Thoughts On A Sunday

The heat wave we experienced for two weeks is now long in the rear view mirror. It’s been pleasant since the heat and humidity departed at the beginning of last week. The cooler weather hasn’t dimmed the enthusiasm of the summerfolk as they’re just as busy at the beaches, out on the lake, in the restaurants, and at the ice cream and farm stands.

The summer has been passing so quickly as it seems Memorial Day was only a couple of weeks ago and the Fourth of July was just last wee. It’s hard to believe that Labor Day weekend is only three weeks away. The summerfolk are certainly cognizant that summer will be coming to an end all too soon and are making the best of the time we have left.

It always seems that way. This year it’s even more so considering neither BeezleBub or I haven’t spent much time out on the lake in the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout. Normally we’d be out two or three times a week, but with the high gas prices, particularly at the marinas (about $1 or more than at the local gas stations), a day out on the lake can run through $100 in gas. I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford more than a few days like that, particularly in light of very high home heating oil prices of ~$6/gallon expected over the winter. For me that means around $1200 for each delivery.

Like a lot of folks up this way, I am on a budget plan, paying money every month throughout the year as a means of reducing ‘fill up’ shock when heating oil is delivered. This year that monthly payment is $350 versus last year when it was $168 and the year before when it was $110 a month. Thanks, SloJo!

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Now it seems a Marxist professor, Nina Turner, has decided there is no debate about forgiving student loans and leaving the American taxpayers to pay for them all.

That’s simply unhinged.

Student debt cancellation means spending trillions of the American people’s tax money to pay off the bills of a relatively affluent slice of society. One study even found it would benefit the top 20% six times more than the bottom 20%. It’s a regressive taxpayer bailout.

So, it’s little wonder that this proposal is unpopular with voters. Full student debt cancellation—Turner’s position—is supported by just 37% of the public, NPR polling finds.

Like the typical Marxist, she believes no one should be able to profit from knowledge. She comes right out and says that in her tweet. So if I develop a technology that could create abundant and cheap green energy, I should not be allowed to profit from all my work and effort? Yeah, and you know what I would do then? I wouldn’t let anyone know I have it, would be clandestine about it, selling it on the black market. And if the thieving Marxists like Turner wanted to take it away from me I would make sure they got none of it and that all the records, prototypes, and designs would dissolve in nuclear fire...taking them with it.

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Here’s yet another example of just how well strict gun control has been working.

54 people in Chicago shot over the weekend.

It doesn’t help that the Chicago PD is further handicapped by strict limits on who they can pursue and under what conditions.

And people wonder why Chicago’s crime and homicide rates are skyrocketing?

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I’ve mentioned all kinds of double standards over the years. Some are small and trivial. Others are huge and entirely in our faces. This one is one of the latter.

Trump is hounded by the Democrats and his home raided by the FBI for documents ‘someone’ said are classified.

Obama takes over 30 million documents from the White House when he left office and never got audited or raided. No one knows how many of those documents are classified. Obama has never answered that question.

What’s the difference between Trump and Obama?

Trump is a Republican. Obama is a Democrat.

Double standard much?

And then there’s the questions about all of Hillary’s classified e-mails on her unsecured e-mail server...which were never answered and for which Hillary was never punished.

==++==

It looks like California’s carbon offset program is in trouble.

California has been using its forests carbon dioxide uptake as part of their carbon offset. However, their forests have a problem: they’ve been burning down.

Researchers have found that California’s forest carbon buffer pool, designed to ensure the durability of the state’s multi-billion-dollar carbon offset program, is severely undercapitalized. The results show that, within the offset program’s first 10 years, estimated carbon losses from wildfires have depleted at least 95% of the contributions set aside to protect against all fire risks over 100 years. This means that the buffer pool is unable to guarantee that credited forest carbon remains out of the atmosphere for at least 100 years. The results, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, illustrate that the program, one of the world’s largest, is likely not meeting its set requirements.

Carbon offset programs have become popular action plans to combat the climate crisis. California’s carbon offset program was established to utilize the ability of trees to absorb and store carbon and applies to around 75% of statewide emissions allowances.

The program allows forest owners to earn ‘carbon credits’ for preserving trees. Polluters buy credits so that they can emit more CO2 than they’d otherwise be allowed to under state law. Each credit represents one ton of CO2. This exchange is supposed to balance out emissions to prevent an overall increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.

They don’t have enough trees in order to take up all that CO2 the carbon credits were sold to take up, and with one set of wildfires after another, the CO2 taken up by those trees have been returned to the atmosphere. Considering California’s recent records regarding wildfires, particularly since the state prevented reasonable forest management practices such as prescribed burns and brush cutting to remove fuel loading over the past couple of decades. A perfect formula for disaster.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather is gorgeous, the summerfolk are enjoying themselves, and where I hear the call of the ice cream stand...

This Hit A Nerve - Men And Women

I have to say that when I saw this post at Instapundit and read the linked article from Psychology Today, my first thought was “Oh, boy. This is gonna generate a sh*t storm...”

The post and article delve into the ‘Rise of Lonely, Single Men’ and the problems that go with it. There are almost 800 comments to the Instapundit post as I write this, some from men who fit the ‘lonely, single’ man profile, others from men and women who offer their observations (and criticisms) of the linked Psychology Today article, and yet others from older men who are, for the most part, past the age where the problems outlined directly affect them but can offer insight into the problems, and more importantly the causes.

I found the PT article to be incomplete and, quite frankly, trite. It seemed more like like a collection of platitudes and more than a few direct “It’s all men’s fault they’re alone and lonely and they need to step up” claims. The article ignores the other side, that being that too many single women have unrealistic expectations that very few, if any men could possible meet.

This is a major disconnect on both sides.

From the PT article:

Younger and middle-aged men are the loneliest they’ve ever been in generations, and it’s probably going to get worse.

This is not my typical rosy view of relationships but a reality nonetheless. Over the last 30 years, men have become a larger portion of that growing group of long-term single people. And while you don’t actually need to be in a relationship to be happy, men typically are happier and healthier when partnered.

Here are three broad trends in the relationship landscape that suggest heterosexual men are in for a rough road ahead:

● Dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise.

● Men represent approximately 62% of dating app users, lowering their chances for matches.

● Men need to address skills deficits to meet healthier relationship expectations.

I have questions about the first and third bullet points, that being “Who has set the rising relationship standards and expectations men are expected to meet?” This brings on a follow-on question: What relationship standards and expectations are women expected to meet? It isn’t a one-sided problem, but the article implies that it is. That does not help solve the problem.

A number of comments to the Instapundit post delve into the issue that the PT article glossed over.

Writes one commenter:

“They prefer men who are emotionally available, good communicators, and share similar values.”

No they don’t. Such men do not command respect from women and such marriages tend to end in divorce.

What the fool writer is saying is that women want to have all the benefits of marriage without fulfilling the role of a wife.

Many women today are incapable of being a good wife.

That doesn’t mean the husband and wife won’t split household chores 50-50, but I have seen more than a few women state on various YouTube, Rumble, or TikTok videos that they won’t do household chores, won’t cook, won’t do laundry. They expect their husbands to do them or to hire staff to deal with it. What is the percentage of women who actually have that attitude? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me it to find that a majority of the women feeling this way live in urban areas.

Another commenter brought up something else the PT article ignores, specifically Dr. Helen Smith’s book Men On Strike, a tome written 9 years ago that delves into the reasons why men weren’t getting involved with dating, marriage, and fatherhood. What’s telling is that the issues Dr. Smith brought up back then haven’t changed. To think the issues brought up by Helen Smith aren’t still a factor today would be naive.

