Thoughts On A Sunday

Today I went to see the new Harry Potter movie with Submarine Tim and his boss, Dawn. That in itself isn't unusual as the three of us have always gone together to see each Harry Potter movie.

What was different this time was that the theater in downtown Plymouth where we've seen all the previous movies no longer shows first run films. It was a tradition we started when the first Harry Potter movie came out and we never missed a single one. Instead we had to go to the local 297-screen Mega-Cine-Plex not too far from The Manse.

While the movie was great, it wasn't quite the same as seeing it in the old theater.

In case you're wondering, BeezleBub didn't come with us. Instead he went to see the movie with some friends from school (though we saw him there).

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Jim Simpson wonders whether Gadsen flag license plates are becoming a national movement. I can see where they would become quite popular, particularly in red states. As I wrote lase Sunday, I'd gladly get one for the trusty F150.

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Bogie's making plans for Thanksgiving. She's actually going to be staying home an preparing a traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner, something she says she rarely does. But this year she has a good reason.

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David Starr questions the problems with the Rolls-Royce Trent jet engines used on the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787. But it looks like the problems may not reside just with Rolls-Royce. As David mentions, when the crew of that Qantas A380 that blew an engine tried to shut down the fuel flow to the disabled engine, the flight control computers wouldn't let them.

That's not a hardware problem. That's a software problem, something Airbus has had to deal with in the past.

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At least one Democrat says he isn't going to underestimate Sarah Palin.

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Even as we read about California's economic suicide versus the economic resurgence of Texas, we can't forget that another much smaller state is also surging forward as well.

The WP home state of New Hampshire has managed to keep some semblance of a business friendly state despite four years of Democrat tax-and-spend policies doing its darnedest to change that. Now that the GOP has control of both chambers of the state legislature it's possible that much of the damage of the four past years of profligate spending can be undone and, perhaps, prevented from happening again any time soon.

New Hampshire has been one of the economic powerhouses over the past 40 years or so, with low taxes, small government, and business friendly policies. While many of the other states in the Northeast suffered the vagaries of the series of recessions since the 1970's, New Hampshire managed to avoid them for the most part. And when it still felt the sting of economic turmoil, it felt it to a much lesser extent than the rest of the Northeast, coming out of the recession many months ahead of its neighbors.

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As if we need even more evidence that the Progressives in our country have no problem with using totalitarian means to achieve their aims, there comes a call from the George Soros funded Center for American Progress for President Obama to use the US military to push the Progressive agenda, bypassing Congress and the Supreme Court.

I believe that's called a dictatorship. But then again, Progressives love dictatorships. Witness how the Left has sucked up to fellow Leftists like Castro, Chavez, and a host of other Central and South American leftist dictators or dictator wannabes.

Of course the Progressives may have forgotten something: there's no guarantee the military will follow orders that contradict the oaths they took to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Under the above circumstance, I think the Progressives and the President would qualify as domestic enemies.

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Victor Davis Hanson explains why the world we read of does not resemble the world we see about us.

At least the Internet has made it more likely we will question reports and claims made by government and the media when we can see for ourselves that what they tell us must be taken with a very large grain of salt.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Eric the Viking sends an open letter to NASCAR explaining why he will no longer attend or watch any more NASCAR races.

While I won't necessarily stop watching the races, I do agree with his reasons.

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It is often said that a prophet is never honored in his own country. That is certainly true of Morgan Kelly, a professor of Economics at University College in Dublin, Ireland.

The so-called “nutty professor” had been warning the Irish government for some time that Ireland's economy was headed for a meltdown. He was derided as “of being ridiculous, alarmist, a scare-mongering Jeremiah. He was laughed at, even sneered at, by other financial experts who regarded him as a maverick.” Despite the claims of his detractors, it turns out he was right. Those same detractors are now curiously silent.

It makes one wonder if they will listen to his latest warnings about accepting an EU/IMF bailout which will have the effect of turning control of the Irish economy over to Brussels. If history is any gauge, the answer is “no”.

(H/T Vermont Tiger)

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Despite claims to the contrary, it appears Sarah Palin is far more popular with the American people than some are willing to admit.

As many of us have asked since the 2008 Presidential campaign, if she is so bad and so incompetent, then why have so many – particularly Democrats - been working so hard to discredit her? It seems there's a disconnect there somewhere.

At least Joe Biden appears to take her seriously (see above).

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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The New England Patriots managed to hold off the Indianapolis Colts today down in Foxboro, beating them 31-28, giving them an 8-2 record.

Hopefully the Pats will be able to rest up enough as they'll be playing again on Thanksgiving Day, taking on the Detroit Lions in Detroit.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps have been below freezing (at least at night), the woodstove has been running 24-hours a day, and where we're looking forward to a very short work week.

Let The Budgeting Begin!

The budget season has started here in New Hampshire, with towns, cities, and the state working to put together budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.

It may be the recent win by self-declared fiscal conservatives in state and national elections that have driven home the point that the taxpayers have had enough of profligate spending and will be watching their elected officials much more closely than they have in the past.

Our little town has been way ahead of the pack, with the selectmen and the budget committee scrutinizing every penny and making cuts to keep spending in check during these difficult economic times. Should both entities get their way, our town's budget for the next fiscal year will be smaller than this year's, the third year in a row for that trend. The same is true of the school budget. (Like most towns and cities in New Hampshire, the municipal and school budgets are entirely separate. But in towns like ours with an elected budget committee, the committee reviews and votes whether or not to recommend the warrants articles from both.)

At the state level the governor has already warned state agencies to prepare for tough choices they'll have to make.

The previous two budgets increased spending by more than 30% over the past 4 years (New Hampshire has a two-year budget), but this time around the Democrat governor has to deal with an overwhelmingly Republican legislature (74.5% of the seats in the 400 seat New Hampshire House are in the hands of the GOP, as are 79% of the seats in the state Senate). During the previous two budgets the governor had a Democrat majority in the legislature to back up his spending plans. Assuming the Republicans in the legislature follow through on their promises to keep spending in check, if not roll back some expenditures and the taxes that go with them, it can be expected that state spending will remain flat, if not decrease from the present biennial budget. And should the governor veto a lean GOP budget, both chambers of the legislature have the votes to override it.

It will be interesting to watch the budget deliberations at the local and state level and compare it to what will be going on in Washington during the 112^th Congress. Our Representatives and our Senators in Congress know we will be watching closely and will be more than willing to throw them out if they don't do as so many at the state and local level have done: keep spending and taxes in check.

Homeowner Imprisioned For Defending His Property

Is Ward Bird a gun-toting criminal nutcase or a citizen defending his property against an intruder?

According the both the Carroll County (New Hampshire) Superior Court and the state Supreme Court, he's a criminal.

The case, in which Bird was accused of criminal threatening, pits the rights of gun carrying homeowners against criminal statutes that could easily see them prosecuted and convicted for protecting their property. Bird was convicted of threatening his accuser after the women drove on to his property and to the front of his house despite numerous No Trespassing signs posted along the edge of his property and along his driveway.

I have to ask this: What part of No Trespassing did this woman not understand? The 'No' part or the 'Trespassing' part?

What makes this case more controversial is that Bird had never been in trouble with the law before this incident while his accuser had a criminal history. Even more tragic, the presiding judge in the criminal trial wanted Bird to have minimal incarceration (30 days) in the county jail and then work release or home confinement. But the law tied his hands and the Department of Corrections said Bird has to serve a minimum of two years of his mandatory seven year sentence before he's eligible for release. He'll be serving his time in the state prison.

Quite a few people believe there has been a miscarriage of justice and that Bird should be pardoned. Count me as one of them.

