How Dare You Use The Law To Investigate Our Wrongdoing!

I find it amusing, but not unexpected, that Congressional Democrats are complaining that their machinations and those of their fellow travelers and Deep State operatives are now being investigated by a US Attorney as criminal activity.

That there were abuses of the FISA process by using unvetted opposition research which led to illegal surveillance (including wiretaps) of the Trump campaign is not in question. That there is criticism from those who either committed those acts or sanctioned them, the same folks who thought it was perfectly OK when AG’s Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch targeted Obama opponents and critics, are showing their hypocrisy. The only ones they want to see investigated and intimidated are their GOP opponents even if they have committed no criminal acts. (One must remember Obama used the IRS to punish and block conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, groups that were mirror images of progressive political groups that received their tax-exempt status with little or no delays.)

Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff are condemning the transformation of John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russia probe into a criminal investigation.

When challenged, attack. The two issued a joint statement saying that the Justice Department has become a “vehicle for President Trump’s political retribution.”

Note that the congressmen are not talking about what Durham is investigating, only how he's doing it.

It seems they think that only they can disparage and investigate their political rivals. It is time they learn that they are as beholden to the laws of this nation as everyone else, even if they must learn it the hard way when a jury declares them “guilty as charged”.

Organic Farming Isn't All That Green

A lot of people have been pushing for more farmers to switch to organic farming because they believe it is greener, better for the environment, and produces superior quality food. But if you ask any farmer, they’ll tell you that none of these beliefs are true. The “organic” folks will try to sell you on the idea that farmers don’t want to be bothered with organic farming for several reasons, one of them being that they don’t want to make the effort. But if you talk to the farmers it tends to boil down to one specific reason: They make less money. In some cases, a lot less money. That’s a good way to go out of business.

While the big commercial farms might be willing to lose profit because they are such large operations, the smaller family farms don’t necessarily have that kind of financial wiggle room. However, there are other reasons why organic farming isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. One of the biggest: It isn’t as green as everyone believes it is.

Because yields per acre are lower using organic methods, more land is required to provide the same amount of food. One estimate is that between 16% and 33% more land would be required. That in turn means more labor, more energy (meaning more CO2 generated), and most important, more water.

So land that isn’t presently being used to grow food would need to be converted to farmland, be it grasslands or forests. That removes land acting as a carbon sink into one that will generate more CO2. More land will need to be tilled, planted, and weeded, more pests will need to be removed which means more pesticides (they can be used in organic farming if they are the proper non-persistent type) applied more frequently. More water will be needed to irrigate larger tracts of land, water that will need to be pumped from the source which means more energy to run the pumps. More energy to run the pumps, whether they are electric, or gasoline/diesel powered, means more CO2 generated. All of this only addresses the issues with growing crops. It doesn’t even touch upon raising livestock, assuming the farm is going to go organic in this area as well.

The emissions impact of the meat, milk, and eggs produced from organically raised livestock is more complicated. On the one hand, emissions can increase because animals don’t plump up as fast without hormones, supplements, and conventional feed. That, for instance, grants cattle longer lives in which to belch out methane, another especially powerful greenhouse gas. On the other, allowing animals to spend more of their lives grazing on open grasslands may stimulate additional plant growth that captures more carbon dioxide, while cutting emissions associated with standard feeds.

Raising livestock also requires more land because without using feed, the cattle, sheep, goats, and other ruminants require a lot of grazing land. Farmers will need to grow hay in order to feed the animals during the winter. That means even more land converted to agricultural use. Here in New Hampshire, that means cutting down trees since the state is 85% forest land.

It seems that too many people do not think things through, one of those things being organic farming. They look at only the upsides while devoutly ignoring the downsides. Then again, that’s nothing new and it will continue to be the case as long as people exist.

Now, about that problem some people have with nuclear power……

Social Media Is A Disease And Smart Phones Are A Trap

Glenn Reynolds addressed Princeton’s James Madison program dealing with social media and how it has affected society.

One thing that The Perfesser addresses is how platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and others help divide people, promote anger and hatred, and have acted like a disease vector. But one thing that Reynolds didn’t address is the absolute addiction the people have to their smart phones. People feel uncomfortable if they don’t have their phone with them or nearby. I have seen people freak out if their phone isn’t readily available, be it because they’ve misplaced it, left it at home, or the battery has died and they don’t have the means of recharging the phone immediately. They feel isolated and alone even in a crowd of people. You can’t tell me that isn’t a factor in this social media dilemma.

One of the other things I have noticed is how often people have asked me why I didn’t answer their phone call or their text messages right away. As I had to remind them on more than one occasion, I have my phone is for my convenience, not theirs. I don’t always have it on my person, particularly at work. I don’t feel compelled to answer it every time it rings, particularly in light of the large number of annoying robocalls. Sometimes I am in the middle of something and I don’t feel compelled to answer the phone when it rings. The caller will either leave a message or call back later if it’s important. If it’s someone I know I’ll call them back when I’m finished whatever it is I’m working on. If it’s a text, I’ll answer it when I have time to do so. Again, my phone is for my convenience, not anyone else’s, period.

