You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

These days it’s rare that people don’t worry about what they say, write, or think at the workplace. Everything and anything can be misconstrued as racist/sexist/whateverist by an overly sensitive co-worker and cost someone their job, or worse, their entire career, their reputation, their home, and their family.

As bad as it is, it’s about to get worse.

In the near future it isn’t just your co-worker you have to worry about, but a new surveillance system that can be used to analyze everything you do, say, write, and perhaps think. Call it “ ‘1984’ meets ‘The Office’ ”.

One minute you are contemplating your next vacation, the next you click on Facebook and see adverts for hotels and cheap flights. Coincidence? Surely. But what about that smart speaker in your kitchen? It doesn’t just play music and provide an on-demand weather forecast. It hears about the groceries that need replenishing, the cat’s trip to the vet, and, of course, your vacation plans.

Now imagine what such a listening device could do in the workplace. The whispered conversation about difficulties with your latest project is automatically reported to your manager. The half hour spent discussing child care arrangements is sent to Human Resources. And what about the things you don’t say: the colleague you don’t greet in the morning, the co-worker you never ask to join you for coffee? These non-conversations are likewise noted and filed away to be discussed at your next appraisal.

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This yet-to-be-invented machine is already being heralded for its potential to revolutionize equality and diversity in the workplace by alerting users to instances of implicit bias. It will record verbal and nonverbal cues, as well as the “physiological signals” shared between members of a team. Then, having noted and analyzed all these tiny interactions and non-interactions, the speaker will make recommendations for improving inclusivity and productivity.

To any sane person, this is a truly terrifying prospect – not because we arrive at the office each morning desperate to dole out racist and sexist abuse to our colleagues, but because of the opposite: we want to get on with our jobs and get on with our co-workers. We know that a spying machine, watching, listening, monitoring, and advising, is far more likely to interrupt our work and fuel dissent than it is to increase productivity.

It’s already bad enough in a lot of workplaces and these folks want to make the paranoia and distrust that exists in those businesses and crank the level up to “11”. That’s going to work.

NOT.

This will end up being misused and it’s going to backfire, causing more problems than this technology is supposed to solve.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was below zero here at The Gulch this morning, something that added insult to injury as the snow, sleet and freezing rain mix we got on Friday is now a solid frozen mass. That means those who did not get out early enough to shovel and scrape before everything froze solid will have to live with the ice and ‘stubble’ until things thaw out.

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The TDS is strong in this one.

Apparently MSNBC anchor Katy Tur has absolutely no understanding of the US Constitution and that Senators represent their states and not a Congressional District. Each state is represented by two senators, regardless of whether they are large or small. There are 50 states and 100 senators. That isn’t going to change. The Founders set it up that way to help balance the House, which has Congressional Districts of roughly equal populations. That’s why some states have more House Representatives than others. This is something that bothers Tur to no end, particularly in regard to the Senate’s vote to acquit President Trump. Her ‘cure’ for the Senate? Gerrymandering.

...Tur wondered what could be done to prevent Republicans from winning statewide elections for U.S. Senate seats across the country: “So what’s the resolution to that? Is gerrymandering something that would help improve the situation? Is – how does that sort of divide promote consensus in the Senate or even in the House?”

Bump was forced to awkwardly correct her and explain the obvious: “Well, I mean, the only resolution – gerrymandering is not going to do anything because in the Senate we’re talking about states, right? You can’t gerrymander states.” He then delivered more tough news: “The only solution is for Democrats to appeal to voters in those states.”

What, you mean Democrats might actually have to go out and campaign, garner votes, and win elections?

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The analysis of this past Friday’s Democrat Debate shows that the front-runners didn’t do so well, with some of them ganging up on Bernie for his pie-in-the-sky Medicare-for-All plans without any thought about how to pay for it other than “We’ll figure it out later.”

Yeah, that’s worked out so well in the past.

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Yet another member of the inclusive, tolerant, ‘diverse’ Left showed his true colors when he tried to run down workers at a Republican voter registration tent at the parking lot in front of a Walmart in Jacksonville, Florida. After driving through the tent, the driver of the van got out, took video of the scene, flipped off the registration workers, got back into his van and drove off.

Class act, that one.

The James Hodgkinson wannabe, one Gregory Timm, was later arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Timm was charge with Aggravated Assault, Criminal Mischief, and Driving While Driver’s License Suspended. Other charges may be forthcoming.

This clown is a real winner. One has to wonder how many others like Timm and Hodgkinson are out there, planning further mayhem.

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These climate change alarmist a**holes have gone too far!

They’re now claiming that climate change is going to affect the global Oreo supply.

This. Means. WAR!

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I saw this over at Sarah Hoyt’s, and it’s something I have always known but never put into words.

The Asymmetric Bullshit Rule: The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.

As they say up here in northern New England: Ayuh.

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I can agree with this wholeheartedly.

When You Lose, Say Little. When You Win, Say Less.

As much as I like Donald Trump, there are times when I wish he would followed this rule.

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This is how you do not tow your car out of ditch.

First, I would have towed the car from the front.

Second, I would have attached the tow line to the front of the tow vehicle and had it back up because then the driver could see what was happening to the car it was towing out of the ditch.

But that’s just me.

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It’s time for the climate alarmists and their offspring to stop just talking the talk. It’s time for them to walk the walk.

If they don’t practice what they preach then we can safely ignore them

To paraphrase the Instaprof, “We’ll start listening to those who keep telling us there’s a climate crisis when they start acting like there’s a climate crisis.” At the moment that isn’t happening. It seems to me that too many of them expect everyone else to make the sacrifices necessary to “save” the planet.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where there’s more snow on the way, the New Hampshire Primary is Tuesday, and where the bleating pols and their media sycophants will be gone the day after that.

Democrat Debate Reaction

I made an effort to watch the Democrat Presidential Debate in New Hampshire tonight. I lasted about 40 minutes and I had to turn it off. I was getting too angry listening to the outright lies, fabrications, and a ton of wishful thinking masquerading as deep thought and wisdom. It seems every single candidate thinks the economy is broken and needs to be fixed. Of course, by ‘fixed’, they mean returning to tried and true regulations and economic policies guaranteed to damage the economy and return us to the bad old days of the Obama economy.

Three of the candidates want to plunge us back into recession by banning fracking, one of the biggest drivers of our economic recovery. It seems they don’t care if that action does so because “it’s for our own good.” Of course these same candidates are insulated from the effects of such a recession because they’re wealthy. The average Janes and Joes will be the ones paying the price, something these candidates are choosing to ignore for the same “it’s for our own good” reason.

There’s a push for Medicare For All, yet none of candidates pushing for it seem willing to discuss how it will be funded.

But it was Steyer’s self serving and arrogant rant against Trump that finally drove me to turn off the TV.

State Of The Union 2020

I’ve been thinking this State Of The Union address is going to be interesting in more than one way, particularly in light the Democrats’ Impeachment debacle and the Iowa Caucuses fiasco. If nothing else I think we’ll see many of the Democrat Presidential hopefuls see some of the campaign issues become moot.

Some have been trying to use the “horrible” economy as an issue despite the fact that the economy is strong in so many areas.

That AOC and Mad Max Waters won’t be attending the SOTU is a plus.

+++++

Right out of the box the President brought up the strength of the economy and how it is uplifting everyone (except maybe for the Democrat hopefuls).

Interesting to see the Democrats sitting silently, refusing to react to the good economic news as they know they won’t be able use the economy as a campaign issue to hammer Trump. Sour grapes, I guess.

Minority unemployment at record lows. Majority of new jobs created taken by women. Pension funds and 401(k)’s seeing record gains.

The bottom half of households in our nation have seen their net worth grow by 47%—more than three times faster than the top 1%. (Something the Democrats don’t seem to like very much.)

Energy independence, something else the Democrats don’t like. “Thanks to our bold regulatory reduction campaign, the United States has become the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world, by far.”

“America is the place where the action is.”

NAFTA is gone and replaced by USMCA agreement. Jobs are coming back to the US.

A trade agreement with China!

Pelosi looks like she’s about to vomit.

Space Force created.

Brigadier General McGee – Tuskegee Airman.

School choice!

Better tech curriculum in all high schools

Improve health insurance, price transparency, preserve Medicare and Social Security.

“We will never allow socialism to destroy American health care.”

More than a few Congressional Democrats constantly shaking their heads. Perhaps they are seeing their career dissipation lights flashing in the corner of their eyes?

