Thoughts On A Sunday

Here it is, the end of the first week of 2018 and I am glad of it.

Between the heavy snows and sub-zero temperatures (that's not counting windchill), the coming respite over this week will be gladly accepted. It will give me time to finish clearing out the snow from around The Manse, particularly from the decks and the front entry way. With rain forecast for Friday I have to make sure the snow has been removed in order to keep the weight of the rain-laden snow from causing damage to the decks. Fortunately I should be able to finish that task tomorrow after work.

I believe this coming week can be classified as the January Thaw, a period of a few days to a week where the temperatures rise well above freezing. This allows ice and snow to melt off of the roads and people to wearing much lighter outdoor attire.

We'll take what we can get before we plunge back into the deep freeze...which we will.

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This merely proves the lunatics are running the asylum.

A Yale psychiatrist wants to have the Democrats to restrain and force President Trump to have a medical exam. How absolutely Soviet of them!

Considering most of her colleagues thinks she's a disgrace and willfully ignoring the Goldwater rule, I think we can dismiss her as nothing more than yet another delusional Progressive suffering from TDS. Tie this in with Michael Wolff's book where all he offers is accusations about Trumps mental health while not a sign of any alleged afflictions have been seen in public, and it's all beginning to sound like a smear campaign writ larger than we've ever seen before. I wonder how much Soros money has been funneled to the DNC for this effort?

The louder the Democrats and their Progressive masters screech, the more they are showing us it is they who need to look at their own mental health.

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Now that BeezleBub has adopted a dog from one of our local animal shelters, I think he needs to consider showing him how to do this.

Considering BeezleBub works at the local ski resort grooming trails having his dog know how to snowboard might be a good thing. But I wonder if he'll have to buy him a lift ticket?

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As Skip Murphy asks, “Could my favorite movie of all time be made today?”

Unfortunately for everyone, the answer is 'no'.

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First, Trump fixes global warming, then he does something for African Americans that The Won wasn't able to do in 8 years.

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Another thing I have to say about President Trump is that he's managed to shift the attentions of liberals away from the things that matter and towards himself. That certainly gives him and Congress a chance to get the things done that need to be done all while the Democrats are focusing on his non-legislative efforts.

It could be called political prestidigitation where he gets the Democrats and the rest of the Progressives to focus on the shiny thing in one hand while he takes care of the business of getting America back on track with the other.

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I am trying Mozilla's latest version of the Firefox browser, Quantum (version 57 of Firefox).

One thing I can say for sure about it is that it is many times faster than many of the previous versions I've used. The one thing that almost had me abandoning Firefox altogether was its slowing response/rendering and increasingly higher resource loading, at times using up to 75% of the CPU for certain video or graphics intense websites. Quantum isn't the resource hog previous version of Firefox had been.

I wonder if this reboot of Firefox is an attempt to regain market share lost when the founder/creator of Mozilla/Firefox was booted from the organization because of a perceived politically incorrect faux pas.

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Cap'n Teach points us to the increasing chasm between California and the rest of America.

It appears California's state government has come to believe it can ignore federal law when it suits it, even in areas where the Constitution says the federal government has supremacy. One example is immigration. Only the federal government has control of immigration, but California has decided it can safely ignore federal law in that regard. Of course the feds retaliated by making sure that numerous 'sanctuary cities' have seen their federal law enforcement dollars dry up as a result. And now that the state has declared itself a sanctuary state, I expect the feds will be seeing about withholding even more federal funds from the rogue state. I also expect the state government and its congressional delegation will be screeching about that and how 'unfair' the feds are being.

Too bad. So sad.

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Oh, yeah! Show Me The Money!

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the grip of arctic temperatures is giving way, melting of snow and ice on road surfaces will commence, and where we're still digging out from the Nor'easter that pummeled the East Coast.

New England's Energy Shortsightedness - Who Will Pay The Price?

I sit here in my office at The Manse, which is situated near the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire, looking at the outside temperature and being glad that I am indoors. It's a balmy -4ºF (-20ºC) at 1PM, with windchills at -25ºF (-32ºC) or worse. My trips outside have been limited by these conditions. I am reluctant to go out unless I have a darned good reason, with clearing the driveway of the snowdrifts in a little bit being one of them. That's something I'll be attending to shortly in order to make sure Deb can make it up the driveway in order to get to work.

While temperatures this low this early in the winter is unusual, it isn't unheard of. Tying them together with the big honking Nor'easter we experienced has merely made those well below average temperatures even more daunting because it's very difficult to spend time clearing away the snow. And that brings us to another problem – energy.

The one thing that has had anyone in the know here in New England to worry has been energy, specifically natural gas and electricity. At one point New England had many nuclear power plants which provided a large percentage of its electricity. A number of those have now closed. The same is true of a number of coal and oil-fired power plants. What has replaced some of that now off-line capacity has been natural gas-fired dual cycle power plants. They burn cleaner than either coal or oil plants and they can throttle up and down easily, something that nuclear plants can't do. But they do have one problem: they require natural gas in order to operate. That's the crux of New England's energy problem.

New England doesn't have the pipeline capacity to provide enough natural gas to feed both power plants and provide heat to residences and businesses. Due to bitterly cold winters like this one has been so far, ISO New England has stated that there may be issues with being able to meet the electrical demand because there may not be enough natural gas to go around. With a number of nuclear plants now in the process of being decommissioned and coal and oil plants also being dismantled, switching to anything other than natural gas is problematic. The natural gas supply situation is such that quite often natural has to be imported from Yemen on huge LNG tankers at a huge cost. That's ironic considering the US is now the largest producer of natural gas on the planet.

What would be the answer to solving this particular problem? That's simple: build more gas pipelines into New England. It solves a number of problems, drops the cost of both electricity and heating, and ensures the lights and heat will remain on during extremely cold weather like we've been experiencing since Christmas. Makes sense, right?

Too bad that virtue-signaling pseudo-greens and renewable energy con-men have decided we don't need no stinkin' pipelines. In fact they've fought tooth and nail to keep two major natural gas pipelines from being built, all in the name of 'saving' the Earth. That it helps the virtue-signalers feel good about themselves for preventing something they have no desire to understand while at the same time helping the renewable energy confidence men reap a huge payoff because they can prevent their competition from solving their supply problems has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Yeah. Right.

New England was warned that it's pipeline constraints could cause problems and now it's happening.

“During extremely cold weather, natural gas pipeline constraints limit the availability of fuel for natural-gas-fired power plants,” the grid operator [ISO New England] noted.

That’s exactly what is happening right now.

Unrelenting cold since late December has caused energy demand to spike, pushing up prices and straining supplies. New England power companies are struggling to keep up with demand.

New England’s current energy woes are the result of years of state and federal policies aimed at closing coal and oil-fired power plants, largely as part of the region’s effort to fight global warming.

In 2000, New England got about 18 percent of its electricity from coal plants. Now, the region gets around 3 percent — though it’s jumped to 6 percent in the recent cold snap.

Most of the shuttered capacity has been replaced by natural gas, but pipeline capacity has not kept up with demands from power plants.

--snip--

Gas supply constraints have made New England the the world’s most expensive power market. Some power plants have taken to burning oil to generate power, but supplies are running low. Federal air quality regulations are also keeping power plants from burning more fuel.

Who will be the first to complain should a power shortage cause ISO New England to resort to rolling blackouts? The very same people who did everything in their power to make sure natural gas supplies were strangled. The very same people who have worked so hard to kill nuclear power. The very same people who are working hard to make sure that transmission lines that would bring inexpensive and renewable hydropower from Canada will never be built.

Perhaps they should be the ones to bear the brunt of their closeminded shortsightedness by being the first to get their power cut and last to get it restored should rolling blackouts come to be. Let them bear the burden of what they've wrought.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Here it is, the final Thoughts On A Sunday for 2017. Where did the year go?

