Thoughts On A Sunday

Friday was the final day of the boating season as BeezleBub and I pulled the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout from the water. After BeezleBub finished work we got the boat trailer over to the town docks, retrieved the boat from its slip – with a little side trip out to one of the islands – before heading to the docks.

It was well past sundown by the time we were loading the boat onto the trailer and dark by the time it was parked temporarily at BeezleBub’s place. Yesterday was spent removing all the gear and cleaning the cockpit, then stowing the removed gear here at The Gulch. Finally we moved the boat to the boat yard for winterization and storage.

My boating season was officially over.

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Despite the TV ads we see hyping it, 5G cell service isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While the article linked in the Instapundit post is specific to the UK, the problems seen there are the same ones seen here in the US. The comments are telling as they highlight the problems seen here, including the video which delves into the reasons why 5G service stinks.



Considering 4G-LTE does pretty well, is there a real need to switch to 5G? Not as best I can tell. I certainly haven’t noticed a lack, particularly when my phone connects to WiFi. (At home I don’t have a strong cell signal, so more than half of my phone calls are made via the WiFi connection.)

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Apparently it isn’t just New England that has to worry about possible blackouts this coming winter. Jolly Olde England is in the same predicament.

National Grid warns Britons of blackouts on ‘really cold’ evenings

FT conference hears of various ‘unlikely’ scenarios in which UK might not have sufficient energy

Nathalie Thomas, Energy Correspondent OCTOBER 18 2022

National Grid’s chief executive has warned British households to prepare for blackouts between 4pm and 7pm on “really, really cold” weekdays in January and February in the event of reduced gas imports from Europe.

John Pettigrew said the company would have to impose rolling power cuts on “those deepest darkest evenings in January and February” if generators failed to secure enough gas from the continent to meet demand, particularly if the country suffers a cold snap.

Of course, “really, really cold” in the UK is different than “really, really cold” in New England, with “really, really cold” in the UK being just regular winter “cold” here. “Really, really cold” here means single digits above zero (Fahrenheit) to double digits below zero. Add in wind chills and it gets kinda frosty around here.

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Hearing that Elon Musk is firing Twitter employees, many of which I believe richly deserve to be fired because of their totalitarian view on freedom of speech – “You can speak freely as long as you agree with us” – I have to ask this question: Will Elon fire enough of them? Or will he fire just enough to get the message across that “Freedom of Speech” also means speech they disagree with, that they are not the arbiters of what is and is not allowed?

Only time will tell.

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Speaking of Twitter and Elon Musk, it seems CBS lost it’s mind when Musk finally closed the deal for Twitter, claiming “our democracy is in peril”. That’s ironic considering CBS and the rest of the DNC-MSM have been a bigger threat to our republic than a Musk-owned Twitter ever will.

Musk finalized his lengthy acquisition of Twitter yesterday, tweeting triumphantly: “[T]he bird is freed.” Just hours later, the anti-American liberal press flocked to attack Musk’s deal because it could have “big implications for our democracy” and worsen “misinformation” on the Oct. 28 edition of CBS Mornings. Chief among CBS’s worries: A return of former President Donald Trump to the platform.

CBS, of course, framed the news of the Musk deal around “hate speech,” not free speech, right from the get-go. “How will Musk balance out freedom of speech while at the same time discouraging and reining in misinformation?” CBS correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti asked. “The stakes are incredibly high for millions of Americans.”

“The stakes are incredibly high for millions of Americans”? Indeed. Millions of Americans will no longer be banned for “hate speech” that was nothing of the sort. It was free speech, something we know Progressives hate.

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AVI addresses the growing acceptance of polygamy in the US.

Being married to one person is tough enough. Being married to more than one person has got to be even tougher.

Polygamy has been normal in a number of cultures in the past, with some of it being driven by a lack of a sufficient number of one gender.

Today, it is driven by something else, maybe hypergamy, where a number of women have set their sights on a small group of males who meet their standards, often referred to as ‘Sixes’ – six feet tall, six-pack abs, and six figure income – and it’s to the point that they’re willing to share as long as they can get their ‘perfect’ guy. (This is something that has been making the rounds on social media lately, and there have been a number of videos covering this perception on YouTube and TikTok.)

Will it come to be here in the US? Call me old fashioned, but I hope not. I think it would be a negative influence and lead to more social problems. It is a solution to a problem that does not exist.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the boats have been disappearing from their slips and being stored away, my boating season has ended, and where Halloween is been celebrated tomorrow night!

Toyota Decides EV's Aren't Worth It

The world’s largest automaker – Toyota – will not be jumping on the electric vehicle bandwagon like so many of the automakers. Apparently the higher-ups in Toyota have listened to their technical experts who expressed their doubts about the wisdom of going all in on electric vehicles, and their reasons why.

That’s why Toyota’s CEO announced it will not be making the switch over electric vehicles, focusing more hybrids and standard ICE powered vehicles.



The push to EVs is premature. The infrastructure, particularly in the US and Europe, isn’t up the task. Both the grids and the generation capacity need major upgrades and neither is going to occur any time soon. The folks pushing for EVs are quite often the same folks doing their best to prevent the needed upgrades to make their EV ‘paradise’ come true. I don’t know if it is hypocrisy, ignorance, or both causing this disconnect between fantasy and reality.

It Was On Purpose

Hearing the doomsday news regarding energy in the US, specifically the supply and cost of gasoline, diesel, heating oil, natural gas, and downstream effects on electricity rates in places like New England, my first thought is usually “Why have the Democrats done this to us?”

Considering the damage the Democrats in Washington and the states have done to our energy supplies, destroying our energy independence all in the name of combating climate change, while giving our commercial and ideological rival, China, a pass regarding their skyrocketing CO2 emissions even as ours have fallen about 45%, one has to wonder if it is sheer ignorance that has caused the Democrats to wreak havoc on our energy supplies or if it was done on purpose. I try to keep in mind the adage “Do not attribute to malice that which may be better explained by stupidity.”

It’s one thing if the actions that have hurt us so occurred only every so often I might think it was done due to stupidity or willful ignorance, but the actions the Democrats have taken again and again show malicious intent. They keep telling us its “for our own good” but what it’s really about control...and the people are sick of it.

Had Democrats spent the last 3.5 years liberating US oil/gas investment, production, and transport instead of strangling them, energy would be far cheaper.

But Democrats have sabotaged oil investment by 1) supporting various “ESG” policies that call for reduced oil investment and 2) threatening oil producers’ existence.

Since Barack Obama ran for President declaring “the age of oil must end in our time” and continuing through Joe Biden’s “guarantee” that “we’re going to end fossil fuel,” US Democrats have threatened the future of oil production—a major deterrent for investment.

Leading Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders constantly threaten US oil production and make good on those threats by trying to prevent crucial oil infrastructure projects, such as pipelines. Having these kinds of politicians in power drives investment away from oil.

In addition to sabotaging US oil’s enormous potential by going after oil investment, Democratic politicians have done everything they can to sabotage oil production: threatening to ban fracking, banning federal leases, and calling for new, costly taxes and regulations.

US industry’s incredible ability to ramp up gas production has been desperately needed in recent years as gas has become more central to our economy and more needed by allies—especially those dependent on Russia. But industry has been strangled by Democratic opposition to pipelines.

Our bountiful natural gas is only useful if it can be transported by pipeline—to where it is needed in the US and to export terminals for shipment abroad. But in recent years we have seen a Democrat-led movement to block pipeline after pipeline. (One such pipeline would have brought much needed natural gas into New England, but well funded groups working with Democrats in New York and Massachusetts killed the project, leaving New England dependent upon expensive foreign natural gas that had to be transported into Boston by LNG tankers from Trinidad and Tabago. - ed.)