Credentialed, Not Educated

Over the past few months leading up to the mid-term elections, Glenn Reynolds, amongst others, have been writing about and commenting upon the “Credentialed, not educated” meme in regards to the mass of nattering elite.

The Barrister over at Maggie's Farm takes a slightly different tack, asking the question “Which would do more for your career: A Princeton education but no diploma, or a Princeton diploma but no education?”

I have a feeling the answer is the former.

I've seen far too many people with diplomas from Ivy League schools and other high level educational institutions that haven't got the capability of actually doing the jobs they were hired to do. Some don't even have the sense to come in out of the pouring rain, metaphorically speaking.

I tried to post a comment to the Barrister's post about a fitting movie quote, but apparently the spamment system didn't like what I had to say. So I'll reproduce it here:

This reminds me of the scene in Good Will Hunting where Will (Matt Damon), goes head to head with a Harvard student at a Cambridge pub, leaving him with this thought:

“To think you blew $150 grand on an education you could've gotten from the public library for a buck-fifty in late fees.”

Heh.

Let's Play The "Balance The Budget" Game!

Everyone seems to think it will be difficult to cut government spending enough to trim, if not eliminate the federal deficit. The thing is that belief is true...if you leave it to no one but the politicians in Washington to do so. But more than a few of us unenlightened mortals (meaning everyday folk) seem to have little problem with cutting spending.

Believe it or not, the New York Times has an interactive budget simulator that lets us take a crack at cutting the budget. One journalist, James Pethokoukis, took a stab at it and managed to balance the budget in one minute. One minute!

Glenn Reynolds took a shot at it and it took him two minutes. By his own admission it took that long because, unlike Pethokoukis, he's not a money guy.

While the budget simulator does limit the choices you can make, it still shows it can be done as long as you insulate yourself from outside forces (meaning special interests and lobbies).

If you're not beholden to them then you can make the choices dispassionately, unemotionally, and logically. But once you let them start playing the “But it's for the children!” game, the choices would become more difficult. And once you make one compromise, others become easier. Eventually you'll reach the point where you'll find you can make few, if any cuts because someone has convinced you that someone else somewhere will suffer. But what they won't tell you is that they'll suffer anyways but far worse than if you'd made the cuts. Emotion rather than logic rules and that's always the worst way to make the decisions like this.

If you want to see if you can balance the budget, give it a try.

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party - Part VII

Bill Whittle tackles yet another myth about the Tea party, specifically immigration and racism. As Bill tells us, far too many Tea party detractors have labeled us “stupid uneducated Neanderthals. We're white trash rednecks, knuckle-dragging proto-Nazis, KKK-loving violent extremists ready to execute anyone who won't bend their knee to the upcoming Christian theocracy...Oh, and we're domestic terrorists.” We've also been accused of being anti-immigration. We're not. We're anti-illegal immigration. There's a big difference.

I'll let Bill explain it as he does so far better than I can.



I must admit I like his suggestion about going to Jessica Alba or Lady Gaga's house and showing them up for the hypocrites they are.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a nice weekend weather-wise, allowing us to attend to stacking the last of the fire wood and moving The Boat moved next to the garage in preparation for winter storage.

BeezleBub had today off and only had to work on school work and his share of the outdoors work. Both of us even managed to watch the Patriots game this evening without having to resort to using the DVR for anything other than replaying a particular play now and then.

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It's been a week since we made the change back to Standard Time and it's still throwing us off. At first I thought it was just me having those “It's 4 in the afternoon?!” moments, but I've found everyone is still dealing with it. I don't recall having the effects of the time change lasting quite this long.

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Is California destined for bankruptcy? A number of people including California residents Allysia Finley and Victor Davis Hanson think so.

What's telling is reading the comments to both of their pieces and finding a number of other Californians believe it should be allowed to happen because they see it as the only way to restore fiscal sanity to California's government at state and county level. A few opposing the idea keep trying to play the “California pays far more in federal taxes than it gets back” card, using it as justification for the other 49 states to bail out its unsustainable spending. Not one of one of those trying to sell that idea included any mention of slashing government spending. Not one.

California is learning the meaning of Maggie Thatcher's warning: “Socialism works until you run out of other people's money.”

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Greg Sullivan tells us about the New Prohibition: No Icky Boys, Please.

The thought of boys actually being boys is anathema to some parents, and the results of their efforts to change the nature of their sons are likely to be highly negative. At worse, they may be condemning them to a mateless life as most women like manly men (all claims otherwise to the contrary), not ambiguously gendered 'men' who avail themselves of the same pampering as women (mani/pedis, facials, hair highlights, waxing, etc). Women (for the most part) are looking for mates, not girlfriends.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Is President Barack Obama a malignant narcissist? You be the judge.

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Could it be Democrats want to make sure any spending cuts made by the new GOP-majority Congress will be as painful as possible?

If I had to guess, I'd say the answer is an unqualified “Yes.”

I get the impression they want to ensure the American taxpayer receives the maximum amount of pain possible in order to keep as many of their tax-and-spend policies in place as they possibly can.

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It sounds like the owner of this upscale grocery store in the South End of Boston has decided to borrow a page from Obama's book by placing the blame for its failure upon their customers.

Or maybe it could be because they were charging too darn much for their food in the midst of a recession. Nah, that can't be it. It must be because their customers were too stupid to realize they needed to spend a lot more for their groceries than they would shopping at the local supermarkets.

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I wouldn't mind one of these on the trusty F150!

Maybe we can convince the New Hampshire Department of Safety to do likewise. I'd get one.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Kathleen McKinley comments on (and links to) John Stossel's latest jab at affirmative action.

While Stossel's stunt was not original (a number of university students at various schools have tried the same thing over the past few years), he did make his point about affirmative action being inherently racist. Kathleen also offers a story about a friend of her son becoming a victim of affirmative action.

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It looks like the voter fraud virus has spread from the general population in Minnesota to the campus of the University of Minnesota.

This from the same folks who managed to get Al Franken 'elected' to the US Senate.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Cap'n Teach catches the New York Times committing yet another hypocritical pot-calling-the-kettle-black faux pas.

Their arrogance (or maybe it's a case of short-term memory loss) never ceases to amaze me.

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Our favorite Texan in the UK makes some disturbing discoveries in a British grocery store.

Rachel, we hope you'll come home soon!

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of our firewood is finally stacked and under cover, The Boat is in its winter storage spot, and where we're still trying to adjust to the 4 months of Standard Time.

Marx, Global Communism, And the Left

Guest blogger Bill has contributed a few more thoughts definitely worth sharing.

What’s amazing about Marx is that he hit the nail on the head about Communism being Global. The reason is also a 100% exact parallel to Liberals. Marx did however wholly miss the nature of its world wide dominance.

Global Communism isn’t an inevitability, but it cannot exist in its self-conceived purity if there is any viable alternative. Its purity can only be achieved if no comparison can be had with a system allowing even remedial functional or inspired individuality. That is why Communist governments must keep its subjects as ignorant of the rest of the world as possible (North Korea, anyone? - ed.). Subjects of Communist rule cannot be trusted, only used and controlled. An Iron Curtain in any form is meant to enforce the captivity of its subjects. However it is easy to understand that it may actually be more important as a filter to keep the subjects ignorant of other peoples. After all “peace” for Marxists isn’t the absence of violence, only the absence of dissent.

Liberals congregate together not merely because they are like-minded, but because if they actually had to be “in” the world at large they would risk being cured of their self-centered intentions-based idealism. Insulation in all forms is the ever present requirement of a sustained Liberal environment.

Indeed.

Liberal 'Contributions' To American Culture

Occasional guest contributor Bill gives us these points to ponder.

What have Liberals contributed to the once proud American culture, aside from the HR 3200 abortion?

- “Putting others first” has become “Paying far more attention to how others live their lives than how they live their own.”