Another commenter broke down the statistics of online dating, based upon a study on dating apps like Tinder:

For the dating apps like Tinder, there was a study on likes that went the following (assuming a 70-30 male-female ratio [as] noted [elsewhere]...):

Picture 1000 users:

The top 10% of men get 50% of the women (70 men choose from 150 of the women)
The top 20% of men get 80% of the women (140 men choose from 240 women)
The top 50% of men get 95% of women (350 men choose from 285 women -- and the men in the 20%-50% "normie" range end up with the dregs already!)
Meaning the "below average" men (bottom 50%) get the BOTTOM FIVE PERCENT of women -- 350 men fight over a mere fifteen women, and they are the most likely the worst of the bunch.

Any wonder why dating apps are a complete joke? If likes were like water, men would die of thirst while women would die drowning in a flood.

This does not bode well for those men who want to date, want to get married. Then again, dating apps like Tinder, Match.com, and others aren’t really dating apps, but more like ‘hook up’ apps. The profiles are short on information and matches are based more on looks than the personalities of the people using the apps. This also ties in with the second bullet point in the PT article, that being that 62% of the users of dating apps are men. This means their odds are even worse.

This isn’t a “Men are all…” or “Women are all…” issue. Society has changed over the past 50 years, with rapid changes over the past 20 years regarding relationships, specifically dating and marriage. One other thing that changed during that time has been the Internet, creation of dating apps, and the rise of radical feminism. There are more single-parent families. Divorces have skyrocketed, with 70 to 80% of divorces filed by women. (Some of this seems to be driven by the “grass is always greener” principle, something too many find out is not the case after it’s too late.) Broken families are the norm, not the exception. Fathers are not part of many children’s lives, not because they don’t want to be, but because they are prevented from doing so by family courts. It’s only getting worse...and some people are trying hard to make sure that continues.

Thus endith my incomplete, somewhat disjointed, semi-rant...for now.

A Much Needed Reminder

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’re towards the end of two weeks of hazy, hot, and humid weather with a few more days of this weather forecast. So far I haven’t had to use the A/C in the trusty RAM 1500 because I’ve been on the move. As long as I have open windows and decent breeze, either natural or because I’m tooling down the road, so-called 4x50 A/C (4 windows open at 50mph) works. Katy mentioned to me that she’s been keeping the A/C on at her place, though I neglected to ask her if she was using her convertible rather than the A/C in her day-to-day car.

This weather has certainly made the lake a popular place to be. The two public beaches near The Gulch have certainly been full. The sandbars around the lake with which I am familiar have also been popular and quite busy. The same can be said for all of the ice cream stands in the area. (How do I know this? It might be because I stopped at more than a few...for quality assurance reasons. I had to check the quality of their black raspberry ice cream...)

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They say that karma is a b*tch. They’re right, as NPR has found out the hard way by way of Governor Ron DeSantis’ press secretary.

==++==

Is climate change responsible for the lightning strike outside the White House?

Yes. Yes it is...and the Biden Administration should take it as a hint that perhaps they’re getting a warning from “a higher power”.

Then again, they haven’t been capable of taking hints about anything. “It seems to this reporter” that the only thing the Biden Administration is capable of taking is bribes.

==++==

Are the lights going out across Europe?

Yup.

Germany has already started shutting off city lights and Spain will be following suit.

What’s ironic is that former President Trump warned them this would happen if they became dependent upon Russia for energy.

==++==

We’ve seen what’s happened in Sri Lanka. We’re watching what’s going on in the Netherlands. We’re also hearing news that Canada is going to follow their lead.

What am I talking about?

The willful destruction of agriculture by those countries’ governments. What’s worse is it is being done at the behest of people who do not have people’s best interests at heart, i.e. the Greens, aka watermelon environmentalists, who want agriculture to fail as a means of greatly reducing the human population through famine. (Not that they would ever admit it out loud...well most wouldn’t admit it out loud.)

Who will be next? Not that it would take much to figure that out: the U.S.

There have already been some ideas floated by the government about taking measures similar to those already taken by Sri Lanka (whose agriculture system has totally collapsed), the Netherlands which has already reduced nitrogen-based fertilizers by two-thirds and has decreed a reduction of the remaining by another two-thirds which has had triggered the ire of Dutch farmers and widespread protests, and Canada which has said they will follow the Dutch government’s lead.

This means there’s a question that needs asking: How will American farmers grow enough corn for the ethanol blended with gasoline, and particularly if WRBA is stupid enough to force an increase in the blend from 10% to 15% ethanol?

==++==

As an aside, early this afternoon I attended a pig roast hosted by one of the members of our town’s police department. Lots of pulled pork and some brisket, both of which were delicious. I got to rub elbows with a wide range of my fellow townsfolk. It was in the mid 90’s and very humid, but there was a nice breeze which helped provide some relief from the heat. It helped that there was also sufficient shade so heat exhaustion was not much of a concern.

All in all, I had a great time and it looked like everyone else did too.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it’s hot, hazy, and humid, thunderstorms are popping up here and there, and where tomorrow is going to be just as hot, hazy, and humid.

It Ain't The Carbon Dioxide

I have been hearing more than a few of the AGW faithful blaming the heat waves we’ve been experiencing on CO2, totally ignoring anything else that might have contributed to the heat waves...like water. Or in this case, over 146 million metric tons of extra water injected into the atmosphere.

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, it sent a tsunami racing around the world and set off a sonic boom that circled the globe twice. The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The sheer amount of water vapor could be enough to temporarily affect Earth’s global average temperature.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Luis Millán, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. He led a new study examining the amount of water vapor that the Tonga volcano injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere between about 8 and 33 miles (12 and 53 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.

In the study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Millán and his colleagues estimate that the Tonga eruption sent around 146 teragrams (1 teragram equals a trillion grams [146 million metric tons]) of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – equal to 10% of the water already present in that atmospheric layer. That’s nearly four times the amount of water vapor that scientists estimate the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines lofted into the stratosphere.

That is a lot of water, or in this case, water vapor injected into Earth’s stratosphere. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but it also has an amplifying effect in regard to other greenhouse gases. With the amount of water added to the stratosphere due to the Tonga eruption it shouldn’t be surprising there may be warmer than normal temperatures. Eventually that extra water vapor will be gone and the amplification effect won’t be there.

From The Archives - Ignore Human Nature At Your Own Peril

This post came from October 2012. Be aware it does make references to the 2012 Presidential elections, but some of the subjects referenced are still germane today. I did make a few small changes with the ‘old’ out of date information struck out and new info right next to it.
The subject matter of this old post is always timely, but something that needs to be stated again and again. People need to be reminded of things they may have forgotten, or perhaps never knew.

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I have to say that I have been a student of human nature since I was twelve. Not that I knew I was studying human nature at that tender age, but looking back from 44 54 years later I see that even then I wondered what made people tick, what made them do what they do. Not that I was delving into individual behavior so much as human behavior in general.

Over the years I've realized that much of human nature cuts across all cultural and racial lines. There are cultural differences, but for the most part the variations are minor compared to baseline human nature.

I'm not going to get deeply into this subject as it could easily exceed 100,000 words. Besides, I know you do not have either the patience or the time to read something that long. I won't be dealing with psychology as I have no expertise in that area.

Before I continue let me state that I am in no way professionally trained. All of my 'expertise' is derived from over 4 5 decades of observation, personal experience, and deductions derived from that. Please keep that in mind as you read my non-scholarly scribblings.

First and foremost, people will act in their self-interest or the interests of their family and friends above all else. Altruism, as nice as it sounds, is something that we humans will express now and then, and then only under certain conditions or circumstances. No one can be altruistic 24/7. It isn't possible as it makes them either doormats or slaves to others wants and needs to the detriment of themselves or their families. Yet this little bit of human nature is something oft ignored. Over centuries there have been many attempts to create altruistic societies, some by mutual agreement and others by force of arms and 're-education'. Every single attempt has failed.

One of the better documented attempts at all-altruism-all-the-time took place in the American Colonies, specifically in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the early 1620's. They predated Marx's axiom “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need” by 350 years. All colonists would supply the common larder and all colonists would draw from that larder as needed. The problem this created was that more people were willing to draw from the larder than to fill it. It lead to famine and the colony almost died out. Only help from the local Indian tribe prevented them from starving to death. Once they abandoned that philosophy and went back to doing things on an individual basis did the colony flourish.