Considering a lot of the electricity in New England is generated by combined cycle natural gas power plants, electricity rates have more than doubled because of the skyrocketing natural gas prices.

Both diesel and heating oil are in short supply in New England, those shortages caused by the aforementioned actions of the Democrats, those actions taken with malice and forethought and without any consideration for the consequences of their actions.

As bad as it is now, it is only going to get worse if the Democrats continue their systemic destruction of our energy supplies.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was the Last Cruise Of The Season for the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout yesterday. I had my friends – refugees from San Francisco who made their escape to New Hampshire two years ago – accompanying me for a day out on the lake, cruising about and enjoying the fall foliage. We also anchored at one of my favorite spots (which shall not be named for obvious reasons) and enjoyed a late lunch before continuing our cruise.

It was a perfect day for that last cruise of the boating season – sunny and warm (65ºF) – with very little in the way of boat traffic to deal with. The lack of summerfolk boat traffic is one reason I like boating after Labor Day. One can actually spend time out on the lake on weekends without worrying about the Cap’n Boneheads.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be coming out of the water later this coming week, be taken over to BeezleBub’s place so we can remove all of the gear and clean the cockpit before it makes its trip the boatyard which will winterize and store it for the winter.

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I made the mistake of watching Good Morning America this morning.

To hear their reports and comments about the upcoming mid-terms it seems they are expecting Democrats to keep their House majority and gain three Senate seats. They are basing their viewpoints upon their own ABC/Ipsos poll and focusing on what Democrat voters see as important issues. However, they reported that abortion rights are one of the top three election issues.

The problem is that there are a lot of other polls, including WaPo and NYT polls, that show abortion isn’t anywhere near the most important issues for voters. Almost every poll shows it is inflation/energy costs and the illegal immigration crisis at the border that are above abortion rights, in some polls more than a few places above abortion rights.

It goes back to something I’ve written elsewhere earlier about the DNC hammering away at abortion, trying to make it the #1 election issue...and failing. They are also pushing January 6th for all they can and aren’t gaining any traction there either.

Almost all of the Democrat campaign ads I’ve been seeing here in New Hampshire covering the two Congressional Districts, the US Senate, and the Gubernatorial race are aimed at abortion rights, and lately, Social Security and Medicare.

The new DNC ads are claiming GOP candidates Don Bolduc - US Senate - and Karoline Leavitt – CD1 - want to ‘destroy’ Social Security and Medicare, using some creative editing in the ads to make it seem they want to do away with both. They aren’t proposing anything both Republicans and Democrats haven’t proposed over the past 40 years or so.

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OK, what’s going on in China?

It seems former Chinese leader Hu Jintao was forced to leave a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party congress under duress.

Why does this sound familiar?
>br> Wait, could it be the former Chinese leader is being subjected to the Chinese version or Trump Derangement Syndrome where the former leader - Hu - is being sidelined/minimized/criminalized by the present leader – Xi – to ‘keep him in his place’?

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It looks like our neighbor to the north has decided to go stupid, banning handguns.

I expect Canada is going to learn the same lesson as the UK: Only criminals will have guns...and will continue to use them against a now unarmed populace. They will also see and increase in knife violence, just as they’ve seen in the UK. That also implies Canada will impose knife control at some point, too.

Canadians will also learn a lesson already learned in Australia after they banned guns: The government will become increasingly intrusive and tyrannical because they know their now disarmed citizens can no longer tell the government to “F*ck off!”, or at worse, be unable to depose the tyrants.

It’s time for our Canadian brethren to kick out Fidel Trudeau and restore the rights that have already been stripped from Canadians. The same goes for the Australians.

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EVs are supposed to be cheaper to ‘fuel’ than ICE vehicles, at least according to the EV purists. But it turns out that isn’t true, at least in the UK.

The price of charging an electric car using a public rapid charger is now more expensive than filling up with diesel according to data gathered by Parkers. The soaring price of wholesale gas and electricity has forced up the cost of charging a typical electric car, with £10 of charge taking you less far than the same amount of diesel.

This rise in EV charging begins to bite just as petrol and diesel prices are finally beginning to fall. Despite the spiralling costs of using public electric car chargers, the long-term consideration of an electric car is still very much on many drivers’ minds.

However, we’re seeing much the same thing here, particularly as electricity rates keep climbing. Here in New Hampshire electricity rates have doubled for some ratepayers, and more than doubled for others. It is expected the rates will go up again some time around February. The same is true in other states, one of them being California. As bad as the electricity rates are here in New England, they’re worse in California.

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We keep hearing claims that Republicans are working hard to prevent people from voting in elections, putting up all kinds of roadblocks to keep the poor, minorities, and others from participating in elections in violation of the US Constitution. Below is an illustration of just how we evil Republicans are doing so:

(Image courtesy of Patriot Post)

Our nefarious plan is coming to fruition! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where boats are disappearing from their slips to be stored away for the winter, the fall foliage is now past peak and the leaves are falling, and where the Mid-Terms are a little over two weeks away (Thank Goodness!).

Yet Another Reason To Dislike Wind Turbines

One of my gripes about wind turbines has nothing to with their power ratios (operational capacity versus plate capacity), their unreliability due to the vagaries of weather, non-dispatchability, power grid synchronization issues, heavy tax subsidies, and health issues caused by the infrasound generated by the blades as they spin.

This gripe has to do with wind turbines being very good at chopping birds, and more specifically endangered species of birds, into two or more pieces. I find it funny that environmentalists love the turbines but seem to have no concerns for the animals they kill.

This is how I see them:

To quote a favorite meme, “Prove me wrong.”

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been great weather here at Lake Winnipesaukee – sunny and warm – something that has had the leaf peepers out and enjoying peak foliage. I certainly saw a lot of traffic when I was out an about yesterday, with a lot of the vehicles bearing out-of-state plates. The restaurants were certainly busy.

On two different occasions, once yesterday and once today, I had folks who were obviously “from away” asking me for advice of where they might go for great views of the foliage and I obliged them. However, I did not point them to places where folks from here would go. We’ve got to keep those places to ourselves. (As a note, for some of us all we have to do is look out of our windows to see wonderful views. I wish I could say that was true here at The Gulch, but my home doesn’t have that kind of view. The home I am hoping to build, tentatively named The Redoubt, will have great views of some of the surrounding mountains.)

There was one downside to the weekend, that being I found the batteries on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout were run down, making it impossible to start the engine. I had to pull one of the batteries out, bring it home and connect it to a battery charger I borrowed from BeezleBub, then take the battery back and install it, start the engine, then change the battery switch to charge to second battery. The cause of this problem comes down to two simple things: we haven’t used the boat much this season and the batteries are getting a bit long in the tooth. If they get me through the next couple of weeks, I’ll see about replacing them next spring.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be coming out of the water in two more weeks. It isn’t the latest I’ve pulled the boat out of the water by any means, that being November 9th one year, but it’s right around the time my boating season usually ends.

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Iran is seeing increasing unrest, something that has been taking place over the past 5 weeks, with the latest incident taking place at Evin Prison where a large majority of anti-regime protesters are being held.

Is this a sign that the Iranian people have had just about enough of the theocratic regime that has ruled Iran since 1979? The increasing unrest seems like a mirror image of the unrest that took place back in 1979 which helped bring the Ayatollah Khomeini to power, deposing Shah Reza Pahlavi. The fundamentalist rule has gotten increasingly repressive and the people are no longer afraid to voice their displeasure with the regime.

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Any of you who have been reading my blog know my feelings about the ‘woke’, likening their beliefs to untreated cases of mental illness. Mark Judge goes a step farther, relating it to a form of narcissism and referencing the book The Culture Of Narcissism which certainly explains the woke and why they are the way they are.

The nature of the Left in 2022 is rooted more in psychology than political science. Specifically, liberalism is suffering from narcissism.

