Thoughts On A Sunday

A little bit of winter weather has returned to New Hampshire, with a light snow falling this morning.

The Weather Guys^TM are saying we won't get very much here in the Lakes Region, likely less than an inch, but it does mean we'll have to do some cleaning up.

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Farmer Andy has hired a new hand to help out at the farm now that BeezleBub has to devote more time with his school work. (He started his classes last month at the local college and will be taking classes during the winter term over the next 4 years.)

For lack of a better name, I'm bestowing her with the moniker 'Dixie' if for no other reason she appears to be a female version of BeezleBub, only a lot prettier. They share the same taste in music, attire (John Deere shirts, hats, etc.), and she has a pickup of her own.

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The debate about raising the minimum wage continues, with the economically clueless claiming it will raise more people out of poverty while ignoring the fact that it will in fact create more unemployment.

During some previous rises in the minimum wage it had little effect because the economy was good and many business were offering above minimum wage to get the employees they needed. But that isn't the case today and raising the minimum wage will hurt the very people it's supposed to help.

I have no doubt this debate will continue unabated. I also believe there's no way the effort to raise the minimum wage will make it through Congress.

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Harvard economist Greg Mankiw asks the important question about the president's proposed hike of the minimum wage: Why $9? “Why not $10 or $12 or $15 or $20?”

He seems to think they may have just pulled that number out of mid-air as they have offered no justification for that number.

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If we need yet another example of the endless evidence that the MSM is firmly in the pocket of the Democrats, Glenn Reynolds has an apt illustration showing just how bad and blatant the media has become in giving deference to a Democrat lawmaker and his sexual 'peccadillo' versus a Republican lawmaker's need to drink some water.

They aren't even bothering to give lip service to the idea of fair and balanced reporting anymore.

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As if the use of 10% ethanol in gasoline isn't bad enough, now the do-nothing important EPA wants to raise the percentage to 15%, something this is sure to wreak havoc on cars, trucks, boats, and small engines.

E10 gasoline has caused more than enough problems, some of which I have documented here more than once. And now these 'Do-not-confuse-us-with-the-facts' bureaucrats are aiming to make things worse while telling us it's for our own good. Since when do these ideologically brain dead tin pot dictators know what's good for us? Their record over the past 10 years has been less than stellar.

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As the day has passed, the snow I mentioned earlier has stopped, dropping less than an inch, but the winds have picked up and the temperature has fallen. There are lots of small snowdrifts across the roads and the gusts of wind have made it interesting driving down any open stretches of road.

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You know the enviroweenies are losing it when they claim one of their favorite alternative energy sources, solar, is bad for the environment.

There is no winning with these idiots. Then again, they want all of us - except them – to go back to subsistence farming and to shorten our lifespans by 60 years or so. Maybe it's time for us to force them to put up or shut up. If they aren't willing to make the necessary sacrifices and live the way they want the rest of us to live, then we should ignore them because they aren't serious.

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The gun-grabbers in Chicago need to get a grip on reality.

When they lock up a law-abiding citizen for ensuring her legally purchased and owned firearm is removed from her home during renovations but can't seem to stop the murders that take place on average once every 3.6 hours, they have their priorities screwed up.

But then Chicago has long been the bastion of wrong-headedness since the days of Al Capone.

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You know ObamaCare's in trouble when a lefty website concedes that the GOP was right about its major deficiencies and overreaching regulations and costs.

As more is revealed about its major flaws, it can be seen that the Law of Unintended Consequences is making its influence felt to a greater degree with every passing moment.

It's time for Congress to kill this piece-of-crap legislation and go back to the drawing board.

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I have to admit I hadn't thought about this all that much, but after the meteor strike in Chelyabinsk I did wonder why so many Russian cars seem to have dash cams. We certainly see enough Russian dash cam footage on TV shows like World's Dumbest on a regular basis. About the only dash cam footage we see in the US is primarily from police dash cams. But in Russia they're ubiquitous.

The reason?

The sheer size of the country, combined with lax — and often corrupt — law enforcement, and a legal system that rarely favors first-hand accounts of traffic collisions has made dash cams all but a requirement for motorists.

That certainly makes sense.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has returned, the woodpile is shrinking fast, and where thoughts of sugaring (making maple syrup) have been intruding.

Oil Change Mania

While picking up trusty F150 after having it serviced during its annual safety/emissions inspection, the service manager at my mechanic's made mention that I don't put lot of miles on the truck, seeing that since the previous inspection the odometer showed less than 9,000 miles. He also brought up the subject of oil changes, mentioning that the oil in the F150 was due to be changed in 1500 miles.

This remark got us talking about oil changes in general and how too many people are having the oil in their cars and trucks changed too frequently. The oil in the F150 gets changed every 7500 miles, just like it says in the owner's manual. That oil change frequency is based upon using standard 5W30 grade motor oil. I use a synthetic, meaning if I desired I could probably go to every 10,000 miles or so between oil changes.

So why do people have the oil in their vehicles changed every 3,000 miles? Quite simply, marketing hype.

Oil chemistry and engine technology have evolved tremendously in recent years, but you'd never know it from the quick-change behavior of American car owners. Driven by an outdated 3,000-mile oil change commandment, they are unnecessarily spending millions of dollars and spilling an ocean of contaminated waste oil.

Although the average car's oil change interval is around 7,800 miles — and as high as 20,000 miles in some cars — this wasteful cycle continues largely because the automotive service industry, while fully aware of the technological advances, continues to preach the 3,000-mile gospel as a way to keep the service bays busy. As a result, even the most cautious owners are dumping their engine oil twice as often as their service manuals recommend.

After interviews with oil experts, mechanics and automakers, one thing is clear: The 3,000-mile oil change is a myth that should be laid to rest. Failing to heed the service interval in your owner's manual wastes oil and money....

Back in the bad old days of leaded gasoline, ignition points, and carburetors, motor oils weren't as good as they are today. Add to that the fact that engines are also far better than they were back then. So motor oil needed to be changed every couple of thousand miles to remove many of the combustion byproduct contaminants, dirt, and debris accumulating in the oil.

Cars and trucks also needed regular tune-ups every few thousand miles to compensate for wear and tear on ignition system components (coils, condensers, points, plugs, wires, rotors, and caps). Today's ignition systems have done away with most of those components and few have any moving parts. As a result engines run more efficiently and do not require the maintenance engines needed in the past, meaning less work for the service shops. So with vehicles not requiring nearly as many trips to the shop for regular maintenance over their lifetime, what are service shops to do?

Sell oil changes.

People were already programmed to have regular oil changes and by selling the idea that they would extend the life of their car's engines, it was an easy money maker. Since car owners rarely peruse the owner's manual they probably don't know what the recommended oil change interval is for their vehicle, so they leave it to the shop to determine that. Hence the window stickers showing the next recommended oil change...every 3,000 miles. That's a lot of oil being changed for no reason other than the guys at the shop making more money from those oil changes.

So do yourself a favor and check the owner's manual to find out how often you really need to have the oil changed...and don't buy into the “but your car/truck/SUV needs it changed more often because your driving comes under 'severe service', requiring more frequent oil changes” scam. Unless you're driving a taxi cab, police cruiser, fire truck, ambulance, or delivery truck, the chances are you're style of driving is not severe service. So stop wasting time and money and read your owner's manual.

Incandescent Light Bulbs R.I.P.

When they came for the 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, I remained silent because I didn't use them. Then they came for the 75-watt bulbs, and again I remained silent because I didn't use them. But next year, they'll come for the 60 and 40-watt bulbs and I won't be able to use them any more.

If nothing else the federal government's banning of incandescent light bulbs is yet another case of Big Brother making decisions best left to consumers. The enviroweenie do-gooders figure we aren't smart enough to make these decisions for ourselves, so they have to make them for us. Unfortunately they have fallen prey to the ever unforgiving Law of Unintended Consequences.

In their drive to make us start using more energy efficient lighting, they have instead created all kinds of nightmares, including environmental issues (mercury in CFLs which create major disposal and cleanup problems), inaccurate life-time estimates (some CFLs don't last any longer than incandescent lamps), quality problems, high costs, and a poor return on investment (the amount you save in lowered energy usage doesn’t pay off for years, if at all).

As Senator Rand Paul has mentioned, the government is making us pay for things we don't want, that don't work nearly as well as the older technology, don't last nearly as long, and cost more. Why would anyone do that voluntarily? No one would, which is why the government has been forcing us to do so under the guise of saving energy/water/Gaia when in fact doing so will do no such thing. The net energy, water, and materials used over a 20 year period may be well above that used by the 'less' efficient but more robust older technology.