Overdose deaths down for first time in years.

A tribute to Rush Limbaugh. Melania placing the Medal of Freedom around Rush’s neck.

Wants legislation to ban late-term abortions.

Rebuild America’s infrastructure – roads, bridges, highways, high speed Internet for rural America.

Ban sanctuary cities/states from shielding criminal illegal aliens and allow victims of such illegal aliens to sue the sanctuary cities/states.

Nancy does not look happy.

Large number of federal judges (187) appointed including Supreme Court Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

Will work to protect the right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Wants America to return to the moon and be first nation to plant its flag on the surface of Mars.

Battle radical Islamic terrorism, have wiped out ISIS caliphate, and killed ISIS leader.

Wants to bring our troops back home from the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Nice touch by bringing Amy Williams husband home from Afghanistan and surprising her in the gallery.

Making America Greater Than Before!

+++++

Wow!!

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I can honestly say I will be watching the game more for the commercials than to support either of the teams playing.

I admit I am leaning towards the 49ers seeing as their quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, was the second string quarterback for the Patriots and did very well for the Pats when Tom Brady had been suspended for the first four games of the season due to the bogus Deflategate controversy. (The Patriots won the SuperBowl that season, their fifth, a well deserved slap in the face to NFL Commissioner Goodell.)

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The coronavirus is at the top of the news and Glenn Reynolds has collected a number of coronavirus stories ranging from the predicted spread and fatalities to its effects on tourism to the Chinese government silencing doctors in China.

Since this whole thing started I keep hearing Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper running through my mind. I’m just waiting for someone to start mentioning either The Walking Dude, Mother Abigail or ads for Flu Buddy.

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I don’t know about you, but I’m glad the impeachment farce is just about over. It’s been a sham from day one.

What’s worse is the House only did a little of the work they needed to do to build a solid case. There are only two reasons I can think of to explain that:

1. The Democrats knew that they had nothing but tried to build a case on a foundation of sand because they hated Donald Trump that much, or...

2. To paraphrase something seen on Facebook, “They didn’t do their work and they got mad when someone else wouldn’t do it for them.”

In the case of the second possible explanation, it would explain why the House Managers pushed so hard to get the Senate to call witnesses and allow submission of ‘new’ evidence. The House didn’t do its job during the Impeachment Inquiry and wanted the Senate to do it for them. They got pissed off when the Senate said “No”.

I think both explanations work as Pelosi pushed to get a vote to the House before Christmas which didn’t leave much time for the inquiry to do its job. Because of that, they had a poorly investigated case based upon conjecture, innuendo, and wishful thinking. The Democrats got exactly what they deserved.

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To give you an idea of just how bad TDS has infected Congressional Democrats, they have already vowed to continue their “investigations” of Trump after he’s acquitted.

This is going to come back to bite them this coming November.

As if they haven’t given Team Trump and the GOP enough material for campaign commercials and converted enough voters over from voting Democrat/not voting Trump to voting Trump, they want more.

President Donald Trump’s scrutiny by Congress won’t end with his expected acquittal in the Senate. House Democrats have a list of inquiries they plan to pursue when the impeachment saga is over.

“The investigations and oversight will continue,” said Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, head of the Oversight and Reform Committee, the lead investigative panel in the House. “We’ve got several cases.”

Democratic-led committees in the House will keep seeking a wide range of evidence and testimony as they look into Trump’s administration, his policies and his businesses and finances. They also plan to keep a focus on his conduct in dealing with Ukraine.

They can focus all they want on Ukraine, but there’s no “there” there. I doubt they can go after him in regard to Ukraine again because double jeopardy applies. But let them waste their time as it means they won’t be paying attention to things the rest of the House will be taking care of.

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Powerline gives us some photos of the Brexit celebrations in the UK. I am happy for our British brethren now that they will be free of the bureaucratic BS from Brussels. I figure a UK-US trade deal will help cement the UK’s freedom from the EU.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we await the Super Bowl, more winter weather, and an early spring.

More Money Isn't The Answer

The ongoing debate about public education centers around funding, with the usual refrain being “We need more money to make sure our kids get a good education!” But time and again it has been found that funding in and of itself is not an indicator of how well any public school system educates the children. Even the liberal Brookings Institute has found that money is not the biggest indicator of the success of any school system.

We don’t need to take the word of any think tanks or teacher unions or school administrators that the only fix for our failing public education system is increasing amounts of tax money. There’s real world proof they are wrong.

The proof?

Vermont.

Ninety-three Vermont towns (36 percent of its 255 municipalities) have no government-run school at all. What do these towns handle education of their children?

In these towns, the funds local governments expect to spend per pupil are instead given directly to the parents of school-age children.

This method gives lower- and middle-income parents the same superpower wealthy families have always had: school choice. Kids aren’t assigned to public schools by zip code⁠ – instead, parents have the ability to put their kids in school anywhere, to buy the educational experience best suited to each child. If that decision doesn’t work out, they can change it the following year and try a school that might better fit their child’s needs.

Imagine that. School choice in liberal Vermont.

The results of that school choice? Though costs are similar to other schools in the Green Mountain State, the outcomes are better.

This is something I wish the supporters of school choice in my home state would use as a means of slapping down the public school lobbyists that have been fighting hard against, working to prevent taxpayer money from being used to allow parents to choose where their children will be educated.

I suggest you Read The Whole Thing.

Are You Effin' Kidding Me?

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this gem:

New York requires citizens to obtain “stargazing permit” to admire stars in public parks.

I think the only way to save Upstate New York is nuke everything from Albany on south to the end of Long Island from space. It’s the only way to be sure.

Kobe Bryant Cause Of Death

The true cause of the helicopter crash that killed basketball great Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven others has been discovered by the NTSB Investigation Team.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Talk about a change of weather! Heavy snow last weekend and heavy rain this weekend. I had thought about running the trusty RAM 1500 through the car wash, but the rain did a pretty good job of rinsing away the accumulated salt and road grime. While it isn’t perfectly clean and shiny, it’s good enough for now.

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I don’t know about you, but I know I’m sick and tired of the impeachment debacle. Listening to three days of the same drivel from the House Managers must have been torture to anyone who actually watched the proceedings on TV.

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Republicans see this as a problem, showing the potential for massive voter fraud. The Democrats see this not as a bug, but as a feature they can use to win more elections.

The problem?

Watchdog group says two North Carolina counties have more registered voters than voting age citizens.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this. If memory serves, I recall that there were two voting precincts in Philadelphia that had more people casting votes than the number of people living in those districts during the 2016 elections.

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Is the magnitude and death toll from the coronavirus being understated by the Chinese government? Going by past behavior by totalitarian regimes just over the past 30 years, I’d have to say the probability is high.

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Last week I made mention of the Unintended Consequences of New York’s bail reform efforts. Since then, it’s gotten worse. Crime in New York City is up as the revolving door of criminal release without bail is making its effects known.

Bail used to be an effective tool for lowering the crime rate. Chronic criminals who had to sit in jail until their case was heard kept them off the streets for a while, making them safer.

But in New York and elsewhere the legislation is being considered, it's simply not fair that some criminals can pay to get out of custody and others can't. How's that workin’ out for ya, New Yorkers?

“Time will tell, but consider this as well: According to the latest NYPD stats, the number of shooting victims in the city is up 31% since New Year’s Day — so at the very least Gotham appears to be off to a rocky 2020 compared to last year.”

It may be a statistical anomaly and 27 days hardly makes it a trend. But it isn't just shootings that are way up.

“But consider this: Robbery in the third degree became a revolving-door offense Jan. 1, and this was followed by a dramatic, 29% spike in reported robberies, according to the most recent — albeit very short-term — CompStat numbers.”

Whatever government encourages, you get more of it.

First, ‘Broken Windows’ policing is dialed back, and crime ramps up.

Second, remove the disincentive of bail, and crime ramps up.

I’m just waiting for Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo to blame the rise in crime on Donald Trump. I figure it’s only a matter of time.

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When you’ve lost David Axelrod, you know your efforts are doomed.

In this case, Axelrod has been dealing with a Democrat focus group watching the Democrat debates and the impeachment sham.

Former Obama chief strategist David Axelrod said he attended a focus group with Democratic voters in Chicago on Friday, describing the gathering as “chilling” because impeachment “didn’t come up” until more than an hour into the session despite it taking place amid the Senate trial of President Trump.

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This should be no surprise given the shabby ratings the latest installment of the partisan Democrat impeachment show has garnered.