To close this out, there’s this by way of Powerline:

Thoughts On A Sunday

It was a quiet weekend here in central New Hampshire. The leaf peepers are still with us, foliage colors are at peak or just past peak, and the weather has been cool. The heavy rains and winds we saw late last week knock a lot of leaves off the trees, but there were plenty left to allow the leaf peepers to enjoy.

Late Friday afternoon saw BeezleBub and I moving The Boat over to the boat yard for winterization and storage, a full three weeks earlier than is usual for me. Normally it doesn’t come out of the water and over to the boatyard until the first weekend of November.

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It seems Progressives really don’t like Rand Paul.

First, he’s beaten by a neighbor, hospitalized due to the beating he received, taking months to recover from his injuries.

Then while having lunch with his deputy chief of staff he’s accosted by a couple of New York leftists “concerned about incivility”.

The incident occurred in California, but the woman screamed that Paul and [Deputy Chief of Staff] Gor had “just ran into two people from New York, kiddo, and we’re not putting up with your Republican bulls–t.” At one point, she circles around and flips Paul and/or Gor the bird. Charming.

The incident was captured on video and posted on Twitter. Senator Paul retweeted the video and said that “while ‘the left blames incivility’ on the president, he urges voters to ‘watch this video and decide who the rude ones are.’”

One must remember that one of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is to accuse your opponents of committing acts you yourself are committing. Could it be these New York Leftists are doing just that? They certainly were quite uncivil. If they weren’t exercising Alinsky’s rule, then they were totally clueless and did not recognize either their hypocrisy, their cluelessness, or their incivility.

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

New York Governor Cuomo orders utility to pump imaginary natural gas.

After banning National Grid’s new natural gas pipeline from New Jersey, Cuomo has ordered the company to hook up new gas customers despite its lack of gas supply caused by Cuomo’s ban.

The Cuomo administration is ordering National Grid to provide natural gas hookups to over 1,100 previously denied Brooklyn-based customers.

The Public Service Commission, the state body that licenses and oversees public utility companies, announced Friday that National Grid must provide service to customers or else face “millions of dollars in penalties.”

Previously, 1,157 customers had been denied service due to National Grid’s moratorium on all new gas hookups, announced in May.

Does Cuomo also think electricity comes from the wall socket and that Con Edison can create more electricity from nothing just because he orders them to do so? Obviously, he does because he’s trying to do the equivalent with National Grid and the natural gas supply.

He can blame National Grid all he wants, but the blame is his and his alone.

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The San Francisco city government still hasn’t glommed on to the fact that no one cares if they have banned travel by city employees to 22 states they see as Right To Life states. They have also banned doing business with companies in those same 22 states.

Do San Francisco bureaucrats really think anyone cares one way or the other? Considering what a s**thole the City By The Bay has become, all of it caused by those same bureaucrats and politicians doing their best to make their city into a politically correct ‘woke’ Third World city.

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I don’t know about you, but I’d be really happy if some of our household appliances would work as well as the ones we used before these more modern energy efficient ones. (Link may be paywalled.)

In the past I mentioned the time Deb and I were looking at replacing our tried and true Maytag front loading washer and clothes dryer because they were getting a bit long in the tooth. There was nothing wrong with them per se, but we were merely considering getting more energy efficient appliances. Deb checked with Consumer Reports and found that CR didn’t recommend any of the washing machines we were interested in. As I recall, CR stated something along the lines of “It used to be that any washing machine would do a pretty good job with enough warm water and a decent detergent. However, we cannot recommend any of the machines we reviewed as none of them adequately cleaned the test loads we washed.”

We decided to stay with our 20+ year old appliances because they worked.

While it has gotten a little better, there is still a problem with some home appliances, the latest being dishwashers.

It used to be dishwashers would take less than an hour to wash a load of dishes. Now it can take over two hours and the dishes aren’t totally clean. I know my mother’s Energy Star-rated dishwasher will take 2 and-a-half hours to wash dishes and there are still plenty of times when I have to follow up with handwashing some of them. That was never a problem with her old machine.

The dirty little nonsecret for years has been that modern dishwashers don’t clean dishes well. The culprit is federal efficiency standards, which have been tightened to use less energy. Dishwashers that once took an hour from wash to dry now average two hours and 20 minutes, and even then they don’t always do the job. A GE survey of 11,000 dishwasher owners reports that having to wait for hours for dishes to be done is a major consumer annoyance.

In March 2018 the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, began a petition drive to do something about it. The Energy Department published the petition in the Federal Register with a request for comments.

With the almost 3,000 comments they received it was quite clear the American consumer wasn’t happy with their non-washing dishwashers. How energy efficient are these dishwashers if the need to run twice as long or you still have to hand wash the dishes you already ran through the dishwasher?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the leaves are still brilliant red, orange, and yellow, the lake is untraveled as most of the boats are out of the water, and where cooler weather has been coming and going.

