Thoughts On A Sunday

All outside work has stopped at The Manse for the time being. With rain since yesterday early evening and forecasts saying we'll have rain all week, the chances to do much of anything outside has dwindled to almost zero.

But even if there were no rain, the black flies are out in force this spring, making it uncomfortable to be outdoors for any great length of time. Those little bloodsuckers bite and it hurts like heck. What's worse is that their bites can easily get infected and trouble you for days afterwards. Even Deep Woods Off doesn't keep them away for long.

It's been a wet spring and that means there's plenty of running water, which black flies need to reproduce, unlike mosquitoes which require stagnant water. I expect we'll also see a bumper crop of mosquitoes as well once the rains clear out.

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As if we weren't expecting this.

Eric the Viking links to and comments upon reports that both Medicare and Social Security will go broke sooner than the government's original projections.

I always thought their predictions were optimistic at best, ignoring the increasing imbalance between those paying into the system and those collecting benefits. Of course if the government hadn't 'borrowed' the Social Security funds to pay for all kinds of other government spending back in the 60's and 70's, replacing them with worthless IOU's, Social Security wouldn't be in the position it is now.

It's times like this that make me wish I could find a replacement flux capacitor to fix my WAYBAC machine so I could go back in time and tell those Congressional morons to leave the funds alone.

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Oh, I wish I had the bal..uhh...stones to say something like this to the TSA jerks at the airport security checkpoints!

(H/T Scary Yankee Chick)

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David Starr has a breakdown of the $4 billion oil industry tax break, showing it isn't what Obama and his Congressional hacks say it is. And from what little reading I've done on the matter, it isn't something companies like Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, or other big oil firms receive in any case.

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This just in: Osama bin Laden is still dead.

Other reports say he had a rather large porn stash at his hideout as well.

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Cubachi tells us Herman Cain is taking a different tack that Obama, claiming “Being number 2 is not in our DNA.”

The more I listen to Cain and read about him, the more I like the guy.

I prefer to think of him as the anti-Obama.

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My second favorite Texan, Kathleen McKinley, points us to an article about this perpetual war we find ourselves in.

As Kathleen writes:

While reading it, I realized that both sides have their own reasons for going to war or intervening around the world. Since the internet, we now get a real sense of what people are going through in other countries. I know I have been riveted on twitter to tweets from Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya.

--snip--

What does this mean for us? Will we continue to war over all the world’s conflicts? Even those that do not affect us? It’s a question we need to ask.

Indeed.

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While some folks struggle with trying to convince us global warming is All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans, there are others hoping that it is indeed true the world is warming because it will make their homeland more livable, just as it was a thousand years ago.

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First, they go after Boeing and the state of South Carolina. Now they're going after the state of Arizona and a not-yet enforced law that guarantees secret ballots for unionization votes. “They” are, of course, the NLRB.

As one commenter from Arizona put it, “We need to eliminate the NLRB. It’s become nothing more than a taxpayer-funded litigation arm of big unions.”

It smells more and more like the old Mob protection rackets institutionalized into government working at the behest of and to the advantage of the union bosses.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Is conservative talk radio dead? It is if you believe John Avlon. However, Dan Riehl disagrees and proves his point with real ratings numbers.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Want to cut a few billion in wasteful government spending from the budget? Then a good place to start is the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has left a trail of stalled or abandoned projects in its wake.

These days a HUD grant is a license to steal taxpayer dollars.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the rains continue to fall, the black flies are thriving, and where summerfolk were in short supply this weekend.

Prom Night

I must admit to an oversight. I didn't post last night because I forgot. I had plenty to write about, but I was sidetracked by another event – BeezleBub's prom night.

Deb, the WP Mom-In-Law, her mother-in-law (BeezleBub's great-grandmother), and I went to the high school for the Grand March, where the couples attending the prom were presented to the public. After that they departed the school and arrived at Weirs Beach to board the M/S Mount Washington cruise ship, host to their prom.

Deb returned to work and the WP Mom-In-Law, her mother-in-law, and I went out to eat. After dinner we returned to The Manse and the next few hours were spent in conversation. I didn't realize how late it was until BeezleBub returned home (about a half hour before midnight). I have no idea where the time went. The chances of writing anything meaningful had disappeared, particularly since it was so late and bed beckoned.

I did manage to snag one quick picture of BeezleBub and his date, Hobbit. Ain't they cute?



Click on image to enlarge

How Government Regulations Cause More Problems Than They Solve - Part III

I am about to write one of the terms most hated by businesses in America these days:

SarbOx.

This refers to the Sarbanes-Oxley bill that came in the aftermath of the Enron debacle. While the intent of SarbOx was to help prevent another Enron and the economic damage that went with it, it has in itself created all kinds of harm to businesses because of its draconian requirements.

Accounting and reporting requirements have added to business costs with nothing to show for it. SarbOx fixed nothing. Even if it had been in force before the Enron debacle, it wouldn't have prevented it.

Some of the side effects of SarbOx:

A decline in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). This is how private companies go public, offering stock to the public as a means to raise capital for expansion. Without this mechanism, many businesses can't expand as they might have planned, which means fewer jobs are created and less money can be made.

An increase in mergers and acquisitions because IPOs have fallen out of favor due to the requirements of SarbOx.

An increase in number of public companies going private. Some of this may be driven by the burden placed upon public companies by SarbOx. Going private removed much of this burden, but also made it more difficult to raise capital. Apparently they saw this as less encumbering than having to deal with SarbOx.

It slows down speedy financial disclosure, something the SEC requires. With the convoluted requirements of SarbOx, such disclosure is darn near impossible.

Costs of compliance are quite high. The SEC had estimated it would cost companies required to report under SarbOx only $91,000 per year to do so. The actual costs are closer to $7.8 million per year (this is a 2008 figure). Accounting costs have doubled due to the reporting requirements. Other than accountants and attorneys, how has this benefited anyone?

So it all boils down to this: SarbOx costs businesses billions in compliance costs, delays up-to-date financial reporting, has squeezed out investment capital, and cost jobs (except those of accountants). Yet with all it was supposed to do it hasn't prevented much of anything that existing SEC rules and regulations already covered. It wasn't that there weren't sufficient laws on the books to deal with things like the Enron scam. It was that what laws that were already on the books weren't being properly enforced. How does piling on even more laws, rules, and regulations fix that?

Unfortunately we're all paying the price for that lack of oversight and enforcement.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was one of those unpredictable days yesterday, at least in regards to the weather.

It was sunny and warm in the morning and I assumed it would be that way for most of the rest of the day. But every time I would go out to the Official Weekend Pundit Clothesline to hand laundry it would start to rain, accompanied by lightning and thunder. So the clothes would have to go into the drier and once almost dry, the sun would come out. As soon as another load was ready to hang, another thundershower would come through.

I couldn't win.

Sometimes it just happens that way.

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I believe I mentioned this earlier, but it bears repeating.

The Manse no longer has a landline.

Since Deb, BeezleBub and I all have cell phones and the landline was used primarily for incoming calls, it made no sense to continue paying $44 per month to keep something we rarely use anymore. We probably kept it longer than we should have mainly from habit. Both Deb and I grew up in homes where a wired telephone was the norm. It was something we knew and were comfortable with having, so we really didn't think much about it. But with the continuing economic downturn and our household budget under strain (like so many others), we realized keeping the landline was more a concession to nostalgia than a necessity. So we decided to do away with it.

When we called the cable company to disconnect the line (our service was though the local cable MSO), the service rep understood our reason. She confided in me that she no longer has a landline either for the same reason.

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This is something I can get behind! (Or better yet, in front of...)

(H/T Ann Althouse @ Instapundit)

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Cubachi links to and comments about Sarah Palin and her knowledge of energy policy.

Of all potential presidential candidates from either party, she probably has the most comprehensive knowledge and experience. She also understands how the Obama Administration's efforts and policies have sent the wrong message and driven up oil prices needlessly.

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This just in: Osama bin Laden is still dead....

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Ace of Spades has a comparison between President Obama's speech announcing the death of Osama bin Laden and President George Bush's speech announcing the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Obama's speech was, as usual, all about him. He used the word 'I' continuously, as if he was the one actually there, pulling the trigger.