Will Cash-Only Medical Practices Become The Norm?

Another unintended consequence of ObamaCare is making itself known as more doctors are bailing out of traditional medical practices and moving to concierge medicine. (This isn't unexpected to me as I've been hearing about physicians making the decision to refuse all medical insurance and taking cash only.)

There are so many advantages for doctors to switch to cash only practices and few disadvantages. Two of the biggest advantages? Lower cost health care because it costs less to provide. The usual overhead associated with the regular medical practices doesn't exist in cash-only practices. Hence, it costs less to provide the same, if not better care.

Under direct primary care, doctors contract directly with patients to provide all of their primary care needs free of insurance interference at a price generally between $50 and $60 a month per patient.

“It’s not just for the rich and famous anymore,” Merritt Hawkins’ Smith said of concierge medicine and direct primary care practices. “If you can afford a gym membership, you can afford this kind of care.”

The direct primary care approach provides unlimited visits to a physician’s office plus 24-hour access to doctors through e-mail consultations. The primary care model has drawn insurance industry opposition in part because the health insurer middleman is cut out of the equation as doctors are no longer paid by the likes of Aetna, Humana or a United Health Group.

Looking at the numbers, I would prefer to pay a concierge practice for my health care and keep insurance for catastrophic care. The fact that the insurance industry is opposed to such a system makes it clear to me that they don't want the competition, making concierge service that much more attractive. After all, the insurers won't get their 'cut' of the money we pay for health care, something to which it appears they feel entitled.

If nothing else the economics of cash-only medical practices prove that one of the major driving forces causing health care costs to skyrocket has been health insurance, something I've been saying for years.

More On The SOTU

I've read the transcript of the SOTU address and my suspicions were confirmed: there was nothing new there. It was a rehash of his previous SOTU addresses with a few new bits and pieces thrown in. (I found that reading the address was far less annoying than listening to it. The President's cadence is off-putting and I didn't have to listen to the applause whenever he put forth yet another leftist promise right out of the Marxist Handbook.)

One thing I expected and did see was Obama's threat that if Congress didn't give him what he demanded he'd go around them. So I suppose we can expect yet another series of executive orders that thwart the will of the people because only Obama sees the light.

One thing I didn't expect was his pledge to raise the minimum wage...again. He seems to think that all he needs to do is raise the cost of entry level labor and everyone will be lifted out of poverty. Too bad he slept through his college economics course because if he'd paid attention he would realize that all raising the minimum wage will do is increase unemployment, and particularly teenage unemployment (which stands at 24% at the moment) as they will have been priced out of the market. Obama has also proven that he's no student of history, or at least economic history, because the last three times the minimum wage was increased unemployment went up. No one wants to hire an inexperienced kid to do a menial job that pays that much!

Should they raise minimum wage, what does Obama think will happen to small businesses and the prices of all kinds of goods and services? Does he really think businesses will just automatically absorb those costs? Obviously he does. Is he in for one hell of a rude awakening.

State Of The Union - Deja Vu All Over Again

Did I listen to the State of the Union address?

Nope. No way. I had better things to do than to listen to stale platitudes and rehashed ideas from the past that didn't work then and won't work now.

Funny that the President only now is 'focusing' on jobs. He wasted four years trying build his legacy with that piece of crap called ObamaCare instead of doing what it is he promised to do – get the economy moving again.

His speech made sweeping statements about what needs to be done, but didn't give a single hint about how to actually do that other than the same old fixes – raise taxes and cut spending. But just like in the past, the only thing that he will work for is the first while ignoring the second.

If I didn't listen to the speech then how do I know what he said?

Because he recycles the same old tired phrases and 'solutions' from his previous SOTU speeches.

There's nothing new to see here folks. Move along.....

Thoughts On A Sunday

A good portion of the day yesterday was devoted to digging out after the blizzard. While I had guesstimated we'd gotten 18 inches of snow, an actual measurement after I'd removed some snow BeezleBub had moved earlier showed we got 22.5”. (I measured in three different places and I took the average.)

Some of the drifts were taller than the bite of the snowblower so it took a bit of work to get those cleared, but after two-and-a-half hours we had everything in the front cleaned up and had made a small dent out back. (I still have to shovel off the decks, something I'll take care of sometime later today.)

As storms go, this wasn't anything special. We've gotten as much snow during other storms. We've had a series of storms that dumped snow that totaled in feet. We've had storms with very high winds. We've had storms that coated everything is inches of ice and knocked out power across most of the state for days. In other words, it wasn't the “storm of the century” by any means, the news media notwithstanding. It was winter.

If all of this happened in July, the media would have something worthwhile to hype.

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Speaking of snowblowing, I have to comment about the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower.* This being the first real winter we've had to put it through its paces, I have to say I'm impressed. It uses about half the fuel of the original Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower while clearing the same amount of snow in half the time. It also throws it a lot farther than the old one, making it easier to ensure there will be room to put more snow should we have more storms (an almost certainty).

*This is not a plug for the manufacturer, merely a commentary.

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At least with this storm very few people in New Hampshire lost power. Some of that has to be attributed to the snow itself, being rather dry, light, and 'fluffy'. Not much accumulated on the trees and that which did was scoured off by the winds. Past storms with heavier, wetter snow almost always brought down tree limbs which in turn knocked out power lines.

Apparently our neighbors to the south didn't fare quite so well, with widespread power outages. But then they had much higher winds (they actually got the 'blizzard' part of the storm - high winds, zero visibility, heavy snowfall - while we got just the snow).

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Bogie reports she received over 30 inches of snow in her part of New Hampshire and has the pictures to prove it.

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Eric the Viking points us to this jab at the US Postal Service by FedEx:

“When it needs to get there Saturday, turn to FedEx.”

You'd have thought that after all this time the USPS would have gotten their house in order. But a couple of decades later outfits like FedEx and UPS are eating their lunch and stealing their dessert, too. This shows the difference between how private enterprise and government operations differ when performing the same service. Is it any wonder the USPS is circling the drain?

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I think Dr. Benjamin Carson has a much better solution to health care than the train wreck also known as ObamaCare. It makes perfect sense, does away with heavy-handed health bureaucracies (and the bureaucrats that go with them), and most importantly, it will work. That's why it will never happen.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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Rand Paul has an excellent rant about too much government control over what consumers can and cannot buy, listing the things that we can no longer buy without being fined by the government. Included are such items as toilets, appliances, light bulbs, and a whole host of other things that may be 'energy efficient' but don't work very well and, in the end, really aren't all that efficient.

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As if we need any more examples of how ObamaCare is going to hurt far more people than it's going to help, there are these two stories from across the pond that show the UK version isn't just hurting and neglecting patients, it's killing them on a scale that would get just about any other industry in major legal trouble and people would be going to prison. It doesn't help that the BBC is trying to paint the NHS as a great success and failing miserably.

This is what we can look forward to as the destructive tentacles of ObamaCare start dismantling one of the best health care systems in the world all in the name of 'fairness'.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the next little weather system arrives on Monday, we're still cleaning up from the blizzard on Saturday, and where the ice fishing waits for no one.

Evidence They Really Don't Understand What's Important

It is becoming ever more evident there is a big disconnect between government and the people. We see it at the federal, state, and local level, with the worst disconnect at the federal level.

The people are focused on jobs and Washington is focused on everything but jobs, their press releases and sympathetic noises to the contrary. (As the saying goes, Ye shall know them by their deeds.)

In some of the big cities – LA and New York come to mind – they're more focused on what we eat or drink or the types of supermarket bags or food containers we use rather than fighting crime or maintaining sidewalks, roads, and other critical infrastructure. It isn't up to city government to tell us we can't drink Big Gulps or chow down an a saturated fat-laden double cheeseburger with all the trimmings that was originally contained in a styrofoam box carried in a recyclable plastic bag. They have more important things to take care of rather than busting our chops about the perfectly legal decisions we make about our lives.

Blizzard Aftermath Report

The snow is still falling here at The Manse as of 8AM. I can safely guesstimate that we've received 18 inches of snow, though I would say other areas in town got more. (The Manse is located on the west side of a hill so we're shielded from the winds during a Nor'easter, meaning we tend to get less snow than other parts of town during a Nor'easter.)

BeezleBub cleared the driveway last night around 11:30PM to allow Deb to get down the driveway and into the garage. 8 hours later it looks like he never touched it.

The snow is supposed to be ending around noon and then the cleanup will commence.

Storm Of The Century? Not Really.

