winter. (Yeah, instead of -23ºF, it will be -22ºF. Last year it was -20ºF......)

Apparently there is a weak El Niño in the Pacific, which will cause a slight shift in the jet stream. This will steer weather systems in a slightly different path and block some of the arctic air masses from traveling so far south. It also means that it's likely that some of the drought that has been plaguing parts of the US will be lessened by increased snow and rainfall over the coming winter.

If I don't have to burn as much firewood or propane this winter, that will be just fine with me.

How Europe Views Americans

Dave Schuler over at Dean's World posts about how our European brethren see us, particularly when it comes our reactions to 9/11.

Dave says that, as usual, they got it wrong.

Last week in response to this observation from an overseas blogger:

Fear and hysteria are the two words often mentioned in the wake of 9/11. To this I would add ‘insecurity’.

By and large my few readers had similar reactions to mine and they weren't “fear and hysteria”.

Nor was mine. I felt horror at what had been done. I felt rage at those who had perpetrated such an atrocity. And a quote from Admiral Yamamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor popped into my mind:

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a slumbering giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”

Those behind the planning of the attacks on 9/11 are either dead, in custody, or hiding out far from civilization. Those that helped protect them are either dead or out of power.

That does not come from being fearful or insecure.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The leaf peepers are here in New Hampshire in abundance.

The fall colors are magnificent this year, better than I have seen over the past couple of years.

Deb and I had a chance to converse with family up from Texas while we were partaking of our breakfast at the Paugus Diner this morning. They really enjoyed both the foliage and the lakes and mountains during their vacation trip. I gave them a few tips on some routes they should take that would keep them off the main roads but still give them plenty of nice views.

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The Patriots pulled off a win against the Miami Dolphins, 20-10.

Th Pat's have a bye week next week.

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The fallout from the Kelo vs. New London eminent domain case continues to be felt.

On November 7^th New Hampshire voters will have have the opportunity to vote on amending the state constitution in order to prevent such an abuse of eminent domain from occurring here.

Let's hope that the required 66 percent of the voters approve the amendment.

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It appears that colleges are now competing for home-schooled students.

Home-schooled students — whose numbers in this country range from an estimated 1.1 million to as high as 2 million — often come to college equipped with the skills necessary to succeed in higher education, said Regina Morin, admissions director of Columbia College.

Such assets include intellectual curiosity, independent study habits and critical thinking skills, she said.

"It's one of the fastest-growing college pools in the nation," she said. "And they tend to be some of the best prepared."

Under those circumstances I can understand why institutions of higher learning want such students.

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It's getting to be that time again – updating the blogroll. Look for changes sometime in the next wee or ten days. (I still have to change the banner pics!)

I've been looking over a number of New Hampshire based blogs and I'll be adding quite a few of them. It may be time to break down the New England Bloggers links into individual states.

Then again, maybe not.

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Bruce at mAss Backwards posts about Mayors Thomas Menino (Boston) and Michael Bloomberg (New York) trying to entice the mayors of a number of New Hampshire cities to enact draconian gun control ordinances much like those in Boston and New York.

I guess they figure we don't have enough crime in our state, so they want to make it easier for scumbag criminals to commit crimes in New Hampshire by disarming law abiding citizens.

New Hampshire has some of the most unrestrictive gun laws in the US. It also has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation. Could there be a connection?

As I commented to Bruce's post, if any mayor in New Hampshire wanted to enact such legislation they'd first have to amend the state constitution, specifically Article 2A.

[Art.] 2-a. [The Bearing of Arms.] All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.

December 1, 1982

There are only two chances of such an amendment happening – slim and none.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaf peepers are checking out the foliage, folks are starting to pull their boats out of the water, and where most of us still carry guns.

Pataki Opens Campaign Office In New Hampshire

New York's governor George Pataki has opened a campaign office in New Hampshire. But Pataki has been downplaying the opening.

N.Y. Gov. George Pataki became the first potential presidential hopeful to open an office in New Hampshire on Monday, though he insisted his sites aren't set any further than the election five weeks away.

"This is about '06," he said. "It really is."

The office will be headquarters for Pataki's political action committee, the 21st Century Freedom PAC, and will offer space and resources for Republicans seeking state and federal office from New Hampshire.

It may be about 2006, but even he must admit that he's looking towards 2008.

Wednesday Night Shorts

There's a lot I could post about tonight. However I'm going to take the easy way out tonight by linking to a few news stories of interest instead.

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It's one thing to ask a county outside of Atlanta to stop funding Spanish language books and publications in the county's libraries, but one woman went too far by asking that all Harry Potter books be banned from public school libraries because “the popular fiction series are an 'evil' attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.”

To quote John Stossel, “Give me a break!”

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One would think that with most of the summer people long gone from Lake Winnipesaukee that the possibility of an accident on the lake would be pretty small. But you'd be wrong.

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My favorite morning radio show has a feature called “What Hotwings Thinks”. Wednesday's edition rants about global warming and how the dire predictions of a severe hurricane season this year have turned out to be just so much hot air.

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I don't know about you, but after hearing about this woman's past as well as herv present legal troubles, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near her unless I was heavily armed.

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Is it possible that Bob Woodward made up some of the quotes in his book State of Denial?

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Now here's a campaign I can really get behind.

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And now I'm off to watch the season premiere of Lost.

Regular blogging continues tomorrow.