Democrat leadership should be asking themselves about this. If even Democrat primary voters are ready to move on, maybe that’s a good idea. But of course they won’t move on, and while that might please their tiny, vocal radical base, it does not bode well for them in November.

I’d have to say the Democrat shave been blinding themselves to the unpopularity of the impeachment of Trump. They seem to think it will lead them to victory in November which will pave the way for them to convert the US into a failed socialist state.

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Talk about hypocrisy!

It appears that three of the House Managers who complained about withholding aid from Ukraine voted against providing aid to Ukraine.

Does anyone see a disconnect from reality here?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather can’t seem to make up its mind, the New Hampshire Primaries are 16 days away, and everyone is sick to death of the political ads.

Much Ado About Nothing - Sturm und Drang Edition

I have to admit I haven’t been paying much attention to the impeachment trial in the Senate. Having read the articles of impeachment led me to the conclusion that the House did not do its job. They only went halfway in their rush to vote on impeaching President Trump.

The Abuse of Power charge should be dismissed out of hand because the House did not follow the proper legal procedures. Trump exercised executive privilege when White House staffers were called to testify in front of Adam Schiff and his cronies.

What did the Impeachment Inquiry panel do once Trump said no?

Nothing but bitch, moan, and complain, then state that Trump was obstructing Congress. But they were wrong because they only did half the job.

What they were supposed to do was go before a judge for a ruling on the matter. If the judge ruled that Trump could not claim executive privilege in this particular case, and the panel then went back and again called the White House staffers to testify and Trump again prevented them from appearing, then that action would then be considered Obstruction of Congress. But that isn’t what the panel did.

Instead, they added it to their list of things they were going to use to go after Trump.

Why did Schiff et al not do what they needed to do? Did they believe a judge wasn’t likely to find in their favor and that Trump’s claim of executive privilege would prevail, so they didn’t bother? Or did they think their half-attempt would be enough? In their zeal and hurry to bring impeachment to a vote did they get lazy and figure they could ‘fix’ it later?

Despite their bluster during their presentation to the Senate this week, are they really seeking the proverbial “second bite of the apple” by demanding more witnesses be called because they did such a piss poor job in their haste to get Trump?

The House didn’t do its job. It isn’t up to the Senate to finish it for them. It is the Senate’s job to look at the evidence presented by the House and vote upon conviction or not, period. As others have said after watching the House managers make their case, the managers have not presented a single actionable article. It’s a smoke and mirrors stage show by those so desperate to get Trump they’ll do anything to make it happen...except follow the procedures and laws to ensure their success.

That’s pathetic.

Quote Of The Day

This is something I came across at Day By Day in the comments (again) and I couldn’t help but share it.

The realization that feelings are not reality is the beginning of wisdom. – Too Tall

As I have stated many times, I don’t care what someone feels about some issue. I want to know what they think about it. Too often, people confuse one with the other when in truth they are nothing alike. And therein lies the problem.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter has returned with a vengeance, with below zero temperatures and plenty of snow.

The January thaw is now just a memory. The open waters of Lake Winnipesaukee seen at the beginning of the week are now bearing a skim of ice from shore to shore. The roof rake has been used twice over the past three days to pull the snow off the roof of The Gulch. The snow shovel has seen more than its share of use as well.

Basically, we’re back to normal for winter.

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I cannot believe I am writing this, but we have lost yet another member of the feline contingent here at The Gulch.

Some time between 7 and 10PM last night our little three-legged cat, Miley, passed away. She had been to the vet earlier that day as she’d been having some health problems and the vet extended the duration of her medication we’d been giving her. She seemed to be on the mend.

It was as I was going to give her her evening dose of her medicine that I found she had passed away.

She was a sweet, affectionate lap cat. She loved to cuddle and everyone who met her fell in love with her. She had a beautiful continence.

Henry, another of our cats, passed away from lymphoma two weeks ago. Hilda, one of our Maine Coon cats, passed away unexpectedly last May.

The past nine months have not been good in regard to the feline members of the WP family.

This sucks.

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As much as many people have been worrying about the depressed birth rate in the US, it’s a bigger problem in China. They’ll see the same problems seen in Japan and soon to be seen here in the US.

Making matters worse, the slowing birthrate has meant that China’s main state pension fund, which relies on tax revenues from its work force, risks running out of money by 2035 because of a decline in the number of workers, according to research commissioned by the government-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Sound familiar?

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Call it yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming back to bite Progressives in the butt.

New York reformed its bail law, believing bail was a burden for poorer alleged perpetrators. So they did away with bail for a lengthy list of crimes. The result?

Crime committed by repeat offenders has skyrocketed, including one fellow who had committed four bank robberies and, after being released without bail, went on to commit a fifth bank heist.

How is it possible that the proponents of bail reform missed these possible consequences?

Another unintended consequence: The ill-conceived bail reform law has become an election issue.

That issue is the controversial bail reform law pushed through the New York State legislature by Governor Andrew Cuomo late last year. The law eliminates cash bail on the argument that cash bail discriminates against poorer defendants.

But critics of the law have been warning for months that eliminating bail was sure to put too many criminals with violent tendencies back on streets, even if they weren’t currently under arrest for very violent crimes.

Less than three weeks after the law went into effect, it sure looks like the naysayers were right.

In what’s becoming an almost hourly stream of depressing updates, New York’s newspapers, local TV news shows, and news sites are posting story after story about violent crimes being committed by people instantly released after arrests because of bail reform.

I expect this will be a big election issue in New York come November.

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While the Democrats are focusing all of their attention on the impending impeachment trial, John Durham, the US Attorney from Connecticut, has been digging deeper into paper trail highlighting misconduct by federal law enforcement and intelligence officials that dogged the Trump campaign prior to the 2016 election and his administration after he took office.

I have a feeling a lot of Deep State officials and Democrats (but I repeat myself) will be facing a judge and jury sometime in the near future.

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Seeing how snowy it’s been since last night, this post and link by Eric the Viking is timely.

As Eric writes about a piece in MacWorld covering the topic of being without power for 72 hours:

Yes, it's awful to be off the internet for a couple hours. As somebody who has lived through several New England snowpocalypses, I would also recommend appliances that run off of camp propane canisters like a camp light, camp heater, and a camp stove. Personally, I also have a cord of hardwood to burn if things get a little rough. Think Frontierland.

While the MacWorld article deals with the loss of power and Internet due to the wildfires in California, it applies equally to winter blackouts.

At our former Manse, we had a woodstove, four cords of wood, a generator, and 500 gallons of propane to run it. With judicious use of electricity and using the woodstove for heat, we could easily go almost 6 weeks before running out of fuel. Not that I would expect we’d ever have to do so for that long, but knowing we could was comforting. While The Gulch isn’t nearly as well appointed (no woodstove, cordwood, or 500 gallon propane tank), it does have a generator to keep the lights and heat on and the refrigerator running, with enough left over to power a microwave, TV, and to charge our cellphones/tablets/laptops. There may not be any Internet, but that is really a “nice to have” and not a “need to have”. We’d “rough it” and make do without.

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Elizabeth Warren’s economic policy proposal can be described with four words:

A Total Effin’ Disaster.

It would take us back to the bad old days of the Obama Recession, in spades.

How is it she can possibly sell this as a good thing?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where everything is snow-covered as it should be, the ice has returned to the lake, and the local ski slopes are busy with holiday skiers.

Climate Change Isn't The Fault Of The Evil Humans

I must confess that this post was prompted by an e-mail I received from one of the WP nieces today. We correspond on an irregular basis, debating a number topics that she sees me cover here. I her latest missive (prompted by this post), she asked if I believe in climate change.

I have not yet answered her e-mail, something to which I will attend after finishing this post, because I want to post two videos that explain my viewpoint on the matter. I will be answering her question in the affirmative, at least when it comes to whether or not the climate is changing. However, I do not believe that humans are the cause, at least not to the level so many of the alarmists have claimed to be the case.

Climate change has been with us since Earth came into being. During this inter-glacial period (which started about 12,000 years ago), it has been far warmer than it is now. Two more ‘recent’ warmer periods – the Medieval and Roman Warm Periods – were warmer than it is now. No one, with the exception of Michael Mann, disputes that. So what is driving the claim that climate change is bad and that it’s all our fault?

Here are a couple of videos that might help explain that, the first being that of physicist William van Wijngaarden delving into the complexity of the physics behind global warming models, and the errors that abound about the “simple physics” of climate change claimed by proponents.