One thing we have been battling with since Christmas has been the sub-zero temperatures. Not that we haven't had below zero temps around Christmas before, but in this case it's been for days on end. To give you an idea, freezing rain fell at the end of the Christmas Day snowstorm and coated the trees with ice. None of that ice has melted and many of the trees coated with that ice are still bent over or have limbs that are sagging to the ground under the weight of that ice.

Another downside has been frozen pipes. One of the bathrooms here at The Manse has had a shower and a bathtub made unusable because the pipes feeding them have frozen and have not yet thawed. The earliest that might happen is later this coming week when the high temps will be in the 20's.

Another downside to the sub-zero temps has been the difficulty working outside. The wind chills make it extremely uncomfortable if not impossible (and dangerous) to work outside for more than a few minutes. There is still snow from the Christmas Day storm that I need to remove, but the cold has made it difficult to do so.

And so ends 2017.

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The 'swatting' death of a man in Wichita, Kansas has certainly brought out the cop-haters. Before any of the details about the shooting had been made public other than a man had been killed and that he was the apparent victim of a 'swatting', comments made at the post linked above had already condemned the police officer who fired the fatal shot. Some where making up all kinds of crap about the shooting, acting as if they had actually been there and witnessed what happened. Others misconstrued the contents of the 911 call, calling it an anonymous tip. (I think they confuse the meaning of 'anonymous tip' and 'reporting a crime'. They aren't the same.)

Lengthy diatribes against SWAT teams were posted even though not a single report that I could find mentioned anything about a SWAT team. (That doesn't mean it wasn't SWAT who was involved. I just haven't seen any reports that they were.) It just as likely that it was a patrol officer responding to the scene of the alleged hostage situation who fired the fatal shot.

But as so many on one side of the political aisle have said, why let the facts get in the way of promoting the narrative?

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Patterico has his views on the Wichita SWATting, he himself having been on the receiving end of a swatting back in 2011.

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I read this and realized the people making the claim still don't know the difference between climate and weather. What's “this”?

Heavy Erie Snow Is 'Totally' Climate Change.

'They' claim that because Lake Erie was warmer than normal (not that they've proved that), the lake effect snow that blanketed Erie, Pennsylvania was caused purely by climate change. However, I'd like to point out that it isn't often that sub-zero temperatures and winds out of the north hit Erie at this time of year, particularly at the same time. It's likely that this was a once-every-so-often event. But if it happens again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that for a decade or so, then climate change might be a cause.

One of the less credible claims is that “Normally, when air this cold arrives, much of Lake Erie is frozen solid, so the cold air would pass across the lake surface without gathering up much moisture. This year, the air drew up moisture from the warmer water — which then fell as masses of snow.”

First, Lake Erie is rarely frozen over in its entirety. The last time that Lake Erie froze over in its entirely was February 2010. Before that it was during the winter of 1995-1996.

Second, as best I have been able to determine it has never been frozen over by Christmas as it usually hasn't been cold enough long enough to do so. Even here at Lake Winnipesaukee, a much smaller lake of only 72 square miles as compared to Lake Erie's 9,940 square miles (larger than the entire state of New Hampshire), the lake's surface is not entirely frozen. There are still large patches of open water. Most of the bays and coves are frozen over, but not the rest of the lake.

Call this yet another blown out of proportion story to support the AGW narrative.

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At first, I thought the USPS trucks I saw making deliveries on Sundays were doing so just for the holidays. However I still have seen a number of mail trucks out today making regular mail deliveries. Some 'regular' mail deliveries have been coming quite late, with two occasions just this past week where the mail wasn't delivered until well past 8PM.

I don't know whether this has been just until New Year's or whether it's going to become a regular thing. Considering the USPS had talked about doing away with Saturday mail deliveries only a year or so ago, I have to think it is just for the holidays.

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Gee, the rabid moonbat professor who wanted nothing more than White Genocide for Christmas has resigned his position at Drexel University because of the 'harassment' from “the white supremacists (i.e., white non-leftists) he so stridently hates.”

I find it interesting that this particular professor who also happens to be white hates his race so much that he wishes nothing but its extinction at the hands of all the other races. I strongly suggest that if he hates whites that much that he should do all of us a favor and off himself. It is what he wants, isn't it?

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I like this idea.

A group called “Open The Books” is campaigning to open the financial books of government at all levels across the nation. This would give citizens and interested groups access to the financial records of government at federal, state, and local level which would show spending and income in almost real time. (Real time isn't necessarily possible because at times there are delays between an expenditure and when it shows up in the ledger. Usually that's a few days, at least on a local level.)

We do that here in our little town, where the town's ledgers are accessible via the town's website. It is almost real time, keeping in mind the small delay before expenditures and revenues show up in the ledger. It has certainly kept our spending under public scrutiny. Maybe it's time to do that across the board.

I do understand that some government spending, particularly for things like certain defense and related covert operations, would be exempt from open books. But for the most part I think it would be a good idea.

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I have to agree with Skip on this one with one minor correction.

Nikki Haley is one of the best UN ambassadors the US has had in some time. She's right up there with Jeanne Kirkpatrick and John Bolton.

I can see a possible run for the White House in her future.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the frigid weather continues, lots of outdoor chores aren't being done, and where 20ºF weather will be considered balmy.

Frost Heaves In December? Uh-oh...

The subject of today’s post?

Frost heaves.

This is something that occurs to roads during the latter part of the winter as snow and ice thaws and the melt water works its way under the pavement during the day, and then freezes during the night. This causes the pavement to move, heaving upwards and creating ridges across the road. The pounding of traffic over these ridges can cause the pavement to break up. It also can lead to potholes as the broken pavement is displaced, leaving a void in the road surface. This void is a pothole.

So why am I bringing this subject up at the end of December?

Deb and I made the trip to the WP In-Laws in southwestern New Hampshire today. On our way there I noticed that the surface of some of the roads we usually take were rather rough. It took a few minutes to realize that the roads were suffering from frost heaves. It wasn’t just some of the town roads suffering from this malady, but some of the state highways were also afflicted.

In all my years I have never seen frost heaves in December. They usually start appearing in late February or early March as the sun gets stronger and the daytime temperatures rise above freezing, but not in late December.

The only thing I can think of is that the abnormally cold temperatures we have been experiencing have frozen the ground rapidly and any water that would normally have had time to drain away from under the roads froze in place instead. Hence the formation of frost heaves months ahead of usual. While I doubt they will get bigger as they have no additional supply of water, they have appeared far earlier and may cause more damage as both traffic and snow plows will have an extra couple of months to break up the pavement at the frost heaves.

This does not bode well for our roads this winter.

Thoughts On A Sunday - Christmas Eve Edition

It is now certain that we will be guaranteed a white Christmas here in central New Hampshire, between the 7 inches of snow we received on Friday and the additional 4 to 8 inches forecast for Christmas Day.

I have to admit that I am not looking forward to the upcoming snowfall as the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower has suffered a breakdown and the parts I need to make repairs won't be in until the middle of the coming week. That means I'll be using a combination of a push plow and snow shovel to clear the driveway of The Manse, in turn making for a lot more effort to remove the snow.

However there has been a small saving grace, that being that I find it's faster to use the push plow to clear the snow from the driveway proper than using a snowblower. What can take 15 minutes to do with the snowblower takes all of 5 minutes with the push plow. It helps that the driveway slopes downwards, meaning that gravity gives an assist. On the other hand I still have to get the snow off of the pavement which means using the snow shovel.

Welcome to winter in New England.

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I find it interesting (but not surprising) that the leaders of the Democrat Party are rooting against the American worker and our country's success. After all, if American workers see the economy recover and more of them can find work (and keep more of the money they earn) what can the Democrats possibly run as a party platform?

“Hey, you stupid people, we're gonna raise your taxes and make sure your job goes away! So vote for us or else!”

Yeah, that will be a winning campaign.