Very Cool Physics Demonstration - The Dzhanibekov Effect

I came across this on one of the industry newsletters to which I subscribe.

The video below demonstrates what is called the Dzhanibekov Effect, first demonstrated by Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov in 1985. It is also known as the Tennis Racket Theorem and the Intermediate Axis Theorem.

It’s neat effect that can be described by a lengthy physics equation, but this video provides an much more interesting explanation and practical demonstration of the Dzhanibekov Effect



I thought it was kind of cool. Then again, I am a tech nerd and I find this kind of stuff fun.

End Of A Season

It was perfect weather – sunny with temperatures in the upper 50’s, no wind, and not a cloud in the sky.

It was a little past 4PM when I started the engine on the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout - aka The Boat - letting it warm up as I waited for my son and his girlfriend to arrive. The engine burbled quietly as I stowed the gear I’d brought onboard, making sure it wouldn’t be in the way. Fenders were removed and stowed, the mooring lines were prepped to be cast off, and then BeezleBub and his girlfriend arrived.

Once they were ready, lines were cast off, the throttle set to reverse, and we slowly backed away from the dock. Once clear, the throttle was set forward and the wheel turned to port, swinging the bow towards the channel that would lead out onto the main body of the lake.

It was quiet as we slowly made our way down the channel, the burble of the water being stirred by the prop and the low rumble of the engine being the only sound.

Once we cleared the channel and were outside the No Wake Zone I throttled up and the boat surged forward, slowly rising, then riding on top of the water as the engine RPMs wound up.

The water was smooth, with barely a ripple to be seen. Once on plane I trimmed the boat to raise the bow a little and the speed picked up. We cruised, heading east towards Alton Bay, the sun lowering towards the horizon behind us.

The breeze coming over the bow, caused by our passage over the lake, was cool. While not chilling, it did hold hints of the coming winter.

We came to the mouth of Alton Bay and changed course to the north, heading towards Wolfeboro for a while until we cleared the east end of Rattlesnake Island and turned west. Our course took us north of the island, well within a part of the lake called The Broads, the widest part of Lake Winnipesaukee.

The setting sun now sat just off our port bow, dipping above and below the hilltops as we headed back to home port.

Approaching Locke’s Island we turned south and entered into the cove where our town docks awaited. Rather than returning to our dock, we headed there instead. As we approached we maneuvered between two of the docks and finally tied up on the starboard side dock. This had been the last time out on the boat this year.

It was time to pull it out of the water and get it ready to store for the upcoming winter. Our boating season was done, ending weeks earlier than usual.

BeezleBub retrieved his truck and the boat trailer, backing the trailer down the ramp and into the water. The boat was untied from the dock and maneuvered to the boat trailer, the winch attached to the bow eye, and the winch cranked to pull the boat into position on the trailer. A few moments later BeezleBub pulled the trailer up the ramp, we secured the stern of the boat to the trailer, and then were on our way away from the lake.

Another summer has faded away. Another boat has been pulled from the water until next spring. All that remains are our memories of our time on the lake, and photos and videos taken during our excursions out on the water. They will have to suffice until we’re back out on the water next spring.

We're Done Being Suckers

With the continuing Washington soap opera of the “We’re Gonna Get Trump No Matter What, Even Though We Need To Make S**t Up” impeachment circus getting more ridiculous and insane, is it any wonder the average Joe and Jane Q. Public have been fed up with the whole thing and a sick to death of our supposed “betters” trying to overturn the 2016 election? I call it the “We’re Done Being Suckers” election. (Yes, I stole that line from the piece I’ve linked below, but it fits.)

Why are we seeing this ongoing farce? Because the elite hate the Trump doctrine: Put America first. Anything that diminishes their influence and power must be destroyed, and Trump is doing just that. Therefore he must be destroyed.

The elite scoffs at the notion of a “Trump Doctrine,” imagining that no one but them could construct a coherent geopolitical paradigm. Of course, their neo-Wilsonian faculty lounge geopolitical paradigm has been a disaster, but if there’s one thing our garbage elite is good at – it is certainly no good at its core responsibilities of preserving American power, prosperity and freedom – it is weaseling out of accountability for its myriad failures.

Yet the Trump Doctrine – the notion that American power should be directed toward serving the interests of the American people – is a coherent foreign policy vision of the kind we have not had in the United States for decades. For the last 35 years, since the Reagan Doctrine of using American power to bring down the Soviet Union, we have had no coherent framework within which we could develop sensible national strategies.

If the average American has to pay the price for the ‘ideals’ of the political elite, the elite are perfectly fine with that. After all, we’re just deplorables who are undereducated, inbred, mouth-breathing morons with no political savvy who require leaders who “know better” what the deplorables need. Not that their superior ‘knowledge’ has anything to do with reality. Not that their policies will help insure the health and welfare of the country. THEY. DON’T. CARE.

Their attitude can all be summed up with a single phrase: “Screw you buddy! I got mine!

As long as you keep that in mind, everything the elite does makes more sense. We aren’t going to be suckers for their long con game anymore.