The second video is a PBS interview of meteorologist Andrew Watt, he of the Watts Up With That climate blog.

Andrew explains the problems with the much of the data used to prove anthropogenic global warming and how those problems are being ignored.



And so the debate continues.

Quote Of The Year...So Far

“Rule .308….Even when tyranny rules all, the Rifleman still gets a vote.” - Mike Vanderbaugh

As seen at Day By Day. Thanks to John Block.

Is There Anything That Isn't Racist?

It seems that to the SJWs everything is racist…except their own racism.

What’s the latest racist activity being blamed on white folks?

Hiking.

That’s right. Hiking. Walking outdoors. Walking on trails. Walking through forests. Walking up and down hills and mountains. Walking along ponds and lakes.

It’s all racist.

Yeah. Right.

These idiots need to be institutionalized.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We are in the midst of the January thaw here in New Hampshire, with the temperature here at The Gulch reaching the mid 50’s yesterday and the upper 50’s today. Some have said it’s global warming causing these warm temps in January, but it is an annual event that has been taking place since before the first Europeans came here. Sometimes the thaw has warmer temperatures and sometimes cooler. (About 14 years ago we had a January thaw that saw temperatures in the mid-60’s for almost a week that caused the postponement of the annual Lake Winnipesaukee Ice Fishing Derby for almost a month.)

It rained most of the night and early morning, melting away the last of any ice and packed snow on the roads around here, making room for any future snowfall.

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At least once city in Washington State is going stupid, at least when it comes to energy. (Seattle has already gone very stupid in another fashion, between killing jobs with a very high minimum wage, banning business and homeowners from cleaning their sidewalks with garden hoses, and refusing to deal with the homeless by allowing them to camp anywhere they want.)

The latest stupid city? Bellingham, Washington.

Their ‘stupid’ move? Trying to ban the use of natural gas for heating homes.

What makes this even stupider? The ban would also affect homes already using natural gas, meaning they would have to tear out their heating systems and replace them with something else.

Who would pay for all of this? So far the Bellingham city council hasn’t said, but I have a feeling they’ll burden the homeowners with ripping out their existing heating systems and replacing them with an electric-based system like electric baseboards or heat pumps. If I were there, I would accede to their demands, but replace my system with a woodstove, something that should put their knickers in a twist.

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A lengthy debate with the youngest WP Sister proved to me that Democrats like Steyer, Bloomberg, Sanders, Warren, Biden, etc., have no issues with selling the lie that only the upper echelons have seen any gains in the way of wages over the past three years. It seems that this particular trope is being used to justify the Democrat presidential hopefuls’ calls to damage the economy “on the behalf of working-class Americans”.

Too bad for all of us that it’s a total fabrication because too many of the Democrats’ useful idiots believe it and are trying to sell the same trope. These are the same folks that have tried to sell the same kind of BS that we were entering a recession, not because we were entering a recession but because they desperately need a recession in order to use it against Trump.

That shows you just how low they are willing to go to regain the White House.

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There’s nothing I can add to this that would make it any better.

How many Democrat presidential candidates tweeted in support of Iranian protesters?

Here’s a hint: None.

That makes Trump one up on them.

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How bad is the poop problem in San Francisco?

This bad.

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If Virginia Governor Ralph Northam goes through with his promises to all but eliminate the Second Amendment Rights of the citizens of Virginia, many of those same citizens said they are willing to go to war against the state government to protect those rights.

At heated public meetings across the state and in long social media comment threads, some gun rights supporters are openly discussing the possibility of civil war. Many have warned of the need to fight back against “tyranny” or have compared Democratic lawmakers to the British forces during the revolutionary war. “I really do think we may be on the brink of another war,” one speaker told a crowd of at least 800 people in Pulaski county, the Roanoke Times reported.

Here’s the thing, though. This talk of a civil war isn’t new. We’ve been talking about this for years as a warning that if anti-gun zealots come after our guns, they’re going to have a bad time of it.

However, it’s also important to note that we’ve also been pretty clear that there’s a line in the sand and, thus far, no one has crossed it. Right now, bills have only been proposed. Nothing’s passed and nothin’s signed. It’s just a lot of rhetoric. As long as Northam and company bear in mind that this is a topic that yes, a lot of people will go to war over, we shouldn’t have a problem.

I have a feeling Northam and his anti-gun buddies like Michael Bloomberg are finding out that their plans to strip Americans of the Second Amendment Rights isn’t going to be easy, period.

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The so-called ‘Blue State exodus’ certainly is signaling the failure of Blue State tax-and-spend economics and ‘woke’ policies and laws. Many are fleeing for Red States, seeking a relief from overbearing and overreaching Blue State taxes, laws, and regulations. But there’s a downside to this exodus that more of us are seeing every day.

But that good news may be relatively short-lived. In a depressing example of irony, the influx of new voters from blue states into red ones has been bringing with it a surge of liberal, Democratic voters. This has led to some traditionally red states becoming increasingly competitive for the Democrats. (Texas is probably the best example, though the tide there hasn’t fully turned yet.)

The grim humor in this is that these migrants seem to fail to realize that the conditions they were fleeing in those blue states were a direct result of the policies put in place by liberals. Higher taxes, more oppressive governmental regulations and “woke” policies that are more tolerant of crime and damaging to traditional values made many of those places basically unlivable. But by coming into red states, where lower costs of living, more freedom, and better security were waiting, and voting the way they always have, they’re basically bringing their own poison with them into their new pool.

We’ve certainly seen that here in New Hampshire.

Our present legislature is heavily tax-and-spend Democrat. They tried to ramrod through a budget that overspent by almost a billion dollars, tried to slip in a stealth income tax (New Hampshire has neither an income or sales tax), and tried to repeal a number of business taxes. The governor vetoed both the budget and tax increases. Without the budget-busting spending increases, existing tax revenues came in with an approximate $140 million surplus. Even with the expected budget compromise between the legislature and governor, there will be a budget surplus. Yet the Democrats want to spend it, and more.

They tried to implement new laws that serve no purpose other than stripping New Hampshire residents of their constitutional rights, that address solutions for ‘problems’ our state doesn’t have, to make state government even more intrusive for no other reason than they thing we cannot run our own lives.thta government has to do so “for our own good”. In other words, they are trying to spread the very Blue State virus that infected the state(s) they came from.

They haven’t learned the lesson.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re going through the January Thaw, the lake is still not frozen over, and a return to normal seasonal temperatures is in the offing.

Gervais Nails It

While I am a bit late in commenting on Ricky Gervais’ slapdown of Hollywood know-nothing leftists at the Golden Globes, I am going to state that it was something that was long overdue. Seeing just how ‘woke’ (and woefully/willfully ignorant) most of the Hollywood elite have become, the slapdown was well deserved and timely.

It must be remembered that Hollywood deals with fantasy, make-believe, and fiction and not the real world. So many of those elite are so disconnected from the real world and the effects of the various Progressive causes they support they should be considered ignorant children and their opinions ignored. (Wait...I already do that!)

Hollywood should stick to what it does best – make movies – and shut the hell up when it comes to anything outside of Hollywood. We’ll be happier. They’ll be happier (maybe). And we won’t have to listen to their bulls**t anymore.

Just Who Does Pelosi Think She Is?

I have to admit that the trauma of returning to work after a lengthy Christmas vacation distracted me from writing over the past few days, so I must apologize.

Now to the ‘good’ stuff.

I have to wonder just what the heck Nancy Pelosi is thinking, specifically in regard to impeachment. The urgency of getting through the inquiry and the vote made it seem that the Speaker of the House wanted to get the articles of impeachment to the Senate as quickly as possible. But once she got her impeachment vote, she locked them away in the safe under the carpet in her office as if putting them away so at some point in the future she could use them to bludgeon President Trump into doing something she wanted.

Her explanation: She wants to make sure the Senate is going to do things her way. There’s only one problem with that:

She has absolutely no say in how the Senate is going to run the impeachment trial. None.

She seems to think her control of the House automatically extends to the Senate. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has disabused her of that notion. He has reminded her from the floor of the Senate that she has already done her job and that it is now the Senate’s turn. He has told her that she has no power to demand anything from the Senate, that she cannot set the conditions of the trial, and that she should deliver the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate. That she has refused to do so and is still demanding that the Senate accede to her conditions makes me question he competence. Just who the hell does she think she is?