More Troops, Please

While there has been some making the case for maintaining or slightly decreasing the troop levels in Iraq, there's at least one Iraq War vet that thinks what we need really is even more troops in theater. Lt. Pete Hegseth makes a compelling case.

I volunteered to serve in Iraq because I believe in our mission there. I share the president's conviction about the Iraq war--we can and must win, for the Iraqi people, for the future of our country and for peace-loving people everywhere. But I'm frustrated. America is fighting with a hand tied behind its back. Soldiers have all the equipment we need--armored humvees, body armor for every body part, superior technology, etc.--but we simply do not have enough troops in Iraq, and we need them now.

[...]

...because of a lack of troops, American military leaders are forced to make a choice between mission objectives and self-preservation. Many of our leaders are opting to guard supply routes and coagulate on sprawling military bases, rather than consistently moving into dangerous areas and fighting the insurgency. In our case, we had 500 soldiers stationed outside Samarra who made infrequent trips into the city center. There is little reason why most of these troops were not stationed inside Samarra, canvassing every neighborhood with platoon-sized patrol bases and suffocating insurgent operations. Rather than take the risks necessary--like small patrol bases and frequent foot patrols--our unit opted to secure itself and its supply routes rather than commit resources inside the city. And while this approach is safer in the short run, it only prolongs mission accomplishment, ultimately endangering more troops. We often speculated our unit would be back next year, driving the same streets with even fewer guys.

So it seems plausible that our mission in Iraq may actually take longer than necessary because we lack the manpower to effectively take the fight to the insurgents.

Quotes To Live By

Sometimes e-mail provides serendipity. This occasion is no different.

In this case I received the latest DNRC (Dogbert's New Ruling Class) newsletter. One of the gems of the somewhat irregular newsletter is called “Induhvidual Quotes”, something that is always enlightening.

Here are some more true quotes from people who put the DUH in In-duh-vidual, as reported by DNRC field operatives.

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"Well that really throws a wrench in the ointment."

"I think there's something wrong with my alarm clock; it keeps making this really loud noise in the morning!"

When talking to a colleague about my newborn twins, she asked what genders they were. “A boy and a girl,” I answered. My colleague’s next question: “Are they identical?”

"That's water over the bridge."

"You're dead meat in the water."

"That stands out like a diamond in a goat's butt!"

"You shouldn't violate the law because that's illegal."

"They have us by the balls of our feet."

"Never pet a burning dog."

"It's hotter than a French hen."

"They should lock him up and throw away the book."

"They cooked themselves. Now they have to lay in it."

“Make sure you cross your p's and q's.”

"Don't look a blind horse in the eye."

"I put my wrong foot in the wrong mouth at the wrong time!"

"Cows died to give us that cheese."

"Don't slap the hand that milks you."

"Call me back at your least convenience."

"It's six of one and one of the other."

"I can't do it in the spur of a hat."

"That's going to change the whole ball of works."

"They're not the brightest box of cookies."

"The pro's for are more than the pro's against"

“I wouldn't touch him as far as I could throw him.”

And so it goes.....

Thoughts On A Sunday

The fall colors have started appearing here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. While driving around town yesterday taking care of errands, I noticed that a lot of trees were changing, particularly the sugar maples.

It's time for me to change the banner pics again.

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Sgt. Mom over at Sgt. Stryker's wonders if Muslim rage is hiding the fact that Islam may be a hollow shell, a shadow of its former self ready to crumble under the slightest outside pressure.

She makes a compelling argument for the case.

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The housing boom is definitely over in New Hampshire.

Catching a report this morning on WMUR-TV, a representative for a realtor's association mentioned that the inventory of unsold homes has doubled in a year, from a 5-month inventory to 10 months. Also, a report on prices is expected to show prices decreasing by 6 percent as of July.

A related report tells us how much the housing market has cooled in New Hampshire's Seacoast area.

Anecdotally, I can see the effects of the cooling market. A house just three doors up from The Manse is having its third open house in six months and from what we've seen there has been only one visitor today. Many other properties for sale in my immediate area have price reduced their homes in an effort to move them.

It's a buyer's market now.

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Though I've seen this before, I figured it couldn't hurt to share it. It's priceless.

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The fact that prisons may be breeding new harabahi terrorists is no surprise to me. Prison is one of the best recruiting tools for criminal gangs, so why would it be any different for a criminally twisted fascist ideology?

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You wouldn't think that falling gas, oil, and propane prices would make consumers angry. But if you're one of those consumers that locked in their heating oil or propane prices via a pre-buy and didn't have a downside protection option that would, in effect, rebate the price of their pre-paid heating fuel if the prices fell, you might end up paying more than the present price per gallon.

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The New England Patriots managed to pound the Cincinnati Bengals 38-13.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where fall is making itself felt, firewood is being carefully stacked for easy use, and where all too soon boats will be coming out of the water.

A Pile Of Firewood

It is a truism that firewood heats you twice – once, when you're cutting, splitting, and stacking it; and again when you burn it. Goodness knows I've proven that enough times over the past 50 years.

And so it is here at The Manse.

BeezleBub, the WP Father-In-Law, and I spent today putting the last of the firewood up. We now have enough to last until next spring. It's all been cut, split, dried, and almost all of it has been stacked in the garage and basement.

There's just something about a pile of firewood. To quote the WP Father-In-Law:

“Seeing stacked firewood somehow makes you feel secure about the coming winter. You don't get that with a full tank of heating oil or propane.”

Indeed.