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There was a length discussion on one of the Disqus comment sections in regards to the best (and worst0 Christmas movies. I don't remember where I saw it and, quite frankly, I was too lazy to go looking for it.

One of the better debates was about the best version of A Christmas Carol, with the opinions running from the version with Mr. Magoo through Alistair Sim to George C. Scott to Patrick Stewart, along with a whole host of variations on the theme, most of which I'd never heard of before. (One wag even suggested that Groundhog Day was based loosely on Dickens' classic.)

My two favorite versions were the ones starring Alistair Sim and George C. Scott. Sim's portrayal of Scrooge was very dark while Scott's Scrooge was by far the most human version I'd seen.

In any case, BeezleBub and one of his friends will be coming by the evening to partake of Scott's version, a tradition we've had since before I had married his mother. Who are we to break with tradition?

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At least one NFL team is admitting outright that the 'take a knee' protest has hurt them and their income. They've been seeing a lot of empty seats at their home games, concession revenues are way down as are sales of team paraphenalia. They'll know just how much of a bath they'll be taking when sales of season tickets begin prior to next season.

I'm expecting them to be shocked by the number of unsold tickets will be in their hands.

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Apparently this snowflake has never heard the warning “Be careful what you wish for...You just might get it.”

In this case BuzzFeed UK science editor Kelly Oakes tweeted “All I want for Christmas is full communism now.” It is clear to me that she has no idea of the history of communism and that were she to get her wish that she'd likely be one of its first victims, either being summarily executed or sent to a gulag for “re-education”.

I think I could explain it to her in one simple sentence, that being “The only problem with communism is that it involves people.” Communism doesn't work, at least not with human beings it doesn't. Insects like ants, termites, or bees have it down pat. But humans aren't insects. Nor will they ever be. She also has to understand that Marx was a misanthrope as he hated people in general, particularly those with whom he disagreed.

If she really wants to experience communism, then I'll see about getting the old WAYBAC machine fixed and I'll drop her off in the Soviet Union circa 1921 or so. I'm sure she'll enjoy the experience.

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I recently replaced my Netgear WNDR4300 dual-band wireless router with a new Linksys SA7400 dual-band wireless router. Not that there was anything wrong with the Netgear router, but I found that it never had the range on 5GHz that I thought it should and there were times when there was 'funkiness' when using a VPN to access my employer's data network.

The difference is day and night in regards to range and performance. I now have full 5GHz connectivity all throughout The Manse and have not had any issues with the VPN since I installed it.

I did not use the Linksys Smart WiFi Router website to configure the router as I had confidence in my ability to properly configure it without the need to go via a roundabout means to do so. It also meant there was no outside access to the router's administrative functions except by a direct connection to one of its Ethernet ports which closed what I saw as a potential security hole.

The Netgear router will be re-purposed as a dual-band wireless access point to enable a better connection to streaming video at a relative's home. (It never had any issues with streaming HD video from Amazon, Netflix, or Hulu. It just had the annoying deficiencies that affected my work that I mentioned above. It should be perfect for the purpose for which it will be used.)

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As it is Christmas Eve and I know that BeezleBub will be arriving at any minute, I want to take this moment to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the last of the Christmas shopping is winding up, people are trying to get where they need to go before the snow starts in the early morning hours, and where the children are all wound up on sugar and the anticipation of a visit by Santa overnight.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We survived the first real snowfall with only the Official Weekend Pundit Snowblower suffering a breakdown in the midst of the cleanup. It appears the breakdown was caused by a broken drive belt that runs the auger and impeller, something I am hoping I will be able to repair during my upcoming time off from work. Fortunately we have little, if any snow forecast to fall over the next week so it shouldn't put me in a bind in regards to getting the snow cleared from the driveway.

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The more debate I hear over the GOP tax plan, the more I realize that most of the critics have been focusing on one particular part or another of the plan and ignoring the parts that offset the points they bring up. If you only focus on one section of any tax plan you will always miss something that mitigates the possible negative effects of other parts.

People scream about losing their SALT (State and Local Taxes) exemption, but remain silent about the doubling of personal exemptions. (SALT only helps in those states with high taxes, like California, New York, and Connecticut. Other states like New Hampshire with no state sales or income taxes end up subsidizing the high tax states because there are far fewer state and local taxes to write off.)

Then again, many of the critics don't care because all they want to do is raise taxes even more than they are now, claiming that we have a revenue problem. But what we have in reality is a spending problem, one that was made far worse under the eight years of the Obama Administration.

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Who helped win the war against Isis?

I'll give you a hint: It wasn't Obama.

It's amazing how well our armed forces do against monsters like ISIS when the rules of engagement make sense.

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It's not surprising to anyone who has been paying attention over the last few years that the Mueller investigations have seen cover up after cover up being committed by the very people who are supposed to be on the side of law and order. It is also devolving into a witch hunt, something that never turns out well.

The only question to ask at this point is how many 'witches' will end up being burned by the very organizations that were in fact the perpetrators.

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From The People's Cube comes this observation:

One after another, our glorious thought-leaders and heroes are confessing to terrible sexcrimes against their pussycomrades. Their heart-wrenching confessions are published on the front pages. The nation's headlines are filled with the names of beloved celebrities and politicians who from now on must be publicly hated, stricken from records, and condemned to oblivion. This may feel like Stalinism Lite because nobody is being executed or sent to the gulag. And yet, just like under Stalin, anyone naive enough to stand up for a friend or appeal to reason automatically becomes a traitor...

Indeed.

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As Skip writes, “Either you accept all of the Constitution, or none of it.”

And so on — ignoring the fact that the same progressives who’ve got their knickers in a twist about national concealed carry reciprocity fully support the Supreme Court decision forcing all 50 states to recognize gay marriage.

We don't get to pick and choose which rights we will honor and those we won't. It's no different that saying we will pick and choose which laws we will follow and those we won't. Trying something like that usually leads to time in a courthouse and then a stay at one of the other fine state institutions as a guest of the state.

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I find it ironic that someone whose company decides what people can see online says “Internet service providers should not be able to decide what people see online.”

Actually, I don't know if it's ironic or hypocritical that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg made such a statement. Considering he was commenting about the FCC's reversal of Net Neutrality, a solution to a problem that hasn't existed, I'm leaning towards hypocrisy.

One of my co-workers has lamented the reversal, noting that our ISP bills will skyrocket because now we'll have to pay for every site we visit, just like we had to before Net Neutrality came into play.

Oh, wait...that's not correct, is it? We didn't have to do that before, did we? And we had both Title I and the Federal Trade Commission keeping an eye on such things well before this Net Neutrality garbage came into being.

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She didn't leave the Democrat Party so much as the Democrat Party left her.

Gee, where have I heard that line before?

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First, math was racist. Then the colors red and green during Christmas were racist. Now it's “Jingle Bells.”

When will this Progressive insanity end? I think we need to build a lot of mental institutions because these folks are out of the effin' minds. What will it be next, water?

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're getting closer to Christmas, the stores are getting busier, and where I'm doing most of my shopping online.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The first substantial snowfall of the season arrived yesterday here in the Lakes Region, with our little town receiving about 5 inches. Clearing it away didn't take long and the late morning/early afternoon sun melted any of the snow left on the driveway, so there was no need to apply either sand or snow melt.

The Weather Guys^TM say we have even more snow coming on Tuesday with 7 inches likely to fall in this area. This likely means we'll have a white Christmas this year!

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If you need yet another example of just how corrupt the MSM has become, all one needs to do is look at MSLSD's Joy Reid. She thinks that we non-urban Americans need to be brought under tight control by means of doing away with the electoral college. As she states:

The rural minority...have and will continue to have disproportionate power over the urban majority.” And, “That (ending gerrymandering) and the abolition of the Electoral College would be a start.”

She obviously has no understanding of the electoral college or why the Framers of the Constitution set up the election of President and the make up of the two chambers of Congress the way they did, that being that there could not be a tyranny of either the minority or majority. Or worse, she has a perfect understanding and wishes to impose a tyranny of the majority on those of us blessed enough to live in rural America. She wants to turn America into some version of The Hunger Games.