Over the centuries other countries and cultures have tried the same thing and all their 'experiments' have ended the same way – utter failure, economic collapse, and many times, armed revolution. We've seen it again and again just in the 20^th century: the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Cuba (falling apart), and Venezuela (also falling apart). The People's Republic of China, while still a Marxist state, has abandoned most of the Marxist economic policies because they knew they didn't work and saw the results of not making a change. And while their economy is now more capitalist and the economic riches they have brought has made China an economic powerhouse, they still cling to some of the Marxist economic oversight/planning and much of the political baggage that goes with it. In the end it is still likely to come apart as world economics change around them.

And now we get to the crux of the matter – politics. It is here where politicians of all stripes get it wrong in regards to human nature. (Well, not all politicians. Just most of them.) And because of this lack of understanding, much of what they do at the local, state, and federal level falls prey to the Law of Unintended Consequences. This in turn tends to create more problems that what they thought they were fixing (if indeed anything really needed to be fixed in the first place).

During the 20^th century a number of attempts have been made to improve the conditions within our society. Some have worked. Many have not. Those that succeeded tended to work with human nature. Those that failed chose to ignore it, or worse, those supporting them believed that human nature could be changed.

Many of the welfare programs that existed prior to 1965 worked, for the most part. Both control and funding were provided locally and the welfare officials knew their clients. Except for those truly incapable of supporting themselves, most folks weren't on welfare long. In fact, the welfare rolls had been decreasing starting just before the Korean War. The welfare system as it was was working. True, there were more than a few that weren't very good, but they were the exception, not the rule. Then came along Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society, a massive takeover of welfare by the federal government. It's theme was “The War on Poverty.” It looked good on paper, but it overlooked human nature in regards to how the programs were regulated and structured. While the new welfare system was supposed to help those in need, it ended up trapping many of them in poverty, providing too much in the way of help and making remaining one welfare preferable to working. The laws and regulations also had the effect of breaking up many families as too often the only way a family with children could receive assistance was if the father was absent. Other 'incentives' such as increasing benefits with each additional child perversely created more single parent homes with each child fathered by a different man. This was not the original intent of the Great Society (at least I'd like to think it wasn't), but that's what we ended up with. The people 'stuck' in the welfare system decided it was in their best interest to stay within the system rather than taking jobs that provided far less than their welfare benefits.

And so it is with many other 'gifts' bestowed upon the populace by the government. Things that were supposed to help end up making the problem worse as more people come under the sway of things that appeal to their self-interest, not realizing that by taking advantage of these gifts they are giving up some things even more important, namely their independence and self-respect. How often has it happened that the very folks who are 'helped' come to resent those who have provided the help in the first place? How often do they come to feel perpetually entitled to that help? Call those but two of the many unintended consequences of political action taken to fix a problem that didn't need to be fixed.

Then there are policies, laws, regulations, and taxes that move business owners to do just the opposite of what was intended by those same policies, laws, regulations, and taxes. As we have heard over the past four years all of the government's efforts (or should we say the President's efforts) have had just the opposite effect of what was intended. Call this another example of what happens when you don't understand human nature.

When success is punished by heavier taxation, when laws are passed that make it more attractive to do business elsewhere, when regulations make it difficult if not impossible to do business, one of two things will happen – businesses will move elsewhere or businesses that might have thrived will close. Yet those who figured these laws, regulations, and taxes that burden businesses would be gladly shouldered by them are surprised when they find it isn't so. But anyone who understands human nature knows they won't. We've certainly seen that in a number of places over the past few years. All we need to do to see examples of businesses giving up is to look to California, the EU, Argentina, Venezuela, and a host of other countries and states. If government goes against human nature when dealing with business, everyone loses as businesses flee or pull the plug and close their doors. It's happened again and again, yet the Powers-That-Be fail to learn the lesson: punish people enough for being successful and they'll stop being successful or move someplace else and be successful there.

Ayn Rand outlined that issue in Atlas Shrugged, where government took all kinds of actions “for the good of the people”, yet every action they took made things worse. All those efforts by the government had exactly the opposite effect, and businesses and business owners “went Galt”, meaning they refused to support the government and went on strike, denying the government the fruits of their labors. The business owners acted in their own self-interest – as is human nature – and told the government to go screw itself. The result – the economy, and with it the government, headed for collapse. (Rand certainly seemed to understand human nature as evidenced by Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.)

OK, enough said. I haven't covered anything I haven't covered before. But with the upcoming elections I have to remind everyone that the one thing we have to keep in mind is that one party has a somewhat better understanding of human nature than the other, and it's not the party that presently holds the US Senate or the White House. If nothing else they have ignored human nature and taken a course of action that has deepened the recession, driven prices up across the board (except for housing prices, which have collapsed), and made it very unattractive to do business here.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a nice weekend, with warm temps and low humidity. I wish I could say I was busy all weekend, but I was under the weather and didn’t make it out except for my usual early Sunday morning run to Walmart.

I had planned to spend Saturday morning down at our town docks to help with our annual Island Clean Up Day, an event that has our town’s island residents hauling junk and other non-trash items to the docks where our DPW workers and volunteers help unload their boats and haul the junk to the waiting dumpsters and trucks. This is something I help with every year and it’s the first time I’ve missed doing so. But I wasn’t up for it.

Instead, I dealt with more domestic chores: vacuuming, laundry, dishes, and so on.

Not exactly what I had planned for this weekend.

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China is rattling its sabers again, threatening to intercept and shoot down Nancy Pelosi’s plane of she tries to visit Taiwan. Considering the state if its economy, trying to foment a war with the US seems like the height of stupidity. One has to wonder if this ‘provocative’ action is meant as a distraction to take the people’s attention away from the crumbling Chinese economy.

Does the CCP believe it could invade Taiwan and not pay a heavy price in manpower, prestige, as well as economically? Trying to annex Taiwan isn’t anywhere near as easy as Russia’s attempt to annex Ukraine. That China would expect the US to not keep its promise to Taiwan to help defend it seems foolish, even with SloJo in office. To threaten to attack the Speaker of the House, seems extremely foolish.

==++==

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any stupider in San Francisco I am proven wrong.

The latest bit of stupidity? A couple parks their car in a legal parking spot on the street they’ve used for 25 years, then a city crew paints the curb red next to the car, signifying a No Parking Zone, and the couple is issued a $108 parking ticket.

I guess the city of San Francisco really needs the revenue if they have to resort to ex post facto creation of No Parking Zones just in order to be able to issue fines to otherwise law-abiding citizens.

I expect this will help more residents of San Francisco make the decision to “get out while the gettin’s good”.

==++==

This certainly has put the climate cultists knickers in a twist, ‘this’ being the results of a NOAA Surface Station site survey conducted by Anthony Watts which showed that “approximately 96 percent of U.S. temperature stations used to measure climate change fail to meet what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) considers to be “acceptable” and uncorrupted placement by its own published standards.”

The chart...found on page 17 of the report, shows 30 years of data from NOAA temperature stations in the Continental United States (CONUS). The blue lines show recorded temperatures and the trend from stations that comply with NOAA’s published standards. The yellow lines are temperatures taken from stations that are not compliant with those standards (i.e. near artificial hot spots). The red lines are the “official” adjusted temperature released by NOAA.

“If you look at the unperturbed stations that adhere to NOAA’s published standard – ones that are correctly located and free of localized urban heat biases – they display about half the rate of warming compared to perturbed stations that have such biases,” Watts said. “Yet, NOAA continues to use the data from their warm-biased century-old surface temperature networks to produce monthly and yearly reports to the U.S. public on the state of the climate.”

Junk data gives junk results. Junk data gives junk predictions and models using the junk data give erroneous results.

How much can anyone trust the predictions made by the climate cultists if the data they’re using is junk?