- Being open minded has become abject permissiveness.

- Deriding the smug holier-than-thou small-minded Christian faithful has been replaced with an ever increasing blind faith in anything wrapped up in saccharin faux-humanist pseudo-scientific garb. Genuine lack of critical thinking leads them to logic defying leaps of faith in the cult of Global Warming, and the wholesale unquestioned goodness of (of all things) Politicians. Boiled down, all the sins that some cast against Christians to discredit anything they have to say or believe, has come full circle to be held as badges of credit by those same people.

- “Question Authority” as a means of mutual recognition and respect on ethical, moral and functional grounds has become “Question It”. But if the answer isn’t served up to them on a platter and stated in kindergarten language, or challenges them in any way, then they never let the answer be tolerated.

- If history does not support their world view comfortably, then history must be changed.

- The phrase “a friend in need is a friend in deed” is utterly lost.

- They speak of the eternal myth of “fairness” as though it's not just real, but a cornerstone truth of morality. Their belief that earthly justice, real justice, is within mankind's ability to exercise regularly, let alone understand, is spoken of as though it should be as expected as the morning sun rise. It is delusional.

- They believe it's better to be a victim. It's easy, and morally righteous to boot.

- Having conviction in almost any belief is held in contempt as something selfishly fascistic. Ethical and moral ambivalence is the sign of real goodness and selfless thoughtfulness. To them it's much better to have a stalwart (and louder) conviction of being against others convictions.

- Having an opinion has become a tyrannically inspired judgment for no other reason than it's not couched in kindergarten-safe language, it's not Federation Starfleet approved (sorry Chan, Roddenberry didn’t do us any favors with that B.S.), UN sanctioned, or is a danger of possibly challenging anyone on any level...even if they are not in the room.

- “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” has become an all-consuming unquestionable moral good to not say anything harsh or uncivil to anyone at any time as you might commit the crime of hurting someone's feelings.

- It's acceptable to desecrate, warp or denigrate anything held as dear, sacred, or even functional by anyone espousing anything resembling a traditional American value, so long as the language used to do so is civil, i.e. politically correct.

- The phrases “Grow up!“, and “Get over it” has become instead “There there, it's OK. It's not really your fault.”

- Superiority by actual virtue rigorously exercised has become superiority by consensus of good intentions and emotional projections (and we all know where that road leads). However it's never actually tested lest it's proven fragile.

- Owning your life once meant acknowledging your place in your environment while understanding that God gave each of us enough of a spark of the divine so as to see our great individual potential, and actually setting yourself on a path toward it, beholden to none. Now we’re told it's defined by a collection of goods and 'service to our fellow man' that means “Shut up, do what your told, pay the government what we think you owe it, and maybe, just maybe we’ll keep patting you on the head and telling you how special you are.” Civilian defense corps my ass.

- Childhood now continues to age 26.…emotional maturity and personal responsibility is not required at any age.

- Ah yes, and my favorite: Liberals have given us the proof that it is actually possible to be strong in weakness. Various weaknesses can be maintained, cultured, and grown into a perceived strength given enough of a mindset constructed with tangential versions of actual virtues. They thrive in environments insulated against any challenges that allow such mental structures go unchallenged. Need proof? Just look at any environment where Liberal ideals are the mainstay: politics, academia, media, even science. It's nothing more than mental inbreeding.

- Journalism, once actually lofted as the crowning achievement of a civilized society, has become what is called the Lame Stream Media, a host infected with the virus of propaganda.

- Instead of accepting that God challenges each of us to be stronger in the blessed virtues, God must be challenged because, well, its far easier being pathetic and cozy.

- Somehow, somewhere, the word “humanism” changed markedly. It went from meaning a fan of mankind's innate good virtues along side all of its shortcomings, with a healthy respect of both. And though some innate virtues are not ascribed as coming directly from any godly belief system, they never directly opposed a belief system. Such virtues were in parallel. However, today the word has an undeniable dedication and near dogmatic belief in mankind's greatness, period. A belief its followers maintain less by action than by rigorous pursuit of insulated good intentions, hopefulness and large scale visions of some untethered joy and happy state created by means of some “thing”.

- It's actually possible to be a person motivated to help others while projecting virtuous attributes, and at the same time have a crippling self-centeredness that poisons those around them.

- Everyday words and phrases of the American lexicon have nearly disappeared. Some of those include “humility”, “the American way”, as well as “the American spirit”, “God-given”, “virtue”, “sin”, and to our own devastation, “sovereignty”. That word by itself on the tongue of an American once had tremendous power.

- Individuality was once consisted of basic decency and accountability before man and God. Individuality is now principally marked by self-gratification through commercial consumerism and reveling in the edginess of base impulses.

- God gave us free will so that our lives may have value. Liberals believe God was wrong. They believe free will is over-rated at best, dangerous at worst. Value is in the eye of the law holder.

- It's better to place all possible aspects of humanity under the jurisdiction of some law rather than letting humans and Humanity figure itself out.

I must agree with Bill's points.

His last one peeves me more than many of the others because Liberals have come to believe all that's needed to correct some perceived ill or injustice is to create new legislation to outlaw it. The only problem with that belief is that there are already so many laws that are poorly enforced or universally ignored (mostly by the Left) as to make any new ones just as meaningless. Frankly, we have better things to do with our time and our efforts than to deal with useless and toothless laws, or worse, laws that have far reaching consequences that go way beyond what they were supposed to fix.

And so it goes.

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party - Part VI

Far too many people really have little understanding of the Second Amendment and why the Framers of the Constitution included it. And many of those same people have the mistaken belief that disarming a law abiding citizenry will somehow lead to less crime and violence despite abundant evidence to the contrary.

In the next is his series, Bill Whittle explains why 'they' are mistaken and why so many of the rest of us own and carry guns.



As the old saying goes when it comes to dealing with violent criminal miscreants, “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.”

Thoughts On A Sunday

Like many of the rest of you in the US, we've made the switch back to Standard Time. For the life of me I can't figure out why we even bother making the change any more. Standard Time only lasts a little over 4 months and Daylight Savings Time lasts just under 8, so why bother making the change at all?And since Standard Time isn't really 'standard' anymore, why call it that?

Yet another of the great mysteries of life to ponder.

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I think everyone's heard about sore losers, but sore winners? It seems the Democrats have had more than their share of them over the past few years, with the latest being Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA4) who had a rambling, vitriol-filled 'victory' speech. It seems he was angry because had to spend his precious time actually campaigning in order to keep his job. I guess he felt he shouldn't have to because, after all, he's entitled to his Congressional seat.

What a twit!

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Talk about sending mixed messages!

“Obama calls for compromise, but won't budge on tax cuts.”

It sounds a lot like his version of “bipartisanship” which he defines as “Sit down, shut up, and vote the way I tell you to vote!”

Yeah, that ought to work...

(H/T Instapundit)

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David Starr has a few suggestions about what the incoming Congressional Republicans should do once they're in office.

One of my favorites:

Refuse to pass omnibus spending bills. Each executive department (Defense, State, HHS, Energy, and so on) get one, separate, budget bill. If the bill fails to pass, that department can no longer write checks. This way the voters and the newsies have some idea of how much money gets spent on what. An omnibus spending bill for the entire federal government is so damn big that nobody can figure out how much is going where. Break it up into smaller pieces and it becomes manageable. Divide and conquer still works.

That works for me.

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Will Connecticut become the next New Jersey? If the election results are any indication the answer is yes.

Solid Democrat majorities in the state legislature and a Democrat governor-elect beholden to the unions does not bode well for Connecticut taxpayers.