She says we are “the core threat to our democracy.” But America isn't a democracy like the one she thinks it is. It is a constitutional republic with a representative democracy, with the only thing in common between the two being the word 'democracy'. They aren't the same thing.

There are a number of things she has overlooked in regards to pushing her dream of marginalizing rural America – We have the food, the guns, and a large portion of our military comes from rural America. If she wants a civil war we'll give her one, one that she and her side will lose.

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As a follow on to the post above, there's this from John Hawkins that explains why the DC elite want our type of Americans to go away.

I get along with cops, soldiers, preppers and country boys -- the sort of guys who know how to shoot, know how to take care of themselves and would watch your back in a fight if it came to that. I don’t much like the government, but I do like small town government better than government in D.C. If someone has to be in charge, better the sort of guy you can run into at the grocery store who will give you an answer when you want to know why the potholes on your street haven’t been fixed. D.C.’s different. I know the Democrats there hate me because I’m a straight, white, Christian, Southern conservative and the people that run the Republican Party today would only care what I think if I had hundreds of thousands of dollars to give them. That’s why if I can make trouble for either group, I’m game.

There are always people in D.C. who think they have a better idea of what to do with my life and my money than I do. I don’t need any “help” from the government and I’m not okay with the government using my money to help people who should be helping themselves. When I want to give to charity, tithe to my church or buy Christmas gifts for a poor family, I do it. We may all have to pool our money to pay for street signs, the police and the military, but I don’t see any reason my money should go to people on welfare for years, the families of anchor babies or scammers doing Crossfit right before the government hands them a disability check for their “intolerable” pain. Go work for a living like the rest of us.

--snip--

We live in a country run by politicians and bureaucrats who can’t do anything right and yet they think the solution to that problem is to give them even more power over our lives. You feel the same way I do? Then you’re one of the Americans the elites in D.C. want to go away.

We're an embarrassment to the DC elite. They offer us 'help' and we respond with “Thanks, but no thanks. We got this.” They don't like hearing 'no', at least not from those they see as their inferiors. They want to be the only ones to use that word, and then only when it is directed towards us. These people need a dose of reality.

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From the Just When I Thought They Couldn't Get Any Stupider department:

A UK mother wants her six-year old son's school to ban Sleeping Beauty because she doesn't give consent to be kissed by the prince.

Really? That's what she thinks is important?

I feel sorry for her kid.

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This is just so wrong.

Muslim students at a Catholic university complain that Christmas is getting too much attention.

I wonder how it would work out if Christian students at a Muslim university complained that too much attention is paid to Ramadan? My guess is that they would be beaten or worse.

What did these students expect going to a college that is funded by one of the major religions on the planet? The whole foundation of Christianity is the birth of Christ. It's celebration is Christmas. (I mean that in the religious sense, not the secular/commercial sense that is so prevalent these days.)

Maybe we should give those poor students a few bucks so they could go buy a clue.

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Bill Whittle knows just how to end leftism. Give a listen.


See? All it takes is money...or in this case, lack of it.

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I find it interesting that the state that keeps telling the rest of us that it is going to be a 'socialist paradise' is looking more and more like literal Hell as the brush fires there engulf everything.

Maybe there's a message in those fires?

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has definitely arrived, more is coming, and where we hope to finish our Christmas shopping this week.

Irony As Only Government Can Provide

Maybe we should have the National Park Service run the welfare program in this country rather than Health and Human Services. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

(By way of The Federalist Papers Project)

Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter is fast approaching and the last of the outdoor work at The Manse in preparation for winter has been completed.

The trusty Ram 1500 has been undercoated, the driveway markers have been put in place, the last of the leaves have been removed from around the mudroom entryway, the lawnmower has been stored away and the snowblower moved within the garage to its winter location. Snow shovels have pulled down from storage and the sand buckets have been moved and filled. All of the outdoor lights work (needed for snowblowing and shoveling at night), and the gas can for the snowblower has been filled.

The Weather Guys^TM have been saying it's likely we'll get some snow come next weekend, so rather than waiting until the last minute I made sure just about everything has been squared away. (There are a few other chores that need doing but they'll be taken care of this coming week.)

And so it goes in small town New Hampshire.

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Speaking of small town New Hampshire, we are going through out budgeting process for both the town and school. It can be a time-consuming effort, with some wanting a lot more money this coming year and others making do with the same amount they spent this year. One of the biggest parts of the budget for our town is the school system which takes up over 68% of the money the town spends.

The town side of the budget has managed to keep spending in check, with most budget increases coming in at approximately 1% or less (this coming year's is no different). But there have been times when the school side has seen huge increase, both as a percentage and in actual dollars. Of course the reasoning we always hear for those increases are the usual “But it's for the children!”

It's funny how all that money “for the children” ends up paying rather high salaries for teachers, supervisory staff, and paraprofessionals. I would say it would be worth it if we had the best schools in the state and out kids performed at the top. However the reality is that our school system is really slightly above average. We spend a lot of money for 'slightly above average'.

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Ladies, ignore all of the crap you read about what men think or want in the various magazines or women's websites. Here are 12 things you really don't know about us.

The most amusing (and ironic) one was the one that dealt with the “media portrayal of certain manliness tropes,” specifically those about military men.

I served 10 years in the military and once watched a roomful of females go a bit starry-eyed at an actor on TV in army uniform. One of them blurted out “That’s a real man” whilst the other soldiers and Marines looked over in confusion.

We were all in Iraq at the time.

Explain how an actor on TV portraying manly military service is more manly than an actual military serviceperson overseas serving?

It's simple – he gets paid a ton of money to portray a military man. That alone makes him more attractive to women. The real military guys tend to be invisible, even to some women in the military.

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The length of the list of MSM-DNC personalities being fired for sexual harassment and or sexual assault keeps growing. One has been suspended for reporting egregiously fake news.

To quote Perfessor Reynolds, “Why are Democrat run organizations/companies/media outlets such cesspools of sexism and misogyny?”

Because those in power, whether they really are or think they are, believe that the rules don't apply to them...until they do. Then everyone is so surprised.

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At least some gets it.

A former student at a private college prep school has hi the nail on the head when it comes to the decline in the school he so loved. It boiled down to one simple thing: his alma mater's “new emphasis on race, gender, and privilege created fissures between students and kindled resentment.”

All of the crap about 'diversity”, be it cultural/racial/sexual and the whole list of other 'diverse' pigeonholes the Progressives have created, has been pushed so hard as a means of tearing people apart by making everyone a victim, except for white heterosexual males of course. We are the eternal oppressors, the boogeyman that the Progressives need to stir up divisiveness and, dare I say, hatred among the various newly defined victim groups.

How any of this is supposed to make things better totally escapes me. It doesn't. It merely creates more suspicion, more prejudice, more hatred, all in the name of fixing some problem that hasn't really existed except in small pockets here and there. Now it's everywhere.

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Listening to the hew and cry about the FCC's move to repeal Net Neutrality, very few have bothered to ask what was lost when the Internet was brought under the auspices of the much hated and woefully out of date Title II. While people thought Net Neutrality fixed problems, problems that did not yet exist, a lot of enforcement tools that did exist in regards to preventing ISPs from doing the very things Net Neutrality was supposed to prevent (but doesn't) were taken away. But no one mentions that.

What Net Neutrality also killed was competition because in effect the FCC would be choosing the winners and losers, something that always ends up costing the American consumer more money.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is approaching, fall is fading away, and where we still haven't started our Christmas shopping.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was another of those fifty-fifty weekends in regards to weather, with Saturday being almost in the 60's but today barely making it out of the 30's. At least it's been mostly sunny both days.

I am still working on getting The Manse squared away for the winter. Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish the last of work necessary by next weekend.