The Army Is Goin' Green

When I read this in last month's Design News, I thought it was the coolest thing. Even the military was getting into 'going green', using hybrid drive systems for their heavy trucks.

But then a reader commented on the article, saying that it was a contradiction.

I read the article regarding the "Green" army truck. When I finished, I felt like we, as a society have totally lost our minds. War is, without a doubt, the most resource-wasteful process on Earth. We win wars by destroying resources. So, if we are going to build mechanisms to destroy resources, why are we worrying about being "green" while we do it? The goal should be to make the truck as simple (this one is not), reliable (proportional to simplicity — so, not), and as easy to repair in adverse conditions (definitely not) as possible. Why worry about that fact that we could save a few dollars of fuel while we destroy resources which will eventually take millions of dollars of resources to rebuild? This is taking the "green" mentality to the point of insanity.

It makes a twisted kind of sense. We'll be environmentally conscientious while we're blowing the hell out of stuff. I'm sure our enemies will appreciate it.

Offending Muslim Sensibilities

One by one, those overly sensitive progressives are backing away from our own cultural entertainments and arts in an effort to not disturb “Muslim sensibilities.” How often do these “ever offended” Muslims worry about not disturbing Judeo-Christian sensibilities? If I had to guess, I'd say never.

As the saying goes, “Screw 'em if they can't take a joke!”

But in this case I think we can make an exception. The Berlin Deutsches Opera has decided not to perform Mozart's Idomeneo because they fear reprisals for offending Muslim sensibilities. Of course it doesn't help that this particular production has twisted Mozart's original libretto into something unrecognizable, with an ending far different from the one Mozart scripted.

In Mozart's version, the opera, set on Crete in the aftermath of the Trojan War, is a play about sacrifice and reconciliation. The opera ends with King Idomeneo issuing a "last command. I announce peace," before ceding power to his son.

Mr. [Hans] Neuenfels's version is Modern German--i.e., gratuitously offensive. It is more Neuenfels than Mozart. Instead of appearing as the harbinger of peace, Idomeneo ends the opera parading the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad. How do you spell "anachronistic balderdash"?

It doesn't offend just Muslim sensibilities, it offends everybody's sensibilities. But still, it illustrates the lengths to which some will go in order not to offend someone who is offended by our very existence. How far do we go to prevent offending a vocal minority among the world's Muslims?

Frankly, I believe we've gone too far. For some of these so-called offended Muslims, everything we do offends them. The fact that we're even drawing a breath is offensive to them. My advice to them is “Lighten up.” If they can't manage to do that, then perhaps “Piss off!” will do the trick. And if that doesn't do the trick, then a well spoken “Shut the f*** up, butthead!” might.

Another Misguided Call To Dismantle The Electoral College

The issue of the Electoral College has come back again.

It seems that some folks are hell bent on turning the presidency in to a plebiscite rather than a reflection of the states' will.

The latest proponent for doing away with the Electoral College tries to use history to justify his call. Unfortunately it appears that he's twisting history to fit it to his purpose.

It was probably inevitable that eventually an academic would rewrite the history of the American Founding in his own image. Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, has selected, molded, distorted, and recreated the events of the 1800 election and its aftermath to suit his view of what the Constitution ought to be. It's a pity. Written with a vibrant narrative style, "The Failure of the Founding Fathers" highlights such overlooked or underappreciated facts as the framers' lack of judgment in putting the vice president in charge of counting electoral votes, and the truly heroic efforts of Federalist Congressman James Bayard to break the famous impasse between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr.

[...]

At bottom, Ackerman simply does not understand the full reason for the Electoral College. He correctly points out that one of its purposes was to distance the selection of the president from the passions and intrigues of faction; and he claims that with the rise of parties, this "filtering" function was largely vitiated. But not entirely. One of the post-1800 Electoral College's salutary accomplishments is that it provided a clearly legitimate president when the party system had broken down, e.g., in 1860 and 1912. Moreover, political scientists have long demonstrated that the Electoral College, with the developing tradition of winner-take-all in each state, works against a multiplicity of parties. The mechanism actually forces parties to seek coalitions among factions, thereby mitigating faction's deleterious effects and fulfilling the original purpose that the framers had in mind.

The last thing we want to do is devolve our government into a mirror image of so many parliaments, multiple parties fighting among themselves in an effort to form a government. We've seen it many times in Europe, with the worst example being Italy. Since the end of WWII there have been well over a hundred administrations that have come and gone, many lasting only months before the coalition that formed them fell apart.

The biggest problem with doing away with the Electoral College is that the voters in many states would be silenced, their votes becoming meaningless as the more populous states would be choosing the president. That's something that the founders wanted to prevent. They wanted the states to elect the president, not the individual people. Were it to become a plebiscite, then states like California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Virginia would dominate the election of the president and the other 44 states wouldn't count. The Union would be in danger of coming apart because so many states would be disfranchised. The House and the Senate are where the plebiscite works, just as it was designed to do. (Yes, I know that the Senate used to be selected by the governors and legislatures of the various states, but that was changed back in 1913 with the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment).

The drive to do away with the Electoral College has more to do with gaining power when the more conventional and constitutional means have failed. The left will do anything to gain control of the White House, even if it means pushing a constitutional amendment to achieve it. Of course if they actually had a plan or program or platform that appealed to American people they wouldn't have to go this route, would they? Maybe that's something they should focus on rather than changing rules that have worked for the Republic for over 200 years because they haven't been able to win.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weekend has been a washout, weather wise. Rain and/or high winds have kept us off the lake or from continuing our efforts to finish painting the decks on The Manse.