This good old independent Yankee state is now entirely in the pocket of the unions - especially the government unions - and the three corrupt urban train wrecks which, instead of being the dynamic centers of job and wealth creation that they once were, have become insatiable sponges for dollars: Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport. Their declines have been dramatic: In the late 1950s, Hartford was voted the most pleasant medium-sized city in America to live in - higher than Boston - and I was told about the lines of limousines parked in downtown Bridgeport.

Replace the three cities named above with Trenton, Newark, and Jersey City and you've got New Jersey. Too bad Connecticut doesn't have also have its own Chris Christie.

The WP Parents left Connecticut for New Hampshire 6 years ago after selling the family beach house when the ever increasing tax burden started eating into their retirement savings at an alarming and unsustainable rate. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot more people (and businesses) fleeing Connecticut for similar reasons, just as happened in New Jersey.

As George Santayana said, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” And so it appears the people of the Nutmeg State have failed to learn the lesson of New Jersey.

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It's well past time for me to correct an oversight in my blogroll.

There are two New Hampshire bloggers that are long overdue for adding to the New England Blogger list even though I've been reading and linking to them for quite some time.

Say hello to David Starr of News From The Northwoods and Dan Pierce of Granite Pundit.

It's been a while since I've gone through the entire blogroll to update things so I'll be spending some time over the next week or so doing just that.

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Indian Parliamentarians to Obama: “WTF?”

This is in regards to his proven inability to give speeches without a teleprompter. Apparently members of India's Parliament have no problems giving long speeches without the benefit of electronic aids. Even Dubya was able to do so without teleprompter (though he did use them now and then).

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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I watched the New England Patriots play the Cleveland Browns today.

It. Was. Pitiful.

I had to stop watching towards the end of the 3^rd quarter otherwise I was likely to throw something at the TV screen in frustration. (I did record the game so I can go back and watch the rest of it after I calm down a bit.)

I don't know who those guys in the Patriots uniforms were, but they sure as heck weren't playing like the Pats. Cleveland ran roughshod over them right from the first play. The Pats defense wasn't working. Neither was their offense. In fact, nothing was working for them. It was like they were just going through the motions.

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Cap'n Teach comments upon the latest plea by “globull” warming alarmists to convince Conservatives it's in their best interest to bankrupt the nation in order to save the world.

Yeah. Right.

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Maybe it's time to outsource some of the day-to-day government operations to WalMart. After all the guys running WalMart seem to have it all figured out, while the government can't seem to do anything well except spend even more taxpayer dollars while getting less in return for the money spent.

Goodness knows WalMart can't do any worse.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been a bit schizoid lately, the woodpile has started its inevitable shrinkage, and where yet again Monday is returning all too soon.

Bruce Wins!

I am pleased to announce that one of our better known New Hampshire bloggers, Bruce (MacMahon) of No Looking Backwards fame, won a seat in the New Hampshire House, representing the town of Brentwood in Rockingham County District 10. Bruce defeated incumbent Democrat Don Petterson.

Not bad for someone who just 4 years ago fled the tyranny of the People's Republic of Massachusetts, smuggling his family across the border to freedom.

Congrats, Bruce!

Not So Much Voting For As Voting Against - Rasmussen

As I write this the polls in my home state of New Hampshire open in 12 and a half hours. I have a feeling the results are going to be shocking to some (particularly Democrats). But even if the Republicans do well and take control of the House of Representatives and make a dent in the Democrat majority in the Senate, it doesn't mean the GOP has a carte blanche to go back to the old way of doing things. Just as in the previous two elections, minority party victories can't be taken as the people voting for them so much as voting against the majority party.

But none of this means that Republicans are winning. The reality is that voters in 2010 are doing the same thing they did in 2006 and 2008: They are voting against the party in power.

This is the continuation of a trend that began nearly 20 years ago. In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president and his party had control of Congress. Before he left office, his party lost control. Then, in 2000, George W. Bush came to power, and his party controlled Congress. But like Mr. Clinton before him, Mr. Bush saw his party lose control.

That's never happened before in back-to-back administrations. The Obama administration appears poised to make it three in a row. This reflects a fundamental rejection of both political parties.

More precisely, it is a rejection of a bipartisan political elite that's lost touch with the people they are supposed to serve. Based on our polling, 51% now see Democrats as the party of big government and nearly as many see Republicans as the party of big business. That leaves no party left to represent the American people.(emphasis added – ed.)

If neither party can shake itself of the political and philosophical dead weight that has made both parties disliked by the American people, the people themselves will push them aside. The GOP has already started seeing this, with what is in effect a civil war going on within its ranks.

The GOP establishment was being ignored by the rank and file (many of whom support the Tea party) during the various state primaries, electing candidates the establishment didn't want and wouldn't endorse, in turn knocking out a number of RINO incumbents. The same will likely be true during tomorrow's elections. If the GOP establishment doesn't start listening to the rank and file, they will either be replaced or the GOP will find itself going the way of the Whigs. The same could be said of the Democrats, too.

Far too many disaffected Democrats see the party they grew up with and supported being taken over by far left elements that also do a pretty good job of ignoring the American people. Is it any surprise there a number of Democrats supporting the Tea party as well?

It will be interesting to see what happens in Washington after the 112^th Congress is sworn in and gets to work. (It will also be interesting, and a little scary, to see what Pelosi, Reid, and Obama will try to pull off during the lame duck session of Congress after the elections.) Both will bear watching. And if the Congresscritters haven't learned their lessons, we'll be more than happy to throw them out bag and baggage.

As a side note, I received this about Tuesday's elections from part time WP contributor Bill:

If it is truth that a strong centralized government of any kind can not occupy the same place as a strong self determined citizenry, then only one of two "fundamental transformations" will succeed: This Government's transformation of the American character and country, or We the People's fundamental transformation and restoring of the Government. There can be no middle ground, winner take all.

And then he ads this admonition to those not bothering to vote tomorrow:

Iraqi's and Afghani's risk being shot merely attempting to vote. What's our excuse? Voter apathy is, I believe, one of the most basic cornerstone's of the entire situation we find ourselves in.

Indeed.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Due to the outright business of the weekend, this will be a somewhat abbreviated post.

(Hey, sometimes things other than post take priority!)

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BeezleBub finished off the retail season at the farm yesterday, closing out the season with an evening working at the corn maze. He won't be working again until after Thanksgiving when he'll be back to work cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood for next year and the year after. (Some firewood takes a year to dry, other wood – oak and maple, to name two – take two years to dry properly.

I know the next month is going to be torture for him, but at least he knows he'll be back at the farm in December.

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The mid-term campaigns are coming to an end and I think we can expect a major push in campaign ads, telephone polls, and last minute campaign stops. It's going to be totally chaotic.

I can't wait for the quiet to return the day after the elections.

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The siding work at the Bogie Estates is finished and the house looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself.

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If we need an example of why socialism should be considered a disease no different than alcoholism, then this one should do.

Some folks still haven't been able to figure out that socialism has to be paid for by someone and that once that 'someone's' money is gone, so is socialism.

Then again no one's ever said socialists are capable of the long view. History has certainly proven that one more than one occasion.

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One of the other reasons I'm not putting together my usual lengthy Sunday posts is, quite frankly, a problem with the cooling fan on the video card in my computer. You see, it doesn't work anymore. That means the GPU on the card will overheat after a while and cause the video card to fail forcing a reset on my machine. It's quite annoying and at the moment I can't justify buying a new card, particularly since I have the means of fixing the cooling problem. It's just a matter of actually getting to it...maybe Monday...or Tuesday...or some other day.

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Kathleen McKinley links to a letter by a life-long Democrat horrified by what Obama has done to the Democrat Party.

This reminds me of Ronald Reagan's explanation about why he became a Republican: “I didn't leave the Democrat Party. It left me.”