McConnell has already stated the Senate will employ the same rules used during the the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. Those rules seemed to suit the Congressional Democrats just fine when it was their guy on trial. But now that it’s Trump on trial, they want to change the rules to make sure their joke of impeachment articles can be re-investigated and to call witnesses the House Judicial Committee didn’t call during their inquiry. Nancy wants the Senate to do the job the House failed to do. She knows the Articles of Impeachment are a big fat nothingburger and she wants a second bite at the apple. She wants her Senate colleague, Chuck “I Killed Indy Mac Bank By Opening My Big Mouth” Schumer, to direct the what goes on during the trial. McConnell has pretty much killed any chance of that happening despite what Pelosi thinks.

If Pelosi doesn’t deliver the articles soon, McConnell has threatened to hold the trial anyway and find Trump not guilty due to lack of any evidence. Pelosi may scream about it being improper procedure, but she can’t complain because she sure as hell didn’t follow procedure, letting Adam Schiff run roughshod over the inquiry before the inquiry officially existed, ran his Star Chamber questioning of potential witnesses in secret, which is not allowed under impeachment inquiry rules. (All testimony is supposed to be public.) No laws were broken by the President, though the Judicial Committee tried to twist the definitions of impeachable offenses into unrecognizable shapes just to get the President.

Nancy Pelosi seems to think she runs the country, runs the government, and can do anything she wants while “striding the halls of power with impunity”.

She needs to be shown she is wrong.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The weather in central New Hampshire couldn’t seem to make up its mind for the first weekend of 2020 – Is it going to rain or snow? How about both at the same time, or maybe some sleet?

Saturday was rain most of the day with a few attempts to change over to snow...for a minute or two here and there.

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It was certainly raining enough for the inaugural weekend of our little town’s updated transfer station. While there were a considerable number of folks trying out the new amenities, there weren’t nearly as many as we had expected. I figure the inclement weather had an effect on the number of people making use of the facilities.

With the new transfer station we no longer need to drive to the far side of a neighboring town to make use of their transfer station. That would take up to an hour to make the round trip there, wait in line to go through the scales, off load our trash, and then go through the scales again and pay for the amount of trash we dumped. Now it’s about a 15 minute round trip including dropping off the trash and recyclables. One of the best things about it: No scales to go through!

Welcome to small town America.

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You know it’s getting weird when the Democrats are defending the Iranian regime’s terror tactics and the chief architect of those tactics and attacks .

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Another thing getting weird:Greens against solar power. (Paywalled. Sorry.)

The Bureau of Land Management this week released an environmental impact statement indicating its intent to approve the 7,100-acre Gemini solar farm east of Las Vegas. The project could power 130,000 homes and would include four-hour lithium ion batteries to store solar energy for use at night. Gemini is the type of renewable energy project that environmental groups claim will be needed to move from fossil fuels that, unlike solar and wind, can provide power on demand. Nevada also needs large-scale solar to meet its 50% renewable energy goal by 2030. It currently generates 20%.

Yet greens grouse that solar arrays would disturb habitat for Mojave Desert species such as the desert tortoise, kit fox and the Threecorner milkvetch, a rare plant. They also complain that solar projects in California’s desert have been linked to thousands of bird deaths.

Still, greens kvetch that the project will do permanent damage to the desert. “There is no justification for this project that outweighs the importance of the desert tortoise, its habitat and BLM’s obligations to use its full authority to take actions that will contribute to the recovery of this threatened species,” the Defenders of Wildlife declared.

It’s nice to see environmental groups finally realizing that renewable energy isn’t a free lunch. Even wind and solar energy can have baleful impacts on the land.

The only reliable non-CO2 generating power source I can think of that doesn’t have the environmental issues that wind and solar create is nuclear. Both Third and Fourth Generation nuclear reactors are far safer than the existing power plants. (The U.S. Navy has been using Third Generation reactors for years on their submarines and they have a long history of reliable and safe operation.) Some Greens are starting to see the promise of nuclear power as a viable alternative to either renewable or fossil-fueled power generation.

Maybe there’s hope yet.

As a side note, maybe if more of those Bureau of Land Management bureaucrats were already located out West, the outcome of the BLM’s decision would have been different. Trump was right in making the decision to move them away from Washington, DC and closer to the land they actually manage.

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The on-again/off-again New England Patriots ended their playoff hopes with a loss to the Tennessee Titans last night during the evening AFC Wild Card game. Frankly, I didn’t have a lot of hope that the Patriots were SuperBowl bound again. Between a number of first string players out for the season and a large number of rookies, the Patriots weren’t playing to their full potential. That the first half of their season was played against ‘softer’ teams didn’t help them either, particularly in light of the injuries that plagued them during that period.

Another thing working against them was Titans coach Mike Vrabel, a former Patriots player and someone well versed in the Belichick system. Vrabel did well against his former coach, exploiting the weaknesses in the both the Patriots offense and defense.

The Titans play the Baltimore Ravens next week and they’re going to need to use every trick in the book to beat them. Honestly, I think the Titans’ season will end next week with a drubbing by the Ravens. Only time will tell.

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The Second Amendment Sanctuary movement is spreading. The latest addition to this movement is Kentucky, where a number of counties have already declared they will not support either state or federal efforts to stifle their residents Second Amendment rights.

One has to wonder whether the various state legislators and Congresscritters are listening to their constituents or if they’re ignoring them because “they know better” what their constituents need.

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It seems a lot of Democrats are lamenting the long overdue death of Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Al Quds force. They have chosen to ignore the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of over 600 U.S. troops and countless thousands of others. The question none of them ask was just what the hell was an enemy of the U.S. and Iraq doing in Baghdad? Did he think he could enter what is in effect a war zone and walk around unscathed? It’s obvious he did.

He was wrong.

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I have to wholeheartedly agree with Derek Hunter: There is something fundamentally wrong with the Democrats.

It’s odd how the political left cheers America’s shortcomings and mourns its victories.

The United States killed the top terrorist on the planet Thursday, and Democrats were…upset. Perhaps “upset” is too vague, they were a combination of angry and scared.

They were angry that President Trump ordered an air strike on Qassem Soleimani, a man responsible for the deaths of more than 600 American soldiers and thousands more wounded. They tried to pretend they were glad he was dead, that he deserved to die, but their quick condemnation of the action that took him out exposed what they were really thinking. Any statement on the death of a terrorist leader containing the word “but” is not a good statement.

--snip--

While all of these people, and all of their fellow travelers in Congress and the media, lament that the killing of a man actively murdering people will only lead to more murder, what do they think leaving him alive would’ve done? Did they think he was getting bored of killing and was about to take up knitting?

It’s obvious they did...or they didn’t really care that he was killing Americans they saw as ‘deplorables’.

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It appears Iran’s mullahs have put out a “hit” on President Trump, willing to pay an $80 million bounty. Trump could reply, putting out a $1 billion bounty on the mullahs. Which one to do think will likely be paid?

Should Trump be assassinated by Iranian-paid assets, how long do you think the mullahs would remain alive? If Congressional Democrats refuse to act on the matter, how long will they remain in office, assuming they aren’t arrested for treason before the next election?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is all over the place, the lake is almost entirely ice free, and where more weird weather is on the way this week.

We Has A Sad

Sadly, I have to announce that we lost a member of the Weekend Pundit Feline Contingent yesterday.

Henry, whom we adopted 11 years ago, passed away yesterday. He was suffering from lymphoma, a diagnosis he received not quite two weeks ago. He’d been acting “off” for about a month before the got him to the vet, and we finally managed to get him rangled into the carrier. He was an expert at eluding capture and knew more ways of blocking us from actually putting him inside the carrier than any cat we’ve ever had. It took us almost two weeks of trying before we finally managed to get him into the carrier and to the vet.

While we could have taken heroic measures including surgery and chemo, it would have bought him a year, maybe, but he would have been miserable, sick, and hurting the entire time, something we couldn’t do to him. After discussing it with Deb, we made the decision that we couldn’t let him suffer. He had declined considerably in the two weeks since his diagnosis, becoming less active, losing weight, not sleeping well, and having difficulty finding a comfortable position to sleep.

We had no problem placing him in the carrier, an indication that he really wasn’t feeling well, and took him to the vet. I won’t go into any details, but he died with both Deb and I petting him, telling him he was a “good boy”, and to ‘go find Miss, Tommy, and Charlotte,’ and that we would see him again some day.

It brought to mind a song we used to sing about him (with apologies to Herman’s Hermits.)