Bush, on the other hand, used the word 'I' twice, and both times saying “I have a message... ,” once for the Iraqi people and once for the American people. As RD Brewer writes, “President Bush's speech is completely outwardly directed. He speaks of the momentous occasion and gives all credit to the military and the intelligence community. There is no attempt to highlight his part in the story. Quite a contrast. “

Indeed. But then we've always known it's all about Obama.

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Did Osama's second in command, Zawahiri, rat him out? Or was it the Saudis, the Iranians, or the Mossad?

Regardless, Osama bin Laden is still dead.

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So we go in an get bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan without informing the Pakistani government or military because we knew there were sympathizers within their ranks who would have tipped him off. In return, the Pakistanis reveal the identity of the CIA station chief in Islamabad.

Somehow I get the feeling the Obama's Administration's response will be “Ho-hum. I guess we had it coming.” Not that I expect any other response.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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I have to agree with Jay Tea on this one: If it weren't for double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

I don't even need to explain who 'they' are. You already know the answer to that.

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I think this says it all:

Vindication: When the loudest critic of your policies achieves his greatest success because of them.

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Have you ever wondered why so many Americans don't trust scientists? I certainly have. What's worse is that many will trust “scientists” on matters where there's little or no proof, just poorly proven conjecture (like AGW), yet totally distrust them on issues where there's reams of scientific data disproving popular pseudo-science (the vaccine-autism link).

What could be the cause of this disconnection? Here's one possible explanation.

Humans do seem to prize accuracy above all. We want our beliefs to be accurate—to align with what is really true about the world—and we know that science is a reliable guide to accuracy. But this desire to be accurate conflicts with other motives, some of them unconscious. People hold beliefs to protect important values, for example. Individuals who think of nature as sacred may perceive genetic modification as morally wrong, regardless of its safety or utility. People also hold beliefs that are rooted in their emotions. A flu pandemic that can cause widespread death among the innocent may cause feelings of fear and helplessness. One way to cope with those emotions is to belittle warnings of a pandemic as improbable.

Emotion can play a large part in what we choose to believe or dis-believe. People will believe pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo because in their hearts they want it to be true.

Parents with kids suffering from autism want to be able to point to a cause and say “See, we knew it was some sinister outside cause that made our kids be this way!” Never mind the scientific evidence and years of clinical studies saying otherwise. This also applies to the ongoing Anthropogenic Global Warming debate, with so many people willing to believe all climate change is due entirely to human activity even though the many such theories put forth are so far unprovable.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're stuck in a sunny-in-the-morning/rainy-in-the-afternoon weather cycle, the heavy yard work is slowly being completed, and folks are starting to get their camps and cottages ready for summer.

How Government Regulations Cause More Problems Than They Solve - Part II

OK, so I misspoke about what Part 2 would be about. Originally I was going to cover energy, but thoughts and righteous indignation about the EPA overrode that plan.

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One of the government agencies that has most recently caused FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) among business, and indirectly the people, is the EPA.

While it is the EPA's purview to help safeguard the environment, lately it has been going outside its mandate and trying to regulate economic activities it sees as affecting the environment. This is particularly vexing considering both Congress and the courts have told the EPA they do not have power to do so.

One of the EPA's latest 'crusades' involves energy. In this case making sure it is less available and far more costly. In particular they're trying to impose stricter regulations on the electric utilities and oil companies, bypassing the usual means of doing so and imposing them without the consent of Congress.

Jeff Holmstead, who directed the EPA's air and radiation office from 2001 to 2005 during the Republican President George W. Bush's administration, told the commission the new rules will quickly change policies that have been stable for 40 years. He called the new regulations an "unprecedented" amount of change for power companies.

Part of the problem is that some of the EPA's new rules overlap and contradict many existing rules, both its own and those of other governmental agencies and departments overseeing the energy industry. This leaves the power companies and oil exploration and drilling firms in a bind, making it impossible for them to be in compliance with all the rules and regulations imposed upon them. The EPA also ignores state rules and regulators rather than working with them, which only adds to the confusion.

This is a government agency that has gone rogue and believes it doesn't have to answer to anybody. It ignores the law, ignores the courts, ignores Congress, and ignores the Constitution. It believes it is above the law. It hands down edicts and expects everyone to follow them without question or dissent regardless of the effects on the economy or the environment.

Don't believe me? Then how about the EPA's efforts to 'clean up' the upper Hudson River in an attempt to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) embedded in the silt at the bottom of the river? Their clean up has done far more harm than if they'd left things alone.

By ordering a dredging operation along 40 miles of the Hudson, the EPA has created a disaster of governmental proportions in this quiet upstate community. For six months in 2009, floating clamshell diggers shoveled day and night, pulling sludge from the river bottom around Fort Edward and depositing it onto barges. Six days a week, 24 hours a day, these barges, containing a total of 286,000 cubic yards of sediment mixed with old PCBs, were offloaded into that massive dewatering facility. There the soggy material was treated and squeezed in giant presses. The cakes of compacted sludge were then moved by truck onto 81-car trains, parked on a new spur of the Canadian Pacific Railway extending into the site. Five of these trains were in constant rotation, circulating the 4,400-mile round trip between the facility and the final dump site in Texas.

It was a Herculean attempt at remediation but one that actually increased PCB levels in the Hudson for a time; it also wreaked havoc on locals’ lives and imposed huge costs on General Electric. And all this work was only “Phase I” of the EPA’s plans. The government is now compelling GE to spend billions of dollars on Phase II, an even larger and longer operation. Dredging will recommence this spring.

And once they start dredging again the PCB levels will rise dramatically and stay that way as long as they continue removing all that silt on the river bottom. That doesn't even take into account the huge amounts of energy expended or pollution generated to clean up the river. They would have been better off to leave it where it was. It wasn't going to go anywhere. Instead, they've made things worse all in the name of “Saving The Environment.” It's yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming into play. Government agencies are pretty good at invoking it.

Maybe it's time to rein in the EPA, to remind them that they work for us and not the other way around. Better yet, to ensure they get the message it might be worthwhile to slash their funding to zero for year. Then re-fund it the following year after an exhaustive review of the EPA's overreach and implementation of proper controls upon the agency.

A Man Walks Into A Bar....

Heard at our local general store this afternoon:

A man walks into a bar. The bartender asks him what he'll have to drink.

“A bin Laden!” he answers.

“What's a 'bin Laden?” asks the bartender.

“Two shots and a splash of water...”

You heard it here first.

How Government Regulations Cause More Problems Than They Solve - Part I

A few weeks ago my post quoting one of the unfortunate truisms we live under – how regulated portions of the economy tend to have the biggest problems – struck a chord with one of my commenters.

Apparently she believes we don't have enough regulation, citing the problems caused by shady banking practices that helped bring down the economy as the only justification for even more regulation. I came back at her with the problems within the telecommunications industry because of heavy-handed regulation, much of it at the behest of “rent-seekers”. Such 'regulation' is crony capitalism at its worst and in the end benefits no one except the rent-seekers. And even they feel the negative effects eventually, making far less money than they might have otherwise and costing the consumers plenty.

There are plenty of other examples of regulation having exactly the opposite effect from the one most would expect. The question is, where to start?

How about one of my favorite targets, gasoline? Or should I say ethanol in gasoline?

Ethanol

The EPA, in it's push to clean up the tailpipe emissions of anything that burns gasoline, decided that pump gas needed something that would help gas burn cleaner, thereby reducing pollution. At first that something was MTBE. MTBE certainly helped engines with carburetors burn cleaner, but it had little effect on fuel injected engines. Unfortunately MTBE had a serious side effect.

While it helped gas burn cleaner, it also polluted water supplies as it was a hydrophilic substance, meaning it was chemically attracted to water. Unfortunately the water it was attracted to far too often was that in out municipal water supplies and private wells. MTBE started showing up in places it didn't belong. It didn't help things that it's also considered a carcinogen.

So in its wisdom, the EPA banned the use of MTBE and decided ethanol would make a great substitute. Like MTBE ethanol also helped gasoline burn cleaner with the added benefit of boosting the octane rating of gasoline. While the water pollution problem was solved, other problems raised their ugly heads, some of them quite costly to deal with.