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And that's the (greatly abbreviated) news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are still on the trees, the woodstove has been running around the clock, and where there are still boats out on the lake!

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party - Part V

Bill Whittle continues with his series about what it is we believe and why in his efforts to dispel the myths about the Tea party and its supporters.



I particularly agree with his point about the economy, specifically that the recession was “created by bad law.”

Give Us A (Commercial) Break...Some More!

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, they prove me wrong.

As I wrote here, the ratio of negative to positive campaign ads is seriously skewed to the negative, with less than 4% of the ads I saw on TV being positive (or at least not negative).

Now that the campaign season is down to its last few days before the elections, the level of rhetoric and the demonizing of the opposition has reached deafening levels. Smear campaigns have teetered on the brink of libel and slander. Last ditch efforts to derail opponent's campaigns have also reached a fever pitch.

One of the latest here in New Hampshire has been an effort by the New Hampshire Democrat Party to goad the US Attorney into investigating Republican candidate for New Hampshire's First Congressional District for fiscal improprieties because he amended his financial disclosure form to include a bank account he hadn't disclosed previously. Never mind incumbent Democrat Carol Shea-Porter has had to amend hers over 30 times, 9 times at the insistence of the Federal Election Commission. Isn't that the pot calling the kettle an off-shade of gray?

I would think if there were any issues about the new disclosure that the FEC would have made an issue of it, wouldn't you?

Fact checking some of the various ads on both sides shows the truthfulness quotient has fallen precipitously as we get closer to November 2^nd and I have no reason to believe it won't continue its fall into the cellar.

And as bad as it is here in New Hampshire, it's far worse just south of the border in the People's Republic of Taxachusetts, and in California, Illinois, and Colorado. (Some of the 'super-stations' we receive on satellite include KTLA in Los Angeles, WGN in Chicago, and KWGN in Denver.) It's gotten to the point that I can't even watch the news without having to mute the sound every time a political ad airs. We've taken to recording any of the shows we'd normally watch and then zapping through the commercials just so we don't have to watch or listen to the crap pouring out of the TV.

Even listening to music on the radio has become problematic as the ads have intruded there, too, with political hopefuls in four states (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont) airing an increasing number of ads, most of them negative.

The end can't come too soon.

Rigging The Vote, 21st Century Style

Sometimes they get the dead to vote, in many cases more than once. Sometimes they find full ballot boxes in the trunks of cars or in garages, all of them marked for their favorite Democrat candidate. Sometimes they are able to get homeless people and illegal aliens to the polls. But now they've gone high tech, rigging voting machines in Nevada to set the default vote for US Senator to Harry Reid.

In this case who are 'they'?

Read on:

Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot.

--snip--

Now there's absolutely no independently verified evidence of chicanery with the voting machines (yet), but it is worth noting that the voting machine technicians in Clark County are members of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU spent $63 million in elections in 2008 and is planning on spending $44 million more this election cycle -- nearly all of that on Democrats.

Yup, just program the machines to pick the candidate of your choice and watch the votes tally up! And we thought the Chicago Way was corrupt.

Every So Often They Get It Right

It seems we always hear about how poorly government does just about everything. For the most part, that's true. But every so often they get things right.

In this case, it looks like government has managed to get at least 12 things right. What am I talking about?

Government websites.

The twelve sites honored in the linked article cover both federal and state sites, showing how good they can be.

Unfortunately government can also have some pretty bad websites, too.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The chilly fall weather we've been experiencing over the past week will be replaced by warm temps, with daytime highs in the 70's and nighttime lows in the 50's, giving us a brief respite before the cooler weather returns.

That means we won't need to use the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove for most of the week.

That's just fine by me.

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By way of GraniteGrok comes this excellent way to start your morning: Five minutes of Lieutenant Colonel Allan West.

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Apparently there are a number of Dems who really don't like Lieutenant Colonel Allan West and are working hard to paint him as the anti-woman Congressional candidate.

The question is, is going after Allen West a smart strategy or a sign of Democrat desperation?

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Bogie keeps us up to date on the renovations taking place at the Bogie Estates. This week: new siding and new windows.

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This doesn't fill me with confidence in the federal government.

It appears our benevolent and ever expanding government didn't have any idea how many data centers it really has, underestimating the total by over a thousand.

If a thousand were ten percent of the total, that's one thing. But in this case their estimate was off by almost 50 percent (47.7%), with a July 2010 count revealing there are actually 2094 federal data centers.

This doesn't bode well for anyone claiming the government is capable or competent to handle anything, including running our lives.

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I have to agree with fellow New Hampshire resident P.J. O'Rourke on this one:

They hate our guts. And they're drunk on power.

They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts. They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class.

Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.

P.J. Also goes on to say this: “This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order.”

And then some.....

(H/T Instapundit)

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Here's yet another example of Democrats telling us “Do as we say, not as we do.”

While the President has been decrying the ability of corporations to donate money to political campaigns or pay for campaign ads through proxies, he's kept quiet about labor unions doing exactly the same thing.

Never mind that labor unions are, to all intents and purposes, no different from the very groups the President has been bashing. They are a business, despite what they may claim. The only difference? Labor unions unanimously support the Democrats. (Or at least the union leadership does. That's not necessarily true of the rank-and-file.) Therefore, they get a pass from the President, Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and the DNC. If the unions supported Republicans, you know darned well the union sponsored ads and campaign contributions would be condemned just as other corporate donations have been.

It's the double standard applied out in the open and publicly.

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Dr. Joy Bliss covers how the poor are different from both the non-poor and the poor of other countries. Some of it deals with the reasons for poverty:

Those without socialist ideologies know that poverty in America is often temporary, often by life-style choice, sometimes by bad luck, and often because of dysfunctional life choices and/or character flaws and mental disability and illness.

America's poor are significantly better off than the poor of other nations. In fact, many of our poor would be considered quite wealthy in other nations.

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Anthony Watts hosts guest blogger Thomas Fuller on what Fuller calls The League of 2.5.

Fuller makes one error that puts his entire post into question: using only 52 years of CO₂ and temperature data to make his case.

As one of those engineering types who deals with data and data analysis on a regular basis, I can safely say that if I based any kind of 'trend' on such a tiny data set I'd quickly find myself called on the carpet, if not fired outright. When it comes to climate a 52 year, 100 year, or 200 year data set is far too small and should be considered a 'snapshot' at best. To get a better idea of an actual long term trend, the data set needs to span 1,000 or more years. (Even 400-some years of data would be far more indicative, something that is available via British Royal Navy logbooks dating back to the late 1500's.)

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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To add some fuel to the fire, so to speak, here's a speech by Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus addressing climate change and how science is no longer driving the debate, but politics.

Klaus is an economist by trade, considered by many to be absolutely first-rate. He understands modeling and the limitations of modeling. With economics you have large data sets covering hundreds of years and still the computer models used to predict economic activity get it wrong (though usually by a matter of degree, not magnitude). By comparison, climate modeling is crude, with questionable data sets and far too much political influence affecting the outcomes.

One thing I must agree with Klaus upon is this:

To reduce the interpretation of the causality of all kinds of climate changes and of global warming to one variable, CO₂, or to a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO₂– is impossible to accept. Elementary rationality and my decades-long experience with econometric modeling and statistical testing of scientific hypotheses tell me that it is impossible to make strong conclusions based on mere correlation of two (or more) time series. In addition to this, it is relevant that in this case such a simple correlation does not exist. The rise of global temperature started approximately 150 years ago but man-made CO₂ emissions did not start to grow visibly before the 1940s. Temperature changes also repeatedly moved in the opposite direction than the CO₂ emissions trend suggests.

Or as one of my favorite nuclear physicists – Dr. Gregory Greenman – put it, “Correlation does not imply causality.”

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OK, I can understand this considering where it came from, but this person has got to get a grip.