To delve deeper into this, make sure to Read The Whole Thing.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The fall colors are very close to peak and the leaf peepers are everywhere, though they aren’t crowding our restaurants like the summerfolk do. But since they’re only here for a week or two, we can deal with it.

I was hoping to get at least one foliage trip out on the lake this weekend, but a busy schedule and not always optimal weather prevented a timely cruise. It’s also a bit frustrating as the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout will be pulled from the water this coming Tuesday, almost a month earlier than usual.

I stopped by the boatyard which handles the winterization and storage of the boat for me, making an appointment to have the boat serviced and stored. The proprietor told me he was seeing a lot of boat owners pulling their boats much out earlier than usual this year which has meant he and his staff have been overwhelmed and his itinerant boat trailer lot is full, leaving no room. He’s had his crew working overtime to stay ahead of the workload. Could this be some subconscious reaction to a possibly harsher (and earlier) than normal winter?

Only time will tell.

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Speaking of a harsher than normal winter, it might be time to for all of you to consider getting snow tires for the upcoming winter, at least in areas that see regular snowfall. While all-season tires are a decent compromise in some parts of the country, honest to goodness snow tires can make the difference between getting stuck and getting home in the northern climes.

If predictions about an extended solar minimum are correct, we are likely to see colder and longer winters for the next few decades. Winter tires will become a necessity for more of us as time goes on.

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One thing anyone considering creating Gun Free Zones has to keep in mind before doing so is what kind of obligations and liabilities they will likely be taking on, particularly as lawmakers in Michigan consider legislation to make commercial property owners declaring their properties gun free zones liable for security and any injuries on their property. It makes sense when you think about it.

If property owners (including government) strip away the right of patrons and visitors to protect themselves by bearing arms, then it should be up to them to provide protection. Those failing to do so should be held liable, period.

How many would declare their operations gun free zones under those conditions? My guess: very few, if any.

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Women are finding out that they can’t have it all, despite what they’ve been told.

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The Left still tries to sell the lie that rent control will somehow lower the cost and increase the availability of affordable housing. This, despite that fact that it has been proven on more than one occasion that rent control doesn’t work, doesn’t lower the cost or increase the availability of housing. It tends to have just the opposite effect.

Reams of research show that removing rent control laws raises rental property values, encouraging construction and leading to an increase in the supply of rental housing. That increase in supply, if not artificially restricted, puts downward pressure on rents.

A Stanford University study published in March found that rent control in San Francisco reduced the supply of rental housing by 15 percent. “Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law.”

“In addition, the conversion of existing rental properties to higher-end, owner-occupied condominium housing ultimately led to a housing stock increasingly directed towards higher income individuals. In this way, rent control contributed to the gentrification of San Francisco, contrary to the stated policy goal. Rent control appears to have increased income inequality in the city by both limiting displacement of minorities and attracting higher income residents.”

With the state of Oregon imposing statewide rent control we are about to see a large-scale experiment in rent control, one fated to fail just like all of the others have. What’s worse is that one of the Democrat presidential candidates have proposed nationwide rent control (I don’t recall whether it was Sanders or Warren who suggested such a stupid thing), which will kill development of affordable rental housing everywhere. Then again, no one ever accused any of the Democrats of having any understanding of real world economics.

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I made a trip down to southwestern New Hampshire today, visiting the In-Laws and taking them out for lunch. I had to brave the leaf peeper traffic, but fortunately for me it was heading in the opposite direction, so I didn’t have to deal with much in the way of delays or slow traffic. It also helped that I knew many of the back roads, so I was able to avoid most of the tourist traffic. The fiery foliage colors certainly made the trip down and back worthwhile.

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Yet another clueless Democrat Congresscritter doesn’t seem to understand that Congress has no arrest powers. The clueless Democrat?

Rashida Tlaib.

As Rick Moran calls it, it is “a quick way to a major constitutional crisis and perhaps even civil war.”

What is “it”?

Arresting and jailing White House aides who refuse to comply with subpoenas and testify in the House impeachment inquiry.

One of my biggest problems with this is that Congress doesn’t have arrest powers. My next biggest problem is that there is no impeachment inquiry because the House never voted on the matter. No vote, no inquiry, period. So how can someone be arrested for refusing to comply with subpoenas for an inquiry that doesn’t exist?

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the fall foliage is spectacular, the lake is being emptied of boats, and where one of my favorite ice cream joints is closing for the season.

We've Seen This Play Before...Many Times

I’m tired.

No, I’ve been sleeping with no problem. I’m not overworked or overcaffeinated.

So what has me tired?

The so-called Impeachment Inquiry.

First, while the Democrats and the MSM keep calling it an impeachment inquiry, it isn’t. It isn’t an inquiry until the House votes to open such an inquiry. No such vote has taken place. So I am tired of hearing it called something it isn’t. It is an inquisition.