To understand how, it’s essential to grasp the true meaning of narcissism. In its clinical definition, narcissism is not self-love — it’s the opposite. The narcissist isn’t full of ego. Rather, he has no real sense of self. Where the self would be is emptiness, which results in a mad effort to fill the psyche with meaning. Lacking a stable and confident sense of identity, the narcissist hunts for meaning in therapy, self-help, sex, or radical politics. None of these can give meaning to empty lives.

There’s also this take on the issue, courtesy of Instapundit commenter No Feelings:


What I find ironic is that a large majority of the woke are not from the disadvantaged socio-economic demographics, but from upper middle-class and upper class upbringings. It seems they think they have to make other people’s lives fit what they define as ‘right and proper’ even though that definition goes against human nature. It also allows them to virtue signal their ‘superior’ viewpoints and beliefs. That most people see that virtue signaling as something to be devoutly ignored drives the wokerati to make their ‘inferiors’ care. This led to the so-called “Cancel Culture” which has damaged many lives, many careers, many businesses, and many communities. That Cancel Culture is now being targeted for cancellation is a sign that everyone else has had enough of their twisted nonsense.

It’s time to get these narcissists into treatment and to undo the damage they have done.

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This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention.

It seems CNN is upset that the American people are more concerned with rampant inflation rather than the January 6th investigations. Could it be that the American people have a better sense of what’s important than CNN does? Could it be that the American people know the ‘importance’ of January 6th is nothing but yet another form of TDS?

I’ve seen a lot of hypocritical headlines, infuriating headlines, stupid headlines, and manipulative headlines, but this is probably the most pathetic headline I’ve seen recently. It’s tragic, really. You can practically hear the disappointment and frustration in this headline: “Voters may care more about the cost of French fries than January 6 panel’s compelling evidence.”

Y’all, the people who are in trouble for the events at the Capitol on January 6th should certainly be punished for their crimes. Which are probably mostly trespassing related, if we’re being entirely honest. Does it deserve a year and a half of investigation by a special committee of lawmakers who have far more important things they should be doing for the American people? No. It doesn’t.

The things that the media and their DNC masters think are important are entirely different from what a majority of the American people obviously think are important. That’s not really any different than it was over 20 years ago, but the people are more cognizant of the fact that the media are not their friends.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been great, the latest crop of campaign signs are growing like weeds, and where the fall foliage is spectacular.

Dating Apps Are Toxic

A few days ago I penned a piece about how smart phones have been both a blessing and a curse to our society. One of the parts of that post referenced one of the more controversial dealing with dating apps:

The old-fashioned ways of meeting someone have faded away to be replaced by dating apps like Match.com, Tinder, Bumble, FarmersOnly, and a host of others. The problem with so many of them is that they have devolved from dating apps to ‘hook-up’ apps for sexual assignations.

I am not the only one that has noticed this.

My own son has had direct exposure to this with one app he tried a couple of years ago, deleting his profile from the site and the app from his phone after a number of disappointing experiences. This brings me to something I saw from Jordan Peterson.

He delves into the “dating app world” and how it is a toxic environment that should be avoided by those looking for possible romantic partners. He also gets into how it twists people’s perceptions and their psyches and makes it less likely they will form lasting relationships with anyone.

Here’s what Dr. Peterson has to say about the topic:


If what a fraction of what Peterson says is accurate, it certainly explains how relationships between younger men and women have been deteriorating, if they start at all, and one reason why.

Very Interesting...And Disturbing

I saw this in the comments in Thursday’s DayByDay cartoon and thought it was something worth sharing.

Even if you aren’t a Sports Fan, this is Very Interesting!

36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71, I repeat 71, cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related Charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits,
And 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year!

Can you guess which organization this is? Is it the NBA or NFL?
Give up yet?

Scroll down...



Neither.

It’s the 535 members of the United States Congress, the same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

Remember, most of them are up for election this year!!!

(The above has been edited only for formatting.)

This shows that many of our ‘august’ Representatives and Senators in Congress aren’t any better than the people they represent. Some are even worse.

Smart Phones - Both A Blessing And A Curse

Over the long weekend I had the opportunity to do some people-watching. One thing I noticed that was common to almost everyone I saw – a smart phone. This is not something new. I believe I have mentioned such an observation more than once over the past few years.

I, being an old faht, remember the days when cell phones didn’t exist. Phones were connected via wires, there was no texting, and answering machines didn’t really come into general use until the late 1980’s. Today ‘phones’ also text, navigate, take pictures and record video, play games, and even make phone calls. Today there is more ability for humans to communicate than any time in history, whether it’s between people in the same building or on the other side of the world, be it by voice, text, or video. Yet with all of this marvelous technology making communications ubiquitous we seem to be communicating less than we have in the past. It is a paradox.

We ‘talk’ more but say less. We miss nuances that can change the meaning of what’s been said. This last is particularly true of texting, something that both I and one of the WP nieces can attest due to a number of online debates that became contentious because of the missing nuances. When we are face-to-face the contentiousness vanishes.

Something else I’ve noticed?

People become anxious if they are separated from their phones. I have seen people panicking when they find they’ve left their phone someplace (usually either at home or in their car) and it isn’t in their possession. It seems some folks feel like they don’t exist if they don’t have their phones with them at all times.

I have actually asked people if they feel anxious or nervous if they find they’ve left their phones at home or wherever. The people who most often answered ‘no’ were older (like me) while the younger the respondent the more often the answer was ‘yes’.

I have to wonder if it is a manifestation of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) if they have no access to SMS, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook and can’t get immediate feedback to the things they post. This brings up another negative of this incredible ability to communicate.

Disconnection from reality.

To so many people their phone is their connection to an alternate reality. To them the most important parts of their lives can only be reached through their phones. But those lives aren’t real. They are electronic chimera, a “Through The Looking Glass” existence. Real life becomes less real, less important. But they can’t or won’t give them up. They are addicted.

That’s scary.

And then there are human relations, specifically of the ‘romantic’ type. The old-fashioned ways of meeting someone have faded away to be replaced by dating apps like Match.com, Tinder, Bumble, FarmersOnly, and a host of others. The problem with so many of them is that they have devolved from dating apps to ‘hook-up’ apps for sexual assignations. It’s all too easy to look through hundreds of profiles for matches, swiping left or right to reject or accept a match. But how many of these matches ever evolve into something beyond a transitory sexual connection?

How may of you have walked into a break room/lunch room/cafeteria full of people only to realize that only a few of the people are actually talking to each other? The rest have their heads bowed over their phones texting people elsewhere...or just across the table from them. The don’t actually talk to each other any more.

How many have attended a family gathering only to see a number of family members more interested in what’s on their phones and not the family surrounding them? I saw that happen one Thanksgiving at The Manse, with a number of the younger members of the WP Clan spending more time texting their friends back home rather than interacting with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents right in front of them. We solved that problem by making those younger family members shut off their phones and give them to their parents who would return them just before they left for home, something a few of them protested vehemently against. But in the end they gave in. From that point on it was the rule that their phones would be turned off and put away when they were attending family gatherings.

Smart phones are wonderful things, but like any technology they are a two-edged sword. They enable worldwide communications and access to information and knowledge to a level unprecedented in human history. But they can also beguile and ensnare the unwary and can disconnect them from the real world and suck them into a world that exists only cyberspace. That isn’t healthy. It isn’t desirable.

We have to find a way to strike a balance. It isn’t going to be easy...but it must be done.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was our annual neighborhood Clean-Up Day here at The Gulch, with us cutting back brush, trimming tree branches, small trees, sumac, and other bits and pieces. It only took a couple of hours to get everything done as many hands made for light (and quick) work. Fortunately there wasn’t quite as much to attend to this year as last year we did quite a bit of cutting and removal of some of the more troublesome bushes and trees.