If a judge faced impeachment every time they rendered an unpopular ruling we'd be so tied up with impeachment proceedings that nothing would get done, or judges would be so intimidated they wouldn't rule on anything at any time. Call it yet another version of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

So this Oregon Democrat Congressional bozo doesn't like the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizen's United case? Too bad. I'm not aware of any SCOTUS decision that's made everybody happy. It just doesn't happen. And to base his impeachment upon perjury about how Chief Justice Roberts would rule shows the level of asininity to which this Democrat has fallen.

I think this guy would have far better use for his time and our tax dollars than to pursue this doomed effort.

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There's nothing quite so powerful as the confessions of a former Leftist. Kathy Shaidle is one such Leftist convert to the Tea party, enlightening us with the 8 things she wishes she'd known (or remembered) when she was a Leftist.

Here's a peak at a couple:

#8: Ronald Reagan wasn't a total jerk.

#6: Michael Moore is a liar.

#2: A lot of progressive heroes were jerks.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing. She covers a lot of territory and her journey to enlightenment is eye-opening.

(H/T Vermont Tiger)

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I'd hoped to pull the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of the water today, but lousy weather conspired against me. Fortunately warmer/nicer weather arrives starting tomorrow (as I mentioned at the top of the post), making it far more likely BeezleBub and I will finally be able to get it out of the water and back to The Manse. I hope.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the fall foliage is past peak (but still beautiful), the weather has turned schizophrenic, and where Halloween is a week away.

Give Us A (Commercial) Break!

I don't know if any of you out there have noticed, but the ratio of negative campaign ads to positive ads is seriously skewed to the negative. It seems to me that they're all starting to blend together, making it difficult to differentiate one candidate's ad from another.

All I do know for certain is that I'm sick and tired of it and that I'm not the only one.

Over the past few days I've tracked the total number of ads on our local TV station and those south of the border in Boston, watching about 12 hours of TV over that time. There were an average of 5 campaign ads during every commercial break. Figured 4 commercial breaks every hour that gives us a rough total of 20 ads every hour and 240 ads over the 12 hours I watched TV. Of those 240 ads, only 9 were positive ads, and then only barely positive (meaning they didn't name a specific candidate's opponent and provide negative information about them). That means out of all the ads I tracked less than 4% (3.75%, to be precise) could have been considered positive ads.

That's pretty sad.

One thing I know for sure: I'll be darned glad when November 2^nd had come and gone because it means all those ads will disappear...until November of 2011, when the ads for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries will start up. And if that isn't bad enough, presidential hopefuls from both parties considering a run in 2012 will start showing up here in New Hampshire and in Iowa on or sometime shortly after November 3^rd of this year.

Couldn't they at least give us a short break before starting their 2-year long bid for the Oval Office? We need time to recuperate from the campaign ad overload from the mid-term elections.

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party - Part IV

One of the great tenets of the Left is that wealth is a zero-sum game, meaning they believe that in order for one person to become wealthy that someone else had to become poor.

Those of us who support the Tea party know that belief to be a canard, an excuse to steal wealth from those who created it.

If you aren't sure you believe that, then Bill Whittle has a little lesson about wealth, how it's created, and who benefits. (A hint: Everyone benefits.)

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party - Part III

In this rather timely WSJ opinion piece, Peter Berkowitz delves into more reasons why liberals don't (or can't) understand the Tea party movement.

What's worse, they don't even understand the basis or the basics of our form of government, nor do they want to.

Highly educated people say the darndest things, these days particularly about the tea party movement. Vast numbers of other highly educated people read and hear these dubious pronouncements, smile knowingly, and nod their heads in agreement. University educations and advanced degrees notwithstanding, they lack a basic understanding of the contours of American constitutional government.

In their ignorance they see the bliss of a totalitarian state, where they make the decisions for the rest of us poor benighted souls incapable of understanding their superiority.

Yeah. Right.

Unfortunately it is these very same liberals who are the benighted souls incapable of understanding their inferiority to a incredibly large majority of Americans, a majority that understand what can make or break a business, who see the direct effects of poor government and ever more onerous taxes and regulations. In other words, they cannot understand why the Tea parties have been garnering so much support. It comes down a simple concept:

The Tea parties understand the inferiority of the liberal mind set and their inability to see that which is right in front of them – the country can't keep spending money it doesn't have on government programs that don't work run by people who are barely competent enough to run their own lives, let alone anyone else's.

It's easy for liberals to disparage Tea partiers as a resurrection of the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850's, but they have shown themselves to be the modern day Know-Nothings, particularly when it comes to the origin of the Tea party moniker.

That lack was shown quite publicly when the liberals tore into Tea party favorite Sarah Palin for her comment “Party like it's 1773.”

When Sarah Palin told a Tea Party crowd last Monday that it wasn’t time yet to “party like it’s 1773,” segments of the left such as Kos’s founder Markos Moulitsas chortled at her supposed stupidity. Their kneejerk assumption was that Palin was so ignorant that she didn’t even know the date of early events in the American Revolution. But since it was actually the Boston Tea Party (1773) to which she was referring, it was Sarah who had the last laugh.

Commenters and lefty bloggers galore echoed Markos Moulitsas's post. Of course if they'd spent about 30 seconds Googling “Tea Party” and “1773” they would have come across the Boston Tea Party - which took place on December 16, 1773 - they wouldn't have sounded like the smug idiots they proved themselves to be.

So who is it who's misinformed about the modern day Tea parties and spreading myths about its motivations, beliefs, and origins?

You only get one guess....

Some People Really Don't Like Traffic Radar

I have little doubt everyone thinks those radar trailers the various police and sheriff's departments set up along the roads to remind us of our speed are annoying. Sometimes they're surprising, meaning they make us realize we're going faster than we thought we were.

But as annoying as they can be, they're basically harmless. The police don't use them to issue tickets. They're there just to let us know how fast we're going along the stretches of road where they're set up.

Apparently someone here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire really doesn't like them. At all.

The Laconia [NH] Police Department itself has become a crime statistic after someone recently fired a bullet into the agency's radar trailer, disabling it and forcing expensive repairs.

When Sgt. Gary Hubbard and Off. John Howe opened up the display, they found the flattened remains of a .22-caliber bullet that Clarke believes was fired from a moving vehicle. The bullet caused about $1,000 worth of damage to the display, he said, and nearly missed the actual radar unit which, had it been hit, would have cost a like sum to replace.

Someone has some serious anger issues to deal with.

Thoughts On A Sunday

One of the first things on our To Do list today (after breakfast, of course) was re-arranging the living room and dining room in The Manse. This has been the third configuration since we moved in to The Manse five and half years ago.

The previous iteration had us swapping the living room and room locations, something that seemed to work a bit, but there were definitely downsides to the arrangement. Now we're back to the original arrangement, sort of, with the dining room back towards the rear of The Manse and the living room in the front. The one difference – we've reversed the original set up in the living room so the Official Weekend Pundit Entertainment Center is across from the the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove rather than beside it, kinda.

I know the feline members of the household have made known their displeasure by disappearing while we cleaned and moved and rearranged the furnishings. I don't know if they're perturbed by the actual change or because we didn't consult them first.

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It appears Bogie's been busy with work around the Bogie Estates.

She also had the good fortune to make the Roger Waters concert in Hartford, Connecticut. (If you're unfamiliar with Roger Waters, he was formerly with Pink Floyd and wrote most of the music and lyrics for The Wall.)

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If we need an example of how multiculturalism ultimately fails, all we have to do is look at Germany. At least the Germans admit it has failed and are no longer willing to put up with that touchy-feelie politically correct crap.

If we need any further examples, they abound: France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands come to mind.