For a couple of days now the media has been drooling over the prospect of another winter storm. Since yesterday I've been hearing the ominous “This storm is gonna KILL US ALL!” music leading into the various 'Storm Center' television reports.

More than a few have claimed it's the biggest storm in 100 years, but I recall the megastorm that was the Blizzard of 1993 that dropped snow from Texas to Maine. Here in New Hampshire I recall seeing over 2 feet of snow from that storm. Somehow I doubt this storm will be in that league thought it is expected to drop anywhere from 1 to 3 feet of snow here. (The Blizzard of 1978 was even worse. I recall that one all too well as I was living south of Boston at the time, the area hardest hit by that storm. We had 55 inches of snow and drifts that covered the sides of two and three story homes up to the peak of their roofs. Route 128, the circumferential highway that encircles Boston, was closed for almost a week because vehicles were buried under feet of snow.)

As per usual, the fear mongering has prodded large numbers of folks to head for the supermarkets to stock up on essentials like bread and milk (huh?) and the even more important junk food – pretzels, chips, beer, and so on. (At least those folks have got their priorities straight!)

About the only concessions I made in regards to storm preparations has been to top off the gas tank of the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower, go over to the town DPW to refill some buckets with sand (needed to get Deb out of the driveway if it's slick), and to make sure the cell phones and laptop batteries are fully charged. While Deb hasn't gone out to 'refill the larder' (and I doubt she'll get the chance before the storm hits), we have plenty of vittles in the pantry and more than enough propane for the Official Weekend Pundit Grill. I also filled the gas tank of the trusty F150, but not because of the storm as payday Thursdays are the day I make my bi-weekly trip to BJ's to pick up supplies and fill the gas tank on the truck.

I have no doubt I'll be required to use the snowblower at least three times during the storm: at 11PM Friday night to make sure Deb will be able to get down the driveway and into the garage after work; at 6:30AM on Saturday to make sure I can get out and get the trusty F150 to the mechanic's for its annual inspection (I've been assured by the owner that they will be open Saturday morning); and finally some time Saturday afternoon/early evening to clean out the last of the snowfall after the storm has wound down.

In other words, this is going to be one of those more powerful Nor'easters. Not that I'm downplaying the hazard such a storm presents. After all, Nor'easters can kill and they have killed more than a few folks who didn't take the warnings seriously and weren't prepared to deal with them.

Town Meeting 2013 - Part 2

Last night's school district meeting went off without a hitch, lasting all of 23 minutes gavel to gavel.

Tonight's town meeting lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes, with almost an hour spent on one warrant article that in the end we hope will go down to defeat.

Our selectmen wanted to change an combined office, that of Town Clerk/Tax Collector, into two separate positions, with the tax collector becoming an appointed position. Unfortunately they didn't check the state statutes before they crafted the warrant article and found out during town meeting that if the positions were separated that the Tax Collector would also have to be elected. Oops.

Best comment about this particular warrant article: “If it ain't broke, don't fix it!”

Town Meeting 2013

It’s that time of year when towns in New Hampshire start assembling the warrant articles for their town and school district meetings.

My little town has a school district deliberative meeting tonight and the town deliberative meeting tomorrow night. In both of these meetings the registered voters and other interested parties will review and, if necessary, amend the various warrant articles that will appear on the town ballot next month.

Our town does things a little differently than some of the others, where our school district and town meetings are split up into two different sessions – the deliberative and the voting. Other towns still hold traditional school and town meetings where the deliberation, amendments, and voting are each performed at in a single session. Each form of meeting has its advantages and disadvantages. Each town decides how they want to conduct their respective meetings.

It is at these two meetings where the taxpayers in our town will decide where their tax dollars are spent over the upcoming fiscal year. It is here where we can see exactly how spending will affect our property taxes. It is here where we can debate face to face the merits of some expenditures, question the need for other kinds of spending, as well as decide what ordinances will be in effect that direct everything from how the town will bid out contracts to property line setbacks to the types of businesses we will allow and where they can be located. (We really don’t want a strip club next to the schools, do we?)

In the end it is those of us who want a say in how our town and schools are run and funded that “git ‘er done”. It also gives those of us who take the time to do so that can tell the others who can’t be bothered to vote on these issues to pound sand if they don’t like how something was done. As the saying goes, “If you didn’t go to town meeting and vote, you have no right to complain.”

While we don’t get a huge number of people showing up at the school district and town deliberative sessions (usually somewhere between 200 and 400 people), voter turnout for the town elections the following month can total many times that number, meaning a goodly portion of the registered voters in town actually showed up at the polls. Keeping that in mind, they usually get it right…but not always. Then again no one ever said democracy was easy or without error.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It's SuperBowl Sunday and it's quiet around here...at least until the game starts.

While my home team, the New England Patriots, aren't playing, I will be watching, rooting for the 49ers.

I took care of most of the necessary work around The Manse on Saturday to ensure I wouldn't have to take care of some of my regular chores today, possibly interrupting my enjoyment of the game.

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Both Deb and BeezleBub are now well into their school/work schedule, with BeezleBub taking morning classes at the local college and doing homework or working at the farm in the afternoon. Deb also has morning/early afternoon classes three days a week, leaving for work from school. That makes for some long days for her.

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One factor constantly overlooked when it comes to the solvency of such programs as Social Security and Medicare is that both were based upon the assumption that the American population would continue to grow at the rate seen during the Baby Boom. Unfortunately that assumption was wrong, in turn causing problems with both of those programs. Each of them assumed there would be 6 people to pay into SS and Medicare for every one person receiving benefits. But the harsh reality is that that number has dropped to under 3 for every one collecting benefits, a rate that is unsustainable.

One of two things will have to give. Either benefits will have to be scaled back or taxes that presently pay for those benefits will have to be boosted to confiscatory levels. Neither idea is attractive, and of the two, the latter is far more destructive to America. But something will have to be done. As Glenn Reynolds constantly reminds us, that which can't continue forever, won't.

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The gun control debate has spun out of control, with emotions and DSS (Do Something Syndrome) on one side trying to drown out any possibility of a ration discussion with the other side.

There's the Minnesota legislature trying to enact state laws that will severely restrict the types of guns and magazines their citizens can own, something that is likely unconstitutional (as well as unworkable), to the misleading straw man arguments being made by gun control advocates that add nothing but emotion to the debate.

One of the biggest claims made for trying to infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens is the “if it only saves one life” argument. But none of those folks using that as a reason are willing to explain that while such actions might save one life in one place, they will cause many other lives to be lost. What's an acceptable ratio for these folks? 1 to 2? 1 to 4? 1 to 8? How many now defenseless people will have to die in order to make those suffering from DSS feel better?

If they were truly concerned about those lives, they wouldn't be pushing for stripping law-abiding citizens of their right to defend themselves. Instead, they'd be pushing for more effective policing (the 'broken windows' strategy) and a roll back on the restrictive laws that make it darn near impossible to take the dangerous mentally ill off the streets. Both of those would be far more effective than restrictive and ineffective gun control laws.

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By way of Glenn Reynolds comes this piece in the Washington Post about how Congress is not like the rest of us in America.

That might explain why Congress is also so out of touch with what's really important to the rest of us.

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Matt Ridley makes the argument that applying the precautionary principle to the still unproven 'theory' of CAGW makes no sense and is far more destructive than any effects of global warming.

Then again, the unwavering warmists see this as a feature and not a bug because it will give them control over every aspect of our lives, something they see as a means to 'heal' Gaia and keep the evil humans in check.

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Assistant Village Idiot makes the observation that those most in favor of multiculturalism in theory seem to like it least in practice. I find they also tend to be far less tolerant of ideas that disagree with their own, particularly if that disagreement comes from what AVI calls Red-White people. They also tend to be more racist than Red-White people, something I've mentioned before. It isn't blatant, but rather it's insinuated and couched in off-hand language and euphemisms.

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I have been checking out The People's Cube for some time now and I have to admit it's one of the better blogs I've seen in regards to the socialist agenda. Much hilarity ensues!

Check it out now, Comrades!

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According to Eric the Viking, the media is claiming the continuing jobless job recovery is not Obama's fault.

So the economy created 157,000 new payroll jobs in January. Wow. At this rate, we might actually get back down to Bush-era unemployment rates sometime, oh, within the next 100 years.

Exactly...and it will still be all George W. Bush's fault.

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How to deprogram a liberal.

'Nuff said.

(H/T IMAO)

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Here's yet another example of how ObamaCare is killing off more jobs.

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Touching once more upon the gun control debate, Blogmocracy tells us more than 256 sheriffs and 6 state sheriffs associations want no part of Obama gun control measures.