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Have you been as annoyed by Tom Steyer's “Let's Impeach Trump” ads as I have? He keeps saying it isn't political, but of course it is. It's purely political.

Where were his “Let's Impeach Obama” ads when The Won blatantly violated the separation of powers and ignored the constitution when Congress didn't give him what he demanded? Absolutely nowhere because Steyer didn't care since Obama was 'his' guy.

Of course Steyer never really comes out and states which “high crimes and misdemeanors” Trump has supposedly committed that would warrant impeachment. It's just that he doesn't like Trump or the things he says and that's all the reason he needs. By that criteria alone Obama should have been impeached as well.

As long as we remember it's not about facts, but entirely about 'feelz' it all makes sense.

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Being an aviation aficionado and a student of World War II, this piece about Pratt & Whitney's Wasp engine is quite enlightening.

The large version of this radial 9-cylinder engine powered many a fighter and bomber during the war, with some variations stacking three of these engines together to create a 27-cylinder engine capable of producing well over 2,000 horsepower at high altitude.

It is one of the engines that helped win the war.

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You've probably heard the claim from some of your 'greener' friends that organic farming can feed the world. Too bad that the claim has no basis in fact...unless everyone became vegetarians and no animals were ever raised for food and that we eliminated some portion of the human race.

So how do the authors achieve their headline conclusion? By combining a worldwide conversion to organic agriculture with a heroic parallel worldwide conversion to vegetarianism, allowing them to assume (in some scenarios) a 100 percent reduction in land-area competition from animal production. This is combined with a similarly heroic 50 percent reduction in global food waste.

In other words, what the researchers actually show is that 100 percent conversion to organic can only feed the world if two — frankly impossible — other conditions are met. That gives a very different headline from the one they chose to lead their study with.

You can prove almost anything as long as you ignore the negative effects or data that disproves your claims. Then again, isn't that the 21st Century way?

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I find it interesting that feminist Emily Lindin is more than willing to let the present witch hunt taking place on college campuses and elsewhere within our society that falsely accuses men of sexual assault to go forth, all in the interest of smashing the “worldwide, systemic oppression of half the population.”

Really? For how long? When would enough be enough? Or would her preferred method be open-ended which would allow decades, if not centuries of the oppression of men in order to balance the books? It it appears that is indeed the case as she also stated “ If some innocent men's reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is the price I am absolutely willing to pay.”

Umm, here's a clue for you, Emily - YOU won't be the one paying the price.

I would also expect that you will also learn the hard way that it won't work the way you think it will because all the men being persecuted will have to do is to go Galt and leave it to you and all those other third-wave feminists carrying a pathological hatred of men to do the jobs that men are no longer willing to do for you. Or will you decide that perhaps slavery is also “a price I'm willing to pay” to make sure that all of the wonderful things that make your life so much easier to live will continue? If I had to guess you're one of those who would be more than happy to do so.

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Math is Racist!

Wait...what??

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Oh, and here's another helpful hint from the People's Cube to make it easier to identify and know the differences between fascists and anti-fascists.

Yeah, it makes it easier to know who is trying to bash your brains in before you let loose with some .45 ACP.

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I love it when the foaming-at-the-mouth SJW's learn that the First Amendment they use doesn't prevent them from being charged with other crimes while they try to stifle other people's First Amendment rights.

The example shown in the above linked post shows what happens when one of those aforementioned foaming-at-the-mouth SJW's commits grand larceny all while letting loose a profanity laced rant against free speech. I hope she'll get plenty of practice while she serves a term in one of California's finer correctional institutions. My only question is whether it will be a regular prison or a secure psychiatric facility as it is quite evident she's out of her friggin' mind.

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One downside to the more efficient lighting provided by LEDs? More people are lighting the exteriors of their homes and businesses because LEDs use very little electricity. This in turn has caused a 2% increase in outside artificial light intensity across the globe. Somehow I think this was not what the Greens wanted when they used things like laws to push people into getting rid of their incandescent light bulbs. Call it Yet Another Example Of The Law Of Unintended Consequences coming into play.

I know a lot of communities have passed what are called 'Dark Sky' ordinances that limit where the light from outdoor lighting fixtures can go, usually meaning only downwards and not past the horizontal. While I didn't like the idea of such ordinances at first, I have come to see the wisdom and advantages of 'Dark Sky' lighting – you can actually see the night sky; you are not lighting up your entire neighborhood when you only want to light your doorway; the cost of lighting decreases because you're only lighting the area you want, not trying to signal the aliens in orbit above our planet.

While I can put a lot of light on the driveway and area in front of The Manse and beside its garage – usually for the purposes of snow removal or making sure visitors can see where they are going – for the most part I rarely have any exterior lights on. If I do they aren't on for more than a few hours and never past midnight.

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather can't quite make up its mind, turkey sandwiches will be the lunch of choice for the next week or so, and where we're tuning up our snowblowers for the coming winter.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Things were less hectic this past week, meaning I wasn't running myself ragged much as I did last week.

The driveway of The Manse was reconstructed during this past week, with the pavers coming in and removing the old broken up pavement, regrading the driveway to correct some drainage issues, and then laying down new asphalt. This will make two things much easier this coming winter – snowblowing, as it will no longer be throwing chunks of asphalt, and actually being able top make it up and down during the inclement winter weather.

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One of my big pet peeves is the whole concept of virtue signaling. It is described thus:

Virtue signaling is the popular modern habit of indicating that one has virtue merely by expressing disgust or favor for certain political ideas, cultural happenings, or even the weather.

It's also seen by way of where one shops, what one buys in the way of food or clothing, or by what causes one supports. Frankly, it is quite annoying and, in the end, quite stupid. I can cite a perfect example, one that I've used before.

In this case my good friend Farmer Andy posted a sign outside his business stating that he had “organically grown, solar dried” firewood for sale at a price of $275 a cord, and “regular' dried firewood at $225 a cord. He did it as a joke, figuring no one would take it seriously. Ironically, he sold more of the “organically grown, solar dried” firewood then he did of the his regular firewood. The joke?

Both types of firewood came from the same lot and same pile of wood. All of his firewood is “organically grown, solar dried”.

So what explains the sale of the higher priced firewood? Virtue signaling.

Those who bought the higher priced firewood would be able to claim that their firewood was better and therefore more virtuous because it was organically grown and solar dried. They paid an extra $50 a cord just so they could make that claim. Stupid, right?

And so it is with virtue signaling across the board.

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The rising tide of black-on-white violence is being dutifully ignored by the MSM-DNC. Whether they believe, like the city leaders of some of the more violent cities like Chicago, Baltimore and a whole host of “Chocolate Cities around the country”, that “they are not going to arrest their way out this mess”, a horrible precedent is being set as those same cities leaders will talk and talk and talk about the problem until it goes away. When you have a DA in Chicago who has decided to 'decriminalize' things like carjacking, keeping her promise to “stop over-policing, halt mass incarceration, and begin an ew era of arresting fewer black people in Chicago,” you have to wonder if she's actually an attorney or a racial advocate who is willing to give people of one race a free pass when it comes to violence against whites.

If someone wanted to generate even more racial hatred between blacks and white, this DA is doing exactly the right things to promote it. Then she'll be surprised as the continuously rising violence escalates to the point where people of all races won't take it anymore and will take things into their own hands. I can guarantee that won't end well. A lot of people are likely to die and too many of them will be innocents caught in the proverbial crossfire. And then, of course, those very same members of the MSM-DNC will decry the violence and will wonder why no one is doing anything about it, choosing to ignore that is they who are the guilty party.

So what else is new?

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Oh, this is going to work out well...NOT.

It appears that a stuffy old college in Oxford, England, specifically Magdalen College, has introduced mandatory classes on cultural appropriation.

Will this drive to balkanize nations and try to place cultures into stasis ever end? Do these idiots really understand what it is they're trying to do? The answer to both questions is a resounding “Hell, no!”

Cultural appropriation is in truth a false crisis. It is invented nonsense that has taken on all too much importance on college campuses.