Second, because there is no inquiry, any ‘inquiry’ subpoenas are invalid. The White House is under no obligation to respond to any of them, period. If the Democrats don’t feel obligated to follow the rules in regards to such an inquiry, why should the White House be obligated to respond to any demands made by the Democrats?

Third, congressional Democrats seem to think that they operate under a different set of rules, rules that resemble those of Calvinball more than anything else. They change at whim, with things that were forbidden are now allowed and rules that were ironclad in the past can now be ignored…unless they apply to Republicans.

That gets old pretty darned quick. It’s frustrating. It’s just so much bulls**t and serves no purpose other than to make those who hate the President and Republicans feel like they’re in power.

It’s tiring and I’m fed up with it all.

Deep Fakes Are Getting Better

In an earlier post I wrote about “deep fakes”, videos that had been altered in such a way that it made someone in that video appear to be someone else.

Since then the deep fakes have gotten even better with not just someone’s visage being changed, but their voices as well.



While not perfect (yet), it will get there eventually. Once it reaches that point no one will be able trust anything they see on TV or YouTube or any other streaming video service.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The fall foliage color is getting closer to peak here in central New Hampshire. I figure it will reach peak just before the upcoming Columbus Day weekend.

We are seeing more leaf peepers making the rounds here as the colors move south. I figure we’ll see a lot of foliage tourists here next weekend, filling the restaurants and factory outlets, one last gasp of the summer tourist season. The last of the seasonal businesses still operating will be closing their doors after Columbus Day, not reopening until late spring.

Ski areas have already started prepping for the upcoming winter, servicing and testing their lift equipment, snowmaking gear, and snowcats even as they dismantle and store all of the summer equipment and winterize their summer attractions.

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Oh, this will go over well with those who love their Big Macs.

A small number of Muslim activists are demanding McDonald’s change their menus to meet halal standards.

The company makes burgers, and earns billions of dollars in the process. Now, activists want them to change their business model to appease a small percent of the population.

When asked why their London branch did not serve food that met Halal standards, McDonald’s simply responded that it didn’t make financial sense to change things up…

Turn their supply chain and menus upside down to meet the demands of a very small percentage of their customer base? Yeah, that’ll work…and McDonald’s will fade away as the rest of their customer base dwindles away.

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The city government of San Francisco did everything it could to make it comfortable for the chronically homeless. The end result has been a huge increase in homelessness and drug use. (Link may be paywalled.)

This city has been conducting a three-decade experiment in what happens when society stops enforcing bourgeois norms of behavior. It has done so in the name of compassion for the homeless. The result: Street squalor and misery have increased, while government expenditures have ballooned. Yet the principles guiding city policy remain inviolate: Homelessness is a housing problem, it is involuntary, and it persists because of inadequate public spending. These propositions are readily disproved by talking to people living on the streets.

--snip--

The city sends the message relentlessly that drug use is not only acceptable but expected. The Health Department distributes 4.5 million syringes a year, along with alcohol swabs, vitamin C to dissolve heroin and crack, and instructions on how to tie one’s arm for a hit. Officials have installed 17 needle-disposal boxes and kiosks throughout the city, signaling to children that drug use is a normal part of adult life.

They subsidize the homeless and get more homeless. They subsidize drug abuse and they get more drug addicts. Don’t they see any connection between what they’re doing and what they’re getting in return? Obviously not. They keep talking about spending even more money to solve the problem they themselves have created and they’ll only make it worse.

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First they went after Uber and Lyft. Then they went after Juul pods. Now New York City is going after food delivery services.

Their excuse? Food delivery is bad for the city’s restaurants.

Hmm. I thought food delivery service like GrubHub delivered food for restaurants of all kinds. They aren’t part of any restaurant chain like Domino’s or Pizza Hut. They deliver for just about everyone. It’s true they charge a premium for doing so, but so what? If people are willing to pay it, why should the city care? If they aren’t, then they won’t use one of the delivery services, will they?

Does the city council think that such a service will keep people from going to restaurants? It appears it does. I’m not sure I understand their reasoning. Between a $15/hour minimum wage decimating the restaurants viability and trying to rein in food delivery services that provide them with more customers, one would think they’re trying hard to kill of New York’s restaurant businesses entirely.

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Democrats are trying very hard to ignore the debacle of the video of Joe Biden coming right out and saying he threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to the Ukrainian government unless they fired the prosecutor investigating dirty dealings by his son in Ukraine. What they’re doing by ignoring it is telling everyone that it’s OK for Democrats to demand a quid pro quo from foreign governments, but fake quid pro quo demands from Republicans are illegal.

If the Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

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Another note to the congressional Democrats: It’s perfectly legal to ask foreign governments to help in criminal investigations. It’s done all the time, and done so under the terms of treaties ratified by the Senate.

There’s no ‘there’ there.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the fall colors are getting brighter, the nights are getting colder, and boating season will soon be ending.

When Is Compassion Not Compassionate?

Have you ever noticed when some folks say we should help the less fortunate, to show compassion for the poor/homeless/mentally ill/addicted, they really mean that someone other than them should be the ones to do the work? Once done, they then feel good about themselves for having “done something”. But do they ever really see the outcomes of all those things they’ve “done”? For the most part, no.