==++==

OK, now this whole Bidenflation thing has gone too damn far!

First, it’s gas and oil prices going up with the stroke of SloJo’s Executive Order pen. Then it’s food prices, clothing prices, and everything else prices. Supplies are also short because of the unprecedented inflation.

The latest victim of Bidenflation?

Hershey’s.

Hershey Warns There Won’t Be Enough Candy To Meet Halloween Demand.

This. Means. WAR!!

“We will not be able to fully meet consumer demand due to capacity constraints,” Hershey chief executive Michele Buck told analysts during a Thursday earnings call.

The Hershey, Pa.-based manufacturer said it began in April to build a stockpile of Hershey Bars, Kisses, KitKats, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Twizzlers and York Peppermint Pattys to prepare for the crucial Halloween and holiday seasons.

“And we were really producing,” Buck said of the early push.

The problem, Buck explained, is that Hershey makes its seasonal candies and all-year-round products on the same manufacturing equipment, and demand for sweets in general has exceeded the company’s expectations.

Movie theaters also reported difficulty in procuring enough sweets and snacks earlier this year, as The Post reported.

If chocolate goes into short supply I don’t want to be anywhere near thickly settled areas when our womenfolk start suffering from withdrawals.

It’s not gonna be pretty...

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Why is it white people find CRT (Critical Race Theory) so threatening?

I guess it depends upon which version is being taught, right?

Having had the opportunity to review some of the CRT courses and most of those directly or indirectly blame white people for all the ills suffered in the world today, both past and present. They teach that only white people can be racist. (I know from personal experience that is not the case having seen and been subjected to racism by non-white people.)

CRT is serving no purpose other than to make people angry about things the don’t need to be angry about as a means of dividing people. It’s right out of Marx and Alinsky.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been great, the neighborhood has been quiet, and Monday is returning...again.

From The Comments - Gun Violence

Seen in the comments from this post over at Instapundit:

I hate the term 'gun violence' when what they really mean is 'gun crime'.

Violent crime is an increasing problem, particularly in the Blue enclaves. A lot of that increase in violent crime can be laid at the feet of the political leaders since so many of them have done what they can to give violent criminals free reign to victimize the people in those enclaves.

It isn't 'gun' violence. It's violence. It isn't 'knife' violence. It's violence. It isn't 'blunt object' violence. It's violence.

And now the folks in Washington want to spread that particular plague nationwide and make sure only violent criminals will have guns and the law abiding citizens will be defenseless. Every gun crime is used as an excuse to disarm the people even though any measures to 'reduce gun violence' will have the opposite effect...exactly as intended.

When it comes to gun crime, it is almost always known criminals committing them. In places like Chicago, it is mostly gang violence with members of one gang shooting members of another gang. That there is collateral damage, meaning innocent bystanders being wounded or killed, doesn’t matter to these miscreants. That none of the weapons used are legally obtained – bought on the black market and not at a gun store or gun show – doesn’t mean anything to anti-gunners.

Of the mass shootings committed over the past decade or so, how many were by “known wolves”, meaning law enforcement officials were aware of the eventual perpetrator’s proclivities and mental state, knew of threats made directly or on social media? Most of them.

The problem is violence. The problem is mental illness. Both are being ignored and the focus is being placed in the wrong area. That solves nothing.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been hot and humid up here at the lake, nothing unusual for summer. (If it were January I’d be worried about it.) I actually had to use the A/C in the trusty RAM 1500 for the first time. Yes, I have used it when the WP Mom was riding shotgun because she doesn’t like the wind blowing on her. But this was the first time I’ve used it this summer because I thought it was a bit too hot. That doesn’t happen too often.

The A/C at The Gulch is running, but it hasn’t been cranked to ‘11’. Mostly it has been to dry the air (our A/C can be set to cool or to dehumidify the air), making 79º inside feel quite comfortable without making the electric meter spin like a blender. One A/C unit running, a ceiling fan, and another small fan is enough to keep The Gulch comfortable even when it’s above 90º and very humid outside.

==++==

I’ve seen a few gas stations here showing the price of Regular at less than $4 per gallon, with the station where I usually fill up the trusty RAM 1500 selling it at $3.779/gallon. However, my ‘reference’ gas station has Regular posted at $4.099/gallon. On my travels around yesterday I saw that gas prices were all over the place, with the highest price being $4.799/gallon seen at stations near or on the Interstate, and $4.599/gallon here and there, both here at the lake and a number of stations south of here (Concord and Manchester, NH).

However, gas prices at the gas docks at one of the nearby marinas lists Midgrade (89 octane) for $5.399/gallon...and that’s one of the cheaper prices I’ve seen listed around the lake. I know that BeezleBub and I haven’t been using the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, nearly as much as we usually do. If we’re lucky, we have been making it out once a week. We’re usually out three or more times a week. The high gas prices have certainly put a damper on our boating season so far.

==++==

I came across this by way of Skip over at GraniteGrok, a great idea that could save relationships and marriages across the nation. When you ask your significant other where she’d like to eat and she responds “I don’t care”, you’ll now have a place to take her:

I think we could franchise this idea, a chain of restaurants with that name, and make billions! After that we start a second restaurant chain called Wherever You Want. It’s a stroke of genius!

==++==

The question of whether nuclear power plants, a truly zero-carbon power source, will ever be allowed to be built again in North America is one that still needs to be answered. Plans have been announced for a number of GEH (General Electric – Hitachi) small modular reactors to be installed in Saskatchewan and Ontario.

But in the end will they be allowed? Quite a few people commenting on the linking post asked that same question. One opined “The ecoloon lawsuits to prevent it will begin in 3,2,1…” They are probably right. That nuclear technology has changed over the past 50 years will not be germane to any discussion. Too many are viscerally opposed to nuclear power because they’ve been told “It’s bad for children and other living things.” That privation and lack of needed energy has killed more ‘children and other living things’ than nuclear power ever has is ignored.

That renewables are incapable of providing the power needed is also ignored, as is the environmental damage these renewable sources cause. I have found that some of the renewables proponents I’ve talked to have no idea the amount of land, the amount of ecosystem destruction that will be required for the ‘green’ energy they say they want. What is ironic is that many of the same proponents are against the infrastructure needed to support the green energy they claim they want. Specifically, they don’t like power lines. Do they even see the paradox of their diametrically opposed causes?

==++==

Do you want a preview of what the watermelon environmentalists have in store for us? Then you only need to look to see how Australia is handling the switchover to government dictated to ‘green’ energy.

In this case, seeing if it will be the cold or the carbon monoxide that will kill you first.

President Obama called it right when he said renewable energy would cause electricity bills to skyrocket. But he forgot to mention all the dead people.

Four more people are rushed to hospital after burning COALS inside their home as the price of electricity soars:

-Household rushed to hospital after sustaining carbon monoxide poisoning

-Emergency services called to Bedford Park home in Adelaide on Friday morning

-Four people were all feeling faint and taken to Flinders Medical Centre

-They had been attempting to warm their home with a charcoal burner

-Meanwhile family of six taken to Westmead Hospital with monoxide poisoning

-Paramedics were called to Merrylands home in Sydney on Tuesday morning

-They arrived to find entire family sick after warming home with charcoal BBQ

-Najem Nawaseri said he found his 13-year-old son vomiting before calling 000 (Australia’s version of 911 – ed.)

This is what happens when government imposes restrictions on energy sources without making sure there’s something to replace the sources they’ve restricted. Australia did that which is why they’re having the problems they are. Presidentish Biden did something similar with his EO’s after entering office and we’ve seen the results at the gas pump, monthly oil/propane/natural gas bill, and electricity bill, though he hasn’t gone as far as Australia’s government has...yet. After all, he’s only been in office for 18 months. Australia has been working towards this for a number of years and their efforts have finally come to fruition – sky high energy prices and dead people.

Yeah, that’s a winning strategy.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temperatures and humidity are high, the A/C is doing its job, and Monday is again coming around all too soon.