Like MTBE, ethanol is hydrophilic. It absorbs water. The problem with it is that if it absorbs enough water it separates from the gasoline, turns into a yellowish sludge, and settles to the bottom of the tank. This has two effects. First, it lowers the octane rating of the gasoline. Second, the sludge will clog the fuel systems of the vehicles it's used in.

On more than one occasion I've written about the problems with ethanol in marine gas and how it costs boat owners millions in repairs. The same holds true in other areas, such as small gas-powered equipment. Lawnmowers, chain saws, weed-trimmers, snowblowers, generators, lawn tractors, and a whole host of other equipment don't get along with 90/10 gasoline/ethanol mix presently being sold in the US. Corrosion, detonation, and deterioration of plastic/rubber parts in the fuel systems plague otherwise trouble-free gas powered equipment.

But that's not the whole story of ethanol. There are other unintended consequences created by the use of ethanol as a fuel component.

One of the biggest is the effects on food prices, followed only by the greater pollution generated by its production.

When land previous used to grow food is now used to grow the feedstock for ethanol (corn), the supply of food goes down and prices go up. More pollution is created when those feedstock crops are grown because the farmers will use even more fossil fuels and petroleum-based fertilizers to grow them. The amount of energy derived from the ethanol created from those crops barely equals the amount of energy used to grow and process those crops in the first place.

But do you know what the biggest irony of this story is? Gasoline/ethanol fuels don't help fuel-injected engines burn any cleaner than straight gasoline does. These days, how many engines in cars and trucks sold over the past decade and a half or so aren't fuel injected? None of them.

Oh, and one other thing we must remember about ethanol: it contains less energy per gallon than gasoline, meaning you need to burn more of it to get an equivalent amount of power out of the engine using it. What that means is you get fewer miles per gallon with ethanol-blended gasoline than you do with straight gasoline. And this is good how?

Air Pollution Other Than Tailpipe Emissions

Here's another area where the EPA has gotten it wrong, and it's all going to cost us plenty with little return seen for what we spend.

First, I have to ask you out there how many times you've heard this refrain: “It's just awful! Air pollution is getting worse all the time!”

I've heard it far too often over the past 10 years or so. There's only one problem...it's a lie.

I can't speak for you, but I can honestly say I remember the days when the smog was so bad in some cities that it cast a dark brown pall over them. Automobiles, trucks, power plants, and factories spewed all kinds of noxious fumes from their tailpipes and smoke stacks. The air stank of all kinds of chemicals and partially burned hydrocarbons, even in many of the smaller cities.

Can we honestly say that is the case today? Not by a long shot.

But what effluvia still spews into the atmosphere isn't necessarily the fault of those generating it so much as it's the rather rigid rules created by the EPA that makes it far more expensive to clean up the emissions from the smokestacks than it needs to be. What do I mean by this? Call it the All-Or-Nothing rule.

Let's use coal-fired power plants in the mid-West as an example of the shortsightedness of this rule.

At one point during the Bush Administration, the president wanted to relax rules that would make it easier for the aforementioned coal plants to upgrade their systems to make them more efficient. The upgrades would also have the side effect of making the plants run cleaner than they would without the upgrades. But those upgrades also meant they had to go well beyond those changes and install scrubbers and other air pollution controls as if the plants were brand new. New plants had to meet far stricter emissions requirements than the older plants. The cost to make the older plants meet the new requirements exceeded that of building a new plant. Under EPA rules the utilities had two choices – spend far too much money to upgrade the old plants to meet new plant requirements, or don't do the upgrades at all. There was no in-between solution as far as the EPA was concerned.

So what happened?

President Bush was lambasted by Congressional Democrats and enviro-socialists for “allowing his buddies in the energy industry” to pollute the air all in the name of obscene profits. Congress killed any chance the utilities would get a waiver to reduce their emissions less than the EPA wanted them to. The end effect: the coal plants were not upgraded, their efficiencies were not increased, and their emissions did not decrease. Yet somehow the EPA and the left saw this as a victory for the environment. They wanted the whole thing but they ended up with nothing at all and everyone downstream of those plants are still paying the price.

This is yet another case where government regulation had the opposite effect from that intended.

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This is the first in a series of posts dealing with the problems of government regulation overstepping its bounds and causing far more harm than good.

Part 2 will cover energy and how the government regulations are making sure we'll have less of it at a much higher costs.

Economic News In Hew Hampshire - Not So Good

Two bits of news aren't helping the economic situation here in New Hampshire.

First, state revenues for the month of April were below projections by about $30 million. That's certainly not going to help with the budget deficit, making this fiscal year's shortfall about $47 million for this fiscal year. That's on top of the existing $800 million deficit from the previous fiscal year. Needless to say, state legislators aren't happy.

"The governor had an opportunity to use responsible and realistic revenue figures like the House budget used, but instead he chose to use numbers that were nearly $300 million higher to hide his greater spending," said Republican State Committee Chairman Jack Kimball.

Over the past four years the governor and the them Democrat majority legislature went on a spending spree, increasing state spending by over 30% over that time, using inflated revenue projections to justify the high spending levels. When revenues fell well below the overly optimistic projections, the governor and legislature failed to address the expenditure problems, instead focusing on trying to increase fees and taxes at a time when most businesses and individuals were struggling to make ends meet. Even with the increases, the state revenues failed to meet projections.

At least the budget for the next two fiscal years are likely to be in balance as the GOP in both the House and Senate cut the proposed 2-year budget by over $700 million, basing it on far more conservative (and realistic) revenue projections.

The second bit of bad news concerns hiring, with over half the businesses in the state planning not to hire any new employees either this year or next year. That doesn't sound like an economic recovery to me.

A number of factors are driving this trend. One New Hampshire businessman explained why he's holding off.

At a meeting attended by about two dozen businessmen and women at the 1st District Congressman’s Manchester District Office off Lowell Street, Gary Brown of Raymond-based www.WebPageDesignUSA.com and The Image Factory said he can’t afford to hire any more staff and is fighting to keep his current 12 employees working.

“I’m at tipping point, where if I hire any more folks, I will have to pay for national health care,” Brown said.

“How an I going to survive? I’m not going to hire,” he said.

This is yet another of the unintended consequences of ObamaCare affecting employment, not just here in New Hampshire, but across the nation.

Other businesses will make do with their present staffing levels, even if work does pick up, preferring to pay for overtime rather than benefits for new hires, or hiring temps on those occasions where they need the extra help.

Other factors influencing hiring include energy prices, something some businesses cannot easily pass on to their customers. So to keep their costs low they won't add staff, offsetting their higher energy costs.

Neither bodes well for the employment picture in New Hampshire. I have a feeling this is also true for many other states as well.

Local Reactions To The News Of Bin Laden's Demise

Listening and reading the reactions of Americans to the news of Osama bin Laden's demise at the hands of US Navy SEALS has been enlightening.

The local TV station here in New Hampshire reported on many of those reactions. Most were positive, meaning they were glad bin Laden had been brought to justice. A few said they took no joy in his death, but understood it. But one stood out, mainly for his total lack of understanding of the situation, labeling Osama's death as “an assassination.”

"You hate to see somebody get away with something this downright evil, but two wrongs don't make a right," said Bob Whyman, of Manchester. "In a way, I was sorry to hear he was dead."

Apparently Mr. Whyman didn't understand that the SEAL mission was not a police action. It was a combat mission in a long running war against someone who had openly waged war against the US. He was given the opportunity to surrender but chose death instead. It was by no means an assassination. Bin Laden was a legitimate target and was taken down within the Rules of Engagement. That he chose to die rather than be captured was his decision, period.

I have to wonder if Mr. Whyman was one of those Leftist whiners who considered the attacks on the US back on September 11^th, 2001 as justified because somehow we were at fault for all the barbarism displayed over the years by Muslim extremists. Somehow it wouldn't surprise me to find out that was the case. Thank goodness he is in the minority on this one.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather has been conducive to a number of summer-like activities, including our first cookout of the year.

BeezleBub invited a number of his co-workers at the farm to join us for supper last night and we had the Official Weekend Pundit Grill fired up, cooking burgers, dogs, and chicken for our guests. BeezleBub's friend Hobbit was among the crowd as she's also working at the farm again this year.