It also helped that it was cool this morning though we did lose the sun about an hour into our cleanup. Temps only made it into the mid-50’s today and should be in the low 60’s tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to make it out on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout for a quick jaunt on the lake.

We’re about a week away from the peak of fall foliage and I am hoping one of my last trips out on the lake this season will will be next weekend at peak foliage. It’s not a bad way to close out the boating season.

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Just when I though AOC couldn’t get any stupider I find proof to the contrary. Does anyone else need any more proof of her absolute cluelessness?

(H/T tricknologist)

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With Putin threatening use of nukes if he doesn’t get his way in Ukraine, there’s one question only a few of us are asking, that being “Have the Russians maintained their nuclear weapons any better than the rest of their military equipment?”

If I had to guess, and I do, I’d have to say the answer is ‘no’.

Maintaining nukes is not the same as maintaining tanks, trucks, planes, ships, artillery, guns, and so on. It takes highly trained and capable specialists with equipment that you won’t find at your local maintenance depot to maintain a nuclear warhead in operational condition. Nukes don’t like sitting around in storage for years on end without maintenance. Considering the state of maintenance of the rest of Russia’s military equipment which is easier to maintain than nukes, I’d be surprised if more than 20% of all their nukes might work. Do the Russians know which of their warheads might work?

The same is true of many of the delivery systems. How many warheads and their delivery systems can be considered operational?

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The claim keeps being made that renewables are the cheapest form of energy. However, it seems that manufacturers of renewable energy systems in Europe are struggling to survive the soaring energy prices.

It’s ironic considering Europe has made itself so dependent upon renewables which haven’t been able to meet demand and aren’t likely to do so any time in the future, particularly now that the renewables manufacturers are teetering on the edge. One, like French solar module manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies has had to shut down its factory because of rising energy prices as well as increasing costs and taxes on materials. According to a Maxeon spokesman, they could no longer compete in the European market.

How many other manufacturers and suppliers are in the same position?

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Then there’s this:

It seems that Tokyo has seen no warming in 34 years.

34 years.

There’s another Japanese location, the island of Hachijojima has an automated weather station that shows a similar lack of warming, but for 47 years.

I’ll bet that if we looked at pristine weather stations in the US we’d see something similar.

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Yeah, this is going to go over well with already over-burdened California residents.

They have already been told they will be forced to buy EVs they can’t afford and won’t be able to charge. Now they’re being told the overbearing California government is going to start reducing available parking spaces.

How wonderful that moonbats like Newsom are improving the weather by leaving you with no place to park. Maybe this sudden commitment to reducing housing costs will motivate California Democrats to lighten up with the repressive regulations that have driven them into the stratosphere.

What will Californians do? If I had to guess, they’ll park their non-EVs in states other than California.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are still turning, the leaf peepers are showing up in increasing numbers, and this Monday is a holiday.

No Surprise - Russia's War In Ukraine Isn't Going Well

As more time passes it appears Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has gone sideways. The Russian military was seen a juggernaut, a powerful force to be reckoned with. But time has shown that while it was once a powerful military, it is a shadow of its former self.

In the beginning of Putin’s “Special Military Operation”, many, including some here in the West, figured Ukraine was doomed once Russia invaded. Some have reported the Russians expected to sweep into Kyiv and seize the government in three days. Yet over 7 months later Russia is on the ropes as Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been gaining ground in Russian-held Ukrainian territory as Russian lines have apparently crumbled.

The Russian air force never achieved air superiority, something it should have been able to do. But Ukraine wasn’t the pushover everyone expected. Russia has lost thousands of troops, thousands of tracks – tanks, APCs, and IFVs – countless trucks, and tons of ammunition either destroyed or abandoned. Bridges have been demolished, supply depots destroyed, and rail lines sabotaged. Manpower shortages have hurt Russia’s ability to stave off Ukraine’s counteroffensive, hence Putin’s call-up of reserves.

It doesn’t help Russia that their reserves are not like those we’re familiar with here. Russia doesn’t have an equivalent of the Reserves or National Guard we have in the US. Their reserves are either former conscripts, who weren’t well trained to begin with, or some former professional now in their 40’s and 50’s who mustered out 20 years ago and whose training is out of date and whose physical conditioning is likewise.

Things aren’t going well for Putin’s war against Ukraine, with their latest setback being the heavy damage to the only bridge between Crimea and the Russian mainland. That bridge and the adjacent railroad bridge are closed, with more than one section of the roadway now in the Black Sea.

The past couple of weeks have not been going Putin's way.

Einstein Was Right

Thoughts On A Sunday

We experienced the remnants of Hurricane Ian yesterday: It was cloudy until around noon and then the sun came out.

Somehow we survived it.

Ironically it’s been quite windy all day today with temps in the 50’s, but not due to Ian. We can thank Canada for today’s fall weather.

==++==

One thing that happened Friday was the Official Weekend Pundit Computer went down. It froze and accepted no input. A reboot didn’t help.

Looking at my records I realized I’ve been using that computer – an HP – for 10 years. I have dug deeper into the problem with the help of my dear brother. What’s ironic is that I had planned to restage the computer with a new hard drive loaded with one of the Arch Linux distributions – probably Garuda Linux – a little later this year. It is fortunate I had made backups of all the data on the computer, missing only a few of the more recent files. I don’t think it will be an issue to recover those last few files since the crash of the Official Weekend Pundit Computer was not due to a hard disk failure.

It looks like I will have to come up with a new computer if I cannot correct the hardware error that caused the crash.

==++==

When I first saw this I thought it might have come from the Babylon Bee since there’s no way it could be true.

It turns out that it’s true...and does not bode well for our nation: The Democrats are pushing an American apartheid.

In this case Kamala Harris announced that federal aid for Hurricane Ian will be distributed based on skin color.

The Biden administration will focus on “giving resources based on equity” by directing funds to “communities of color”. pic.twitter.com/uixPpyQWdU

Yeah, that will help generate more racial harmony...and help cement a GOP victory in November.

They just can’t help themselves, can they?

==++==

I can agree with this wholeheartedly.

Only the Western Woke think the world loves them for their virtue. The rest know that the world really loves them for fried chicken, video games and consumer goods. What used to be called whiskey, democracy, sexy.

The only thing virtue signaling does for these mentally ill woke a**holes is make themselves feel better. No one else gives a sh*t and they cannot be made to do so. It’s time to heap as much derision and abuse upon the woke as we can as it may be the only way to make the woke realize that they’re ill.

Everyone is sick to death of the self-righteous woke. It’s as Tom Knighton stated, “Only the woke don’t know they’re over.”

==++==

It looks like Dish Network is going through the periodic pain of negotiating with a content provider asking for a large fee increase, the content provider in this case being Disney. Because they can’t reach an agreement, Dish has been forced to remove all Disney network programming which includes channels like ESPN, Disney Channel, Freeform, and ABC.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen to Dish or our local cable TV provider. I’ve also seen it happen to DirectTV. Of course when the satellite or cable operator caves and agrees to pay the higher subscriber fees, the customers see their satellite or cable bills go up and blame their satellite/cable operator. This is a dance that occurs every few years between the content providers and satellite and cable operators. It doesn’t always lead to programming being blacked out, but it happens often enough because the content providers know they’ll get their subscriber fee increases.

I can only recall one time where a small number of service providers refused to bow to a content provider and had no problem dropping programming. If memory serves, the content provider was Viacom who provided channels like MTV, VH1, and Nickelodeon, just to name a few. The service providers were small rural independent cable operators who couldn’t justify the fee hike Viacom was demanding, so they dropped all Viacom programming. What’s ironic is that the cable operators only received a couple of complaints about the dropped programming and their customers actually saw the video portion of the cable bills drop.