If they do, more often than not they’ll see that what help was given did help for a while, but the problem they induced others to help with has not gotten better. The number of poor/homeless/mentally ill/addicted will have stayed the same, or worse, will have increased. This will require even more “compassion”, which usually translates as “more tax money”. Then that help is provided which in turn leads to even more people ‘needing’ help. Then even of more money will be needed to provide even more help, and the cycle will continue.

By providing help the way it has been done for decades, we have merely made the problem worse. To paraphrase someone somewhen, “If you subsidize something, you get more of it.” We have been subsidizing the poverty-stricken, the homeless, the mentally ill, and the addicted. And what have we received for all the money, time, and effort that has been put into solving the problems of those unfortunates? More of them. Call it the unintended consequences of compassion, specifically too much compassion of the type that solves nothing.

It's time we measure success by results, not intentions. We've failed enough times to have learned our lesson. And those we profess to care about deserve better.

Indeed.

Blue States Told 'No' By Federal Judge On SALT Deductions

A number of Blue States are singing the blues now that a federal judge has dismissed a case filed by four Blue States (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland) challenging the $10,000 deduction cap on state and local taxes (SALT) from federal tax returns.

They alleged that the new limit on the SALT deduction, part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, was “an unconstitutional assault on states’ sovereign choices.”

In the dismissal, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan said the plaintiff states ultimately failed to show that the SALT cap was unconstitutionally coercive or that it imposed on their own sovereign rights.

Basically, they were upset that their residents could no longer write off the high taxes they were imposing upon them which made them more visible then they had been before. It also meant that residents of low tax states weren’t going to continue subsidizing the residents of high tax states because they didn’t have the tax deductions those in high tax states enjoyed. The four states thought it should be otherwise and filed suit to prevent it. The judge disagreed.

I have a suggestion for those high tax Blue States: Stop spending money on things you don’t need or things that ‘sound good’ and stop taxing the bejeezus out of your citizens to pay for it all.

Thoughts On A Sunday

It’s been a busy weekend for yours truly, with a visit to the southern part of the state to visit some friends and stop by the local amateur radio shop to pick up some new equipment. One of my old standby rigs, a dual band HT started suffering from Alzheimer’s (none of the memory channels were working any more and replacing the memory battery didn’t fix the problem) and transmit audio has been problematic. Parts for it are hard to get (it is over 25 years old), and technology has changed considerably in the past 25+ years. So I made the decision to upgrade and get something that will (hopefully) make do for the next 10+ years or so.

Yes, I am that much of a geek and always have been.

Deal with it.

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As if we didn’t see this one coming a mile away.

Now that the threshold for felony theft has changed from $450 to $950 in the state of California, shoplifting in the Pyrite State has skyrocketed. People involved in the retail trade warned lawmakers this would happen, but the California Assembly knew better and passed the legislation that changed the threshold. The number of thefts has increased while the number of arrests has fallen.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has come into full force and retail businesses are paying the price. As their inventory is stolen, their profits shrink, if not disappear. Insurance will cover only so much before their policy is cancelled because the insurance company is tired of having to pay out claims. The business closes its doors because no one wants to keep running a money-losing business that does nothing but provide booty for thieves.

So yet another indignity is perpetrated by the Progressive State upon the middle class, making it even more unattractive to remain. Is it any wonder the middle-class have been fleeing California in increasing numbers? My only concern is that many of those fleeing middle-class Californians are bringing their Progressive voting patterns with them to their new states and will slowly turn them into clones of California. We’ve already seen that in Colorado and in Austin, Texas, just to name two places suffering from Californication.

This merely increases my support of Glenn Reynolds’ Welcome Wagon idea for folks moving in to a new state from California.

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We don’t need a crystal ball or 24/7 surveillance to figure out what the Congressional Democrats are planning when it comes to subverting the will of the people. All we have to do is listen to Maxine “Mad Max” Waters as she has no problems telling everyone what the Democrat leadership has in mind.

Her latest:

…we know that Pence is in the line of Democrat fire. Remember Maxine Waters (D-CA) stating that once Trump is gone, they’ll “go after” Pence? She said it publicly not once, but twice, and we covered it here at Legal Insurrection.

The feeling that the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot by pursuing impeachment keeps growing stronger. Rank-and-file Democrats are becoming increasingly disenchanted with their elected representatives. You know it’s getting bad when Bill Maher is slamming Democrats for their hypocrisy over Hunter Biden’s Ukraine ties which is part and parcel of their drive to impeach Trump.

You would think that losing Bill Maher would tell the Democrats that they’re on the wrong side of this.

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Some have made the claim that Trump’s environmental record is dismal as compared to Obama’s.

Nice try, guys, but you aren’t anywhere near telling the truth.

It turns out Trump’s record is just as good as Obama’s, if not better.