We can hope that this will be but the first in a long line of cookouts this year.

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Yard work was also on the agenda this weekend, with BeezleBub helping remove the last of this past winter's detritus. Hopefully we'll get everything whipped into shape over the next couple of weeks which will then let us focus on other things for the upcoming summer.

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The state of New Hampshire is only one or two steps away from becoming the 23^rd Right-to-Work state in the nation, with the enabling legislation having passed both the New Hampshire House and Senate with veto-proof majorities.

Governor Lynch has sworn to veto the bill, but at this point it seems more like he'll do so just to remain in the good graces of the labor unions. It is expected that if he does veto the bill the New Hampshire legislature will move quickly to override it.

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If New Hampshire does indeed become a Right-to-Work state, I wonder how long it will be before someone like the NLRB will “pull a Boeing” and start demanding businesses move their operations to closed-shop states?

I figure it will be shortly after the first company from a closed-shop state decides to expand their operations in to New Hampshire. Anyone else want to take a stab at it?

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This is all we need:

It's getting harder to bring home the bacon.

And I mean bacon literally. It's not a euphemism.

One of the main causes? Ethanol.

Corn is being diverted for use in ethanol and it's driving up the costs of grain, and in turn, bacon.

Is there nothing corn-derived ethanol can't screw up?

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Investor's Business Daily asks: Is Obama's economic recovery built on McJobs?

Unfortunately the answer appears to be yes.

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It appears Eric the Viking and the other seven Republicans in Massachusetts aren't fans of RomneyCare.

(H/T Viking Pundit)

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Why doesn't New York City and Washington DC want WalMart to open stores in their cities?

It comes down to this: unions versus citizens.

The city governments know they are beholden to unions and will do nothing to jeopardize their being re-elected to office, even if it means stiffing the rest of their constituents.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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What happens when science reporting is politicized by the press? Unnecessary panic, unreasonable demands for someone to “Do Something!”, questions about the ethics of the press, and even more distrust of the scientific and medical community.

In this case it's the panic and furor over Bisphenol A (BPA), a substance used to add strength and flexibility to plastics. The press stirs up panic while the science folks appear to have little concern about BPA, if any at all. At least the scientific community has a number of studies and quite a bit of data to back up their opinions about BPA.

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Neo-neocon relates what happens when Skynet takes over her smart phone.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Also by way of Pirate's Cove comes this video showing big-government supporters are willing to talk the talk, but not walk the walk when it comes to solving the problems the Left helped create. When college students at UC Berkeley were asked to help pay off their share of national debt ($47,000 was the figure given to them), they refused. Maybe they figured it wasn't their problem.

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If anyone needs an example of how to drive businesses out of your state, then take this lesson from Illinois, which has managed to drive businesses and residents out with its ever higher and more confiscatory taxes.

Federalism — which serves the ability of businesses to move to greener pastures — puts state and local politicians under pressure, but that is where they should be, lest they treat businesses as hostages that can be abused. According to the Tax Foundation, Illinois has not only the fourth-highest combined national-local corporate income tax in the nation but also in the industrialized world.

--snip--

A study by the Illinois Policy Institute, a market-oriented think tank, concludes that between 1991 and 2009, Illinois lost more than 1.2 million residents — more than one every 10 minutes — to other states. Between 1995 and 2007, the total net income leaving Illinois was $23.5 billion.

That's billion with a 'B'. That's a lot of money to drive out because of business unfriendly policies and taxes. Too bad the governor and legislature can see no connection between the path they've taken and their ever growing budget shortfalls.

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How bad can government regulation actually become? How about so bad that a kid can't even run a lemonade stand in their own neighborhood without running afoul of the health department, tax collector's office, and licensing bureau.

These bureaucrats have far too much time on their hands. That must mean there are too many of them without enough work to do. And since they don't have enough work to keep them occupied they should be laid off to save us both money and grief.

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This just in (11PM): Osama bin Laden is dead.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is fast approaching, the yard work is never ending, and where we are celebrating the end of a long search for America's Number One Enemy.

Obama's Numbers Plummeting - And Rightfully So

While killing a little slow time at our business this morning, I came across this at Instapundit, and it stuck a chord. Let's face it, despite what the media is reporting and the government is claiming, we're still within the grips of a what feels like a never-ending recession. The American people's confidence in the President is plummeting as he fails to deal with the economy.

One of Glenn's readers, Bill Archer, e-mailed him, telling him that the latest Quinnipiac University poll is right on target:

As a PA resident I can attest to the sea change in attitudes towards Barack Obama here.

It’s public, it’s palpable and it’s entirely due to inflation.

It’s astonishing to me that a bunch of guys who are supposed to be so smart think that women aren’t going to the grocery store and leaving in a state of shock, disbelief and, occasionally, panic.

And a Democrat who frightens women cannot win anything. Period.

I just started playing a sort of instant citizen poll at stores. It began a week or so ago at Sams’ Club:
I was in one of THOSE lines and ended up chatting with a well dressed middle aged woman with a cart half full of grocery items.

I made mention of the fact that while I didn’t normally make the hike to Sams’ that with prices going up I figured I had to make the effort.

She exploded: Prices are sky high, she’s feeding three kids, eating store brands and sale items but can’t afford to stock up, on and on.

Then the lady in front of HER piped in: if prices keep going up she doesn’t know what she’ll do, their budget is already at the breaking point, trying to keep a daughter in college, off she goes.
Then a man in the next line over heard them and HE jumped in: this is ridiculous, Washington is killing us, economy broken, he’s off to the races.

I thought maybe this was just a coincidence, so I’ve started the same conversation in store lines twice more in the past week and it’s exactly the same: people are frightened and EVERYONE wants to talk about it out loud.

The interesting thing to me is that everyone used to be very reluctant to speak out in public against Obama. You were always afraid some leftie whackjob would hear you and tear into you. You know what I mean.

But now the gloves are off, people are freaking out and Obama can raise FIVE billion dollars for his campaign and organize until the cows come home and call everyone in the country a racist until he turns blue but it’s not going to convince anyone that they’re not paying an arm and a leg for half a cart worth of food.

There is no more basic thing to people, and it’s off the hook.

I don’t see how the Republicans could possibly mess this up. Then again, after a lifetime of watching them do just that, if there’s way they’ll find it.

I have heard many of the same things at the local supermarkets, WalMarts, and the BJ's discount club. The subject also came up with some of our customers this morning. A few that I knew had been staunch Obama supporters have stated quite openly that they won't vote for him again, particularly if energy and food prices keep going up as they have.

Around here pay raises (assuming anyone actually gets one) aren't keeping up with the rise in prices. Gas prices are expected to be double what they were around here last summer, which will put something of a damper on some activities. (A lot of folks aren't going to be willing to pay $5 or even $6 per gallon for gas to run their boats, particularly if a fill up will cost $200 or more for a day out on the lake. Of those vacationers visiting this area over the summer, most will be from New Hampshire, staying close to home because they can't afford to travel very far for vacation. Even one of the biggest summertime events in central New Hampshire – Bike Week – is expected to have lower than average attendance this year due to the general economic conditions and the price of gas and amenities.

If prices continue to rise and the economic situation does not improve greatly, Obama will see his presidency end in January 2013, no matter how much money he spends on his re-election campaign.

Dealing With Boeing - The Chicago Way

If we need even more proof President Obama is assuring his union supporters receive payment for services rendered, then all we need to do is look how one of his recess appointees to the National Labor Relations Board, one Lafe Solomon by name, has decided to do things the Chicago Way.

Solomon, a former SEIU labor leader, has decided Boeing Aircraft Company has denied his union brethren the chance to extort more money from the company, filing a complaint stating Boeing 'retaliated' against the International Association Of Machinists and Aerospace Workers by building its second 787 Dreamliner plant in right-to-work state South Carolina. He wants Boeing to abandon it's billion dollar plant just outside Charleston and move the operation to Washington State.

But we must ask the question, does the federal government, and more specifically, an as-of-yet unconfirmed and wholly union-owned member of the NLRB have the right to tell a private company where it can site its factories and build its products? Apparently this union stooge seems to think so. Never mind that federal law nor the Constitution gives the NLRB the power to do so.