A number of states have also stated they will not adhere to any useless or extreme gun control measures coming out of Congress or executive orders from the President. I dare say many of them would go to SCOTUS to reinforce their stands on the Second Amendment.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where pond hockey is being played, ice fishing has been picking up, and where our woodpiles are shrinking.

Questions Not Asked About ObamaCare

As the effects of Obamacare on businesses and the economy become more evident, one has to ask what the hell Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the lockstep Democrats in Congress were thinking when they 'passed' the steaming pile of manure that was the Affordable Care Act? (Of course the question answers itself – they weren't thinking at all.)

If anyone ever needs a shining example of the Law of Unintended Consequences, then the ACA – aka ObamaCare – fits the requirement. And as those unintended consequences add up, we will find our economy weaker and 'affordable' care becoming less affordable and less available. (That's already happening as health insurance premiums are skyrocketing.)

Regardless of the actual motivation behind ObamaCare, there are far too many downsides to it that Congressional Democrats ignored. Even if the reason behind ObamaCare is to force health care into a single payer system, it won't matter if the health care system has been destroyed and the non-health care effects on the economy drive us deeper into a recession. It would be a Pyrrhic victory.

At least someone out there understands where the Democrats made the mistake, ignoring history and choosing to overlook the actual effects of the ACA.

Why not say anything about the actual increases in employee cost per hour and how it is driving the employment market? This is the problem with the arguments against Obamacare. Everything is done in terms of grand scale and not in terms of human scale. Why not do a study of companies with 100 or less employees showing how Obamacare costs are equal to adding 8 employees to the payrolls to companies that laid off 30 people to survive? That is the argument Reagan made. He always tried to talk about the cost of government in terms of the average person's daily life. Everyone in government is so used to play money terms and spends $ billions with no connection to Joe and Jane six pack.

But then the Democrats aren't interested in “the cost of government in terms of the average person's daily life.” Oh, they'll make the appropriate noises about supporting the working families in their respective districts and states, and then work hard to make their lives more difficult and suck even more money out of everyone's pockets, leaving nothing to show for it other than a bloated inertia-laden government incapable of doing anything efficiently and an economic wasteland where once a thriving economy existed.

Of course I expect the Democrats (and Obama) to lay the blame on George W. Bush even though he's been out of office for over 4 years. It seems they are incapable of taking the blame for anything they've done wrong, unwilling to say “Hey, we screwed up!” And with those blinders on, they aren't able to see what the real problems are and what's actually needed to fix them.

And so it goes with the effects of the ACA.

Gas Prices?

I had to run an errand to Deb's place of employment, she having forgotten something she needed. On my way there I noticed that gas prices had changed.

I had filled up the trust F150 a week ago at the local BJ's, shelling out $3.329 per gallon. As I passed by there on my way home after dropping off Deb's stuff, I saw that gas was now at $3.519. That's a 19¢ increase in one week.

Did I miss anything of great import that would have caused gas prices to go up by that much in a week?

Six Famous You Might Not Know Were Engineers

I found this article to be rather compelling, that being 6 famous people you may not know are engineers.

Of the six listed, there were two I hadn't known were engineers. And yes, I knew the first on the list was an engineer and inventor.

Others to be added to the list include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Winston Churchill, Gene Pitney (country western music), Michael Bloomberg (mayor of New York City), Robert Altman (movie director), Judd Hirsch (actor), Dolph Lundgren (actor), Erland Van Lidth (actor), Frank Capra (movie director), Howard Hawks (movie director), Ally Walker (actress), Garry Shandling (actor/comedian), Rowan Atkinson (actor/comedian - Mr. Bean), Herbie Hancock (musician), Ashton Kutcher (actor), and, believe it or not, Cindy Crawford.

Marxism In A Minute

I came across this bit on Marxism while reading the comments to a WSJ opinion piece. It was used to describe one of the regular leftist trolls who has nothing good to say about anyone...except Comrade Obama. He hates capitalism, loves socialism (despite numerous examples of why socialism doesn't work), thinks everyone should be paid the same no matter what they do for a living, and believes wealth is a zero sum game and that all wealth should be confiscated by the state.

When I first started reading the troll's posts I thought it was just sarcasm. But as time went on I realized he was serious.

'Marxism in One Minute'

By Henry Hazlitt

The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others.

Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weaknesses, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects — his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity. Never believe in the honesty or disinterestedness of anyone who disagrees with you.

This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism. This is its animating force. You can throw away the dialectical materialism, the Hegelian framework, the technical jargon, the ‘scientific’ analysis, and millions of pretentious words, and you still have the core: the implacable hatred and envy that are the raison d’être for all the rest.

We pretty much know that liberalism as it exists today is an ideology of envy and greed, with a view of economics that comes right out of Alice In Wonderland. Everyone worth exploiting becomes a 'victim' of the 'oppressors', 'oppressors' defined as anyone disagreeing with them and more successful than they are. They have also co-opted the term 'racist', used when someone disagrees with their push for racial justice, though that 'justice' is just a hidden form of racism because the don't believe their favorite minorities are capable of doing anything without their help. (Basically they believe minorities are inferior to them, which is why they are willing to impoverish the rest of us in an effort to assuage their subconscious guilt. But the 'oppressed' minorities are more than capable, but only if they are allowed to be by their liberal 'betters'.)

In other words, they pull most of their plays right out of the Marxist handbook even though they may not realize it.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The worst of the cold weather has finally moved out of New Hampshire, with last night's temps in the positive single digits. During this cold spell we did use more firewood and propane than we otherwise would, but that was not unexpected. It helps that the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove appears to be running better than it has the past couple of winters, requiring less stoking and burning longer. The time BeezleBub and I spent making repairs and minor modifications paid off. (The modifications didn't change anything internally. They were made to better secure the air tubes that direct air flow inside the stove which in turn affects how well the stove operates.)

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I find it highly misleading when the fawning MSM outlets point to the rising Dow Jones Index as proof the economy has recovered. More than a few state the Dow is slated to reach or exceed its all time high some time soon.

I hate to burst their bubble, but the vaunted 14,000+ is a psychological 'boost', not an economic one. For one thing, in order to reach an equivalent level of what the was the last time it was at 14,000, it would have to reach closer to 19,000 or 20,000. Between the three rounds of quantitative easing (printing a lot of money), the more than doubling of energy prices, and rapidly rising food and commodity prices, 14,000 is more like 10,000 was 'way back when'.

At this point 14,000 is just a number significant of nothing.

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At least now we have an answer about Obama's non-recess recess appointments to the NLRB: Obama's 'recess' appointments declared unconstitutional.

Frankly I didn't expect any other outcome. Should the President decided to appeal the decision made by a 3-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals, it isn't likely he'd win. This isn't one of those 'grey area's with a lot of wiggle room. There are almost 200 years of precedence that carry a lot of weight.

One of the downside/upside issues with this decision – hundreds of decisions handed down by the NLRB since those appointments will be invalidated because there was no quorum, a requirement in order for those decisions to be valid (that's the upside). The downside (for unions) is that the firmly-in-the-union-pocket NLRB decisions will have to be gone over again, maybe this time by a board that is more evenly balanced and less likely to give the unions a pass.

If nothing else it is a lesson for Obama that the Constitution means what it says.

(H/T Viking Pundit)

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David Starr digs into the problems with Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. My belief is that Boeing didn't allow the proper amount of time to wring out all of the kinks by setting such an ambitious and wildly overoptimistic schedule (which they didn't meet). Too much new technology implemented at the same time in too short a time is a guarantee there will be problems.

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Though this opinion piece came out 11 days ago, it is still worth linking.

Former Washington DC prosecutor Jeffrey Scott Shapiro has seen the effects of draconian gun control laws first hand and in his opinion it badly misfired, leaving law abiding citizens unable to defend themselves while allowing criminals free rein to rob, rape, and murder, free from the fear their intended victim might be able to stop them.

The D.C. gun ban, enacted in 1976, prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officers from carrying a firearm in the city. Residents were even barred from keeping guns in their homes for self-defense.

--snip--

The gun ban had an unintended effect: It emboldened criminals because they knew that law-abiding District residents were unarmed and powerless to defend themselves. Violent crime increased after the law was enacted, with homicides rising to 369 in 1988, from 188 in 1976 when the ban started. By 1993, annual homicides had reached 454.

When a prosecutor that hates guns thinks gun control is not such a great idea, it should give the gun-grabbers pause to consider whether they're thinking with their hearts and not their heads. Unfortunately, they won't.

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Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results this time.