Today wasn't as rainy, but it was pleasantly warm. It was also quite windy. So all of our activities have been limited to indoors.

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The Happy Carpenter offers an interesting analogy to explain why illegal immigration must be stopped.

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In the “Do as I say, not as I do” department, I still find it unbelievable that many of the politicians that publicly support alternative energy technologies are some of the first to protest when such a project is proposed anywhere near where they live. This cuts across party lines as both Democrats and Republicans have become members of the NIMBY support group.

Such has been the case of the Cape Wind project, a wind farm planned off the coast of Nantucket. One of the most vocal opponents has been Senator Ted Kennedy (D- MA), because the wind farm might disturb his view from he family compound in Hyannisport.

Both present Republican Governor Mitt Romney and Republican gubernatorial candidate Kerrie Healey have come out against the Cape Wind project.

For all of these supposed supporters of alternative energy sources, no one wants to bite the bullet and actually allow them to be built.

I wonder what the hullaballou will be like when a utility actually proposes a new nuclear plant?

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Charles Krauthammer comments upon the hypocrisy of Muslims protesting about the Pope's quoting a 14^thcentury Byzantine emperor about Islam's violence.

It all comes down to “Take back what you said about Islamic violence or we'll kill you!”

Their violent response proves the point.

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As the winter heating season approaches we've received on bit of good news: heating oil prices are falling.

Unlike most parts of the US, the Northeast is depends primarily on oil for heat. While natural gas and propane are also used to heat homes, neither is used nearly as much as #2 heating oil.

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As a kid I remember elm trees being as plentiful as any other kind of deciduous tree. But then Dutch Elm Disease ended up killing of most of the beautiful elms. Many a town and city with an Elm Street no longer had elms on them.

But the elm is making a comeback.

Due to careful breeding a disease resistant elm, the American Liberty elm, has been created and has been used in an attempt to repopulate the species.

The effort has been spearheaded by the Keene, New Hampshire-based Elm Research Institute. It seems fitting somehow, considering that Keene is known as the Elm City.

Let us hope that they succeed in bringing this wonderful tree back into our towns and cities.

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The New England Patriots folded like a cheap suitcase in the rain in their game against the Denver Broncos, losing 17-7. They made lots of mistakes and the large number of penalties didn't help them either.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the wet weather has finally left, TV premier season is in full swing, and where fall foliage will soon be upon us.

Global Warming Lawsuit

Every so often something comes along that gets me laughing while at the same time gets me to thinking. In this case it was a verbal diatribe on a radio show about the state of California and its lawsuit against 6 major automakers. What's the basis of the lawsuit?

Global warming.

California is suing the automakers because their vehicles contribute to air pollution even though they have bent over backwards to meet every requirement laid down by the California Air Resources Board. But that wasn't good enough. Now California wants a pound of flesh from DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Toyota, and Nissan because of their products “have contributed to global warming constituting a 'public nuisance' that has cost [California] millions of dollars.” (A PDF of the complaint filed by the Attorney General of California can be found here.)

The lawsuit itself surprises me for a number of reasons, one of them being that human-caused global warming is a theory, not a proven fact, despite the protestations of the It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans climatologists and their hangers-on. The fact that California is the plaintiff is no surprise at all. Nothing much coming out of the Left Coast surprises me any more.

What do they think they'll get out of it? Are they expecting a huge windfall like the tobacco lawsuits? Or if they win, will they make it that much more attractive for those six automakers to stop selling their products in the Granola State?

I hope that, should California win the suit, the Court of Appeals will dismiss it out of hand. But one must remember that California is the home of the Ninth Circus...uh..Circuit Court, the most overturned federal court in the nation.

An Interview

It was an interesting experience, being interviewed by one of the local papers here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.

It wasn't for anything I'd done or because I'd won some kind of award or lottery prize. Believe it or not, it was because I was, to all intents and purposes, a cipher.

Small town politics are always interesting if for no other reason than there are always a small group of people that are at the center of the political goings on. So when someone not known to that group or the townspeople - a newcomer to town or someone just now getting involved - shows up, it's news. People want to know who this stranger is. In this case the stranger was me.

We went over the usual stuff, got into the why and wherefore of this blog, my reactions to the task which I and six of my fellow townspeople have taken upon ourselves, and life in general.

As nice as it all was, I decided that I wouldn't show the intrepid reporter the two cells in the dungeon down in the sub-basement. You know the ones I'm talking about. After all, I couldn't afford The Manse and its amenities without the subcontracting work I'm doing, interrogating jihadis for the CIA.

Of course my methods might be considered inhumane: forcing them to watch endless reruns of The Gong Show. After a week of that, they always talk.....

Impending Doom

Many of you out there may not realize it, but we are headed for a fall.

No, I'm not talking about civilization falling or the end of the world. It's nothing so dramatic. But to some folks it may seem like the end of the world when it happens.

What am I talking about?

Something called RoHS.

RoHS is an acronym for Restriction of Hazardous Substances.

You may be asking what this may have to do with the disaster I've been skirting around. After all, RoHS sounds like something that everybody would want.

RoHS was created by the European Union in an effort to remove toxic substances from consumer and commercial electronic and electrical devices. At the moment there are six substances banned by RoHS: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chrome, PBDE, and PBB.