EIA, for instance, reported in 2018 that per-capita greenhouse gas emissions hit a 67-year low at the beginning of the Trump era. Such emissions rose to historic highs globally by the end of that year, despite nearly 200 countries signing the Paris climate accord, which Trump promised to leave in 2017.

It is ironic to see that US emissions continue to fall while emissions elsewhere keep rising, yet the emissions increase is blamed on the US by US environmental activists. I have a feeling that if they had their way, we’d have to have negative emissions in order to make up for the emissions from other countries, otherwise it would still be our fault.

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This is good news, considering it is the second decade of the 21st century.

It turns out warp drive is theoretically possible.

I think the toughest part is generating the antimatter needed to provide the energy required power the warp drive.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the fall foliage is starting to make its appearance, the weather has cooled a little bit, and where boats are being pulled from the water in increasing numbers.

Trump's Superpowers

I don’t know about you, but I know I’m tired of listening to the Left and Right talking/crowing/yelling about the Nothingburger that is Trump’s Ukraine Telephone Call and the third/fourth/fifth-hand “whistleblower” that heard from his/her brother-in-law’s barber’s cousin’s taxidermist that Trump tried to ‘Godfather’ Ukraine’s president into getting something on Joe Biden and his son.

So let’s talk about Trump’s superpowers, those being his ability to make his adversaries crazy all while making them to do stupid things. After all, how else can you explain Adam Schiff’s bizarre performance during the House Intelligence Committee impeachment inquiry, when he started making up quotes from the transcript of the telephone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky?

Did Trump cloud Schiff’s mind, making him see things that weren’t there? Did he use his powers to drive Nancy Pelosi to announce the impeachment inquiry when she knew it was likely to cost her fellow Democrats dearly next November?

Yup.

Saving The Planet? Not So Fast!

As the hysteria generated by Greta Thunberg’s visit and impassioned speech increases, the call for us to “Do Something!” to stop climate change in an effort to save the planet has increased in volume. I find it interesting that the nations that have done the most to reduce their emissions are the ones being lambasted by our supposed environmental superiors for not impoverishing ourselves and returning to an 18th Century existence. (Of course we’d probably have to kill off at least 250 million people in the US alone because there’s no way an 18th century level of technology could support that many people. I figure we would eliminate the urban warmists first.)

One thing that I have a difficult time dealing with is the absolute religion-level belief that we’re headed towards a man-made climate apocalypse. No one, and I mean no one has been able to prove the veracity or source of their climate predictions. All of the models we’ve seen haven’t even come close to predicting what has actually occurred climate-wise, yet we are supposed to believe that those same defective models will accurately predict what the climate will be like in 100 years? Yeah, right.

About the only way to counter this nonsense by the true believers is to make my own “appeal to authority”, in this case the authority is none other than the late George Carlin.



Forget the Michael Manns of the world. George Carlin had it all figured out years ago.

Republican Primaries In Some States Have Been Cancelled

It appears the GOP in some states have decided to save some money in the upcoming Presidential Primary season by cancelling their primaries.

This isn’t unprecedented as both the Democrat and Republican parties have done so in the past when an incumbent from their party was running for reelection and was popular enough to be able to ‘bury’ any possible competitors. Democrats in eight states cancelled their primaries back in 1996 when Bill Clinton was running for reelection. When Obama was seeking a second term in 2012, Democrats in ten states cancelled their primaries. Republicans did the same thing in 1984 when Reagan ran for reelection and again in 2004 when Bush ran for reelection.

In the case of the Republicans in states like Alaska, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina, they see Trump’s competitors – Bill Weld, former governor of Massachusetts; Joe Walsh, former member of the House (not the rock musician); and Mark Sanford, disgraced former governor of South Carolina – polling in the low single digits and Trump showing an 80+ point lead over them, it makes sense for those states wishing to do so to cancel their primaries. The money could be better spent on down-ticket races and state contests.

Will the GOP in my home state of New Hampshire cancel the Republican Primary election?

NOT. IN. A. MILLION. YEARS.

There are two reasons for this: money and recognition. The money the New Hampshire Primary brings into the state is on the order of hundreds of millions, between what the campaigns, campaign workers, and the TV networks spend starting the summer before the actual primary. It also allows little known candidates to get some face time and gain some recognition with voters and the media, in many cases setting up for a future presidential or congressional run. There’s no way New Hampshire Republicans or Democrats would ever cancel their primaries in this state. The same is true for Iowa and their caucuses.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Summer weather has returned, with temps in the upper 70’s and lower 80’s and humid air. They were a perfect excuse to spend part of the day out on the lake. While there were a lot of boats out on the lake, there were not nearly as many as we’d usually see in the middle of summer. A lot of boats have already been pulled out of the water, winterized, shrink-wrapped, and stored away until next spring. Camps and cottages are being closed up for the season, though many won’t be done until the Columbus Day weekend.

The Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, aka The Boat, won’t be pulled out of the water until just after the Columbus Day weekend, a few weeks earlier than usual for me. With a number of duties for both work and town that will be taking up my time, I thought it would be a good idea to pull it out earlier than usual and get it serviced, cleaned up, winterized, and stored for the winter.