By that definition, the Obama administration is insane, pushing banks to approve sub-prime loans...again.

So it's criminal for the Bush administration to have done so, but perfectly OK for the Obama administration to do something we already know caused a big portion of the housing market and bank meltdown? It's that old double standard being applied...again.

Then again we have to remember that Obama was party to the lawsuits that expanded the 'teeth' of the Community Reinvestment Act back in his community organizer days.

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The Saturday edition of the local Laconia Daily Sun asks the question, “What is a payphone?” My home town's board of selectmen voted to remove one of the last payphones in town, located at the town docks on the big lake.

Supposedly the last payphone in town is located at the Gunstock Mountain Resort in the main lodge.

Ain't progress grand?

The phrase “drop a dime” will become all too obscure once the last of the payphones are gone. But then it may hang around just like “the whole nine yards”, still used over 70 years after it first came into being.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the really cold temps are departing (so it will only be cold), the sun is rising higher in the sky every day, and where yet another payphone bites the dust.

Is Obama's Hostility Part Of His Narcissism?

I came across this while perusing the comments section of this WSJ opinion piece by Peggy Noonan, where she pummels the President for his belief that only he has good faith and therefore any program, action, spending, or regulation he wants will only be on his terms, and his terms are always hostile.

While some may call Obama's persistent belief that his opinion is the only one that matters an symptom of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder – which it may very well be – it is more likely the Hubris-Nemesis Complex (not that it doesn't rule out NPD). It is described as follows:

"In other words, they have a “hubris-nemesis complex,” a special and potentially dangerous mindset that combines hubris (a pretension toward an arrogant form of godliness) and nemesis (a vengeful desire to confront, defeat, humiliate, and punish an adversary that may itself be accused of hubris)."

"In such leaders, the complex means more than exhibiting hubris and nemesis as separate qualities. The interaction between, and integration of, the two forces appears to result in something more complex, more pathological, than the description of either force may imply at first glance. To be as powerful as their hubris requires, they must be the nemesis of an external power; indeed, it is part of their hubris to be such a nemesis. At the same time, to fulfill the nemesis role against such a power, they must personally possess absolute power at home and expand their power and presence abroad—they must be capable of hubris."

"A Destructive-Constructive Messianism. A hubris-nemesis leader believes himself to be—and presents himself as being—a virtual messiah or savior who is on a crusade and has a fate, destiny, or mission that is historic, both timeless and time-changing in its implications. All is politicized in the name of the mission and the high principles it engages. Combining constructive with destructive tendencies, he proposes to accomplish monumental projects that will confirm his and his nation’s greatness. Such projects, if achieved, may bring material progress, but their purpose goes beyond that. They symbolize the leader’s desire to direct vast energies at constructing something awesome that commands widespread respect and honor and enhances people’s feelings of pride and dignity, thereby validating his leadership and his conception of his and his nation’s abilities. Meanwhile, he seeks to blame and attack the chosen enemy and its imperious ways for his nation’s weaknesses and failures to live up to its hopes and capabilities"

Sound familiar? Obama certainly fits that description to a 't'. He promises great things and cures to what ails us, but doesn't present any actual plan about how to get there other than tired old platitudes that we already know won't work. He merely wraps it in new verbiage. He dismisses any opposition to his ideas as not being worth wasting his time, particularly when those opposing him are too blind to see his greatness, as far as he's concerned. All triumphs are his and all failures someone else's fault. And worst of all he ignores Rule #51: “Sometimes - you're wrong.”

(H/T Charles Hammons)

Global Warming - Really?

I had more than a few topics to choose from to ponder upon and pontificate about. Because I just came in a few moments ago, having refilled the wood box after arriving home from work, and noticing just how cold it felt, I checked the Official Weekend Pundit Weather Center and found it was just a wee bit below zero. It was -4ºF at 7 this morning and it's expected to be close to -20ºF some time tomorrow morning. And that points me to today's topic – global warming.

First, seeing the impact of one of the coldest winters since 1938 and how it's affecting Russia. For one thing they've been getting snow...lots of snow.

While the snowstorms have caused inconvenience for large population centers in western Russia, they have been life-threatening further east in the country. The polar circle city of Norilsk has been buried under 10 feet of snow – entire apartment blocks, markets, stores and offices were buried under snow overnight.

Banks of snow were as high as two people put together, reaching the second-story windows of some apartment buildings. Cars, stores, garages were blocked. Norilsk metropolitan workers were forced to dig passageways through the snow banks to create access between the outside world and the barricaded city.

It looks like Russia is getting a taste of what Alaska experienced last winter.

But if what a bunch of scientists at the US Solar Observatory and the US Air Force Research Laboratory have said is true, we may be entering a “mini-Maunder” event with decades of below normal solar activity and resultant cooler temperatures on Earth and what we've seen in Europe, northern Asia, and northern North America will become the norm rather than the exception.

The sun could be on the threshold of a mini-Maunder event right now. Ongoing Solar Cycle 24 is the weakest in more than 50 years. Moreover, there is (controversial) evidence of a long-term weakening trend in the magnetic field strength of sunspots. Matt Penn and William Livingston of the National Solar Observatory predict that by the time Solar Cycle 25 arrives, magnetic fields on the sun will be so weak that few if any sunspots will be formed. Independent lines of research involving helioseismology and surface polar fields tend to support their conclusion.

NASA explains that interactions between the sun, sources of cosmic radiation and the Earth are very complicated, and it takes an interdisciplinary team of heliophysicists, chemists and others to quantify what is really going on. And the Earth’s climate is also affected by cosmic radiation.

Danish scientist Dr. Henrik Svensmark's work has led him to postulate that sunspot activity can have a greater effect on Earth's climate than CO2, showing that during periods of high solar activity Earth's climate is warmer and during low solar activity Earth's climate cools.

It's going to be interesting around here over the next few decades.

Sometimes These Things Happen

As you've nooticed, I haven't posted the past couple of days. Unfortunately real life intruded and I had family, work, and other community activities that took precedence. Sometimes that happens. At least regular blogging has resumed!

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather has been relatively nice over the past few days, sunny with some chilly temps. The local ski area has been making the best of it, running their snow guns as soon as the temperature is below freezing. (I can tell when they're running because I can hear them at The Manse even though the ski area is a couple of miles away.)

We're in for some below-zero nights and days in the teens and single digits. It looks like winter is returning with a vengeance, at least in regards to cold.

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Oh, No! Globull Warmening is causing snow and cold in the winter! We're all DOOMED!!

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Speaking of globull warmening, just around 1:30PM today the winds picked up here at The Manse and the temperature dropped about 10ºF in about an hour. Our brief warm spell has come to an end.

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I have to give this guy some credit for his gall, outsourcing his own job to a couple of programmers in China so he could surf the web and play cute kitten videos all day.

Is this the new American entrepreneurship?

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Gee, ya think?

Is there any question that ethanol in gasoline has benefited no one except corn growers and ethanol producers?

I have been an opponent to adding ethanol in gasoline since they first started doing it. It damages engines, causes problems with fuel systems (I think I've covered that problem more than once in regards to The Boat), and decreases fuel economy. It uses more energy to produce than is gained at the back end, meaning it does not decrease the carbon footprint to use it, claims by the ethanol and green lobbies to the contrary. About the only fuel grade ethanol produced that has a net positive energy return is that made from sugar cane, which returns eight times the ethanol per volume than corn and doesn't require fertilizer, constant tilling and weeding, or the applications of pesticides. The only problem is that it doesn't grow in the same climate as corn.

Ethanol is a failure. It's time to pull the plug.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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That the provisions of Obamacare were going to kill jobs was debatable. But now that it has started to kick in, the debate is over. It is killing jobs and it's only going to get worse.

How the Democrats thought this wasn't going to hurt more people than it was supposed to help is beyond me. But then perhaps they weren't thinking, but letting their feelings make the decision for them. That is their M.O., isn't it? After all, it made them feel better once they passed it. Now the rest of use will have to deal with the 'unintended' consequences.

Gee thanks, Democrats!

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Glenn Reynolds has a timely essay about how the government is slowly making everything a crime. Why? Simply this: power.

There's even a quote right out of Atlas Shrugged that explains the reasoning behind this trend.

It would be funny if it weren't so true.

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Scary Yankee Chick has a three-fer, offering three links to gun related topics. Interestingly enough, she also has a post that has been Google's top of the list in regards to New York's new Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act. Surprisingly she's been getting lots of hits from federal, state, and local government offices.