Bannon Guilty Of Contempt

Is it any surprise Steve Bannon was found guilty of Contempt of Congress? Not to me. Then again, as someone commented elsewhere, “ How can Bannon be held in contempt by a governmental body that is in itself contemptible?”

Indeed.

Entitled...And Not Entitled

This is something we must remind our Progressive/woke brothers and sisters about again and again and again. Maybe someday they’ll get the message.

Green Energy Policies Aren't Working And Have Little To Do With Energy

We increasingly are seeing the results of the insane energy policies here and elsewhere in the world – skyrocketing energy prices, natural gas shortages in Europe and parts of Australia (Victoria), unstable electrical grids because of the heavy reliance on wind energy (South Australia, parts of Germany) and electricity shortages and blackouts for the same reason (Texas), just to name a few.

None of these things were caused by natural disasters.

In the case of Texas, I don’t consider heatwaves to be natural disasters. They happen all the time and they aren’t like thunderstorms or tornadoes. People know they’re coming days in advance, know what they can do, know what to do...until the power goes out because of poor planning, poor policy, or deliberate actions taken by officials at the behest of ‘advocates’ who don’t give a damn about how damaging the actions taken do nothing to ‘heal the planet’ but cause misery, pain, and in some cases, death.

No new reliable and dispatchable power generation facilities – natural gas turbines, coal-fired and nuclear power plants - are being built...except in China.

The push to rely on unreliable renewable sources is driving much of these problems. Dependence upon natural gas supplies that can be cut off at whim, either by hostile foreign governments (Russia) or hostile domestic governments (Australia) makes planning to meet energy demand difficult. Shutting down coal and nuclear plants without replacing them with generating systems capable of meeting the demand is foolish and has left countries like Germany short of energy. They have since stopped decommissioning their remaining coal and nuclear power plants. There has also been mention made to recommission some nuclear plants that were recently shut down in light of Russia’s shutdown of the natural gas pipeline supplying Germany.

Here in New England we’re seeing a tight natural gas supply and electricity generation capacity. This was by design, not due to calamities, weather, or breakdowns/failures. Between coordinated opposition to a new natural gas pipeline between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts which would have made it possible to meet all of New England’s natural gas demand and opposition to two different power line projects that would have brought clean, renewable, and cheap electricity into New England from Quebec Hydro, we’re dealing with an energy shortage created by our self-anointed ‘betters’. When I hear people asking why our electricity rates and natural gas costs are higher than the rest of the nation, I make sure to tell them why and who to thank.

Our high gasoline and diesel prices are not due to Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. It’s due to people right here in our own country, specifically Presidentish Biden’s action that shut down construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. That didn’t stop oil from from getting from Point A to Point B. Instead that same oil is traveling by rail in tanker cars - owned by Warren Buffet - at a higher cost and lower capacity and less safely than the pipeline. Then there were federal oil & gas lease auctions that were canceled. Then severe restrictions on fracking on existing leases. Then cancellation of some existing leases. And now banning drilling on offshore leases. That moron is making sure oil prices will rise again, hurting everyone but particularly the poor and middle class. (We know from both words and deeds that the Progressives want to see the middle class destroyed. One way of doing that is making sure they can’t afford the energy they need, impoverishing them, and making them poor. They’re then easier to control...or eliminate if they won’t be controlled.)

Am I being cynical? Yup, without a doubt. I earned my right to be cynical after decades of dealing with both good and bad people. Some of those bad people are in government, in our education system, in various advocacy organizations, and elsewhere...and they don’t really give a damn about anyone not them. This unfortunately includes most of us.

So when are we going to stop letting the bad people keep doing this to everyone else?

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a hot and humid day here today. That’s not unexpected since it is summer. But to hear some folks you’d think it had never been in the 90’s before. While we don’t get a lot of 90º days here, we do get them. Other areas of the US see weeks and weeks of temps in the 90’s and you don’t see people dropping dead in the hundreds (like in Europe). We can handle it.

We spent a few hours out on the lake today despite the other weekend boaters being out there. It wasn’t as quite as bad as I expected, but it still wasn’t great. Marine gas is still expensive and boats aren’t exactly fuel efficient, so a lot of folks are just putting along at headway speed as they head to a place to anchor and go swimming or picnicking or whatever. (I dropped $100 for a little over 18 gallons of gas at the marina across from where we dock The Boat.) We slowly cruised to one of our favorite places, dropped anchor, ate some lunch, and did a little swimming. Once done, we weighed anchor and continued on our way back to our dock.

Not a bad way to spend a hot and humid day.

==++==

Speaking of hot and humid, it seems the Europeans are dealing with well above normal temperatures, with some in the UK breaking all time records. It doesn’t help that much of Europe (and specifically the UK) doesn’t have A/C.

I have had more than a few of my European friends and acquaintances asking why we need it. When I tell them that most of the US is considerably farther south than Europe, they don’t believe me. (As a bit of climate trivia, the British considered diplomatic postings to Washington DC as a tropical post...until air conditioning came into being.) I have sent maps similar to the one below to prove my point and they are usually surprised. That US cities like Houston and New Orleans are at the same latitude as Cairo surprises them...and Cairo is farther north than Miami. The entire UK is farther north than the Continental US. Paris is just south of the western US/Canadian border.

Click image to embiggen

==++==

It has become quite evident to anyone paying attention that we have a two-tier justice system in the US since Joe Biden took office.

Two examples: 1) Leftists riot, loot, commit assault, manslaughter and arson in a number of cities, yet are not arrested or tried, but a protest in Washington DC gets out of hand and it is labeled an insurrection (but none of the ‘insurrectionists’ were armed and the only ones who died were unarmed protesters killed by police). 2) Pro-life advocates protest outside of abortion clinics and are harassed, assaulted, and in some cases are ordered to cease and desist by a court, but pro-abortion advocates attack over 50 pro-life pregnancy centers and law enforcement does nothing. I figure it’s only a matter of time before these same ‘advocates’ start killing people because they figure they don’t have to don’t have to worry about being punished.

Two-tier legal systems always fail, usually in a spectacular fashion and not to the benefit of those supporting it. Then, the Left has always liked such systems because they use one to protect their operatives and the other to punish their opponents.

==++==

Want to know what Congressional Democrats are really doing when they promise “This, That, and the Other Thing”?

Just the opposite.

You hear them talking about trying to help the middle class, the backbone of the American economy. But what are they really doing? Getting ready to tax them out of existence.

Democrats are – by design – causing chaos in the American economy. But Biden’s promise to not raise taxes on anyone with incomes under $400,000 is a blatant lie. If the tax gimmick (HR 5376) they have proposed is enacted, income taxes for everyone in all income brackets would be raised – without any tax relief for anyone.

The JCT- Joint Commission on Taxation – a bipartisan commission that has economists as part of its makeup, analyzed the Democrat Tax gimmick and found that even Americans making between $50,000 and $75,000 and all other income levels will see a tax increase by 2029 with no tax breaks. All of which blows Biden’s campaign promises to smithereens.

At a time when everything from groceries to gas has people strapped down, Biden’s tax gimmick threatens to derail Americans’ incomes even worse by increasing taxes. Independent studies by the Tax Foundation and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) have shown that this Democrat proposal would literally wipe out any “hit” on the wealthy and pass the burden to the lower income brackets. America’s middle class would disappear in under this Democrat tax gimmick – which is by design. Communism by any other name is still the same. There is no “middle class” in a communist society. Only the elite wealthy will remain.

This is nothing new so it isn’t all that surprising to anyone understanding how the whole Tax-and-Spend sleight-of-hand works.

==++==

I have wondered this, too.

Why is life expectancy in the US lower than other rich countries?

You would think it would be higher considering the level of medical technology and treatments available today. Then again, we have a lot more obese people than other rich countries and we have all been told that obesity is a major contributor to all kinds to health issues. (Obesity and its side effects like diabetes was seen as a major contributor to Covid deaths.) Then there’s this:

Why do Americans have a lower life expectancy than people in other rich countries, despite paying so much more for health care?