It might be a different story if Boeing had closed down the existing Dreamliner plant in Washington State and moved it lock, stock, and barrel to South Carolina. But that's not the case. Instead, since the existing plant did not have the capacity to meet the demand, Boeing decided to build a second plant. And because the aircraft manufacturer had problems with union strikes and work slowdowns in the past, they decided to build the new plant someplace where such shenanigans were not likely take place. Hence, their decision to build the plant in South Carolina.

Is it any wonder why Boeing made that move?

But that didn't sit well with Solomon, so he decided he'd put a stop to it. But not one worker in Washington State has lost a job due to the South Carolina plant. Not one. In fact Boeing has hired around 2000 more workers to help meet its delivery schedules. So how can the NLRB claim the company has retaliated against the union?

What's worse is that President Obama has decided to remain mum on the subject, giving tacit approval to Solomon's actions.

Writes South Carolina governor Nikki Haley:

While silence in this case can be assumed to mean consent, President Obama's silence is not acceptable—not to me, and certainly not to the millions of South Carolinians who are rightly aghast at the thought of the greatest economic development success our state has seen in decades being ripped away by federal bureaucrats who appear to be little more than union puppets.

This is not just a South Carolina issue, and President Obama owes the people of our country a response. If they get away with this government-dictated economic larceny, the unions won't stop in our state.

Reading some of the comments to Governor Haley's WSJ opinion piece made by pro-union readers makes me wonder if they really understand the law and the Constitution. Unfortunately the answer appears to be no.

One kept making references to international agreements and UN resolutions as justification for forcing Boeing to knuckle under to the unions. Never mind that those agreements and resolution have no power under the Constitution. Never mind that those same agreements and resolutions do not require anyone to join a labor union even if they don't want to do so. Nothing in those agreements or resolutions forbid right-to-work laws, though that hasn't stopped one commenter from implying that they do.

Read the whole thing, particularly the comments as that's where the meat of the subject can be found.

Blame The 545

I've seen this on at least one other occasion, but it's still as powerful as when it was first published back in 1985, and again in both 1995 and 2008 (with some additions and changes).

“This” is an editorial written by Charley Reese and it rightly attributes all of this country's problems to the 545 people in Washington who are, at the heart of it, responsible for the ills we've suffered for decades (and particularly the past few years). Reese doesn't play the partisan card, blasting both Democrats and Republicans for the troubles they've caused.

The portion quoted below is from the 1995 version.

Politicians, as I have always said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Everything on the Republican contract ( Newt Gingrich's Contract With America – ed.) is a problem created by Congress.

Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress. Too many rules? Blame Congress.

Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do. Americans dying in Third World ratholes on stupid UN missions? Congress allows it. The annual deficits? Congress votes for them. The $4 trillion debt (now $14 trillion -ed.)? Congress created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S Constitution. If it's not in the Constitution, it's not authorized.

Though a little dated, the points Reese brings up are just as valid today as they were 16 years ago.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

When The Poor Aren't Really Poor

One of the strange things I've noticed about America as compared to many other countries is this: our perception of poverty is quite different than anyone else's. It's not that our definition of 'poor' is any different, but how we look at it.

When Americans think of poverty, for the most part they think of the starving multitudes in places far away. Of American poor many Americans will think about those living in the run down sections of our metropolitan areas or the more rural areas of the country (Appalachia comes to mind). Even then the perception is skewed.

While our 'poor' are poor in relation to the average American, they are still far wealthier than the so-called middle class in a lot of other countries.

Let's look at a few examples.

Probably one of the things that used to differentiate our poor from the rest of us was our material wealth, things like homes, cars, TVs, air conditioners, other appliances, and phones (of all things).

But looking at the poor here in the US, we find that a vast majority of them have all these things. While they aren't the fanciest or most expensive, a large majority of those we call poor have them.

Among "the persons whom the Census Bureau identifies as 'poor,' " 38% were homeowners. Among "poor" households, 62% owned a car, 14% two or more cars, nearly half had air-conditioning, and 31% had microwave ovens. "Nationwide, some 22,000 'poor' households have heated swimming pools or Jacuzzis."

While I find it hard to believe the last item, it does illustrate that our definition of what it is to be poor in America is seriously skewed. In John Barron's Mig Pilot, Lt. Viktor Belenko relates his impression of America he gained while watching a propaganda film showing how poor and oppressed the American people were. But what the film showed him was that even the 'poor and oppressed peoples' in America had their own apartments, automobiles, TVs, refrigerators, and stoves, something the average Soviet citizen could only dream about. The poor in America were wealthy compared to average Soviet citizen.

One thing that has come full circle (or should I saw has flipped upside down) is phones. Yes, phones.

Starting some time in the early 20^th Century and lasting through the early 1960's, it was quite common to find people with telephones quite often had them in their front hallway, where it sat on a small table. It wasn't uncommon for there to be a chair next to the table. These furnishings accomplished two things: it established that the homeowner had enough money to afford a telephone and it gave them a place to sit while they used it. It wasn't common that the average homeowner had more than one phone, and the one they had was in plain sight of any visitor entering the home.

Then when mobile telephones became available, it was primarily the wealthy who had them. At the same time the average American family, even the poorer ones, all had telephones in their homes.

Today, that trend has reversed, with the average American carrying a cell phone, even the poorer Americans, while wired telephones are fading away. (We here at The Manse have just canceled our landline service. It made no sense to be paying for a landline and our cell phones when we rarely use the landline any more.)

One thing only rich people had back in 1990, though, was portable telephones. That's changed, hasn't it? If you're reading this column, you very likely have a cellular phone. You may even be reading this column on your cellular phone.

But cellphones aren't just ubiquitous. In what the New York Times calls "a strange twist," they've become symbols of poverty. Arkansas and Mississippi, those perennial economic laggards, "find themselves at the top of a new state ranking: They have the highest concentrations of people in the nation who have abandoned landlines in favor of cellular phones."

Cell phones are cheaper than wired phones, and with the many pre-paid plans out there, is it any wonder the poor have taken to them?

Soon, only businesses and the 'wealthy' will still have them.

I could go on and on, making one comparison after another. The fact is that poverty, while it still exists in the US, is not anywhere near the same as it was back in the 60's, 70's, or 80's. Most of today's poor in America are better off than many of the middle class in the 70's.

Are there still pockets of abject poverty in the US? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we need to spend billions trying to remove those last bastions of true poverty. It won't work. Better that we let the economy recover and do its best to eliminate the problem.

Thoughts On A Sunday

When I woke up at 6 AM yesterday, imagine my dismay when I saw it was snowing. What's worse is that it kept snowing well into the afternoon.

While there wasn't much in the way of accumulation, it did make the roads slick, which meant on two separate occasions yesterday the road conditions required me to put the trusty F150 into 4WD. The F150 gets poor enough fuel economy when it's in 2WD, but it really gets bad in 4WD. At $2.75 per gallon, the last thing I want to do is have the fuel economy drop below the already not-so-great gas level.

At least Easter started bright and sunny!

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BeezleBub and Twirl Girl are on vacation this week. BeezleBub is working at the farm all week, helping Farmer Andy and his missus get everything ready to open the farm stand next weekend. Twirl Girl is in Maine, visiting family.

It's going to be quiet around here this week.

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Don Surber proves that Paul Krugman is not an economist, Nobel prize in Economics, and degrees from Yale and MIT notwithstanding.

For an economist he fails to see that medical patients are consumers. After all they 'consume' medical services and the goods that go with them. The services and goods must be paid for, one way or the other.

As Surber explains:

His argument that patients are not consumers is so foolish that he cannot wage it for more than two paragraphs before contradicting himself.

If there are prices to control then there is a product or service being purchased by a consumer and he should stop the charade.

Indeed.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Arthur Brooks tells us why Americans choose opportunity over “fairness” every time.

The one truism in life is that life is not fair. That hasn't stopped President Obama from trying to make it so, even if his definition of fair is to lower everyone to the lowest common denominator, that being poverty. He still hasn't learned that an egalitarian society is always an impoverished society, and more often than not, a totalitarian one as well. He, and the progressives like him, are always striving for equality of outcome. That is a disastrous goal.