Hopefully the same multi-culti crap will die a much deserved death here in the US as we can see it doesn't work here either.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Despite claims to the contrary, it appears the DCCC is abandoning incumbent Congressional Democrats in districts they see as lost in order to focus their efforts (and funds) on districts where they believe they are either a lock or stand a good chance of winning.

That ought to give comfort to those Democrats cut loose by their national party.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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It appears that a number of the people at tending Obama's MTV interview event were actors hired to fill seats and ask questions.

Turns out all the audience members who asked questions were actually actors who auditioned for their “roles” in the charade. They had to submit their questions at the audition so Obungler would know what they were going to ask and how to answer them, and they also had to state their political views, proving, yet again, that the dolt cannot do anything if it isn’t scripted or can’t be read off a TelePrompTer.

Talk about astroturf!

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Do you like to make friends and influence people? Then this isn't how you do it.

I'm sure anyone can influence advertisers by threatening them. Yeah, that always works.

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And that's the (abbreviated) news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the foliage colors have reached peak, the leaf peepers likewise, and where boats are quickly disappearing from the lake.

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party - Part II

Here's the second in a series of videos from Bill Whittle explaining how it is the members of the Tea parties are smarter than the ruling elite by a few orders of magnitude, particularly when it comes to the economy.



Part I can be found here.

Prosecutorial Misconduct In Washington State?

It's bad enough when a prosecutor uses his office to harass a law-abiding citizen. It's even worse when he uses his office to also try and kill the business he manages through malicious and specious criminal and civil cases that have been thrown out of court time and time again.

What makes it even worse than that is when he's doing it at the behest of 'well-connected' abutters to the business, which has been in existence for 84 years.

The business in question? The Kitsap [Washington] Rifle and Revolver Club.

The aforementioned well-connected abutter bought a home near the KRRC and decided he didn't like the noise coming from the club. Never mind that the club has been there decades longer than the abutter's home. Never mind the abutter was aware of the club's existence before he bought the home. Using the Kitsap County DA as his personal errand boy to drive the club out of existence and harassing the manager with groundless criminal prosecutions is in itself criminal and could be seen as violating the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. Maybe it's time for the Washington state Attorney General to investigate this misconduct. And if AG's office won't take action, then maybe the US Attorney should do so.

I have to wonder to which party the DA and the abutter belong. If I had to guess, I'd say it isn't the GOP.

The EPA Is At It Again

It's bad enough we have to deal with 10% ethanol content in our gasoline all in the name of clean air and less dependence upon foreign oil sources. Considering that ethanol provides neither makes it even more of a pain. All ethanol does is eat up tax dollars (it's heavily subsidized), provides nothing in the way of reduced carbon footprint (we use just as much petroleum growing the crops and processing them into alcohol as we would if we did nothing), and increases food prices because farmland that in the past has been used for food crops are now being used to grow corn as feedstock for ethanol production. Ethanol in gasoline also decreases fuel economy (ethanol has ~50% of the energy of an equivalent volume of gasoline).

There's also one more bad side effect of ethanol many of us who are boaters have to deal with on a constant basis – fuel separation. When water gets into the gasoline/ethanol mixture the ethanol separates out of the gas and creates a sludge that clogs fuel filters and fuel injectors. In a marine environment it is inevitable that water will get into fuel tanks, mostly through condensation, because marine environments are humid.

Now the EPA wants to add insult to injury by increasing the ethanol content from 10% to 15%. That means more tax subsidies to ethanol producers (meaning more of your money coming out of your wallet to pay for it), more pressure on food prices as more farmland is used to grow corn for ethanol production, and even poorer fuel economy for you vehicle (which means even more of your money coming out of your wallet to pay for it), with little to show for it in regards to air pollution, carbon footprint, or reduction in dependence upon foreign oil sources.

If ethanol was such a great deal there would be no need to subsidize it. And with a higher alcohol content the fuel separation problems will get even worse. The existing problem seen in boats costs the consumer millions in repairs and remediation. It will only get worse if the ethanol content is increased.

By the way, have you noticed the EPA doesn't mandate use of ethanol in aviation gasoline? That's because they know there would be lawsuits up the wazoo as the number of plane crashes (and fatalities) would skyrocket due to fuel starvation caused by the ethanol separating out of the gas and clogging the fuel systems. (This refers of course to piston-engined aircraft.)

Dispelling The Myths About The Tea Party

It's obvious from reading the number of screeds decrying the Tea parties and their alleged anti-abortion, pro-fundamentalist, anti-poor/pro-rich beliefs that far too many on the Left have absolutely no understanding of the movement or of the people within it. The Left has ascribed so many patently false motivations to the Tea parties that it's difficult for those wanting to know what the they're all about to find the truth.

First, I have a small bit of advice: Listen to what people are saying about the Tea parties. Which ones are sounding the most hysterical and screaming about the Tea parties and what they stand for the loudest? Chances are they're the ones that are lying. And who is screaming the loudest?? Why, the Left, of course.

Second, take a look at the Contract From America. It explains the main tenets of the Tea party movement. It's a short read, with only 10 parts, and each part only a small single paragraph. It will take all of two minutes to read.

Third: Take look at this video by Bill Whittle. It pretty much explains the core beliefs of the Tea party and its supporters. (This video is only Part 1, with more to follow.)



Nowhere in the video or the Contract From America is any mention made of religion, abortion, homosexuality, or stealing from the poor to give to the rich. (By the way, who would want to 'steal' from the poor? They don't have any money to steal, something the Left always ignores.)

It's all about letting Washington and the various state governments know that we're all sick and tired of being told by people nowhere near as wise as we are nor anywhere near as experienced how to live our lives. We're all sick and tired of having our hard earned money taken from us to be spent on things we don't need, don't want, or find so wasteful as to be no better than theft.

Any questions?

Old Spice Campaign Ad

I saw this and started laughing. It's a great take on the recent Old Spice ads. The ad is by Republican candidate Jerry Labriola running for Connecticut's 3^rd Congressional District.



(H/T Cubachi)

Thoughts On A Sunday

The fall weather has finally asserted itself, with freezing cold nights and cool, breezy days. Peak foliage is running behind schedule here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, but the cold nights should help speed up the change in colors a bit.

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The cooler weather hasn't required us to fire up the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove yet, but that time will be coming soon enough. For now setting the thermostat to 68°F when I come down in the morning and letting the furnace run for half an hour is all it takes to keep the house warm the rest of the day. Once the sun rises above the hill to our east the light floods into the dining and living rooms and the master bedroom upstairs, warming them enough to keep the house comfortable without the need to use either the furnace or woodstove.

That won't last much longer for once the much colder weather arrives we'll need the woodstove to keep things toasty warm. The only time we'll run the furnace is on those days or nights when it's below zero (the woodstove can't quite keep up when it's that cold out).

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US News & World Report's Mary Kate Cary says Obama's Rolling Stone proves he's arrogant and out of touch with the voters.

Well, yeah. We've known that for quite some time. Only now the MSM is catching on?

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As regulatory control increases on medical research and taxes will be imposed on the sale of medical technology by various provisions in ObamaCare, venture capitalists who would normally fund start-ups wishing to exploit the new technologies have decided the hassles aren't worth it and are putting their capital to use in other areas.

Gee, I seem to recall a number of people warned that the Law of Unintended Consequences would come into play and the effects would end up hurting all of us in the long run. If the VCs no longer see medical technology as a viable or desirable investment, much of the new technology won't be developed...or at least it won't be developed here.

Yeah, that ought to be a real boost to the economy and the health care industry.

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Oh, lordy, I remember these!

My mom had one and we would play with it from time to time. Of course today you'd need one that has tens and hundreds of dollars columns.

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If the idiots in Washington are wondering why there aren't more new jobs, then perhaps they should read this in order to get a clue.