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David Starr slams Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for his blatant lie about cutting the budget. How can the budget have been 'cut' when the government is going to spend even more money this year than it did last year? And how can you cut a budget that doesn't exist? Congress hasn't passed a budget in almost 4 years, something blatantly unconstitutional.

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And now I'm off to watch the New England Patriots play the Baltimore Ravens for the AFC Championship.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter temps are returning with a vengeance, snow is coming with it, and Monday has yet again gotten here all too soon.

Obama Uses The "If It Only Saves One Life" Canard

I wasn't sure he would do it, but President Obama, while announcing his plans for more gun control, used the old “If it saves only one life it will be worth it” lie.

Why do I call it a lie? Simple: That “one life” will be paid for by the deaths of other innocents who should have been able to protect themselves but were denied that right. No one talks about that aspect of the do-nothing feel-good laws and regulations the president and others wish to impose upon us because it doesn't fit the narrative promulgated by the Left, that being that guns in and of themselves are evil because they can be used to kill people. Most other folks know them for what they are – tools. And like any tool they can be used for good or evil. It all depends upon who wields that tool and for what purpose.

Neal Boortz delves into the issue, showing how the Democrats are incapable of focusing on the truly important issues and wasting time and effort on something that makes them feel better but that in the end will not solve the problem as they claim it will. (Yes, I know Brent linked this same piece the other day, but it's worth linking to again.)

Some excerpts from Neal's post:

2. Democrats find it much easier to push a gun control agenda than they do to deal with issues of true and vital importance to our Republic.  When we are mourning and burying 20 young children the emotions of the people are raw.  It’s time to exploit those emotions for political gain.  Americans, unfortunately, will never be this emotional about the fiscal disaster they face.  And I’m not talking about this meaningless “fiscal cliff.”  I’m talking about our nearly $1 trillion … that’s TRILLION … in unfunded liabilities and our current unsustainable level of spending. The highest in terms of our gross domestic product ever.  But you’ve read all about this in the mainstream media, haven’t you?  Oh, you haven’t?  Well, I’m sure they’re preparing their in-depth stories right now.

3. This year 446 school age children have been shot in Chicago, and 62 have died.  There has been NO push from the left for gun control resulting from the carnage in Chicago.  Odd, don’t you think?  By the way, Chicago has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country.  I’m sure you’ve seen these statistics on your favorite network television newscast, haven’t you?  Wait!  What?

6. In the past week we have had two stories about a 14-year-old at home without an adult when a burglar entered the home.  In one the 14-year-old knew where his dad’s gun was, and knew how to use it.  The intruder was shot.  In the other the 14-year-old had no means to defend himself.  His father found his body when he came home from work at the end of the day.  He had been shot.   Have you read a juxtaposition of these two stories in your mainstream newscast?  Didn’t think so.

So rather than focusing on truly important, though less emotionally compelling issues, our attention is drawn to a tragedy that is being played to the maximum to elicit an emotional response to something that is a very rare occurrence to push legislation that will do little to prevent a future tragedy of the same kind. They gun control advocates choose to ignore the evidence that it is not 'average people with guns' committing these heinous crimes, but emotionally disturbed, or dare I say, deranged people committing these acts. Focus should be on the people and not the tools. By disarming the law-abiding citizens all anyone is ensuring is higher body counts when such acts are perpetrated in the future.

The Continuing Insanity In The Aftermath Of Newtown

Obama and the gun-grabbers are cranking up the rhetoric, trying to please those suffering from Do Something Syndrome (or DSS).

Already New York Governor Cuomo has signed a tough new gun control law that, in the end, will do nothing but make it more difficult, if not impossible, for law-abidingNew Yorkers to arm themselves. If history is any indicator, it's likely to produce the opposite effects from those intended. (Cuomo and Bloomberg have both stated that New York City hasn't had that problem despite the heavy regulations on guns, but that has be credited to former mayor Rudy Giuliani and his 'broken windows' police tactics, cracking down on crimes large and small.)

Much of this is driven by DSS, which is an offshoot of what Lenore Skenazy calls PTSS, or Post Traumatic Stupidity Syndrome.

Folks in the throes of PTSS are so traumatized by a tragic event that they immediately demand something – ANYTHING – be done to prevent it from ever occurring again. Even if the chances of it happening are one in a million. Even if the “preventative measures” proposed are wacky, wasteful, ridiculous - or worse.

I asked readers to tell me what their districts were doing in reaction to the Newtown shooting and thus I heard about lots of schools reviewing their lockdown drills – which makes sense, like reviewing a fire or tornado drill. But then I also heard from readers whose school administrators seem to have lost their minds.

One school, for instance, proceeded with its first grade Christmas concert…except that all the parents attending had to hand in their car keys to the office before entering the auditorium.

Because guns don’t kill people … people with car keys kill people?

Actually, people with car keys do kill people. In fact, they kill more people than people with guns every year.

By working to disarm the law-abiding citizens the Powers-That-Be are merely making larger free-fire zones for the criminals who will ignore the law (as they already do) and continue to carry illegal firearms. How does that help anyone?

In reality, it doesn't. But it makes the people suffering from PTSS and DSS feel better...until the next time. And then they'll demand even more stridently that someone “Do Something!”

As Lenore concludes:

And so it goes, after Sandy Hook. Distrust. Panic. Terror. This feeling of being besieged on all sides used to be considered paranoia.

Thanks to Post-Traumatic Stupidity Syndrome, now it’s considered proactive.

And that's the problem.

(H/T Instapundit)

The Effects Of ObamaCare Now Coming To Light

As the effects of ObamaCare start to manifest themselves, more people are asking what the hell Congress was thinking when they passed that stinking pile of manure masquerading as legislation. Nancy Pelosi's pronouncement that the House would have to pass it in order for us to find out what was in it showed the arrogance of the progressive Democrats, implying the rest of us 'common folk' couldn't possibly understand what they were trying to do. Unfortunately most Americans understood perfectly what Pelosi and Reid were trying to do, that being taking more control over our lives and crippling a sixth of the American economy all in the name of 'fairness'. (I still don't know what they mean by this as their definition of the term has little in common with that found in the dictionary. All I do know is that it bodes ill for us.)

One of the major downsides to ObamaCare is that it will do little to contain costs and will, in the end, create a shortage of medical treatment as more of those in the health profession bail, seeing their chosen professions turn from a calling into nothing more than a factory job in what will become factory medicine, with treatments decided by 'management' (aka government bureaucrats) rather than the doctors. We've seen this happen before. There have been more than a few examples of this in other countries, the UK and Canada but two instances.

As the government health care bureaucracy expands to take up an ever increasing amount of money, the funds that would normally go to actually treating patients will diminish. We've seen that happen before as well. Costs will go up and care will go down. Something will have to give.

When you make radical policy changes and remove market correctives from functioning, the only outcome following trouble is government takeover. The American citizen is showing a greater willingness each year to borrow from the future and take a step back from personal responsibility while preferring group support. Once that approach gathers steam, it crosses a line from which only the government is big and strong enough to act with a single voice.

And that single voice will demand more and more and more until the people have nothing left, unless we can do something about this horrible program and get rid of it. Otherwise we are doomed to the future the regressive “Progressives” have planned for us, that being serfdom to the all consuming State.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The usual January Thaw has ended up being something of a bust, at least over this weekend.

While it has been warmer, it didn't reach the forecast temperatures, getting to 37 degrees yesterday (45 was forecast) and to 38 degrees today (49 was forecast). Both Saturday and today it was overcast and foggy all day.

So much for our January thaw.

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I have to admit the gun control debate has spun out of control, with the gun-grabbers pulling on every emotional string they can find in order to get their way. Probably one of the more specious arguments they've been using is the “If it saves only one life...”. There's only one problem, that being that they may 'save' that one life, but cause two, three, or more innocent lives to be lost because people will no longer able to defend themselves.

I've found that more than a few of the more rabid gun control advocates are incapable of looking at the whole picture, or worse, unwilling to look at what's happened when gun ownership is severely restricted or banned – violent crime and murder rates climb. All they focus upon is gun deaths, whether caused by criminals, police, or heaven forbid, average citizens defending themselves against those who wish to harm or kill them. They try to downplay the use of guns by law abiding citizens defending themselves. (By use, I don't automatically mean shooting a miscreant. Sometimes all that's needed is for the citizen to pull his weapon, thus ending the 'encounter' when the miscreant realizes he's picked on someone who turned out to be hunter, not prey, and he decides to go find someone else to victimize. I include that in the term 'use'.)