Better that there be equality of opportunity. Then it's up to the individual to choose whether or not to make the best of it. But Obama and the others prefer to believe that we are neither smart enough or wise enough to make that decision for ourselves, therefore they have to make it for us. The problem is they are neither smart enough or wise enough to make those decisions either. But that won't stop them from trying.

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Bogie has some slo-mo video that is “just full of cute.” Some of the follow on videos are just as much fun.

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One thing President Obama said recently that I can agree with: There's nothing we can do to drop gas prices any time soon.

With the major oil companies getting ready to report their quarterly earnings (and profits), we should expect the MSM and every conspiracy theorists to cry foul once those figures are released.

I expect to hear the phrase “obscene profits” again and again. (I don't know how a 6% profit margin can be considered obscene as it's lower than most other commercial businesses.) The oil companies do not control the price of crude oil, the one thing over which they have no control. Oil is bought and sold on the open market and two things affect the price: supply and perceived threats to that supply.

At the moment supply really isn't an issue, even with Libya's production off-line during its civil war. Instead it is the perceived threat of unrest in the rest of the Middle East that might affect the supply in the future.

It doesn't help that our president is against us developing our own sources of oil in the US, which certainly would have an effect on gas prices here.

Also check out Viking Pundit's links on the subject matter.

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Think the premise in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged could never happen in real life? Think again.

Apparently the fix is in with the National Labor Relations Board, with Big Labor getting a ruling from them that demands Boeing move production of the 787 Dreamliner from its new non-union plant in South Carolina to a union-controlled plant in Washington State.

How the hell can the government tell a commercial business where it has to site its production plants, particularly if that move will cost the company billions in increased costs and leave it open to union extortion? The Charleston, South Carolina plant is nearly complete, so what is it supposed to do if the government forces it to move?

It's one thing if the company had a contract with the union stating the aircraft would be built in one of its Washington plants, but then moved it. Instead the company shelved plans to expand capacity near its existing facilities. It had no agreement with the unions to build the Dreamliner in Washington State. It's another thing if Boeing laid off workers in its Washington facilities, but it hasn't. In fact, its added over 2000 new employees to its Puget Sound plant.

It doesn't help that one of the members on the NLRB is a former union stooge leader from the SEIU, appointed by Obama by way of a recess appointment. This is the same guy who filed the complaint that brought about the action by the NLRB. Isn't that a conflict of interest?

Is this a payoff by the Obama Administration for support by the labor unions? It certainly appears that way, particularly if Boeing is in fact forced to move the plant.

I see a legal challenge coming, one that will likely reach the Supreme Court.

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Bruce Kesler gives us a functional analysis of President Obama's foreign policies.

In short, in functional analysis, President Obama really acts to lessen the power of the US and its exertion and to increase the power and exertions of those opposed to the US and its allies. The rationalizations he has inculcated from his leftist past try to publicly justify this in evasions and euphemisms. Indeed, he may not consciously want the defeat of the West and victories by its foes. But that is the result and it is all rooted in his leftist world view.

Those, of whatever political orientation, who avoid calling him out as, functionally, the foe of Western values and US national interests are doing their listeners a serious harm by reducing the justified wholesale rejection of President Obama’s foreign policies. Worse, they mask the cause and its rejection, allowing it to reappear among others and further harm the US, its values and its allies.

In other words, FAIL.

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It seems the good folks in the UK have learned a lesson we're still trying to teach the Democrats in this country: Welfare handouts aren't fair.

The average Brit is sick and tired of those gaming the system. Those same gamers are ably supported by the so-called poverty lobby, which is doing its best to make sure the tax money still flows to those who need it, whether they really do or not.

Like a mythical traveller seeking truth, a think tank has asked a profound question: what is fairness? And lo, the people have answered with (almost) one voice: what “fair” means is that those who are deserving shall receive, and those who are not shall be – well, not exactly cast out, but certainly not entitled to everything that’s going.

--snip--

After all these years of being morally blackmailed by the poverty lobby, harried by socialist ideologues and shouted at by self-serving public sector axe-grinders, the people are not cowed. Even after being bludgeoned by the BBC thought monitors and browbeaten by Left-liberal media academics with the soft Marxist view of a “fair” society – from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs – they have not bought it. They do not believe that if people are poor, it is necessarily society’s fault, and therefore society’s duty to deal with the consequences.

Within the UK, as here in the past, many of those receiving welfare benefits have come to see them as something they were owed. They hold those supporting them in contempt, seeing them as nothing but wage earners to be exploited.

Welfare reform in the US during the Clinton Administration was based upon breaking the generational dependence upon government handouts, excising the able-bodied from the welfare roles and supporting the truly needy. And so the average Brit sees it now. Is it any wonder they are demanding changes in the welfare system as it exists now?

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter made a brief reappearance, yesterday's snows are gone, and warmer temperatures have returned.

Effects Of Higher Fuel Prices Being Felt Elsewhere

We've watched as gas prices have climbed rapidly over the past three months. While we here in New Hampshire aren't seeing the highest prices in the nation (or New England) they are approaching the highs seen in 2008. Yesterday I filled up the trusty F150 for $3.69 per gallon. The highest price I saw today here in central New Hampshire for 87-octane gas was $3.75. Highs elsewhere in the nation top $4. Some are expecting gas to hit as much as $6 this summer.

As painful as the rising gas prices are, some side effects are being felt elsewhere in the economy.

Deb and I went grocery shopping at our local chain supermarket today. One of the first things Deb noticed was many food prices were higher than only two weeks ago. Much higher. Most of that can be directly attributable to higher transportation costs because of rising fuel prices.

The higher gas prices are also expected to have a negative effect on the summer tourist season. The last time prices were this high a lot of families changed vacation plans, staying closer to home. In 2008 we saw a lot more 'local' folks vacationing here rather than the usual people from elsewhere in the US and Canada. Boat traffic on the lake was down considerably because marine gas prices approached $5 per gallon. I have no doubt we'll see the same thing this summer, only worse.

As the higher gas prices have hit everyone in the wallet, people have been cutting back in other areas to make up for it. One of the biggest areas where people are cutting back is eating out. It's one of the 'luxuries' most of us can do without and one of the first thing people cut out when money is tight. Other than some of the ice cream stands, most restaurants will be taking a double hit of higher prices for the food they prepare and fewer customers to fill their tables.

It's not going to be a good summer for most of us.

FAA To Blame For Sleepy Controllers

There's been a lot of media coverage over the past few weeks about air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job, specifically those working the so-called graveyard shift (approximately 11PM to 7AM). While the media coverage makes it seem as if this is a new problem, I have a feeling it's far more common than the FAA is willing to admit.

Working the midnight shift is tough. Not everyone can do it. It takes a certain amount of discipline to make it work. I know this from personal experience as I worked the graveyard shift for a number of years when I was employed in the defense industry.

The FAA had controllers working swing shifts, meaning their work schedules rotated so they worked all three shifts over a period of weeks or months. That's a formula for chronic fatigue, higher absenteeism, and higher accident rates. Put another way, it's a formula for disaster, particularly for such a critical job like air traffic control.

Instead, controllers should be working the same shift all the time. It makes it easier to adapt to the off hours.

When I worked graveyard shift you could always tell when someone new to the shift would make it or not. All you had to do was ask them when they slept. If the answer was anything other than “I go to sleep at the same time every day” you knew they wouldn't last long. That was the secret to surviving the graveyard shift: going to sleep at exactly the same time every day, followed only by making sure you got enough sleep. For me it was going to bed around 8:30 in the morning and waking up sometime between 3 and 4 in the afternoon. Some of my co-workers would bed down some time after noon and wake sometime during the early evening. It was different for all of us.

What the FAA has done is make it almost impossible to set a schedule that would allow their controllers to get enough sleep. Constantly changing shifts makes it impossible. Physiologists claim it takes approximately one day for every hour of time 'shift' in our wake/sleep cycles. That means if you go from a day shift to graveyard shift, it will take a little over a week to adjust to the new sleep time (assuming bed time is now sometime around 8 in the morning rather than midnight). If the shift changes every week, then you will never adjust to the changed hours and you will be tired all the time.

Even if the shift change is on a monthly basis, there will still be at least one week where everyone will be 'off' until they adjust. It plain doesn't work that well.