He’s Hen-ery the Cat he is
Hen-ery the Cat he is, he is
He was adopted by the family next door
They’d adopted seven cats before
But none of them was a Hen-ery (Hen-ery)
Nor a Tom, Dick, Harry, or a Sam
He’s the only cat named Hen-ery
Hen-ery the Cat he is, he is
Hen-ery the Cat he is...

Sleep well, Henry. Til we meet again.

Is California's Governor Really That Clueless?

Just when I thought that California governor Gavin Newsom couldn’t possibly be any more clueless about what’s been happening to his state, he proves me wrong.

The proof? His tweet about what Progressives have managed to do to California over the past year.

Happy New Year! What an incredible decade. We’ve accomplished so much in CA by standing up for our values and taking on some of the biggest issues -- from healthcare to gun violence to climate change.

Let’s keep it going.

Here’s to 2020 and the decade ahead!!

Can this tweet be any more clueless? Does he really think he and the Progressives have ‘helped’ California residents? Lets take a look at just how he and his minions done so, shall we? Here are a number of responses to his self-serving tweet:

- You turned San Fran-sh!thole into a s**thole, and now you're doing it to the entire state of California.

- Definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

- The decade when California turned into everyone’s toilet on the streets. Good job Gov.

- I’m out in 3 months. There’s a mass exodus and no politician will talk about it.

- The only thing I've noticed is higher taxes and fees.

- Really Gavin?! What have you accomplished? Our state is in complete disarray. You are being recalled. Look at your city! Look at our state!! You have destroyed CA as we know it. So many people have left that we may LOSE a seat in Congress! What have you done to improve life here?

- Yay! Which values Gav? I want to live free to make my own decisions about my future and my kids to be safe but instead we are regulated and taxed up the wazoo, our votes and voices are silenced and our beautiful city streets are lined with shit and needles.

California in 2019:

- dangerous, unprecedented black-outs

- homeless pop. increased 130,000 to 151,000

- homebuilding *declined* 20%

- 200k person exodus = first-ever loss of congressional seat

All the result of your failure to confront reality & show courage for a change.

- Not to mention that CA's sanctuary state status for protecting illegals is costing Californians around $23 billion every single year.

- Straws banned, but feces and needles on the streets and in grocery stores. Progress!

- California has brought feudalism back. It's a state where some of the wealthiest people live on the coast and some of the poorest live inland whilst the middle class is high-tailing it out to states with lower taxation and less-restrictive regulations.

On top of that, a federal judge blocked AB-5, the so-called Anti-Gig Economy bill from taking effect, limiting the stay to the 70,000 independent truckers affected. The stay was issued when the California Trucking Association petitioned the court, saying the limitations imposed by AB-5 violate federal law. The court agreed and issued the stay.

It is possible the court could make the stay permanent because it does step on federal law. But whether the rest of AB-5 would be affected is unknown. It would be a win for the ‘gig’ workers who are seeing their jobs disappearing because of the ill-considered law, one of Gavin’s “wins”.

With the damage Newsom and his fellow progressives have done to California in 2019, it will be interesting and scary to see what they have in store for the once Golden State in 2020.

A Look Back

It’s December 31st as I write this, and as many others in the blogosphere have been doing, it’s time for me to take a quick look back at 2019.

First, let me state that for me 2019 was a pretty good year, personally, professionally, and politically. There were a few negative events during the year, the most personal one being the unexpected death of one of the WP feline contingent – Hilda – back in May, she having passed away during a routine appointment at the veterinarian. Even the vet was shaken by her passing as she did.

Second, while things looked dire for my home state – New Hampshire – as Democrats in the state House and Senate went on a spending, taxing, and regulatory spree, the governor wielded his veto pen and killed off their efforts to turn us into yet another Massachusetts or Vermont. They tried to repeal tax cuts that spurred on economic development, attempted to sneak in an income tax, passed a budget with an almost $1 billion deficit based upon “friggin’ magic” revenues that didn’t exist (and would give them an excuse to raise the stealth income tax and the business taxes that had been cut by a previous legislature), passed laws that would severely restrict the right to purchase and own guns in a state with constitutional carry, high per capita gun ownership, and one of the lowest violent and property crime rates in the nation. The governor vetoed every one of those ill-advised (and in some cases, unconstitutional) bills. Only one veto was overridden – repeal of New Hampshire’s narrowly defined death penalty. (We only have one inmate on death row, a criminal that murdered a police officer while the officer was attempting to arrest him. His sentence was not commuted by the repeal and he will “die by the numbers” when his appeals run out.)

Third, my work has been getting busier, though my employer has been undergoing a reorganization to move parts of the operation to other facilities to reduce costs and maintain our competitiveness. Those whose positions were being eliminated or relocated have been given generous severance packages and help to find new jobs. So far no one has failed to find new employment as there are a lot of jobs going begging for people to fill them, with most of our displaced employees having had new jobs lined up before they left our company. (New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is under 3%.) I work in the telecommunications industry and with the continuing expansion of Fiber-To-The-Home and deployment of new 5G cell systems, we’re busy meeting the demand of the various operators. I expect that I and my fellow engineers will be plenty busy for the foreseeable future.

Fourth, the Clown Car show that has been the impeachment of Donald Trump by the Democrats has brought to light so many abuses by elected officials (Democrats), law enforcement agencies (FBI and DOJ), federal bureaucrats (State Department), that a separate investigation by a US attorney has been convened and criminal indictments are expected.

Fifth, on a more personal note, the summer up this way was spectacular. BeezleBub and I spent a considerable amount of time out on Lake Winnipesaukee on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat. This was probably one of the busiest summers we’ve ever had and The Boat was used 4 or 5 days a week from the day it went into the water until the day it was pulled out almost 5 months later. We watched fireworks from The Boat on the Fourth of July as well as spending a good portion of that day anchored off Stonedam Island swimming, lounging, and eating. Hours on end were spent tubing, towing a three-person tube behind The Boat and having a great time while doing so. There were also a number of meals eaten at seasonal eateries and cookouts, and more than a few ice cream cones consumed during some of the warmer summer days.

To close out, here’s to hoping that 2020 will be as good as 2019, if not better.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences Strikes California...Unexpectedly

Despite decades of evidence showing small crimes lead to bigger crimes, the Progressive California Assembly passed laws that decriminalized a number of crimes based on the ‘logic’ that enforcing laws is somehow racist.

A few years ago, California passed one in a series of bills aimed at emptying the jails and prisons. Proposition 47 carried the disingenuous name of “the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act and its stated purpose was to keep non-violent offenders out of jail. To achieve this goal, the state decriminalized a number of lesser offenses, including retail theft. The law raised the value of the amount of merchandise someone could steal while still only being charged with a misdemeanor to nearly one thousand dollars.

As mentioned above, one of those crimes is theft of store merchandise - shoplifting – of goods worth less than $1000. The result?

Shoplifting has skyrocketed in California.

The shoplifters are smart enough to not steal above $1000 worth of merchandise on an individual basis. The side-effect is that groups of shoplifters hit a retail store at the same time, overwhelming the store staff, and making off with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise and doing so in only a couple of minutes. Some of the high-end stores have lost $40,000 during every mass grab and dash theft, something that is unsustainable.

What’s worse is that other blue states have been following in California’s footsteps and are seeing the same thing.

The fact is that there are always going to be a certain number of people who will be willing to break the law if they don’t feel the risk of significant punishment is too high. An understanding of this fundamental principle is why the “broken windows” policies enacted in New York City and other municipalities in the 90s were so effective.

--snip--

Sadly, liberal elected officials paint a picture of racism and inequity behind effective law enforcement initiatives….This leads to laws like prop 47 hoping to keep more of them out of the “school to prison pipeline.”

But when you make it easier and less risky to steal larger amounts of goods, people will steal more merchandise. Did it really take a rocket scientist to figure this out? California basically incentivized crime and potential criminals answered the call.

There are a couple of possible outcomes should California or any of the other blue states refuse to undo such foolish legislation: 1) Stores realize the losses are unsustainable and either relocate to lower crime areas or close their doors, or; 2) Do as many jewelry stores have done and limit the number of people allowed in the store at any one time, being buzzed in and out remotely, reducing or eliminating the possibility of shoplifting. It also adds cost and reduces profits.

Of the two, the first is more likely than the second. Thriving retail areas will become ghost towns of boarded up store fronts. It will be a return to the big city malaise of the 70’s and everything that goes with it, and every bit of it will have been the result of Progressive laws and government policies.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a quiet week for me, taking some vacation time to close out my year. Yes, there was quite a bit of traveling I had to do prior to and on Christmas Day, but I didn’t mind it as it was for family. I still have a few more vacation days I’ll be using to close out the year.