Considering how awful a lot of the TV programming is these days, I’m surprised more cable and satellite operators aren’t telling the content providers “We’ll be willing to pay more once you start providing decent content rather than the garbage you’re peddling now.”

==++==

The Climate Change faithful keep making the claim climate change is fueling more and more powerful hurricanes. However, there are peer-reviewed papers that say just the opposite.

With Hurricane Ian (now a tropical storm) exiting the east coast of Florida, there is no shortage of news reports tying this storm to climate change. Even if those claims actually include data to support their case, those data are usually for cherry-picked regions and time periods. If global warming is causing a change in tropical cyclone activity, it should show up in global statistics.

The latest peer-reviewed study (March 2022, here) of the accumulated wind energy in tropical cyclones since 1990 (when we started have sufficient global data) showed a decrease in hurricane activity. There was an increase in Atlantic activity, but this was matched by an even larger decrease in Pacific activity, due to a shift from El Nino to La Nina conditions during that time.

So, yes, there is climate change involved in the uptick in Atlantic activity in recent decades. But it’s natural.

We haven’t been seeing nearly as many hurricanes (and a smaller number of tropical storms), and those we do see aren’t making landfall as often as in the past.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are changing color, the cooler weather is here, and Halloween is 4 weeks away.

This Is Why

It seems to me that many young women - well, young to me at least – are asking the question “Where have all the good men gone?”

I could delve into the many reasons why this question has become far more common over the past 20 years or so, but that would be a 30,000 word essay, something that I wouldn’t want to write and that you probably wouldn’t want to read.

More young career women are finding themselves without a mate or a family of their own and wondering why. Bishop T.D. Jakes may have one of the answers to that question:

“We are raising up women to be men. And you are not applauded for your femininity. You are applauded in the contemporary society by how tough, rough, nasty, mean, aggressive, hateful, possessive you are as you are climbing the corporate ladder.”

“But we are losing our families.”

“I know you can buy your own car. I know you can buy your own house. But until you create a need that I can pour myself into, I have no place in your life. So stop coming home bragging to me about how much you don’t need me and wonder why I shy away.”

Unfortunately his observations may be all too true. We are certainly seeing the outcome of the mindset Jakes describes and it is only getting worse. But fortunately more young women (and men) are waking up to this truth.

There may still be hope.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We experienced a blackout here at The Gulch Friday evening, the lights going out just past 7PM. It had been very windy and cool all day and apparently a tree limb decided it was time to break loose and take down some power lines on the other side of the shoreline road. After a call to the power company to report the outage, apparently limited to just our small neighborhood here around The Gulch, they contacted me a few minutes later to let me know it was going to be at least three hours before power would be restored.

It was time to break out the Official Weekend Pundit Portable Generator.

This would be the first time it was used to power The Gulch as we hadn’t had any outages requiring me to take it out of storage. It has been run a few times in the two years I’ve had it, either as a test or to power equipment at a remote project.

I pulled the genset out of the garage, retrieved the 40lb propane bottle, connected it to the genset, switched off the main house breaker, connected the genset to the outside house connector, fired up the genset and then flipped on the breakers on the genset. The lights in The Gulch came on.

The genset handled the power draw of The Gulch without a hitch. The only things the genset couldn’t handle were the stove and clothes dryer, but it wasn’t like we would have needed to use either of them over that short span of time. For a longer outage it still wouldn’t have been an issue because I can use the microwave or cook with the Official Weekend Pundit Gas Grill and take any washed clothes down to the laundromat to dry them, assuming I couldn’t use a laundry rack and dry them out on the porch.

All in all, it was a good full-up test of the generator’s capability to power The Gulch.

==++==

It now officially being Fall, foliage season around here can’t be too far behind.

We’re already seeing the swamp maples changing color to their brilliant red. They start a few weeks ahead of all the other trees, a harbinger of what’s to come.

Peak foliage color around here usually occurs between October 10th and October 20th. Some have been concerned the drought experienced in New England will affect both the intensity and peak foliage timing, but central and northern New Hampshire weren’t affected by the drought – rainfalls were normal or slightly below normal – so there are expectations the brilliance and timing of the foliage will be normal as well.

==++==

I don’t see how anyone but the willfully ignorant or the deluded couldn’t see this coming.

Why the mass exodus of law enforcement from blue cities? Blame the blue city officials driving it.

Democratic city mayors continue to complain about astronomical police overtime expenditures and dismal recruiting numbers in the post- George Floyd era of unrest. But this is a Frankenstein monster of the " progressive " Left’s own making. For the past two years, leftist activists have relentlessly vilified law enforcement and pushed policies to strip them of their funding and authority. So it’s no mystery why many are retiring or leaving hostile jurisdictions for a more hospitable environment in the suburbs.

Now that the extent of the damage the Left has wrought is becoming apparent, the same mayors and city councilmembers who voted to slash police budgets are backtracking and suddenly acting to increase funding. It’s no coincidence that their change in heart occurred during a consequential midterm election year. President Joe Biden, for example, is calling for more police funding. This is curious, especially since he delivered an insulting diatribe at the Police Week memorial ceremony last year, in which he chose to highlight police abuses and misconduct rather than the sacrifices made by officers.

This mass exodus has had the expected side-effect in those urban bastions of blue-think: rising violent crime rates, dropping property values, an exodus of businesses and workers along with a similar exodus of residents seeking a safer living and work environment. Yet those same blue city officials are baffled by the results of their actions and the anger being directed towards them by their subjects. (I refuse to call them constituents since so many of these officials treat them more like subjects.)

==++==

Is conservatism being prohibited?

Yes. Yes it is.

First, Scott Adams’ “Dilbert” comic strip has lost 77 newspapers, apparently because it ridiculed “woke” doctrine…

A second case comes from the U.K. and involves PayPal. The Telegraph reports:

It all moved up a gear this week when PayPal closed the accounts of the Free Speech Union and the anti-lockdown Daily Sceptic with no explanation given. The latest victim is the UsForThem campaign, which sought to highlight the impact of school closures during lockdown. They use PayPal to fundraise, but the account has been suspended. Given PayPal’s dominance of the market, it’s quite a problem.

Tech giants are universally hostile to free speech, so shutting down the Free Speech Union–which gets a third of its membership fees through PayPal–is no surprise. The other two are anti-lockdown and anti-school closure organizations.

Finally, Mike Lindell is back in the news. You may remember that the FBI caught Lindell red-handed driving through a Hardee’s and confiscated his cell phone. The warrant supporting that seizure has now emerged.

--snip--

Of course the “identity theft” and “damage to a protected computer” have to do with Lindell’s role in questioning the integrity of 2020 election results.

Mike Lindell is a wealthy man who wasn’t trying to steal someone else’s identity for fraudulent purposes, and he doesn’t go around bashing computers with a baseball bat. This all has to do with his opposition to the regime.

I think Lindell’s theories about Dominion are probably wrong. Dominion has sued him and others, I believe, for vast amounts of money. Those issues presumably will be thrashed out in court. But why does the FBI swing into action to suppress any suggestion that our loosest election ever might not have been on the up-and-up?

Then you have Twitter and Facebook declaring verifiable facts and events as mis-/disinformation, even info that came from the US government because it doesn’t fit the Progressive narrative. Any questioning of the narrative must be quashed and those doing the questioning must be silenced, or worse, prosecuted and imprisoned.

It looks like the Democrats are trying very hard to make any opposition to their political ideology be declared ‘extremist’ and therefore illegal.

That whirring sound you’re hearing? That’s the sound of the Framers of the Constitution spinning in their graves.

==++==

The electricity rates here in New Hampshire went up 100% last month, much of it attributed to the spike in natural gas prices. Much of the natural gas in New England comes from overseas – Libya and Yemen – thanks to the efforts of the NIMBY’s, BANANA’s, and Watermelon Environmentalists block construction of a new pipeline into New England. The foreign natural gas costs a lot more than US natural gas and has to shipped across the Atlantic.