Maybe it's time for the FAA to change how they do things.

Sunspot Numbers On The Upswing

The long overdue upswing in the 11-year sunspot cycle has started, though many believe the solar maximum this cycle (Cycle 24) will be half that of Cycle 23.

Some of the AGW faithful are claiming this upswing disproves the link between sunspots and climate cycles, but if the lengthy solar minimum (when sunspots are at their minimum number) had the effect many solar astronomers and atmospheric physicists believe it did, then the future solar maximum (when sunspots are at their maximum number) should have less affect on Earth's climate (and that of Mars, the Jovian moons, and so on) than the previous solar maximum.

But I have a different reason than many others out there to be glad the number of sunspots on the sun's surface are increasing, that being radio propagation.

When the sun is quiet, as happens at the bottom of the aforementioned 11-year sunspot cycle, shortwave radio propagation on a number of radio bands won't be nearly as good as it is at the top of a cycle. Being an amateur radio operator since the 1970's, I have always looked forward to the peak of the sunspot cycles knowing the lower frequency amateur radio bands would experience good long range propagation, meaning more of the bands could be used to communicate across the globe.

Who cares if it affects the global climate? I want to see the 12 and 10-meter amateur radio bands open up so I can work some of those rare overseas stations reachable only during the peaks of the sunspot cycles.

Bring it on!

Thoughts On A Sunday

It's been kind of quiet around The Manse this weekend, with BeezleBub and Twirl Girl off to the People's Republic of Taxachusetts for the New England Drama Competition, and the weather being less than optimal for any kind of outdoor activity. (Heavy rain has a tendency to disrupt things like raking or spreading mulch, and so on.) At least the sun made an appearance this afternoon.

The weekend activities were pretty much limited to housework and laundry. Not such a bad thing on (sorta) rainy weekend.

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The ice is almost gone from Lake Winnipesaukee, meaning the Ice Out declaration should be forthcoming sometime this week.

An indicator of the impending Ice Out is the status of a body of water called Lily Pond, which is located at the end of one runway at the local airport. It becomes ice free about a week to 10 days before Ice Out is declared on the big lake, and it was ice free just this past Tuesday.

The latest Ice Out on record is May 12, back in 1888, the earliest on March 4, 2010, and the average date is around April 15.

Some may try to equate last year's record-setting early Ice Out to global warming, but it could also have been attributable to the heavy rain and wind that lashed the area the week prior that broke up ice sheet and hastened the declaration.

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Eric the Viking is on a roll, slamming Obama for broken promises and lame complaints about White House phones.

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Should we be taking The Donald seriously about his presidential ambitions? Certainly Karl Rove doesn't think so, calling it a distractive sideshow.

I have to agree.

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There's been a long running debate about the viability of biofuels. Once seen as a possible answer to reducing our dependence upon foreign sources of energy, the promise has not matched up to reality, with ethanol being the biggest example. Corn-based ethanol is a loser, literally, with the energy required to grow it and turn it into ethanol being even with or greater than the energy we get out of it. It also takes a lot of otherwise productive farmland out of food production, increasing food prices and creating shortages.

A lot of hope has been placed upon algae-based biofuels. Again, certain assumptions have been made that as of yet have not come to pass, the biggest being the ability greatly increase the ability of algae to grow rapidly enough to provide even a moderate amount of fuel. Like other bio-fuels, algae will require a lot of water and space to be viable.

(H/T Instapundit)

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Dan Pierce was not impressed with President Obama's speech, seeing it as nothing more than an opening salvo for his 2012 re-election campaign.

I have to agree. It set all kinds of goals, but was short on how to get there. He can't let Congress carry this one for him like previous 'goals' of his because the House is firmly in the hands of the GOP, Nancy Pelosi has become something of a non-entity there, and Harry Reid is incapable of carrying the ball alone. So it's unlikely much will come of it.

It all comes down to this: Obama has to actually lead, something at which he has shown very little capability. He's set all kinds of goals, but met few, if any of them.

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Former New Hampshire First Congressional District Representative Carol Shea-Porter has announced she will run for her old seat in 2012. It is apparent from what I've heard and read that she really believes voters didn't really mean to replace her with Republican Frank Guinta.

I guess she figures that voting against the interests of her constituents and her state was something we should all overlook. The fact that she treated her Democrat constituents with disdain, her Republican constituents with contempt, and showed her outright disgust and hatred for the Tea party has nothing to do with her lopsided defeat (54% for Guinta, 42% for Shea-Porter) last November, right?

If she's going to run on her voting record I think she will be defeated again, but by a bigger margin this time around. (That's assuming, of course, that Republican Frank Guinta doesn't blow it down in Washington.)

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Oh, this ought to go over well!

“Trust Fund Moonbats Lobby For Those Who Earned Their Wealth To Be Looted.

Taking the hypocrisy and depraved sanctimony that characterize liberalism to a new extreme of self-parody, useless trust fund moonbats have formed a tax-exempt corporation to enforce their demand that other rich people who unlike themselves actually earned their money turn over more of it to be flagrantly wasted by bureaucrats.

Yep, can't have those uppity nouveau riche workhorses to get any ideas, like being able to keep the money they've earned. I mean, how gauche is it to actually have to work for your money!

I expect most of those calling for such a move live on the Coasts, as most moonbats seem to do.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Also by way of Maggie's Farm comes this observation from Assistant Village Idiot:

One side seems able to do math, the other not so much.

AVI is referring to the the divide between conservatives and liberals, and his observations parallel mine.

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Atlas Shrugged – Part I debuted in 300 movie theaters across the nation this past Friday. American Thinker has a review and comments about other reviews as published in the MSM.

Does it have blockbuster potential? No, probably not. It upsets too many apple carts and requires some folks to think outside their liberal box. That's a sure path to marginalization. But it does ask some uncomfortable questions that have been long overdue, particularly considering those who sit in the seats of power today.

We must also ask this question: Does Atlas Shrugged change lives?

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As Sarah Palin stated this past Friday, it's time for the GOP to “fight like a girl.”

Indeed.

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Bob Parks brings us this demonstration of the 'new' civility in political discourse. This took place in that bastion of liberal tolerance and inclusion, Portland, Oregon.

Warning: Adult language in use by the oh-so-tolerant Left. Viewer discretion advised.

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Our favorite Texan is getting ready to depart from the UK and head to...Turin, Italy? I thought the idea of going to the UK for a couple of years was so she and her husband could return to the good ol' US of A, and the Houston area in particular. But no.

At least Rachel and Rupert got a little taste of Americana while visiting Turin to look for a new home. With gas there at $8 per gallon, I doubt their find gets driven very much.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where Ice Out is coming soon, the thoughts of getting boats out on the lake are intruding upon our thought processes, and where I'm actually looking forward to Monday for a change.

Parroting The Talking Points - No Thought Required

I was involved in a lengthy discussion with one of our customers this morning about the state of the nation, particularly when it came to the economy, the national budget, and taxes. To say that we did not see eye to eye would be accurate.

What set off the discussion was the customer's claim that the rich should “pay their fair share” of taxes. So I had to ask “What's their fair share?” The answer was, predictably, “More than they pay now.”

From there it was the usual litany of liberal talking points, including the claim the Bush tax cuts only helped the rich. Never mind that those same tax cuts removed a number of those with middle and lower end incomes from the tax rolls. Never mind that the rich already pay a majority of the taxes. It wasn't enough for her.

A little further along in our discussion I had to ask how much money the higher taxes on the rich would collect. “It would erase the budget deficit!”

The answer merely proved she hadn't really thought it out and was merely parroting what she'd heard elsewhere. When I replied that even if the tax rate on the rich was raised to 100%, the theoretical income derived would cover about a fourth of the deficit, she didn't believe me. This is something easily verifiable and I even made a few suggestions of some websites where she could run the numbers herself. She wasn't interested.

That's when I realized I was wasting my time and, as politely as possible, ended the discussion.

As she was leaving she stopped at the door and said, “You sound like one of those f*****g Tea Party wackos!”

So much for polite political discourse.

Where Did Those Broadband Stimulus Funds Go?