The first four are heavy metals, each toxic in its own way. The last two are fire retardants used in certain plastics. I think that just about everyone can agree that it would be nice to be able to remove these substances from products that we use every day. Obviously there are exemptions that allow the use of these substances, but they are few and far between, usually for critical equipment where an acceptable substitute hasn't been found.

Again, all of this sounds like something that everybody could get behind. But as happens with many good things, sometimes there are unintended consequences.

One of the banned substances, lead, is in the solder that is used to put electronic parts onto circuit boards. Most electronic solders have between 37 and 40 percent lead. The rest is usually tin. But with RoHS, lead has to be removed from solder. The solders used for lead-free soldering are mostly tin, usually 96 percent or more, with the rest if the solder being silver or gold and copper.

This new solder mix has two problems. First, it requires higher temperatures to melt the solder. The higher temperatures require newer materials in the circuit boards and electronic components that will withstand the higher soldering temperatures. Second, and probably most important, solders with a high tin content have the unfortunate tendency to grow whiskers.

Yes, whiskers. Over a period of time, depending upon conditions like temperature, humidity, vibration, and so on, can promote the growth of tiny tin whiskers thinner than a human hair. Given enough time they can grow long enough to short out against an adjacent component, causing a failure. An expensive TV, computer, cell phone, dishwasher, or clothes dryer will become just another paperweight, and all because of a tiny tin whisker.

“But surely there must be some way of preventing such a thing from happening?” you may ask. The answer is, regrettably, no. While there are ways of delaying such an event, there is no guaranteed method of preventing it. That's the problem with RoHS.

While the EU was smart enough to provide exemptions for mission- and life-critical electronics such as medical, aviation, military, and some telecommunications equipment, I believe they made an error when it came to consumer and commercial electronics.

Much of this came about because consumer electronics over the past decade or so have grown so common with the advent of cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, and computers that a lot of this type of equipment was going into the waste stream as people upgraded to the newest/latest/greatest gizmo. This meant that hundreds of millions of electronic products were being dumped into landfills every year. Along with those products were a number of toxic substances. It is because of this that the EU implemented RoHS. But it's one thing to implement such a directive and yet another thing to live with the effects of the directive.

What will happen as millions of electronic and electrical devices start failing due to tin whiskering because of the RoHS compliant solders and electronic components? For those folks that routinely change cell phones every year or so it may make no difference. But the rest of us will have to deal with electronics that likely will not be reliable after a year or two. For businesses that depend upon reliable electronics to fulfill their functions it will become a nightmare. For manufacturers it will be a living hell as they will suffer the fallout from the compromised quality of their products, something they will have little control over in this instance.

With this in mind, many are starting to question the wisdom of including lead in the list of banned substances. As alloyed with tin in solder, the lead won't leach out while buried in a landfill. That means it won't contaminate the soil or the ground water, so that argument won't fly. The removal of lead from electronics has more side effects than letting it remain, including requiring more energy to produce RoHS compliant products because of the higher temperatures required to manufacture them.

While RoHS is limited to the EU for now, it will expand its reach over the next few years. China's version goes into effect next year. A small number of states in the US have passed RoHS-like regulations and more are expected to do so.

This is going to be ugly.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Summer weather is still with us even if most of the summer folk are gone until next year and many of those that cater to their needs have closed and shuttered their businesses until next May.

A few are still open, mostly on weekends, having just enough customers to keep them going until foliage season ends, sometime around Columbus Day. Then the last of the summer businesses will also shut down until next year.

Today BeezleBub and headed out on to the lake rather late in the day, about 6PM. At the height of summer there'd be plenty of sunlight left, but this time in September the sun hangs just above the horizon. There were still a number of boaters out on the lake with us, but nothing like we'd usually see. Whether that's because summer is 'over' or because the NASCAR folks have gathered this weekend just south of us for the Nextel Cup Sylvania 300 won't be evident until next weekend. If the traffic level on the lake is the same as this weekend , we'll know it's because the summer folk have abandoned the Lakes Region until next summer.

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In case you haven't noticed, Jay and Deb of Accidental Verbosity have switched their blogging efforts over to their new blog, Dispatches from Blogblivion.

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For those of you out there that happen to be fans of ABC's Lost, here's a link to information about what the sequence of numbers means as well as what the Hanso Foundation's Dharma Initiative is all about.

Scary. And all too cool.

Other interesting links about Hanso and Lost can be found here.

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Individ has an interesting piece on uranium, the latest upsurge in demand, and how it might not be such a bad idea to buy uranium stocks.

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It turns out that George Will wasn't the first one to editorialize about why liberals – and academics – hate WalMart.

Thomas Sowell wrote back in May of 2005 in Capitalism Magazine about The Crusade Against WalMart, citing a long article in the New York Times that asked if the retailer could pay its employees more.

Sowell's response:

Of course they can pay more. The New York Times could pay its own employees more. We could all pay more for whatever we buy or rent. Don't tell me you couldn't have paid a dime more for this newspaper. But why should any of us pay more than we have to?

[...]

Should people be paid according to what they "need" instead of according to what their work is worth? Should they decide how big a family they want and then put the cost of paying to support that family on somebody else?

If their work is not worth enough to pay for what they want, is it up to others to make up the difference, rather than up to them to upgrade their skills in order to earn what they want?

Are they supposed to be subsidized by Wal-Mart's customers through higher prices or subsidized by Wal-Mart's stockholders through lower earnings? After all, much of the stock in even a rich company is often owned by pension funds belonging to teachers, policemen and others who are far from rich.