(H/T BogieBlog)

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The Barrister has reposted some handy tips about surviving winter in New England.

I'm beginning to think I should dig out some posts of my own from the Weekend Pundit archives that deal with the same subject, though mine have a slightly different focus. But I'll wait a little longer before reposting them (after some updating). Look for them right around Thanksgiving, if not sooner.

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I have to agree with this statement made by the Redneck Tree-Hugger:

Barack Obama is the best thing that has happened to America in the last 100 years. Truly, he is the savior of America's future. He is the best thing ever.

Read the whole thing. Once you do, you'll also agree with him.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Science? We don' need no stinkin' science!

That's true...if you don't mind sucking yet another 1$ trillion out of the economy along with making 7 million more jobs disappear.

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Jay Tea deconstructs liberal beliefs, specifically in relation to law.

[M]any of today's liberals have a very bizarre notion on what "the law" is about, is for, and means.

--snip--

[S]o many of the left seem to think that simply passing a law makes a problem go away.

--snip--

Then wrap your head around this: it's also a tenet of the left that "bad" laws should just be ignored.

So, in effect, they want law to reflect what they believe to be right, even if that belief is momentary. Should we all follow that belief all we would have is anarchy. (Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch, but all we have to do is look at places where such belief is common, like Somalia. Anarchy has certainly made that place a paradise.)

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Gee, I feel safer already!

It turns out that President Obama's new National Security Adviser – Tom Donilon - really doesn't like the US military.

That's OK, because Secretary of Defense Robert Gates doesn't like Donilon either, and for good reason.

According to Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, which has somehow gotten less attention at the Times than Woodward’s Bush-era tomes, Gates described Donilon as clueless when it comes to the military and was deeply offended by the disrespect the former Fannie Mae lobbyist showed to senior military leadership.

The new National Security adviser was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae? For cryin' out loud, I have better qualifications than Donilon! At least I actually worked in the defense industry for 20 years!

That really gives me the warm and fuzzies.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaf peepers have arrived in droves, the leaves still haven't reached peak, and where our boat will soon be coming out of the water.

Middle Class Americans Cutting Spending...Again

Some people seem to be surprised that middle class Americans have been reining in their discretionary spending and keeping a close eye on the cost of essentials.

Speaking as one of those middle class Americans, I can tell you I'm not surprised at all.

Even though both my wife and I have jobs, we understand that the economy is still shaky and that either of our jobs could go away tomorrow. We've reduced our spending to essentials, including repairs to The Manse. Eating out now means a quick stop at the local Wendy's, if that. Even essential purchases are scrutinized to see if we can find less expensive goods that will do the job. There are no plans to go out and buy that neato 48” Sharp Aquos LCD TV we've been eying for over a year now or to spend a few hundred dollars for repairs to The Boat that we can handle ourselves for a fraction of the cost. We're trying to pay down our debt as much as possible in as short a period of time as we can. We've even been refinancing The Manse to lower our monthly payment and shorten the term of our mortgage in an effort to make sure we'll have a little more cash in our pockets at the end of each month.

Our anxiety over the continuing recession is the same as millions of other Americans in the same situation. We don't want to spend money we may need later if things get any worse. We want to pay down what debt we do have if things get any worse. And from what we've seen of economic numbers, including the unemployment for September, things aren't getting better despite what the White House and the Congressional Democrat leadership may claim.

NOW Endorses Jerry Brown?

This was too good not link.

Apparently the National Organization of Women (NOW) has destroyed its last shred of credibility (as if it's had any over the past decade or so) by endorsing Jerry Brown for governor after he or one of his staffers were heard calling his Republican opponent, Meg Whitman, “a whore.”

This endorsement shows how far a once effective and respected organization has fallen. NOW used to stand for equal rights for women, showing women were capable of doing most of the same jobs as men, and worked hard to do away with laws and policies that discriminated against women. But over the past couple of decades it has degenerated into something that has worked hard to revictimize women, denigrate women who choose to stay home and raise their children, criminalize men, and has supported measures and causes that benefit no one except NOW and its misanthropist leadership.

Betty Friedan must be spinning in her grave.

(H/T Instapundit)

Keep Those Pesky Varmints Away

This is just so cool! I can see one of these being used to keep the varmints away from trash cans, vegetable gardens, and peaceful Tea party protests.

This video shows the basic construction:



This gives a demo of full auto mode:



And this video demos the single shot mode:



This obviously appeals to the tech geek part of me. You can even find build instructions and a parts list here!

Gallup Numbers Dismay Democrats

You know the Democrats must be soiling their undies when they prefer Scott Rasmussen's poll results in regards to the upcoming election over that of Gallup.

Maybe it's because the Gallup poll shows Democrat chances for retaining control of the House are far worse than Rasmussen's poll.

Yesterday, Gallup delivered its first 2010 "likely voter" poll and the results floored the political community. In the generic ballot question, which asks which party a voter would favor in a generic House contest, Gallup gave the GOP a 46% to 42% edge. But then Gallup applied two versions of its "likely voter" turnout model. In its "high turnout model," Republicans led Democrats by 53% to 40%. In its "low turnout model," the GOP edge was a stunning 56% to 38%. That kind of margin in favor of Republicans has never been seen in Gallup surveys.

--snip--

But regardless of where likely voters are right now, it's a strange political year when Democrats start consoling themselves with Scott Rasmussen, whose polls they have long disparaged as being biased towards Republicans.

Usually Democrats don't like Rasmussen because of his perceived bias. But because his numbers are slightly less worse than Gallup's, they like him just fine this time around.

Despite what the polls show we must remember that the only poll that counts is the one on November 2^nd. The Democrats will have no way of discounting the results of that one.

The Return Of Smoot-Hawley

It's bad enough the Obama/Pelosi/Reid triumvirate are trying to make a bad situation worse with their poor handling (intentional or otherwise) of the economy. Now they want to bring back a horrible idea that helped turn a moderately severe recession into the Great Depression with their version of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

...[W]e're close to repeating the mother of all policy errors, the one made not in 1937 but in 1930—the one that started the Great Depression. We're on track to resurrect the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

--snip--

Last week the House passed the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act. It's an amendment that gives dangerous new protectionist powers to the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the proximate cause of the global Great Depression, which after all these years is still on the books. Democrats—all but five of whom voted in favor of the bill last week—would do well to remember that in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran as a free-trader, pledging to lower Smoot-Hawley's tariff walls. The 99 Republicans who voted aye should know that Herbert Hoover's name lives in infamy for erecting them. Instead, Wednesday's vote was a bipartisan move to build those walls higher using currencies as the bricks and mortar.

The bill, if passed by the Senate and signed by the president, would mandate that the Department of Commerce take a foreign country's currency interventions into account in determining whether its trading practices are unfair. In the case of China—the target at which this bill is aimed—Commerce would determine that the amount by which the yuan is allegedly undervalued.

When Smoot-Hawley took effect, world trade ground to a halt overnight. Between the tariffs the US now placed upon all kinds of foreign goods and the retaliatory tariffs placed on American goods shipped overseas, all goods became too expensive and the workers and consumers around the world paid the price as economies around the collapsed.

Now the idiots in Congress want to do it all over again! Have these morons learned nothing from history? Wait, of course they haven't. In fact, they're recycling ideas from the FDR era and doing it just as poorly as it was done back then, not bothering to even understand why they were a bad idea than and are an even worse idea now.

If the aim of the Democrats is to devastate the American economy and the world economy, then they're on the right track with this really really dangerous bill.

They are doing just what I expected them to do. I warned you folks about it starting back in January 2009, again in April 2009, then again in September 2009, and once more in June of this year.

It seems they are bound and determined to take us back to the bad old days of the 1930's in America.