The short summary of what I will discuss below is that Americans suffer higher death rates from smoking, obesity, homicides, opioid overdoses, suicides, road accidents, and infant deaths. In addition to this, deeper poverty and less access to healthcare mean Americans at lower incomes die at a younger age than poor people in other rich countries.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summerfolk have been out on the lake in force, gas prices at the marinas are still high, and where we’re experiencing summer weather...not unexpectedly.

Have You Noticed...?

Over the past couple of months I have mentioned the traffic insanity I’ve noticed on the highways and byways here in central New Hampshire. The number of clueless, distracted, arrogant, or outright incompetent drivers out there seems to have increased quite a bit as compared to last year. The number of near-misses I’ve seen, the number of drivers going well below the posted speed limits, the number incapable of maintaining a constant speed (slowing down and speeding up and slowing down and speeding up), or drifting in and out of their lanes of travel, or incapable of actually committing to making turns they’ve signaled they’ll be making.

At first I thought it was just me noticing this, particularly since I officially became a surly curmudgeon after my last birthday. But after talking to my friends and acquaintances I have found that it isn’t just me. I mentioned this to Katy a couple of weeks ago and she’s noticed the same thing down in Connecticut. A fellow employee of the company that has the privilege of employing me has mentioned the same thing - she’s down in South Carolina – and that it’s been crazy down there. A friend of mine down on Palm Bay, Florida mentioned the same thing the last time we texted.

I was attending a ceremony at our Town Hall and had the opportunity to chat with a few of our town’s police officers and asked them if they had noticed the same things I and others had: People Driving Stupid. Every single one of them said they had, with one of them rolling his eyes then saying it has been a really bad year for it.

What’s worse is that the number of People Driving Stupid seem to be increasing every week. It doesn’t matter the time of day, they seem to be out on the roads all hours.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, installing a dashcam in the trusty RAM 1500 is looking to be one of the better things I’ve done this year. I have a feeling I’ll be pulling a lot of video footage from it if this keeps up.

It's A Propaganda War

Like a number of us, I have been paying attention to the war going on in Ukraine. I have checked news reports, news and political blogs, YouTube channels, asked questions of friends still working in some of the US and British intelligence agencies, and been commenting on the websites via Disqus as well as a number of forums.

It took a while but I started seeing more and more folks commenting start taking Russia’s side, discounting anything even minimally anti-Russian as ‘Western propaganda’ or false reports or Ukrainian Nazi disinformation. (Remember, one of Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine is to rid the nation of the Nazis running the country. That his puppet in Kyiv was deposed and elections held to replace him pissed him off. Saying the Nazis were the ones who deposed the ‘legitimate’ Putin puppet gave him an excuse for invading a sovereign nation.)

It then became quite evident that those taking Russia’s side were themselves Russians. They would not debate, but contradict. They would claim that a specific commenter wrote ‘this’ while I was easy enough to see that what the commenter actually wrote was ‘that’, and then call anyone pointing that out a liar or Ukrainian shill. They would minimize news from western sources while providing no countering information or sources, or dismiss intelligence sources while again failing to provide countering intelligence sources. They denigrate those who disagree with them. Dismiss eyewitness accounts. Blame everything on Ukrainian false flag operations. Claim Russia is unbeatable and they will soon be closing on Ukraine’s border with Poland. Say that the size of Russia’s army is growing while Ukraine’s is shrinking.

This is a propaganda war. The Russians are very good at propaganda, having learned the lessons Nazi Germany’s Joseph Goebbels taught, particularly the lesson of The Big Lie. (The Soviets were rank amateurs compared to the propagandists of Nazi Germany.)

More people commenting on the various posts and in the forums are pointing out these Russian trolls, in some cases blocking them and in other cases reporting them as scammers and spammers. Like most trolls, they merely change the Disqus ID’s and continue with their work. But it has been getting easier to detect them because they can’t help themselves.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It seems the heavy weekend traffic has not been just a Fourth of July Holiday weekend phenomenon. Yesterday, the WP Mom and I had to head to the southern tier of New Hampshire to attend a baby shower for an expectant mother in our extended family.

Fortunately we were heading south because the northbound traffic was heavy – slow-moving and bumper to bumper for mile after mile after mile at 11 in the morning. A little less than 4 hours later we were heading north back The Gulch and the heavy traffic had dissipated, though there was still a lot of traffic heading north.

We stopped not too far from The Gulch to gas up the trusty RAM 1500. For the first time in a long time I had to wait in line to gas up. Most of the vehicles at the station had out of state plates. (It might also have been because regular was going for $4.079, about 52¢ less than regular at my reference gas station just down the road a piece from The Gulch. That’s one heck of a price difference at two gas stations only a few miles apart. I haven’t check prices on the lake recently, but maybe it’s time I do. That will be a sure indicator of where gas prices may be headed.

==++==

Hearing about the wildfire at Yosemite National Park reminds me of the controversy that took place twenty-some years ago when a wildfire swept through a section of Yosemite, with some so-called environmentalists condemning the Park Service and Forestry Service for not doing everything they could to extinguish the blaze.

Forestry biologists condemned the ‘environmentalists’ for their ignorance of forest ecology, stating that the section of the park that was burning was moribund with a decreasing biological diversity and decreasing health of the existing forestland. (A note: that fire didn’t not take place anywhere near the Sequoias also located in the park.)

Who was right?

Hint: It wasn’t the ‘environmentalists’.

The year after the fires, the supposedly devastated area saw plants and wildlife that hadn’t been seen there in decades.

The above is one reason both states and the federal government perform controlled burns in state and national forests: renewal of forest ecology since some plants require fire in order to germinate and the fire returns nutrients to the soil on the forest floor.

Another reason for controlled burns is to reduce the underbrush which can become fuel in a much larger wildfire in the future. This is a lesson California has been refusing to learn for decades which is why so many of the wildfires there can grow so quickly and take out tens of thousands of acres, destroying homes, businesses...and towns.

==++==

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department.

It looks like Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg is charging a 61-year old bodega clerk in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City with second degree murder after he killed a career criminal who came behind the counter and attacked him after the criminal’s girlfriend’s credit card was declined.

Watching the video of the attack it certainly looks like self-defense.

Considering DA Bragg’s background and political patron – George Soros - it is becoming clear that the only ones that don’t have to worry about being charged with crimes in New York City are criminals. Law-abiding citizens, on the other hand, are now in the cross-hairs.

==++==

Everyone’s heard the story about the ten-year old, raped and pregnant, who had to travel to Ohip to get an abortion. It was even brought up by President * during his press conference about the EO he was about to sign. He was outraged by the story. The problem?

No one can confirm this ten-year old ‘victim’ even exists. This includes the Washington Post and Snopes. Nobody knows nuthin’ ‘bout nuthin’.

No one bothered to fact check the claim made by pro-abortion advocate Dr. Caitlin Bernard before it went viral after the story appeared in the Indianapolis Star. There are no records of a ten-year old being raped and ending up pregnant in Ohio. No records of a ten-year old receiving an abortion in Indiana, which would have been required to be reported to the police and Indiana’s version of Child Protective Services. (Yes, doctor-patient confidentiality is a thing, but if there is evidence of abuse physicians are required by law to report it. I’d say a pregnant ten-year old is evidence of abuse.)

All we have is the word of someone who cannot be considered unbiased in any way. Not one scintilla of proof exists to confirm Dr. Bernard’s story. Not. One.

==++==

I keep saying they’re mentally ill. Here’s more proof that what I say is true:

You Know That Leftists Have Jumped Every Shark When They’re Even Confused About Their OWN Identities.

Need anything more be said?

==++==

This resonates with me and a lot of other people who understand the realities of EVs versus gas/diesel-powered vehicles. ‘This’ is a head-to-head comparo between an electric Ford F150 pickup and a GMC Denali pickup, both towing identical travel trailers.