As anyone with even a small understanding of history (with a dash of anthropology) knows, cultural appropriation is what helps cultures grow, to become stronger and more resilient. Trying to keep a culture pure, something that has been attempted again and again throughout history always fails. There are usually one of two outcomes: either the culture stagnates and dies, or they give up trying to remain pure and end up both importing and exporting cultural ideas, foods, art, music, and so on and thrive.

However none of that will stop these lamebrain idiots from trying to pigeonhole every single one of us and making sure that “we know our place”. And if we won't willingly bow to their beliefs, then they will make us do so by indoctrinating our kids and turning them into willing drones to carry on this silliness.

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Unfortunately I must bring forth a bit of bad news, something that has affected the WP Clan, that being the sudden passing of one of the WP Nephews. While not exactly unforeseen, it is still shocking when it happens no matter how prepared one thinks they are.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where preparations for the coming winter continue, the last of the outdoor projects are being completed, and where almost everyone has a short workweek this week.

Lying By Telling The Truth

Here's an interesting article dealing with lying with the truth, something politicians do all the time. It even has a name: paltering.

While paltering uses true answers to questions being asked, the truth being told usually has little to do with the subject of the question. So in effect paltering is really nothing more than another version of deflection.

When it comes to lying, I have found there are three different means of lying, those being:

-Telling the lie in such a convincing fashion that it makes the person receiving the lie to perceive it as truth. This usually takes great skill and most people can't pull it off.

-Telling the truth, but leaving pertinent information out. In other words lying by omission. A lot of folks can pull this off.

-Last, but not least, there's lying by telling the absolute truth, leaving nothing out, but telling it in such a way that the person(s) hearing it believe you are lying. Like the first means of lying, this one takes considerable skill, equal to or greater than that required to tell a total lie convincingly.

Of the three, I prefer the third for a number of reasons. Probably the biggest is that it takes no effort to remember the lie or lies you are telling because they aren't lies. There's no way anyone can trip you up because you told the truth. It will be their fault that they didn't believe you, not yours.

Not that I am advocating anyone telling lies. I'm not. But if you have to do it go all out.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

Thoughts On A Sunday - Monday Edition

OK, here it is. A day late. So sue me.

It seems Old Man Winter gave us a bit of a preview the day after Sunday, with snow that accumulated just enough to make some of the roads rather greasy. More than a few folks ended up off the road, at least from what I saw on my way back from a work related trip to the Boston area.

I wouldn't have minded this all that much if I had some decent winter tires on the trusty Ram 1500, but I didn't. Even with 4WD there were a few places where I couldn't get reasonable traction and had to work my way slowly home.

What really bothered me were some of the drivers going way too fast for conditions along some stretches of road and others going way too slow. The latter seemed to thing that the slick road conditions were everywhere when they weren't. A large majority of the roads were just wet with no snow or slush accumulation. However that didn't stop some of these drivers from going 20 to 30mph below the posted limits, meaning they crawled along at 15 MPH. They wouldn't drive that slow if it had been just raining. It wasn't like they had to worry about black ice because the road surfaces were too warm for that and there was little if any snow accumulation on the grass. That's usually a good indication that the road surface is just wet, not slick.

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It seems the GPS Fusion dossier issue just won't go away for the Democrats.

As much as they hoped it would sink Trump, it has come back to bite them because it points to things the Democrats paid for that have ties to the Russians as well as other unsavory (and illegal) actions taken at the behest of the DNC and Clinton campaign.

Between the so-called 'opposition research' and contacts with the Russian lawyer who was supposedly going to give the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary (which was rejected by the Trump organization), it looks like the Democrats ended up in a trap of their own making.

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To quote Cap'n Teach, “Goodness, law enforcement officials wanting to enforce the law? To get tough on crime and criminals? To make punishment painful? How terrible!!!!!!!!!”

That's right. It appears a growing number of local law enforcement officials are ignoring 'sanctuary city/state' declarations and informing ICE of the arrests of illegal aliens on their wanted lists, as well as enforcing other laws that municipal or state officials have chosen to ignore. In other words, they're being tough on criminals which is exactly what they're supposed to do.

Good for them.

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This is something you won't see in the LSM.

Reductions of CO2 emissions in US dwarf that of the rest of the world.

In fact, it has reduced its CO2 emissions more than the rest of the world combined. What's even better is that we didn't need Kyoto or Paris to make it happen.

For those of you not aware of it, the US Senate didn't give their consent to President Clinton's signing of the Kyoto Protocol, rejecting it by a 97-0 vote against. (This is part of Article II, Section 2, second clause of the US Constitution). President Obama didn't even bother to bring his signing of the Paris Accords before the Senate because he knew it wouldn't happen, thus violating the US Constitution.

So while people bemoan the CO2 emissions by us Evil Americans, they choose to ignore that we have done more to reduce our emissions than any other nation. They also choose to ignore the issue of both China and India greatly increasing their CO2 emissions.

What hypocrisy!

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And the witch hunt(s) continue.

Victor Davis Hanson delves into the present day witch hunt which consists of “about six months [of] cable news shows, the internet, and the major newspapers ginned up the charge of “Russian collusion”—as a means of explaining the otherwise inexplicable and unacceptable defeat of Hillary Clinton by someone without either political or military experience.”

Like all witch hunts, it will continue until they find a witch, even if they have to find an innocent person to immolate so they can say “See! We found one!” That is the nature of witch hunts.

So far this one has been a abject failure and the people are rightfully sick of it. Even some of my more avid Democrat friends an acquaintances are saying that this one is really a “nothingburger” put forth by the DNC to shift blame for Hillary's campaign misjudging the mood of the voters. It didn't help that she characterized half of them as “a basket of deplorables.” But that won't stop the DNC and Hillary Faithful from continuing the hunt.

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Then there's these anti-rape tips from the two sides of the political aisle. Which one would you prefer?

(H/T VictoryGirls Blog)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we've had our upcoming winter preview, work around The Manse is coming to a close for the year, and where Monday returned all too soon.

It's Almost Thoughts On A Sunday

It's been a busy day here at The Manse and in central New Hampshire. Because of these various chores and duties, I did not make it back home at a reasonable hour, so my usual Thoughts In A Sunday post will be delayed until tomorrow.

I hate doing this, but I'd rather do it right than throw a half-assed, lame post together that informs or intrigues no one.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was an 'interesting' week here in New Hampshire this past week, with widespread power outages after a heavy rain and wind storm. Our neighborhood was without power for three days and others didn't have power restored until late Friday. There are still a few scattered outages across the state.

Normally we see this kind of widespread outage due to heavy snow or ice storms, the last one being in 2008 that had much of New Hampshire in the dark.

While this storm didn't have nearly the number of outages as back in 2008 (400,000+ then versus ~200, 000 now), just the magnitude was surprising considering the time of year.

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Even with power restored, Internet access didn't automatically follow. It took another day for ours to come back to life. Others within my town are still waiting as the local cable company works to repair damage to fiber cables, in-field electronics, coaxial cables, and cable drops to homes.

At least I had 'Net access at work!

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Seeing the reports of the assault on Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) by a neighbor outside his Kentucky home, one would think the newsies would be all over that.

Nope. Not a peep, at least not until about 9:15AM this morning when a short blurb appeared on GMA.

Somehow I think if there had been a 'D' after Paul's name, the MSM-DNC would have been all over it, deploring the attack by a 'right-wing' extremist. But because the victim had an 'R' after his name and the alleged perpetrator is a registered Democrat, it is a non-news item in the eyes of the media.

If the MSM-DNC didn't have double standards they'd have no standards at all.

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Truer words were never spoken.

You know it's bad when even a columnist for the New York Times, in this case David Brooks, comes right out and states on PBS NewsHour “Those of us trying to rebut Trump have the disadvantage that 'our elites really do stink'.”