If we need any more evidence that stimulus funds did little to stimulate anything other than bureaucratic incompetence then all we have to do is look at how the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service pissed away Broadband Initiatives Program money by allocating far too much of it to communities that already had broadband services available rather than to those with none.

I thought it was ironic that one rural town here in this state received RUS stimulus funds when it already had DSL available while another town not all that far away with only dialup Internet services received not one thin dime.

Which community needed broadband more? Not the one that received the stimulus funds.

Will Manufacturing Jobs Come Back To The US? Maybe...

Is it possible some types of manufacturing may return to the US? If oil prices and transportation costs keep climbing, then the answer is yes.

While a lot of manufacturing has moved overseas, primarily to China, the costs savings are starting to dwindle as Chinese workers are demanding and getting higher wages. And if transportation costs keep rising, then the lower cost of manufacturing goods overseas are offset by that and the goods start to approach cost parity with those made in the US.

There are a number of other reasons for some manufacturing coming back to the US, including shorter lead times, the ability to make custom versions of goods more quickly, and much more rapid response times to design changes, just to name a few.

Are there other reasons that might also bring more manufacturing back to the US? Undoubtedly. Is it something we can promote? Not likely...unless we can get government off our backs and make it more attractive for companies to do business here rather than overseas.

A Little Bit Of Wisdom

This has to be one of the best comments ever (made to this WSJ opinion piece):

It is no accident that the most heavily regulated sectors of the economy cause the most problems: healthcare, finance, energy. Let's admit the failure of the federal regulatory model for most problems, and openly and honestly look for alternative approaches.

It always seems to be that way.

Whenever we've deregulated sectors of the economy, they have always picked up momentum, served more people more efficiently, all while lowering the costs. One example that comes to mind: the airline industry.

All regulation has ever done is to short circuit the market feedback systems, making the regulated sector far less responsive to the needs of the people, more expensive, and closed to competition. In many cases government regulation was sought by 'rent-seekers', those wishing to prevent present or future competitors from expanding there presence within or entering the market. In effect, the government is asked to decide the winners and losers within that particular segment of the economy. Unfortunately the government usually chooses the wrong party to be the winner, all to the detriment of consumers. What makes it worse is that sometimes these winners also receive government subsidies (yet another market-skewing device), hitting the consumers in the wallet again. It's a lose-lose situation for consumer and the economy.

It's about time the government butt out of the economy and let the market decide who wins and who loses. In the long run the consumers and taxpayers will benefit.

Once More Into The Breach...

On Saturday I came to the aid of a damsel in distress.

Today, it was doing battle with a computer virus.

It appears one of the computers at our small business had problems with bogus virus warnings popping up. Something called XP Anti-virus 2011 kept warning us about all kinds of trojans, keyloggers, and other sundry malware on the computer in question, advising us the only way to rid ourselves of them was to subscribe (and pay for) a copy of this XP Anti-virus 2011. It looked as if it was from Microsoft, even displaying a replica of the Windows Security Center app. But what this supposed anti-virus program was doing was trying to extort cash from gullible computer owners in order to shut it up...until the next time they wanted money.

One of the side effects of this virus was disabling some of our regularly used programs, including one that allows us to track our customers patronage and generate business statistics for use in making projections for the coming months and quarters.

This virus was so persistent and well ingrained that our standard anti-virus app, which shall remain nameless, didn't even touch it. And from what I understand many of the other anti-virus suites were just as vulnerable.

It took quite a bit of research to figure out how to get rid of it, including how to shut it down so the programs capable of purging it from our system would run. A number of third-party programs used to shut down malware processes, including one of my favorites called Rkill had no effect on it at all.

In the end I had to kill the process by creating a file that would prevent the virus from starting when the computer rebooted. I found that file here (I used Method 2).

Once the virus was disabled, I downloaded and installed one of the freeware applications capable of purging it from the system and repairing the registry. (I used Malwarebytes Anti-Malware application.)

All in all it took almost 2 hours to get rid of the virus, with the longest part trying to disable the virus long enough to allow installation of the program used to purge it.

From reading some of the forums, it appears this nasty little beast installs itself by a number of means, including links on fake e-mails. Probably one of the more common fake e-mails is one supposedly from UPS, FedEx or some other parcel delivery service informing you of a package enroute to you. The e-mail includes a link to 'track' your package, but when you click on it it downloads and installs the virus while your web browser shows you some kind of message saying the server is busy or has timed out.

And so it went for me today.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weekend weather has been awesome, with temps in the mid-60's. This has prodded us to start with some of the outdoor work here at The Manse, cleaning up the winter detritus and rest of last year's leaves.

One little annual milestone came to pass: the Official Weekend Pundit Clothesline went up today and I gave it its first workout of the year, hanging two three sets of wash to dry rather than using the clothes drier. I figure I can get at least one wash hung out tomorrow after I get home from work as the temps will be in the 70's.

I think this is the earliest we've ever put up the clothesline and been able to use it since we've been here.

We weren't the only ones taking advantage of the good weather as Bogie and her Wonderful Spouse were out and about cleaning up around their abode.

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Gee, color me surprised:

Home inventories are still too high.

Although the median sales price of a new home declined 8.9% in February to $202,100, and the median sales price of an existing home dropped 5.2% from a year ago to $156,100, the tell-tale stats for prospective home buyers to watch are the new and existing home inventory numbers. Right now, the pair suggest that prices will stay soft through the third quarter of 2011, and possibly for longer.

I have to ask whether these inventories also include the so-called “shadow inventory”, houses held by banks that have not yet been put on the market? If they don't, then I believe the market will remain soft for a year or two longer regardless of how the economy fares as these homes are brought on to the market.

(H/T Instapundit)

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By way of Viking Pundit comes this little bit of not-so-great news:

The federal debt increased $54.1 billion in the eight days preceding the deal struck last night by President Obama and congressional leaders to cut $38.5 billion in federal spending for the remainder of the fiscal year.

At this rate we'll be out of debt...umm...never!

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As per usual, HuffPo get's it wrong, blaming the progressive's losses upon the well funded Tea parties and the Right Wing press. Never mind that the progressives received billions in support from folks like Soros, unabashed support from the Left Wing press (meaning most of the MSM) and they still had their heads handed to them.

They still see it as a well-funded minority that defeated them. Instead, it was a majority of the American people who saw that what the progressives were offering was nothing they wanted any part, particularly when they saw it would likely bankrupt the nation, and them personally.

What it comes down to is that if your message is the wrong one, no amount of money or support will win you elections.

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The battle over speed limits in Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire rages on, this time with me adding my two cents worth.

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And speaking of New Hampshire, here's a list of legislation filed and passed by the GOP majority in the New Hampshire House and/or Senate that many of us hope will put the Granite State back on the path to less government and usher in a return to fiscal sanity.

A few of my favorites:

For the first time in NH history, that included more that 50 attempts in the legislature, the House passed a constitutional amendment to expand local control of education funding by returning authority to elected officials, not unelected judges. (CACR 12)

Passed a fiscally responsible budget that, (1) was balanced by using realistic revenue figures; (2) did not increase taxes or fees; (3) does not downshift onto local property taxpayers; and (4) does not increase borrowing, setting New Hampshire on a financially sustainable path that will allow our economy to grow and create more jobs. (HB 1 & 2)

Passed a bill to allow local communities to enact tax and spending caps. (HB 341) Moving our economy forward, creating more jobs and putting out the “Open for Business sign” in New Hampshire once again.

Read the whole thing.

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While on my way back home yesterday morning after closing our business for the day I was able to get a good view of a good portion of Lake Winnipesaukee. From the vantage point (not too far from The Manse) I could see there was little if any open water to be seen. In Alton there was some open water where the river emptied into the bay, but even so the open area was less than 200 feet long and a few yards wide.

I have a feeling Ice Out will be late this year, probably the last week of April.

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Apparently anyone posting links to articles, blog posts, or comments skeptical of global warming on Facebook are being treated as “abusive”.

I guess that's one way of suppressing dissenting opinions, particularly if they have data backing up the skeptic's claims.

So much for free and open discourse.

I wonder if they'll ban links to the latest NOAA data showing this past March was 6.6 degrees colder than March 1910? Probably.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where more moderate spring temperatures have arrived, spring cleanup has started, and storage covers are being pulled off of boats all around the lake.