To say the electric F150 didn’t come close to meeting expectations would be an understatement.

The results of the electric Ford pickup remind me of the promises made by the COVID vaccine manufacturers: wildly exaggerated and probably more harmful than beneficial. As the video shows: you’d have to be a moron to buy either knowing what we know today.

I’d like to see a comparisons between diesel-fueled and electric farm tractors. That might prove to the EV proponents that EVs aren’t the answer to every ‘problem’ they see.

==++==

Hmm. I thought California’s anti-gig economy AB5 legislation had already put a crimp into the trucking industry, but it turns out I had missed something.

California law, AB5 is about to make the already screwed up supply law problems get even worse. This draconian law will force independent truckers out of the workforce. Independent workers used to be considered independent contractors. Under this law, even though there are carve out for some industries to keep independent contractors, truckers will not be exempt. This means that truckers will be forced to be considered “employees” and companies wouldn’t want to pay out additional benefits to employees that they wouldn’t for independent contractors. Of course communist Newsom exempted Uber, Lyft, and Postmates.

This law was actually passed in 2019, and has been on hold because of a court injunction. There are reports that the injunction could soon be lifted. If that’s the case, get ready for shortages on basically everything.

The trucking industry serving California had already been injured when diesel trucks of 2011 and older vintage were banned in the Pyrite State. Now they’re going to add to the pain by doing away with independent truckers, so-called ‘owner-operators’. You think our supply chain problems were bad before? They’re going to get even worse.

As California does more and more to dismantle its own economy, destroy the middle class, and impoverish even more of its residents, it is starting to remind me more or two countries that have done likewise – Venezuela and Sri Lanka. The latter managed to do so in a very short period of time as compared to the decade and a half it took the former to destroy itself.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the summerfolk are enjoying the nice weather, there are a lot of boaters out enjoying the lake, and my week-long vacation is coming to an end...

Yet Another Gun Rights Argument

I had a discussion about gun control with both the younger and older WP Sisters today, with their take that “No one needs an AR-15.” My response was “That’s OK. I don’t have one. I have an AR-10.” They didn’t like that answer.

They are under the mistaken impression that if AR-15’s were confiscated from all of the law-abiding citizens in the US that shootings committed with AR-15’s would end.

One of them insisted that if all of the AR15’s owned by law-abiding citizens were stored at gun ranges that would also be a way to prevent miscreants from using AR-15’s to shoot people. This is also a false assumption.

Criminals and crazy people don’t follow the law. Illegal guns are already easy to obtain, just like illicit drugs. How many gang-bangers and other criminals use fully automatic weapons, weapons that are not readily available to law-abiding citizens? Too many to count.

Another argument I put forward was that automobiles kill more people than guns. Using their logic law-abiding drivers should get off and stay off the roads because of the number of people killed in accidents every year. The younger WP Sister insisted it wasn’t the same thing. I countered her by reminding her driving is a privilege, not a right, while keeping and bearing arms is a Right, enumerated in both the US and most state constitutions. Her counter was that driving is convenient. My response to that was that it doesn’t make any difference, cars still kill and maim people and that convenience is not an excuse.

They just don’t get it.

How Do You Tax The Rich When They're Gone?

As more than a few countries have found out over the years, you can tax the rich to the point that they decide it’s time for them to leave...and take their wealth with them. The UK found that out in the 1970s and France learned that in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s. They both imposed confiscatory taxes on the rich and were surprised when the rich fled. The amount of taxes collected never even came close to matching the projected revenues. Those taxes also had the effect of tanking the economies when investment capital dried up as a result. Who would want to invest if the government would be taking a huge percentage of profits in taxes? (Actually, France realized they had made a huge mistake and backed off on those taxes, but didn’t remove them entirely. Before the did so, a lot of the wealthy bailed. A lot of them did not return after France rescinded some of those taxes.)

It seems at least one US state is learning that lesson...and it isn’t California.

Widespread shortages. Economic tumult. Disappearing businesses. When Ayn Rand released her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, in 1957, her critics considered it a work of fiction. She did not.

Her art is now imitating life in Pennsylvania. Fiction or not, Rand was prescient.

She predicted a world where government and “looters” (as she called them) exploited producers. A mysterious man named John Galt gets those business owners and workers to leave and recreate a free and fair society elsewhere.

In Pennsylvania, leaders like Gov. Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney demonize financially successful individuals, with promises that if the all-powerful government bureaucracy could just take more of their money, our problems would be solved. Wolf, Kenney, and their supporters operate under the misguided belief that bigger government will heal the Earth, defeat racism, and end poverty.

Worthy goals, wrong solutions — and Pennsylvanians know it. While some will wait for November to register their discontent at the ballot box, many are already voting with their feet.

A new poll from the Commonwealth Foundation (my employer) shows that nearly 70% of Pennsylvanians think things “have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track” in our state. That’s more than a third higher than the number of New Jersey and New York residents who think their state is on the wrong course.

While California is still looting wealth from the people making it, it hasn’t gotten quite bad enough to see a mass exodus of the wealthy. But a lot of the smaller business owners and workers have already packed up and abandoned the Pyrite State because the Progressive government was “eating of their substance” and making it more difficult to survive. They voted with their feet to head to greener pastures. Can anyone (except the Progressive looters) blame them? At least the Keystone State has a chance to correct that problem come November.

It's Time To Remember What It's All About

July 4, 1776

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s the Fourth of July Weekend and the summerfolk have been arriving in large numbers, a not unexpected event. My before-church shopping run to Walmart certainly showed that since the parking lot was darned near full, something we usually don’t see until late in the morning. But at 8AM the lot was full. Once inside Walmart I could see that there were four checkout lanes open. Usually it’s one.

The traffic has been insane since Thursday afternoon, and this morning was no different.

On my way home from my Walmart run I experienced three near-miss incidents, two of which involved me directly. Those two were caused by the same driver, with the first being this clueless driver pulling into traffic across 3 lanes without looking and darn near getting T-boned by the trusty RAM 1500 in the process. The second of the two took place when the same driver signaled to take a right turn, then at the last second decided they weren’t going to take the right after having already slowed and started to make the turn and pulled right back into traffic and almost getting rear-ended by the trusty RAM 1500. (Fortunately for me I installed a dashcam in the trusty RAM 1500 a few weeks ago, so if either of those near-misses had been a collision, I would have video proof of what happened.)

The third incident (well, actually it was the first incident of the morning) took place as I was leaving Walmart. I was in line at the traffic light at the exit, three cars back. The light changed and as the first car started to move a car ran the red light and almost collided with the first car. (My dashcam caught that incident as well but didn’t catch the license plate of guy running the red light, but I did see that it had out-of-state plates - New York - after the miscreant had blown through the intersection.)

The traffic in general has been crazy since Thursday, was really heavy (and crazy) yesterday, and I expect it will be that way the rest of the day today and especially tomorrow.

Welcome to summer.

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As if we really need yet another example of “Get woke, go broke”, there’s this story showing how a bank’s social media manager “told them to LEAVE if they don’t like staff sharing pronouns on badges”...and the customers obliged him.

It appears the woke virus has infected the Halifax Bank in the UK which has caused customers to close accounts and move their money to rival banks after their woke social media manager challenged bank customers to leave if they didn’t like the changes made to employee name badges. Talk about an avoidable PR disaster.

One account holder told MailOnline they have already pulled out investments and savings worth £450,000 while many more said they are closing ISAs, cutting up credit cards or transferring balances to rivals after they accused the bank of 'alienating' them with 'pathetic virtue signalling'.

The row began this week when Halifax, which was propped up by the taxpayer to the tune of £30billion as part of a 2008 bailout, tweeted its 118,000 followers on Tuesday revealing that it would allow staff to display their pronouns on their name badges, in a post that read 'pronouns matter'.