Maybe you need a better class of elites. Did you ever think of that? The ones you have now are clueless and out-of-touch with a large majority of the American people. They assume too much and listen too little.

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It seems the 'popular' uprising that Antifa called for yesterday failed to materialize.

That's what happens when you isolate yourself into your own snowflake-hugging pissed-off reality.

“Here's a buck. Go buy yourself a clue...”

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The People's Cube shows us a new game called Islamic Roulette. It's like Russian Roulette but you load the revolver with all six bullets.

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Also by way of The People's Cube comes another exciting game: Diversity Visa Lottery 2.0

In the new system, titled "Diversity Visa Lottery 2.0," special military units will be instructed to randomly place explosive devices in highly populated areas. These bombs will then explode at intervals calculated by a Harvard computer algorithm, amounting to an average of once every two weeks.

It eliminates the need to wait for lone wolf terrorists to come to this country and blow stuff up, shoot people, or run them down with trucks. This way we still receive the 'benefits' of the Diversity Visa Lottery without actually allowing any of these guys into the country. It cuts out the middle man.

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While I haven't yet seen the proposed tax cuts put forth by the GOP and the behest of President Trump, I have to say I am already tired of the people bitching about it. The biggest problem I have with the bitching?

It's almost entirely uninformed bitching.

Most of those bitching have picked up on only one or two talking points brought up by people who have an obsessive hatred of Trump and the idea that anyone would be allowed to keep more of their own money.

Is it likely the realignment of the tax code is going to hurt someone? Yup. That's inescapable. No matter what is done it's going to inconvenience or hurt someone somewhere. All I'm asking is that people don't go off half-cocked because one small portion of the tax code change might inconvenience them while ignoring another part that benefits them. Is it stupidity or willful ignorance that drives this? Maybe a little of both?

One of the stupidest complaints I heard dealt with how those who don't pay any taxes won't gain any benefit from the tax plan. Well, yeah. In many cases they already receive an Earned Income Tax Credit, meaning they get a tax 'refund' from the government even though they didn't pay any taxes. So what's the problem?

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Skip tells us the story of a guy who “works just to pay his ObamaCare premium.”

Everyone touts just how wonderful ObamaCare is for those with lower incomes, but totally ignores those who in the past could afford their health insurance, but can't any more. As Skip put it, “...this is a perfect example of the actual purpose of Obamacare – a MASSIVE wealth transfer from one class to another.”

Yup. I'd say that sums it up rather nicely.

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I came across this just after Halloween and knew I had to share it, 'it' being Michael Jackson's Thriller, something that hadn't been available on YouTube the last time I looked for it.

You have to admit, the man was talented.

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Camille Paglia gets it.

Then again, she always has. Too bad that many of her acquaintances don't and likely never will.

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BeezleBub and I went to see Thor – Ragnarok this evening.

I liked it.

It was campy. It was funny. It was entertaining.

That's all I ask of any movie, to be entertaining.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where fall weather has returned, so has Standard Time, and where no one seems to be particularly fond of it.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It has been quite a reversal from last weekend's weather, at least in part. It was warm and summerlike last weekend. Half of this weekend was similar, though a little bit cooler. Today it's been rainy, with heavier rain and high winds expected starting early Monday morning.

Yesterday's weather was perfect enough to throw one of the WP Cousins a surprise birthday party. He thought he was going to a party to celebrate the recent wedding of one of his friends. That this party also took place two weeks before his actual birthday also threw him off track. The look on his face was priceless!

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I received this threat warning from McAfee in regards to the so-called KRACK hack that can threaten your WiFi security. Best to look it over or look it up on other antivirus vendor sites as to the steps you should take to protect yourself from this threat.

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By way of Cap'n Teach comes this little gem: Private clinics are a threat to Canada's socialist helath care system...or something. Really? How so?

Because they can set up and take care of people who would rather pay for services now then waiting a long time to get taken care of in the Canadian system. And perhaps get things taken care of in a manner than the Government system won’t take care of. For all the rah rah from Progressives about how great the Canadian system is, lots of people actually come across the border to the U.S. for care. Remember when a baby was brought because there were no beds available?

While not has bad as the UK's NHS, Canada's health care system will be soon enough. As the joke goes , “85% of the British/Canadians love their national health care system. The other 15% are sick.”

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Pam Geller has a story about a former Antifa who finally woke up and realized he'd helped create a terrorist organization in his home country of Australia, one he calls “more dangerous than ISIS.

Read The Whole Thing.

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To quote Wirecutter, “I think he's done this before...”


Very cool!

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Just a quick return to the world of The Manse (before I forget).

We finally managed to get the rest of our roof (the mudroom and garage) completed, making the entire roof match. This was done it preparation for putting The Manse on the market as we have decided it's time to downsize. The two of us are rattling around here and it's getting more of a chore to maintain the yard as it has a rather steep slope.

The pavers are arriving later this coming week to remove the old pavement on the driveway, regrade it, and lay down new asphalt. At least three painting contractors are going to be here to give estimates as to what it will cost to paint a number of rooms and ceilings.

All in all it's going to be a busy week here at The Manse.

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I am going to end this a bit early as I still have chores to finish before the heavy rains and winds start later this evening – things to batten down and other things to make sure their covers are secured.

Yes, it's quite late for me to be taking care of that (~8:20PM EDT), but it needs to be done and I didn't have the time to do it earlier, so I'll be off.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are finally coming off the trees, the rains are picking up, and where we hope to see a return to sunny weather later this week.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The summer-like weather has continued up here in New England and no one is complaining. While the warmer than normal temps have delayed the foliage color-shift and leaf drop, we are enjoying the weather knowing what will be coming in a few short weeks.

Some are saying the warm October temps are making up for the much cooler than normal August temperatures we experienced this past summer. Who am I to argue with that?

While I wish I could have kept the boat in the water another week or so as a means of taking advantage of the warm weather, my misadventure last week prevented that. BeezleBub and I pulled the boat out of the water during the week and the prop was indeed damaged, with one blade having taken the brunt of it. The boat is presently at one of the local boat yards awaiting winterization and storage. Prior to winterization they will swap out the damaged prop for my spare prop and send out the damaged prop for repair and reconditioning.

So ends Boating Season 2017.

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It's amazing what happens to one's perceptions when one leaves the isolated enclave of the coastal elites. In this case, former NPR CEO Ken Stern found his understanding of those of us in 'flyover country' was seriously flawed and colored too much by liberal groupthink.

Most reporters and editors are liberal — a now dated Pew Research Center poll found that liberals outnumber conservatives in the media by some 5 to 1, and that comports with my own anecdotal experience at National Public Radio. When you are liberal, and everyone else around you is as well, it is easy to fall into groupthink on what stories are important, what sources are legitimate and what the narrative of the day will be.

This may seem like an unusual admission from someone who once ran NPR, but it is borne of recent experience. Spurred by a fear that red and blue America were drifting irrevocably apart, I decided to venture out from my overwhelmingly Democratic neighborhood and engage Republicans where they live, work and pray. For an entire year, I embedded myself with the other side, standing in pit row at a NASCAR race, hanging out at Tea Party meetings and sitting in on Steve Bannon’s radio show. I found an America far different from the one depicted in the press and imagined by presidents (“cling to guns or religion”) and presidential candidates (“basket of deplorables”) alike.

--snip--

...the media should acknowledge its own failings in reflecting only their part of America. You can’t cover America from the Acela corridor, and the media need to get out and be part of the conversations that take place in churches and community centers and town halls.

I did that, and loved it, though I regret waiting until well after I left NPR to do so. I am skeptical that many will do so, since the current situation in an odd way works for Trump, who gets to rile his base, and for the media, which has grown an audience on the back of Washington dysfunction. In the end, they are both short-term winners. It is the public that is the long-term loser.

That public distrust of the media has grown considerably over the past decade or so is no secret. That they did it to themselves by becoming the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party is not a surprise. It's gotten to the point that even the Washington Post concedes that a large majority of the American people trust Donald Trump more than they trust the media.