These same folks also blocked transmission line construction that would have brought cheap green hydro power into New England from Quebec.

Now it’s Massachusetts’ turn to deal with higher electricity rates, with rates slated to increase by 64% on November 1st and for the same reasons.

It doesn’t help that the natural gas prices have spiked due to actions taking by SloJo his first day in office and much later, the sanctions placed on Russia after they invaded Ukraine. (To be fair, most of the price increases happened well before Russia invaded, Biden’s claims notwithstanding.)

==++==

I guess it’s never too early to start with a disinformation campaign based upon TDS.

In this case it’s focused don Ron DeSantis and it’s claiming he’s “worse than Trump”.

I figure this theme will soon be cranked up to ‘11’ the closer we get to the Presidential primaries which start in January 2024.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where Fall has finally arrived, there’s still plenty of boating to do, and the foliage will start changing in a couple of weeks.

Indeed

We had a power outage in our little neighborhood last night so I didn't have a chance to post anything as I was busy dealing with the outage. I came across this image over at GraniteGrok and, having showed it to a co-worker, he spewed coffee all over his computer screen because he couldn't help but laugh.

Thoughts On A Sunday

We’ve had a short preview of fall weather over the past few days, with nighttime temps in the 40’s (and some up north in the 30’s) and daytime temps in the upper 50’s and low 60’s. However, today we’ll see temps in the 80’s. But we’ll be back in the 60’s tomorrow with rain all day and 60’s the rest of the week.

I have already seen the swamp maples turning color, but they are usually a good month ahead of most of the other trees when it comes to the fall foliage color. I expect we’ll see heavy tourist traffic with the so-called “leaf peepers” arriving from all over the world. Colors are expected to be a bit muted in the southern part of New Hampshire due to the drought stress the forests have been subjected to, but central and northern New Hampshire should see spectacular color since there was little if any drought stress. I know I will be using the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout to view the foliage colors when they are close to peak, something that I look forward to every year.

==++==

The TV media has been busy covering the preparations for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Seeing the lines of people waiting to pay their last respects to the only monarch many of them have ever known has been eye-opening.

I will admit to feeling sorrow at her passing. She always reminded me of my own grandmother, and I’ve thought of her as “America’s Grandmother”. Yeah, it sounds strange, I know, but that’s how I’ve thought of her.

She was gracious, but she also had a wicked sense of humor which she showed the world now and then.

I will miss her.

==++==

It’s interesting seeing Bill Maher’s ‘awakening’ to the perfidy of the Left. While still a Leftist himself, he has been pointing out the extreme views and measures of the radical Left that had had him rethinking his positions and questioning the motives of those presently running the nation.

Maher also had strong words for Leftists who refused to consider the possibility that what he was saying was true: “And that’s why you seem like you have such contempt for half the country. I don’t think that’s going to get us where we need to go.” Speaking about the deep political divisions in the country today, he asked: “I think we’ve crossed this line and now the question is, how do we walk it back? How do we walk it back from, ‘I hate you so much that I can’t live with you?’ And we have to live with each other. This is not an apartment where we can put the tape down the middle of it. We have to find a way.”

--snip--

In other words, Leftists have completely departed from reality and from a rational assessment of the contemporary scene. While Maher is correct that we have to live with them, it’s like having to live in a house with an insane person: one must always be on guard, for one never knows what the insane one is going to do, or how much damage he is going to cause. It is at least refreshing that a committed Leftist such as Maher can show signs of waking up from the insanity and deciding that he doesn’t want to along with it any longer. Maybe others will follow. We can hope.

If committed Leftists like Maher can see that he path other Leftists are leading us down will lead to the destruction of the United States and to a ‘woke’ totalitarian state, then there may be hope that just a few more like him will also wake up and realize where we’re headed down the wrong path.

==++==

We keep getting the “We all have to switch over to EVs” meme rammed down our throats. Of course those saying we have to make the switch are ignoring the downsides to EVs, one of the biggest being the cost of replacing the battery pack when the time comes. Just one example: The cost to replace the battery pack for a Tesla is $26,000.

That’s not a typo.

It will cost $26,000 to replace the battery in a 2014 Tesla. That’s more than I spent to buy the trusty RAM 1500. I could replace the engine and transmission and gas tank in the RAM for what that battery pack costs and have a lot of money left over. (Not that I should ever need to do so. As long as regular maintenance is performed, they should last another 10 years or so.)

Numbers-wise, EVs make no sense to me. The cost of battery pack replacement makes those numbers make even less sense.

==++==

I wonder if they realize just how stupid they sound?

NY Times: American Democracy Is In Crisis From Republicans Adhering To The Constitution.

Apparently the NYT doesn’t like things like the Electoral College, something that helps prevent a tyranny of the majority, or Freedom of Speech, or the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, or protection against Unreasonable Search and Seizure and so on. It gets in the way of creating the “Perfect Socialist Utopia”, also known as Hell on Earth.

Those of us in the know understand what really needs to be done to save our nation from those who hate it so much:

1- Repeal the 17th Amendment, allowing state general assemblies to appoint senators to represent the will of the state, ambassadors to the federal government, as intended. They will do what their states say, not what the big money donors.

2- Term limits for Representatives. Eight years.

3- Federally elected positions and appointed administrators will not be allowed to trade stock while in office. Period. No trading stock for any federal employee if it is related to the agency they work for Balanced budget amendment.

4- Those running for the House may not take in more than 10% of their campaign donations from outside of their district. How does it help the people of that district when a goodly chunk comes from outside?

5- Allocation to federal agencies will be based on what the agencies need, not what they want, reducing overspending, just like at private sector companies.

6- No more allowing cost over-runs when contracting something, unless the agency requests it. If the contractor is running late and over-budget, tough. Fulfill your contract, eat the money.

7- Fed govt needs to stop funding everything local. Which gives them power over the towns and cities. Such as all the money to police depts, giving the feds power over the police.

8- Lower taxation. Money should be going to your town and state, not so much to feds.

I would probably change #2 to incorporate one of my suggestions, that being members of the House of Representatives should be drafted, not elected. We’re likely to get a better class of people that way.

==++==

By way of Maggie’s Farm comes this image:

What’s scary is that this is closer to the truth than most people realize. But there there’s also this truth:

‘Nuff said.

==++==

And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where most of the summerfolk are gone, die-hards are still plying the waters of the lake, and where we’re waiting for foliage change to take place.

Let's Call It What It Is

I found it interesting to see the outrage of some of the residents on Martha’s Vineyard when they got a taste of what so many others have had to deal with regarding illegal immigrants being shipped into their neighborhoods.

It seems most of the outrage is coming from people who own second homes on the island rather than year-round residents. Of course the hypocrisy is strong considering Martha’s Vineyard is allegedly a sanctuary community. But once illegal immigrants actually arrive there, their virtue signaling sanctuary status magically disappears...at least until the illegals are kicked off the island.

I had the chance to ask a friend of mine who is a native Islander (fifth generation) about her reaction to what happened out there and she was not surprised at the outrage. However, she did mention that most of those expressing outrage are from “off-island” (the Martha’s Vineyard equivalent of New Hampshire’s “folks from away” or more derisively “flatlanders”). They have vacation homes on the island and don’t live there. They tend to be the most vocal when things don’t go the way they think they should.

I have dealt with some of those folks on Martha’s Vineyard in the past, having spent a lot of time on the island in my teens, 20’s, and 30’s, mostly during the off-season. I’ve been dealing with the equivalent up here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire for the past 30 years. The only difference between the two is the folks on Martha’s Vineyard have even more money and tend to be snootier and more entitled than the folks here.