It showed a photo of a female staff member's name badge, which featured 'she/her/hers' in brackets under the name Gemma, and said the policy was to help avoid 'accidental misgendering'.

One customer replied: 'There’s no ambiguity about the name “Gemma”. It’s a female person’s name. In other words, it’s pathetic virtue signalling and is seen as such by almost everyone who has responded to the initial tweet. Why are you trying to alienate people?' Within 20 minutes a member of the Halifax social media team, calling himself Andy M, replied: 'If you disagree with our values, you're welcome to close your account'.

Andy M's response has outraged customers, and seen hundreds claiming they will boycott the bank with many saying they have closed their accounts. Others have cut up their credit cards or getting rid of insurance policies and said the threat was the final straw after it cut 27 branches alone in 2022.

As one former customer put it, “I don't want to be having conversations about gender when I go into my bank...Frankly, I'd rather they be focused on lowering interest rates.”

This is what happens when businesses forget their primary reason for their existence - serving their customers – and that’s why their customers leave.

Woke employees have been learning their lessons too when their employers invite those woke employees to leave if they don’t like what their customers want. Netflix certainly made that clear when some of their woke employees complained about allowing customers to stream programs they didn’t like.

The tolerance for ‘woke’ has reached its tipping point and both people and businesses aren’t taking the woke bulls**t any more.

==++==

Ed Driscoll has put together a collection of posts and links that delve into the whole fuel prices/energy costs and how the Democrats are trying to play both sides – ‘victim’ and perpetrator – when it comes to falling fuel supplies and skyrocketing prices.

‘Solutions’ proposed by Biden, WRBA, and the Democrats aren’t real solutions, such as “demanding gas stations to ‘bring down’ gas prices.” They do understand that gas stations have little control over prices, right? Gas stations do change the prices at the pumps, but they set them based upon what they get charged for gas and they have to make some profit (which is a lot less than the oil companies make per gallon). Are gas stations supposed to take a loss for every gallon they sell just because SloJo demands they do so? Yeah, that’ll work.

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Okay, I’m going to take a stab at this one: the perpetrator wasn’t white.

Curry College (Milton, Mass.) won’t provide the race of an employee it fired for making dozens of racial threats and placing swastikas around the campus.

The investigation stems from a series of swastikas found on Curry College’s campus in January, along with graffiti directed at black individuals.

The investigation involved the Milton police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Spokesperson Liz Matson shared a media statement similar to the one below with The Fix but would not answer direct questions twice about the race of the suspect and why it could not be disclosed.

If the alleged perpetrator had been white the news media would have been shouting it out loud and long. But if that alleged perpetrator wasn’t white, then no mention of their race would be made, period. At least that’s how the DNC-MSM has been handling other situations similar to this in the past.

==++==

As an aside to the above, I have to ask why the Greens here in the US believe we need to be the ones responsible for reducing the CO2 generated by other countries? Seeing just how much the US decreased the amount of CO2 emissions between 2020 and 2021 alone – just over one billion tons – more than 5 times more than the next closest nations, the UK and Germany. And what about China?

China’s CO2 emissions increased during that time, just as they have been for years. China’s CO2 emissions are over 2.3 times that of the US, having passed the US back in 2004, even as US emissions were falling. The US peaked out at 1.8 billion tons (1.6 billion metric tons) of CO2 in 2005 and it has been dropping since then.

India’s emissions, while nowhere near those of the US (about half that of the US), have been growing until the past few years and have remained relatively steady over the past 4 years.

It’s time for the US to pause for a bit, to stop taking actions that do nothing but damage the economy, and paradoxically, the environment. Forcing out fossil fuels while not replacing the energy with nothing but vague promises or pie-in-the-sky energy sources we already know cannot and will not meet demand is insane. Until we have something in place to provide the energy we need, nuclear power being one of the only technologies that can reliably and cleanly provide the needed power.

==++==

Is there nothing Climate Change can’t do?

The latest claim?

Aussie ‘Ambassador for Women’ claims ‘climate change’ causes rape! ‘Exacerbates the risks of sexual & gender-based violence’.

Really?

“50 years from now when historians look at why the Western Empire fell, they will look at videos like this and realize we voted incompetents into public office. This is what happens when your notes get mixed in with another topic.”

Yup.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where preparations for Fourth of July celebrations continue, grills are running and “charring mammal flesh”, and coolers contain “mass quantities”.

The Zombie Apocalypse Is Already Here

At first glance I thought this was amusing.

The more I thought about it the less amusing it became because it was all too true.

From The Archives - Consumer Spending Is Weak

As I have promised, I have been looking through the Weekend Pundit Archives to find some older gems of wisdom that are relevant to where we find ourselves today.

This one dates back almost 11 years to the day and addresses the fall-off in consumer spending back then, something we are starting to see here, particularly when inflation is eating away at people’s bank accounts and fuel prices are the highest in US history which also adds to the pain people are feeling today.

As with an earlier peek into the past, the original links in this post are dead so they have been removed.

==++==

Is this yet another bit of “unexpected” news?

Apparently consumer spending is down, again. It's at its lowest pace in two years and not getting any better.

While consumers haven't stopped spending, they are being more careful. They also have changed their spending habits, with more online spending and less in the way of trips to the mall. As one of Glenn Reynolds readers explained it:

I realize it is a cliche for a woman to say she has nothing to wear; but I have literally only bought one new item of apparel for myself in the past three years. I had a pair of shorts that was more patches than original cloth, so I determined I had to buy some new ones. But after three years of mall avoidance I found the idea of going to one to be impossibly fatiguing. So I checked Overstock and Landsend (sic) clearance and bought myself some new shorts for about $10 each.

But of course since I was online I just typed in women’s shorts and that’s all I bought. If I had been at a mall I would have found a cute top and an adorable little skirt and etc. etc. My shopping habits have been completely altered, and I think its a good thing.

I can't remember the last time I went to one of the malls to shop. It's either WalMart or online shopping for us here at The Manse. If I buy something I know what it is I want, where I can buy it, and how much it costs. I know all of that before leaving The Manse (assuming I actually go to a store to buy what I need). Otherwise we buy it online.

One of the other things driving lower consumer spending is consumers paying off debt, getting those credit cards and car loans paid off. And when consumers do spend, they're paying cash or doing without. As Instapundit reader Robin Lyons writes:

Instead of spending, I have been taking all my disposable income and paying off debt. I have a good job and have disposable income every month. But I have decided that I am not buying anything not absolutely necessary in protest of the Obama economy. Not that my single participation makes any difference, but who knows how many of me there are out there?

We've had a tight budget here at The Manse over the past two years. After a mortgage refinance at a much lower interest rate, we're paying off all of our other debt and freeing up $1000 a month or more because we won't have those payments. Our mortgage payments will remain the same and that's the only debt we'll have, one we're willing to carry. From this point forward we'll be paying cash or doing without. We'll keep one credit card (the one with both the lowest credit limit and lowest interest rate).

Even though reducing the number of credit cards we have to one may adversely affect our credit rating, the missus and I much prefer to limit our exposure in the future rather than worry about what Experion and the others credit bureaus might have to say about us. Freeing up $12,000 of cash a year makes me feel a whole lot better than worrying about our credit rating dropping 50 points. It seems quite a few others are taking the same route we have, at least from what friends and acquaintances have been telling me.

So the fact that consumer spending has dropped isn't a surprise to me or anyone else paying attention to the Obama economy.

==++==

At least this time I don’t have a mortgage to pay, my only credit cart has a $255 balance (which will be paid off tomorrow, it being payday), and I only have one more payment on the trusty RAM 1500 pickup (due next month), and I am out of debt. Yes, I still have a few outstanding bills to pay, but they are my regular monthly bills, things like insurance, utilities and the like. Yet, I am still cautious of my spending, and nervous about where our economy is heading – a recession – which would have been avoided if WRBA hadn’t decided to do everything it could to tank the economy. We’re right back where we were 11 years ago. Then again, remember who was Vice President 11 years ago...