If they truly want to diminish the number of gun deaths perpetrated by criminals, then start by cracking down on gangs, both here in the US and across the border in Mexico. Gangs are the biggest contributing factor to violence and murder and are a source of many of the illegal weapons on the street. Disarming law abiding citizens makes no one safe. Goodness knows there are more than enough examples of that just here in the US (Washington DC, Chicago, etc.).

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And while we're on the topic of gun control, there's this by way of Chris Muir.

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Today's TOAS will be abbreviated as Deb happens to have acquired my computer reading glasses, making it difficult to read the display. I am using my regular reading glasses, but it requires leaning forward to read the screen.

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Bogie adds her voice to those calling out for the prosecution of David Gregory for violating DC's ban on high capacity magazines.

As the saying goes, no one is above the law, even liberal media darlings. And Gregory should have known better (and probably did), yet he gets a free pass.

This sends the wrong message to the average American: The courts are not a place where you can expect justice.

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Eric the Viking makes a good point about the debt ceiling:

...we're in this perpetual state of crisis because Congress (that is, the Senate) refuses to pass annual budgets.

Indeed.

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Tom Bowler comments about the passing of Nobel Laureate James Buchanan, who received his Nobel in 1986 for economics. As Tom comments, “We are watching Buchanan's theories played out right before our eyes,” where he posited why bureaucracies had an incentive to expand their turf.

Then there's this added by Tom:

It's surprising and more than a little disheartening how many people subscribe to the notion that government actors are so much more nobly motivated than the rest of us.

Heh. Indeed.

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Assistant Village Idiot weighs in on liberalism, stating that “liberalism is more of a social than an intellectual set of beliefs. Certainly, liberalism is enforced socially rather than intellectually (though the claim of intellectual superiority remains, and is in fact part of the pressure).”

His post certainly describes what I see as the problem with latter day liberal thought and pseudo-intellectualism – it sounds great in theory, but it doesn't work in the real world.

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And now I'm off to prepare for the New England Patriots/Houston Texans game.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee,

You Know You Live In A Country Run By Idiots If...

When I first read this the only thing I could think of was Jeff Foxworthy's “You might be a Redneck...”

This would be funny if it weren't so true.

A few examples:

You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.

You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while some slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing, and free cell phones.

You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".

You know you live in a Country run by idiots if...
You can write a post like this just by reading the news headlines.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing. But I must warn you that after doing so you won't be inclined to laugh, but to cry because it's all too true.

The "Best And Brightest" Setting Us Up For Failure And Disappointment

One of the best comments I've ever read on the WSJ opinion pages aptly describes the problem with the beliefs most progressives carry in regards to the Nanny State.

If there's one thing you can say about politicians, it's that they don't let reality intrude on their pandering ways.

--snip--

Statists of all stripes, but especially modern liberals, tell us we should trust the "best and brightest" to run things for us, protect us and look after us. Lovely little sentiment - very "mommy and daddy will make everything all right."

Of course, the first problem is that abdication of personal responsibility inevitably leads to disappointment and failure. But, another big problem is the implied message that the "best and brightest" are in government.

Time and again, we see that politicians are the "best" at getting elected, and little else. They ignore facts, dismiss history, and eschew rational analysis and empirical lessons in favor of whatever gets them the most attention. With this track record, suggesting that they are the "best and brightest" that we should put our trust and lives in is laughable.

The problem is that many of those “best and brightest” suffer from the same problem most of those running the show in Washington: Beltway Blindness. They haven't a clue about how things work in the real world. And many of those best and brightest have the morals of an alley cat and the depth of a teaspoon. Do we really want such “betters” running our lives? I know I don't.

I've Had Just About Enough. How About You?

After listening to the rhetoric from the President, Congressional leaders, various members of Congress, and the ever chattering media about the fiscal cliff, taxes, and out of control spending, I have to say I've had enough.

It has become apparent to me that no one is really serious about solving the problem of our profligate government spending, shrinking revenue base, economy-strangling regulations and rogue government agencies. Oh, they make all of the appropriate noises about reining in the trillion dollar deficits, but only over a period of ten years (or more). As if we're going to believe them this time. (I certainly haven't the last umpteen times those promises have been made.)

Give me and 5 friends an hour or so and I know we can cut the budget, broaden the tax base while lowering tax rates, shrink the size of government, and get the economy moving again, all while maintaining the more important social programs.

I know the argument will be made by the Powers-That-Be that simplistic solutions are not the answer to the complicated fiscal problem in which we find ourselves, but that's a cop-out. If the fiscal problem is an overgrown forest, then pruning shears won't fix it. We need to use chainsaws.

The problem with letting the 'professionals' deal with it is that there's always some program/agency/subsidy that somebody somewhere wants preserved, even if it makes no sense to do so. (A lot of that comes down to what I call the “But we've always done it that way!” reaction.) The professionals can't be objective because they're beholden to the folks who helped them get elected. (I am not talking about the electorate. They merely voted for the professionals. I'm talking about the folks who provided financial and other kinds of support to help them get elected.)

Maybe it's time to start cleaning house by firing everyone.

First, come the 2014 elections (assuming we haven't already slipped into a depression), we vote everyone out, Democrats and Republicans alike. Get new folks in there who have never held office before.

Second, we push to repeal the 17^th Amendment and return the election of senators to the state legislatures. Direct elections makes them nothing more than super-representatives to Congress, beholden the special interests that helped them get elected. (Not that there won't be some of that if legislatures elect senators, but I think their influence will be greatly diminished.) By returning senatorial elections to the state legislatures the senators will have to answer to the legislators back home if they don't represent the best interests of their home state. If they don't do their job they get fired.

Third, any budget or tax bill would have to be reviewed by randomly selected accountants, business people (big and small), financial, and some ordinary citizens. If the bill doesn't pass the smell test it never makes it out onto the floor for a vote.

Fourth, no spending or tax riders allowed on proposed legislation that has nothing to do with either. This helps lessen the “Gee, if you don't vote to pass the rider you're bill is dead and all those starving children will go hungry...” extortion often used in state houses and Congress. (My home state of New Hampshire already has a constitutional ban on such mechanisms and it's worked pretty well for us.)

Fifth, amend the Constitution to limit congressional sessions to no more than 4 months in any calendar year, maybe two in the spring and two in the fall. I don't mean legislative days when the House or Senate are in their respective chambers, but 4 calendar months, period. The other 8 months they should go home. The problem with the present system is that it allows Congress too much time to waste time and tax dollars on things we really don't need or want. If they're limited to 4 months out of the year to get things done, they won't have enough time to do anything but what's needed.

Last, but not least, figure out some way of preventing what I can only call “Do Something!” legislation. There are usually all kinds of unintended consequences to such legislation and it rarely achieves its purported goals, all while costing money we don't have or could use better elsewhere. All it is really is feel-good legislation that in the end does more harm than good.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We've entered the January thaw, with temps projected to be somewhere in the mid 40's by the middle of the week. That doesn't bode well for the annual Rotary Ice Fishing Derby as the big lake isn't frozen over. Driving past one of the lake overlooks yesterday I could see nothing but open water. While there is ice in some of the coves and smaller bays, the main body of the lake is open water from shore to shore. Unless we get a lengthy bout of sub-zero weather after the thaw, I doubt there will be enough safe ice to allow the derby to take place.

It isn't that there hasn't been temps cold enough to form ice, there have been. I think the problem is the winds that have prevented the ice from forming.

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It's time to rein in the EPA which has become a dangerous rogue federal agency that somehow thinks it is above the law. We must disabuse them of that notion.

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I'd have to say this pretty much nails the Obama Administration's view on unemployment:

Convincing millions of Americans they don’t want a job or compelling desperate workers to settle for part time work has been the Obama administration’s most effective jobs program.

I'm not sure I would call it a jobs program so much as government dependency program. But then that's exactly what Obama and his socialist minions want because it gives them enormous control over the American people's lives. They can always threaten to withhold government largess if the people don't do what the government wants.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

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We've entered the 21st Century here at The Manse with an update to our television.

Deb got me a new LCD HDTV for Christmas (she did a great job of hiding it and keeping it secret) and the guys from one of the two DBS companies just upgraded our receiver so that we can watch HD.

I have to admit that watching football games in HD is awesome!

Thanks, hon!

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Anyone who paid attention to the 'Cash For Clunkers' program back in 2009 knew is was a non-starter, economically. While stimulating new vehicle purchases over the short term, over the long run the net sales were no different than if the program had never existed. All it did was shift purchases forward that would have been made in any case while weakening the supply of vehicles for the used market, driving up used car prices. In the end no one really benefited, but it cost the taxpayers plenty.

Now comes news that there was another downside to Cash For Clunkers – it hurt the environment.