Why do folks who think being a sanctuary community is fine...until actual illegal immigrants show up? Let’s call it what it is:

Hypocrisy.

Red Pill Blue Pill Choice

“Take the Blue Pill and you’ll wake up in your bed and will live an 18th century life in California, believing you are living a virtuous life of onerous labor, privation, illness, and premature death. Take the Red Pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes, finding a long and healthy life in a modern, clean, high energy technological society in Florida that will someday reach the stars.”

“Choose wisely, for once you take the pill there’s no going back.”

A Remembrance Of That Awful Day

This past Friday I was speaking with one of my co-workers about the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, someone we both admired. We talked about how she had been the only Queen we had known all our lives. We talked about the things we remembered about her and since September 11th was only a couple of days away, I mentioned seeing the Guard at Buckingham Palace play the Star Spangled Banner at her request, the day after the September 11th attacks. Just talking about that moment had tears brimming in my eyes as they did my co-worker. Even writing about it has me feeling a little choked up.

Seeing as today is the 21st anniversary of That Awful Day, I thought it fitting that I replace my usual Sunday post with this remembrance.

I have to start with saying that until September 11th, I never understood the folks who had experienced the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 saying that they remember exactly where they were when they heard the news, remembered their feelings on that day. The one thing that so many of them said that to them, it hadn’t happened ‘x’ years ago, but ‘yesterday’.

On September 12th, 2001, I understood what they meant. In the 21 years since That Awful Day I know exactly what they meant when they said it didn’t happen all those years ago. To me That Awful Day happened yesterday.

Twenty one years later when I see the Twin Towers on an old TV show or movie I catch my breath. I flash back to That Awful Day, remembering exactly where I was when I first heard of a plane hitting the North Tower and the subsequent report of another plane hitting the South Tower. I remember watching TV as the towers fell. I remember seeing the report of a plane hitting the Pentagon and another crashing in the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. I remember my pager going off again and again and again as I was called in to our state’s Office of Emergency Management. (I was a staff member back then.) I remember the faces of the people in my workplace and the Emergency Management office.

It was yesterday.

Over the years we have heard the stories of the heroes, both individuals and groups, who did amazing things to help the people they didn’t know under daunting circumstances. But it is those stories that have been a silver lining on an otherwise horrific and horrifying day. It is something that when the memories and feelings start weighing me down, I watch this story, one that exemplifies the selflessness of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. It allows me to see the good things that happened on That Awful Day.

Thoughts On A Sunday Saturday

This is a special Saturday edition of Thoughts On A Sunday, the reason being that Sunday is September 11th and I will be dealing with that anniversary on Sunday.

As such, I am going to mention that even with the nice late summer weather, much of the usual weekend visitors we would see have not been here. I’m not complaining as it means we have fewer clueless boaters on the lake and we can actually enjoy some weekend boating again.

It hasn’t lessened the lines at the seasonal restaurants, at least on the weekends. But the usual 10 AM Saturday morning traffic ‘crush’ didn’t materialize. It is usually caused by locals taking care of their grocery shopping and other errands and seasonal renters departing or new seasonal renters arriving. While there will still be a couple of weekends that will see that type of traffic crush, it still won’t be anything near what we see during the June, July, and August.

Our local farm stand was a busy as ever and will likely stay that way until Halloween.

==++==

From the “Just When I Thought They Couldn’t Get Any Stupider” Department comes this gem from Illinois. The only thing I can think of is that the Illinois legislature is working their hardest to make their state as bad as California. Certainly their latest bit of legislation is going to spread the misery already being felt in Chicago to the rest of the state.

The legislation that will add to Illinois residents’ misery is called the “SAFE-T Act”. It was passed in the middle of the night after only 40 minutes of review. Forty minutes.

This is what the misnamed bill will do to help spread violent crime through the entire state, with the three main points being:

- The new law eliminates cash bail for almost every crime, including 2nd-degree murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery.

- Criminals with ankle bracelet locators who don’t show up to court can’t be pursued for 48 hours, giving them ample time to drive almost anywhere in North America.

- Police will no longer be able to remove trespassers from your property.

We already know the first point hasn’t worked out anywhere it’s been implemented. All it has done is allowed violent criminals back out on the streets to re-offend. The second point is just outright stupid.

I could get behind the third point if it the law also allowed property owners to use the force necessary to remove trespassers, up to and including lethal force, without consequences. Otherwise the third point is going to be used to embolden squatters, burglars, and a whole host of other miscreants.

I think we’ll see a rise in gun purchases in The Land Of Lincoln going forward.

==++==

By way of Libs Of TikTok we find out that the MSM isn't mad about gender surgeries on teens, they're mad you found out.

Two weeks ago you may have seen a lot of news segments surrounding Boston Children’s Hospital. Deleted videos and archived web pages pointed to the fact that they were providing “gender affirming” care to young people including puberty blockers, double mastectomies, phalloplasties, and hysterectomies.

The Left immediately seized upon the wording of one tweet in regard to hysterectomies and argued that it’s only done on 18-year-olds. Because they apparently think that’s okay.

This week we learned that that’s not the case. I dropped a bombshell report with a recording of 2 hospital employees admitting in no uncertain terms that they do hysterectomies on 16-year-olds and younger kids in the name of transgender healthcare. There were also archived web pages alluding to that fact. The media panicked. I couldn’t wait to see how they would spin this one.

We can’t trust the hospital, we can’t trust the media, we certainly can’t trust the more radical members of the LGBTQ community.

==++==

This is something I can wholeheartedly agree with. I think most people would also agree with it, that being the world is not going through an energy crisis but a ‘crisis of common sense’. Goodness knows we’ve seen more than enough blatant and very public evidence that the totally clueless have been making decisions about energy policy that are devoid of a lick of common sense.



We have certainly seen that since SloJo took office, issuing Executive Orders that have crippled our energy industry and then goes begging for more oil from the Saudis. The Germans decided to dismantle their nuclear plants and make a deal with the devil (Russia) for natural gas despite warnings the Russians would use that natural gas as a weapon. They also went heavy into renewables, specifically wind, which has left them with electrical supply shortages. Despite their severe electrical supply shortage, they have not stopped their plans to decommission their last operating nuclear plants. We have seen California make many of the same mistakes which has left them with extreme electricity supply shortages during a heat wave all while passing legislation that will mandate the sale of EVs only starting in 2035. They have also made sure their grid won’t have enough capacity to charge all of those EVs...unless they can drive 13 million people out of the Pyrite State before then which might leave them enough power to do so...unless they do even more to cripple their electrical grid between now and then.

It seems that so many energy policies are being driven by feelz rather than data, logic, and reason. Now that more of those policies are making their effects known we’re finding out those polices are incredibly deficient of common sense. Unfortunately, I see even more such energy policies being developed and implemented.

==++==

And that the ‘early’ news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we’re enjoying the departure of the regular summerfolk, our restaurants are slowly being returned to us, but our boating is getting better.

Unconditional Versus Conditional

Call me a surly curmudgeon, an unabashed cynic who has earned his right to be cynical over almost 70 years on this earth, someone who has seen social mores eroded away, ethics cast aside for expediency’s sake, the relationships between the races torn asunder by the intolerant woke, and the covenant between men and women destroyed by those who see no issue with tearing apart families all in the name of ‘equality’ that has nothing to do with actual equality.

I have seen what we used to call dating devolve into what has become to be called ‘Hookup Culture’, with dating apps used not to meet up with potential romantic partners but for casual sex. I have heard more than a few young women state openly “The first marriage is for money. The second marriage is for love.” They were not being funny or facetious. I have heard young men declaring they have no desire to date or get married because they don’t trust women and have decided they have better things to do with their time.