We do have a two-day storm window to deal with starting Monday, with some sleet, snow, and freezing rain on the first day and 8 to 14 inches of snow expected on Tuesday. I expect we’ll just hunker down and watch the storm from The Gulch. It’s not like there’s anything we need to do or anywhere we need to go on either day.

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Impeachment isn’t turning out to be the game-winner the Democrats were expecting it to be. Instead, the Congressional dog-and-pony show has been working against them as more of the American public finds it to have been a nothingburger and they’re holding the Democrats responsible for the waste of time and taxpayer money because the DNC is pissed off that their Golden Girl isn’t in the White House as anything other than a visitor.

It will be interesting to see what the election results show come next November. It would not surprise me if the Democrats see their House majority disappear and see other Democrats being voted out of state houses across the nation.

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I can get behind this idea.

If Trump wants to lock in the votes from some of the cold weather states all he needs to do is do for gas cans what he’s doing for dishwashers.

If Donald Trump wants to ensure he recaptures the 2020 electoral votes in the Great Lakes states he won in 2016 - and possibly add Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Maine - there is one simple thing he could do that would make him a hero to every snow-blowing American - issue an executive order to restore functioning gas cans.

To be clear, this would also make him a hero to tens of millions of other Americans throughout the country who use lawn mowers, power tools, etc around their homes or in their jobs. In 2009 the EPA banned the sale of gas cans that functionally pour gas. To be specific, the scientifically illiterate bureaucrats at the EPA outlawed gas cans with vents, mandating that all new gas cans must have crazy contraptions that require three hands to operate. Unlike the old gas cans, the new ones spill gas all over the user and onto the ground. The result of the EPA’s incompetence is a new gas can that is much worse for the environment than the one it replaced.

I can testify just how bad gas cans are these days. I dislike them intensely as they have always been a pain-in-the-ass to use and tend to spill gasoline whenever they are used.

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Gee, who would have thought it would come to this?

How an unlimited supply of cash is destroying higher education.

I’m thinking it has already destroyed a number of colleges and severely damaged many other colleges and universities. Institutions of higher learning became centers of Progressive indoctrination, mistaking socialist polemics for education and feelz for critical thought. They have done a great job of creating perpetually offended snowflakes incapable of surviving in the real world, unqualified for jobs in anything other than the service industry (baristas, pizza delivery drivers, convenience store clerks, etc.) or grievance politics.

While the intentions behind student loans may have good, we all know where that road leads and we are seeing the destruction it has sowed.

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Is a supernova in our future?

Betelgeuse, a star in the Orion constellation, is a red giant and a variable star, meaning its output shifts up and down over a period of time. It is one of the brightest stars in the sky and recently it has been dimming...a lot. Some think this signals that Betelgeuse is in the final stages of its life and will go supernova, perhaps in our lifetimes. If it does, it could end up being the second brightest object in our skies, with only our sun being brighter. It would also be visible even during daylight hours.

The last supernova observed was in seen 1987 and it was nowhere near as bright as Betelgeuse will be when it finally goes.

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A decade of political correctness.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re waiting on a winter storm, the Patriots are playing against Miami in the last regular game of the season, and I don’t care if Monday is coming tomorrow because I’m on vacation.

It's Still The Economy, Stupid!

Whether anyone realizes it or not, just about every presidential election over the past 100 years or so has been about the economy. When the economy is bad, the election is about turning the economy around. When the economy is fair, it’s about improving it. When the economy is good, it’s about maintaining the economy. As James Carville said during Bill Clinton’s run for President in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Any halfway competent presidential candidate knows a good economy is everything. So I have ask why are some of the present Democrat candidates promising to damage the economy and reverse the gains we’ve seen over the past 3 years? Do they really think that the people want them to return us to the days of $140/barrel oil and $4+/gallon gasoline by banning fracking and shutting down existing fracking operations? Do they honestly believe the people want us to return to unemployment rates in the double digits? Do they honestly believe the people want us to return to a stock market as it was back in 2016? Do they honestly believe that empty storefronts and shuttered factories are something the people miss? It’s apparent that Bernie, Liz, and Pete certainly believe so.

Just how is it that they can be so disconnected from reality? If you remember that they’ve imbibed in the Marxist Economics Kool Aid, it becomes obvious. A strong economy does not help them take control of our lives, so the first thing they have to do is undo all of the gains and return us to the days of economic malaise.

It’s the only way Bernie can promise “Free Shit” like free college educations, free housing, free ‘this’ and free ‘that’ and to pay for it by impoverishing the billionaires he so despises (and envies) and the corporations he blames for everything bad in the world. Liz and Pete aren’t all that far behind him.

So keep up the good work, Democrats! Let’s see how your “We’re Going To Wreck The Economy For Your Own Good” campaign strategy works for you come November.

Watermelon Environmentalists Want To Tell Us Where We Are Going To Live

Now that we’ve made it past the Christmas holiday, we can see the watermelon environmentalists have recovered from their holiday digestive torpor. Their newest campaign?

Doing away with single family homes, even in rural areas, and forcing people to live in high density housing, i.e. apartment blocks.

In many Democrat areas, they are attempting to force multi-family housing in areas that are typically single family in suburban and rural areas, because single family housing is raaaaacist and bad for ‘climate change’.

I do not understand how single family residences are ‘raaaaacist’. Many people of various races own single family residences. Many people of various races own units in condo buildings. Many people of various races rent single family residences. Many people of various races rent units in duplexes, triplexes, and apartment buildings.

If there issues with racism in housing, then perhaps the people making the accusation should look to the very people who created that situation – city officials and the rent seekers – as well as the very same watermelon environmentalists making those accusations. Between restrictive housing regulations and environmental restraints, building affordable housing isn’t possible. Thinking it will be any different in thinly settled suburban and rural areas is laughable. In a lot of cases there is no infrastructure to support high density housing, meaning municipal water and sewer systems. But the watermelons don’t care about that. I am also going to assume they don’t care about taking away people’s property without compensating them for it. Certainly the Soviets didn’t care, seizing property “in the name of the State”. They even went so far as to execute landowners when they protested. They murdered farmers and seized or burned crops in Ukraine – the so-called “Holomodor” - when the farmers refused to collectivize. Millions died of famine. And all of it was “in the name of the State”.

The watermelons aren’t much different, at least from what I’ve heard more than a few of them write about or say. More than a few have stated that two-thirds of the human population should be eliminated in order to “save” the planet. (Sound familiar?)

Am I being over the top here? Maybe. But maybe not.

In my home state there’s been a move to allow the state to override local zoning or housing regulations and apply a one-size-fits-all solution in order to ‘encourage’ more affordable housing to be built. The problem is that such encouragement usually means taxes will go up to pay for it all, but very little benefit will be gained from all those new taxes and the towns will have little or no control over any of the money collected or where such housing will be built.

...it could have dire consequences for a state that currently stands out from others economically, simply because we have avoided these types of mandates in favor of organic development trends.

We reported on the Governor’s October 30 announcement regarding his bi-partisan plan to mitigate the “housing shortage” in NH. It is a bold plan to defy the voting rights of the townspeople while stealing their money for redistribution to reward developers.

The left-wing Carsey School of Public Policy claims that only 2% of the housing stock in New Hampshire is available for sale or rent. The problem? The government has NO constitutional right to step in and interfere with the ebb and flow of housing availability, specifically with regard to what types should be built and where, and for whom. Nor does it have the right to redistribute our tax dollars to developers as incentives to flood the state with low-income/high-density housing where it is NOT wanted.

Considering a large majority of the towns here in New Hampshire have populations under 5,000, with most of those with populations of 1,000 or less, such low-income/high-density housing may not be a viable because of the aforementioned lack of supporting infrastructure. Not that it would stop the developers from building it anyways, using state funds, of course.

LED Headlights - Hate Them Or Hate Them

Over the past few days I’ve found it needful to do a considerable amount of driving at night. There have been times when I’ve found it annoying, specifically when I’ve been behind someone feeling the need to drive 10 to 25 MPH below the posted limit. It seemed that everyone with a paucity of night vision just had to be out on the very evenings I needed to run errands or finish the last of my Christmas shopping. I found it difficult to believe that so many people had some form of night blindness. Or at least I did until I was driving back from visiting family in the southwestern part of the state this evening.