This is something the anti-WalMart folks seem to forget.

(H/T Individ)

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Omar at Iraq The Model asks “[W]hat part of France's policy had lead to this, and what made al-Qaeda consider France an enemy that must be fought and brought into submission?”

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Have temporary restraining orders become too easy to obtain? While the original idea behind them is a reasonable one, now they have become ridiculous. Is it merely the extension of the ever expanding litigious nature of America, or is something else driving it?

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BeezleBub and I got some of our outside pre-Fall domestic chores taken care of today. All it required was a paint scraper, a gallon of Behr deck stain, and a few paint brushes.

Both sets of front steps on The Manse now look pretty spiffy.

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The New England Patriots won their second game of the season, beating the New York Jets 24-17.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather still lingers for yet another day, foliage reports have started appearing on local TV, and where there are still plenty of boaters out enjoying the lake.

Gas Prices And Politics

It was only a matter of time before somebody mentioned it. I thought it wouldn't happen for at least a couple more weeks. But then I ran across my friends, MJ and R.

I hadn't seen them for a couple of years, though I had kept touch with them via phone and e-mail.

As we were catching up on things the subject turned towards politics. None of our discussion was partisan as we all agreed that politics in general is a dirty business, regardless of one's political leanings.

And then MJ said it.

“You have to wonder about gas prices falling only a couple of months before the general election.”

She wasn't voicing anything I hadn't thought about, but my take on it was different than hers. So I did the only thing I could do to stop this train of thought.

“Ah, I see my plans to control the economy, and hence, the elections, are coming to fruition! Bwuh-ha-ha-ha!!”

She had no response to that other than laughter, so we were able to move on to more mundane matters.

Thank goodness....

Let The Campaigning Begin

Now that the state primary in New Hampshire is over, the proper political bloodletting can begin. No, I'm not talking about the upcoming national elections in November.

I'm talking about the 2008 Presidential campaign.

The potential candidates are already jockeying for position. A number have already made or are planning to make visits to New Hampshire in order to get in front of the cameras and get some name recognition. Some will give stump speeches for the local candidates for state or federal office. Others will do some of the local talk shows on TV or radio. All of this will be to set themselves up for running in the 2008 New Hampshire Primary. Soon you won't be able to walk down the street without running into one presidential hopeful or another.

It's gonna be a long campaign season....

Why Liberals Hate WalMart

George Will looks at why liberals hate WalMart and how it is they don't understand why very few others feel the same way.

While Will uses the recent Chicago anti-WalMart bill as an illustration, he could have also used Maryland's since struck down anti-WalMart legislation. Many of the same type of players were involved, particularly organized labor.

In 2004 [John Kerry] tested what has become one of the Democrats' 2006 themes: Wal-Mart is, he said, ``disgraceful'' and symbolic of ``what's wrong with America.'' By now, Democrats have succeeded, to their embarrassment (if they are susceptible to that), in making the basic numbers familiar:

The median household income of Wal-Mart shoppers is under $40,000. Wal-Mart, the most prodigious job-creator in the history of the private sector in this galaxy, has almost as many employees (1.3 million) as the U.S. military has uniformed personnel. A McKinsey company study concluded that Wal-Mart accounted for 13 percent of the nation's productivity gains in the second half of the 1990s, which probably made Wal-Mart about as important as the Federal Reserve in holding down inflation. By lowering consumer prices, Wal-Mart costs about 50 retail jobs among competitors for every 100 jobs Wal-Mart creates. Wal-Mart and its effects save shoppers more than $200 billion a year, dwarfing such government programs as food stamps ($28.6 billion) and the earned-income tax credit ($34.6 billion).

[...]

Liberals think their campaign against Wal-Mart is a way of introducing the subject of class into America's political argument, and they are more correct than they understand. Their campaign is liberalism as condescension. It is a philosophic repugnance toward markets because consumer sovereignty results in the masses making messes. Liberals, aghast, see the choices Americans make with their dollars and their ballots, and announce -- yes, announce -- that Americans are sorely in need of more supervision by ... liberals.

Yeah, like I need people that have problems running their own lives making decisions for me about mine. They don't know me, my needs or my wants. They don't know me from Adam, but they want to run my life. That's the problem with the Anointed. They assume they're smarter than everyone else, can make better decisions than we can. I wonder, are these the same kind of folks that backed Neville Chamberlain in an effort to secure “Peace in our time”? That was a brilliant decision on their part. But I digress.

While there have been a few cases of anti-WalMart sentiment here in New Hampshire, for the most part they've been quite welcome. The doom and gloom predicted by so many of the liberals when WalMart announced they'd be coming to one town or another never materialized. And if people were able to stretch a buck a little farther, so much the better.

Our neighbors to the west, Vermont, have taken a different tack on this, successfully keeping a number of WalMart stores from being built. How this was supposed to help the residents of the Green Mountain State I have no idea. But then, Vermont's traditional Yankee character has been supplanted by those with a much more liberal bent.

Many of the laws that have been passed and taxes levied over the years have the earmarks of liberalism. There has been wholesale redistribution of wealth, usually to the detriment of all. Those few pockets of traditional Yankee conservatism in Vermont have made noises about seceding from Vermont and joining New Hampshire. They are sick and tired of being treated as low level morons with big pocketbooks to be rifled “for the good of all.”