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I was at one of our local eateries this morning and struck up a conversation with one of the other patrons. Our discussion covered good ideas and bad ideas put forth by government and how people perceive those ideas depending upon who presents them. Too much political ideology gets in the way in regards to parsing the good ones from the bad ones.

Then I see this about how Trump's tax plan is seen by college students as a good one, but only if it is presented as being from Bernie Sanders.

So it's not the message, but the messenger that determines whether an idea or a plan is good or not? That doesn't bode well for our future leaders. Oh, heck, it doesn't bode well for many of our present 'leaders'.

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Only on the Left Coast...

Three Multnomah County (Oregon) deputies are under investigation for following federal law by reporting illegal aliens to ICE.

I knew things were effed up in Oregon, but now we see just how bad it is. Then again when the city of Portland has become a den of sexism, racism, and fascism, so what would you expect?

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A story that isn't being covered by the media: When it comes to crime, London beats New York. So London now has a higher crime rate than New York City. That isn't all that surprising considering the laxity of the UK government towards criminal activity by Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate.

Of course if Bill deBlasio gets his way and continues to undo many of the reforms of Rudi Giuliani (continued by Mike Bloomberg) New York will quickly surpass London in crime stats and become a crime-ridden hellhole again, and it won't be because of immigrants.

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Having mentioned above the eye-opening experience of the former CEO of NPR, there's this story of Lloyd Marcus relocating from Florida to West Virginia and “experiencing wonderful culture shock.” Writes Lloyd:

The post office and public library closes for lunch. I stopped in the town hall to purchase a permit for the fence I planned to have installed. The clerk looking a bit puzzled said, "We're pretty laid back here. You don't need a permit." The police department consists of two patrol cars. The school's marching band of about 15 students marches past our house practicing. They sound good.

On Sundays from our front porch, we sometimes hear the choir of one of the five churches in town. Mary and I attended a fundraiser at the fire hall for a needy family. The elderly husband has terminal cancer and wants to make sure his wife has a new roof on their home. The fire hall was pretty full.

Contrast my daily heartland experience with the putrid-smelling Leftist hate dominating the airways and national political arena.

What makes this even more remarkable, at least it should be to Leftists, is the Mr. Marcus is black, one of 20 blacks living in a town of 500 people. Yet there's no mention of racism or racial strife. The Marcuses are merely “the folks that bought the white house.”

Maybe the coastal urban elites need to get away from their enclaves and find out what a majority of America is really like.

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One last thing before I close this week's edition of TOAS:

What's killing coastal US cities? The disconnect between Liberal aspirations and Liberal housing policies.

The outcomes of our housing policies fly in the face of our ideology. For those in need, we support providing supplementary income, health insurance, educational support, and other social welfare programs—and then we erase their value by making our cities too expensive for those most in need of these benefits. Either low income residents can’t afford to live in the city at all, or the cost of housing is so high that the value of the benefits is exceeded by the added cost of rent.

By doing essentially nothing but letting things happen, conservative America is kicking our ass at providing opportunities for low income and working classes to build wealth and get ahead. Cities like Dallas, Phoenix, and Atlanta have managed to stay affordable by simply allowing housing to continue to be built as their populations grow, and the result is that people keep moving there.

As long as Liberal housing policy continues to make it unaffordable for many Americans to live in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Washington, DC, the cities will continue to see a decline in the number of middle and lower class citizens. Those cities which have none of those soul-killing policies will continue to see their middle and lower class populations grow and see them thrive.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer is hanging on, no one is complaining about it, and the sound of silence from our furnaces is money in our pocket.

A Curfew For Men?

If this isn't the weirdest (and one of the stupidest) ideas that someone has come up wit, I don't know what is. While I have no idea whether this is a tongue-in-cheek proposal (something I think that is likely) or the real thing makes no difference. It's a totally unworkable and unenforceable idea.

The proposal? A 9PM curfew for men.

The question many of those who commented asked, “Who would enforce such a curfew?” Seeing as the men on the police forces and federal law enforcement agencies would also likely be affected by such a curfew, will it be the women who will do so? I doubt that would work all that well. Even if there were a exemption for male law enforcement officers, how many would actually enforce such a law? Would we see a boycott by those officers? Or would men across the US merely refuse to abide by it, overwhelming the police trying to enforce it?

While the proposal is based upon the idea that it will make women safe, I can make the same argument that I and others have made about the issue of gun ownership, that being that the true miscreants – specifically those who commit sexual assaults – won't be stopped by such laws. They will commit them no matter what. After all there are already laws against sexual assault, but that certainly hasn't stopped sexual assaults from taking place.

All in all it feels more like a 'feel good' idea that is neither practical nor serious.

I hope.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a last trip out on to Lake Winnipesaukee yesterday afternoon, taking an old friend out on to the lake for the first time. Considering the weather was more summerlike than one would expect for mid-October, it made for a great time out on the lake...until the very end.

I know this happens to boaters all the time, but it still made me mad at myself when it happened, 'it' being not paying enough attention to where I was in a channel and going too shallow, meaning the prop started chewing rocks! It isn't the first prop I've dinged and I doubt it will be my last. But the fact that it was my fault for being distracted just pissed me off.

That the prop got bent a little didn't put a premature end to the boating season as I had planned to pull the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout out of the water later this week in any case. This isn't the latest I've had the boat in the water, that being the first weekend in November, but I usually pull it out right around the weekend after Columbus day. But now I have to see about changing the prop before I store the boat for the winter. Fortunately I have a spare prop so it won't be a big deal. I'll send the damaged prop out for reconditioning and have it as my spare prop next year.

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Fausta at Da Tech Guy asks us if we've goner to the movies recently? My answer is easy: No.

From what box office numbers have shown this past summer, a lot of other people's answers have been 'no' as well. What does the movie industry expect? Once they start making good movies again their customers will return. But as long as they keep doing the remakes and making 'social message' movies, we'll be staying away in droves.

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So the US is going to withdraw from UNESCO?

It's about frickin' time.

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Need some help in describing what AntiFa is? Here's some help from Benito Mussolini.

“Everything I have said and done in these last years is relativism by intuition. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth … then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity... From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”

After reading the above, you'll come to realize that AntiFa should remove the “anti” from their name.

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Why are so many Americans ungrateful?

My take: So many have had all of the conveniences of modern living handed to them that they feel entitled to them. Why would they feel grateful for things that they believe are owed to them?

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What do Dutch women know that American women don't? A whole lot, it appears, particularly when it comes to things like careers, families, and a whole host of other things American feminists think they know, but don't.

Maybe it's time for American feminists to stop drinking the feminazi kool-aid.

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The UK must really like American fried chicken considering how many fried chicken restaurants there have a US state as part of their name. Leaving out Kentucky fr obvious reasons, there were twelve other state names used as part of a fried chicken restaurant's name.

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This is something I've intuited for years.

Twelve reasons science shows conservative women have the best sex.

I certainly agree with Numbers 1, 2, 5, 7, 8 and 12. I also agree with Numbers 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, and 11 as well.

The science is settled!

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As a follow on to the above, there's this little gem of wisdom.

If men need yet another excuse not to marry a feminist, then I'd say this pretty much is a good one.

The feminist worldview is antithetical to love because its focus is solely on women: their needs, their wants, their desires, and their rights. Love can’t possibly be sustained with an attitude like that. (emphasis mine – ed)

Yeah, I'd say that about covers it.

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You can't tell me this isn't yet another step in an effort by the Progressive Left to further destroy society and replace it with an all power dictatorship of the elite.

Schools Ban Having Best Friends.

Like that's going to work out well.

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Here's an interesting infographic that details concealed carry, open carry, and constitutional carry of firearms on a state by state basis.

(H/T Wirecutter)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the boating season is still in full swing, cooler weather will be here for a day or two, and where Monday is yet again returning to screw up the weekend.