On the 90-minute drive home the one thing I noticed was how many drivers had a tendency to slow down when traffic was approaching from the other direction. But the one thing I observed during the first half of the trip was that it didn’t happen every time there was oncoming traffic. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the differences. It was not too long after that I finally figured out why.

LED headlights.

You know the ones I’m talking about: dazzling blue-white points of light that are both bright and distracting. It’s worse when the high-beams are on. The after-image can last just long enough to make it difficult to see.

Drivers would slow down when approaching vehicles had LED headlights, but not when they had halogen headlights.

I’ve always disliked the LED headlights and the HID (High Intensity Discharge) headlights that preceded them. Too bright. Dazzling. Distracting as hell as the eye tends to be drawn to them even when one tries to keep from gazing that direction. It’s apparent The Powers That Be believe the blue-white light illuminates better, but they have chosen to ignore the downside – dazzling oncoming drivers.

The problem can be solved a number of different ways, but two are likely to be most effective: Change the color of the LEDs to more closely match that of halogen headlights or make everyone wear the yellow night-driving glasses.

Of the two, the first is the most appealing to me. While the second will work (I have a pair of those glasses because I’ve found they do help knock down the glare from LED headlights), they are not the best answer. If an illumination system for vehicles requires the use of protective eye-wear, then the illumination system design is defective. Maybe it’s time for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Society of Automotive Engineers to step up and realize that the LED headlights as they are employed now are a bad idea and need to be re-engineered to remove the deficiencies affecting so many.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The pre-Christmas insanity is making itself known, with people rushing around trying to find almost last-minute gifts or the just about unattainable toy that people are almost willing to kill for.

I can safely say all of my Christmas shopping is done, completed yesterday with the purchase of the last gift on my list. I traveled with BeezleBub to look for and decide on which gift to purchase, and we had a good time. We even had a little bit of time to swing by the former Weekend Pundit Newfound Lake property to see what kind of house had been built on it by the folks who purchased the land from me 14 years ago. I can honestly say I was...umm...underwhelmed. Basically it’s a plain white box with dark blue doors, no picture windows that allowed any view of the surrounding mountains or of Newfound Lake , and flat ‘landscaping’, if you can call it that.

Such a waste of a great property, even if I say so myself...and I just did.

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California’s new law that effectively bans the gig economy hasn’t worked the way Gavin Newsom and the state legislators promised it would.

Many of those working in the gig economy are now jobless.

Either they didn’t think this through, or the outcome of their legislation is exactly what they wanted because it gives them even more power over great unwashed middle class. Of course the smart middle class folks have been abandoning California in increasing numbers and taking their businesses (an taxes) with them.

Like that’s helping California’s increasingly fragile economy.

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John Miltimore has a roundup of the 10 worst state laws, proposed or passed, for this year. Some I’d heard of (California’s anti-Gig Economy law mentioned above being one of them). Others were surprising and stupid.

One such ‘stupid’ law passed in two states – California and Oregon:

3. & 2. Oregon and California's Statewide Rent Control Laws (Passed)

Economists disagree on a lot of things, but they pretty much all agree on this: Rent control is really harmful. “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing,” observed Swedish economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck. Alas, new laws in Oregon and California, the first of their kind, show how little politicians understand about economics. The caps on rent are sure to further reduce housing supply and quality, and increase housing prices in the long run. California's housing problems are well documented. Unfortunately, they’re about to get a lot worse. (As FEE has observed, the solution to high housing costs is more housing, not price controls.)

It’s all about control, not housing. It’s always about control. They really don’t care about affordable housing despite what they might say. As they used to say in Rome, “Dominus iudicat populos iudica illos per actus, non suis verbis.”

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I have to agree with Jeff Minick on this one: What’s so wrong with using plain ol’ English?

It seems these days using gobbledygook employing English words to make it seem that the speaker/writer is more intelligent than they really are is becoming more common. But rather than conveying more precise information, it tends to make things less precise and muddies the meaning of what someone is trying to say. Here’s an example:

A specter haunts our culture--it is that people will eventually be unable to say, 'They fell in love and married,' let alone understand the language of Romeo and Juliet, but will as a matter of course say 'Their libidinal impulses being reciprocal, they activated their individual erotic drives and integrated them within the same frame of reference.'

Twenty words were used to try to convey the same information as provided by six words in Plain ‘Ol English. But the twenty words were less precise and tended to muddy the meaning of what was being communicated. Other than making it appear that whoever said/wrote those words are more intelligent

Keep this in mind: It’s the same method used by politicians to make it seem they are promising one thing when they really mean something else, particularly when it comes to spending other people’s money.

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Want more crime? Then this is how you get more crime.

Suburban retailers have blamed the increase on a decision by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to take a softer approach to shoplifting cases. Foxx has instructed her attorneys to reject felony-level retail theft charges unless a person is accused of stealing more than $1,000 in merchandise at a single event.

What has been the result of Foxx’s decision? The same as seen in some California cities that have done the same thing: a drastic increase in shoplifting from area stores. When shoplifters know they won’t be charged with a felony for shoplifting less that $1000 worth of merchandise, they will steal just under that amount. What will happen going down the road? Even more crimes will be committed, most of them more serious than shoplifting.

What Foxx is doing is ensuring the crime rate in Chicago will skyrocket as more than a few studies have shown that if the ‘small’ crimes are ignored, the number of big crimes will increase. Chicago already has a major crime problem that State’s Attorney Foxx is making much worse, something it can ill afford.

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Any time I think the New York Times can’t sink any lower, they prove me wrong.

Their latest dive into depravity? Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, a hard Leftist, explains that impeachment offsets the tyranny of the Electoral College, giving losers their rightful victory.

So is it going to become a nightmare version of “Heads, we win. Tails, you lose,”? That seems to be what Ms. Goldberg is advocating. She doesn’t seem to care that the very thing she’s advocating is what will lead to tyranny. I guess that’s okay with her as long as she is on the side of the tyrants.

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Seeing as we are seeing the last full week of 2019, I have taken vacation time until after the first of the year. I won’t be lounging around, wasting time surfing the web or excoriating trolls whose entire purpose is to perform drive-by accusations with no links or other proof who then demand that everyone else prove their points for them.

I will be spending time with family, visiting long-time friends I haven’t seen in years (we’ve kept in touch, but haven’t been able to get together), catching up with chores here at The Gulch, and putting in some time writing something other blog posts.

The only company I have at the moment is the feline contingent here at The Gulch as the WP Mom is down at one of my sisters’ place until at least Christmas (if not until New Year’s).

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the lake is freezing over, the scent of smoke from woodstoves is wafting on the air, and where Christmas decorations abound.

This Isn't Persistence. It's Obsession.

The House vote on impeachment is only hours away and House Democrats have assured they have the votes to impeach, but it is apparent that they have a Plan B should their first vote fail or the Senate refuses to convict, that being to start the process all over again…and again…and again until they get their way. Some may call that persistence.

In reality it is an unhealthy obsession that has blinded them to the reality that Trump has done nothing impeachment-worthy and that the American people do not support their efforts. It is all about Orange Man Bad and that he is in office rather than their chosen one - Felonia Milhouse von Pantsuit.

Think once impeachment passes and Trump is acquitted by the U.S. Senate that impeachment will be a thing of the past?

Don't count on it. In fact, House Democrats are already preparing to impeach Trump a second time. According to Law & Crime, they're currently suing to get access to more grand jury materials from the Robert Mueller investigation in the hopes of building a case for obstruction of justice. "In a 66-page filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, attorneys for congressional investigators led by House General Counsel Douglas N. Letter vowed that Democrats on the Judiciary Committee would continue their impeachment inquiry into whether Trump committed obstruction of justice–regardless of the outcome of the House’s current 'narrow impeachment' process premised on the president withholding military aid to the Ukraine in an apparent scheme to obtain an investigation into Joe Biden‘s son," Law and Crime reported.

So they’re going to keep at it until they get the results they want? Yeah, that’s real healthy. However, all they are doing is making certain that many of their number may start seeing their “Career Dissipation” light blinking in the corner of their eyes as I have a feeling a lot of them will be fired by their constituents come next November. How can they vote for impeachment if they’re no longer in office? The first two that should be fired are Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff as they have shown they are so delusional that they cannot see the hypocrisy in any of the statements they’ve made about impeachment. So they will keep at it until they get the results they want.

Hmm. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results this time?

This is going to end badly…for them.