But that's the liberal mantra, isn't it? They know better how to spend your hard earned money than you do. And heaven forbid if you should complain about your betters. After all. don't you understand the evil inherent in being able to save a few bucks by shopping at WalMart? They're trying to save you from yourself.

Yeah, and pigs can fly.....

A Twilight Zone Trip To The Bathroom

Received via e-mail:

Imagine you're at a party.

You've been drinking.

And now you have to go to the bathroom.

You open the door....

Now remember, the bathroom floor is a painted floor.

Talk about taking your breath away! It would mess up anyone's mind, drunk or sober.

Thoughts On A Sunday

BeezleBub and I made it out on the lake yesterday afternoon. The weather was gorgeous, the lake not all that crowded now that a large portion of the summer folk are gone, and the water was calm.

We had a great time out on the lake.

It's a shame it was ruined at the very end of our time on The Boat by one of the last of the “summah people” just as we were approaching our slip.

We were inbound and this guy was outbound. As we passed each other in the channel he says to me in a nasty manner “Why the hell don't you learn how to drive that thing, buddy!” His wife then chimed in, saying pretty much the same thing. They continued on this vein even when they were long past us, their obvious Boston accents carrying across the cove. I have no idea what his problem was, but he ruined an otherwise nice day on the lake. One of the other boaters across the channel from our slip who witnessed this shook his head and shrugged, as puzzled about the incident as I.

One rejoinder came to mind, but as Deb always tells me, I am far too nice to stoop to their level. But if I'd had my druthers, I would have used this quote from Monty Python's Holy Grail:

“I fart in your general direction!”

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We here at Weekend Pundit will be guest blogging over at Dodgeblogium, adding our political commentary about the New Hampshire State Primaries this month.

While there are only a couple of days before the primary, we will attempt to give the folks out there a little taste of what is happening and the possible consequences as candidates make the grade or fall by the wayside.

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The protests by former Clinton Administration officials about ABC's upcoming Path To 9/11 is making them sound petty and foolish. While there was little political brouhaha over a critical and overly fictionalized miniseries about Ronald Reagan by members of the Reagan Administration, one would think that ABC had fabricated the Clinton Administration's part in failing to bring down Al Qaeda when it had the chance. But much of what is being said about it in tonight's miniseries is a matter of public record.

Even so, I wouldn't take anything shown in Path To 9/11 as gospel.

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BeezleBub has asked me more than once why it is that we can't seem to get Osama Bin Laden. My answer to him has been that it isn't like we haven't tried, but that he's pretty darn good at hiding out and appears to be in the Waziristan section of Pakistan, an area not truly under control of Pakistan's government. Many of the Waziri are supporters of Al Qaeda and aren't likely to help outsiders capture him.

On the other hand we have taken Bin Laden out of the command loop because he can't use electronic communications, something we're very good at tracking. This has left him to using hand carried messages, a very inefficient means of command and control and not anywhere near real-time. This has left him as more of a figurehead and not as a real commander. That's almost as good as capturing or killing him.

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Even though the New Hampshire Presidential Primaries are still over a year away, a number of presidential hopefuls have visited the Granite State, pressing the flesh and speechifying. Most of them have been Democrats, including former Senator/vice presidential candidate John Edwards. His running mate from the 2004 election, John Kerry, has also made a number of appearances.

So far I can't recall any Republican hopefuls making appearances any time in the recent past, but that will change once we get past the 2006 elections in November. Then I expect that we'll be seeing plenty from both parties making the rounds.

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Speaking of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary, many are still wondering about the DNC's efforts to dethrone New Hampshire as “First in the Nation”, supposedly in an effort to make the primaries and caucuses more...umm...ethnically balanced.

Their efforts will have effect of compressing the primary schedule even more than 2004, heavily front-loading them, something that worked against them last time. They still haven't glommed on to the fact they've disfranchised less well funded candidates in the process, meaning that many otherwise better candidates may never make it out of the primary cycle. John Kerry was a beneficiary of the front loaded primaries in 2004, but he was also the worst possible candidate the Democrats could have put forward. The only thing he really had going for him was large amounts of cash, particularly that of his extremely wealthy wife, Theresa Heinz.

That's a piss poor way to select a party's presidential candidate.

One-on-one, retail political campaigning will go out the window only to be replaced with sound bite campaigns. How the heck can anybody decide whether a candidate is someone they can support if the only thing they ever hear or see of them is 15 to 30 second TV or radio ads?

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The NFL season began for the New England Patriots. It didn't help that 12 seconds into the first period the Buffalo Bills ran a blitz and caused Tom Brady to fumble the ball, allowing the Bills to pick it up and get a touchdown.

At least the Patriots came right back from that and scored a touchdown, making it 7-7.

Unfortunately Buffalo scored twice more before the half, making it 17-7.

But all was not lost as the Pats pulled it off by tying the game in the second half and then forcing a safety, giving them the lead and the game 19-17.

Not a bad start.

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The New Hampshire state primary is on Tuesday, September 12^th. It is expected that the voter turnout will be light, predicted by New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner to be approximately 14%. Could this be because there are few really interesting races for those wishing to go against the incumbents in November?

Only time will tell.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where a little fall weather has settled in, a last few lingering “summah people” are still around, and where there are still a few good weeks of boating ahead.

First NH State Primary Candidates Out Of The Running

With the New Hampshire state primary only 4 days away there have already been candidates that have lost their battle at the polls.