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It seems we need to rename President Trump “Teflon Don”. Between various allegations of wrongdoing running the gamut of collusion with Russia to emoluments to illicit communications with Ukraine and everything in between, nothing seems to stick to the President.

Not that he’s done anything wrong that he needs to wriggle free from. It all comes down to people who hate Trump making accusations that to this point have been found to be wanting for things such as facts and evidence.

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It appears the efforts to get Teflon Don have also extended to some of his judicial nominees. Once again Justice Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual improprieties that took place while he was in college. The problem?

The alleged victim has no recollection of any such event taking place.

Oops.

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The myth that will not die…

People keep selling the myth that cell phone use causes cancer. However, lengthy studies about RF exposure from cell phones proves just the opposite. But that doesn’t stop the “Everything-Is-Going-To-Kill-Us” alarmists from sounding the alarm and scaring the crap out of everyone.

The latest alarm bells are being sounded about millimeter-wave RF from 5G phones causing cancer and all other kinds of genetic mutations. But anyone familiar with the mechanisms of genetic damage caused by external energy knows that RF doesn’t have energy required to cause gene damage to the body’s cells. That takes electromagnetic radiation up in the UV spectrum and higher (X-rays, gamma rays, cosmic rays). The RF from millimeter-wave cell phones is not energetic enough to cause mutations that in turn can lead to cancer.

Can RF affect biological systems? Sure. No one disputes that. But affecting them to the point of causing cancer? Nope, not even close. But that won’t stop the alarmists from making the claim anyways and trying to scare consumers about something that is false.

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These are Heinlein’s Crazy Years. We have to live in them and deal with people who think it is perfectly acceptable to kill full-term babies and confessing one’s sins to plants.

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As George Santayana once said, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”

This applies to all sorts of things. Certainly we know the Left ignores history on a regular basis which is why they keep making the same mistakes again and again.

The latest bit of proof of Santayana’s warning is true is a New Hampshire State Representative pushing the idea of making all schools in the state Gun Free Zones. He is conveniently ignoring that schools like Sandy Hook and Parkland were already Gun Free Zones when they were shot up by miscreants who saw those Gun Free Zones as Free Fire Zones.

Looking at mass shootings, one will find a majority of all mass shootings have taken place in Gun Free Zones. So why would someone who is so concerned about the safety of our schoolchildren work to make sure they will be more likely to be shot and killed by people who already have no regard for the law?

Oh, the New Hampshire legislator making the push to have all schools in the state declared Gun Free Zones? He’s a Democrat. He’s pissed that New Hampshire’s Republican governor vetoed legislation that did just that, legislation that was so broad that just about every law-abiding citizen carrying a firearm in New Hampshire would be violating the so-called school Gun Free Zone laws multiple times every day. But then, wasn’t that the real actual point of the legislation, banning the carrying of firearms everywhere in the state of New Hampshire? The New Hampshire Democrats have denied it, but I have a feeling such denials were just pro forma. After all, a number of New Hampshire Democrats have been pushing hard to repeal Article 2A of the state constitution which enumerates the right of the New Hampshire people to keep and bear arms.

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The New England Patriots defeated the New York Jets at Foxborough this afternoon, 30-14. Neither of the Jets’ scores were allowed by New England’s defense. One was due to an error by their special teams when the kick receiver bobbled the ball and the Jets were able to get possession in the end zone. The second was due to a Pick Six in the 4th quarter when second string quarterback Stidham threw a poor pass and the Jets intercepted it and ran it back for a TD.

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And that’s the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where summer weather has returned, the boating has been great, and where once again Monday is returning too soon.

US Court Slaps Down California's Unconstitutional "Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act"

The wackos in California tried an end run around the US Constitution by passing legislation that required presidential candidates make public their tax returns. This was an effort to keep Donald Trump off the California ballot. However, US District Judge Morrison England, Jr. told California “Not so fast there, bucko!”

While states have control over the mechanics of voting, such as filing petitions with a certain number of signatures, they can’t impose eligibility requirements beyond what Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution provides…:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

A tax-return requirement on presidential candidates bears no relationship to the mechanics of voting, and is an unconstitutional eligibility test. A state can no more limit eligibility to candidates who disclose tax returns than it could require that only candidates who can run a mile in under 8 minutes are eligible for the presidential ballot.

If California and other Blue States want to impose such a condition, then the US Constitution would need to be amended to allow them to do so. The chances of them getting such an amendment through Congress and then ratified by 3/4ths of the states before the 2020 election cycle is zero. The chances of getting it ratified at all is pretty close to zero.

The court issued a Temporary Restraining Order from the bench and Judge England has stated he will issue a final ruling by the end of the month. Of course, I have no doubt California will appeal and I expect this case will make its way to the Supreme Court where it will die a well-earned death when they tell California “Shame on you! What the hell were you thinking?”

I expect the bleating from the California Kooks to start in 3…2…1….

Books By Ikea

(H/T Maggie's Farm)