Probably one of the worst things I have seen is the increasing divide between men and women, driven by those who see men and women as different species, with men being monsters who cause all of women’s ills. But men and women are human and like all humans there are differences between them. Yes, they communicate in different ways and that sometimes causes misunderstanding, but that’s something that has been understood for generations. Yet some folks try very hard to increase the misunderstanding and the negative emotions that go with them.

Then there’s love, something that has also been under attack. I could try to explain it, but I think that would be better explained by this meme rather succinctly:

How sad is that?

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a busy weekend for yours truly, and it’s still only Sunday morning when I wrote this.

Yesterday saw a gathering of the WP clan to celebrate the wedding of the the older of the two WP nieces. For reasons I won’t go into, the wedding was held at a beer garden in the the town of Oxford, Maine. This meant a 2+ hour trip from The Gulch, though it wasn’t a bad trip since most of it was cross-country that stayed away from the main highways. I know the WP Mom enjoyed the trip, particularly since there was a lot of beautiful scenery.

The wedding itself was a lot of fun, a non-traditional one in some ways. I could go into a lot of detail, but frankly I doubt anyone would be interested...except for the fact that the food was pizza. Lots of different pizzas. It helped that there was a portable wood-fired pizza oven at the venue that made all of the pizzas we consumed.

I can safely say everyone had a great time!

It’s also a reason why there was no post last night as we didn’t get back to The Gulch until late in the evening.

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It being Labor Day weekend, I can say I have seen the summerfolk making the best of it. Even here at The Gulch I have seen everyone’s homes with extra cars in the driveway.

I did swing by the town beach (purely for research purposes) late this morning and it was already crowded. (Some of that may be due to the fact that rain is expected later today, but not until very late afternoon/early evening.) There were a lot of boats out on the lake at 9 this morning, far more than I would have expected. During our travels to and from Maine we saw a lot of folks making the best of the beautiful weather, the last blast of summer. It makes sense considering that Monday is supposed to rainy all day.

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To quote The Won, “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up.”

We can certainly apply that quote to Biden’s Reichstag blunder. Seeing the staging for that gawdawful speech had me wondering if someone was borrowing heavily from Leni Riefenstahl’s book regarding imagery. It was not a good backdrop for Biden’s hateful speech.

President Joe Biden’s Thursday speech in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall would have been a disturbing abuse of presidential power had it not been so ineptly bungled in every phase of execution.

Paid for by taxpayers as a supposedly nonpartisan speech, Biden attacked half the country as extremists who "threaten the very foundation of our republic." Sure, Biden tried to limit his attack to just MAGA Republicans. But this is the same Joe Biden who insisted every Republican in the Senate who voted against the Democratic Party’s anti-voter identification bill were domestic "enemies" who were trying "to suppress your vote and subvert our elections."

Biden can’t travel down to Georgia and label the election integrity laws supported by all Republicans "Jim Crow on steroids" and then turn around and say he is only trying to demonize a small section of the party. That’s malarkey. No Republican has fought against the lawlessness of former President Donald Trump harder than Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Still, given the opportunity to praise Kemp’s integrity and honesty, Biden called him a neosegregationist instead.

Biden went on to say that MAGA Republicans want to take us "backwards to an America where there is no right to choose." This is how Democrats describe anyone who wants to regulate abortion a single second before a mother gives birth. But again, restricting abortion is a position held by the vast majority of Republicans. Biden can’t pretend he is only attacking a small minority of the Republican Party when he labels a mainstream policy position a threat to "the very soul of this country."

He decided a winning strategy is to demonize half the American people, to paint them as “the other”, all while borrowing heavily from Nazi imagery? I figure it’s only a matter of time before he starts referring to that half of the American people as untermenschen.

What follows after that? A modern day Geheim Staatzpolizei? (FBI or the 87,000 new IRS agents?) Einsatzgruppen? Cattle cars and ‘relocation’ camps?

Or could it lead to a civil war, hot or cold?

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I’m getting tired of saying this: Trump was right.

In this case, his warning to the Europeans about being dependent on Russian natural gas was right on target.

While he was President, Trump created an international furor when he told Germany they were vulnerable because of their dependence on Russian natural gas. Merkel, Macron, and the others thought he was a nutjob. But with the war in Ukraine and Russia’s constant shutdowns of the Nord Stream I Pipeline, they are singing a different tune. Trump was right again, and Europe is paying a frightening price as winter approaches.

Gazprom claimed it was a leaking turbine that had to be repaired, but Siemens, the company that manufactures the turbines, says it was likely political.

“Likely political”? It was purely political, as anyone who has been paying attention understands.

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Here’s yet another story about an armed citizen who stopped a mass shooting in Detroit, a story that hasn’t made the national headlines.

The people who lost their lives are on the mind of neighbors on Pennington, where the gunman shot and tried to kill a fourth victim, but neighbors fought back. Detroit Police describe the man as an 80-year-old. He and his dog were shot but survived.

“He saw my weapon and he went from predator to prey. He had that look of shock,” said a neighbor who grabbed his gun and shot back, to protect his elderly neighbor.

“The neighbor, he fired a shot and the guy turned around and took off. He scattered like a jack rabbit,” said Wallace Pleasant, who witnessed it.

Self-defense narratives don’t fit the anti-gunner narrative and for the most part the media ignores such stories. There have been millions of defensive use of firearms in the US (‘defensive use’ includes actions that run from actual discharge of a gun to merely showing that one is armed), none of which make the news.

Three of those uses are mine, with one showing someone that wanted my money that I was armed, another time I actually had to draw my sidearm, and then another time I actually had to point my sidearm. Three uses, yet not once did I need to fire. That is the case with most defensive uses, yet they are dismissed as not relevant since they don’t fit the narrative. That serious skews the stats which makes them totally useless because they are a lie.

I’ve had discussions with acquaintances, friends, and family about this topic. One, I can’t remember who, asked me “Are you willing to kill someone to protect your (property)?”

My response was along the lines of “You have that question backwards. It should be ‘Are they willing to die to take my (property) from me?’”

That is the question more of us should be asking.

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The New Republic asks the question “Can the American Mall survive?”

One of the problems of malls, like so many American things, is the discrimination embedded in them from the start. They originated in the suburbs, where white Americans fled in the postwar decades, building segregated communities in the process.

An interesting take, one I can neither prove or refute. But I remember when malls really started popping up all over New England. Some of those from the 1970’s are still operating. Others built in the 80’s and 90’s have closed, some repurposed and others abandoned.

Seeing some of the malls here in New Hampshire now being classified as ‘dead malls’, meaning they have either closed entirely or have a small occupancy with a lot of empty stores, shows us how much our ‘love affairs’ with malls have dwindled away.

One of the malls with which I am familiar, the Steeplegate Mall in Concord, NH, opened to much fanfare back in 1990. A number of stores in downtown Concord relocated to the mall, including Sears, probably the biggest retailer in the city at the time. Yet, despite the hype that went along with the opening, the mall never had full occupancy. The food court was never fully occupied either, with maybe 75% at best.

Today it is a shadow of its former self, with only 20 of its 62 storefronts still operating. The food court is empty and has been for years. The last time I was there – about three years ago – there were no kiosks. It is a dead mall.

Some dead malls are repurposed, being turned into business centers – offices and such – and others have become multi-use centers. Far too many are empty, unoccupied, and some are unmaintained and are deteriorating, abandoned by their owners. However other malls are still thriving. It may come down where they are located, keeping up with the times by shifting their focus as consumer tastes changed, making sure they stayed relevant.

There are a number of YouTube channels that cover dead or dying malls. They have highlighted some malls with which I was familiar and it was sad seeing some of those malls now just empty shells.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee where everyone is trying to cram as much summer into these last couple of days of ‘official’ summer, the rain is coming, and fall isn’t all that far away.

Wise Advice

I cannot disagree with this sentiment.