Eight candidates names were ordered stricken from the ballots by the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission because their voter registrations did not match up with their party affiliations. One candidate was not registered to vote at all. This made them ineligible because by New Hampshire law, they aren't qualified to run in a party primary unless they are a member of party and a registered voter.

While it is not illegal for an undeclared voter to run for office, they cannot run in a party primary unless they have declared their party affiliation with the Town Registrar/Town Clerk.

This has affected both the Democrat and Republican primaries as of the eight candidates, four were on the ballot as Democrats, three as Republicans, and the last candidate's status was unknown.

The Housing Boom Is No More

It's official: The housing boom is dead. It certainly has cooled here in New Hampshire.

Figures released by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, based on data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on repeat sales and refinancings of single-family homes, provided the latest indication that the housing market is cooling substantially.

In New Hampshire, home prices rose just 0.04 percent from the first to the second quarter of the year. Prices fell 0.50 percent for the same period in the Manchester-Nashua metropolitan statistical area, while prices rose 0.74 percent for the Rockingham County-Strafford County MSA division.

Nationally, average home prices rose 1.17 percent in the April-June period, compared with 3.65 percent in the second quarter of 2005 - the biggest decline in price growth since OFHEO started keeping track of home prices in 1975, the new report showed.

Anecdotal evidence has shown me that while more homes appear to be on the market, they aren't moving very quickly. More price reductions are showing up in real estate flyers and publications as owners try to sell off their homes.

The house next to us has been on the market for almost a year. It's assessed at $252K, but listed for $319K. Maybe that's why it's still on the market.

Another house just up the street from us is on the market for the same price we paid for The Manse. It is similar to the Manse in floor space and lot size, but there's been no interest in the place at all. A year ago it would have been gone in less than a month.

I guess that's an indicator that the market has cooled.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a trip down to the WP In-Laws today for BeezleBub and I.

It was a perfect day for this kind of road trip – rainy, windy, and very few people clogging up the roads.

We had the WP Parent's trusty minivan because we wanted to bring a few things back up from Gilsum, like my bicycle, some of BeezleBub's summer stuff, and part of a cord of firewood.

We fired up the wood stove before we left on our road trip to take the chill off because of the rainy day. It was an opportunity to give it a good run and to work out any bugs that might pop up. Deb kept an eye on it while BeezleBub and I made the trip down to Gilsum and back.

I think we're going to cut our propane consumption to a small fraction of what we used last winter.

That suits us just fine.

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The “summah people” just up the road from us have been learning an expensive lesson this summer. These are the same folks who have a tendency to light up their property like Fenway Park at night.

On at least four occasions the local gendarmerie have had to break up loud late night parties, on one occasion at 3:30AM!

Thursday night it came to the breaking point when their latest party led to the arrests of a number of partygoers for being drunk...and underage. Two of them were only 14 years old.

The hosts may well be facing charges of enabling underage drinking, a serious offense in these parts. This may give the owners of the property the means to break the lease for their present tenants.

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We have a new member of the WP family here at the Manse.

We adopted a 14 week old kitten from the local humane society shelter a short while ago. His name is Cole (also called “Coley” and, on occasion, “Nat the Cat” in honor of Nat King Cole).

Pictures will be forthcoming.

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It seems that Capt DMO over at And Rightly So has come to the same conclusion as my dear brother and I: Lawyers are the worst people to make law, particularly in legislatures.

Maybe it's time to resurrect our Modest Proposal.

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I've gotten into an interesting debate with commenter TJ about this post. While I could go back and forth in the comments, I decided a separate post might be better as my response to TJ's last comment was going to be quite lengthy. It's yet another go around with a true believer in Al Gore's “Inconvenient Truth.”

Stay tuned.

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I've been toying with the idea of adding a regular feature similar to Thoughts On A Sunday, in this case covering new and promising technologies one day a week. I'll probably call it something like Techno-Tuesday, Geek Wednesday, or something wittily alliterative.

My infrequent technology posts seem to be rather popular....well, popular if the subject is interesting.

What do you think?

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This is the last unofficial weekend of summer. Many children have already started school and the rest will be starting after the Labor Day weekend.

That means that much of the weekday traffic out on the lake will disappear, though the weekend traffic will probably stay elevated for a few more weekends.

The usual 'last gasp' boating weekend tends to be Columbus Day weekend. The foliage is near or just past peak and the weather is still relatively good. After that the big exodus from the lake begins as people close up their island and shoreline camps and cottages for the winter and pull their boats out of the water in order to prep them for winter storage.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be one of those boats pulled from the waters of the lake on or just after that weekend, bringing another summer to a close.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is holding on, the “summah people” will soon be gone, and where we have six weeks of boating left.....

Teaching The Teacher

The start of the new school year always brings new experiences and new opportunities to learn. Sometimes our children learn exactly what they're supposed to (the Three R's, fer'instance), and sometimes they end up teaching the teacher.

That's something that happened today in BeezleBub's Social Studies class.

At one point during the class his teacher started spouting the typical liberal line about the widespread war in Iraq and how everyone ignored the war in the Congo and Sudan and a number of other places.

At this point BeezleBub raised his hand and, once called on, informed the teacher that the fighting in Iraq was limited pretty much to one relatively small area – Baghdad, Ramadi, and Hillah – and that the news media was making a lot more of it than it really was.

The teacher's response was that the Coalition is slowly moving troops into Baghdad to deal with the problem.

Obviously this teacher has been buying the tripe the MSM has been spouting and not doing his homework.

That's my boy!