According to E Magazine, the “Clunkers” program, which is officially known as the Car Allowance Rebates System (CARS), produced tons of unnecessary waste while doing little to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The program's first mistake seems to have been its focus on car shredding, instead of car recycling. With 690,000 vehicles traded in, that's a pretty big mistake.

...automobiles are almost completely recyclable, down to their engine oil and brake fluid. But many of the “Cash for Clunkers” cars were never sent to recycling facilities. The agency reports that the cars’ engines were instead destroyed by federal mandate, in order to prevent dealers from illicitly reselling the vehicles later.

If disposed of properly, almost all of the materials can be recycled. But if shredded then only the metals can be recycled. Everything else goes to a landfill. How does that help the environment?

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Obama to Bowles-Simpson: Drop dead.

Yeah, that will work real well. Do just the opposite of what the Obama created commission suggested and expect the results to be anything other than divisive and disastrous.

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Talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences coming to bit someone in the ass!

Rick Olson points us in the direction of the Jounal News and its publishing the names and addresses of all the gun owners in two counties in New York.

Now the unintended consequence. Notorious former jewel thief Walter T. Shaw commented that it was the most asinine article he's ever seen.

“Having a list of who has a gun is like gold – why rob that house when you can hit the one next door, where there are no guns?” The 65-year-old Shaw told Fox News. Side note: “Do criminals fear citizens with Guns? Sounds like Shaw qualifies that as a “yes”.  Shaw continues, ““What they did was insanity.”

If my house was robbed in one of those two counties, I might consider suing the Journal News for making my home a more inviting target by publishing their list. The liabilities could add up to millions.

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Scary Yankee Chick got to live out a fantasy that many of us only dream about.

She told he boss to “Go to hell!” In my book that's right up there with “Take this job and shove it!” As she states it “was so worth it...”

She got fired for it. She doesn't care. She's in a position where she really doesn't have to work to make ends meet. But she's going to start looking for a job anyways.

I think all of us have had a job at some point in our lives where it wasn't worth putting up with the bulls**t and we've wanted to tell the boss to piss off. Some us have done so. There is a certain satisfaction seeing the look on their face when we tell them exactly what we think of them.

There is the downside that sometimes such an action can come back to haunt us, but from those I've talked to who have taken the leap, more often than not their new employer is aware of the previous employer's reputation and it hasn't worked against them.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the January thaw is upon us, the ice and packed snow on the driveway is almost gone, and where Monday has yet again reappeared all too soon.

Are We Headed To A Second US Civil War?

Are we one step closer to a second American Civil War? If the lessons from Argentina show us anything, then we are.

President Obama seems to be taking some pages out of the Socialist Economic Handbook by doing everything he can to further cripple the American economy even as he protests that he's doing what he can to 'fix' it. That kind of claim has been made more than once over the past 100+ years in a number of countries and every time it has led to economic malaise and eventual collapse. In some cases it's led to civil unrest which in turn led to civil war.

Take a look at Argentina if you need a present day example of how not to 'fix' an economy. The more control the Powers-That-Be took over the economic affairs within that nation, the worst the economy became. And so it is here in the US.

It’s true that Argentina’s politicians have been waging class warfare since Juan and Eva Peron–and they aren’t fazed when it turns bloody. Obama and the Democrats are relative newcomers to the game. But Argentina reveals who really suffers when those who create a nation’s wealth get mugged by those who spend it–as just happened this week in Washington.

It’s the poor and the middle class, the very ones big government says it’s trying to protect.

--snip--

Far from adding to people’s standard of living, government is the number one cause of poverty in this country. It forces those who depend on its largesse to live hand to mouth, with no time or money to plan for the future. They become unable to fend for themselves---and increasingly resentful of those who can.

When the economy tanks and the government checks have to shrink, their only alternative is to take to the streets. That’s what happening in Argentina, and in Greece; and that’s where the growth of government is taking us here, as this current budget deal increases handouts–and more and more Americans are finding that an unemployment or Social Security disability check is their only life line.

Poverty was shrinking in the US back in the early 1960's and if the trend had been allowed to continue, I daresay we would have had an extremely low poverty rate. But then came LBJ's Great Society and the so-called War on Poverty in 1965 and the trend in poverty reversed as the federal government took more control over social services that had once been the purview of the states and municipalities. The poverty rate skyrocketed and economic advances made by minorities were wiped away in less than one generation. Government dependence was the fate to which those seeking prosperity had been sentenced by those who believed only the government had the ability to eliminate poverty. It wasn't until many of the Great Society programs were weakened or dismantled during the Reagan and Clinton years that we saw poverty start to shrink again.

Then came Obama and the push to make even more citizens dependent upon government (and hence under government's control), all in the name of “saving them.” The question is, who's going to save them from the government?

Will it take a second Civil War to break us out of this socialist/progressive/totalitarian delusion that the government is the end all and be all of our existence and show it to be nothing but a new form of oppression by the state, or worse, slavery to the state?

While I doubt it will become something like the first Civil War, it could still be bloody and destructive, particularly when those who are constantly punished by the government for being successful decide to fight back, or worse, decide to go Galt and let the economy collapse, and with it any government legitimacy. And when the government checks stop, those who had been impoverished by and indentured to the state will revolt, just as we've been seeing in Argentina and Greece.

Fair Share

Since President Obama believes that even with the tax hikes, we still aren't paying our fair share, I have to ask the clueless Teleprompter-In-Chief “What is our 'fair share'?” As always, 'fair share' is a moving target, one that moves in one direction - upwards. (I have a feeling the ultimate answer is 'every penny you make.')

While Obama says he's targeting the rich, I get the feeling that 'rich' is a variable, that it changes depending on who it is he's talking to at any given moment. As I have stated more than once, I believe his real definition of rich is “anyone with a job.”

He wants total control over all government spending and no limits on how much he spends..and he wants us to pay for it. The problem is that none of his spending will fix the economic problems facing the nation. The proof of that can be seen with the reckless deficit spending he's already accomplished ($6 trillion so far) which has returned very little, except to his cronies. We're the ones stuck with the bill.

What makes this worse is that our clown of a president doesn't have a clue about how economies work, nor does he want to. He knows he's right and that's all that matters. It doesn't help matters that many of his advisers have no real experience in the real world (not that he listens to them anyways unless they propose really awful ideas that do more to damage the economy than fix it).

The one lesson our President needs to learn that many of his predecessors knew – A president can damage an economy trying to fix it. The only true way to fix an economy is to get out of the way.

(H/T Instapundit)

First 2013 Post - Are Malls Dead?

I could have started my first post of 2013 by looking back at the previous 12 months, but I feel no need to relive the happenings of this past year, considering many of them were something I would prefer not to experience again, even though but a memory.

I could have started my first post of 2013 by making prognostications upon what will befall us over the next 12 months, but I feel no need to unnecessarily extend the feeling of impending doom over the upcoming year. (In case you're wondering, it has more to do with history repeating itself again despite warnings from those in the know that actions being taken to 'fix' the economy will do nothing of the sort and in the end cause more harm. Call it deja vu all over again.)

Instead, I will make my first post about something near and dear to my heart – shopping malls. Or more specifically, the death of shopping malls.

Not that I really have anything against shopping malls, at least not those that have been well designed, well managed, with a broad range of retailers and services, and located in places that make sense. But I do believe that too many malls were built in the wrong places to service the wrong clientele at the wrong time in the wrong manner. You know the ones I mean – malls in the fringes of urban or suburban areas that take forever to get to (only possible if you have a car) with parking that means you still have to trudge a great distance from the lots just to get into the place. They host retailers that you wouldn't normally see any place else, charge far more for their goods than mom and pop retail operations, and in some case, are so sterile and uninviting that no one wants to go there.

We've all seen the failing malls with increasing numbers of vacant storefronts, stores no one has ever heard of carrying merchandise no one has ever seen (or wants), and the signs of genteel decay as the facilities change from preventative to failure maintenance while rent revenues fall. We've also seen the failed malls, totally vacant, with only a few hallway lights still on, and the huge “For Sale Or Lease” signs at the parking lot entrances and plastered on the glass of the doorway entrances to the mall. (We've had a few like that here in New Hampshire. They were either re-purposed or torn down.)

There are few malls I have any desire to patronize (only two in New Hampshire that I can think of), and a few outside of New England that would be interesting to visit (The Mall of America in Minnesota, the West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, and the Eaton Centre in Toronto, Ontario.) These days most of my shopping for anything other than the regular day to day items is either done online or at one of the specialty shops located in small towns here in New Hampshire.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)